Page 74 of Nearly Roadkill
To:Editor, They/Them magazine
From:D.I. Drew
Subject:Folk heroes
Hi Asa,
It’s scary, disorienting, infuriating, and to my cynical eye, utterly predictable that what Scratch and Winc (and Toobe) feared came to pass. Remember from the well-worn history of this part of the story that the Bureau was issuing warrants for any names they could match to unregistered users. Tracking them down in real life and imposing fines and jail time. And I found in a fast and furious archive between Lt. Budge and his boss that he was getting annoyed at this waste of resources but was beginning to question what the crime actually was. Nonconformity?
Of course it was impossible to match online users with real people. Lt. Budge closed in on our two lovebirds, and it was the moment he called them “perps” that Scratch and Winc became folk heroes. They were, as usual, oblivious!
It was fun to comb through literally hundreds of archives to find their love story instead of just focusing on the sting. Here’s a tasty little exchange where they “discovered” butch and femme. Here I am all progressively polyamorous nonbinary etc but this chat gave me the flutters!
Cheers,
Drew
Scratch journal entry
Got a letter from Winc that led to our next adventure.
From:[email protected]
Subj:Wait’ll you see this!
Scratch,
I was prowling the bulletin boards and found this whole section called Lesbian Boards. *Finally* some intelligent conversation! But that’s not the best part. There’s a message board called Butch/Femme. Have you ever heard of this? I swear, it’s the best thing ever! Look at this message:
To:Brknstck
From:Fembot
Subj:Imitating the dominant paradigm
Dear Brknstck,
Oh fiddlesticks! The lesbian construct of butch/femme is no more an imitation of the “dominant paradigm” than girl/girl sex is an imitation of hetsex. Butches (at least the ones *I* know, and I know quite a few) don’t want to be men, as you intimate in your last posting. Nor do femmes want to “pass for straight.”
You seem to be a good woman, Brknstck. Dear heart, please hear me when I say I am *not* interested in attracting any men.
I can’t speak for butches, and I can’t speak for all femmes. We all do this dance a bit differently from one another. But what *I* see as the soul of the thing is this.
Courtship.
::slow smile::
Flirtation.
::blowing you a kiss::
Gallantry and graciousness.
When a butch is gallant on my behalf, it just makes my knees go weak. And if I can make a butch’s eyes spin just by wearing a tight dress, you’d better *believe* I’m going to have more than a few choice tight dresses at hand!
Butch/femme is an expression of *equality,* Brknstck.
