Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

“Think about it,” said Paul. “When women cover songs by men, they don’t swap the pronouns. Is this a.) a lack of anxiety about convention, b.) a biologically essential fluidity native to humans with vaginas and/or two X chromosomes, c.) rampant queerness among women singers, or d.) the universal male default?”

Dallas might be a drug-dealing skateboard punk rocker right now, but at heart he was an American, at heart he was a normal straight boy. He’d cover all his tattoos with a suit at his Texas wedding. Paul wouldn’t even be invited. Paul was repulsive, apart from the human flow of life; Paul was sitting alone outside waiting for a ride that would never come.

Paul is accustomed to these reactions, these ministrations; his body is public property, his face a test.

How could straight people, for instance, have real friends when their entire lives were an inhabitation of a myth?

Dykes were so cool. What could be more punk than being a dyke? What better way to say fuck you to the Man?

This was a strange experience for him, for whom all were prey, and he located the feeling in his new body. He was now having girl-feelings. Weird.

Men and women alike confounded Paul; they were so rule-bound. Straight people seemed confused by each other, so anxious to find camaraderie within their gender, so startled by differences between their bodies, always pinning explanations for the inevitable gulf between humans on chromosomes.