Skin

by Christian Baines

  Yeah. He could do this. He had to do this.

  KYLE

  “You’re telling me now you’ve never been to an art gallery? For real? Like, at all? Actually, why am I surprised?”

  “Hey, they ain’t exactly dropping fine paintings off the back of trucks back home, all right?”

  Kyle couldn’t see Antoine’s broad smile as they lay on the grass, staring up at the tips of the palms that towered over the sculpture garden, along with the edges of various iron and tin sculptures that stretched into the sky. But he heard the quiet laughter soon enough.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got a sharp tongue there, Shreveport.”

  Kyle was about to defend himself when he felt the soft touch of Antoine’s fingers on his jaw, gently tilting their faces toward each other so the man could kiss his forehead.

  “A sharp tongue and a quick wit. I wouldn’t have picked it, but I like it.”

  Kyle smirked, taking in the height of the massive gallery before returning his attention to the twisted, skeletal metal.

  “You like that?” Antoine asked.

  He squinted, holding up his hand to block the brutal sun. The heat that had felt so good on their naked chests a half hour ago, now seemed oppressive in the crushing humidity. Kyle could feel cool trickles of sweat run from his chest and down his flanks, into the grass under his back. Not that it was an unwelcome sensation. Nor was the sweet smell of Antoine’s skin, where rivulets of sweat ran away down the smooth, dark surface with each of the much thinner man’s breaths.

  “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “You tell me.”

  He concentrated harder on the weird spire that curved like a long, exaggerated spinal column from the shoulders of the main sculpture, towering above it in a smooth arc, like the monster’s tail in Alien. Except, now that he looked closely, each vertebra was another figure, perched on the shoulders, covering the eyes of the larger one beneath it. It went all the way up from the shoulders of the poor son of a bitch standing at the bottom, blinded to the parade of goblin-looking fiends above his head. The tiniest one sat at the top, a mere dark spot in the air just above their heads as the sculpture curled over.

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “It’s a pretty cool place.”

  “Not exactly the Louvre, but it’s ours.” Antoine eased himself up onto one elbow and rested there, stroking Kyle’s arm. “You want to go inside?”

  Kyle shrugged. Getting out of the heat did sound good, but he also just wanted to lay there looking at Antoine. Today, the guy had shown up without makeup. No girlie pants or shoes. Just shorts, a tank top, and comfy slip-ons, almost the same as him. Was something wrong? Had Antoine thought he was making Kyle uncomfortable? Shit. He didn’t want to be responsible for that.

  “No, I’m good,” he answered. “Maybe another day. Not too hot out for you, is it?”

  Antoine let out a warm laugh. “Like I told you. Born and raised. If I’m not used to it by now—”

  “I just thought, you know, since you’re not wearing your other stuff.”

  Antoine’s smile dimmed, now seeming shy as he avoided Kyle’s eye. “I…I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable?” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He’d bit back the urge to say ‘girly,’ though he knew he’d done a lousy job of hiding it.

  “I was worried you’d be ashamed to be seen with me.”

  Kyle gently took Antoine’s chin in his hands, pulled it closer, and kissed him deeply. “Never,” he said after the kiss broke. “I would never be ashamed of that. You can wear whatever you want when you’re with me. If folks don’t like it, fuck ‘em!”

  Antoine’s smile returned, though he hid it behind tightly closed lips. He finally lost the battle to hold back tears, choking on them with a laugh. “Well, damn, Shreveport. You’re about the sweetest idiot I ever met.”

  Kyle almost laughed before… “Huh?”

  “I’m joking, you dope. You think I’d dress down for you, or for anybody else? I ain’t wearing stockings or a blazer on a day like today. Wait til two, three o’clock, and that shit’s hot and sticky as hell.”

  Kyle looked away just in time to see the bored looking guard approaching them.

  Antoine caught hold of his hand and squeezed. “And then you have to go and get all sweet like that.”

  They kissed again.

  “Off the grass in the garden please, fellas,” the guard chided them.

  “Sorry!” Antoine called, scrambling to his feet and helping Kyle up.

  Kyle caught himself starting at the guard, just for a moment. The man gave them a slight nod, adjusting his overstretched belt before continuing on his rounds.

  “Your type?” Antoine asked.

  “Hell, no! I just thought… When we kissed, he seemed so cool about it.”

  “Uhuh. You’re in New Orleans now. This ain’t Louisiana, and it is most definitely not ‘the South.’ You ain’t gonna shock nobody here, provided you ain’t stupid. At least not by making out with a matching set of genitals.”

  Kyle winced before he could stop himself. He should have been used to Antoine’s honesty by now. But that blunt way he had of just putting himself out there, and the way he talked about sex would still take some getting used to.

  “Sorry.” Antoine grinned as a bike passed them on the path heading back toward the Canal streetcar. “I forgot those virgin ears of yours.”

  “Oh, fuck that!” Kyle replied with a grin of his own. “You know I’m just not used to talking like that. Reckon my daddy would have belted me real good if I did.”

  “And you think what? That I was born and raised by some sex-positive, moon-worshipping flower people?” Antoine laughed again. “Man, I didn’t even come ‘til I was fifteen.”

  “Get out!”

  “No! I swear to god. They sat me down when I was maybe twelve, thirteen I guess, and it had to be the most painful twenty minutes of my father’s life. He’s all, like, trying to talk about things without actually talking about anything, and he’s saying things like ‘you know what feels good,’ and I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. I just heard the word ‘vagina’ and I checked out, you know?”

  Kyle cracked up laughing.

  “I swear to god. I barely figured out he was talking about touching myself. I didn’t even know stuff was supposed to come out. Hell, first time it happened, I thought I’d broken it.”

  Kyle’s knees almost gave out as he doubled over, clutching his stomach and trying to catch his breath. “You…you thought…” he wheezed between howls. “You?”

  “Hey, like I said, this was not the most sex-positive household. All they gave us at school was like, ‘abstain, abstain, abstain, marriage, marriage, marriage’—”

  “What about porn and stuff?”

  “Oh, after that first time, sure. I was all over that. But up ‘til then? No. I wasn’t gonna risk getting my ass whooped.”

  “And when was the first time you…you know. With a real guy?”

  “College.”

  “Freshman virgin, huh?”

  Antoine’s teeth showed brilliantly across his dark face. “And sophomore virgin, and—”

  “Okay,” Kyle interrupted through more laughter. “Your first time, Lavolier. When?”

  Antoine paused, a flush of embarrassment crossing his face for the first time Kyle could recall. “College senior year.”

  “What?”

  “Look, you gotta understand something, Shreveport. When a black family’s got serious money in this town, they protect it. They protect the name, especially if they’re Creole, because that’s not just color. It’s heritage. I mean, it’s not like it’s my momma and daddy’s money. It was my granddaddy’s restaurant, and he died when we were kids. We’ve just been living off it ever since. My daddy got into city hall based on that name. It took some favors through church and people like that to get him there, too. That requires a certain level of ‘good standing,’ as they call it. Ain’
t no way I was gonna rock that. I wasn’t exactly on scholarship, you know? Anyway, my last year, I finally, finally, started going to some of the gay stuff. Mixers...nothing political. Because once your face is out there on record, joining in with that stuff, you are fair game. You can’t just say ‘oh, that was somebody else.’ Anyway, this one time, this guy finally convinced me to go to one of these parties in drag.”

  “Right. And this was the guy—”

  “This was not the guy. And I can’t say drag did a whole lot for me. But then, people knew it was me. They didn’t care. I was just Antoine. Antoine in a wig. A costume. They laughed. I laughed. We danced. We drank. It felt…so fucking good. Totally liberating. That was when I realized I didn’t need the costume. I could just wear a few bits and pieces I liked because I liked them. The nails. The shoes. Whatever I was in the mood for, you know?”

  “Okay, and this leads to your first time how?”

  Antoine laughed. “Damn! You are not letting me have any secrets, are you?”

  “No, no I’m not,” Kyle laughed. “Not now you brought it up.”

  “All right, all right. Look, there’s not that much to tell. Tall, geeky white boy from Texas somewhere. He was drunk. I was drunk. This was not some great romance of our time. But he was sweet and a damn good kisser, as I remember. More than that, he made me feel sexy. Like, actually sexual. Even under all the shit I was wearing. I know…this is only two years ago, and it sounds so stupid. But it was the first time I’d felt like that.”

  “So,” Kyle said, his jaw almost hurting from the smile now fixed on his face. “You never went back? I mean, to being the way you were, all scared of sex and stuff?”

  “I never did, and I never will. I mean, my parents know. My mom always knew. But we don’t talk about it. It’s just, ‘oh, he’s different,’ or ‘he’s artistic, that boy.’ My grandma calls me a ‘Quarter character’ like they used to back in the day and leaves it at that. It’s not great, but what choice have I got? It’s not like they’re up in my face about it. If I want to go out, I can. So long as I don’t wind up in the newspaper kissing some guy or nothing, it’s no big deal.”

  They walked on in silence for a bit, Kyle stealing occasional glances at Antoine. It seemed so weird. Of course the guy’s parents knew. How could they not? But then, if they were rich Catholic types, how could they not freak? Or would that have been worse? Easier to risk somebody asking questions about their ‘artistic’ son than suffer the scandal of throwing him out. Or the risk of leaving him with nothing to lose, happy to sell his story on the back of their precious name. It made sense, but it was still the rule of a world completely alien to Kyle.

  “Well, Shreveport, I’m waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Bitch, you don’t get to drink my tea without pouring some of your own. Now, spill!”

  “Huh? What are you talking—”

  “Who was he? How old were you? Do your momma and daddy know? I’m guessing there’s a big fat ‘no’ on the end of that last question.”

  Kyle mopped the sweat from his forehead, cringing in the sunlight as he wiped the back of his hand on his shorts. “You really want me to talk about that?”

  “Well I don’t need you to open up, all childhood trauma and Dr. Phil on me, but yeah. I want to know something about you. Like who was the first guy you kissed?”

  “First guy I…? Shit, I didn’t kiss a guy for a long time.”

  “Meaning what? What did you do? You mean to say you started even later than me?”

  “No, I started years ago. Just, you know, stuff. I blew a couple of guys.”

  “Uhuh. Just how many years ago are we talking?”

  “I dunno. I was…I guess thirteen.”

  “Thirteen?”

  “On my uncle’s farm. He’d always hire a couple of guys to help him out over the summer. Gets hotter than hell up there, so…fit guys, no shirts or nothing. Hell, I didn’t know what I was doing. This one time, one of ’em was just looking at me kind of funny, and he’s like… man. Built solid, you know? He’s wearin’ these ugly-ass sweat pants. Nothin’ underneath ’em, and it’s just... Next thing I know, there I go. On my knees and that was it.”

  “You were hooked.” Antoine grinned. “So, did this guy come back?”

  “Hell, it wasn’t just him. Maybe he told his buddy or somethin’, but next thing I know, he wants a piece of the action, too. Then the next season, new guys, same shit. After a while, I just learned when to catch ’em on break. Sometimes they’d be jerkin’ off, thinkin’ nobody was around. Guess that must have happened a lot. Then I’d be there, so why not?”

  “Uh, because you were thirteen? That’s why not.”

  “You think these guys cared about that? Not ‘til we got caught, anyway.”

  “Okay. I wondered when this was coming. Your uncle called the cops?”

  Kyle winced at the memory. “It don’t exactly work that way up there. Poor guy couldn’t have been older than you and me are now, and he weren’t exactly built like some of the other guys neither. My uncle beat on him so bad he put him in the hospital. Shit, it wasn’t like he could say nothin’. Then they would have brought in the cops. I thought for sure, though, my daddy was gonna give me the same. But he never said nothing. My uncle never said nothing. Things were just…different.”

  “Different, how?”

  “Like, everything became ‘fucking faggots’ this, and ‘cocksucker’ that. My dad and my uncle, they were never exactly open-minded people. But after that happened, I started hearing them talk like that, very specifically. I knew what it meant. They didn’t have to say anything to me.”

  Antoine’s smile spread into a wide grin again. “Until you ran away to become un personnage du Quartier!”

  He barely raised a smile in response.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to touch a sore spot.” Antoine nodded at a small drinks cart set up on the corner of the park just ahead. “You thirsty? I’m dying over here.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Kyle admitted, grateful for the distraction and change of subject. “But I’ll get… Goddamn it!” Antoine had run off before he could finish. He grabbed the flimsy cotton of his tank and fanned himself until Antoine returned with two cold drinks in hand. He wasn’t a big fan of Mountain Dew, but he sure as hell wasn’t feeling picky either. He fished three dollars out of his wallet. “Here.”

  “Put it away,” Antoine answered, thrusting the damp drink into his other hand.

  “No, I mean it. Let me get my own, at least.”

  “You need to get a job first, handsome.”

  Kyle put the money away in his pocket. Antoine didn’t need to know he had an interview already, if he could call it that. Not unless he got the job. But then, if he did, how the hell was he going to explain that his first job in New Orleans was dancing as a goddamn stripper? He guessed there was no shame in it. The bartender who’d tipped him off about the place said he’d danced there a few years back. Said it with an almost nostalgic gleam in his eye. From what little Kyle had seen and heard, New Orleans seemed to have its own magic code about stuff like that, and it sure as hell beat wearing his feet raw running up and down covered in sweat and scraps in some kitchen for minimum wage. If he got minimum wage.

  But he couldn’t quite see Antoine going for it. Not if they were… Fuck, were they boyfriends? Kyle wasn’t even sure he knew what that meant.

  “What you staring at over there?”

  Kyle hadn’t been staring at anything. He didn’t notice the long body of water that stretched between them and the nearest houses until Antoine spoke. He grabbed the opportunity to again change the subject. “What’s that lake over there?”

  “Over there? That’s Bayou St John. Lot of history in that neighborhood. Supposed to be where Marie Laveau cast her St John’s Eve rituals.”

  “St John’s Eve?”

  Antoine nodded. “You know how New Orleans is, like, the birthplace of Voodoo in America? Well, St John’s Eve is maybe the m
ost powerful night on the Voodoo calendar. Supposed to be the night before John the Baptist was born.”

  “But that’d be more like a Christian thing though, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, that’s where it gets complicated. You’ve got to understand, Voodoo isn’t just some African folk religion. Vodoun was a system of religions and tribal beliefs. Then it comes through Haiti to New Orleans, and…well, this is a Catholic town and always has been. Voodoo as it’s practiced here includes a pretty big spoonful of that. Anyway, legend has it these rituals Laveau did were quite a sight. Thousands and thousands of people turning out to see ‘The Voodoo Queen’ do her thing. Snakes, skulls, knives, drums, runes on the ground, howling and screaming. Even possession if you believe that. The whole works. You stay here a while and you’ll hear all about her. Of course, they’re pretty sure now it wasn’t her who did the big rituals on St John’s, but her daughter.”

  “So, there was more than one?”

  “Only two that practiced, if I remember right. But a lot of people came to ‘Marie Laveau,’ either the first or the second, looking for divinations, readings, advice about their problems, blessings on marriages and pregnancies, you name it. Especially the rich white folk. They believed in her. Said she knew everybody’s business and everybody’s heart. Said she could be in multiple places at once. That she’d been gifted by the spirits.”

  “Huh. Do you believe that?”

  “My momma’s aunt sure did. Right up until she died. Her family’s been in New Orleans since before the Civil War. They were free Creoles, just like Laveau. That’s the only real reason I know about this stuff. Aunt Desiree took it real serious. Me? I think if Marie Laveau was half the Voodoo Queen they say, that she knew how to listen while she cut rich folks’ hair, and that she had a little army of daughters who looked just like her. You do the math.”