It’s right, romantically

Black Butch Representation in dayliGht, by Roya Marsh.

REPRESENTATION MATTERS. I was eight years old the first time I saw a representation of someone like me. It was 1996, when Queen Latifah made her big-screen debut as Cleopatra “Cleo” Sims in F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off. It meant everything to me to see a Black woman living her life openly gay; openly masc presenting; with cornrows, baggy jeans, plaid shirts, and big breasts. I was twenty-eight years old when Lena Waithe became the first African American woman to take home an Emmy award for her work on Aziz Ansari’s Master of None. The episode for which she won the award chronicles the coming-out story of Waithe’s character, Denise. These are representations that have buoyed and emboldened me.

I knew who I was and who I was going to be well before I was assaulted. I was eight years old when I knew I was going to love women romantically. Even at that age I knew what desire looked like. The youngest of eight children, I was hypersexualized by proximity. Sex was everywhere. Yet, my exposure to sex was limited to heteronormative behaviors and depictions.

I knew I was “different.” My family knew I was “different.” But homosexuality wasn’t something that was prevalent, much less discussed, in my family. Anything outside the heteronorm was passed off as “funny.” My sexuality was either completely disregarded or couched in homophobic epithets. From the moment I was able to dress myself, I wore windbreakers and superhero T-shirts. Dresses, barrettes, and the like were never my thing, but I wasn’t in charge of my hair just yet. In overalls, I was “tomboy” passing.

Experiencing an assault in my childhood made me vulnerable to assault in my teenage years. Later, seeking support, I found brick walls instead. To this day, I’m met with ignorance when I raise the subject with those closest to me. Some folks just can’t fathom any hetero-predator wanting a girl like me. Some folks just can’t fathom a woman like me having sex appeal to a man eager to conquer. Most days my femininity is catcalled into existence. I’m considered just woman enough—enough to fuck into a condition the world will accept. I know representation isn’t a cure, but it’s a start. I fear violence against my community will continue to go unabated unless we continue to tell our stories and fight for a wider understanding of the full spectrum of sexuality and gender. When I see Cleo, I see myself—even if I also see a level of toxic masculinity and an objectification of women in her character, that I struggle against. In Cleo, I see wit. I see strength. I see pride (to a fault). And I see a woman with a drive to become utterly unfuckwithable. When I see Denise, I see myself. I see a woman living her best lesbian life; dealing with the ebb and flow of others’ perceptions.

she opens her door to see me, perfectly on time, and i smile and offer her the book i’ve been nervously fingering. “the persistent desire? a femme-butch…—oh! this is about people like you, right?” people like me, and maybe people like her, because she doesn’t kiss me like straight women kiss me. and then as we walk down her building’s stairs: “forgive me for being a little forward, but…unless you royally slip up, honey, i intend on letting you come home with me tonight,” she says, squeezing my arm. i laugh and tell her i like my women a little forward and i say thank you, ma’am, i’d be honored, and she laughs at what she calls my lover worship, and i start to think she may be fem after all. “well see, honey, the reason i tell you this is because…well, i don’t know what a woman like you needs to bring if you’re going to sleep with someone,” she says not patronizingly, but with a sweet tenderness. still, i hesitate, then: “that depends, um, if you want it like you’re with a man, i’ll need to swing by my apartment first.” i, like almost always, am packing, but my packer is blue and green… there’s a comfortable silence, i think, while she chooses her words carefully, and she stops us on the landing to wrap her arms around my shoulders and look at my crotch, my chest, my lips, my eyes. “and what if i want it like i’m with you?” 

she turns the key in the lock and i hesitate at the threshold and she laughs and kisses me, in the doorway for anyone to see—i know in a half lit hallway i probably pass, but still, my adrenaline spikes—and she invites me in: “and when do you think you royally slipped up, hm?”

i don’t know what straight men do when she first brings them home with the promise of sex, but from what she tells me, apparently it’s not asking where to she’d like me to put my shoes—she wants them on the mat—and i can’t help but wonder if the men she normally ends up with have no respect if they come into an indian woman’s home and leave their shoes on.

she snuggles up under my arm, head on my chest, and reads out loud “When She Wears A Tie For Me” from her present, her new book, all the while absentmindedly—or perhaps very intentionally—twisting my tie between her fingers while i hold the book open. she reads with such reverence, like she’s praying for the first time in a lover’s church, reading aloud my holy texts with a soft weight, and she runs her hand down the length of my tie into my lap, gently running her fingers over my jeans and i’m rock hard. she finds my packer and squeezes it and i don’t know if she’s forgotten i can’t feel it or if she’s curious or—and this is my belief—she knows that in my own butch way i can feel it. 

and this thought makes me start to cry, silently, so i try to casually prop my chin on my hand to wipe the tears away, but she notices and sits up and she asks the dreaded question: “what’s wrong?” and i look away, so she climbs into my lap and snuggles against me and just lets me cry, starting to kiss my collarbones through my shirts. i tell her that nothing’s wrong, she’s just being too kind, and she says she always knew the hardest women were the most tender, and i have to fight back another wave of emotion at this woman, in my lap, calling me tender, a notion i’ve only read about, but before i can start to cry again she lets her hand drift back to my packer and i’m immediately hard again. i slide my hands down her back to her ass and pull her closer to me as she loosens my tie with her other hand, then gives me one last squeeze before unbuttoning my shirt, slowly at first and then faster as i kiss her neck and she yanks my button down out of my jeans, flips the tie out of the collar so it stays on my neck and pulls the button down off my shoulders, i pull my arms out and she tosses it on the floor and i wince because it’s a nice shirt but then she kisses me and i don’t care about the wrinkles, i shuffle to get out from underneath her and i decide she may well be a fem as she grabs my tie and says “bedroom” into my mouth. and she leads me to her bed and i marvel at her as she lays back and i climb on top of her in my white undershirt, jeans, belt, socks, and tie—normally I’d feel a fool with my tie like that but christine’s words are fresh in my mind as we kiss and she unbuckles my belt, button, and fly, reaches into my jeans as i shift her skirt up. a surge of panic goes through me—she’s never seen a packer before she won’t know to bend it i bet she’s not expecting…blue…—so i quickly reach into my pants and awkwardly bend it erect, nuzzle into her neck to hide my mortified flush, and she seems to sense something’s wrong because she moves her arms up to hold my waist and holds us both still and i fight back tears again, she doesn’t say anything, just holds me while i collect myself and when i kiss her neck she takes the signal that she can move again and i am eternally grateful that she doesn’t ask. instead i ask her what she wants, and she laughs, says she wants to have sex, and i tell her i know, that’s what i’m asking, and she pauses and looks confused, so i sit up on her hips so we can see each other’s faces. she sees my packer and doesn’t make a face at the color or the shape or the way it’s clearly not my flesh and blood, she blushes. my god, she blushes, and when she props herself up on her elbows and makes eye contact with me, biting her lip not with a simple want to be fucked but an honest love, i feel more seen and more desired than i ever have before. i tell her i just needed to know what kind of touching she liked first, if any, if she wanted me to go down on her or finger her or finger fuck her, and as i keep talking i realize i’m not making anything clearer, so i ask how she typically has sex, and she says “the normal way, or the normal straight way, i suppose,” and as she explains i find myself more and more disappointed in men. she tells me that she’s never been fingered, save by herself, and never been eaten out, and she wants me to use my best judgement. i’m a fairly good judge at how a woman wants to be touched, and i tell her to keep me updated—another concept she’s not familiar with, constant input and consent—and i lean over her again, sliding my hand softly under her panties and start to gently rub her clit, giving pecking kisses all over her neck and chest. she’d later tell me that before she slept with me, the most she’d ever come during sex was twice. we multiplied her record by four.

my three fingers in soft circles above her clit, pressing the skin down so that i’m not touching her yet. this is how she says she masturbates and i want to get her comfortable and safe as she comes for me the first time. slipping my fingers down between her lips, mine slick with lube and hers slick with desire, teaching her what i wish for her pleasure she had already known, easing her back down and then up again. going inside, one and then two, slowly and gently so she can easily get used to me. she asks why i go so slow, and i tell her that she’ll see. we break her record. her legs around my waist, squeezing hard as i rub my fingers across her g spot and thumb against her clit quick and firm. she comes so hard that she forces my two fingers out. she pants like an angel trying to catch her breath and i help her out of her dress and bra and kiss her chest with that lover worship, that hard tenderness she adores. this is for me more than her, i’m gathering strength—borrowing strength. i’m sure her clit appreciates the break that her sweet brown nipples don’t get. i ask if she still wants to try my—and i falter, not knowing to say dick cock strap packer shilo—and she fills in the blank with a soft yes, so i sit up and give it a few hard strokes to spread the lube and warm me up, and ask her to help me get it in a good angle for her—another unfamiliar kindness—and when we settle she says in a panicked rush that i have to be careful, she’s not on the pill, before she remembers, and apologizes. i tell her don’t worry, i’m on the pill, so we’re good. she laughs, and we dance gentle and sweet as she slowly tightens around me i imagine as she did my fingers, digging hers into my shoulders and back as her eyes flutter shut and she comes in moans like she’s never come before. she quietly asks me if i can keep going after i slow to a stop and of course i can, i tell her, i am a woman after all, and i tell her to trust me as i pull her knees to my ribs and use my body weight to push deeper into her, firmer, and she begs me not to touch her clit because she wants me to keep doing this forever, and i want that to, but we discover that she can indeed come without clitoral stimulation, so hard that yet again i am pushed out, and i tell her how i like to end sex: her bare heels pressing into my back and her fingers pulling at my hair as i clean her every crevice with the tip of my tongue, her back arching when i push my tongue inside her, her high pitched whimpers and gasps barely audible through her shaking thighs clamped onto my head when i suck her clit to its eighth, slowest, and longest orgasm of the night, one that starts slowly and grows under my lips until she stops breathing, statue still and statue perfect, frozen in ecstasy until she dissolves into my mouth, and she whimpers as i softly lick it up.