Flashback: The Big O

Picture it. The University of New Orleans' Bienville Hall dorms. Fall 1998. I'd been having a rough time that semester. My suitemates, the two girls who lived on the other side of our communal bathroom, had decided two months into our "friendship" to inform me that, as a homosexual, I was a violation of G-d's holy plan. (Strange, considering they hung out with a few other gay people.) One's boyfriend had written "gay hoes R us" on my door. Ironically, he was the boyfriend of the roommate who, a year or so later, would come out as bisexual. One night, they allowed a severely drunken gay boy into my room, which ended in my being assaulted. (How fortunate for him that I'm a pacifist.)

Despite numerous requests, the dorm manager refused to move me because I "had" to be relocated as a single room. Now, I hadn't paid for a single room, a highly prized commodity in limited supply at Bienville Hall. I was assigned one because it was the dorm manager's position that no heterosexual woman should be forced to live with a lesbian. So, despite the offer of several friends sans roommates to have me live in their rooms, I was denied a transfer. Later, after protesting to the administration, which denied any wrongdoing and didn't seem to understand why I'd protest having a single room regardless of how I'd come to have one, I managed to get an end put to that practice. (Month's later, the "innocent" dorm manager they had defended was fired for taking bribes to allow non-students and part-time students to live in the dorm. Don't ask how I know. Let's just say I know people.)

Anyway, things were rough and I needed a real pick-me-up. Enter the sci-fi clubs "usual suspects," including the Big Kahunah, his future ex-wife, the Emperor Canardius and the future Housewife in Flip-flops. The most relevant character to this story is the lovely Housewife in Flip-flops, Stacey:



Gorgeous, isn't she? Anyway, Stacey had been supporting me by helping me to take "creative revenge" on my tormentors. In one particularly silly moment, we had scripted a musical tribute to my rather "unintelligent" and decidely corpulent homophobic roommate: "Je suis une Redneck et je m'appelle le Breeder. Moo. Moo. Moo." It was also funny to randomly speak French whenever we were stuck in the elevator with her. The corpulent one, of course, thought we were speaking Spanish. She also thought we were speaking Spanish when Stacey and I faked a "conversation" in Taiwanese which had us saying things like "I love you. Drink tea. Shut up!" It was great fun.

Okay, back to the main story. The crowd gathered in my room for a rousing game of that party favorite: Truth or Dare, which (as always) included the question, "Melinda, how many women have you slept with?" (At least, this time, no one was shocked to discover that I remember all of their names. Jeesh! You'd think I was a slut or something!) Anyway, it was my turn and I had the lovely Stacey at my command. What would be the dare? Fake an orgasm in my bathroom to freak out the homophobes. (Do you really expect maturity from someone playing truth or dare?)

It was awesome. The panting. The moaning. The groaning. The oohs and ahhhs. The oh yeses and oh G-ds. Then she screamed... THE WRONG NAME!

Bad Stacey.