Diamonda
Over the weekend Roman and I went to our small town Gay Pride party at the VFW hall. The small gathering was a colorless event attended mostly by white people in their 50s and 60s. Youth don't understand the celebration, they can't imagine that the USA, land of the free, used to put people in jail for being gay. I'm glad that they don't have to deal with that absurdity.
Roman and I were standing around enjoying a beer talking about how almost everyone was a bit overweight, myself included, when I was enthusiastically approached by a middle-aged woman.
"Charles," she said, smiling. I could not hide the fact that I did not recognize her.
She turned to Roman and introduced herself as Diamonda. I did not recognize the name though something was seeming familiar.
She turned back to me and said, "It's Richard... I used to be Richard."
I thought OMG. It was Richard. Long before Roman came into my life I had been very close to Richard and his wife Beth. We had co-paneled a seminar at the University. It was the late sixties, so of course we had experimented with the then fashionable, Ménage a trois.
I stammered, "Good lord Richard, what happened with Beth?"
She laughed, "Let me grab Beth."
A moment later Richard showed back up with Beth. She was Beth, I recognized her immediately. She had aged gracefully.
I smiled at them and said, "Okay, explain." They both exploded into delighted laughter.
The short version was that Richard was transgendered. Richard was not gay so the couple had continued to have a loving marriage with Beth, who totally supported the evolution. I asked if this change meant they were lesbians now. Diamonda winked at me with a knowing smile. I wasn't sure what that meant. Beth said they were a kind of lesbians only with an organic dildo. I paused to picture that. Technically, their relationship was still husband and wife, still one man and one woman, a delight to Conservatives everywhere. Instead of divorcing, they reprogrammed their brains to create a new relationship based on reality. That was so 'Richard and Beth.' Amazing people.
Finding happiness in life is a primary, if constantly shifting, goal, so of course I was sincerely happy for them, but Diamonda was going to take some reprogramming of my brain as well. I continued to see someone I did not know.
Roman was taken aback by the fact that I had been intimate with them even though free love was the norm back then and to share love was an honor.
What Roman saw was two old ladies. But forty years ago, they were a handsome hippy couple. She trended toward folk singer chic and him, the dark poet. Beth was the one that originally brought me to their bed, but Richard was the one that kept me there. I developed my first boy crush on Richard, though his heart belonged only to Beth.
Now I realize my first boy crush was actually on a woman named Diamonda who had an organic dildo. I'm not going to think about that.
Over the weekend Roman and I went to our small town Gay Pride party at the VFW hall. The small gathering was a colorless event attended mostly by white people in their 50s and 60s. Youth don't understand the celebration, they can't imagine that the USA, land of the free, used to put people in jail for being gay. I'm glad that they don't have to deal with that absurdity.
Roman and I were standing around enjoying a beer talking about how almost everyone was a bit overweight, myself included, when I was enthusiastically approached by a middle-aged woman.
"Charles," she said, smiling. I could not hide the fact that I did not recognize her.
She turned to Roman and introduced herself as Diamonda. I did not recognize the name though something was seeming familiar.
She turned back to me and said, "It's Richard... I used to be Richard."
I thought OMG. It was Richard. Long before Roman came into my life I had been very close to Richard and his wife Beth. We had co-paneled a seminar at the University. It was the late sixties, so of course we had experimented with the then fashionable, Ménage a trois.
I stammered, "Good lord Richard, what happened with Beth?"
She laughed, "Let me grab Beth."
A moment later Richard showed back up with Beth. She was Beth, I recognized her immediately. She had aged gracefully.
I smiled at them and said, "Okay, explain." They both exploded into delighted laughter.
The short version was that Richard was transgendered. Richard was not gay so the couple had continued to have a loving marriage with Beth, who totally supported the evolution. I asked if this change meant they were lesbians now. Diamonda winked at me with a knowing smile. I wasn't sure what that meant. Beth said they were a kind of lesbians only with an organic dildo. I paused to picture that. Technically, their relationship was still husband and wife, still one man and one woman, a delight to Conservatives everywhere. Instead of divorcing, they reprogrammed their brains to create a new relationship based on reality. That was so 'Richard and Beth.' Amazing people.
Finding happiness in life is a primary, if constantly shifting, goal, so of course I was sincerely happy for them, but Diamonda was going to take some reprogramming of my brain as well. I continued to see someone I did not know.
Roman was taken aback by the fact that I had been intimate with them even though free love was the norm back then and to share love was an honor.
What Roman saw was two old ladies. But forty years ago, they were a handsome hippy couple. She trended toward folk singer chic and him, the dark poet. Beth was the one that originally brought me to their bed, but Richard was the one that kept me there. I developed my first boy crush on Richard, though his heart belonged only to Beth.
Now I realize my first boy crush was actually on a woman named Diamonda who had an organic dildo. I'm not going to think about that.