Ha! The voice in my head cackled in glee. You just broke your promise!
Fuck. Fuck! Why had I said that? What in God’s name was wrong with me?
And why had I admitted I loved Damaris?
Why couldn't I lie about that?
Machyl stared back at me. I tried to figure out what emotion was behind his eyes. Was he surprised? Shocked? Or had Damaris told him that I knew?
He had known, hadn’t he?
“That wasn’t dating,” Machyl said. “Kai kai isn’t dating. I’m talking about actual dating,” Machyl clarified. “I’m talking about relationships with men. You know, real men, not drag queens.”
I frowned, looking down at my manicured nails, no polish, and fiddled with the bracelet on my wrist.
“You didn’t think Damaris would really go for you, did you, Anthony?” Machyl asked. “You’re about six inches shorter than she is.”
I didn’t answer. I was just an insignificant speck in the midst of a great, uncaring mass of identical specks. What did it matter what I felt or thought?
“Okay, leave aside the height difference,” Machyl said. “Let’s just say you’re not really Damaris’ type, okay?”
He laid one hand on top of the other.
“You look like a twelve-year-old outcast from the Olympic girl’s gymnastics team. I don’t think that’s really Damaris’ speed. She likes a little testosterone in her men, you know? A little muscle on the bone, hair on the chest? If I had to choose a type I would say she’s more into your, you know, professional sportsman, or your MMA fighter, your marine boot camp sergeant, your—”
“Okay,” I muttered.
I had always had a vision of what it would be like if Damaris did return my feelings. She could move in with me, we had plenty of space. I could help her out with—with whatever she needed. We would perform together on the weekend.
During the afternoons we’d work on drag stuff, helping Brooklyn out when he needed little tasks doing, like sewing on a button or some braiding to cover a zipper.
We’d go for long brunches after sleeping in. And when I woke up in the morning, I would find her in my arms, warm and sleepy, leggy and voluptuous, and mine, all mine.
“What is it, Tata?” Machyl peered at me. “Do you not like to hear the truth? Did you prefer to live in a happy little fantasy world where this was an actual possibility?”
“Why can’t drag sisters be a couple?” I muttered. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Machyl grinned. “Because that’s incest, and it’s disgusting.”
“But—there are those girls from House of Cosmosis,” I said, remembering now. “Oh My Darla and whatshername, the one with the red wigs. They’re a couple.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not disgusting,” Machyl shuddered delicately. “You’re trying to change the subject,” he shook his head at me with tiny movements. “I’m talking about Damaris.”
“I know,” I said, and my voice dropped to a whisper again.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Machyl said.
“I know why she doesn’t date,” I said quietly, remembering the taxi ride after the Mermaid Parade.
“Good,” Machyl said. “It’s because straight men are scum. They’re the scum of the earth. It’s not worth any of our time to chase them, and that includes Damaris.”
I stared at him in shock.
“She’s—Machyl, you can’t say that.”
“I can’t?” Machyl looked angry now, for the first time since we’d been in the restaurant, maybe the first time today, I saw the first real sign of anger in his eyes. “You’re telling me what I can and can’t do?”
“You’re telling her what she can and can’t do?” I asked. “Did you tell her she can’t—”
“She’s a grown woman, I’m not about to tell her anything she doesn’t already know for herself,” Machyl snapped.
“I’m sure there are some—look, not all men are like that—”
Machyl placed his hands on either side of his face.
“Oh, please educate me about all the hetero boys I should be lining up outside of the club to see Damaris.”
“That’s not what I’m saying—” I interrupted. “Machyl, Damaris is straight, who else is she going to date?”
Machyl raised his eyebrows as high as they would go and looked at me. “Damaris is straight,” he said.
I looked from side to side skeptically. “She’s a woman who likes men,” I said. “What else would you call that?”
Machyl pointed his finger at me for emphasis. “I’d call it a recipe for trouble, that’s what I’d call it. Damaris has had bad experiences, Anthony. I’m more concerned about her being alive and whole to be able to go on instead of worrying about whether it’s going to be Tom, Dick or Harry.”
“So what,” I said, “you want her to be—celibate, is that it?”
Machyl looked me up and down. “Seems to work for you,” he said, and drained the last of his wine.
Machyl’s insult would have stung more if something he had just said wasn't stuck in my mind.
Bad experiences
What did that mean? I thought of the taxi ride and her saying, Even if he says it’s okay, he could be lying.
A shiver went through me
“Machyl,” I said, trying to think of what Sue Ellen would say in this situation. She would feel that Machyl needed some education and it was her duty to give it to him.
He wasn’t right that all straight men were dangerous to trans women. He couldn’t be.
“What about Calleen Jones?” I said, pouncing on the only proof I could think of on the spot.
Machyl rolled his eyes. “Ancient history,” he said.
I scowled. “You can’t just dismiss it like that,” I said, picking up my phone to look for more examples. “Everyone says she’s very happily married.”
“And Jerksey rejoiced,” Machyl muttered. “You’re so devious. Always trying to twist things around to suit your own motives.”
I was so outraged, I almost dropped my phone. That was Machyl, not me! How could he accuse me of doing the exact thing that he himself was doing?
Flustered, I unlocked my phone. I was going to find some long married couples to prove how wrong he was.
A notification popped up. It was a message from Damaris. My heart leapt into my throat and stuck there, struggling wildly.
Damaris: Machyl told me. Could you come over please
“The last thing she needs,” Machyl said, “is another tranny chaser who’s going to make her feel like shit about herself again.”
I felt strangely weightless, as if I was that scuba diver deep under the sea, caught between the bends and the big bad things that wanted to eat me, and while waiting for either of those possibilities to materialize, my oxygen had run out and I was slowly suffocating.
I closed my eyes.
I’m not a tranny chaser.
But I knew I was.
My stomach did a weird flip and I suddenly felt even more out of my depth than I had when I thought I was lost at the bottom of the sea.
Now I felt like an astronaut whose tethering line to the space station has snapped, the umbilical cord cut, leaving him to float off into the universe, the planet Earth nothing but a small blue speck the size of a star.
“I have to go,” I said. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid of Machyl any more. “Is there anything you want to say before I do?”
Machyl smiled wider, like a shark revealing rows of razor sharp teeth, and behind them, another row, and another, just waiting.
“What do I want?” He giggled, licked his finger and drew a pattern in the air, then winked at me.
“Yeah,” I said flatly, ignoring his strange mime. “Are you going to tell me what you want out of all this, or not? Because I don’t actually care. I’m about to go.”
I pushed my chair back from the table.
“Tell me what happened yesterday!” Machyl snapped, slapping the table with his hand in a
moment so abrupt it made me sit up.
“When?” I asked. A lot had happened yesterday.
Machyl rolled his eyes, then reached out and snapped his fingers in front of my face three times loudly.
I brushed his hand away but he caught mine and held it, and I tensed my arm, trying to force his hand away.
I saw the challenge spark in his eyes and I set my jaw.
Machyl was a couple of inches shorter than Damaris, slender, his body as fluid as his movements, like he was made not from flesh and blood but a column of water which he could make flow through the air according to his whim.
I gripped his hand and started to apply pressure. I could see the amusement in his eyes, the laughter bubbling up in the corner of his mouth. I kept pushing until I was using all my strength and my whole body was trembling.
Machyl held my gaze, gave my hand a squeeze, meaning the muscles in his arm relaxed when he let the squeeze go.
I sensed an opportunity and tried to lunge for his arm in that split second, only to find my arm wrenched and slammed onto the tabletop.
My chest heaving, I looked at him almost in confusion.
Machyl smiled.
I realized I had, without even realizing it, squeezed his hand back and he had used the weakness in my grip as I released to gain the decisive victory.
“Don’t try to fight me,” Machyl said softly.
He was still holding my hand on the table and I extricated mine, shaking his off. He reached out and tried to touch my hair.
I stood up and stepped away from the table. He laughed and did it again, reaching for the hem of my top this time.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
“I told you I would help you!” Machyl snapped. “I told you you had a choice—” he stared at me angrily, his chest heaving, all traces of control gone.
“Or what,” I said, daring him to speak his threat plainly. “Or you’ll do what?”
Machyl pursed his lips. “If you’re so stupid you need it spelled out, you’re too dumb to deal with.”
I looked back at him. I was getting it now. Damaris wouldn’t tell Machyl what had happened yesterday that had made her feel depressed again.
And of course Marcus wouldn’t want to admit that he had upset Damaris by rejecting her. That would make him look bad, after all. And I wasn’t sure if Marcus knew that Machyl knew about his hookups with Damaris.
“Okay,” I shrugged, stepping quickly out of the alcove the table was in and around him before he could try to restrain me physically. “I guess I’m too dumb to deal with, then.” I gave him a wave. “Bye.”
Machyl froze, two fingers splayed against his head where he was twisted around in his seat to look at me.
“Bish,” he looked at me, removed the two fingers from his head and moved them through the air horizontally as if he was pulling aside a curtain. “Please.”
This had nothing to do with Damaris’ mental health. He was just using that as a cover, trying to pretend he was concerned.
It was clear by now that Machyl wasn’t a true friend who actually put Damaris’ interests first.
I felt powerful all of a sudden, like I had peeked behind the curtain and found the little man operating the huge, scary animatronic monster.
Machyl was a puppet master after all, but puppet masters could be unmasked for the machinators they were.
This was about the Vivesse auditions. Somehow, it was about those fucking auditions.
All of this trouble over auditions for a stupid reality show. Did he have any idea how much fear and pain he’d inflicted on me during the past few hours?
For this?
“Is this you refusing my help?” Machyl looked steadily at me.
I just turned around and walked out of the restaurant into the cool night.
As I walked away, Machyl called after me.
“Okay, princess. If this is how you want it…”
I didn’t look around or reply. Damaris wanted me to go to her.
Nothing else mattered.
Storage Closet Again
I let myself in the side entrance of the club through the door in the same alley where I had seen Marcus and Damaris kissing that first time I came to the House of Ellegrandé with Sue Ellen.
The door wasn’t locked, it never was during shows, and I slipped inside, closing it behind me.
I was in a narrow corridor which stretched down one side of the ground floor of the building.
There were four doors stretching out along it: one which led to the dressing room, one to the green room, one to the bottle store behind the bar, and the final door, which was nearest to the street, locked when closed and led directly into the club.
That was the door through which Damaris had entered the club the first time I met her.
I stood there, breathing in the scent of the lino and the faint pine fresh from when the floors were mopped once a week by Consuela, with her square yellow bucket on wheels. The corridor had an impersonal, institutional air.
It was whitewashed and there was a fire extinguisher in the corner below a safety notice, and on the door to the street there was an emergency exit sign and a map of the fire escape routes.
A kind of loneliness that came from inhuman spaces like this one. It felt cold and sterile, and I felt like that too.
Machyl had figured out that I was attracted to Damaris.
And now Damaris knew.
There had always been a small part of me which knew that there was something unbalanced about the fact that Damaris didn’t know what was going on inside my head when I was around her… and when I was not around her.
There had always been a little voice suggesting that it was some kind of deception, I didn’t know what kind, but some kind, even though what I was supposed to do about it, I had no idea.
What was I supposed to do, tell her?
She was my friend!
But I’d always felt some guilt over it.
I’d felt guilt when I came into my own hand harder than I ever had before and she was the one I pictured in my mind.
Once alone in my bathroom I’d said her name aloud at the point of orgasm and the shame which had suffused me the minute the pleasure died away was so intense that I had never dared to do it again.
My attraction to Damaris was secretive, and it was shameful, and I’d tried to deny that for too long.
I had tried to get rid of it, but I couldn’t stamp out what was inside me, what was part of me.
And now I was going to pay for it. I was going to pay for all of it.
The only thing I could do was get down on my knees and beg Damaris to forgive me. And I just had to hope that she would.
I went toward the dressing room, the door farthest on the left, which was the only way to get to the apartment from the club.
The street entrance to the apartment was on the opposite side of the building to the club, and I didn’t want to go and ring the doorbell just in case Duane Tyrone was up there taking a break, as he sometimes did on long nights, to grab a bite to eat and put his feet up.
I could invent an excuse for coming to the club—but not for ringing the doorbell.
There was no soundproofing between here and the club and I could hear the music and the sound generated by the crowd clearly.
I looked at my phone. It was just after nine pm.
Marcus should be on right now. Since the only other artist performing tonight was Brooklyn, Bone China and Shanghai Li’l would have to carry the entire evening. And Ellegrandé would be behind the bar.
So the dressing room would be deserted and there was no risk of seeing anyone.
I would be able to sneak through and run upstairs to Damaris’ room. It would take less than twenty seconds if I was quick and light on my feet.
I cracked open the door to the dressing room, my ears straining. I couldn’t hear anything. I peeked through.
The familiar sight of a well-used dressing room, make up strewn everywhere, costumes tumbling fr
om the backs of chairs, boys’ clothes folded at each station or just crumpled on the floor, boys’ shoes sitting nearby on the floor next to stray heels and rolled-up pantyhose.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Okay. It’s deserted.
I slipped inside and closed the door behind me.
“Princess.”
My head shot up.
Fuck.
Bone China. She was there, coming in through the door from the green room, toward me, arms outstretched.
I forced my face into a smile as she came toward me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She must have noticed the hesitancy in my face, though, because she faltered.
“Wait, just let me—”
She turned around and went back to her station. Within seconds, her jet black bob wig with its pin curl waves landed on the counter and she was sitting down, kicking her shoes off.
“Can you do my zip, please?” Marcus picked up a handful of cold cream from the jar and slathered it over his face, his eyes hidden behind his hands, massaging the cream in.
St Sebastian.
Why was he here?
Shouldn’t Marcus be out front, performing right now?
Trying not to panic, I went over and did as I was asked, stood behind him and started unzipping the heavy silk brocade, all the way down his back, which was a little sweaty.
“I just got done,” Marcus said, wiping his hands off on a towel. “Can you take this off, please—my hands are all creamy and I can’t get it on the silk.”
Just my luck. I’d come in at exactly the wrong time. He had said he was going to Boston at nine-thirty, hadn’t he?
I pulled down the bodice of the cheongsam, with its high neck and elaborate fastenings and started to gently tug the short sleeves off his arms, careful not to let the silk touch his hands.
As soon as it was off his arms, he stood up and I kneeled down and pulled the dress off entirely, not letting it touch the ground.
I had been helping girls get dressed and undressed in this room for over a year and it came naturally now, the movements were automatic.
“I’ll hang it up,” I said, taking a hanger from the floor and arranging the dress on it, then hanging it on a nearby rail.
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