2001-04-22 - 10:39 p.m.
Ice-Breaker

Ice-Breaker

J.C. had not yet met one of my dearest friends. I've known Lorraine for a decade. We met because of--but not through, it’s a long story--my ex, Matt and have been close ever since. Lorraine is deaf; she lip-reads so fantastically well (even, I might add, while drunkenly conversing with drunk folks) that you have trouble believing she’s deaf at first. She’s had a hard life in all kinds of ways, including a couple different health problems, one of which required surgery this winter, from which Lorraine has finally convalesced.

Lorraine and Matt had a falling-out about a year-and-a-half ago, a rupture which also strained her friendship with me. Sadly, we were not as close there for a while, but recently we have reconnected. It saddens me that she and Matt won’t talk through the old conflict, but I’m glad she and I have regained our former closeness.

Many of these factors combined to prevent and postpone an introduction to J.C.; they’ve been hearing about each other from me forever, and finally met today when Lorraine came over.

Before I called J.C. to come up from downstairs, Lorraine told me she's getting married! This is great news; she turned 45 last week, has had a string of bad relationships since I've known her, but has never tied the knot before. I'm not especially fond of her boyfriend but he loves and cares about her, undeniably; the fact that he gets on my nerves is far less important than how happy Lorraine is.

Once we'd talked about this good news, I phoned J.C. As Lorraine and I awaited his arrival, I fretted, as I always do when I introduce someone new to her. Would she be able to lip-read his Caribbean accent? Would he be nervous, raise his voice or cover his mouth when speaking to her?

Well, it couldn't have gone better if we'd rehearsed it: J.C. strode in wearing knee-length cut-off jeans and his trademark skimpy white ribbed muscle shirt, plunked himself down here in the living room. He and Lorraine clicked very well, had no trouble understanding each other.

Sure, there were a few lulls in the conversation, but I had no trouble filling those. "Hey J.C.," I piped up, "Do you know how to sew a button on?"

He laughed. "Yes, of course. Don't you?"

I snorted. "Yeah, right. I haven't got a clue. A couple of my dress shirts are missing the top button, eh? Could you do me the favor?"

J.C. said sure. Said he couldn't believe I didn't know how to sew a button on. "Geez," I retorted, "What do you think I am? Some girly-boy....like you?"

I thought the muscly tattoed hunky young man was going to pee his pants.

Lorraine missed some of this rapid-fire back-and-forth, so I repeated the highlights of the exchange to her. (She reads lips incredibly well, but it is difficult for her to follow a conversation involving more than one person.) Then she laughed.

"Yeah," I continued, making sure she could see my lips, "I'm pretty butch eh? I think my messiness is actually my most masculine quality."

They both know me and my slob habits all too well; Lorraine and J.C. could only laughingly agree. Thankfully, neither of them thought to add that this was my only butch trait...

Then for some reason I turned on the TV; oh yeah, it was because J.C. said he was having trouble receiving all the cable channels downstairs. Anyway, then I used the program feature on the remote to turn on the close-captioning. I'd accidentally discovered this function recently: it means Lorraine and I can more equitably watch videos together.

So I was absentmindedly flipping through the TV channels to see which shows were close-captioned. Then all of a sudden, a brainwave.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, looking at Lorraine but with one eye cocked on J.C. to watch his reaction to what I was about to say. "Let's pop in a gay porno and see if it's subtitled, eh?" J.C. nearly bust a gut; Lorraine just sort of rolled her eyes.

"Matter of fact," I said, mock-guiltily, "I don't have to pop one in at all; for some strange reason, there's one already loaded up and ready to go." I pushed 'Play'.

My nineteen-inch screen lit up with a multiracial orgy, right where I'd left off not 2 hours before, stretched out on this very couch. Four or five Latino, black and white men were licking, fucking and sucking each other, a writhing circle of lust.

Disappointingly, no subtitles. J.C. was giggling embarrassedly; Lorraine was ogling the screen, wide-eyed.

I tapped her leg to get her attention. "Um, just so you know...right now none of those guys are saying anything. You're not missing any important dialogue, eh?"

After a couple fervent minutes of this un-subtitled orgy, I turned it off.

"Oh my god," I exclaimed to them both. "I can't wait to write about this in my online journal!"

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