Pants on Fire by Maggie Alderson

know more about me.
    I told him tales about my glorious years at Edinburgh University and Antony explained that he’d gone to art school to study fashion, but had dropped out after a year. He really only wanted to make fabulous dresses, he said—he wasn’t interested in the commercial side of things. So he scraped together a living making evening gowns for his female friends, until one of them was spotted by a woman who worked in the wardrobe department of Opera Australia.
    After ten years working at the Opera he had gone freelance, and now he made a few costumes when they needed something really spectacular, but he mainly specialised in wild gowns for costume parties—which Sydney seemed to have a lot of—and charity balls.
    â€œI don’t make much money, but I don’t need much,” he told me. “Lee left me quite a bit of capital along with this place, so I don’t have to work any more than I feel like. I really just do it so I can look at beautiful women in beautiful underwear.”
    I must have looked very surprised. He started chuckling and doing the eyebrow thing—he’d obviously guessed what I was thinking.
    â€œYes, darling, I am gay, but I still like looking at beautiful underwear. And I can still find women attractive, you know—there are no rules against window shopping.”
    I opened my mouth to say something, but he got in first.
    â€œYes, I have slept with a woman. More than one, actually. No, I didn’t find it revolting. I found it quite pleasant, but I prefer having sex with men. I like the roughness of it. I like to keep sex and emotions separate and that’s easier with other men. Especially if you don’t know their names. Don’t looked shocked. I use protection. I just like anonymous sex. Oh! Hello Lee!”
    The lights were flickering on and off.
    â€œSee?” Antony smiled. “Say hello.”
    â€œHello Lee,” I said. The lights flickered one more time and stopped.
    â€œI think he likes you,” said Antony. “Anyway, enough about my sordid sex life. I want to know more about you. How did you get into journalism?”
    So I told him how I’d got into magazines when I was working as a bilingual secretary for the managing director of a publishing company. Then he asked me why I had moved to Sydney and, for the first time since I’d arrived, I told the whole story. I had only told Liinda the bare outlines—fiancé found with other woman—and I hadn’t told her what the other woman did for a living and what the fiancé was doing at the moment of discovery. For some reason, though, I told Antony everything.
    He laughed so much I thought he was going to have a conniption. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
    â€œThat’s the funniest thing I have ever heard. A gym slip. HA HA HA. He thought you wouldn’t mind, HA HA HA.” Suddenly he snapped out of it and looked at me seriously. “What a complete asshole.”
    â€œWell, he is and he isn’t. Rick has his good side.”
    â€œHis money?”
    â€œI didn’t care about that. It was nice sometimes, but it wasn’t why I was with him. He made me laugh. He was exciting to be around.”
    â€œEspecially when he got his cane out . . . Oh I’m sorry, poor you. It must have been such a blow to think you had your future all set out and suddenly, a blank page. So have you come out to Sydney to meet a broad-shouldered Australian man?”
    I think I blushed.
    â€œWell, I hope you won’t be disappointed. And I hope you don’t think Jasper O’Connor is it, because he really isn’t. He’s nice looking, I can see that, but he’s a total flake.”
    â€œYes, I have been warned.” All these pronouncements about Jasper were beginning to irritate me. I’d only talked to the guy and everyone was warning me off him like he was radioactive or something. If anything it made him sound