I wondered what he was talking about.
A woman emerged onto the stage and I realized she was another drag artist. She was tall, heavy—huge, in fact, but she carried herself with a stately grace which many smaller but less composed people might envy.
I realized it was Ellegrandé, practically unrecognizable from her appearances in Drag Queen Beauty Pageant many years before.
“Yes, our hearts are empty but our souls are hopeful,” she spoke into a handheld mic. “Our sister, our dear sister has been called home.” She gestured at the empty stage next to her, as if to indicate someone was missing. “She wouldn’t stand for carrying on, though, and the best way we can remember her is with a song of tribute.”
“Who is she talking about?” I asked the lone young man behind the bar.
“Calleen Jones,” he said, wiping a glass.
“ColorQueen,” I said, remembering the documentary.
He nodded.
“I was wondering where she was…” I trailed off, glancing at the stage. Ellegrandé was now lip-synching to a tender ballad. I turned back to the guy behind the bar. “Did she—did she die?” I said.
His face was impassive. “She married a janitor,” he said. “And moved to Jerksey.”
I remembered I almost smiled, but he wasn’t joking. I had sat there a little longer, and then Damaris had come out of the Staff Only door for a second time, and when she saw me, she came to talk to me for the second time.
That was the first night Damaris took me backstage.
“Anthony,” Damaris whispered, bringing me out of the flow of memories and back into the present. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Good,” she whispered. I felt her head burrow into my shoulder and I lifted my hand and stroked her hair. Her arms tightened around me.
The despair which had stabbed at me earlier didn’t stab this time. It slashed and ripped my insides with a vicious aggression, and it hurt so much, deep within me, I didn’t know what would make it worse.
Lying here with her should be sweet, warm and lovely but it was the opposite, this was tearing the heart out of me.
“Would you—” she said, her voice close to my ear. “Just be sweet to me?” She sounded like she was going to cry again.
I melted inside, like jell-o on a hot summer’s day, the unbearable pain of loving her mixing with the sweetness of her words until I thought it would overwhelm me.
I stroked her hair again, pushed it back from her face.
“How could I be sweet,” I said quietly, unsure of my voice. “When you are the sweetest girl I’ve ever met?”
Her breath hitched and she laughed quietly, as if embarrassed.
“How could I be sweet,” I said, smoothing my hand over her forehead. “When you’re like a chocolate-covered marshmallow?”
“Dark on the outside, white on the inside?” She laughed. “That’s you, not me.”
I went cold, then hot with embarrassment.
I should never have come here.
What was I doing?
I was out of my mind. I needed to leave. Panic started to mount in my stomach. This was terrible, the worst thing ever.
She must have felt me go rigid, because she relaxed her grip on me, let me go.
I sat up quickly, covered in shame, my skin crawling. I should leave now, just grab my clothes and creep out the door and put this bedroom firmly behind my back, and keep it there.
I would just change the bathroom, it would take a minute, and go to the door and put my shoes on, sneak down the flight of stairs to ground level.
I would take the street door, that was the quickest. It didn’t need a key, it locked on own when closed. The safety bolt wouldn’t be drawn, but DT would see it was undone when he came up at the end of the night and he could fasten it then.
I pushed the covers back, swung my feet over and they touched the floor. I stood up, feeling chilly. It was getting cold at night.
I stood there, feeling for my bundle of clothes under the nightstand with my toes.
I wasn’t about to turn the light on.
Then I heard her get out of the bed too, heard the creak and sigh of the bedstead and the mattress and her feet thudding on the floor.
I couldn’t see Damaris, but I could feel her presence at the end of the bed. Like a night terror in a horror film, I could sense her standing at the foot of the bed, hear her breath, and I imagined a faint halo illuminating her outline.
Then I heard footsteps, quick and hard on the floorboards, walk around the bed and toward me.
I felt a surge of irrational horror, as if this really was a night terror or a Z-grade Halloween cemetery chiller.
The footsteps came to a stop somewhere in front of me, and I heard her breathing hard, and if I stared I thought I could make out her outline in the faint light coming in around the door from the living room, even though no lights were on in there either.
It must be the light from the streetlight through the window of the living room.
The light got in, no matter what. The light had a way of getting in like that.
“Don’t go,” she said, breathing hard. “I messed that up. I—I want you to stay—”
I realized I was breathing rapidly as well. “I don’t think I should,” I said, shame burning me, every inch of my skin, making me curl inward upon myself, draw away from her and her judgement.
“Please.”
“I can’t do this,” I said, my insides on fire with hurt and just the smallest tinge of resentment, against her, because how I was I supposed to think of all these names of different types of candy off the top of my head?
“B—but—” Damaris stammered. “I just want you to sleep with me. Not sleep—” She sighed yet again. “I’m so dumb,” she muttered, and I heard the bedsprings creak and the bed frame heave a metallic sigh as she sat down on the bed.
“You’re not dumb,” I said.
If there was one thing I hated, it was seeing Damaris put herself down. It felt wrong, like seeing a priceless work of art graffiti’d.
“So you don’t like girls?” Damaris said, and I thought I’d been blindsided with a sack of concrete which knocked me down and exploded on impact, covering me in that thick, fine grey dust.
“What?” I blurted, my heart firing into gear like it was rocket-propelled and galloping off across the red plains of a desert.
Where had that come from?
Was I following this conversation at all?
Or had all the meanings of words been switched when I wasn’t looking, and no-one had told me?
“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have. I’m not a girl anyway, right?”
“What are you talking about?” A wave of alarm poured the words out of my mouth thick and harsh.
“Nothing!” She said again, her tone mounting, loud and defensive in response to mine. “Just forget I ever opened my mouth.”
But what did she mean?
The voice was asking, not whispering in my head any more, but pounding on on the insides of my skull. Why is she—
“Why did you ask me that?” I said.
“Forget it,” she muttered. I heard her flop down on the bed, felt the impact.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not very good at this.” It was best if I just admitted this right now. “Someone else should be here. Not me. I can’t even think of a suitable type of candy to compare you to. Do you want me to text Machyl? He could come over and—”
She laughed softly. “Suitable type of candy,” she said. “You’re okay, short stack,” she murmured. “Machyl would kick too much. He vogues in his sleep,” she giggled, I supposed at her own mental image. “You look like an angel, I bet you sleep through the night on a cloud of peace.”
I felt something strange in me, a new feeling I’d never had with Damaris before, maybe not with anyone. I didn’t know what it was, but my stomach was hollow and there were little sparks floating a
round in it, glowing like fireflies.
She wants me.
“Can I get another hug, then?” Damaris asked. “It’s freaking freezing in here.”
She needs me.
The fireflies drowned in a flood of warm honey which filled me like the filled centre of a cupcake, oozing all through the internal structure as it was forced in by squeezing the piping bag, expanding mercilessly.
The bed covers were cold to the touch as I sat down on the bed and felt her hand reaching for me, pulling me toward her.
I crawled, like a pilgrim in the middle ages toward a sacred relic.
Her other hand guided me, made me to lie down at her side and she put her arms around me, placed my hand across her waist like she had gripped me. “Better?” I said quietly, her hair tickling my face. I leaned my head on her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she said, and her arms tightened around me again. For a few moments I just heard her breathing and then she said, “What about what I said just now?”
“What about it?” I asked.
I didn’t really want to think about what she’d been saying. Didn’t want to think. I just wanted to lie here against her side, feel her solid and reassuring physical presence, good and real and warm.
“Do you like girls?” She felt me react, felt me stiffen and half sit up, and she didn’t tighten her grip. “Are you offended?”
What is going on?
When she’d first said these words a minute ago, I hadn’t wanted to hear them, because they made me feel as if the outside world, with everything that had happened in it, all the threats it posed, would come into this room if I let her words exist by replying to them.
“I’m not offended…” I said.
I didn’t want to say, Did Machyl tell you something?
I didn’t want to relive the conversation earlier in the restaurant.
I didn’t want to think about all of that, it wasn’t part of this safe world here with Damaris in this dark bedroom.
I forced all of that out of my mind.
Don’t bring it in, then. It was a novel idea. Keep it out. That’s the outside world. It has no place here, so just kick it out.
I blinked.
The voice in my head was right.
This was a different place, different world, with different rules.
And right now, Damaris and I were making the rules and we could make them whatever we wanted. I had said something stupid and I’d admitted I’d made a mistake.
But she still wanted me here.
And I wanted to be here, with her, more than anything else I’d ever wanted in my life.
It’s okay. The voice said in my head. You can tell her. I was still half-lying propped up on my elbow. I looked down at her, although I couldn’t see her.
“I like girls,” I said.
“Am I a girl?” Damaris asked.
I blinked. “You know you are,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Am I a girl to you?”
“Yes,” I said, realizing that my heart had sped up and my breath was coming quicker.
“Are you sure?” She asked.
“Yes,” I said, lightheaded. “I’m sure.”
Her hand found my chest, my shoulder, my neck. “You’re not a girl, are you?”
“No,” I said.
“I knew it,” she said. “I knew you weren’t.”
“I’m a man.” I felt prickles running all up and down my body.
I heard her breath hitch and then just heard her breathing, shallow, in the darkness.
That was when I realized I was hard.
Oh, no.
I wanted to die right at that moment, wanted to crawl away into a corner like the insect I was. I was still half-sitting up and my underneath leg was crooked slightly, turning my pelvis away from her, so she couldn’t feel it—she didn’t know, couldn’t know.
“Come here,” she said, pulling at me.
“I can’t,” I winced, resisting. I was wearing her purple velour sweatpants with the gold embroidered crown on the butt, and I was hard in them.
Oh, St Sebastian, why can’t you protect me from these things?
“You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” She asked. The hand which had been on my neck was now on my chest.
I wasn’t just wincing now. My eyes were tightly shut, I was barely breathing, just trying to get through this moment.
I felt as terrible as when I had been in the dressing room yesterday afternoon, and had heard her and Marcus, and had gotten aroused by the sounds.
I felt as terrible as when I had made myself come thinking about her and Marcus in the storage closet.
If that had been a violation, what was this? I was in her room, on her bed, and she wanted to snuggle. This was a betrayal.
“You are, aren’t you?” She persisted. “Answer me.”
Something in my mind interpreted her question as You’re rock hard, aren’t you?
“Yes,” I gasped, because the arousal was just getting worse, increasing with every second, and that was the worst thing I had ever done, it had to be. The humiliation of having my virginity exposed was nothing compared to this.
“Come here,” she said again, more insistently.
I felt her hands on my face, she pulled me into her and then her full lips were covering mine in a brief kiss. Then she was breathing on my lips, our shoulders touching.
“Okay?”
I was speechless. Like a bird had come and plucked the organ of speech from within me, flown away with it off into the mountains, to put it in an iron-bound chest and lock it with a golden key to be guarded by a dragon with sapphire eyes and emerald scales.
I leaned over a hair’s breadth and my lips were against hers. She reached for me and I reached for her and we were tight against each other.
Another kiss, warm, dry, quick, and the world was moving.
She had grabbed me under the armpits and pulled me into her, she was moving backward and pulling me on top of her, until I was lying on top of her and she had me in a vice grip, her hands on my shoulders and her legs coming around me and I found myself in the cradle of her hips, held there as tightly and hotly as if I had been a hiker who strayed into a crevice of rock and realized he was trekking up a volcano, without even knowing.
The moment my erection hit up against her groin, I let out a groan which came from deep inside me, uncontrollable, and she let out a moan.
She pinioned me with her hips and I felt her calves pushing down on the backs of my calves, she rolled her hips into me and she cried out as she thrust against me, right against my erection, making a wave of pleasure travel through me, and I shuddered and gasped.
“Oh, god,” she muttered, “oh, god,” and she pulled me right down, so my chest was touching hers, and she rolled against me again like a wave crashing against the shore, and this time when the wave travelled all the way up her body her breasts touched my chest and she let out a keening sound and gasped and said, “Oh god, oh god,” and the next thing I knew, she had reached down and was lifting the oversized t-shirt over her head, it brushed past me as it went.
Her t-shirt was gone and she tore mine off and I felt the soft fabric slip off and the cold air of the room on my skin, and then her warm hands, joining with mine and coming to rest on the bed above her head.
I felt her bare stomach against my own and a warm wash of arousal flowed through my abdomen, as if it was possible for me to be even more turned on, and it flowed right into my cock, and I gasped at the pleasure it brought.
My bare chest settled on hers and she cried out and I felt her hands let go of mine, grasping into the bed covers, gripping handfuls of fabric as she rolled her hips into my erection mercilessly.
I could feel the hard nubs of her nipples against my chest. I ran my hands down her arms, down the sides of her chest, around her waist, how it curved in and flared out again, I kissed her clavicle, in between her breasts.
“Oh god, do it,” she moaned, pushing up against me, and I covered he
r breast with my mouth and felt my cock throb. She cried out again, louder.
“Oh, god, fuck,” she spat, breathing raggedly.
I ran my tongue over her nipple and she keened again, wordless.
I ran my hands over her hips, where they gripped me, and felt her muscles flexing as she ground against me.
I groaned again. It was now inevitable, undeniable: I was going to come, at some point in the very near future, and it was Damaris who was going to make me come.
Then she was rolling me onto my back, and, breathing hard, running her hand down my chest and onto my abdomen.
Her fingers touched the faint trail of tiny curls which led down from my belly button and I whimpered out loud.
“Do you want to come?” She asked.
I nodded desperately, then realized she couldn’t see it in the dark.
I pushed her hand down to the waistband of the purple velour sweatpants.
I heard the soft sound of spitting and she put her hand inside and I heaved a huge breath as I felt her fingers touch my erection, hot and sticky and trapped inside the cheap synthetic material.
My eyes rolled back in my head as she took me in her hand.
No-one had ever touched me like this, and some part of me thought it would never happen, ever. Some part of me thought I was too different. Thought there was something too wrong with me.
“Damaris,” I said helplessly, as I felt her slippery fingers moving over the glans of my penis. “Damaris,” I moaned, my heart beating for her, inflamed with love for her, only her.
“Damaris, Damaris, St Sebastian, oh, Damaris—” and I felt that love travel down through the core of my body, through the pit of my stomach, through the hot liquid pooled in my abdomen and into my balls, and they pulsed with a blinding pleasure and I came into her hand with her thumb swirling over the head of my dick, and lay there, breathing hard, in the reverb and buzz of the music from the club below.
I felt her leave my side, and then I heard the sound of tissues being taken from a tissue box, the papery sound as the leaves slid against each other.
“Here,” she said, and I found the tissues she had gotten for me, and felt a strange feeling as I used them, that I was glad it was so dark. “Just toss them somewhere,” she said.
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