Overheard

Today was apparently Guy Day at my coffee shop; usually the place is primarily staffed by small cute girls with streaky hair, but this time there was nobody there but New Gay Guy and Not-Quite-As-New Straight Guy.

New Gay Guy has never said a word to me beyond "What can I get you?" and "That'll be $3.41," but he's got that kind of personal style that says, "It's important to me that everybody should be able to tell I'm gay with a single glance." You don't see a lot of that in Bovine Middle America. It's kind of cute. I'm trying not to do that slasher thing where I stare at him as if he were a character.

Last time he worked there, he was carrying on a very animated conversation with a male customer, which I guess is who Straight Guy is talking about.

Straight Guy: "Was that your guy friend you were talking to the other day?"

Gay Guy: "Yeah."

Straight Guy: "Huh." He seems to have expected Gay Guy to deny it, and now he flounders around a bit, like he doesn't know what to say next. Then he says, "How long have you two been talkin'?"

Gay Guy: "About a month."

Straight Guy (sounding completely sincere): "Wow."

Gay Guy: "What?"

Straight Guy (again sounding completely sincere): "That's a long time."

Gay Guy: "These days, I guess it is."

Smut pet peeve: First times that aren't.

High on my list of unpleasant story surprises is the one where you're going along, thinking you're reading a first-time story, and then you hit a line like this:

"They'd been fooling around since fourth year, of course, but they'd never done this."

Or something like this:

" 'C'mere,' he said. 'It's been days. I've been going nuts.' "

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