My sister is having a party, can we take a picture?
Saturday November 26th 2005 evening saw me having dinner with a female friend at a restaurant on Chapel Street in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra. It was a nice italian place, and on this occasion, it was full of people. The staff were really busy so we had to wave them down a few times for various things, but otherwise we enjoyed the meal.
After that, we had a couple of hours to kill before we were going to head to Abode nightclub for one of their monthly parties. Without any specific plans, we wandered up Chapel Street before going up a set of stairs beside a cafe to find a delightfully nice and cosy bar which we had no idea existed. The decor and lighting was very chilled out with relaxing music in the background.
So my friend and I sat around there having drinks, chatting, and occasionally watching the people on the street below as they walked past. After a while we started touching each other. Nothing naughty or indecent: a caress on the shoulders, on the small of the back, a hand on fishnetted thighs, a finger running up a leg or an arm. Perfectly reasonable behaviour for a couple enjoying each other's company.
The bar had managed to fill up with clientele: a semi professional crowd ranging from mid 20's onwards, in nice clothes and dress. I expected most of them to be corporate employees of some sort or another.
I said to my friend that we were probably attracting all sorts of attention. Two definitively femme girls, legs on lap, touching and caressing in an otherwise straight respectable bar, oblivious to anyone else. One, a very tall asian girl, and the other, a european looking girl with fine chiseled features. We did glance around from time to time to check out the crowd, but otherwise we didn't pay them much attention.
Of course, if anyone managed to pick me out, that would have confused them even more. I can just imagine them thinking: "so, is the tranny straight or gay?", "isn't she dressed up to try to attract men? why is she hitting on a girl?", and similarly: "so, is that girl straight or gay?", "she's hitting on a guy who's a girl, that's so confusing".
I love stirring.
Of course, if you reject the mainstream notions of gender and sexuality being a binary divide, then it all makes sense.
During a break in our conversation, a couple of guys came up to us and one of them started talking. " ... My sister's having a party here, but not all her friends turned up. Do you mind if we take a photo of you's to make it seem like there's lots of people?" We were wary about this, since his story sounded fake, but if it was genuine, we thought, okay, why not? So we agreed.
Then he got his friend to take a photo of him, my friend, and I together. At this point, I stopped him and asked him:
Cassie: "Where's your sister?"
Guy: "Oh, she's downstairs."
Cassie: "Bring your sister up."
Guy: "Can we take a photo?"
Cassie: "Yeah, sure, bring her up first and we'll take one together."
Guy: "Oh, can we take one now first, and another one with my sister later?"
Cassie: "Bring her up first, so she can be in the photo."
Guy: "Oh, okay, I'll go get her. Are you girls going to stay here?"
Cassie: "Yeah, no problem. We'll wait."
So he wandered off somewhere.
We didn't see him again.
After a while more, we had to head off anyway. We looked around to say bye to him, but couldn't find him. When we were downstairs, there was definitely not any sort of party going on.
*giggles*
All credit to him for his daring and bravery though. Its certainly a good tale and a good laugh, for both sides.
So, after that, we went to another friends house to meet up and then headed to Abode for clubbing.