CHARMED LIVES & TROUBLED SOULS: Of Imaginary Closets, Beautiful Nerd Girls, and Things We Hide Sometimes, in Plain Sight, from the "Religious"

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- When she was young, other kids teased her for being flat-chested and lanky and awkward, for being tomboyish and uninterested in dolls or tea parties with imaginary princes, for being a bona fide, honest-to-God dork.

In high school, she was the smart girl, trapped halfway between being stereotyped as her school's cute but intimidating stuck-up bitch and arrogant, smart-ass Nerd Queen.

Her friends were all older, all went to other schools or were in college. Her parents overbearing, her mother a veritable control-freak of a life planner. She lettered in two sports she hated, just because her father scared her into thinking colleges only took the smart, beautiful, AND athletic...

She was quite popular with kids in her school, sure, but after a half-dozen or so jocks, cool kids, and preppy chachballs, she finally figured out her popularity was tied to her willingness to go farther than going down on somebody in a dark movie theater.

Being one of the few girls in your conservative Christian high school who failed to buy into such silly things as Promise Rings and Abstinence Pledges, well, tends to lead to such popularity - even if those equally self-righteous, pious kids refused to even say hi in the hallways or at church after sex in hot tubs and in parked cars.

And at night, alone in her bedroom, surrounded by college application essays and AP Exam practice guides, she'd huddle beneath her bedsheets late at night, well after her folks and her siblings fell asleep, she'd read about all sorts of interesting, forbidden things, in books and magazines mostly, since her parents monitored her Internet access and had installed filtering software on her MacBook.

She read Hunter S. Thompson's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas in a few hours, Charles Bukowski's Women in one night, and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch in two.

And actually, all through college, she's been keeping those controversial literature juices flowing. She even picked up two of her new favorite authors - Michelle Tea & Amelie Nothromb - on the recommendation of some fucking shithead librarian she's been cyberstalking (joke) since her second semester.

Smart girl. Well-read. Downright oozing with sex and sultry feminine bravado. A prototypical female college student living in the 21st century.

But, in all honesty, she wouldn't be a Local U. student if she weren't driven by something unseen, rebelling in secret, living some sort of lie.

That's the myth of the Public Ivy university - everything looks ancient and traditional and conservative on the surface but beneath the decaying brick facades, on the other side of the creeping vines, at the edge of the higher education darkness...

* * * *

"And -- Ohmygod, have you ever read 'Keeping You a Secret?' It's by Julie...something...Peters. Fucking awesome."

She picks up the bottle of wine, pours me a third glass and herself a fourth. We're on our second bottle. It's 4:18 in the morning, a Saturday, and we've only been talking in her living room for a half hour.

At least one of her roommates is already home, upstairs in bed. And from the sounds of it, well, she brought home something from the bars to play with - squeaks and muffled giggles creep down the stairs.

"The first girl I was with," she whispers, "bought it for me, then turned out to be a fucking bitch so I quit reading it the first time. It was right before I came here..."

Her voice trails off as she stands up, grins, and twirls with her arms outstretched.

"...Here to LOVELY MOTHERFUCKING OXFORD FUCKING OHIO."

Hey, if there's one place in the world that can possibly create the world's most entertainingly cynical closeted lesbians, it'd be Oxford Fucking Ohio.

* * * *

"so... okay. I'm fucking drunk."

"Really, chica?" I feign shock like buzzards feign disinterest in roadkill. My host snickers.

"Oh yeah. Fucking wasted, dude. Too bad you don't smoke..."

I take out another Marlboro Virginia Blend, offer her one, light them both.

"Chica, see. I smoke. But being clean for a decade means I only smoke tobacco."

She inhales long on the cigarette, kills off her wine as she exhales into her glass. Pure sex. One hundred and ten percent. And with a body like hers, a brain, well... the lesbian community's lucky to--

"You know, I'm not a closetcase. Fuck, I go to Lexington and Columbus sometimes. Really cool scenes. I just can't fucking stand the bitches here or Cincinnati, ya know? The fucking hipsters..."

"Hey, straight dudes are in the same boat, chica."

"Yeah, but it's different. It's not like the chicks you hook up with around here ever text you to march in some fucking pride parade the next day."

She leans forward over the ratty, textbooks-and-bills covered coffee table, grabs the third bottle of wine. She knocks over my glass, right onto my first two napkins full of notes and quotes. Fortunately, I've been playing catch-up; only a thimbleful of shitty drugstore burgundy spoils the ballpoint ink...

Only lost half a paragraph, but, well, to sum up for you, dear reader, the conversation veered off into the realm of sex toys, lubricant, fingers, and fists.

Think you get the picture.

* * * *

She never did the whole GLBT student group thing, for the same reason she doesn't go trolling for women in Oxford, Dayton, or Cincinnati bars - a lot of Lesbians Until Graduation, a lot of really hot girls to make out with after last call, but, well, it's just not her bag.

"You'd be surprised how many lesbians here are just as fucking annoyed gay dudes as straight guys," she pauses to crush out her cigarette and open a window. "...kinda like the drag queen boy scouts."

And finally, I hit the tough question.

I ask when she plans on telling her roommates. After all, they've lived together a whole year. They must at least suspect...?

"Okay, look, love 'em to death but they're kinda dense. We've been friends since last year. They think I'm just kinda bi.

"And they're both really fucking religious and shit. Like Catholic religious."

Drunk, I feel myself fall off the ratty student-shabby loveseat.

Within seconds, I'm rolling on the floor, clutching my head - I caught the corner of the coffee table with my skull. My sides hurt. I can't breathe.

Every time I try to stop laughing, to catch my breath even for a moment, I hear that same giggling, followed by moaning, drifting down from upstairs, the religious sounds of "Oh God! Oh FUCK! OhYESFUCKMEYES!" praise and worship songs coming from some unseen bedroom directly above me.

* * * *

In all fairness, she gave me the finger as she shut the door on me as I left at sunrise.

"Dude, if you make me out to be some lipstick in the closet, I'll cut your dick off."

"So... can I make fun of your roommate's prayer groups? And is the other one that cute and 'religious?'"

Again, another one fingered salute. And a wink.

Best one night stand with a hot, NOT lipstick-in-the-closet lesbian in ages.

And trust me, this here dispatch is probably by far the strangest graduation gift any student has ever asked for and received from a local (hetero) librarian.

- # # # -

OF LIBRARIANS, WRITERS, & HOTTIES, NUDE GODDESSES & WHORISH FOLLIES: Sometimes, My Dear Bukowski, The Muses Actually Bet on Mere Mortals...

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- He slid down the stairwell and into the basement, a veritable black-and-denim shadow against the wood paneling and red-painted cinderblock, swaying as he crossed ancient, chipped vinyl tiles.

The raven-coiffed jaguar was grinning one of those devilish grins, the sort of mysterious smile that probably lured a thousand warriors to their doom back when real jaguars prowled the jungles.

"Mmm...hmm... now what are you two hotties doing down here all alone, besides being hot?"

"Heh, well, she's the hottie. But she's twice as hot, enough for the both of us."

"Oh trust me. If you were a gay man, you'd know how much of a hottie you really are."

I sat up as straight as I could, sucked in my gut and suddenly felt, for some reason, like Rock Fucking Hudson. Mr. Jaguar's compliment yanked me up by my emotional bootstraps.

"Man, that's the nicest compliment anybody's given me in a long time. Thanks, dude."

I have no clue why, exactly, I felt so down on myself. No fucking clue. But, sometimes, well, it's better to not dwell on such things, to just appreciate a gay man calling you a hottie.

I was clutching a cold Red Needle, that favorite tequila - and - cranberry elixir that I sometimes use to keep up my will to live on long Mondays and extended weekend hangovers.

Yes, I was working, at eight at night on a Monday, off-the-clock, boozy condensation oozing from between my fingers, helping a friend come up with plot elements and character sketches for her children's book.

Me.

The absolute last person anyone would ever trust with the literary well-being or educational development of middle school children.

But, well, part of being a librarian, the most important part, is to play the role of Muse, to simply be a flashlight in the intellectual dark - even if he's the least-qualified flashlight for the job.

And sometimes, being a good librarian means that one is forced - FORCED - to sit in a cold basement on a Monday night, all alone, with quite possibly the hottest schoolteacher in the history of Ohio, drinking good booze and waiting for the read-back as that teacher scribbles away a draft onto old-school looseleaf.

Oh, how I suffer some days here in Oxford Fucking Ohio for my profession.

How Melvil Fucking Racist Misogynist Dewey must weep at my suffering, from his fiery director's desk in Hell's library.

It's a hard life, really.

* * * *

"My God, those girls! They really do dress like whores these days, don't they?"

Mrs. Thang sipped her wine and held out her cigarette. Out came my ol' Zippo and, within mere seconds, I had flame in her face, beneath that Virginia Slim.

Despite being a nonsmoking room, her room, well, she wasn't about to let the Goddamn State of Ohio tell her where we were allowed and not allowed to smoke. I lit up my Marlboro, flipped the lighter shut, and poured myself another glass of wine. We were on our second bottle.

I joined her in staring out of the hotel window, down onto the street. For some reason, I failed to see the supposed whoredom of undergraduate females. Just a normal night in Oxford, in a college town full of brave little girls who dress in Manolo heels to go drink Natural Light.

I did, however, notice her daughter crossing the street below us, towards a black SUV filled with other undergraduates. Mrs. Thang's daughter had claimed she'd wanted to stay and chat with ol' Mom, but, well...

C'mon. What college first-year has ever wanted to hang out with parents when there's a party to be had?

"My God, my daughter looks like a whore! She's starting to act that way, too. [Paris] was like that, wasn't she? You know, I'm afraid all my children will grow up shallow-"

Mrs. Thang hiccuped and almost fell forward into the glass. She grabbed the industrial-strength drapes for balance. She was drunk as a skunk.

"Nah, she seems like a good kid. This really is normal for a freshman in this town these days."

Mrs. Thang, relieved, slid down into a chair and handed me her glass. As I was pouring her the last of the bottle, she explained that in her day, when she was a spry Local U. student, no woman would be caught dead after dark in such skimpy outfits. According to her, well, how I dress these days is how she used to dress - jeans and a teeshirt. The old American standby is, and shall forever remain, the penultimate in laissez-faire chic.

And how the men just loved her in this town, way back then, in Oxford Fucking Ohio. She didn't date the fashionable, the trendy, fake-ass, jet-setter boys, either. She dated men, professors - yes, even faculty! - when she was her middle child's age. She wrote poetry in my library, danced naked in living rooms, and rode old men and artists and musicians like camels through the Sinai for four wondrous years.

Well, chica, I said, times change. Hell, Higher Ed's changed so much since even I was in college - and back then, heh, [Paris] and I...

I couldn't bring myself to say ... were together. We were never really together. We fucked. We didn't talk, didn't socialize, or, well, even get along outside of sweating, panting, and screwing. I hated her friends, actually, and would rather shove live scorpions up my ass than ever, ever be in such a soul-sucking situation ever again.

...since we, ya know...

Mrs. Thang scrunched up her face for a moment, then giggled. For the record, most mothers really do get a kick out of making their eldest child's exes suffer, even momentarily.

I handed back her glass and proposed a toast, an obscenity-laced, marginally intoxicated curse upon all of the shallow-ass bitches and their sexy-ass mothers in this town tonight. Mrs. Thang laughed as we clinked our glasses together.

It may have been the wine talking, the warm glow of the room's lights, or merely the evening's rather burlesque conversation topics, but, suddenly, Mrs. Thang ceased to be an merely an old acquaintance in town visiting her alma mater and her daughter.

She was, well, looking kinda hot. A woman my own mother's age was... wow. Those Pilates course were... wow. I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried my damnedest to visualize something other than what Mrs. Thang's rather flattering, tight, black sweater would feel like in my hands, what was beneath that all of that restrictive cotton...

"Are you really Jason _______? Noooo. Wow. You really grew up to be a smart sexy thing. Whew."

She reached over as if, well, as if she were reaching for my arm. She stopped and mumbled something about how that gay dude's hottie assessment, the same Mr. Jaguar I'd told her about from the previous night, was right.

"Jason, dear, you keep doing those chin-ups... Wow... Those arms are getting..."

She scrunched up her face again. The wine, yes, it was the wine that made me notice, for the first time all evening, that she was wearing a thong beneath her slacks...

"...If you fuck another daughter of mine, I'll tear your balls off."

She smiled. It was another one of those jaguar smiles.

After we'd said goodbye and had gingerly exchanged a rather quick, awkward hug, I left for those same streets below, the ones filled with normal Local U. women who are, sometimes, accused of dressing like whores by their own mothers.

I realized, walking back to my apartment, that I'm a lot like the old men some of those same mothers used to ride like camels in this town when they were but youthful undergrads, after poetry readings and folk concerts.

There's something dangerous in such thoughts.

* * * *

Early Saturday morning, hours before sunrise, I found myself taking a stroll through Oxford, alone and blissfully chilled like a pint of beer. Alone with my thoughts, my brain setting its own rhyme and meter to the rise and fall of the lungs in my chest, I could've walked to Cincinnati and back, a good 30 miles, without even being conscious of such a feat.

The sound of my cowboy boots clicking off the wet asphalt served as twilight's only soundtrack. An omnipotent fog stood in as the town's watchman, guarding every inch of every corner and crevice, from the ground all the way up to the bottom branches of the maples and sycamores and oak trees that line the streets.

I stopped at a nondescript intersection, in one of the more modern parts of town - apartment buildings outnumbered the houses, the houses themselves more one-story ranchers than 19th century Victorian in design. I was fumbling through my pockets, hoping beyond all hope that I hadn't lost my Zippo...

I don't know why I looked up. Maybe some glare from her wine bottle, or maybe the faint sound of someone singing - wailing like a banshee in heat, actually - a Melissa Etheridge tune into the night.

But there she was, naked up there in the window, a nude Athena, a fleshy statue of stripped feminine artwork framed in Plexiglas and vinyl siding.

Oblivious to what the world below would think of her naked flesh, white and yet strangely glowing in silhouette, backlit by unseen flickering candles, she just stood there singing into that empty wine bottle.

I almost felt ashamed for staring, even for a minute, until I reminded myself that anyone who strips and shimmies and shakes in front of a bay window is obviously hoping for some sort of audience. I've dated enough strippers in my life to recognize an exhibitionist when I see one...

Such a wondrous thing, the body of woman. How hips and lips and other parts just seem to flow together like strokes from a paintbrush. Things like weight and height, body proportions and breast sizes and the flatnesses of asses, cease to hold any meaning when the clothes are stripped away in the middle of the night. Men, alas, just aren't built that way - at least, well, from my perspective.

Athena noticed, yes, that she had an audience, that the performance of mysterious goddess in the sky had earned her the attention of a mere mortal below.

She stopped for a moment, pressed her face and breasts to the glass, squinted.

And then she smiled, waved, and went right back to singing along to her Melissa Etheridge recordings, as if every woman in the world were as comfortable with their own nudity as she obviously was with hers.

The best performance art pieces are always the ones where the artist cares not what the audience thinks, where the artist is driven by madness and the quaking, shaking passions of their own invisible Muse.

Critics be damned. And so, too, the audience.

- # # # -