Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [21]
Somehow, in spite of our differences, we remained friends, possibly because no one else liked us. We got together for ‘hi-octane, big-screen’ movies, lunches, and talked often about what he would do if he had as much money as I did. Occasionally, he would drag me to a comic book convention, and we would arrange to meet some of the real people behind the online screen-names, hoping and praying that they were attractive females who wanted to have sex.
With us.
They weren’t. They were usually just average people—mostly male—many of whom apparently spent all their free time between reading fan-fic, working on elaborately detailed costumes which they would then wear every waking moment of the convention, talking only as the characters would talk, and behaving only the way the characters would behave. It was an odd, disconcerting experience, and I was all set to spend my evenings with Morgan ridiculing the folks doing it when he showed up as Archangel, complete with overlarge metallic wings, blue face paint, and yellow hair.
“Anyone seen Psylocke?” he asked me.
“Morgan, what…”
“Warren,” he said rather sternly. Then wandered off without another word.
It was a lot like the first time I learned Mimsi was gay. Suddenly you’re no longer allowed to be a homophobe because you’re faced with it being someone you know and care for. Their sexuality may still make you a bit uncomfortable, but from now on you’ll keep it to yourself, learn to understand, and be supportive of the one you love. Or, in Morgan’s case, at least someone you like hanging out with.
Ironically, Morgan claimed to have spent the next three days trying to get under the blue body-paint of a ‘hottie in a Nightcrawler suit’. But on the final evening of the convention, when she at last relented—likely because nothing better than Morgan had come along—he couldn’t get past the idea that Nightcrawler was a guy, even though it was a woman portraying him, Peter Pan-like.
Somehow, even after it was apparently quite obvious that she was genuinely a woman once he’d gotten her costume off, and she was mostly naked right down to her painted, blue skin, he believed that by her pretending to be a guy, his being attracted to ‘Kurt’ called his own sexuality into question. Why it should make a difference once she was mostly naked and willing I honestly don’t know, but Morgan has attained a level of homophobia that clearly sets a new standard for the term.
Amazingly, our friendship had survived all this, and Morgan had—in his own way—been as good a friend as he was capable of being. Which wasn’t much, but I was, obviously, not picky.
“You should write fan-fic again,” he said as we prepared to climb into our cars and head home for the night.
“Nah,” I sighed. “I’ve said all I had to say about superheroes and their intimate sex lives.”
“But you were so good.”
He was genuinely complimenting me, and I was touched by his sincerity, if not his judgment.
“Thanks,” I said appreciatively. “But no.”
“We could make another movie. I could be Archangel. The real Archangel, not that wimpy guy from X-Men three. People would love it!”
Not likely. Morgan and I had wasted a lot of our time, first studying how to make movies, and then, ostensibly, making them. Unfortunately for us, no one else wanted to be in them, and there’s only so much drama you can get from watching a guy wander around by himself picking things up and putting them back down again.
It’s a sad day when you realize Ed Wood, or Doris Wishman may actually have had more talent than you.
“Maybe,” I said, not meaning it.
“You just gotta do it,” Morgan said. “You can’t care what people think.”
He stared at me for a long time, waiting. Then, in a last, supreme effort to be honestly supportive, he told me, “Just because a couple of assholes online said you sucked, doesn’t mean you do.”
I said nothing. We’d had