A yawning pit seemed to have opened up inside me and I felt so bad about everything, so lost, that it was all I could do not to fall apart.
You did this to yourself, a voice said in my head. Don’t whine and complain. This is all you deserve. And by the way, you’re a terrible person.
He glanced at me, and I noticed his eyes scan the increased distance between us. He put his head in his hands.
“I’ve really fucked this up, haven’t I? I just keep putting my foot in my mouth.” He took a deep breath and looked up at me.
I looked at his lips.
“I mean, I know homophobia still exists in this city, it isn’t all gay weddings and hearts and anal beads on the Christmas tree,” he laughed and scrubbed his nails across his scalp. “I need to stop trying to be clever. I’m not funny. I know that.”
I stood there. He was filling the silences again.
“And I—I know you face discrimination every day,” he said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t, um, didn’t think of that.” He looked at me. “Please give me another chance, Anthony. Please?”
I crossed my arms, uncertainty creeping in. I thought Marcus was on Machyl’s side. I thought they were all laughing at me, maybe even Damaris, sort of. After all, she hadn’t told me that Machyl had told Marcus this lie about me.
I glanced at Marcus, who was gazing at me earnestly.
Asking him now was a risk, a big risk. Just showing that I had caught on to Machyl’s game would leave me open.
The triumph, for Machyl, surely, was the moment when the prey realized it was being hunted?
But if I didn’t ask now, I would have to go on in this state of uncertainty and I couldn’t bear it any longer.
I met Marcus’ eyes, and the picture flashed across my mind again, the elegance of his bare limbs and the boldness and the challenge in his eyes.
“If—” I began.
Marcus’ eyebrows flew upward and he leaned forward as if hanging on my every word.
He had denied telling. And he wouldn’t be denying it if Machyl had already told everyone on the group chat or some other public medium. Because then I would have seen it, and he wouldn’t be able to deny it.
But that didn’t mean he hadn't told someone in private.
“If anyone finds out what we did,” I said helplessly, “I’ll get fired.”
Marcus got off the chair he was perched on and came toward me.
I didn’t move away. I stood there while he came closer.
My vision trembled and wavered as tears filled my eyes. The teardrops were too big, too plentiful, to disguise them or contain them and to my horror, they spilled out of my eyes and onto my cheeks.
“Oh my god, Anthony, I’m so sorry,” Marcus breathed.
I looked up at him. From the moment our eyes met, I was falling into his arms. He hugged me tightly and I hugged him back, with my arms around his neck.
I sniffed, and tried to stop the tears, and his hands smoothed over my back. His hard chest against mine, the warmth of his body, and his breath I could feel going in and out of his lungs.
I stood back, letting him go, and I wiped the tears off my face.
“Sorry,” I said.
To my surprise, the gap of loneliness in me was turning into a tender place which was waiting, just waiting for the next touch, the next kind word. I kept my eyes on the white tiled floor.
“Don’t apologize,” Marcus murmured, and he looked like he was not touching me on purpose, holding himself back. “The last thing I intended was for you to feel like your job is in jeopardy.”
“You saw what it was like on Thursday,” I said angrily, wiping my eyes and skirting around him. I pulled myself up onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar so I was closer to his eye level. “No-one needed to say it, but it was clear. I’m not even in the running for the auditions.”
He sighed, frowning, and came closer, leaning against the breakfast bar.
“Babes,” he said, “there is no running. Duane Tyrone picks the same two every year. He picks his favorites: Machyl and Damaris.”
“That’s not the point,” I huffed. “You and Brooklyn are good enough to audition for Vivesse. Even if DT doesn’t actually pick you.”
Marcus quirked an eyebrow. “Well, I probably spoke too soon. With Damaris still sick, it’s all up in the air now, quite frankly, don’t you think?”
I frowned at him. “Damaris?” I blurted. “Damaris is sick?”
He stared at me in confusion for a moment. “Oh,” he said, clapping one hand to his forehead. “I forgot, you said your phone wasn’t working. You didn’t see her messages last night?”
Fuck.
“No,” I said, opening my eyes wide and trying to look innocent. “My phone has been, like, on the fritz since yesterday evening.”
He paused, then quirked an eyebrow at me. “I just got a message from you, though.”
Still looking back at him, I dropped my gaze instantly. My face was getting hot and I felt panicky. “Um,” I said. “It started working again for like five minutes, then stopped again. And, um. After I saw what you sent me, I was too distracted to read any other messages…”
What the fuck did you just say?
My heart was pounding wildly as I raised my eyes to his again. I couldn’t believe I had just said that.
Marcus was staring back at me, his cheeks growing pinker by the second, his mouth slightly open as he breathed faster. Then he seemed to get control of himself because he pulled his lips into a little smirk and leaned closer toward me over the breakfast bar.
“Well,” he said, in a softer tone, his eyes smiling now, “she didn’t come down for the call at seven. Eventually DT went up there. Then he came back down in a foul mood. And she sent out a message on the group chat that she was still sick and wasn’t coming back for her, you know, Big Comeback.”
“Oh my god,” I said, trying to ignore the intense feelings of attraction pulsing through me like quasars. “She didn’t perform last night?”
Marcus shook his head. “And she’s not doing tonight and apparently she’s not going to perform on Sunday either.”
“Oh my god,” I said again, as if my brain had gotten stuck. I thought back to when I spoke to Damaris last night, when I asked her if she was excited about performing this weekend.
I don’t want to talk about it
What did this mean? She was still depressed?
DT just came in and told me about that yesterday
“You’re worried,” Marcus said, as if reading my thoughts.
I looked at him. “Last night,” I said, feeling my face getting hot again and trying to focus on the issue at hand, “you said you thought that she wasn't okay with the Comeback thing DT set up.”
He nodded. “I still think that.”
I nodded as well. “She basically told me that on the phone last night,” I said.
His eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Before my phone died,” I said quickly, and stopped myself from adding, before I talked to you, because remembering that conversation was just going to make me even more flustered. That was when Marcus said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. “She didn’t tell me she was going to call in sick,” I said, soldiering on, “but she did say some stuff that made me think she wasn’t too happy. I mean—”
I felt a surge of anger toward Duane Tyrone.
“If Damaris is still sick, he shouldn’t be forcing her to go back to work. He should be making sure she gets help,” I crossed my arms, frowning.
“I totally agree,” Marcus said softly, his eyes on me.
I became aware that there had been a very similar point in the conversation last night, when Marcus had hugged me after I said I was worried about Damaris. I became very aware of what had happened after that hug.
I sat there, looking down at the marble inlay of the breakfast bar, as my face got hotter and hotter.
If Damaris was sick, then it seemed clear that she didn’t want my help. She hadn’t
spoken to me while she was in her room, and now, she didn’t want to talk to me about her problems.
The feeling of loneliness inside me was growing again. I needed what Marcus had given me just now, when he embraced me, when he was nice to me. I needed more of it.
I raised my eyes and looked at him. I saw him swallow. I swiveled the stool around and reached for his arm, pulled him toward me so his thighs hit the plastic stool in between the V of my legs.
I licked my lips and saw him staring at my mouth. I swallowed hard as an explosion of butterflies erupted in my stomach.
I ran my hands up his arms and put them around his neck, drawing him closer. Since I was sitting on the raised stool, our faces were level. His arms slid around my back.
My lips hovered near his ear. “Kiss me,” I whispered, and the silky skin of my lips touched the fragile seashell of his ear.
He made a noise in his throat and then I felt his lips on the sensitive skin under my ear and I heard myself make a noise in reply.
I tightened my arms around his neck and he gathered me to him, ran his hands down my back, over my hips and thighs. The more he touched me, the better I felt, and the more the terrible feeling inside me went away.
He kissed down my neck, to my clavicle, and then drew back and looked at me, his eyes drooping half-closed, his pupils dilated.
“Is that okay?” He asked, touching my eyebrow with one finger, running it along my cheek, and then stroking the roughness along my jaw with the back of it.
I nodded and reached for him again, holding him close, as close as I could, and not holding back, whereas before I had been tensing some muscles in my chest and arms, unwilling to give in completely. I wrapped myself around him, and closed my eyes.
He squeezed me and whispered into my ear, “You’re so sweet.”
I felt him kiss my ear, then my neck again, and I reached up my hand to his jaw and turned him to kiss me, once, twice, and on the third one our mouths met and melded together, and I felt a thrill as my tongue touched his teeth and slipped under them and I felt his hard palate.
I had never put my tongue in someone else’s mouth before. I heard a sound vibrate in his throat as he drew me closer, hands on my hips, pulling me into him.
I flexed my legs harder around his waist and felt my insides turn hot and trembling.
He picked me up, off the chair, and didn’t stop kissing me, I had definitely never been picked up before. I held onto him even harder and kissed him harder again.
He stepped back, stumbled and let me go. I put one leg on the floor awkwardly and he laughed. “Smooth,” he said, and I could tell how embarrassed he was.
I felt myself fill with pity, so I reached up and held his face, and kissed his lips again.
I realized that my mind was debating taking him to the pit or my bedroom.
The problem with the pit was that this was my mother’s apartment, and it made me feel queasy to imagine being with him on her sofa.
And my bedroom?
I faltered. I wasn’t going to take him to my bedroom.
Why did you invite him here?
The intimacy of having Marcus in my apartment was overwhelming all of a sudden.
I can’t go through with this.
I absolutely could not go through with this. The only people I had let into my bedroom were my mother and Sue Ellen.
Thinking of Marcus in there was like a foreign body invading my personal space—invading me.
“Um,” I said, “do you want to go out and eat?”
That would at least get him out of the apartment.
“Er,” Marcus said, looking down at me, “let me check the time.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“What the almighty fuck,” Marcus muttered, staring at his phone screen.
“What?” I said, alarmed.
“Machyl just called in sick!” He turned to me with a look of outrage.
“Machyl is sick now?” I said in disbelief.
“You’re not on tonight, right?” He asked. “I saw that you called in sick again.”
Panic spiked in me. “I really don’t feel well—!” I protested. “My phone wasn’t working so I messaged DT online, like I did with you—”
“No, no, babes,” he said calmingly, stroking my arm. “I know you’re sick. But with Damaris still ill—” he stared around the kitchen, as if pleading with the universe for sanity. “Forgive me if my bullshit detectors are firing.”
Any traces of arousal drained away as the fearful tension built in my ribcage. So me, Damaris and Machyl were all sick now? My head was spinning.
“I don’t believe Machyl is sick,” I said.
“Ha!” Marcus barked. “Me either!”
Machyl was supposed to be her friend, he was supposed to be taking care of her and instead, he was spreading lies about me and faking sick on this important weekend! A surge of impotent anger rushed through me.
“DT is asking if I can cover for Machyl in the first slot,” he sighed, typing a reply. “I can, but I can’t cover any of the later slots. I need to leave at nine-thirty to get my bus to Boston. I’m going to visit my auntie and I can’t change my plans.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “It’s fine, I’ll be there. Count on me, Bone China, bloody supply drag queen.”
I frowned. “Supply?”
He looked at me. “What is it called when a teacher is sick, and then they have to get another teacher in for them?”
“A substitute,” I said. “A sub.”
“There you go,” he said. “I’m the substitute drag queen.”
I frowned. “No you’re not.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “I came in right at the bottom of the pile, and that’s all I ever will be in New York drag.”
“That’s—not true,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows, eyes closed as he leaned back against the breakfast bar. “It is, my love.” He squeezed my hand. He shrugged. “I’m an outsider. That’s why DT doesn’t like me.”
I stared at him in confusion. “Yes, he does.”
“You know, I try not to have too much of an ego,” he said. “But I was a pretty big fucking deal in London. When I came over here, I thought I would get straight into Cosmosis or Revêtte….” He flung his hand through the air in a hopeless gesture.
“What’s wrong with House of Ellegrandé?” I said sharply at his mention of the big, glitzy drag houses.
He glanced at me. “Nothing!” He raised his hands defensively.
“House of Ellegrandé is legendary,” I said. “It was in Drag Queen Beauty Pageant.”
“I’m not saying anything against House Ellegrandé,” Marcus said, his hands still raised. “It’s just hard to come in and start again right from the bottom, which is basically what I had to do when I came to New York.”
I pursed my lips. “You don’t seem like you’re on the bottom,” I said.
I knew who was on the bottom.
Me.
“Well, I kiss arse a lot,” Marcus said wryly. “That helps.”
I frowned as I realized there was a double entendre running through the conversation.
I looked at Marcus, who was grinning at me, and I laughed, embarrassed. Marcus laughed as well, but he didn’t seem embarrassed.
“I’d better go,” Marcus said. “If I’m going to cover for Machyl, I’ll need more time to prepare.”
To my surprise, I found that I didn’t want him to go. “Do you have to go?” I asked shyly.
He smiled at me and chucked me under the chin. “Unfortunately,” he said, leaning down and kissing me softly.
I felt such a strong thrill run through me, as the pleasure and the comfort he’d given me both melted together, that despite myself I pulled him down to me and clung on tightly, and he half-picked me up again, with one hand squeezing tight dangerously close to my ass, and we kissed open-mouthed and hungry until he broke away, panting.
“You’re amazing,” he held my face and kissed it
, several times, and started walking backward, toward the door.
I couldn’t let go, even though a small part of me was saying, Really, what are you doing, Anthony? What are you doing, exactly?
We backed up against the wall of the entrance hall, by the front door, and I held his hips in place and kissed him, hard, and he gasped, and I could tell he was getting aroused.
“Babes,” he said, rolling his head back against he wall as I kissed his neck. I had never kissed anyone’s neck before. “I have to go, DT will kill me if I’m late—”
I knew that, and it was making me not care, so I just held his face and gave in, until I was leaning one of my legs between his and I could feel his boner against my thigh.
“Anthony, I’m getting so turned on, I have to go,” he gasped.
I drew back and smiled. He had to go. It was okay.
“Bye,” I said with a small smile.
He stared at me for several seconds and then an incredulous grin broke over his face.
“You are unbelievable,” he said. “You are—you’re pure evil, is what you are!”
He tried to smack my ass but I skittered away. He started moving toward the door, adjusting his crotch. “What the eff am I going to do about this?” He indicated the lump with both hands.
I smirked, crossing my arms. “You can’t take that with you on mass transit, sir.”
He grinned and lunged for me. I ran away. He caught me, pushed me against the wall.
“New York is not a concealed carry state,” I warned him as he ran his hands over my back and nuzzled my neck.
He was trying to get in between my legs and I let him, and he set my leg up against his hip and I felt his erection against my crotch. I gasped, short of air.
“I’ll have you know,” he said into the spot under my ear, and trailed his fingers lightly down my side, “I’m not the only one packing heat.”
Then he looked at me, one eyebrow quirking in satisfaction.
“Fuck you,” I pushed him away, laughing.
He eyed the outline of my dick under my yoga pants and licked his lips slowly, lasciviously.
“Stop!” I laughed, and he laughed too.
“Okay,” he said, taking his phone out. “Fuck me, Anthony, I didn’t know it had gotten so late, I’m actually going to be late!”
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