Maeve: Hi, I’m Maeve Marsden and you’re listening to Queerstories. This week Malaika Mfalme is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and event producer creating on Gadigal Land. Malaika is here to create a safe space focused on healing with a powerful message of kindness, acceptance and reflection vibrating through every one of their sonic outputs. They’re a producer for community event Queers of Joy, and they produce the podcast Womb For Improvement with their twin sister.
Malaika: Over the weekend I had sex with a cis man. This may not seem so shocking but it was for me! I’ve been a firm lesbian for the last 6 years and the last cis peen I saw was about 5 years ago when I was 23. It did not go well.
I literally shut my eyes, pretended I was being fucked by a woman with a strap-on and waited until he was finished. And I vowed, never again will I put myself into this situation. And I didn’t. Not til last weekend.
A lot has happened in the last five years. Back then, I was in love with my parter Yasmin who’s home I went to right after the ordeal. She asked me “why on earth did you sleep with him?” I kind of shrugged and said “I dont know, I guess I wanted to see if I still could?” I was working as a bartender while balancing my music career and it wasn’t going so hot. Most days I was too tired from bar work to focus on the the career I actually loved. I was writing music performing it, deeply underconfident and madly in love with Yasmin.
A year or two later, Yasmin moved into our share house. My twin sister and I had been running a queer house in Glebe for a few years. When one of the queers moved out, my darling moved in and we started setting up our life together. U-hauling after a couple years of dating. We set up a shared office with all our music gear. Her classical sheet music on the left my folk/soul music equipment on the right. We integrated our closet of her dresses and my collared shirts, socks paired with love and boxes strewn across our bedroom; this was the start of our life together.
It really was too good to be true, I treasured the moments of living with my love, as she died in my arms 2 weeks later.
Funeral, grief, endless crying, and community. That’s what I remember of the time, a revolving door of queers and loved ones came to commiserate. If it wasn’t so sad it may just have been the time of our lives. We piled mattresses on the floor and watched Shrek and Pitch Perfect. We drank a steady amount of booze by my dad who lovingly didn’t know what else to do with his distraught “daughter”. I didn’t bother correcting that I’m his son, I wouldn’t be here much longer for it to matter.
The revolving door of care slowly subsided as our loved ones eased back into work after their week or two of allocated grieving time (if they were lucky). I couldn’t leave the house. I was so angry at the people outside, the world turn without her. But it did and it does.
Then we shut our doors for good. Covid, no one in or out. I’m grateful for the government sanctioned grieving time. I was just about to run out of savings, had quit my bartending job out of grief, I didn’t know how I’d pay my rent but then I got paid to stay home and stay alive, and I tried my best. My psychologist sister had just graduated and started her career as a black queer therapist in the middle of a pandemic, what a fucking nightmare.
I thought I’d convinced myself that I could do it, get up, garden, wade through the day, rinse repeat. Until the day I found myself in the emergency room again and I knew I’d seriously messed up this time. I had to get better, and so I did. I won’t bore you with the details of hospital, though I will say gender affirming care in institutions is a fucking disgrace.
I practice guitar every day and get better and better, I write songs about grief, I move through the pain literally one second at a time, until, one day I wake up and I’ve made something of my life. These songs I wrote are actually an album and I name it Yasmin. This healing I did gave me a different kind of freedom without depression as a way out but a way through. I played 15 World Pride gigs, I’m about to release my album, I’m in love with my girlfriend, I live with my twin sister in a beautiful 2 bedroom in Leichhardt, I had top surgery, I start to be in my body for the first time in my life.
When I was 18 I had a boyfriend, Jeremiah. He was rude, brash, unkind, difficult, mean spirited, sometimes kind and goofy but mostly, he treated me like the dirt he’d scrub off his boots, a habit he picked up from the army. I can’t say I was a much better partner either, I was frustrated with his lack of empathy, and often told him he reminded me of my father. 4 years into our relationship I moved to Sydney and came out a swift 8 months later, at 22. A few months later I’d completely forgotten about that life with Jeremiah. Why? Beacause I LOVE WOMEEEN oh my god I love women, I love women so much. Sing it people! So soft so gentle so caring?! Who knew!? Well, I’m sure plenty of you did but I didn’t, not until then.
So last weekend, I took the train from Sydney to Newcastle and met up with Eddie, one of the core housemates from the queer Glebe house where I lived with my sister and Yasmin. We grab beers, catch up, two little theys running around the streets of Newcastle.
I play a gig for Sofar Sounds Newcastle. I meet this queer woman in a straight relationship, I see so much of my past self in her, frustrated with the man she’s with and desiring him to be better through passive aggression and interrupted sentences. We end up going back to her house and get a little silly with strangers. And that’s when I see him properly.
He doesn’t pipe up too much, but we make eye contact every time this couple says or does something turbo. I giggle into my wine glass and I find him in a corner later as Eddie and I are discussing the importance of strap ons. His ears perk up and he jokes “you can peg me anytime.” I blush, I’ve never pegged a man. Heck, I’ve never even kissed a man who sees me as a man.
Later, when we do kiss, his moustache tickles my upper lip, and I pull away, reminded of all the times with all those men that made me feel like trash. I tell him I’m feeling uncomfortable and why. He takes my hand and places it on my chest, we breathe together and he simply says “I’m not them.” I kiss him even harder this time, aghast by his genuine desire to make me feel comfortable and I agree to go on a date with him.
The next night I’m deeply hungover, and socially tapped from a long day of friend hopping, but mostly I am nervous. I can’t remember being this nervous for a date, but I go to his house anyway, we text about ordering vegan pizza and we agree on a very formal dresscode of sweatpants. I bring the wine, he brings the pizza. We talk about our lost loves, relationships, our queerness, his kids, my twin, our kin, he kisses me and calls me handsome.
By the time he asks me to go to his room I’m so full of his care it shocks me. He sees me. And maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, maybe I should expect more people to see me, but a lot of them don’t. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised he held my hand while we chatted consent but I was. Maybe I shouldn’t be so grateful to a man for doing more than just the bare minimum, but I’m genuinely stunned.
We wrap ourselves in each other, feel our flat chests press against one another. I thought I was lesbian gay not gay gay but this interaction is so deeply homosexual I’m literally at a loss for words. After, we cuddle, I’m cradled in his big arms safely enclosed in this gentle giant. “That was amazing” he whispers. And I grin agreeing “It really was.” On my way home I chuckle to myself wondering if that actually happened or if it was some kind of beautiful sexy gay fever dream. I wake up the next morning, board the train back to Sydney and type this story about a man who decided to see me. My mum often asks me, curiously, if I’ll ever go back to men. I’m sure this is not what she had in mind.
Thank you.
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