He must have passed muster because she narrowed the distance between them until their bodies touched and they started whining together. Their hips moved in synch, rotating with a smooth movement.
I saw him lean down to speak into her ear and I imagined what he might be saying, his voice deep and soft.
“Wuk pon me, baby, just like dat.”
She turned her head to look up at him and smiled coyly.
I looked away. The last time I came here, I had spent the whole time checking my phone in vain, for the millionth time that day, if there was anything from Angel.
I remembered wondering if I should I try to call him again? It had been more than two hours since the last time I tried.
I remembered picking up my drink and taking a good long cold gulp, hoping to stifle the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Do you come here a lot?” Anthony asked, making an attempt at conversation for the first time in the evening.
His words jolted me and I bit the inside of my mouth firmly, just enough to hurt, and I tried not to think about what I had just done before we left Persimmon Dance Studios.
“I’ve been coming here with my family ever since I can remember,” I said.
He fell silent again.
My eyes drifted back to the dancers. They were grinding close and slow, her hand reaching up to the back of his neck.
I wanted to force my eyes away, but they stuck there on the couple until they started to burn with jealousy.
“Do you come here with Duane Tyrone?” Anthony asked.
I nodded.
I could see Anthony was looking at the dancers, just like I was. The floor was filling up now. Several more couples had joined white shirt and fuchsia, obscuring them from my sight.
“What about Angel?” Anthony asked.
I nodded again, shifting in my seat uncomfortably and re-crossing my legs, looking away from the dance floor for what felt like the tenth time. It wasn’t the first time I had watched the proceedings and wished I could join.
I pursed my lips and crossed my legs tighter, knit my fingers together and squeezed hard. It got me frustrated sometimes, it did, I could admit that.
It was when they put on the lovers’ rock and the couples stood up from the tables and started to move together, showing affection freely. Showing desire freely.
There had been times, many times, when I had shrugged it off. Angel and I sat there at the table and drank or picked over leftovers while the others moved to the music. Because even if my boyfriend did want to dance with me, that wasn’t going to happen here.
But Angel wouldn’t even wine on me in private. In my apartment, on a nice evening to ourselves with candlelight and red wine. Angel didn’t like dancing. And he was Latino. But for some reason he didn’t. And I had long since given up backing up on him and trying to get him to join in.
I took a large sip of my own drink and felt it go down cold, the bubbles crisping my tongue. It was just lemonade, no alcohol, not tonight.
I looked at the dance floor again. The soca season was warming up in the months leading to Carnival and artists were starting to release their best stuff, music to make you jump and gyrate from the inside out.
I was a Trini and I could wine with the best of them. I could wuk it and juk it. I could bruk it down and tun it up. I could tick-tock and twerk and get on wassi with my cultural heritage.
There had been times, many times, when I had consoled myself with that thought.
But I had never gotten up there on that floor to show them what I could do. I hadn’t danced at Bacchanal since I was fourteen years old and I got wise about certain things.
I wasn’t in the closet. I was proud to be a gay man, a gay black West Indian New Yorker. When we came here to eat, people knew Angel was my partner. This was New York, after all.
But there were there were expectations of men and women. There were lines that didn’t get crossed, not when you were at Bacchanal’s Restaurant and Bar in Queens.
“You don’t dance here, do you?”
I looked at him, feeling surprise.
“Especially not with Angel,” he said. “Right?”
I shook my head.
“I understand,” he said. His contact lenses caught a string of lights somewhere behind me and glowed softly.
Good food, good music and the comfort of West Indian culture were a refuge. To a certain extent.
I didn't know why he understood that.
I felt weird all over and I stood up quickly.
“’Scuse me,” I said. “Restroom.”
The bathroom was clean, two urinals and a stall and there was an air freshener giving off an artificial lemon scent.
Patrice and Shurwayne had put some effort into the bathrooms when they renovated, too. The recessed lighting was a nice touch and the fixtures and fittings were an upgrade.
They had done a nice job with the main dining room, too. Overall they had kept the spirit of the old Bacchanal while updating it. Everyone in the community seemed to feel that way.
I was trying to distract myself.
That artificial lemon scent was bringing back strong and vivid memories of that night.
I remembered standing here peeing and wondering, What if Angel had already gone out?
I remembered it being close to ten pm. That I had the thought that it wasn't too early for Angel to head to House of Cosmosis.
I remembered how the desire to call him came up in me, strong and urgent. But as soon as I felt it there had been an answering flare of rebellion.
Angel wanted me chasing him.
He liked to dangle infidelity in front of me like a carrot on a stick, knowing that I would go round the track a hundred times, not eating and not sleeping until I knew for sure that he hadn’t been touching some other queer.
Meanwhile he was convinced I had an open door policy on my rectum even though I only had eyes for him. I had to stop going to the gay gym because he went out of his mind that I had to pass the weight room on my way to the hot yoga class.
I remembered how I had zipped myself up and turned around to the sink and as I washed my hands, I had realized I was starting to go back into the same mental vortex Angel always sent me into.
I went round and round and always ended back in the same place. By same place I meant face-down in the pillow.
Exactly where I wanted to be.
Make up sex was the best.
I remembered how I dried my hands quickly, grabbed my phone, firing off a message to Angel.
I haven’t heard from you papi
In the here and now, I was washing my hands and drying them slowly and remembering how I had been thinking about bathrooms.
The bathrooms at House of Cosmosis were a lot bigger than Ellegrandé, because that club was a lot bigger than we were. The only reason we even had a male and female toilet was that Calleen Jones refused to use the men’s one, so they had been subdivided back in the seventies.
I had been thinking about how the bathrooms at Cosmosis were slick and modern and all chrome-looking fixtures and reflective black surfaces. When you were in one of those stalls, you could see yourself reflected in the walls and the floor. Yourself, and whoever else was in there with you.
And I leaned my hands on the water-flecked sink and hung my head as I remembered how I feared that Angel might be in one those stalls right then, with his fly unzipped and some fag’s fingers hooked into the pockets of his jeans, knees aligned on either side of Angel’s kicks on the floor tiles, Angel’s fingers stroking his scalp through his short hair as he watched his own reflection in the wall opposite, watched the guy’s head go forward and back on his dick.
My eyes were burning around the edges. My worst fears had, in the end, come true.
No. It was far worse than that.
What had ended up happening was far, far worse than my worst nightmares about Angel cheating.
And the irony was that he hadn’t been cheating, after all.
> I stood up straight and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked tired. It was twelve thirty, and I had to get up early. I had been going to work early all week to make up for leaving the office by six-thirty to get to the rehearsals.
At least I had taken a shower already at—
I turned around smartly and marched myself back out of the room. I was not going to think about that.
I didn’t know why I had brought Anthony here. I only brought very close friends and family here, so I didn’t know what I had been thinking. And with the bad memories of the last time, it had been an even worse choice.
I needed to get home and go to bed.
When I got back to the table, Anthony was still watching the dancing. I didn’t sit down, just made the check sign at the nearest server, who wasn’t ours, but I didn’t care.
“Does your phone back up to the cloud?” Anthony asked.
I frowned. “I guess so.”
“Then I need to see that,” he said. His eyes looked very dark in the low lighting of the restaurant, now in night club mode. I couldn’t see the string of lights behind me reflected in his gaze any more.
I was so tired, and my chest tightened painfully with an unexpected and almost overwhelming sadness. I sat down.
“Okay,” I said. “Not now.”
“Yes now,” he said, staring at me with those dark eyes.
I rubbed my hand over my face. “I have no idea how to do that. I need to go to bed.”
“I know how,” he said. “I’ll come back with you.”
“Come back where?”
“To your apartment.”
“Okay,” he said, closing my laptop.
I was lying on the kitchen table with my face in the crook of my elbow. I looked at the kitchen clock with blurry eyes. It was almost one-thirty in the morning.
I yawned so wide it almost took my head off.
“Can I go to bed now?”
“Yep,” he said. He stood up. “Thanks,” he said.
“What for?” I mumbled into my arm.
“For not being a complete jerk about this,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to…”
Of course. I would have rolled my eyes if I had the energy. Of course I had to not be a jerk about it. That was part of my plan, after all.
I lifted my head and croaked, “You’re welcome.”
He looked to the side for a moment, then back at me. “I shouldn’t have followed you into the bathroom the other night,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t expect that one.
“It looked, um. Pretty brutal,” he said.
“No shit,” I muttered.
“Did you suspect… at all…?”
“Not with him,” I snapped, suddenly feeling more awake. “César. They used to compete to see how many men each of them could fuck in the army.”
Anthony’s pretty face registered shock.
“Yeah,” I said. “So no. I didn’t suspect.”
“I’m sorry,” Anthony said.
“What are you so sorry about, anyway?” I said, resting my chin on my hand. My eyes kept trying to close.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said. “And I’m sorry for what I said afterward, too. That was mean.”
“You’re so concerned about my feelings,” I muttered.
“That’s what I’m trying to say,” Anthony said more loudly, in frustration. “I made a mistake and I’m sorry.”
I wanted to say that his mistake was thinking I cared what he thought or said about me. But I didn’t.
“I—” he said. “I thought it must have been hard to watch because it—it really looked like true love.”
I gazed at him. “What do you know about that?”
Anthony looked back at me for a minute, then dropped his gaze, wrapped his arms around himself, shook his head. “Do you believe it exists?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because I thought you were—you always talked about Angel like everything was so fantastic.”
“Why are you poking your nose where it don’t belong?”
I couldn’t believe him right now. I really couldn’t.
“I’m trying to understand,” he said insistently, and it looked like he was going to cry again. “Why it never—why no-one—” He shook his head, and his face crumpled, and I really thought he was about to burst into tears. Then he looked at me. “Aren’t you sad?”
“Me?”
He nodded.
I looked down at the table.
“Damaris—doesn’t love me,” he said, putting his hand over his eyes and bowing his head. “Then I thought—Marcus might. But—no… and now I find out he sent you that picture?” He sagged like an old man and grabbed onto the back of a chair for support.
“I told myself I didn’t believe in love any more,” he said, looking up at me across the table. Two tears ran down his cheeks, all the way to his chin, and threatened to fall off. “But I still want to.” He closed his eyes again and collapsed over the back of the chair, sobbing. “I still want to.”
I got up and, moving him gently to the side, pulled the chair out so he could sit down. He did, putting his face in his arms, his shoulders shaking.
“Is there anyone at home?” I asked.
He gasped. “N-no.”
“I think you better stay here,” I said. I sighed. “I don’t hate you, Anthony.”
There. I said it.
I looked at him, all small and fragile and crying, and I wished he wanted me to hug him.
“Then why do you act like it?” His words were muffled by his arm. “If you act like it, then isn’t it the same thing?”
I wasn’t having this discussion.
“I’m not sad,” I said. “I’m angry. I’m angry at Angel for putting me through this. And for everything else he did, like cheating. But I know he’ll be back,” I said.
Anthony lifted his head from his arms and looked at me.
“Back?”
“Of course,” I said. “We’ve broken up before. He always comes back. What can I say? He loves to fuck me.”
Anthony blinked and looked like he wasn’t sure if he was going to smile or not.
“We’ll be back together by the time the new show debuts,” I said. “And I’m sure you’ll be back out there, working your little tush like you do. Just, please. Don’t make it Clarion Call. Okay?”
Anthony did sort of smile, then, watery and puffy.
I got up and patted him on the shoulder as I went past, forcing down all of the thoughts and forces inside me that shouldn’t be there. “I’ll go make the bed for you.”
High Day
I woke up on my stomach in bright daylight and groped for my phone. My eyes were gummed together and I rubbed them until they opened enough for me to read what it said.
I already sort of knew though.
I had overslept again.
It was ten-thirty.
I groaned and kicked the sheets away, pulled on sweatpants and went out the door to the bathroom.
“Morning.”
I stopped short, turned my head.
Anthony was stretched out on the couch with the TV remote in his hand, wearing a blue check dressing gown I recognized as Angel’s.
I had completely forgotten he was here.
I had morning wood, and now Anthony was looking at it. He smirked, then burst out in giggles which he tried to stifle.
I darted back into the bedroom and closed the door, my heart pounding. First what happened during my shower yesterday, then the dream last night, and now this?
I closed my eyes and pressed my hand down on my erection, willing it to go away.
I looked around for something—anything—to cover the front of my sweats. I grabbed the matching sweatshirt that I usually wore together with them, from my alma mater, and opened the door again, making a beeline for the bathroom.
“Jumping in the shower,” I called, pushing the bathroom door open.
> “Is it okay if I wash my clothes?”
I paused on the threshold of the bathroom and looked over my shoulder at him. “Yeah,” I said shortly.
“I found this robe…” he said, arranging its folds around himself.
“You can wear it,” I said, quickly, and escaped into the bathroom and closed the door firmly behind me and leaned on it, and locked it.
I turned on the water and made it hot. Clouds of steam started to fill the bathroom and I climbed in and started to lather up, ignoring my boner as I rubbed the soap into my armpits and over my chest.
“You don’t have any food,” Anthony’s voice came through the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Uh—” I frowned, scrubbing the back of my neck. “I don’t have time to cook. We can get breakfast downstairs.”
That seemed to satisfy him, and I started on my stomach and back.
“So you don’t have to go to work today?”
I raised my eyes to the heavens. What was it with this kid?
“I’ll work from home,” I called back.
“That sounds nice.”
I continued soaping and prayed he would go away. I had lathered everything except the obvious, which was still there.
I closed my eyes and begged it. I had never begged my dick to go limp before. I promised it would be the only time. Just this once. I needed the favor. I needed the favor big time.
“So let’s talk about the auditions.”
I screwed my eyes shut. The second I touched it, that would be it. It kept getting worse each passing minute and as I leaned one hand against the tiled wall and let the hot water run down my back, it throbbed and I gasped.
“In a minute,” I called and my voice sounded off, kind of ragged.
I leaned my forearm against the wall and my forehead too, and my hand reached down and took hold of the length of my erection and, yes, that was it.
I braced against the wall, braced my feet against the floor of the shower and palmed myself as hard and fast as I could, my fist tight around my engorged dick, and I panted with my mouth open, not making a sound.
“We need to be alone for this,” Anthony’s voice drifted in through the door once more.
Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 15