A Boy, A Girl And a Hetero

A Story by R J Fuller

What is really love? Can it be having never met, never knowing who might be there?

The wind blew over the craggy region, causing the lone figure to stir and get out of bed. He was a thin man, rather tall, wearing a tank top that had seen better years. He walked over to the opening of his domicile and stared out into the desolation. When the wind settled down, clouds came drifting over, the sound of thunder, then wind again.

He took a deep breath and sighed it out. Walking back into his dwelling, he picked up a bucket and helped himself to a glass of water. He sat down at the square table to look toward the opening once more. He glanced over toward a monitor, large, bulky monitor with a faint radar on it, but he didn't want to study it. He was tired of that monitor.

He drank some water. It tasted bitter, warm, but he was used to this inconvenience by now. Had been for most of his life.

He detected the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer. He sprung from his chair to view the figure responsible for the commotion. He recognized the guilty party immediately.

Going back inward the barracks, he got two bowl shaped objects and placed them on the table. Now he stood to the side and waited.

The form entered the small cubicle and placed a large bag on the table. The bowls rattled. One fell to the floor. Immediately he sprung forward and grabbed up the bowl, placing it back upon the table.

The second person now lumbered near where the first person reclined and collapsed on an adjoining cot. The individual let out a breath of air, coughed and remained prone.

"Foraging go well, Ed?" the first one asked.

"Got plenty of greens. Some fish. Berries. Some other things," said the one in relaxation. "See what you can do with them, Lee."

The thin man named Lee opened the bag to examine the contents. He reached in and pulled out a rather small fish of sorts, a dead turtle, the berries. He carried the greens over to where the water was located. He returned for the turtle and the berries.

Diced and prepared, the concoction Lee came up with was indeed rather tasty, as Ed professed.

"You are a good cook, Lee," Ed said. Then with a smirk, added, "you'll make a man a good wife someday."

Lee looked up nervously and proceeded to eat his dinner. "We've been together so long, it seems like we're married, don't it?"

Ed stopped eating, stood up, and flung the table and all its contents.

Lee was startled, but quickly began grasping items to salvage, including food, scraping it into various bowls and containers.

"I meant no harm, Ed," Lee said loudly. "You get mad like this every time I make the slightest comment about us being a couple."

Ed had walked to the opening and looked out. Leaning against the door frame, Ed looked in at Lee gathering up the last of the edibles.

"No, you never mean any harm, little man," Ed said. "You will never be what I want, and I will never be what you want. The days of surgery to alter either of us to suit the other are long gone, with civilization, technology and medicine."

"Maybe I don't want to have surgery anyway," Lee answered. "I want to be who I am now, for who I want to be with. Do you want to be changed into a man, physically, that is, if we happened to find a woman for you?"

"You are meaningless, Lee, as always. I will be the person I am for the person I want to love. It has been so long since I've held a woman in my arms. How sweet she smelled. How soft she was."

"I guess not since Andy," Lee said.

Ed snickered. "Yes, my foolish Andy. She was so dumb, I had to think entirely for her. She was so dumb. I wasn't there to think for her when she fell off the cliff. My beautiful Andy."

Ed looked out into the cloudy landscape, then turned back to Lee.

"Got me reminiscing again, haven't you, Lee? You always do this to me," Ed replied. She walked back over to her bunk and began taking off the boots. When she finished, she reclined.

"What else is for dinner?" Ed asked.

"I'll heat up the fish and greens. Try to add some more berries for flavor," Lee answered.

"Sounds good," Ed responded. She ran her hand over her short hair and laid back. "Wake me when it is ready."

Lee wiped up some more of the spilled contents from earlier and tried desperately to wring them out in a container. Couldn't let any sustenance go to waste. For all its despair and virtual unsanitary conditions, Lee still tried to be overly meticulous in the kitchen. As he pondered being with someone, he heard a voice behind him.

"You checked the messages?" Ed asked, sitting back up.

"I saw no need," Lee answered. "There's never any responses. Just our 'hello' on repeat, trying to get someone to answer."

"You must think I want to be with you for the rest of my life," Ed said, getting up and approaching the large black radar-type screen.

"We practically have been," Lee answered. He frowned.

Ed turned on the monitor to see the hazy 'hello' they kept constantly posting in hopes someone else would see it. They weren't sure how long now they had been sending out the message, having lost all track of time, days, months.

Ed stared at the dull monitor and silently spoke. "Lee, come here."

Lee shyly made his way over to view the monitor with Ed. He gave out a very small impish sound, like 'oh' when he saw the monitor.

Underneath the 'hello' there now resided, 'is someone there? hello? who's there?'

"Who knows when this message came in," Ed growled. "If you had kept up with the postings, we could have had immediate contact. Now all we can do is hope they are still there, or near."

Ed typed in 'can I help you? can you help me?" to see if there was a response.

"Ask if they are a man or a woman," Lee said.

"Shut up, Lee!" Ed ordered. Lee frowned.

Surprisingly, amazingly, the response was quick.

"I'm alone. I want to be with somebody. Who are you? Can we be together?"

Ed stared at the words on the screen and pondered who might be sending them. How does she go about finding out if it is a straight female or straight male or not?

"Ask how old they . . . . " Lee began.

"Shut up!"

Ed began typing once more.

"You can help me. I want to be with you. Can we meet?"

"Why are you typing singular?" Lee asked.

"We don't know yet who it is, or what they want," Ed answered. "Do you want to scare them away? They might be straight, male or female."

"I hope not," Lee stammered. "I'd have to win them over if they were a male."

"Will you be quiet!"

The response came back. "I'm afraid. Who are you? I don't want you to hurt me."

Ed envisioned a young woman who is afraid of a vicious man with only one thing on his mind. Ed would not be such a creature, tho she too was desperate for companionship from the fairer species.

Ed replied, "I won't hurt you. I will take care of you."

As Lee read these words on the large monitor, he pictured the person being male, and obviously not terribly masculine, since this one feared being hurt. Lee anticipated this would be more his type.

"I was hurt before. I don't want to be hurt anymore."

"As if it is . . . . . "

"Lee, will you shut up!" Ed growled.

Ed turned back to the monitor, looking at the screen. If she said there was two of them there, the other person might be scared off, thinking they'd work together.

Ed repeated, "I won't hurt you. Can we meet? I want to be with you."

Ed turned to Lee. "What if it is a straight male? He'll want to be with me, no matter how homely I might be now, and if it is a straight female, she'll only be interested in you."

"You've got to ask," Lee said, just thinking of the prospect of there being another man in the vicinity.

"Could we meet?" came back the response.

"Yes," Ed replied, then decided she'd have to be the one to make the first crucial move. She took a deep breath and typed, "I'm a woman," and waited for the response.

It seemed to take an eternity for the next comment to appear. Ed was just hoping it would be female, straight or not, just as long as it was a woman she could see.

"Will that affect our meeting?" was the reply.

"No," Ed said. "I just want you to know who I am. Can I ask who are you?"

Another long hesitation. Ed was worried. She contemplated the worst, that it would be another man like Lee, and she would be the third wheel out. Or it could be a straight man, and none of them would be happy.

Then the response. "My name is Al."

Ed and Lee both stared at the sentence in bright letters. Could be Al for Alice, Alexandra, any number of possibilities.

"This person is toying with me," Ed thought.

"Are you a man or a woman?" Ed asked.

"No! Not now!" Lee gasped.

Ed looked back at the simpering man, but she had already hit 'send'.

Another long pause. Ed wasn't sure what she had done wrong, but she wasn't going to show face in front of Lee.

Finally the comment.

"Would that make any difference, if I am a man or a woman?"

Ed tossed every possibility around in her head as to how to respond, then decided she had to go with the obvious.

"Why are you being evasive? Is something wrong?" she responded, to sound insecure.

"No. Nothing is wrong," came the reply, then silence.

Ed sat for a moment, then stood up and stormed to the door once more, looking out to get some air. She couldn't think of what to say to win this person over, especially if it was another woman. She didn't want to discourage this person. She wanted someone else to meet, anyone else besides Lee.
Lee was not her husband. She and Lee were together because they had no one else to be with. She just wanted to know what her available options might be.

Ed looked back when she heard the sounds of clicking; Lee was on the keyboard. She thought for a moment, then deduced, well, he can't do any worse than I have.

Ed moved to the monitor once more to see how Lee was doing. She gave a start upon seeing his words.

"I am a lesbian," he had typed. "Are you?"

Ed was going to see the outcome before she fussed at Lee. He might have hurt her chances, but he also might have helped. She just couldn't bring herself to be so forward.

A truly long pause, then the response.

"No. I am a gay man."

Ed roared back with laughter.

"If you had been truthful, he would have leapt at the opportunity to be with you!"

Lee was typing furiously, trying to correct his deception, but the other person never responded back.

"I'm a gay man, too! Would you like to meet up? We can if you want! Hello?"

Lee stood up and walked outside. He said nothing and didn't even look at Ed.

Ed reached over and switched off the monitor.

"Well, I guess we're done there for a while," she said as she walked over to the door. She looked at Lee, who had his back to her.

"I've heard that many years ago, there were people who were proud to be gay," she said. "Maybe you should have been that way, too."

"I didn't see you volunteering up who you are, what you are," Lee snarled, shaking. "When I said I was a lesbian, the last thing in the world he wanted to be was a gay man stuck with nobody else to be with but a lesbian."

Lee turned and looked at Ed. "I can understand his feelings on that regard."

Ed stood with her arms crossed and sent back, "he wouldn't have liked you anyway if he had met you. Last gay man on Earth and he wouldn't have liked you. Why would he want to be with you?"

Lee turned back to hide his rage and sorrow. Ed entered the abode once more to find something to eat. She speared a bite of turtle and popped it in her mouth. Didn't taste that bad, she thought.

She turned suddenly to see Lee with an iron bar, charging at her. She quickly moved out of the way and Lee instead sent the bar flailing into the computer monitor. There was sparks and flashes of light, then Lee fell to the ground.

"Lee!" Ed called. "Lee!" but she could see his life was ebbing. She picked the frail man up and carried him to his cot and placed him there. She looked at the sad little man she had known for so long as breathing slowly gave way. His eyes remained open. Ed knew it was tactful to close them, but in her own odd way, she was keeping Lee with her.

She hung her head, sad for what she had pushed him to do.

Behind her, the damaged monitor, their only form of communication with anyone, crackled and sparked. It was then she heard a blip, meaning a message had come in.

She turned to go read the message, if able. There it was, on the broken screen, blurring in and out, but she was able to read it. Sparks snapped at her, but she didn't care.

"Hello? I got scared when you said you were a lesbian. I'm a young woman. Is it possible we can still meet? I'm sorry I lied to you. I just got scared, that's all. Hello? Are you there?"

Ed began typing at the key pad to reply, but the keys weren't working. Lee's damage had made the machine unable to send messages anymore.

Ed hit the keys, typing madly, then pounded on them, then hurled the key pad across the room.

Another message came over.

"Hello?"