Banana Fetish

I was 27 and single and enjoying being free sort of the ‘sworn to fun loyal to non’ stage in young adulthood. I lived alone in a 1-bedroom apartment and loved working on my motorcycle which I kept in my living room. Most Friday nights for me were jamming out to music, enjoying a few beers and tinkering with the bike. I dated occasionally but nothing serious. There were a few cute single girls living in my apartment that I saw around and always said hi but never really pursued them. I had had a bad experience before with dating so close to home and knew better by now. One girl in particular I always noticed as she seemed to always being walking up to her door around the same 5pm time when I got home. I had dated a few trans women in the past casually and was fairly literate on spotting the subtle ‘clues’ and so I pretty much knew her gender but didn’t let on.

We exchanged smiles and hellos occasionally but nothing more. One afternoon we ended up chatting at length at the bottom of our stairwell. Nothing serious really and this one time I sort of let it slip, “Well, hey if you are ever bored, swing by and I always have cold beer in the frig.” She said “Yeah maybe sometime” but I just figured we were both being nice and didn’t mean it.

About two weeks later on a Friday night, I was messing around with my bike on the living room floor with grease on my hands and un-showered and heard a knock at the door. It was her dressed pretty normal and she said, “I was on my way to the store and thought I’d take you up on the beer offer.” I said, “sure” and got us both a beer and we kicked back and chatted while I wrenched on my bike. This ended up happening a few times over the course of maybe 2 months and it always ended friendly with her staying about an hour and leaving, nothing sexual at all, we just talked and kicked back.

On one of these weekend visits, she came out of nowhere and just blurted out, “How is your attitude about gender and dating” to which I replied, “If you are asking if I am gay because you never see me with anyone, the answer is no.”