Pushing six feet in her stilettos and with the body of a state champion gymnast and the breasts of a classic Hollywood love goddess, my sister Beth is a stunning woman and the ruin of a few marriages, not her own and not that she ever misbehaved--but the looks from other women's husbands and boyfriends in restaurants and stores were enough to initiate fatal marital fights.
As her legs stretched and her breasts emerged during early puberty, Beth's dreams of Olympic gymnastics were crushed. She needed another competitive sport to satisfy her ambition, so she took up heart-breaking. As her older brother, I devolved into a somewhat pathologically protective monster. But I knew that game was lost on the day I caught MY 16-year-old sister shooting strip pool with the high school varsity football team. (By the way, Beth was a pool shark and I was probably more jealous at that point than angry.) I beat a hasty retreat and decided it was time to go with the flow.
Shortly after I came out, Beth and I started hitting the Manhattan mega clubs together. With a 14-year-age difference between us, we made an interesting couple and I was usually assumed to be her sugar daddy. It was an accidental ruse that led to many interesting encounters--both gay and straight--not only because of our appearance but because Beth had the most accurate gaydar imaginable. But this was clearly not a genetic gift; Beth had impeccable gaydar while I was mostly flying blind. It drove me insane. But it did come in handy. And she was never fucking wrong.
I finally threatened to kill her unless she revealed her secret. She laughed. "It's simple. I walk into a room and every straight man immediately looks at my breasts and then 3 seconds later he takes a second look to check out the rest of me."
Oh, Betsy, my baby girl, I finally get it.
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