“Sweet Jesus, Angel, you shocked me,” I muttered, gulping some water. It tasted slightly metallic. I should buy some filters, filter this tap water.
Angel crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m talking about César, you just walk away?”
I blinked. “I was thirsty,” I muttered. I saw a muscle twitch in Angel’s jaw. Clearly I had done something wrong. “How’s César doing?” I asked, hoping this was what he wanted to hear.
“Okay,” Angel said, looking back at me with his dark eyes. They were very dark brown, almost black, and they stood out because his skin was light in comparison.
He clearly wanted to talk about César, so I tried to keep up the conversation. “He got married, right?” That was the last piece of trivia I could recall about César from Phoenix.
Angel cleared his throat with impatience. “They’re separated. He’s going through a divorce, Machyl.”
“I, um. I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“You know he married this British boy, yeah?”
I frowned. I didn’t remember any details. Angel kept talking before I could reply.
“White British boy. Non-combat. Well, come to find out after two years, little prick was getting it somewhere else.”
“Oh,” I said.
Angel wiped his nose angrily, his shoulders tight. “César wasn’t going to be disrespected like that.”
“Course not,” I said. “How’s he doing?”
The content of the conversation was banal gossip, chit-chat. But everything about Angel’s stance, feet planted firmly, arms guarding his chest, face drawn in, his eyes mercurial, it suggested something far more serious.
“He’s good,” Angel said in clipped tones.
“I meant with the divorce,” I tried to clarify, realizing I had repeated myself.
“He’s getting divorced, Machyl, what do you think?” Angel snapped, running his hand over his shaved head. “Use your brain and think for one second.”
So Angel was in a mood about something. I wasn’t awake enough to deal with this.
“Okay, baby,” I murmured, putting my hands over my face and yawning. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? Let’s go to bed, okay, papi?”
Angel’s arms uncrossed with a swift, almost violent movement. “I’m trying to tell you I’m not your man any more, Machyl, if you would just listen to me,” he barked.
“What?” I said stupidly.
His eyes met mine. When they did, I realized that our eyes hadn’t met for real ever since I ran up to him in the street when he was about to leave.
He walked toward me, until he was leaning down, right in my face. “You heard me,” he breathed, his nose almost touching mine.
Then he turned and walked toward the door.
“No, Angel,” I said. “No, wait. Stop, Angel.” I didn’t know what was happening, all I knew was I had to stop him walking out that door.
My hands found his shoulders as his hand was on the doorknob and I grabbed on.
“Let go,” he growled.
I clung harder, I slid down his body and wrapped my arms around his waist and my knees around his calves. “No,” I gasped. “Let’s just go to sleep, Angel.”
He turned around with difficulty because I didn’t let go, until he was facing me, looking down at me. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”
I tried not to let it show on my face how hard he had just smacked me with those words. “I know you’re mad at me,” I said. “I wasn't there for you. You should be mad. I’m sorry.”
He stared at me. “Let me go.”
“What else did I do?” I gripped his hips harder with my fingers. He was so big and strong. I just wanted him to put his arms around me, lay me down in bed and hold me all through the night.
He shook his head. “I’m warning you, Machyl.”
I let go, but I didn’t know why. I fell back onto the floor and my hand landed in something cold and wet. I looked at my hand. I had forgotten to wipe my own spunk off the floor.
He didn’t say anything. He looked at me, looking at my own hand with a grimace of disgust on my face, and he just turned around and walked out the door.
I opened my eyes with a start as the memories of last night evaporated. The train was rolling into Angel’s stop.
I got up and pushed through the crowd. The train had really filled up on the way here. I managed to get out just before the metal doors closed on me.
Ten minutes later, I stood in front of Angel’s door and pressed the buzzer.
I had got in on the ground floor by holding the door open for a stressed-out looking Latina with a baby and toddler. She had black hair scraped away from her face in a tight braid that tailed down her back, and the toddler, who was screaming, had a miniature version of the same ’do. She had given me a scowl as she manhandled the little girl out the door. Maybe it had been a scowl of thanks.
I waited in front of Angel’s door until I felt like he should have answered, then pressed it again.
I heard footsteps behind the door and a mutter, and then Angel came out, scowling at me just like the toddler braid woman, and shut the door behind him.
“Ah, fuck,” he said, turning to look at the door. “Look what you made me do. I don’t have the key. Fuck!”
I crossed my arms. This was going well. “Don’t be a smart ass.”
“Fuck you know about it,” Angel jerked his chin at me, crossing his arms right back. “You got a masters degree in that, too?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need this from you right now.”
“What you need then?” Angel said belligerently.
“I need you to stop being a fucking asshole,” I snapped. I looked at the door and said in a lower voice, “Your roommate home?”
I didn’t know the current roommate’s name. There might as well be a revolving door for how often they changed. They were all the same. Ex-infantry, non-communicative and anti-social.
Angel nodded curtly and my heart sank. I had really, really hoped his roommate would be out.
Angel didn’t have sex if there was someone else in the house. It was a weird thing of his. And he wasn’t even very noisy during sex. But that was why I couldn’t have a roommate. It was expensive, but I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to get it from him.
I felt my brow knitting together. “Well, would you come back to mine, then?” I asked, uncrossing my arms and reaching out to touch his bicep.
I wanted to wrap my hands around his arms and feel them, run them up to his shoulders and feel his hands come around my hips, strong and firm.
He looked back at me with the same flinty look in his eye he’d had last night, and the hard lines of his face didn’t budge.
“I told you,” he said. “I told you last night.”
I frowned. “Told me what?” I asked.
“I told you. We broke up. We’re not together any more.”
“Did you get a blow to the head at work today or something?” I said, reaching out and touching his forehead. “You’re talking crazy, baby.”
He pushed my hand away and that hurt me like he had just broken a two by four over my body.
I shook my head. “Angel,” I said, glancing around to check no busybodies had poked their heads out to listen, “I know we haven’t had sex in a while, but—”
His head jerked behind him to look at the door, then back to me. “Be quiet!” He hissed, raising his hand.
For a moment I thought he was going to clap it over my mouth to shut me up, but then he just clamped it over his own mouth and stared at me over it.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I’ve been really busy with work and with drag stuff,” I said. “But I promise I’ll be there more. Okay?”
He just gazed back at me silently, like he was made out of stone. I started to feel desperate and grabbed hold of his upper arms, just the way I had wanted to.
“Angel,” I breathed, narrowing the space between us. “Just—just kiss me right now,” I begged, bri
nging my mouth close to his. “And you’ll see,” I murmured. “You’ll know everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
I closed my eyes and I knew that it was true. He would make everything right again when he wrapped his arms around me and kissed me with the passion that used to make my stomach drop away and my knees give out.
Like when we first got together and he couldn’t control himself around me, the moment we were alone he would seize me and push me down on the bed, the couch, the floor, his hands roaming under my clothes.
And he could reduce me to a squirming mess just by getting on top of me and stroking his hands down my body until I couldn’t wait another second, thought I would die if I didn’t have him inside me.
It would be like that again if he would just kiss me now, and I waited for it.
His large hands pushed me away so that I staggered backward a couple of steps. I stood there, breathing hard, looking at him. For the first time I felt like there was something going on, something serious.
The door opened behind him and light from the apartment spilled out. There was a bulb right in my line of sight which was so bright, it pierced my eye painfully and I squinted and moved to the left, trying to get out of the glare.
A figure blocked it, a man.
“Ángel,” he said, and he said it the Spanish way, the A soft and the G an H.
Angel gave way, looking behind a little at him. And I saw the granite-like composure of Angel’s face give way and something softer replaced it.
No.
What was happening?
“Yo,” the man said, looking at me.
“Machyl,” Angel said, indicating the man. “You haven’t met César,” he said.
César held out his hand toward me and I shook it. His handshake was huge, warm and very firm.
“Hey,” I said.
Angel was tall, but not that tall. I was five ten and Angel just grazed six feet. But César was huge. He had to be six five. And he was ripped. I could see the muscles in his chest bulging underneath the tight white t-shirt he was wearing.
His skin was deeply tanned, the shade of burnt cinnamon, which made his olive eyes stand out surprisingly.
His nose had been broken and healed crooked and I noticed that there was a small scar which cut through his eyebrow and where no hair now grew, and another scar at the corner of his mouth which pulled it down in a grim expression. He looked like one mean motherfucker.
“César is rooming here,” Angel said, crossing his arms again.
I swallowed, feeling the full awkwardness of César bursting in on my and Angel’s conversation. I wished he would go back inside and let us talk.
Silence fell.
Angel stood there with his arms crossed.
César looked down, scratching his ear.
I frantically searched my mind for small talk. Should I ask him why he was in New York? But hadn’t Angel told me last night that this guy was going through a divorce? Hardly chit-chat material.
“So I think you better go,” Angel said.
I breathed a sigh of relief and looked at César, waiting for him to turn around and leave us to continue our conversation, or better still, go out altogether. Then Angel would let me in and we could go into his bedroom and fuck.
It felt like I had been waiting a hundred years for Angel to fuck me.
But César didn’t go anywhere.
More than just annoyed, I was starting to dislike this César.
“Machyl,” Angel said. “Did you hear what I said?”
That made me snap my head toward him and stare at him in disbelief. “What?” I said.
He looked at me, and then he reached out his hand and pointed at the elevator. “Leave.”
Was I stupid? I couldn’t understand the words that were coming out of his mouth.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Then César turned and went back inside, which was good, but then Angel turned as well, turned his back on me without another word, and went inside the apartment, and shut the door in my face.
I stood there, staring at the door, and at some point it dawned on me that I didn’t know how long I had been standing there, staring at it, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do except to walk slowly to the elevator and get in it and go downstairs and get on the subway and go home.
But when I got to the subway, I didn’t take the train to go home. I took another train and I went to Persimmon Dance Studios. They had classes here until late, some days until midnight.
I hadn’t been here in months and I had let my subscription expire. I just didn’t have time what with the late nights at work and drag and Angel and everything else.
The smell of the place was familiar. It was in a converted warehouse, of course, and shared the space with a public swimming pool.
The only showers were in the pool changing rooms and it was well known by the boys who danced that there was a swim team which practiced on weeknights until eight, and I won’t say we never arranged classes in time to go and look at their lithe swimmer’s bodies and see what was under those little tight swimmer’s briefs. You just had to give them enough time to let the effects of shrinkage fade, or use your imagination.
When I walked into reception, there was the faint sound of pounding music from the studio and a white boy with half his hair shaved off and the rest asymmetrical blue and pink in a cropped t-shirt and almost-see through white leggings, perched cross-legged on a high stool and smacking his gum like it was the nineteen eighties or something.
Typical Booklyn hipdipper.
I rolled my eyes internally.
“What do you got?” I said with no patience, leaning my hands on the desk.
He raised one eyebrow at me. “I beg your pardon?”
“Last thing I need is your ass begging me for pardons,” I looked at him critically. “I ain’t got none and you would be the last on my list if I did have any. Now what class is on and how much?”
He stared at me. “Are you a mem—”
“No,” I snapped. “I’ll pay the goddamn non-member price,” I smacked my wallet down on the counter. “Just get me into that class.”
He looked at me for another moment, then a smirk grew on his lips. “Boy trouble?” He inquired archly.
I glared at him. “I’ll give you boy trouble,” I clicked my fingers in the air. “Won’t no boys be troubling you to find out what’s under those tighty-whities because there won’t be nothing. Now ándele!”
He laughed, which wasn't exactly the effect I was going for, and took the credit card which I was shaking at him, gave me the machine to punch in my code.
“It’s tap fusion,” he called after me and I strode through the door which led to the studio.
I groaned. I was terrible at regular tap, let alone some unholy combination with something else.
But I went.
I needed this.
By the time the class was over and I was standing under the hot water in the empty swimming pool showers, it was after eleven pm.
Clouds of steam rose around me in the shower cubicle and I closed my eyes and let the hot water massage my muscles and soothe my sore limbs.
The class had whupped my ass, that was for sure. I needed to train more. I just had to find a way to fit it in. It would be better to give up a little more sleep, and do a little more exercise.
I soaped up with the spartan body wash that came in a dispenser from the wall, blue and smelling slightly like detergent. When I had rinsed off I kept standing there, enjoying the water pressure on my back.
The changing rooms were actually empty. I had had to turn the lights on as I entered, and my footsteps echoed as I walked into the tiled space past the rows of lockers.
It had given me the creeps, made me think of all the horror movies I had seen where a killer stalked the captain of the football team on prom night.
But now that I was here in the shower, behind the shower curtain, it didn’t feel so creepy. It f
elt private, and yet public, and that was a little bit exciting.
I felt a little thrill behind my navel and licked my lips, ran my hand down my stomach and around my groin to my thigh. With my other hand I felt my left buttock and grabbed it firmly.
I leaned my head back against the tiles and let my hands roam, closed my eyes and imagined the shower curtain being pushed aside, the metal rings clinking together as the material accordion’d, and then Angel stepped inside, his dark eyes taking in every inch of my body.
He didn’t close the curtain again, he left it half open as if inviting passersby to look, even though the place was empty, and there was no risk of that.
He was naked, too, and I couldn’t help raking my eyes up and down his taut body and hard muscles, the scar on his right thigh, the eagle tattoo on his left pec, and then, of course, his growing erection.
He didn’t say anything to me, he just came toward me and put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around, pushing my face against the tiles. I felt him running his hands down my back and his legs sliding against mine, his knee by my foot as he knelt down, and then his hands on my buttocks, parting them.
I went limp against the wall of the shower, bracing my arms and knees against it and I whined as I felt his tongue probe my anus.
“Angel,” I gasped, grasping at the smooth tiles hopelessly for purchase.
His hands moved, one to my balls, the other to my dick, and I gasped and let out a groan as I grew rock hard under his touch.
“Oh, Lord, Angel,” I murmured as my asshole grew warm and started to spark with pleasure as he tongued me. He didn’t rush, he didn’t push, he just kept up the steady pressure until my balls started to ache with the need for him.
“I want you, Angel,” I almost sobbed into the side of the shower cubicle. “I want you now.”
I turned around and slid down the wall until I was on my knees facing him, and looking into his eyes, and he looked back at me.
His hand came up and touched my face, his other hand resting on my ribcage, and he leaned forward and kissed my neck. His erection brushed against my hip and mine slipped across the hard surface of his stomach.
Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 4