Painted Faces

by L.H. Cosway

  He keeps a firm hold of me and I lock my legs around his waist. He fucks me up against the wall like he can't control himself, but I don't think I want him to control himself right now. One look at his hot stare when he'd come into the dressing room before and I was immediately wet.

  He lowers his hand and presses his thumb against my clit, making circles. The combination of his cock inside me and his thumb moving is almost enough to undo me completely. I clench my thighs harder around him and he groans, still looking at me, always looking at me.

  “Need you,” he pants, “need you so much, like this, just like this.”

  “Nicholas,” I breathe his name and it's more air than sound.

  “Say my name again; I need that too.”

  “Nicholas...” I trail off, losing myself in the sensations that are pulsing through me, building to something I'm dying to feel.

  “Come on, Freda, come for me,” he says, eyes scorching me now.

  I feel my body quicken, and he keeps going with the pounding and the circles and it just about becomes too much as my body explodes. I shake against him as an orgasm shatters through me and I feel him come at the exact same time.

  He pulls out and carries me over to the chair, where he sits down and cradles me in his lap, repeatedly stroking his hand down my hair.

  “So, I take it you were pleased to see me,” I joke, curled up naked in Nicholas' lap.

  “I'm always pleased to see you honey,” he answers seriously.

  When I catch sight of myself in the mirror I can see that my mouth is smeared with Nicholas' red lipstick.

  He moves his hand from my hair to my breast, where he cups it in his warm palm.

  I rest my head against his shoulder and niggling questions consume me. What is this that we're doing here exactly? Will Nicholas still want me tomorrow as much as he wants me today?

  “What are we doing?” I ask, unable to help myself, my voice quiet.

  “We're enjoying each other Fred, making each other feel good.”

  “Oh.”

  “Isn't that what you wanted to hear?” he asks softly.

  “I don't know. I'm not sure what I wanted to hear.”

  “I love being with you Fred, don't try to label what we are or put expectations on it. All that only poisons things. What we have is raw, it's real. It's the best thing I've ever felt when I'm inside of you and you're looking in my eyes with this expression of absolute rapture and innocence on your face.”

  “Oh,” I say again, proper words failing me.

  He chuckles and wraps his arms tight around me.

  “Silly little Fred, what am I going to do with you, huh?”

  “Um, I think you've done enough for one night,” I say.

  He chuckles again.

  A few silence filled minutes later we go and clean ourselves up, then we make our way back to the hotel. We're both so exhausted that we crawl into bed and fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A Familiar Face

  The next day Nicholas and I resume our street canvassing, pulling out our best convincing smiles in order to talk people into coming to see his show.

  By lunchtime I've spoken to so many people that I feel like my voice box is going to fall out, if such a thing were possible. I resolve myself to one final pitch and select my target, which happens to be two men in their late forties wearing sharp business suits who are currently walking in my direction.

  Nicholas is on the other side of the street, chatting up a group of young men who look positively smitten with him. Poor things. I know what it's like to feel the full force of Nicholas' dazzling smile when he lays it on you.

  The suited men don't look like the usual clientèle you'd normally come across at a Vivica Blue show, but I decide to chance my arm anyway.

  “Hello gentleman,” I say. “Can I interest you in a musical treat the likes of which you have never seen before?”

  One of them blatantly eyes my cleavage, while the other smiles warmly and replies, “Maybe, what sort of musical treat are we talking about?” He's got a Scottish accent, so I take it that he's a local.

  “Well, to put it quite bluntly,” I say, gesturing him closer and putting on my most charming grin. “It involves a man in women's clothing with the best singing voice you'll have heard all year.”

  The suit laughs and his friend smiles wryly.

  “I don't know if that'd be my cup of tea, lass,” he answers.

  “Oh rubbish. Vivica Blue is everyone's cup of tea. She's a rising star set for big things, you mark my words.”

  “Will you be there?” asks the friend, with a leery expression.

  “I will indeed,” I reply, even though he's being a bit of a creep and spoke to my chest instead of my actual face.

  “In that case you can count us in, have you got a flyer?”

  “I most certainly do,” I answer and dig in my handbag, only to discover that I've run out. “It seems I'm all out gentlemen; follow me and I'll get one for you right away.”

  I guide them across the street to where Nicholas is just saying goodbye to the group of young men.

  “Hey Viv, I need some more flyers,” I call as I approach him.

  He gives me a flirty grin. “Run out already? You must be working extra hard Fred. I'll have to reward you for your efforts,” he winks mischievously.

  He hands me a few flyers and I turn around to give them to the two men. When I do, Nicholas' eyes lock on the one who hadn't been ogling my tits, and his face literally falls to the ground. He stumbles backward on his high heels and I have to grab a hold of his elbow to keep him from hitting the pavement.

  “Are you okay?” I ask with concern.

  He turns his face to me absent-mindedly, his eyes are miles away, but he manages to blink himself back to the present. “I'm fine,” he whispers, looking embarrassed about whatever just happened.

  The two men eye him curiously. I hand them a flyer and they continue on their walk.

  “Are you sure you're fine? You don't look fine.”

  He pulls his elbow out of my grip. “It's nothing. That man just bore a freakish resemblance to someone I used to know.” His voice sounds pained and it's scaring me a little.

  “Okay, maybe we should go back to the hotel now and have something to eat. How does that sound?”

  He just nods and we turn in the direction of the hotel. Once we get back I order us some sandwiches and tea from room service and Nicholas goes to take a shower. He hasn't breathed a word since the incident out on the street. He didn't even flirt and ask me if I wanted to join him in the shower, which is odd in itself.

  I kick off my shoes and tuck into the food once it arrives. It's been a half an hour and Nicholas still hasn't emerged from the bathroom. I leave it another fifteen minutes before I go to check on him, but when I try the door handle I find it locked.

  “Nicholas,” I call softly. “Are you all right in there?”

  “I'm fine, just shaving,” he calls.

  I know he's not shaving. He shaved this morning.

  “No you're not, let me in.”

  He let's out an audible sigh and a moment later I hear the lock flick over. I open the door to find him sitting on the edge of the bath tub, his hair is wet and he's wearing a bathrobe. I sit down beside him.

  “What's going on?” I ask in a gentle voice.

  He raises his eyes to mine and they look tired. He once told me that he's either happy or he's sad, that he doesn't have a middle ground. I'm guessing this is one of the sad periods. They're certainly less frequent than the happy ones, but when they come it kind of makes me sad too.

  In a way I have this strange maternal-like protective instinct towards Nicholas. I want to kick the arse of anyone who messes with him, and I want to wrap him up in cotton wool and make sure that the world never gets him down.

  “Who did the man in the suit remind you of?” I whisper.

  His gaze drops. It takes him a long moment
to answer. “A friend of my father's.”

  “You didn't like him?”

  “Not even a little bit,” he whispers, rubbing his palms against the towel fabric of his robe.

  I want to ask him more questions, but I don't. Instead I take his hand and lead him into the bedroom. I sit him down on the bed and then go out and put a sandwich on a plate for him. I pour him a cup of tea and bring it in to him.

  He nibbles on the sandwich, but doesn't really eat it. I lie back on the bed and turn on the television, keeping the volume low. Nicholas remains with his back to me, his shoulders slumped.

  It surprises me when, after a couple of minutes pass, he begins speaking over the low murmur of the television, still not facing me.

  “When I was a child I was always a little bit different,” he mutters. A second passes and then he launches into a long speech. “I became even more different when I found my mother's old clothes in the attic and got this weird idea into my head to wear them as if they were my own. I'd prance around the house singing in dresses and lipstick when my father wasn't around, which was often. I basically had the run of the place, which is why I became so comfortable in my odd little habit. I suppose I did it because I'd watch old recordings of my mother and she just seemed like this wonderful, beautiful person; she was the complete opposite of my father. I never wanted to be like him, all cold and unemotional, so instead I decided I would be like her, literally.”

  He stops and turns around in the bed. I sit up a little, riveted by his story.

  “I'm sure psychologists would have a field day with me,” he remarks morbidly.

  “This went on for years,” he continues. “It was my secret because I knew that other people wouldn't understand my need to be beautiful, to sing beautifully and be something that wasn't my father in every way. I didn't know what killed my mother back then, but I always knew it was somehow down to my father's coldness, like I could sense it. She was stuck in a loveless marriage and she was miserable. Later on my aunt would explain to me that my mother died of an overdose. She'd basically been taking a whole medley of anti-depressants and eventually her system just failed.”

  I scoot across the bed to sit closer to him. I wrap my arms around his waist, but I don't breathe a word. A tear streams down his face.

  “Being beautiful like her was my only happiness. At school I was bullied constantly by the other boys, because I preferred to play with the girls. They possessed the characteristics that I wanted to emulate – beauty, softness – that's why I liked to be around them. When I went home I could be alone and be somebody else. I could be a woman like my mother was and not a weird boy who couldn't seem to fit in. It was my father's friend who ruined everything. They worked together and he was bringing some paperwork over one day when Dad was out. I was in the living room singing in front of the mirror in a dress, so you can probably guess how mortified I was to be caught by some man I barely knew.”

  “What happened then?” I ask, hardly a whisper.

  “He destroyed me is what happened then. I'd never gotten a good vibe from him in the first place. He was a bad person, sick. When he caught me doing what I had been doing, he had something he could use to control me.”

  Nicholas pauses and I squeeze tightly on his arm, knowing what he's going to say next but not sure if I can take hearing it. Memories flit over his eyes.

  “He started coming over regularly then when Dad was out. He told me that if I didn't tell my dad about his visits that in return he wouldn't tell him about what he'd caught me doing. He always made me be a boy with him though. I could wear the dresses in my own time, but that's not what he wanted from me when he came over. He fucked me up, did a number on me. I was a fourteen year old kid and he fucking ruined me Fred, pushed me into doing things that were for grown-ups. If it hadn't been for him then I probably would have outgrown my little obsession with the dresses and the make-up. He turned being a boy into something that I couldn't stand, so that being a woman was my only escape.”

  “Oh,” I breathe, everything falling into place.

  “This blackmailing went on for years, but when I turned eighteen I resolved myself to telling my father. Only I knew that simply telling him about what Kelvin had been doing to me all those years wouldn't be enough. He wouldn't believe me. So I had to show him. I told Kelvin to come over one day when I knew my father would be coming home early. I made sure that Dad found us in a compromising position so that there would be no refuting it. He nearly killed Kelvin that day. I hadn't been prepared for the violence. I had to drive Kelvin to the hospital and leave him at the entrance to A&E. When I returned home I found my dad crying in his study. Crying. It was the first and last time I'd ever seen him cry. I couldn't believe that finding out his best friend had been systematically raping me for years would be the thing that would finally get him to show some human emotion. I told him everything then, how it started, how it had been going on for years. He looked so broken and it made me so angry, because I was the one who was broken, not him. I packed my bags that night and that was the last time I ever saw him. It was years later that I got a phone call from my aunt telling me that he had died.”

  “Nicholas,” I breathe, folding my arms so tightly around him that I'm worried he might suffocate.

  He doesn't seem to hear me; he's lost in the past. He continues speaking, “I ran away to France first, and for a year I did nothing but drink and take drugs and try to forget who I was. Then I pulled myself together and started experimenting with shows in tiny venues and the whole thing grew from there. I created the Vivica Blue persona and I haven't stopped travelling and performing since. I get that some men want to dress up as women because they want to be a woman. I don't want to be a woman though, at least not when I'm off the stage.

  “I perform for the catharsis, because it's freeing. It's the opposite of what Kelvin wanted me to be, so it's also a strange sort of protest. Every time I put on a dress I'm sticking two fingers up at what he did to me. In the same way that an actor needs to become another person when they act, I need to become another person when I sing. And now, when I'm Nicholas, I can truly reclaim myself when I can get lost in a woman like you because you could never be anything like him. I can be a man with you, strong, in control, not a scared little boy.”

  My heart thumps hard and fast against my ribcage.

  “So, this is me darling, a complete and total contradiction. A fucking mess.” He smiles sadly.

  “A beautiful mess,” I proclaim.

  “But a mess nonetheless,” he adds.

  “Hey, that rhymed,” I laugh.

  “It did, didn't it.” He doesn't laugh, he hasn't got it in him yet.

  We sit in silence. Nicholas breaks it when he says, “I don't think I'll ever be the man you deserve Freda.”

  “You already are.”

  “I'm not. I have issues a mile long. Issues that might sink into the recesses, but never quite go away.”

  “The fact that you think you're not good enough just shows how good you are Nicholas.” I say. “Do you know that you're the first man who's ever looked at me and actually seen me? When you're fat your whole life you get fairly used to people looking through you, dismissing you simply because you don't fit with their aesthetic ideals. So I either get men looking through me or men looking at me because they think I'll have low self-esteem and will be easy to manipulate. You didn't do any of that. You made me feel like a woman, a woman worth getting to know.”

  “You're not fat Freda,” he says shaking his head.

  “Maybe not to you because your beauty standard is different from the norm. But put me standing next to someone like Nora in a night club and I might as well be a part of the furniture. So don't you see, you are the man I deserve. You saw me, changed my life, made it better, and I'm completely fucking in love with you.” I clamp my hands over my mouth after I say it. I can't believe I just said that; I hadn't meant to.

  I stare at Nicholas and several agonised emotions pass over his
face as he looks back at me.

  “Oh Freda, honey, no,” he says sadly.

  I feel like I've been hit with a truck. The tone of his voice immediately tells me that I shouldn't have told him that. We've only been having sex for two days, what the hell was I thinking? Oh yeah, I wasn't. I was just letting my stupid mouth run away with me again.

  “You don't love me,” he says, still staring at me, as though trying to convince himself. “I'm not the person you should love. I'll let you down.”

  I stand up and wrap my arms around myself. “I – I didn't mean that,” I mumble like an idiot.

  He narrows his eyes. “You didn't mean it,” he repeats my words back at me, disbelieving.

  “Yeah, I um, I was trying to make you feel better.”

  “By lying and telling me that you're in love with me?” he raises his voice.

  “It just came out,” I whisper.

  “Okay,” he says, his temper simmering down and a pained look crossing his face. Why doesn't he want me to love him?

  “This has been a long day,” he sighs and runs his palm over his face. “I tell you what, you take the night off. I'll do the show by myself. You can go and see the sights or something.”

  His voice is closed off now, like he's intentionally trying to hide away and ignore the fact that I love him. He knows I meant it when I said it. I know I meant it when I said it too. Now it's this pink elephant in the room that we both don't want to acknowledge.

  God, I'm such an idiot. This was probably the worst possible moment to tell Nicholas how I feel, after he's just relived all of the awful things he went through as a young boy.

  “I'm going to go for a walk,” I say, needing to get away from him and my own pained emotions.

  He simply nods as I go to slip on my shoes and grab my handbag. Feeling like I'm in a trance, I leave the hotel room and make my way outside. The Royal Mile is crowded with tourists as usual and I start walking uphill until I find myself at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle. I decide to go inside and have a look around, thinking it might distract me from my confusion over what just happened with Nicholas.