Let Down Your Hair Read Online Free Page B

aside and slunk to the toilets to pull myself together. Shortly after I’d locked myself into a cubicle, two sets of stilettos clattered in, and I recognized the voices of Caitlin and Kayla.
    “Did you see Sumeet? He was almost flirting with her!”
    “Yeah, but guys love that dyke stuff,” said Caitlin, unzipping her handbag. “She probably reminds him of lesbian porn.”
    I heard the click of makeup containers being opened and shut.
    “So is she a dyke, or just a femmo?” said Kayla.
    “God, she must be a dyke. I mean, seriously, check out the ugly glasses and the butchmeister haircut. Is she in the army, or what?”
    It was at this point that I realized they were talking about me. I sank fully clothed onto the lid of the toilet, their words hitting my stomach like fists.
    “And the clothes! My God, where do you even find clothes like that?”
    “Some dyke shop. Made extra baggy for feral pubes and leg hair.”
    Andrea would have marched out and mowed them down, but I curled into a ball, not wanting to listen, but unable to stop. Jess talked to me constantly about the people at this party: what had she said to them about me? Was I a circus freak she’d plucked from her “femmo” class for her normal friends to laugh at? Was everyone who looked at me sniggering at the hairy dyke loser in bad clothes who didn’t know a single pop song?
    By the time Caitlin and Kayla left the bathroom, tears were streaming down my face. I smeared them on my sleeve and crept out to the mirror. Was I ugly? Did I look like a lesbian? What was so bad about my clothes? I stared into the glass for a good five minutes, and realized I had utterly no idea.
    The loud, discordant karaoke bar was suddenly too much to bear. Head down and shoulders hunched, I ducked into Room 4 to thank Jess and say goodbye. She was back on the couch with Kurt. I cowered in the shadows, waiting for her to disengage, but the kissing and groping went on and on and on. I gave up and fled the place, scuttling through the streets and cringing every time someone looked at me. My bus pulled away as I was crossing the road, so I decided to buy a newspaper to screen out the contemptuous world.
    As I walked to the counter of the convenience store, my gaze strayed over a glossy magazine. A pop star Sumeet and Jess had mentioned was featured on the cover. I couldn’t bring myself to buy a copy, but when the next bus arrived, I took my broadsheet newspaper to the back seat and turned to the Entertainment and Fashion sections that Andrea always threw out. I threw them out myself before I got home, but only after I’d read them cover to cover.
    Four days later, I saved Jess a seat in Gender Politics, but she didn’t turn up. I rang her when I got home, and she told me she’d withdrawn from the subject.
    “It just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be,” she said, her voice stiff and cool.
    A shadow of foreboding crept over me. “What did you think it was going to be?”
    “I thought it would be about women being strong and doing what they want, but it wasn’t that at all. Mostly it was just preaching.”
    “Preaching?”
    “You know, about how there aren’t enough women in politics, and whatever. I mean, maybe women don’t want to be in politics.”
    Part of me wanted to make her see why politics mattered, and how much she owed feminism, but another, deeper part sensed it was too late. The note of admiration had vanished from her voice; the welcome mat had been snatched from the doorstep.
    “I’m sorry I left your birthday party without saying goodbye,” I said. “I was feeling sick, and you were busy with Kurt, so I—”
    “You really don’t know how to have fun, do you?” snapped Jess.
    I froze, shocked and stung.
    “I mean, OK, so you’re a feminist ,” she went on, with a sneer in her voice, “but that doesn’t mean you’re better than everyone else.”
    My face went numb. “I never said I was better than everyone else.”
    “You don’t