So this heterosexual woman and that homosexual man figured out how to spend time together outside work but after awhile we wanted to get out his bedroom! We did hang in there for hours, talking. He had a mattress on the floor which so many Scorpios do and though I was initially uncomfortable he was not so I eventually relaxed and it was about 90% not weird for me.

But that aside, we did want to leave the bedroom which proved to be another challenge.

Though Ben was from every big city in this country, we lived in the fairly conservative desert and being as it was 25 years ago there was really only one place we could show up together where we would not make everyone uncomfortable. Thank God for those lesbians!!

A group of lesbians opened a restaurant on the main drag there and anyone was welcome. Well, I don’t know about homophobes. But an Italian girl and a half black, half white gay man could go there just fine and we became regulars at this restaurant.

And it was good. The gals in there loved me and there was a gay cook who hot for Ben so we were really treated well, like Kings! And we were both coming out of periods that were emotionally catastrophic so this was really nice. We’d found a place of respite that served us beer cheese soup and fried potatoes and we were expressly grateful. Because we discussed this all the time.

We both wanted to expand our sphere but we already knew I went over like a lead balloon with his gay men and I didn’t think he’d fare much better with my friends.

Not that my friends were homophobic. I have never been around homophobes, I think they are freaks. But Ben was authentically odd and I just imagined he’d suffer the same fate I did when I met his people because he was just so different from anyone else I knew.

So you see the Venus Saturn here. No one really wanted us to be together. It jarred people but we were finding a way. Barely.

I can’t stress this enough. Ben and I would see each other at work and talk on the phone. We’d hit this restaurant and take our time but inevitably we would have to leave, walk outside and look at each other…

“I wish there were somewhere we could go…”

But there never was and it made us sad.

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