Dykette

by Jenny Fran Davis

it was how fuckboys got away with being fuckboys. By being the nice guy, the easygoing guy, they wielded their power, which could also be thought of as their unflappability, instigating more and more mania in those they fucked and fucked over.

She felt it carried Anglo-Saxon drama that was appropriate for the occasion,

“deranged misunderstanding of femme camp”

She felt her muscles stiffen, her smile go slack. She was transforming into a cunt. A mean girl.

Wherever Sasha went—including this trip upstate, even—her alienness was key to her belonging. This was what it had always meant to her, being gay.

This was an imitation ribbon, whereas Sasha’s ribbon was an homage ribbon, a ribbon with a commitment to brand fidelity.

The ribbon was about one’s desire to know—the anxiety around not-knowing, and the sadness of knowing.

Sasha tried to let the envy of Darcy and longing for Jesse flow through her like a river, neither rejecting nor judging the emotion. It was something Faye had once suggested to Jesse, but like most such advice she found it totally useless.