lost in TRANSlation

It’s 3pm on a Thursday, roughly 88 degrees outside, the air conditioning is busted, the server station where I’m rolling silverware is directly next to the pizza oven and I’m starting to sweat through my shirt. I’m debating how believable it would be for me to fake a heat stroke so I can get out of here and retreat to my 68 degree apartment.

Mohawk Bend, my current place of employment, is a gastro pub in Echo Park on the intersection of Sunset and Mohawk, where Sunset starts to bend. Clever, I know. The building was once a movie theater. What used to be the lobby now houses the bar and the open concept kitchen. What used to be the theater is now the main dining room. The advantage of this being a beautiful historical aesthetic, the disadvantage being two ghosts and constant technical issues. The two might be connected, but I can’t prove that.

The point is, the building is hot as balls, it’s slower than fuck and I’d rather be at home. I’m busting my ass through as much side work as I can so the moment I’m told I can leave there will be a Sean shaped hole in the wall. 

“Um, Sean?” I turn to find my manager with the quiet voice and the bangs who’s name I can’t remember. “Sorry – um… It’s just –”

“It’s slow, I know. It’s probably because it’s a thousand fucking degrees and we have both of the pizza ovens burning for absolutely no reason. I have, like, absolutely no problem going home.” I say, while I silently thank whatever god there is for granting me this reprieve.

“Um – actually…” Bangs stutters through her sentence. She avoids eye contact with me like she’s afraid of me or something.

Jesus, spit it the fuck out.  

“What’s happening? Do you need me to, like, refill something?” I say, probably too quickly because I’m impatient, and over caffeinated.

“No. It’s just that… well we sat you.” Bangs barely squeaks out, “I’m sorry!” 

I let out the overdramatic groan of an overgrown child, “oh fuck me!” I look back toward the dining room and sure enough, there’s a man sitting at table 34. One guy. Alone. Great. I look down at Bangs with no regard for her feelings and say, “wow you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you? You want me to suffer. You are a sadist. You are Kathy Bates in Misery. I have no novel to write for you! I don’t know why you’re keeping me here!” 

I know I’m being irrational. I know I’m being overdramatic. I know it’s just a table. It’s literally my job. They pay me to do this. It’s not my fault I don’t want to do it.

“I– I’m sorry.” Bangs apologizes to me for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I sigh, and show no signs of sympathy on my face. Honestly she should feel bad.

“It’s fine.”

I walk off with an attitude toward the bar. I grab a water glass and a carafe for my one-top. Ricardo, the bartender on duty, nods at me to get my attention.

“You finally got sat?” He asks. Ricardo is a slim tattooed forty-five year old hipster who is somehow always busy, but also somehow never doing anything at all. He has an appreciation for sarcasm and bad attitudes, so we tend to see eye to eye.

“Yeah, a one top.” I manage a sarcastic smile. Ricardo he fake gags, showing his sympathy for my situation. 

“Here, you’ll need this,” he passes me a chilled shot of tequila that I knock back without question.

“You’re a saint.”

“No. You are.”

“You’re right,” I flash him a smile and scamper off. 

As I approach the table, I take a moment to put myself into a ‘customer service’ mindset. Once I feel like I’m in a neutral enough place I turn to face my guest.

“Hi! I’m –,” I stutter because I’m in shock. When I turned I was met with the most gorgeous blue eyes I’d ever seen. 

The man sitting at the table looks straight out of a surfing magazine. A gay one. He has sandy blonde hair pulled back into a small loose bun, a few hairs casually framing his sun kissed face. He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin muscle tank showing off his muscular, tan arms and shoulders. His piercing blue eyes capture and hold my attention for a little bit too long.

“You’re…” he reminds me I was in mid sentence and I shake myself back to reality.

“I’m Sean! Sorry I– my mind shut down for a second,” I try to sound like I’m not totally mesmerized by this man’s beauty. He laughs, putting me at enough ease to pour him a water.

“No, it’s totally okay, that happens to me all the time.” He looks into my eyes and smiles. I feel my heart melt. He looks like if Ryan Kwanten, Chase Crawford, and Brad Pitt had a baby and that baby lived in Venice Beach and was trying to launch an app that tracked whale migrations. 

“How’s your day been?” I lean against the chair across from him, settling in.

“It’s been good! I just got into town, and I’m staying around the corner.”

“That’s cool, what’re you in town for?”

“I teach scuba diving.” Of course you do. “Specifically to people with PTSD.” Oh my god. Do I have ovaries? Because they’re exploding.

“Oh my gosh, that’s like, so cool,” I say with the most genuine tone I’ve used all day. I sound like an idiot and I don’t care.

“Yeah thanks, I’m in town because I’m leaving for Catalina tomorrow with a group of veterans.”

“Ones with PTSD?”

“Yeah, exactly.” 

“Wow, aren’t you just perfect,” I say in absolute awe. Our eye contact holds for a bit longer than I want it to, and then I remember I’m there for a reason, “can I get you anything else to drink other than water?” 

“Yeah, I think the weather calls for a margarita, what do you think?” He smirks up at me from the menu. 

“I agree,” I’m eighty percent sure I’m blushing, “you want salt?”

“Oh no. Tajin please.”

A man after my heart.

“Period.” I start to walk away –

“I’m actually ready to order too.” 

“Amazing.” I listen to Scuba Diver’s order while I stare into his beautiful blue eyes. They literally sparkle. His eyes have sparkles in them, that’s crazy. Sprinkled in his blue-green-aqua irises are actual sparkles. How do you get sparkles in your eyes? 

“What was your name?” I ask after I wrote down Scuba Diver’s order of soba noodles with vegan chicken.

“Caleb,” he says with a, dare I say, flirtatious smile , “and you’re Sean?” Chemicals react in my brain when he says this. His smile and his voice and his eye contact. There’s more happening here than just an introduction. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a science class but I think this is chemistry.

“That’s me.” I say before skipping off to put in his order.

I do my best to keep a polite distance from my lone guest for the rest of his experience. I check on him two more times, both times staying a little longer than I normally would. Making a joke or two, lean causally against a chair. I touched his shoulder once to no objection, and I must say I was impressed with what I felt.

Once Caleb had finished two margaritas and a bowl of soba noodles, he handed me a Capital One Venture card and asked me to close him out. I return with his card and receipt in hand and set it down on the table with a disappointed look on my face.

“Now that you’re leaving, what am I going to do?” I say.

“I know, you’re going to be bored out of your mind.” Caleb says with a smirk, his face looking toward his receipt, “ya know if you’re not busy, message me on IG. I have a little time before I leave for Catalina.” All the blood rushed to my face, and the wind knocked out of my lungs. But I leave him with a simple:

“Okay, sure.”

***

Four hours pass and I’m back at home. I’m sitting at my kitchen island scrolling through Caleb’s Instagram. It’s giving free spirited California boy. He has a few pictures with a labradoodle named Shaggy. Several pictures of him on a boat, more of him on the beach. Sure, some of these are thirst traps and vanity posts. The man has an amazing body, I don’t blame him for showing it off. Besides, it’s basically his whole job to be naked in the ocean so he also has that excuse. 

I debate for a couple minutes about how long is the appropriate amount of time to wait before sending him a message. Since he’s going to be leaving to go to Catalina soon I decide that I’m not going to play a silly game with myself. I should just message him. 

With a few clicks I’m in his DMs and shoot a little: “Hey! Nice meeting you today!”

He messages back almost immediately: “Yeah! So good meeting you too! Love that I got to have lunch with such a cutie!”

Okay so he’s just going in.

“Haha! Thanks, I don’t think I’ve flirted with a table that much in a while” I type back.

“I hope not! Do you think I’ll be able to see you before I’m off to Catalina?”

“When do you leave?”

“Saturday morning.” So two days. Tomorrow’s Friday, and it would be perfect to meet up, grab a drink, then grab his dick.

“What’re you doing tomorrow night?” I ask.

“You, I hope.” He says with zero hesitation. 

Fuck.

I’m hard.

“We can make that work :)” I type, “Honestly I wanted to jump on your dick the moment I saw you.” I hit send but almost immediately regret being that aggressive. But I push that feeling out of my mind as fast as I can, he’s only here for so long, it’s fine.

“Haha, well you’ll have a lot to choose from ;)” 

What?

A lot to choose from? He has more than one dick? I sit back in my chair with a furrowed brow and a slack jaw. Very few moments go by before I get my answer in the form of a picture. A picture is worth a thousand words, and while that may be true, there are only two that are important about this one: strap on.

Laid out on Caleb’s bed are eight or nine dildos of varying shapes, sizes and colors.

Caleb writes; “Normally I top with women and bottom with men, but I’d love to top you.”

My boner is gone. The blood has drained from my face and I let out an audible, “ohhhh, yeah. Sure.” He’s trans. This makes total sense. 

With a few taps on my phone I am back on Caleb’s Instagram profile. I don’t have to scroll far before I find photos documenting his journey through surgeries, and hormone therapy, all with that same beautiful smile I saw at the restaurant. He literally gave me every hint that he was trans and I just didn’t look hard enough. I shouldn’t be shocked at all right now.

Realizing that I left him on ‘seen’ and worried that he’ll feel bad I send him a quick; “oh damn,” while I decide what I should do.

The issue is; I was genuinely attracted to him earlier, but as soon as I knew he had a vagina all of that went out the window. Am I a bad person? Am I unevolved? Would a Gen Z lecture me about being more open minded? 

Here’s the thing; I’ve had sex with a woman before, and it was not for me. I have no desire to do it again. But Caleb is not a woman. He’s a sexy ass man. With a vagina. Maybe I could make that work? Maybe if we just kiss and nothing else? 

No.

If there’s a pussy in the room I don’t think I could do it. No offense to the female community, or anyone who prefers muff. It’s just not for me. I think the literal reaction my body had to finding out that Caleb has a vagina says more about this situation than anything else. I’m not closed minded, I'm just a horrible person who loves cock. 

How do I phrase that to this man I’ve just led into thinking he’s going to strap on his best johnson and go to town on me tomorrow night? I think to myself for a couple minutes before sending:

“Message me tomorrow and we’ll figure something out!” I hit send knowing full well that Caleb, trans or not, is just like every other hot guy I’ve met in Los Angeles. He’s flaky as fuck. Unless I show up to his apartment with my hole spread and ready for him to devour, I will never hear from him again.

“For sure! For sure!” Caleb writes back.

Farewell fellow traveler.