I’m sat in a pub listening to drunk guys argue and trying my best to do my “job”, since I spent most of the day getting a radiofrequency mesotherapy facial (happy 28th to me, Botox next). I just had a long and beautiful conversation with my partner, and not beautiful in the sense of necessarily sunflowers and fairies and delightfulness, but beautiful in the sense of holding and working through some really uncomfortable feelings together, because, I don’t know if you knew, but being Queer and poly is really hard. I have been here, having my fun. Last night, that looked like going to the singles night at La Camionera, a lesbian bar that is perpetually orange from the candles lit all over. I am genuinely surprised my hair didn’t catch on fire at some point. My partner is very private, so I have to be careful what I share, but they know what I come to London to do and they are fully supportive so long as we make it a point to communicate even when we feel our emotions might be spilling and causing a bit of a mess. And we do it. The glass of our relationship is reinforced with loving foresight and infinite respect for each other, our life together, and the work we both are putting into the world. get in my pants So, at the bar radiating orange, I talk to, like, far too many white people. At some point I meet Melisa after asking her friend Aiesha for a lighter for my almost-last Vogue (I am smoking my last one after I leave, and I will be very pensive while I do it thank you very much). As it happens, ethnicity comes up as all three girls I’m sitting with are from different parts of Africa, and when I mention I am Jamaican, there’s that “Oh…” of when someone finds out I’m a mutt. This didn’t change anything, I just like to note it as something I live with because it’s f*****g weird. Melisa got me with her skinny brows, a belly piercing, and a tight ass. After the vaguely cold interaction in the smoking section, we were all summoned back by Cupid to the little bingo situation, and when it’s our time together she’s almost immediately talking right in my face, and then I find out she’s a Leo sun, of course. I’ve got a hand on a thigh and then I put one of mine on a hip and then my lap was warm for the next 12 hours in different capacities and motions. Anyway, I wait to go in for a kiss, because I am far too worried about other people’s feelings, but that doesn’t help my tendency for discretion because this adorable gaggle of dykes are still in the bar as the lights go up. They start cheering us on and me and my button-up shirt are living, lowkey (HIGHKEY). I’ve never had a kiss with a true audience, not just strangers and I deserve it. I’ve never even gone in for a kiss before someone else, and it felt crazy good. Like I am in the driver’s seat!!! B***h!!! This was a butch-femme situation if by butch you mean prettyboy (me) (I have never cared so much about my hair in my life) and woof, did I like it. This shirt gets me way more play than it should but I will absolutely take it. I don’t think Melisa minds the attention, but I have to keep some sweetness to myself, because you all don’t deserve all that. We join the Dyke Gaggle, and we look for a second location, which is a bit fraught, because it’s Tuesday, but we make it happen. While they are figuring out directions and smoking a blunt, I have Melisa pressed against a concrete wall. She’s sucking on my bottom lip and I’ve got my hand pressed flat like I’m f*****g John Travolta in Grease or something (I have never watched that movie). After some drinks at a goth bar that I am dressed way too preppy for, we take a bus back to Stoke Newington. We’re walking to my tiny little Airbnb studio (where I had to bully the host into giving me access to a f*****g microwave), and I am feeling so grateful I thought with my dick and got one I’d be pleased to take someone to after a function, because that happened like a day after getting to this one (the last one was fine but anyway). It’s a perfect situation; she lives close by, we’re still feeling each other, it’s great. I get naked immediately because the bra needs to come off. I put my little wolf cut in a bun and am rocking a Winnie the Pooh situation. She’s so cute she gives me my privacy like my hand’s not going to be on her c**t within the next five minutes. I lay down. We’re kissing. She’s taking me for a ride in a dryhumping way. I lay her down, I’m feeling her through her panties, and we’re talking all the way in between with no pressure to have like sex-sex which is great because I am too tired and dehydrated to strap up at this point. Eventually we knock out into cuddle mode, and I have a dream about my sister and our best friend, who I’ll be seeing in the next week or so. Real sweet. Eventually we both admit we’re not gonna be able to really sleep so long as we’re in the same bed together and she gets a car. We talk while she gets dressed. She climbs on top of me one more time and we crash teeth because we’re both a bit excited. I go out to the hall to send my partner a voice message, because it’s only 11PM there and I need them to know how much I love them. The voice note wasn’t enough in that moment, but we made up for it in our conversation, and I realised I’m getting quite good at this relationship thing. I never thought I’d get here, I thought more likely I’d die. I’m gonna stop here before I cry in a f*****g Wetherspoons. PAINHUB is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. 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