SCENE ONE
ALL: [sung] The queers in Broome are quite ill-groomed,
The gays in Broome are fat,
Theyâve left the sceney city life
To wear a wide-brimmed hat.
The queers in Broome are coupled up,
They renovate and work,
You might get propositioned by
The hotel front desk clerk.
LIAM and MIKE might hold up their phones, connected via FaceTime.
LIAM: Come.
MIKE: Nah.
LIAM: Why not?
MIKE: Because Iâm not in the space to do rural butch drag.
LIAM: Itâs not compulsory.
MIKE: When is it not?
LIAM: Race day.
MIKE: Please. All those Spode-ugly girls in mass-made frocks.
LIAM: Itâs fun.
MIKE: All those straight-acting closet types gagging on even saying the word âcockâ.
LIAM: Itâs not what you think it is.
MIKE: Standing around a denuded dust bowl brushing off clumps of dirt thrown into the air by scrawny horses and hirsute, potato-shaped poofters.
LIAM: Thatâd be Melbourne, darling. Up here we do glamour, sincerity and friendliness.
MIKE: Chances.
LIAM: Take it.
MIKE: No.
LIAM: Yes.
MIKE: No!
LIAM: Iâm booking you on a flight.
MIKE: I wonât go via Perth.
LIAM: Direct.
MIKE: Club lounge full of mining industry queens cruising for a quickie.
LIAM: How horrible.
MIKE: Business class full of cowboys in prostate-strangling tight pants.
LIAM: And all of them drooling over you.
MIKE: And all of them dazzled by the words âfresh meatâ blinking in neon on my forehead.
LIAM: And whatâs so wrong with that?
MIKE: Iâm off the market, Li. Iâm sworn off men, meat and methamphetamine.
Pause.
LIAM: Youâre right. Donât come.
MIKE: What?
LIAM: Since when did you turn into a lesbian?
MIKE: Some of my best friends are lesbians, Liam.
LIAM: Lesbians donât have best friends, Mike, they have co-dependent refusers of pleasure. They have compliant earnest restricters of fun. Some of your best friends are lesbians, Mike, and you think Broome is dull?
MIKE: Theyâre very broad generalisations, Liam.
LIAM: Just another word for perceptive, my love.
MIKE: When I left John it was my lesbian friends who put me back together.
LIAM: Sure, but theyâve put you back together as some feral bush pig eco dyke with a sudden love of musky body odour.
MIKE: Youâre terrible, Laverne.
LIAM: Come.
MIKE: Iâve got nothing to wear to Ladies Day.
LIAM: Weâll find you something, Madame Ovary.
MIKE: Something with a swishy hemline.
LIAM: Done.
SCENE TWO
LORENA: The hardest thing I have ever done, sexually, is when someone has asked me to masturbate for them. Because itâs just so private. I mean, they ask so that they can see what to do, how they can please me. And Iâve done it, itâs the hardest thing, because I know Iâm going to benefit in the end. But of all the things Iâve done, and Iâve done plenty, thatâs the time Iâve felt most inhibited. Yeah. I mean getting sex is easy, really. Iâve gone onto Grindr for some of these guys and Iâve got them laid in an hour. This friend of mine he was hopeless, dull responses. You know. And I got on there and was just witty and funny and confident and voilĂ . He was having sex within half an hour. And I told him, âJust donât say anythingâ. Because heâs just not funny, you know. And funny, witty, sweet, thatâs what people...