Stay Another Day

by Juno Dawson

I see one guy I used to basically stalk around both Edinburgh and the internet, only now clearly he’s calling the steroid hotline and looks like a freshly shaved testicle.

Well, of course the lock on the family bathroom isn’t working. That would be just too easy, wouldn’t it? Thom said he couldn’t do his morning poo without someone guarding the door, so I’m presently on sentry duty while my boyfriend takes a shit and a shower.

After all these years, it is tiresome, having to turn myself into a comedy routine so straight men can stomach me, but it’s easier. You sort of castrate yourself into the fey eunuch clown so they don’t get scared you’re gonna rape them or something.

Her life is pure drama, mind. If I’d been born a cisgender girl, I often think my life would have been like Kara’s; a non-stop flurry of hand-jobs with neds, stealing mascara from Superdrug, and nail extensions. She is such a hun, and she looks like a Bratz doll, always.

Syd smiles. ‘She was cool. You know what? Transphobia is very middle class. I think people with circumstances like your aunt have bigger things to worry about, don’t you?’ I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it makes a lot of sense.

I don’t really have an answer for him. ‘Aye, but I doubt she’s told our parents that, so maybe do keep it down.’ I know they’re cool with me being gay, but people can be really cunty about bisexuals. All those myths about them being sneaky or promiscuous are very of my parents’ generation. Maybe that’s exactly what his disquiet is; the terror of feeling his privilege slipping away.

Fantasy is free, and also judgement-free, right? Sometimes I think about a muscular, sweaty, but highly problematic builder who catcalled me from a building site. My libido is not politically correct.

Fern’s eyes blaze with fury. She looks possessed. A different demon from the one that lives inside Willow; there’s a real Karen brewing inside her, and one day she will verily ask to speak to the manager.

I didn’t buy that toxic shit in Bridgerton and I don’t buy it now. The whole oh, you don’t want me, I’m so fucked up thing. Meh. It’s so arrogant to think that a girl can’t decide what’s good for her or that she’ll fall blindly in love after one kiss. I shake my head in a slightly pitying way.