Camp

by Lev A.C. Rosen

I smile and blow on my nails and shake them in the air, wishing they would dry faster. He leans forward and kisses me again on the lips, then the neck. “Stop,” I say, “my nails are still wet.” “So you’d better not touch me,” he says. “But mine are dry.…” He puts his hand on my chest, then runs it down my stomach, and then he pauses, waiting for me to say something. I don’t, and his hands go farther down in my sleeping bag. I gasp as he starts stroking me. I’m already hard—I have been since the moment I heard him take off his shorts. “This is okay?” he whispers. I nod and kiss him again, then stop to frantically blow on my nails. “Relax,” he says. “They’ll dry.” He unzips my sleeping bag and starts kissing down my neck onto my stomach until his mouth finds what it’s looking for and… oh. First blow job. That’s happening now. I look down and just the sight of Hudson doing what he’s doing is enough to almost make me involuntarily end it prematurely, so I look away. I always thought it would be a bit like what I do in the shower when the cabin is empty, but it’s very different from that. Much better. Should I do something, though? Do I put my hand on his head, or does that mean I want him to go deeper? I don’t want him to do anything he doesn’t want to do, so I carefully lay my hand on his head, like I’m patting a dog. No… this is not how it happens in porn. I grab his hair with both my hands. “Ow,” he says, stopping. “Sorry.” He smiles and goes back to it. I let my hands rest ...

nothing is the same. No coming out story is the same as another. And you’re already out, Hudson is out. And gay is different from trans. Gender non-conforming is different from trans. You know that. But what I mean is there’s out and then there’s the sort of out people don’t want you to be. I could know I was a woman in my mind, but not act on it. Hudson can know in his head he’s a guy in nail polish and eyeliner who will kick your ass on the obstacle course and look fabulous doing it. There are different degrees of out… and you need to stick to the ones that are safe. Now, what’s safe changes with where you are, and who you’re with.

I find Hudson backstage, just sort of watching the panic in everyone’s eyes, not sure how to help, and I take him by the hand and I lead him outside, where I kiss him and lie down in the grass. “You have to take the nail polish off,” I say. “Both of us do.” “No way, babe,” he says, like he was expecting this conversation. “I don’t care what my parents think.” I hold his face in my hands. He’s so beautiful. And he’s more beautiful now than he ever was. “I’m glad you don’t care, but you have to. We have to. Otherwise they might not send you back next year.” Hudson looks down at his nails. “But it reminds me of you.” His voice is already shaky with tears. “Of us.” “We don’t need nail polish to remember us, right? We’ll have texting and video chat and I’m going to send you all the musicals on Netflix you should watch, because we need to improve your dramatic education.” He laughs, but only once, and it’s sort of sad. “I feel like, now that I know who I am, or more of who I am, I don’t want to hide it anymore. Such a cliché, right? But…” He holds his hands out, the nail polish glinting. “This is me. Every time I catch a glance of my hands now, I feel, like, this rush, like swinging across the Peanut Butter Pit, or making a goal. Every finger is like a victory, reminding me who I am. That I’m special. So I don’t want to give that up.” I nod and stretch my own hands out, taking one of his. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s that my wearing nail polish doesn’t ma...

CHER. She recorded it for the soundtrack of her movie Mermaids, and it quickly became a huge hit—in fact it was Cher’s first SOLO hit since she’d split with Sonny. It topped the charts all over the world, and it’s OBVIOUS WHY: IT’S CHER! Not much has changed in the arrangement since the original; it’s just a GREAT SONG, and CHER IS A GODDESS. The perfect combination!

CHER is a goddess, yes! However, “The Shoop, Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)”, was NOT her first hit after divorcing Sonny. Though not a chart-topper, her first dance hit, “Take Me Home” was a hit, but the resurgence of CHER as a solo artist (post Sonny), began with “I Found Someone”, then ALL of the charted hits off of “Heart of Stone”, including “If I Could Turn Back Time”, “Just Like Jesse James”, “Heart of Stone” and her duet with Peter Cetera, “After All”, from the Cybil Shepherd film, “Chances Are”…