As always, I went back to the meetings.
There was one guy in the meetings who seldom looked at me and never spoke to me. He had been fairly frosty even at the first meeting, but after all the weeks that I'd been showing up, he was positively icy. I got the impression that he was disgusted by my very presence.
It was a shame, in a way, because in the normal course of things, he was my type: tall, muscled, handsome, rugged; maybe not too bright, but that didn't bother me. He was the kind of guy who would normally make me weak at the knees and dizzy. Yet, he clearly couldn't stand me.
His name was Ron. He sat opposite me at the meeting, occasionally glancing in my direction and making audible little sighs of impatience whenever I said anything. It so happened that, that night, I got really impatient with the general cluelessness of the whole group that I got going on my favourite topic: their obsession with women, when the whole point of the group was to be going our own way.
Finally, Ron had enough. He interrupted me.
'What would you know about women?' he sneered. 'You're a faggot.'
'Now, now,' Phil said.
'No, Phil, no, I've had enough,' Ron said. 'This was supposed to be a men's group, for men to go our own way. But this little poofter keeps turning up as if he belongs here. We should we listen to the opinion of someone who prefers cock to pussy?'
'I told you,' I said, 'I'm bisexual.'
'There's no such thing,' Ron said.
'There is,' I said patiently.
'It's impossible,' Ron said. 'You can't possibly like women and men equally.'
'I never said I liked them equally,' I said.
'Oh, so you are a poofter?'
'I'm attracted to men,' I said, 'but I wouldn't want to date one.'
'Why not?' said Ron, affecting outrage.
'Well,' I said, 'would you?'
'No,' he thundered, 'because I'm not a fucking queer. I don't want some other guy ramming his cock up my shitter. And I'll tell you what else: anyone who does want that, is not qualified to talk to me about women. Because he doesn't understand them.'
'I think I understand more than you do what it's like to have a man's cock inside me,' I said, smirking.
'Well,' Ron said, 'I don't give a shit what it's like to have a man's cock inside you! I put my cock where I want, and I don't give a shit!'
'Guys,' Phil said, 'this conversation is getting adversarial.'
'I don't give a fuck,' Ron barked. 'I'm tired of this poofy little girlboy telling us all about what women are like from the depths of his oh so deep knowledge. When the closest he's come to a woman is probably sniffing his sister's panties.'
'Now, Ron,' Phil said warningly.
'I don't have a sister,' I said.
'Well, whoever's, then.'
'I learned everything I know about women from tonguing out your mom,' I said.
'You fucking little prick!' Ron exploded.
'That's enough!' said Phil with sudden force.
There was a silence. Phil was a mild-mannered guy, a bit of an idiot, but he hated people making a scene. I knew I'd gone too far.
'I'm going to ask you both to go,' he said, 'and you can come back at the next meeting, when you've both calmed down.'
'I'm calm,' I said, which was almost completely true.
'Nevertheless, we can't have meetings breaking down like this,' he said. 'Out, please.'
I rose and picked up my jacket and bowed ironically. Ron, who was still fuming, strode for the exit. I strolled out with an apologetic nod of the head to Phil.
Outside, I decided to head for home, and started walking.
But then Ron emerged from the shadows.
'Well, you fucked up the meeting,' he said. 'Well done. I hope you're happy.'
'Only because you kept insulting me,' I said.
'Because you're a faggot,' he snarled.
'Yeah, yeah,' I said. 'That doesn't work on me.'
'You're a skinny little bitch boy who thinks he's a female,' Ron said.
'Hey, fuck off, man, come on,' I said, exasperated.
'No,' he said. 'I'll teach you some manners.'
'I'm going home.'
I started to walk faster.
'You think I don't know what you've been doing in this group?' Ron said. 'Oh, I know. You've been giving your mouth to all the little beta males, like the whore you are.'
'Your mom teach you that language?'
'You come in here,' he went on, half to himself, 'you shove your "sexuality" down our throats, and you think we're just going to put up with it? Who do you think you are?'
'I'm a bi man,' I said, and I started walking in a direction away from my flat, so as to tire him out. I was heading to the edge of the city, where it bordered onto the wooded hills.
'There's no such thing as bi,' he said.
'Why does it bother you so much?' I said. 'Why can't you accept that some guys like men as well as women?'
'Because it doesn't make any damn sense!' Ron said. 'You can't like both! End of!'
'And yet.'
'You can't give yourself to some guy and then have some woman give herself to you! It's cheating!'
'It's nature.'
We were off the street, by this point, walking in a path through the park with the trees on each side.
'You're unnatural!'
'Lots of animals form same-sex couples,' I said.
'Oh, you're an animal now. Not a human.'
'Just, fuck off, okay?' I was really annoyed at this point.
Ron shoved me. I stumbled backwards.
'You don't tell me what to do,' he said, staring at me.
'Fuck. Off,' I said, slowly and deliberately.
He shoved me again. I slapped him in the face.
He stared at me in shock.
And then we started to fight--or try to fight.
We were rubbish at it. For all his size and muscles, Ron had no training, and I only had some very basic self-defence stuff. We were slapping ineffectually at each other, but the occasional blow to the face landed and stung, and it just made us both more angry.
Then we were grappling, each trying to push the other one over, and I was weakening, and I was preparing to just let go and run like hell towards home.
Ron was leaning over, forcing me backwards, and staring down at me.
And then he seemed to pause, staring at me with a distant look.
'Had enough,' I spat. My lip was bruised and split. I was furious.
