Page 1 of Kiss Me, Maybe
One
The last time I went viral on TikTok was from an accidental thirst trap. This time, it’s so much worse.
By no means am I an influencer or anything of the sort, so you can imagine my surprise when a lip-syncing video of me in my pajamas did numbers—especially when it was the first video of mine to ever do so. Perhaps it was the consequence of using a trending sound coupled with the fact that my sleep tank was apparently tight enough to inspire the imagination that ultimately caused thousands of strangers online to have the sort of reaction only someone like me couldn’t understand. At least, that’s what I’ve gathered from the more indecent parts of my comment section.
I may be asexual but I’m not a prude. I’m familiar with sex, even if only in the abstract sense. When I look back at that video, I don’t see the sexualized woman they see. I could understand how people found me cute or pretty or sexy, but what I couldn’t understand was the number of men incapable of keeping their disgusting imaginations to themselves. Most of all, I couldn’t understand why their overblown sex drives were nowmyproblem.
Even my boss thought it was my problem, according to the lecture she gave me last week.
“What’s so inappropriate about it?” I wasthisclose to crying in Erika’s office, and maybe I would’ve been if she and Marcela hadn’t made it clear from the beginning of the meeting that I was in no danger of losing my job. “It’s a lip-syncing video for god’s sake. I’m barely dancing, and you can only see the upper half of my body. Sorry if I didn’t know my flat boobs were so boner-inducing.”
There was a long, awkward pause where Erika cleared her throat and Marcela’s stunned expression quickly morphed into a stern look I rarely see from my best friend. That’s when it dawned on me that I’d actually used the phrase “boner-inducing” in front of my boss. If I wasn’t in danger of losing my job, well, at least I could prove that the day was still young.
“I don’t think your, um, chest is the problem,” Marcela said, pulling up the video on her phone. And thus began a worthy contender for most humiliating moment of my life: my best friend and boss explaining detail by detail what strangers on the internet found so titillating about a video that should’ve stayed in the drafts. “It’s everything in concert together. Scantily covered, conventionally attractive woman on the internet pretty much does it for every lowlife, cis straight man. The hip roll might’ve been the final nail in the coffin.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to argue the “scantily covered” bit of her description, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. I’m flat enough to wear most shirts without a bra, have no cleavage to speak of, and the black tank top I was wearing in the video is thick enough to hide my nipples in even the coldest temperatures, but none of that ultimately matters whenyour workplace’s reputation is on the line. As much as it sucked, what’s considered “appropriate” wasn’t up to me.
“The hip roll certainly wasn’t great, but it’s the strap falling off your left shoulder that got me a call from a board member.” Erika broke eye contact in favor of staring down at the keyboard on her desk, her discomfort a physical tension in the air I could feel. “I’m very sorry, Angela, but regardless of whether or not you see how this video looks, it has to come down.”
It’s not that I was angry about having to delete the video. If anything, it was a relief to not be bombarded by sexually explicit comments and messages from men that I neither asked for nor wanted, even if that meant giving up the largely positive reception from people who hadn’t sexualized me at all.
But if I’m being honest with myself, Iwasa little disappointed. While the attention from men was unwelcome, and even creepy at times, the attention from queer women had been… unexpected. While their numbers weren’t nearly as overwhelming compared to the men’s, they still came in at a steady pace.
At first, it was hard to discern whether the wows and fire emojis and “looking respectfully” comments were purely innocent praise, or something deeper, but a closer look into those accounts told me I was, in fact, also desired by the sapphic community.
And I didn’t mind one bit.
“It’s a shame you had to take down the video,” Marcela had told me after the meeting, during our lunch break. In the Whataburger parking lot, she didn’t have the awkward job of talking to me as an authority figure. “Otherwise, you could’ve moderated the comment section and capitalized on the moment.”
“Asexual thirst trapper does have a paradoxical sort ofring to it.” I tapped my chin, pretending to think. “It might have been a nice side hustle. How much money do you think I could’ve made?”
“Don’t even go there.” She threw a fry in my lap. “Erika will have a heart attack if you put her through this a second time, and then we’ll get stuck with a micromanaging branch manager who’ll move our desks apart.”
“As if that’ll stop us from yapping.” I smirked at her, picking up the fry and popping it into my mouth. “Is it bad that I kind of loved the attention? Not from the ones who took it too far, but…” I sighed. “I don’t know. I hate dating apps, but how else am I supposed to find women to date? That video was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a dating pool.”
A few of them had even slid into my DMs with compliments that turned to friendly conversation. Even if it was through small talk, it was a relief to finally tell people other than my parents or Marcela I was an asexual lesbian, maybe even more so than coming out the first time. Maybe because I’d reached another first: I was being welcomed into the community I belonged to, and perhaps even on track to building my own.
“You’ve never been on a dating app.” Marcela rolled her eyes at me.
“Correction: I hate theideaof dating apps.”
“What about a lesbian bar?” Marcela asked. “I can help research if there are any in town that are good.”
“As if we’ll go anywhere that isn’t Havana Bar,” I huffed, ignoring the knowing look she gave me. We both knew why I wouldn’t go anywhere else, and it was all thanks to the beautiful, bisexual bartender I can never seem to get out of my head.
“Krystal could probably give us some good options,” Marcela pointed out. “If you stopped pining over each other for longer than ten minutes, I mean.”
“We do notpine.” She doesn’t, at least. Me? Pining is all I know how to do when it comes to Krystal Ramirez.
“You could always try askingherout,” Marcela suggested, and not for the first time. “You never know. She might say yes.”
“Too real.” I shook my head, and she sighed. “I’m not ready to be rejected in person, especially not without options, which brings me back to the dating pool.”
“You’ve shot my suggestions down and it’s not like you can date a TikTok comment section that doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m all ears,” she said. “What’s your plan?”
I didn’t have one, but I was starting to.
I didn’t really think about what I was doing a week later, only that I was overcome with the need to dosomething. I hadn’t planned on making a follow-up to the video I’d deleted, but I wasn’t content to leave it at that either.
