Falling in love with love

I had the first inklings that I was bisexual when I was about 10. My parents had gone to a school meeting and I had refused to go next door to be babysat.

Anyway, I was lying on my stomach watching one of the 1930s films you could see on the TV then. It was an operetta-style musical: it might have been Rose-Marie, or perhaps Maytime. But in any event it starred Jeanette MacDonald.

Oh I thought. Oh… that lady is so beautiful.

It was something to do with the way she sang, the way she held her head back and half-closed her eyes. Her eyelids were luminescent. Shiny eyeshadow, I imagine, although I didn’t know that then.

I thought there was something magic about her, transcendent, utterly unobtainable. And that was what I was looking for. That was what I felt for a little boy I had loved (silently) before. She cast a spell on me, with her eyelids and that clear, high voice. There was, too, the way she stared mysteriously at someone or something the audience couldn't see.

I saw another film of hers on the big screen a few months ago: Love Me Tonight. Damn, I thought, I was right. Jeanette MacDonald really was that gorgeous.