My friend Victoria was visiting me in New York, and we went to the Beauty Bar to drink martinis and get our nails done, but the place didn’t open for 15 minutes. So we killed time by wandering into a wig store, and Victoria pointed out this flippy magenta wig: “I bet that would look good on you.” Victoria sees beauty and possibility like that. I never would have chosen that wig for myself (I liked wigs that weren’t the color of actual hair, colors that weren’t even found in the natural universe), but she was right: That wig looked quite good on me.

I wore the wig to the bar that night, which was one of those screaming, perfect adventures where you love everyone you meet, and when a gay man came up to me and asked to squeeze my boobs, I said, “Do you think I’m wearing a wig?” And he said, “No! No way! But can I squeeze your boobs anyway?” And I said, “OK.” (Because: Why not?) And he said, “I just love squeezing women’s boobs. I don’t know why.” And he made the kind of face a little kid would make plunging both hands into a birthday cake. And I said, pulling away a bit, “OK, that’s enough. But really, this doesn’t look like a wig?” And he said, “No. That looks like your real hair. And those are your real boobs.” And I said, “Yup.” And he said, “I like you. We’re friends now.” And I said, “I like you too, friend.”

I have absolutely no idea who that person was, but thanks to Victoria, and thanks to that screaming fun night, I developed quite a fetish for wearing wigs. I wrote a story about it in Salon. You can read it here.