Rational and reasonable people down
through history have always believed
that men and women should have equal rights, privileges, obligations, and
responsibilities under the law. It started with the 19th Amendment giving
women the right to vote. In the late 20th century, legal precedent
established the obligation of men to pay alimony and child support to their
ex-wives; everybody, with the exception of a few curmudgeons, accepted this
as fair and just.
Alimony grew from a small temporary stipend that allowed a woman to get
back on her feet, to a lifetime entitlement to "live according to the means
to which she had become accustomed in marriage," never mind the fact that
this women's entitlement often meant that the man had to work two jobs just
to afford to live in a run-down rooming house.
Child support also started out as a small stipend to help with the food
and clothing for the children--it was a give-and-take: the mother had an
obligation to give the father the right to visitation; in return, the
father had an obligation to help support his children. Later, child
support became an obligation of the father, with no compensatory right to
visitation or other balancing obligation upon the mother.
Men who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, such as during
the corporate downsizing and outsourcing rage of the early 2000's, and who
missed a support payment, were immediately arrested and held until they
made payment, becoming de-facto slaves to their ex-wives.
As despicable as wife beating is, "Zero Tolerance" laws were in vogue at
the time, which mandated that a man be arrested on the spot upon any
accusation of physical or even verbal abuse my a woman. Abuse of men by
women through such laws was a taboo subject; anyone who dared speak of the
injustice was invariably accused of being a "closet" wife-beater or
woman-hater.
Women's entitlements and men's obligations continued to expand through
the 1990's into the 2000's as government power grew by leaps and bounds,
often under the rallying cry of "homeland security" and "civil justice."
When SDHDTV (Super Duper High Definition TV) comedian Brad Walker
declared his candidacy for president as an independent in 2032, no one took
him seriously, of course. Everyone knew he was doing it as a joke. His
platform was to call for the repeal of alimony and child support laws, a
repeal of the 19th Amendment, and a call for a Constitutional Amendment
declaring it a man's legal right to have sex with any woman, anywhere, any
time, under any circumstances, regardless whether she wanted to or not.
When Walker garnered enough signatures on his petition to be placed on
the ballot as an independent candidate for US President, the defenders of
political correctness took notice. Newspaper editorials across the country
exhibited outrage that even a single citizen had signed his petition.
It wasn't long before copycats joined his platform, running from
everything from dogcatcher to state governor, and everything in between. A
grassroots "Right to Rape" party soon spawned out of the madness.
When Walker, and almost every other "Right to Rape" candidate, won their
respective election in landslide victories across the country, ousting
incumbents across the board, women's groups were stunned. Most news
outlets credited his victory with voter apathy, i.e. so few women took him
seriously to vote against him, while he drew out every last man in the
nation to vote for him. Few questioned the fact that even if every male
citizen voted for Walker, it would not account for the number of votes that
he received.
Within weeks of taking his oath of office in January, Walker appointed
all "Right to Rape" advocates to his cabinet. The "Right to Rape" party
also won a near unanimous majority in both the Senate and the House of
Representatives. "Right to Rape" candidates filled the governor's seats of
almost every state, and also held super majorities in almost every state
legislature. And not one news outlet reported or acknowledged the fact
that two of those "Right to Rape" representatives happened to be female.
Still, nobody believed, however, that these people would destroy the
country by attempting to implement their diabolical platform of a
Constitutional Amendment giving men the right to rape women.
President Walker's first act was to issue pardons to every last man (and
woman) throughout the land incarcerated for being in arrears on their
alimony or child support. Thereafter, almost every state in the union
rescinded their alimony and child support laws.
Honoring his campaign promise, the President called for a constitutional
convention a month later. The 19th Amendment was summarily repealed by a
super-majority of Congress with the passage of the 28th Amendment. The
29th Amendment, commonly called the "Right to Rape" amendment, was as
easily passed moments later.
Walker had kept his campaign promises, but he didn't stop there. His
fellow party members in state legislatures revoked most, if not all,
consensual crime laws. The President, and numerous state governors, issued
pardons to people serving jail time for consensual crimes such as drug,
gambling, and prostitution convictions.
American culture changed violently that year as men exercised their
newly earned right to rape, but the "Right to Rape" party held on to power
for many years to come, being as women no longer had the right to vote. As
decades passed, the pendulum swung back to a more central position, and the
more traditional Republican and Democratic parties regained some lost
power. Yet, every attempt to restore women's rights and to repeal the
"Right to Rape" Amendment failed dismally.
The eventual result was that American society returned to a state not
much different than the late 1900's and early 2000's with the notable
exception that women had lost the right to vote, and it was every man's
civil right to rape any women he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted
to.
####
Drew liked his new job as a Web developer with Lotsatech. It was a
beautiful corporate campus in rural northern New Jersey. The private rape
lounges disturbed him a little, but small rooms with cots in them were
mandated by law at every company with more than 10 employees so that men
had the opportunity to rape whatever women they wanted during the day
whenever the need came upon them. Drew had never partaken of this civil
right that was every man's birthright, at least according to the 29th
Amendment that was passed back in his grandfather's day.
Drew was waiting for the bus to go home shortly after 5:00, like he does
every weekday. He was looking forward to the upcoming Christmas and New
Year's holidays next week. Women huddled together waiting for the bus, not
for warmth from the December cold, but to protect themselves against
rapists who had every legal right to take one of them against their will
for a moment's pleasure. Invariably, some man would approach one of those
huddled women anyway, and they would go off together and enter one of the
rape kiosks that the city government provided on almost every street
corner. On this particular day, one woman raised a fuss and tried to flee.
Unfortunately, in Drew's view anyway, a policewoman was passing by and saw
the commotion. After questioning the man, the woman, and several witnesses
waiting for the bus, she arrested the woman for resisting rape and shoved
her in the cop car and sped away. Drew wondered what would have happened
had someone decided that he wanted to rape the policewoman at that moment.
Anyway, the man simply picked out another woman among the crowd and headed
off to a rape kiosk with her.
The bus dropped Drew off near his home a half-hour later. He had bought
a new townhouse shortly after starting his new job in November. He didn't
know his neighbors very well, so he was surprised when some neighbor had
slipped an invitation to a New Year's party in his door during the day.
The party was at a neighbor's house across the street. Drew was never
one to go out on New Year's Eve, but with nothing better to do, he dressed
nice and went to the party fashionably late at about 8:15 to celebrate the
arrival of 2112.
Laura Somebody welcomed him inside and hung his coat. She introduced
him to some of the neighbors who had arrived already: Bruce, Rich, Marcy,
Michelle, Bernie, Mohar, Vicky, Tom, and Joyce.
Laura offered Drew a drink, and then he set about the task of mingling
and meeting the neighbors. People continued to arrive over the next hour
or so: Amy, Nick, Stu, Max, Russell, and a few others.
Stu, Rich, and Marcy were all car nuts, and talked about nothing but the
latest nuclear fusion-powered race engines. Drew had traveled around the
world some, so he chatted with Mohar about India for a while. Bruce and
Bernie were discussing the differences between Giga-Pascal and C++++. Of
course, Drew didn't miss the occasions when one guy or another would pick
out a girl and head upstairs with her; it was generally considered good
manners for a host or hostesses to provide a spare bedroom as a rape room
at such house parties as these.
Drew was refilling his drink when Kate came up and said, "Hi! Welcome
to the neighborhood!'"
"Thanks!" Drew answered. "Lived here long?"
Kate and Drew made small talk for a few minutes as midnight approached.
At 5-to-midnight, a hush fell across the room when Laura turned the
sound up on her SDHDTV to watch the ball drop over Times Square to songs by
Eminem and 50 Cent. Drew wondered why they always play old-fart music at
these things.
After a few more drinks, the party started winding down at around 2:00.
Drew located Laura and thanked her for inviting him, and Drew grabbed his
coat and headed for the door.
"Drew!" Laura called out.
Drew turned with his hand on the latch to see Laura and Kate approaching
him. "Yes?"
"Kate lives right next door to you. Would you be a gentleman and walk
her home?"
"Sure, no problem," he said.
"Thanks!" Kate said, "Let me get my coat."
It was a short walk past one row of townhomes and across the street.
"I sure hope 2112 is better than 2111," said Kate.
"Can't be any worse what with all the South American and Chinese
terrorists planting car bombs in Washington DC."
"Yeah. I don't know how you feel about it, but I secretly think the
Federal government provokes the attacks the way they meddle in foreign
affairs all the time."
"I guess," Drew answered. He didn't think there was any justification
for terrorism, but he wasn't in the mood to start a political argument at
2AM on New Year's Day.
Drew stood as she unlocked her door, then he turned to head home.
"Hey?" she asked in a somewhat startled tone.
Drew turned to her, "Yes?"
She was standing in her doorway holding her door open as if expecting
him to just follow her in.
"Nothing," she squeaked. She smiled oddly and said, "Thank you."
"Good night, Kate." Drew turned and headed home.
###
Drew's job continued to go well. He made new friends and got familiar
with the local community. He sometimes went to the mall to buy videos or
computer games. As anywhere else, it was a routine sight to see men
approach women and head off with them to one of the many rape rooms placed
at convenient locations by the mall management. Equally surprising was the
number of gay couples he would see. While the current social climate might
make it impossible for a man and a woman to have a normal relationship, he
couldn't conceive of turning gay as an alternative--not that there's
anything wrong with being gay, of course--he just happened to be straight.
Drew would also occasionally make small talk with one of his neighbors
on the bus. He had a car, of course, but with gas approaching $12 a
gallon, most people took mass transit whenever they could.
One Saturday afternoon, a knock came from his door just moments after he
had returned from food shopping and put the bag on his kitchen counter.
"Hi Kate," he said when he opened his door.
"Hi Drew. Could I ask a small favor?"
"Sure."
"You work with computers and, well, I just rearranged some furniture,
and now my computer doesn't work. Do you think you could take a look at it
for me?"
"Sure," he said and followed her over to her place, and upstairs to her
spare bedroom that she used as an office. He pulled the computer out and
poked around the back and tugged on the rat's nest of wires. "I see your
problem!"
"What?" she asked.
"You're using a USB splitter because you have more devices than USB
ports on your PC."
"Yeah, so?"
"You didn't plug in this little transformer doohickey into the splitter
and your devices weren't getting any power through USB." He fiddled around
a little more and pushed her PC back into the desk and turned it on.
"Wow! Was that the problem? Thanks! I feel like an idiot!"
"No problem! You're not an idiot! It's easy to overlook little things
like that sometimes," he said, and turned to leave. He paused since she
was standing in the doorway preventing him from exiting the room.
"Uhm..." he said.
"Aaaa," she squeaked and jumped back a little.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Just nervous," she blurted. "I know I should be used to this by now,
but I can't help it." She stood there wringing her hands, staring at the
floor.
"Nervous about what?" he asked.
She paused and looked up at him. "C'mon! I'm not naive. I know what
you're going to do now. To me."
"I'm not going to do anything to you, Kate."
"Really?" she asked slowly. "You don't want to," she said and paused.
The brick finally hit Drew on the head. He thought of a quick lie to
get out of there fast. "I would, Kate. But when you knocked on my door
before, I was gathering my W-2s and other tax papers together. I have an
appointment with my tax guy in a little bit, and I can't miss it. It's so
hard to get an appointment with him."
"Oh?" she said. "How much does he charge?"
Drew usually does his own taxes on his computer, and had no idea how
much tax preparers charge, so he made up a figure that sounded reasonable
to him. "He charges $250."
"That's outrageous, Drew!" she said, her eyes wide. "I work part time
at I&S Cube during tax season, they only charge $75. Look, I'll do your
taxes for you, no charge."
"Thanks, " he said, "but you don't have to."
"It's no problem! Really! C'mon!"
Kate followed Drew back to his place. "The dining room table okay?" he
asked.
"This is fine," she answered.
"Wait here while I go get them."
Fortunately, Drew had all his forms in a large envelope on a table in
his spare bedroom, along with all the blank tax forms that he printed off
the IRS and New Jersey State Web sites a few days ago. He brought them
back down to Kate.
"Here they are," he said as he set the envelope in front of her.
As she got to work, he offered her a cup of tea or coffee, and they
chatted together while she did his taxes.
About a half-hour later, she finished up and said, "Good news! You're
getting a $5,821 refund from the Feds, and a $1,246 refund from New
Jersey."
"Great!" he said.
"Yeah, but it looks like you're withholding is too high. You should
call your payroll department about that."
"Okay, I will. Thanks! Just let me put these away again upstairs," he
said and took the stack of tax forms and headed back upstairs. When he got
to the top of the stairs, he realized that she was following him.
He set the papers on his desk and faced her. "What?" he asked.
Like before, she just stood there ringing her hands, staring at the
floor.
He continued, "Well, I guess we're done, unless you'd like another cup
of coffee before you go."
"Go?" she said with a slight tone of puzzlement in her voice.
Drew sighed. "You think I'm going to rape you now, don't you?"
"Of course you're going to rape me now. Aren't you?"
"Well..."
"I don't like it, but I know the routine. So I might as well cooperate
and get it over with. Right?"
"No!"
"No?" she asked with a tinge of surprise in her voice.
"No. Kate. Listen. I like you. I like you a lot. And I'd like to
get to know you better. That is, if the feeling is mutual. And if you
want to join me in bed tonight, I'd like nothing better. Maybe we can go
out on a date tonight, to a movie or dinner. But it has to be with your
consent."
Kate stood there staring at him with her mouth agape for nearly a
minute. She started to speak then hesitated. Then she finally spoke.
"Drew. I like you too. I'd love to be your girl. But you know how the
world is..."
"Yeah," he said with a tinge of anger in his voice. "I know..."
She continued, "I get raped two or three times every day at work! And
just as often when I go shopping or to the mall. Sometimes I know them,
but usually they're total strangers. In the past week, I've had sex with
at least twenty different guys! Do you really want a girlfriend that you
have to share with every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there on the street?"
The next thing Drew knew, they were in each other's arms, with Kate
crying on his shoulder.
Drew whispered to her, "Listen, Kate. I have an idea..."
####
A week later, Drew and Kate walked together through the mall,
hand-in-hand, stopping frequently to exchange kisses just like new lovers
had always done. To the other mall patrons, Drew and Kate looked just like
any other male gay couple.
Kate looked the part of the butch: baggy jeans, baggy top over a tight
sports bra that did an excellent job of compressing her relatively small
chest. She wore a jock strap and cup to give her a hint of a bulge in the
right place. Her short, straight, traditional, man's barber haircut and
cut fingernails, with no jewelry, makeup, lipstick, or nail polish did
wonders to hide the fact that she was female. A tattoo of a black knife
through a red heart on her upper arm completed the picture of machismo.
Her only adornment was that of a heavy macho brass pentagram swinging from
around her neck. A slight scent of B.O. and rotting meat wafted from her
body--a last line of defense--the result of a selection of "perfumes"
ordered from an on-line novelty store.
Drew looked the part of the bitch: tight jeans, and a tight belly shirt,
earrings, lipstick, nail polish, the works. It was still obvious that he
was male, but since Drew needn't pass as female, but as a gay male bitch,
that was sufficient.
At first, they thought it obvious that Kate be the bitch and Drew the
butch. But in the end, logic suggested that Kate's risk would be far
reduced if she were the butch. So that's how it became.
As they strolled lazily down the mall, window shopping, Kate
occasionally whispered to Drew, "See those two gay guys? That's really a
woman. And those, too. Good thing you guys are so clueless about women,"
she said with a giggle.
"What about those two gay guys?" Drew asked in a whisper.
"They're really two gay guys," she said with another giggle.
Elsewhere, men continued to pick out women among the crowd and head off
to one of the many rape rooms with them.
Kate and Drew strolled down the mezzanine, unmolested, and entered a
steak house restaurant for a pleasant romantic dinner before the movie
started that they planned to see, and maybe stop at a gay club on the way
home for drinks and dancing.
through history have always believed
that men and women should have equal rights, privileges, obligations, and
responsibilities under the law. It started with the 19th Amendment giving
women the right to vote. In the late 20th century, legal precedent
established the obligation of men to pay alimony and child support to their
ex-wives; everybody, with the exception of a few curmudgeons, accepted this
as fair and just.
Alimony grew from a small temporary stipend that allowed a woman to get
back on her feet, to a lifetime entitlement to "live according to the means
to which she had become accustomed in marriage," never mind the fact that
this women's entitlement often meant that the man had to work two jobs just
to afford to live in a run-down rooming house.
Child support also started out as a small stipend to help with the food
and clothing for the children--it was a give-and-take: the mother had an
obligation to give the father the right to visitation; in return, the
father had an obligation to help support his children. Later, child
support became an obligation of the father, with no compensatory right to
visitation or other balancing obligation upon the mother.
Men who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, such as during
the corporate downsizing and outsourcing rage of the early 2000's, and who
missed a support payment, were immediately arrested and held until they
made payment, becoming de-facto slaves to their ex-wives.
As despicable as wife beating is, "Zero Tolerance" laws were in vogue at
the time, which mandated that a man be arrested on the spot upon any
accusation of physical or even verbal abuse my a woman. Abuse of men by
women through such laws was a taboo subject; anyone who dared speak of the
injustice was invariably accused of being a "closet" wife-beater or
woman-hater.
Women's entitlements and men's obligations continued to expand through
the 1990's into the 2000's as government power grew by leaps and bounds,
often under the rallying cry of "homeland security" and "civil justice."
When SDHDTV (Super Duper High Definition TV) comedian Brad Walker
declared his candidacy for president as an independent in 2032, no one took
him seriously, of course. Everyone knew he was doing it as a joke. His
platform was to call for the repeal of alimony and child support laws, a
repeal of the 19th Amendment, and a call for a Constitutional Amendment
declaring it a man's legal right to have sex with any woman, anywhere, any
time, under any circumstances, regardless whether she wanted to or not.
When Walker garnered enough signatures on his petition to be placed on
the ballot as an independent candidate for US President, the defenders of
political correctness took notice. Newspaper editorials across the country
exhibited outrage that even a single citizen had signed his petition.
It wasn't long before copycats joined his platform, running from
everything from dogcatcher to state governor, and everything in between. A
grassroots "Right to Rape" party soon spawned out of the madness.
When Walker, and almost every other "Right to Rape" candidate, won their
respective election in landslide victories across the country, ousting
incumbents across the board, women's groups were stunned. Most news
outlets credited his victory with voter apathy, i.e. so few women took him
seriously to vote against him, while he drew out every last man in the
nation to vote for him. Few questioned the fact that even if every male
citizen voted for Walker, it would not account for the number of votes that
he received.
Within weeks of taking his oath of office in January, Walker appointed
all "Right to Rape" advocates to his cabinet. The "Right to Rape" party
also won a near unanimous majority in both the Senate and the House of
Representatives. "Right to Rape" candidates filled the governor's seats of
almost every state, and also held super majorities in almost every state
legislature. And not one news outlet reported or acknowledged the fact
that two of those "Right to Rape" representatives happened to be female.
Still, nobody believed, however, that these people would destroy the
country by attempting to implement their diabolical platform of a
Constitutional Amendment giving men the right to rape women.
President Walker's first act was to issue pardons to every last man (and
woman) throughout the land incarcerated for being in arrears on their
alimony or child support. Thereafter, almost every state in the union
rescinded their alimony and child support laws.
Honoring his campaign promise, the President called for a constitutional
convention a month later. The 19th Amendment was summarily repealed by a
super-majority of Congress with the passage of the 28th Amendment. The
29th Amendment, commonly called the "Right to Rape" amendment, was as
easily passed moments later.
Walker had kept his campaign promises, but he didn't stop there. His
fellow party members in state legislatures revoked most, if not all,
consensual crime laws. The President, and numerous state governors, issued
pardons to people serving jail time for consensual crimes such as drug,
gambling, and prostitution convictions.
American culture changed violently that year as men exercised their
newly earned right to rape, but the "Right to Rape" party held on to power
for many years to come, being as women no longer had the right to vote. As
decades passed, the pendulum swung back to a more central position, and the
more traditional Republican and Democratic parties regained some lost
power. Yet, every attempt to restore women's rights and to repeal the
"Right to Rape" Amendment failed dismally.
The eventual result was that American society returned to a state not
much different than the late 1900's and early 2000's with the notable
exception that women had lost the right to vote, and it was every man's
civil right to rape any women he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted
to.
####
Drew liked his new job as a Web developer with Lotsatech. It was a
beautiful corporate campus in rural northern New Jersey. The private rape
lounges disturbed him a little, but small rooms with cots in them were
mandated by law at every company with more than 10 employees so that men
had the opportunity to rape whatever women they wanted during the day
whenever the need came upon them. Drew had never partaken of this civil
right that was every man's birthright, at least according to the 29th
Amendment that was passed back in his grandfather's day.
Drew was waiting for the bus to go home shortly after 5:00, like he does
every weekday. He was looking forward to the upcoming Christmas and New
Year's holidays next week. Women huddled together waiting for the bus, not
for warmth from the December cold, but to protect themselves against
rapists who had every legal right to take one of them against their will
for a moment's pleasure. Invariably, some man would approach one of those
huddled women anyway, and they would go off together and enter one of the
rape kiosks that the city government provided on almost every street
corner. On this particular day, one woman raised a fuss and tried to flee.
Unfortunately, in Drew's view anyway, a policewoman was passing by and saw
the commotion. After questioning the man, the woman, and several witnesses
waiting for the bus, she arrested the woman for resisting rape and shoved
her in the cop car and sped away. Drew wondered what would have happened
had someone decided that he wanted to rape the policewoman at that moment.
Anyway, the man simply picked out another woman among the crowd and headed
off to a rape kiosk with her.
The bus dropped Drew off near his home a half-hour later. He had bought
a new townhouse shortly after starting his new job in November. He didn't
know his neighbors very well, so he was surprised when some neighbor had
slipped an invitation to a New Year's party in his door during the day.
The party was at a neighbor's house across the street. Drew was never
one to go out on New Year's Eve, but with nothing better to do, he dressed
nice and went to the party fashionably late at about 8:15 to celebrate the
arrival of 2112.
Laura Somebody welcomed him inside and hung his coat. She introduced
him to some of the neighbors who had arrived already: Bruce, Rich, Marcy,
Michelle, Bernie, Mohar, Vicky, Tom, and Joyce.
Laura offered Drew a drink, and then he set about the task of mingling
and meeting the neighbors. People continued to arrive over the next hour
or so: Amy, Nick, Stu, Max, Russell, and a few others.
Stu, Rich, and Marcy were all car nuts, and talked about nothing but the
latest nuclear fusion-powered race engines. Drew had traveled around the
world some, so he chatted with Mohar about India for a while. Bruce and
Bernie were discussing the differences between Giga-Pascal and C++++. Of
course, Drew didn't miss the occasions when one guy or another would pick
out a girl and head upstairs with her; it was generally considered good
manners for a host or hostesses to provide a spare bedroom as a rape room
at such house parties as these.
Drew was refilling his drink when Kate came up and said, "Hi! Welcome
to the neighborhood!'"
"Thanks!" Drew answered. "Lived here long?"
Kate and Drew made small talk for a few minutes as midnight approached.
At 5-to-midnight, a hush fell across the room when Laura turned the
sound up on her SDHDTV to watch the ball drop over Times Square to songs by
Eminem and 50 Cent. Drew wondered why they always play old-fart music at
these things.
After a few more drinks, the party started winding down at around 2:00.
Drew located Laura and thanked her for inviting him, and Drew grabbed his
coat and headed for the door.
"Drew!" Laura called out.
Drew turned with his hand on the latch to see Laura and Kate approaching
him. "Yes?"
"Kate lives right next door to you. Would you be a gentleman and walk
her home?"
"Sure, no problem," he said.
"Thanks!" Kate said, "Let me get my coat."
It was a short walk past one row of townhomes and across the street.
"I sure hope 2112 is better than 2111," said Kate.
"Can't be any worse what with all the South American and Chinese
terrorists planting car bombs in Washington DC."
"Yeah. I don't know how you feel about it, but I secretly think the
Federal government provokes the attacks the way they meddle in foreign
affairs all the time."
"I guess," Drew answered. He didn't think there was any justification
for terrorism, but he wasn't in the mood to start a political argument at
2AM on New Year's Day.
Drew stood as she unlocked her door, then he turned to head home.
"Hey?" she asked in a somewhat startled tone.
Drew turned to her, "Yes?"
She was standing in her doorway holding her door open as if expecting
him to just follow her in.
"Nothing," she squeaked. She smiled oddly and said, "Thank you."
"Good night, Kate." Drew turned and headed home.
###
Drew's job continued to go well. He made new friends and got familiar
with the local community. He sometimes went to the mall to buy videos or
computer games. As anywhere else, it was a routine sight to see men
approach women and head off with them to one of the many rape rooms placed
at convenient locations by the mall management. Equally surprising was the
number of gay couples he would see. While the current social climate might
make it impossible for a man and a woman to have a normal relationship, he
couldn't conceive of turning gay as an alternative--not that there's
anything wrong with being gay, of course--he just happened to be straight.
Drew would also occasionally make small talk with one of his neighbors
on the bus. He had a car, of course, but with gas approaching $12 a
gallon, most people took mass transit whenever they could.
One Saturday afternoon, a knock came from his door just moments after he
had returned from food shopping and put the bag on his kitchen counter.
"Hi Kate," he said when he opened his door.
"Hi Drew. Could I ask a small favor?"
"Sure."
"You work with computers and, well, I just rearranged some furniture,
and now my computer doesn't work. Do you think you could take a look at it
for me?"
"Sure," he said and followed her over to her place, and upstairs to her
spare bedroom that she used as an office. He pulled the computer out and
poked around the back and tugged on the rat's nest of wires. "I see your
problem!"
"What?" she asked.
"You're using a USB splitter because you have more devices than USB
ports on your PC."
"Yeah, so?"
"You didn't plug in this little transformer doohickey into the splitter
and your devices weren't getting any power through USB." He fiddled around
a little more and pushed her PC back into the desk and turned it on.
"Wow! Was that the problem? Thanks! I feel like an idiot!"
"No problem! You're not an idiot! It's easy to overlook little things
like that sometimes," he said, and turned to leave. He paused since she
was standing in the doorway preventing him from exiting the room.
"Uhm..." he said.
"Aaaa," she squeaked and jumped back a little.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Just nervous," she blurted. "I know I should be used to this by now,
but I can't help it." She stood there wringing her hands, staring at the
floor.
"Nervous about what?" he asked.
She paused and looked up at him. "C'mon! I'm not naive. I know what
you're going to do now. To me."
"I'm not going to do anything to you, Kate."
"Really?" she asked slowly. "You don't want to," she said and paused.
The brick finally hit Drew on the head. He thought of a quick lie to
get out of there fast. "I would, Kate. But when you knocked on my door
before, I was gathering my W-2s and other tax papers together. I have an
appointment with my tax guy in a little bit, and I can't miss it. It's so
hard to get an appointment with him."
"Oh?" she said. "How much does he charge?"
Drew usually does his own taxes on his computer, and had no idea how
much tax preparers charge, so he made up a figure that sounded reasonable
to him. "He charges $250."
"That's outrageous, Drew!" she said, her eyes wide. "I work part time
at I&S Cube during tax season, they only charge $75. Look, I'll do your
taxes for you, no charge."
"Thanks, " he said, "but you don't have to."
"It's no problem! Really! C'mon!"
Kate followed Drew back to his place. "The dining room table okay?" he
asked.
"This is fine," she answered.
"Wait here while I go get them."
Fortunately, Drew had all his forms in a large envelope on a table in
his spare bedroom, along with all the blank tax forms that he printed off
the IRS and New Jersey State Web sites a few days ago. He brought them
back down to Kate.
"Here they are," he said as he set the envelope in front of her.
As she got to work, he offered her a cup of tea or coffee, and they
chatted together while she did his taxes.
About a half-hour later, she finished up and said, "Good news! You're
getting a $5,821 refund from the Feds, and a $1,246 refund from New
Jersey."
"Great!" he said.
"Yeah, but it looks like you're withholding is too high. You should
call your payroll department about that."
"Okay, I will. Thanks! Just let me put these away again upstairs," he
said and took the stack of tax forms and headed back upstairs. When he got
to the top of the stairs, he realized that she was following him.
He set the papers on his desk and faced her. "What?" he asked.
Like before, she just stood there ringing her hands, staring at the
floor.
He continued, "Well, I guess we're done, unless you'd like another cup
of coffee before you go."
"Go?" she said with a slight tone of puzzlement in her voice.
Drew sighed. "You think I'm going to rape you now, don't you?"
"Of course you're going to rape me now. Aren't you?"
"Well..."
"I don't like it, but I know the routine. So I might as well cooperate
and get it over with. Right?"
"No!"
"No?" she asked with a tinge of surprise in her voice.
"No. Kate. Listen. I like you. I like you a lot. And I'd like to
get to know you better. That is, if the feeling is mutual. And if you
want to join me in bed tonight, I'd like nothing better. Maybe we can go
out on a date tonight, to a movie or dinner. But it has to be with your
consent."
Kate stood there staring at him with her mouth agape for nearly a
minute. She started to speak then hesitated. Then she finally spoke.
"Drew. I like you too. I'd love to be your girl. But you know how the
world is..."
"Yeah," he said with a tinge of anger in his voice. "I know..."
She continued, "I get raped two or three times every day at work! And
just as often when I go shopping or to the mall. Sometimes I know them,
but usually they're total strangers. In the past week, I've had sex with
at least twenty different guys! Do you really want a girlfriend that you
have to share with every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there on the street?"
The next thing Drew knew, they were in each other's arms, with Kate
crying on his shoulder.
Drew whispered to her, "Listen, Kate. I have an idea..."
####
A week later, Drew and Kate walked together through the mall,
hand-in-hand, stopping frequently to exchange kisses just like new lovers
had always done. To the other mall patrons, Drew and Kate looked just like
any other male gay couple.
Kate looked the part of the butch: baggy jeans, baggy top over a tight
sports bra that did an excellent job of compressing her relatively small
chest. She wore a jock strap and cup to give her a hint of a bulge in the
right place. Her short, straight, traditional, man's barber haircut and
cut fingernails, with no jewelry, makeup, lipstick, or nail polish did
wonders to hide the fact that she was female. A tattoo of a black knife
through a red heart on her upper arm completed the picture of machismo.
Her only adornment was that of a heavy macho brass pentagram swinging from
around her neck. A slight scent of B.O. and rotting meat wafted from her
body--a last line of defense--the result of a selection of "perfumes"
ordered from an on-line novelty store.
Drew looked the part of the bitch: tight jeans, and a tight belly shirt,
earrings, lipstick, nail polish, the works. It was still obvious that he
was male, but since Drew needn't pass as female, but as a gay male bitch,
that was sufficient.
At first, they thought it obvious that Kate be the bitch and Drew the
butch. But in the end, logic suggested that Kate's risk would be far
reduced if she were the butch. So that's how it became.
As they strolled lazily down the mall, window shopping, Kate
occasionally whispered to Drew, "See those two gay guys? That's really a
woman. And those, too. Good thing you guys are so clueless about women,"
she said with a giggle.
"What about those two gay guys?" Drew asked in a whisper.
"They're really two gay guys," she said with another giggle.
Elsewhere, men continued to pick out women among the crowd and head off
to one of the many rape rooms with them.
Kate and Drew strolled down the mezzanine, unmolested, and entered a
steak house restaurant for a pleasant romantic dinner before the movie
started that they planned to see, and maybe stop at a gay club on the way
home for drinks and dancing.
