The Corporatorium: A Platinum Gay (Season 2, Episode 4)


Ask them?” I whispered fiercely.

“No! You ask.” Elvis practically whistled out of the side of his mouth.

“But you brought it up—”

“You agreed.”

The vet, who was the sort of woman who’d drunk Brandy Alexanders in her youth, and then later in life, divorced and resettled, had adopted a pair of Lhasa Apso pups and named them Brandy and Alexander, cleared her throat. Now, she asked, “Is there something else?”

Our dog, who just gotten a series of vaccinations trembled on the stainless steel table, her big brown eyes pleading for escape. She’d only been with us two weeks and didn’t fully trust us it seemed. At this moment, I can’t say I trusted us either.

“Um…yes…can you look at her um…her privates?”

“You mean her vulva?” The vet tech, young, blonde, perky with bright compassion, asked briskly. If not for her love of animals, she’d have been a stewardess: bubbly, unflappable, unmoored.

“Yes!”

She rolled our dog onto her back and we all peered at her, squirming.

“What are we looking for?” The two women asked simultaneously, looking at us in perplexity.

Elvis developed a sudden fascination with the floor, leaving me to stutter, “Uh. Is she—that is...I mean...”

The women glanced at each other then at me and Elvis who had inexplicably backed up against the wall, arms splayed out; with his eyes enormous with embarrassment, he looked like a pinned insect.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” I finally blurted.

Both the vet and the vet tech looked down at our dog who, exhausted, had stopped squirming and trembled gently. They looked at us, then at each other, and I could almost see the light bulb go off. They looked back at us. “Yes, the vet said, not unkindly, while the vet tech tried, not altogether successfully, to stifle a giggle. “Yes,” she looks perfectly normal.”

***

“How was yesterday’s vet visit?” Diana asked.

We were sitting in the conference room waiting for TWO and the Cerberus who were still in the monthly Officers’ meeting so we could begin our weekly exercise in futility: the production meeting.

“Fine,” I said.

“Oh, tell them what happened,” Nigel encouraged.

I instantly regretted telling him the story; I wanted to throttle him.

“Oh, I’ll tell them.” He turned to the expectant faces around the table. Diana slouched in her chair, dangling her pen, without interest. “Elvis and Theus took their new dog—who’s female—to the vet because they thought her coochie was abnormal—”

“I didn’t say it was abnormal. We just weren’t sure it was supposed to look like it did.”

“Huh?” Diana asked sitting up straight, her interest caught.

“Well, hell it’s not like either of us had ever seen one up close before,” I snapped.

“You’ve never seen one? Barbara the second asked in disbelief.

“Nope. He and Elvis are both solid gold gays!” Nigel chortled.

“Elvis is a gold gay,” I corrected, forgetting where I was, “I am a platinum gay.”

TWO entered the room like lightning; the Cerberus followed like thunder.

“What are you all talking about?” TWO asked sitting at the head of the table, the Cerberus surrounding her as usual.

“Gold and platinum gays.”

“What are those?” TWO asked with uncharacteristic curiosity.

“That’s what we want to know!”

I shot a murderous glance at Nigel who looked like a trapped rabbit. He shrugged. “A gold gay,” he said, ‘is a gay guy who has never been with a woman. A platinum gay is a gay guy born by Cesarean section.”

“Huh?” Diana asked again. “What does that have to do with a—”

Diana ‘s head swung from one of us to the and back like someone watching a particularly vigorous tennis match.

Nigel sighed,” Never been with a woman, born by Cesarean section so never any contact with a—you know…”

“Indeed,” TWO said drawing her lips together in a thin line.

“That’s so offensive,” the Cerberus most easily offended, declared.

It’s misogynistic,” another declared.

The third just clucked her tongue.

Copyright © 2018 Larry Benjamin

D I S C L A I M E R

The characters and events described in this blog post exist only in its pages and the author's imagination.


Missed Season 2, Episode 3? Catch it here

Missed Season 1? Catch up here.

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