Page 16 of Nearly Roadkill: Queer Love on the Run

Computer: 386

Hobbies: rafting

Occupation: flowers

Quote: Love the one you’re with

Private Message to Scratch

Winc: ::laughing:: I think I’m having fun with MizMaid! I like hir!

Scratch: Me too! Now ze’s “challenging” me! Muhahaha.

MizMaid: Yes, Win is very busy, aren’t we?

Winc: ::blushing:: You could say that, MizMaid, yes.

Scratch: Ah, brave MizMaid’s confessed.

You call her Win? Hmm. I call her Winc.

MizMaid: Scratch, how do you know Win is a she?

Winc: ::grinning:: MizMaid, right!

Scratch: Well, MizMaid, she’s fairly clever. That’s one clue. And in this room that’s what you get to be. A She for a day.

MizMaid: Non, ma chérie, you get to be you.

Private Message to Winc

Scratch: I think your Maid’s a guy, tho. Don’t you?

Winc: Yup. I asked her about favorite books. She list=ed dead white boy authors all.

Scratch: All? Shew-w-w. She appears to be holding court right now. Bet s/he’s over 50.

Winc: ::sadly:: I think so… how do they do that?

Scratch: “They?”

Winc: ::muttering:: men, grabbing center stage.

Scratch: I dunno, I thought it was pretty graceful.

Winc: Funny, I didn’t think it was graceful. Ze prefaced going back on to the main screen with “Watch this,” then took over.

Scratch: Huh. You are so hard on men sometimes. Do you realize when you’re being a “straight girl” that you’re not as hard on them? ::ducking::

Winc: ::eyes going wide::

Scratch: Uh huh.

Winc: That is weird. True. And weird.

Scratch: But you’re neutral tonight, aren’t you? Actually, what are you?

Winc: I have no idea.

MizMaid: Win, read Scratch’s profile, you’ll like it.

Winc: Nice profile there, Scratch.

Private Message to Scratch

Scratch: Heehee. ::blush:: you know, I’m playing darling little boy to Maid’s benevolent mother. Happens every time. Feel embarrassed.

Winc: How do you know Maid’s not playing you as darling little gay girl?

Scratch: Whoa.

Winc: Uh huh.

You have left “The Women’s Room.”

END SCRATCH JOURNAL ENTRY

PERSONAL LOG, JABBATHEHUT

I have issued a warning, as I do from time to time, to my young, energetic friend. Perhaps he will actually retain the thread of this conversation.

To: Toobe

From: Jabbathehut

Subj: Patterns

I wanted to make you aware of a stirring, my friend. Certain elements of the police persuasion are wending their way towards some truths. I have no faith in their detective powers, nor their ability to interpret.

But, they are starting to realize that many of us are not what we appear.

All this means they will be making quite a show of those who masquerade. You, of course, will not be so silly as to lose any bypasses and lead them to your lair.

In short, do not for a moment sign on casually without bypass codes; even if these detectives don’t catch any aberrations, their computers automatically will.

—J.

To: Jabbathehut

From: Toobe

Subj: Whoa!

What’s the big deal? So what if we sign on as different people? Jesus, don’t they have anything better to do?

—T.

To: Toobe

From: Jabbathehut

Subj: Patterns

They’re ostensibly after those who break laws in cyberspace, and ostensibly crimes directed towards children.

But you’ll learn that threats to children are always the sword held up as the first weapon of invasion.

No, they’re after much bigger fish, and many of us will get caught in the net, purely by accident, not by design.

They won’t ask questions. They’ll simply arrest people.

—J.

To: Jabbathehut

From: Toobe

Subj: Goofy patterns

I’ve never seen you so ominus, however you spell it. But I think I could take your warning much easier if I could get around like you do. How the heck did you intercept those memos?

—T.

To: Toobe

From: Jabbathehut

Subj: Not so fast, Bub

(May I urge you to use your spellcheck tool?) All I can tell you is that you, like Dorothy, have had the power all along. But unless you know how to cover your tracks, don’t go anywhere you can’t immediately get out of.

Fighting God,

—J.

To: Jabbathehut

From: Toobe

Subj: Paranoid

Hey, don’t worry. I wouldn’t. Talk to you soon.

—T.

END JABBA PERSONAL LOG

TOOBE ENTRY

I just did a bunch of memos with Jabba about this police thing and assured her everything was cool.

Then I promptly turned around and started messing around with Jabba’s whole package of bypasses.

What’s wrong with me? I started charting her movements, working up to cracking just about every area on the Net.

It was so much fun! There were Pentagon files, phone networks, universities, the works.

But did I stop there? Nope. One simple little code I had completely overlooked turned out to be this magic lamp, and boom!

I was into the database of ACI, Allied Consumer Industries.

Then into some police bulletin board. And that’s where I acted like some addict going through a dumpster.

I was just soaring around that place, reading memos and shit.

Leaving a trail that might as well have said, Go find Toobe, he lives right there, and he works right here, and his friends are A-Z, and his dad does this, and everything except, thank gawd, my connection with Jabba.

Of course she has a shield that protects her from such mistakes.

But my connection to everyone else; I handed it all over on a fucking platter. Fuck fuck fucking fuck.

END TOOBE ENTRY

WINC JOURNAL ENTRY

To: Winc

From: Scratch

Subj: Talking

I have been thinking about you a lot. Thinking and reading Gertrude Stein if you want to know you know. You know. Thinking when there is no thinking I think of you. Thinking about talking to you makes me want. Want to meet real time to ask questions as real as we can get I mean online.

A room has been created that is I have created this room. This room is called “Woods” to which you might go.

—S.

Online Host

*** You are in room “Woods” ***

Scratch: ::Soft carpet of needles, sunlight filtering through trees::

Winc: ::kicking the leaves ahead of me as I walk:: ::inhaling pine scent from the forest… happy::

Scratch: OK, so my mind’s been spinning. I gotta know.

Winc: ::settling down into a large pile of leaves, listening::

Scratch: I have gone a lot into the male and female roles, for lack of a better model. If you were being a girl, I stressed a lot of girl stuff. In you I mean. And yet you refer to a “third space,”…

Winc: Well, actually, I read that someplace.

Scratch: OK. I realized I *have* made a third space, for many people, not just you. And I wonder if I’ve made the girl space too big, gone too far the other way I mean.

Winc: ::listening::

Scratch: If you’re a guy, maybe you feel rejected that way. That part of you. When we’re online, that third space seems huge, you and I both are all things. Like when I call you dude, it’s not something I usually call girls.

Winc: Yes, I make that kind of space for you, too. Third, fourth, fifth… I dunno

Scratch: Ahhh. Point is: I don’t want you to repress any of that! I mean, third space should be everything and nothing, as they say.

Winc: ::letting my fingers trail along the edges of a dead leaf… listening::

Scratch: Maybe you feel you have to “bring it down,” restrain yourself? Like maybe you think I wouldn’t like you as a boy? Because I’m a het man or a lesbian?

Winc: ::pulling my knees up beneath my chin, thinking:: I agree with you that the space we share, like right now, is very much “third” space… genderless as it can be… where each of us is talking.

Scratch: ::listening, watching you::

Winc: Yet when it comes to love, romance, sex, perhaps a little S/M… ::breaking leaf into little bits:: umm… This is hard…

Scratch: Yes, go on… I’m with you.

Winc: ::laughing:: All my life I never *really* fit into “girl” or “boy.” Always felt outside, y’know?

Scratch: ::Chewing on blade of grass, nodding::

Winc: For so long, I’ve *wanted* to be just one or the other, some gender I can hang with full-time, but now that I *can* be whatever, here online…

Scratch: ::gently:: Let me guess… why bother choosing?

Winc: ::chewing lip, nodding:: Exactly. I don’t want to get stuck in *any* of this, don’t want to freeze into either. Don’t want to lose any sense of myself as boy or…

Scratch: So you *are*—

Winc: Wait a minute. ::curling toes inside my boot::

Scratch: ::going quiet, looking up at you, soft eyes::

Winc: ::looking back, grateful:: You’re still trying to find out what I “really” am, but I’m *being* who I really am! Right now. We’re talking about all of us being boy and girl inside, not what we live as in the so-called real world.

Scratch: Right, sorry.

Winc: But at the risk of breaking out into song, I enjoy being a girl.

Scratch: ::softly:: What is boy? What is girl? Heehee.

Winc: Right, good point, but I’m just getting into exploring something, a softer strength, and that’s *amazing* to me.

Scratch: Yes. You mean not just the sex of girl, but a feminine kind of girl?

Winc: Yes. ::softly:: I always thought I was too tall, awkward to be feminine that it’d be really, really stupid. ::looking off into the forest::

Scratch: Wow. I just realized that if you really are a girl, that sentence would fit. And if you really are a boy, it would, too.

Winc: ::shrugging:: Yeah…

Scratch: OK. See, what really gets me with these boxes is that people might miss out on how wonderful you are…

Winc: ::blushing::

Scratch: … because of the *packaging*. We all miss each other that way.

Winc: ::gently:: You can’t prevent that.

Scratch: I feel stuck in my real-life persona, but I love exploring variations. It’s so heady. I never got to be this particular form of human until now, online.

Winc: You mean, you’re a guy, but you’re being a particular kind of guy for once? Or you’re a girl, and you’re being a particular kind of girl right now?

Scratch: Yes! I can be androgynous, but I’m exploring something more specific.

Winc: ::looking up at you, questioning::