A banana. Half a peach with the stone taken out. A zucchini. Peel a navel orange by hand, split the segments in half, and go heavy on the navel.
I had actually gone to the step of preparing some of these educational tools, when my mother was out one afternoon, but when it came time to administer my tongue, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I just couldn’t get into the mood with all of these plants, I supposed.
So my technique hadn’t been good enough. Not up to scratch, that was the problem. I didn’t have the experience of the other men she’d been with.
I thought she had liked it, but clearly I had failed. Failed to please her.
I clearly remembered when she had looked over at the merman from the Mermaid Parade and wrinkled her nose.
He looks like a girl.
For some reason I heard Sue Ellen’s voice echoing down the years.
Because you’re the girliest boy who ever lived?
It was written in front of me as plain as the nose on my face. I wasn’t tall, and I wasn’t muscular, and I wasn’t masculine, and I wasn’t good enough.
I could feel myself starting to tremble.
Behind me lay that witches’ coven of Duane Tyrone and the rest of them, cackling away.
In front of me was Damaris, and she had just told me, effectively, to fuck off.
Does this mean she isn’t my girlfriend?
I felt as if I were teetering on the edge of a very, very high cliff, and I was going to fall, and if I did, I had no idea what was going to happen to me. Death seemed, at this moment, like it might be a sweet relief.
But I had to choose one or the other, and like a coward I hoped that if I went out the door onto the street, Damaris would be gone already. That she would have fled and gone somewhere else.
How can you say that?
Damaris was obviously very upset by what Duane Tyrone had said, by the way he had acted. And in this moment, all I could think about was myself.
How self-centered are you?
Maybe she was gone already, maybe she had run off down the street to the subway already.
What if she went back to Teagan and Tommy?
I could just imagine them enfolding her in a group hug, then bringing her an iced tea before they all sat down together to watch an episode of Vivesse Fashion and Beauty Parade.
I walked to the door, opened it and strode out into the street, my heart beating very fast all of a sudden. I scanned to the left and right, looking for her.
There.
She wasn’t gone, but she was going, alright. She was walking, fast, and she was already on the next block up, moving away from me.
Without a second thought I broke into a run, sprinting down the street as fast as I could, and I barely looked before dashing across the street to the next block, until I caught up with her.
“Where are you going?” I panted, falling into step next to her as if it was totally unremarkable that I had just come running hell for leather up to her. My chest was burning, but my body felt alive with electricity.
“Nowhere,” Damaris muttered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Got nowhere to go, do I? I’m not going back there.”
“You—you can come and stay at my place tonight,” I said, a thrill lancing through me. The adrenaline pumping through my system now felt good, as if a switch had been flicked from terror to excitement. “If you want.”
She glanced at me, her lips pursed, and then said, “’Kay,” which didn’t exactly sound like a vote of confidence.
She had walked out with nothing, not even a jacket, and she was just wearing the sports bra top with the leggings. It was all gorgeous and sleek and designer and made her look fantastic, but it wasn’t the warmest. I wanted to offer her my jacket, but then I realized I had left that back at House of Ellegrandé, too.
You could go back and get it for her, a voice said in my head. She left her clothes. You could get them, get her stuff for tonight.
Oh, I guessed that was true… I could go back there… and get things for her.
It would mean facing Duane Tyrone. It would mean standing up to him.
And remember—the voice continued, you forgot your phone in her bedroom, too.
I glanced back down the street at the club. I couldn’t see any sign of Duane Tyrone. He wasn’t standing outside, shaking his fist at us.
When I turned back, I realized that Damaris was looking too, probably thinking the same thing.
No. I decided. We just need to go. Damaris needs to get out of here. It’s not good for her to be here a second longer.
“Let’s go, then,” she said, and started walking again.
See? It’s fine.
I fell into pace beside her and tried to ignore the niggling feeling in my stomach and the voice in my head whispering, You’re such a coward. You could have gone back there to get her stuff.
I crossed my arms tightly across my chest and tried to ignore the voice.
Damaris needed to get away from Duane Tyrone, and I needed to help her do that. We could go home, and I would make her the iced tea, and maybe some popcorn too, and I would put on the episode of Vivesse on the nice big screen in the den.
Oh, fuck. My keys.
My house keys were in my leather jacket, which was currently lying crumpled on Damaris’ bed. And my billfold with all my credit cards.
And your phone, the voice whispered.
Well, I didn’t care about the phone, but I needed the keys—and the credit cards.
I felt my stomach twist nauseatingly. My debit card was at home. That account was hardly ever in the black and I couldn’t count on getting cash out of it now. I had no money on me. I needed those cards.
“I left my keys,” I said. “I need to go back there.”
Damaris stopped. “Doesn’t anyone else have a copy?”
“No,” I said.
That’s a lie. The maid has one.
I bit my lip.
Was there some way I could get in touch with the agency? I didn’t even know her name. She had only been coming for a few weeks and I was usually asleep when she was there because she came so early.
Shit.
I could just imagine Machyl’s reaction if he found out I had to get a spare copy of the key from the maid. What about Damaris?
What would she think? I cringed. She thought I was rich enough already, the last thing I needed was for her to hear me talking about The Help.
I clenched my fists hard. I didn’t want either option in front of me.
I wanted to run away with Damaris to a new place, where no-one expected anything of us, and we could be happy, together, forever.
Why can’t I do that instead?
I sighed. I didn’t have my phone. It was Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t even sure I could remember the name of the agency that sent the maid, and I certainly wasn’t about to call mama to find out.
And how was I going to explain all of this to her anyway?
Mamà, I need a spare key because my big drag queen boss called my girlfriend a slut after everyone heard us having sex and I’m literally too scared to face him to get my stuff I left behind when I ran out of the drag club I dropped out of school to work at.
Yeah.
Like that was going to happen.
I could just imagine her saying in an excited and hopeful tone, Girlfriend?! Oh, Anthony… tell me everything about her!
Nope.
That was not going to happen.
What… a voice said in my head. Are you ashamed of Damaris?
Of course I’m not ashamed!
I was getting mightily sick and tired of the little judgements this voice kept feeding me night and day, commenting on everything I did.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” I promised, looking up at her.
She looked at me uncertainly. I could see the anxiety in her face, in her movements as she crossed and uncrossed her arms.
I felt my heart contract painfully and I wanted to reach out and to
uch her, hug her, kiss her, but the fear of rejection, that she would shy away as she had done before, or remain passive, twisted my insides until they felt like they could snap.
I just turned away and started running back down the street toward the club, and it felt even worse when she didn’t stop me and say, Wait, kiss me first.
I ran all the way there to stop myself from getting so scared I would just turn back.
To my surprise, I found the door standing ajar. I must have forgotten to close it, and no-one had noticed yet.
I slipped inside and up the stairs, my ears alert for any sound that would indicate Duane Tyrone was nearby, a thudding footstep or the slight wheeze in his heavy breath.
Nothing.
The door to the apartment was also half open. I hadn’t closed it behind me when I went downstairs. I paused on the threshold, listening.
I could barely listen to the silence with my heart thudding and the blood rushing in my ears. But I didn’t hear anything, and the living room was empty, so I crossed into Damaris’ room and pushed the door almost-closed behind me.
Her scent filled my nostrils and immediately overwhelmed me with memories. Her skin against mine, warm and sweet.
I started working as fast as I could, putting the clothes back in the shopping bags, shrugging on my jacket—it was lying on the floor—and checking the pockets for my keys and billfold. I got my phone from the nightstand, put that in my pocket and slung the bags onto my shoulder.
Then I looked around for anything else she might need. Her phone charger, I took from the wall. I considered taking her laptop, but it was so big and heavy. Surely she could do without it for one night.
The clothes she had slept in last night were draped over the back of the chair that went with the vanity.
I looked in the closet again, just because, and confirmed that yes, all of her clothes were gone.
The general sense of unease which had been with me, simmering away slowly in the background for the past hour—no, all day—well, since yesterday.
Since Friday, since the fight.
That sense of unease flared up like a gas burner being turned up to the maximum setting.
There’s something going on with her. It’s been staring you in the face all this time and you’ve been ignoring it.
No, I told the voice sternly.
Just shut up. I don’t want to listen to any more of your little pronouncements.
I found, in the drawers of the vanity, a few pairs of underwear and socks and stuffed them in the same bag as the silk shantung dress.
The sex dress.
I turned and scanned the room. I couldn’t see or think of anything else. I left her bedroom and went to the bathroom and took her toothbrush—I remembered she used the purple one—and left it at that. I had some nice skincare products she could use.
I left the bathroom and went out the door and down the stairs, hardly able to believe my luck. Was I really going to get out of here without having to face Duane Tyrone?
I had gotten to the bottom step and was about to walk out the door when I heard voices coming from the dressing room. The door was ajar. The sound insulation really was terrible here.
I don’t want to know what they’re saying.
Really? Said the voice. You’re sure you don’t want to know?
No! I didn’t want to know. Okay? So back off. Stupid voice.
I took one step toward the door, then another. My hand was on the door handle.
What’s the point in listening?
I needed to get back to Damaris without delay. She was waiting for me.
Besides, what did it matter what they were saying? I didn’t care, I didn’t want to know.
It’s better not to know.
And the risk of getting caught was sky-high. It was a stupid idea. I needed to leave. I pulled the door handle toward me, opening the door to the street.
I heard a wail, cut short. I froze as terror lanced through my heart. The sound had come from behind me. Unmistakably, from the dressing room down the corridor behind me.
What the fuck was that?
It sounded like someone was—crying, or terribly upset. Duane Tyrone?
If DT was upset, I needed to get out of here pronto.
But if Damaris asked me if I had seen or talked to Duane, I would have to lie to her if I left now.
Damaris was angry at him now. They had had a fight. But that wasn’t going to last long.
And nobody was closer to Duane Tyrone than Damaris. If she knew I’d left him alone and crying, she would be furious at me.
I put my bags down softly and, leaving the door half-open, tip-toed down the corridor as silently as I could.
A broken wail, fuller-throated this time, broke the silence and I walked quicker while it covered my steps, even though the sound sent another lance of terror through my chest.
I crept to the hinge side of the door and put my ear to the narrow gap between the door and the door frame.
“Now, hush,” it was Machyl’s voice, unmistakably. I frowned. Machyl had stormed out in a huff fifteen minutes ago.
It wasn’t a wail this time, but a series of loud, incoherent sobs, the kind of choking sobs that left you breathless.
“Poor DT,” Machyl cooed, and I cringed as I heard the tone of his voice. Was he really being sympathetic, or was his eternal snark waiting behind it? “It’ll be okay, mama.”
“That boy spent the night in my house!” Duane Tyrone shouted. “I found his old blue eyes floating in a glass in my bathroom cabinet this morning. You know what I did, baby?”
“What, mama?” Machyl said soothingly. His tone seemed to be working. DT seemed to have stopped sobbing and regained control of his voice. To my regret.
“I poured the water out. Dried them out. Now if I could get my hands on his real eyes and squeeze them til they pop! Machyl, you heard him ploughing our girl in Calleen’s bed like a shameless, shameless whore!”
“Yes, I did, Mama,” Machyl said, but I couldn’t pick up on his tone. It suddenly seemed detached, emotionless. “But you know La Tata is nothing better than a working girl. Why you so surprised when she acts in her nature?”
My heart started pumping hard, so hard it seemed to be rattling inside my chest, but it wasn’t pumping blood any more.
What was inside my veins and arteries seemed to have turned into acid, hot, corrosive and bitter. Sickening fear swooped through me as I realized I had underestimated the depths of Machyl’s ruthlessness.
He was out to destroy me, after all.
At that moment I was startled almost out of my skin by a loud slam and when I looked, the front door had closed of its own accord. A gust of wind must have blown it shut.
“What was that?” Duane Tyrone sounded panicky. “That was the front door!”
Fuck. I ran. The soles of my shoes pounded on the wooden floorboards and I swooped down to pick up the bags, wrenched the door open—
“Tata!” Machyl’s voice barked.
I didn’t look back. I carried on up the street, sprinting like the wind, the shopping bags flapping against my back and tangling at my side.
“Damaris,” I gasped when I saw her, leaning against the wall of a convenience store with her arms folded. “Run,” I said.
She looked at me in alarm, but said nothing and joined me. We ran up two blocks, the awkward shopping bags jostling and twisting around each other, sharp corners bouncing somewhat painfully into my side, and turned right to the subway entrance.
I didn’t breathe easy until we reached the turnstiles and I hefted the bags over and stood on the platform waiting for the train, panting heavily. The easy breathing was metaphorical more than anything else.
“What happened?” Damaris panted, holding her side where she must have had a stitch.
I took the shopping bags off my shoulder and untwisted the handles, then pulled out the pale blue satin bomber jacket which I’d bought her and handed it to her.
She accepted it a
nd put it on, zipping it up halfway. She looked like a model in these clothes.
I found myself looking at her and couldn’t believe how good-looking she was. Couldn’t believe I was with such a good-looking woman.
“Did something happen?” She asked more insistently.
My heart sank as I realized she was going to want an explanation. I had run out of the club the first time, and I had run back, but the difference the third time was that I had said to her, Run.
I cursed my own stupidity. I should have hidden my panic from her.
I’d been so frozen with terror, the true weight of their words hadn’t sunk in. But it did now.
I felt as though every word they had said about me had manifested as a burning coal in my stomach. I couldn’t figure out which one hurt more, and all together they formed a heavy mass which tortured me and seared through my inner being.
“No,” I said. “I just got the stuff and left.”
The thought of Damaris hearing anything Duane Tyrone and Machyl had said was even more painful than their words.
Damaris was DT’s drag baby. Machyl’s best friend. If she knew what they thought about me…
She’ll realize they’re right.
I tried to breathe, but the air seemed to catch in my throat, which was aching.
I was such a fool. I should have known that it was only a matter of time before Damaris found out how pathetic I was.
Unmasked. The real me, the unworthy, would be exposed. She would realize that I was about as worthy as a lipstick-stained cotton ball, and I needed to be thrown in the trash at the end of the night.
When I found out Marcus Fong liked me, it made me think less of him. I tarnished him.
But when I found out Damaris liked me, it made me even more worthless. Because I could only be next to her perfection for so long before the disparity became obvious.
The minute I found out she liked me, a soul-deep terror took root in me of the moment when she realized what I really was.
The train pulled in to the station and as the carriage stopped in front of us, our reflections were mirrored in one of the windows.
I felt myself recoil as I took in our size difference. I was a head shorter than she was.
She had the full figure of a beautiful woman.
Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Page 29