"Bird the Hyena", June 11, 2009

HYENAS: Crocuta crocuta, named for their yellow crocus flower color, spotted hyena, cape wolf. The females are significantly larger than the males and are the leaders of the pack. An alpha female will be at the top of the clan, her daughters next, then the young sons, and last of all the mature, small, passive adult males at the bottom of the clan social order.
The females have large, long (sometimes seven inches), stretchy phalluses, larger than the males, and they use them to urinate, copulate and to give birth. Can you imagine giving birth through a penis? Their vulva are fused into their penises. The females have scrotal bags full of fat instead of testicles. Hyenas are sneaky, vicious scavengers and the females are the aggressors in eating and in sex and in all aspects of the pack life. Females in heat mount the least aggressive males and thus choose their inseminators.
I've been kind of oblivious to the constant clandestine social flirting that seems to go on constantly. Since I've been with Charlie, it is unavoidable. Almost every time we go out in public, the women flirt at him. Charlie does nothing to encourage this, au contraire, it is obvious he is with me, attentive and holding my hand or with his arm around me. Even so, the women act like I am not even there and just blatantly smile at him and start handling him, batting their lashes, preening and showing the backs of their wrists, smiling, raising their eyebrows, flipping their hair, fondling their earrings, exhibiting all the classic body language of a sexual advance. Sometimes this clandestine behaviour becomes overt.
One recent occasion: Last Friday we went to dinner at Little Italy and an older blonde woman came up to Charlie and started talking to him about how many people were in the restaurant. When she left, he said she had been rubbing her breasts against his shoulder. I could not believe it! She did have shoulder-length bleached blonde hair and heavy make-up but she had to be in her eighties! So Charlie said "She'll be back. If you don't believe it put your arm there and see". Sure enough, she did return and started another brief chat and left. Charlie said "She did it again and she'll be back". This time I did put my arm on Charlie's shoulder and sure enough a third time she came up and pushed her breasts hard into my arm and started rubbing them back and forth and up and down and around and around while telling Charlie the restaurant would be much busier later. So I stated "You're rubbing your titties on my husband's shoulder" and she kept right on rubbing them on my arm until she finally realized it was my arm. Even then she had no shame and kept on talking. I had to physically block her. I told her she should go talk to the piano player who was sitting by himself nearby alone on a break.
Another recent occasion: June 4, we went to the Grace Museum for a fancy reception. We were sitting at a table enjoying our wine and brie and hors d'ouevres. An older blonde woman quickly came up to Charlie and snapped his picture and then put her arm around him and asked if it was OK, and could she take another? Charlie looked startled and looked at me and I said "No! Stand by the buffet and I'll take a picture of you over there". But then I reconsidered and said "Oh, OK, stand behind Charlie and I will take one of you". Wouldn't you know she leaned over pushing into him closely! I took the photo and then she took one of me. I asked her name and she said "Bird" and spelled it. She took my email on a napkin to email me the photos. Then she leaned over right into Charlie's face and said to him "You're cute!!" and went running away up the stairs.
An older occasion: On my very first date with Charlie at our high school reunion, two blonde women actually crowded up to him competing for his attention, forcing me into the background, until he was forced to tell them outright "I'm with her" to make them back off.
I'm going to have to think about a proper response since this keeps happening. It is rude and disrespectful to me while inferentially flattering Charlie.