“Thank you babes,” Marcus said, scrubbing his face with a wipe.
He was down to his shape wear and padding now, his hair damp and sticking up all over his head in spikes.
When I turned back around after hanging up the dress, he was peeling off the prosthetic breasts glued onto his pectorals and dumping each one, with a soft splat, on the counter.
“Hang on,” he muttered, standing up and starting to pull the butt and hip pads out of his shape wear, tossing them on the counter. “Just let me take this stuff off. If DT sees you, you’ll be in for it,” he said.
I was so surprised to see him, I hadn’t considered why he would think I was here.
He must think that I had come here to discuss Machyl with him, after the phone call we’d had before I went to the Ethiopian restaurant.
And maybe he thought I came here wanting something else, as well.
Damn it.
Worse, I was risking the towering wrath of DT if he got so much as a whiff of any of this. There was no possible reason for me to be here, because I was supposed to be too sick to work.
If I was too sick to work, I was definitely too sick to come and visit Damaris.
Oh god, what have I done?
I watched him wriggling out of the skin-tight shorts. He glanced at me.
Even though I was angry at him for telling Machyl about our hook up and giving him my address, I couldn’t help running my eyes over his lean bare chest with its flat planes of muscle.
“Don’t watch me untuck,” he said. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, walking a few steps away and turning my back to him.
“I just wore a gaffe tonight,” he said. “No time for tape. I have to go really soon.”
My mind was whirling. I wasn't sure what I could trust about Marcus.
Was he lying to me about everything, or only some things?
I could tell Marcus the truth now, that I had come here to see Damaris. There was no reason for him to be suspicious, he knew we were friends. But it wouldn’t be long, surely, until Machyl told Marcus that I was in love with Damaris. And then what was I going to do?
Something clicked in my head. Machyl had told Marcus that I liked him. But Machyl also knew how I felt about Damaris.
What was he trying to accomplish with that little maneuver?
Then I felt a warm body behind me as Marcus came up and wrapped his arms around my shoulder and waist. “Come on, we need to talk,” he murmured, nuzzling my ear.
He pulled me toward the door to the corridor and for one weird second I thought he was going to take me out into the alleyway and kiss me up against the bricks like when I’d seen him and Damaris out there. But instead he was leading me to the storage closet, which was even weirder. He pushed me inside and shut the door, his hands still on me.
His chest was bare but when my hands found his hips, I felt a denim waistband and pockets.
“Did Machyl tell you that I told him?” His voice sounded louder than normal in the pitch dark.
“No,” I said.
But you did tell him.
“I didn’t,” Marcus said. “I’m telling the truth. He guessed somehow.”
“He guessed!” I hissed in outrage. Marcus must have told him somehow! He hinted—he was bragging, maybe. Somehow, he had given it away.
“He’s like a fucking psychic sometimes, Anthony,” Marcus was talking fast. “And I didn’t tell him your address, I swear I didn’t”
“Then how could he know?” I snapped.
“I don’t know, babes,” Marcus said. “What happened after we spoke?”
“He took me to an Ethiopian restaurant,” I said.
“He what?”
“He was trying to find out why Damaris is—why she called in sick,” I said.
“Cripes,” Marcus muttered, and despite the intensity of the situation I almost giggled at the strange turn of phrase. “He’s going bonkers over these auditions.”
“That makes no sense to me,” I said.
“I’m trying to figure it out,” Marcus said, his voice going quiet and serious. “At this point, it seems clear that there is an open position for the auditions. Do you see what I’m saying?”
I shook my head, but he couldn’t see it in the dark. He was the obvious choice to replace Damaris, but when I suggested that earlier, Marcus had become upset in some way.
“Machyl doesn’t want me to get into the auditions,” Marcus said quietly.
“But—I thought you were friends,” I said, feeling like a child trying to understand Santa Claus.
“That’s irrelevant when it comes to Vivesse,” Marcus whispered.
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t understand, and I felt so stupid for not understanding, that I decided to just shut my mouth.
“What did you tell him?” Marcus asked.
I told him I love Damaris.
I cringed and thanked God that he couldn’t see my face. “Nothing,” I said.
“Good for you, babes,” Marcus’ arms found mine and his hands wrapped around my biceps. “You really stood up to him. I’m proud of you.”
“It’ll all be over soon, right?” I said, and a stab of despair ran through my chest, the same feeling I’d had in the hallway, but stronger this time.
“Yeah,” Marcus muttered. “I doubt we’ll have any peace until those audition tapes are uploaded.”
He sighed. I could sense his warmth, and I let my hands travel up around his waist and feel the bare skin there.
A moment passed, and then another. I could hear his breathing in the dark, and I could hear my own. He and Damaris had hooked up in this storage closet. I had jerked off to that thought.
My heart started to pound, and I felt the energy mounting between us. I breathed in again, and found that my breathing was becoming labored.
I let out a tiny sound, the slightest suggestion of a moan.
And then Marcus pushed me against the rough wall and kissed me frantically. His lips tasted of cold cream, slightly bitter, and they were slippery and so plump, I wanted to bite them like a juicy fruit.
Something roared to life deep in the pit of my stomach, something that I fanned with each breath I took, like a furnace, hot coals burning hotter with each application of oxygen.
His arms went around my waist and hips like steel rods and he lifted me up. He was trying to get my legs around him and I complied, willingly, unable to stop, my tongue twining with his, pulling at him, running my hands over his warm bare skin, our teeth clashing, and all I could feel was the hunger fed by that lancing despair.
He moaned a little and the sound made me lock my ankles together as he started to thrust against me. He moved his mouth onto my neck and I gasped loudly as he sucked hard on the skin under my ear.
There is no love.
Then his mouth was back on mine and I couldn’t help the sound escaping my throat.
No love.
Only this.
I felt like I was going to cry and it couldn’t happen like this.
It couldn’t.
I didn’t want it.
I let my body go limp and turned my face away, and he went still and stopped and let me down.
I wanted to push him away, fight my way through the piles of costumes and discarded shoes until I got upstairs, throw myself at Damaris’ feet and beg her for forgiveness.
Then I felt something on my leg and heard the swish of fabric sliding against fabric.
“Anthony,” Marcus said quietly in the darkness. His voice was coming from my hip.
I realized that he had slid down my body and was kneeling on the floor, holding on to my leg just above the knee, the other hand on my hip.
The way he was leaning against me, my whole leg was warm.
“Will you let me suck you off?”
I thought my heart stopped.
Well, my breath did, as my cock twitched and my scrotum tightened.
I breathed, or tried to, in the pitch black. I could hea
r his breath in the region of my crotch and squeezed my eyes shut tight.
I couldn’t speak.
His perfume combined with sweat rose into my nostrils, mixed with cold cream and the powdery scent of talc.
“Please,” he said, leaning something—I thought his head—against my hip. “I want to so much. Just let me make you feel—”
His hand found mine, kissed it.
I couldn’t take it any more. I pulled him up, and, to do anything to distract him—or was it me I was distracting?—held his face in my hands and kissed his lips once, twice, and then stopped.
I didn’t want to any more.
I leaned back against the wall.
I needed to leave.
“I was really stupid in what I said last night,” Marcus said. “I know that. I tried to apologize earlier but I think I made a hash of it—didn’t do it properly—it wasn’t good enough.”
I didn’t say anything. He was doing the talking again, filling the black silence. I let him keep going.
“It hit me right after I sent that—sent that picture,” his voice was quiet, dry somehow, like he needed a drink of water. “What I said about—help me out here, Anthony—”
“About Damaris?” I said unthinkingly, remembering what he’d said about her. She wanted my dick.
“N-no—” Marcus said, and I realized I had said the wrong thing.
The atmosphere changed subtly. I felt Marcus move away from me.
Then I heard the whispery sound of skin on the wall and the overhead light came on, so bright all of a sudden that I held my hand up to shield my eyes.
The long chain cord swung back and forth and hit the wall, making a nice little clicky sound when it hit. Marcus was looking down at me through the light, and I didn’t want to meet his eyes.
“What I said about—about leaving,” he said, his voice quiet but his tone—his tone was a little wounded, as if it was obvious that was what he was talking about, and he resented me for not getting it right away.
Oh.
“You—you know I didn’t mean it?” Marcus said, leaning down toward me. “I was just—just talking out of my arse. I don’t know why I said it, I didn’t mean it. Not at all, not one bit.”
He’s afraid I’ll tell someone what he said.
He was afraid I would tell them he had threatened to leave House of Ellegrandé, just like he was afraid I would tell them that he was the obvious choice to fill Damaris’ place for the auditions.
“That’s what has been bothering you, isn’t it?” Marcus asked.
I leaned against the wall again, and when he came closer, I brought him closer. I felt bad inside, and good, at the same time. I touched his arm, feeling his bicep hard under my fingers and wincing at how it turned me on.
He leaned against me again, put one hand on my waist.
“That’s why you’ve been holding back.” He kissed my temple and I closed my eyes, feeling my breathing becoming labored again. “I know you’re kind of new to this,” he whispered, stroking his hand up and down my chest and making me writhe.
“And I think it’s fucking adorable,” he caught my mouth again sweetly and it took everything I had, all the strength in my body, not to lock my arm around his neck in a vice grip and force his mouth into mine.
He pulled back and kept talking. “But I knew it wasn’t just that. There’s something else that’s keeping you from giving in.”
He bit my earlobe. I gasped.
“And it’s hot. It’s really fucking hot.” He kissed me again, his arms coming around me.
I melted against him, let him hold me and feel my weight in his arms.
“So I’m sorry. I was a fucking idiot for saying it. For suggesting you should leave,” he murmured into my ear. “Or that I should leave.”
I panted, my breath coming short as he leaned his arm on the wall next to my head and looked into my face, touching my cheek gently with his fingers.
“No-one’s doing any leaving. Okay, Anthony?” Somehow our legs had gotten tangled up and I had ended up with my leg hooked around his hip again and his erection was pushed up right against mine.
I could feel its warmth radiating into my own erection, and I was so hard, and hot, that I felt like I was going to swoon just looking at him.
“Who’s leaving?”
We stared at each other as the voice boomed in our ears, boomed in on the tiny storage closet filled to the ceiling with boxes of fabric and accessories and shoes and just enough room in one corner for a mop and bucket, boomed like a sonic boom crashing in and breaking up the atmosphere between us, as effective as turning a hose on a couple of mating dogs.
We turned as one to see Ellegrandé standing there holding the door open, one hand on her extremely generous hip, her face beat for the gods, updo upped, way upped, satin sapphire gown with matching silver and sapphire jewelry and her nails straight silver to match again.
Ellegrandé looked at the two of us, me against the wall with one leg around Marcus, the other stuck firmly between his two legs, him leaning over me with one arm against the wall and one arm around my waist, and his bare chest and the traces of make up still all over his face and neck, and she just shook her head and sighed, and pointed.
“Sit down.”
“Er, Miss Ellegrandé,” Marcus said. “I actually was just telling Tata that I do need to leave, I have to catch the bus to Boston—”
“SIT DOWN,” Ellegrandé’s bass shook the walls, or so it seemed to me, and there was no more arguing to be done after that.
Marcus disengaged, and slunk out of the closet past Ellegrandé like a kicked dog.
I folded my arms across my chest and followed him, resisting the very strong urge to reach my hands down and cover my junk with them.
Ellegrandé stood there watching us as we both went, by habit, to our stations, and I sat down and crossed my legs and tried to make myself as small as possible.
“Now,” Ellegrandé walked over and stood in between us, and Marcus turned his chair to face her properly.
At that moment the door opened behind me and I heard my favorite voice in all the world, it might as well have been an angel singing from on high, that was how good it sounded to me right at that moment. “DT…” Damaris said, then trailed off.
I turned and my heart melted when I saw her standing there in the door, wearing vampire bunny slippers and her hair spilling around her shoulders.
“I thought I heard something…” she said, looking at me and Marcus sitting there in shame, Marcus bright pink all over his face, and Ellegrandé standing between the two of us like a vengeful black Valkyrie in evening wear instead of a breastplate.
“Uh…” Damaris trailed off as if she was making to leave.
But turned around with DT not able to see me, I caught her eye and looked at her imploringly, trying to communicate that I needed her to rescue me. She frowned.
“DT,” she said, half-raising her hand. “I need to talk to Anthony.”
Ellegrandé looked at Damaris and I saw the hard edge in her gaze soften.
“That bad, huh?”
She looked at me again, then said, “I asked him to come over. He’s really sick. But he said he would try for me. Cause I really need to talk to him.”
Oh god, I love you, Damaris.
I felt like I was going to collapse onto the floor in sheer happiness.
“Oh, he sick alright,” Ellegrandé muttered, then waved at me.
At that moment the door behind Ellegrandé, the one leading to the side entrance, opened and Machyl Mostroso Lyons walked into the room.
Fuuuuuuck…
Machyl paused to take in the scene in front of him, and then he walked up and stood next to Ellegrandé. He cast his eyes over me and Marcus, sitting there red-faced with our legs crossed on opposite sides of the room, and a self-satisfied smirk grew on his face.
St Sebastian preserve me.
“I’ve made a miraculous recovery,” Machyl announced.
&nbs
p; And with that, he pulled off his shirt, sat down at his station, and started taking his make up out.
“Ellegrandé,” he said after a second, not looking at the rest of us, who were all standing there awkwardly, reluctant to leave until Ellegrandé gave us permission. “Who’s out there in the club, actually performing for our customers?”
“Shanghai Li’l,” Ellegrandé said flatly, “is on that stage on her own, bravely pulling bok choy to save her life. It seems the rest of our talent,” she cast her eyes around at myself, Marcus and Damaris, “Is unavailable.”
“Well, thank the sweet lord Giltie Conshens is here to save the day,” Machyl addressed the mirror.
“Amen,” Ellegrandé agreed. “And I had to leave the bar untended to come and turn the hose on a pair of dogs back here.”
I stared at the floor, my face burning. I couldn’t believe Marcus and I had been so stupid as to go as far as we had in that storage closet.
I didn’t know what had come over me, but it would have taken wild horses to pull me away from him during those frantic moments in the dark.
Will you let me suck you off?
“Well?” Ellegrandé looked at me and Marcus. “What are you two reprobates still doing taking up space in my dressing room? I’ll deal with the two of you on Monday,” she said. “I’m calling a full house meeting. Monday night at 7. If you value your sweet ass, you’ll be here at 6:45.”
“Yes Miss Ellegrandé,” I said submissively, trying to figure out how to stand up and get over to Damaris. I took off my jacket and held it in front of me to hide my lingering boner as I stood up and backed up slowly until I was standing next to her.
Marcus looked at me desperately across the room. I could see his hands gripping the back of the chair white-knuckled. I was shocked by the yearning in his face. He was turned away from Ellegrandé and only I and Damaris, if she was looking, could see his expression.
He looked as if he didn’t dare say anything to me in farewell, he just raised one hand, and I didn’t do anything, because she was watching me, and because I didn’t know what to say to him, or do, or anything.
I went through the door with Damaris and it closed behind us.
Damaris’ Bedroom
Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Page 19