Second, now I had experienced Marcus’ blow job firsthand and I knew what Damaris must think when she compared the two of us.
I don’t know what to do.
Now you know why she doesn’t want you, the voice in my head said in the tone of one calmly stating a well-known fact. You always knew you were a pathetic little dickweed. You’re telling me you’re surprised when life proves that to you?
The longer I lay there, and the worse I felt, the more annoyed I started to get. Yes, I was annoyed.
No. I was angry.
Angry.
I sat up, looking for my phone to check the time. It was almost two pm. I put it back down, got up and went out of my bedroom door. “Damaris?”
I checked the kitchen and the pit. Empty. I doubled back and as I approached the den, I noticed the door was open and I could faintly hear sounds coming from within. Memories of last night rushed in on me like acid on an open wound, but instead of making me cringe and turn away and curl up in a ball and cry forever, they just made me angrier.
I stood in the open doorway of the den and saw the big screen was lit up and Damaris was in the chair from last night, no longer tipped over on the floor. I could see the top of her head with its waves of black hair which spiraled into curls the longer it got.
On the screen was a very old episode of the Vivesse Fashion and Beauty Parade. It was Color Queen’s season and at this moment she was being crowned and the crown placed on her head, her eyes sparkling and her teeth white beneath her perfectly painted pink lips.
I had never seen this episode before, but I recognized the images. I had seen it before, in the documentary Drag Queen Beauty Pageant. They must have used footage from the actual broadcast. The same documentary that inspired Sue Ellen to go and see the House of Ellegrandé for herself, and of course, she took me with her.
“Calleen was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Damaris must have heard me, because she turned around when she said it and smiled at me over the top of the recliner. “I wonder how I’ll look when I’m old.”
Seeing her sitting there all peacefully, just watching stuff, in my house, it should have made me feel good. It should have made me feel warm and fuzzy that she was there, but it didn’t.
I stared back at her, at her smile. I was so angry, I had so many things to say to her.
Marcus told me. Could you come over please.
“You—” I croaked, and kept talking, not even clearing my throat. “You knew Machyl lied to Marcus that I liked him.”
I thought she had plunged a knife into me last night in this room, but the gut punch of this realization was so much worse, now, that I felt winded by it. I clutched my stomach, the soft pale blue cotton of the pajama top.
Her smile faded, and she picked up the remote and paused the stream. Calleen Jones’ happy face was frozen on the screen.
“Come and sit down,” Damaris said, indicating the other recliner.
I set my jaw. “No,” I said. How come she was calm and in control so much of the time? How come she got to call the shots about what was upsetting and what wasn’t?
She stood up slowly and came to face me, leaning one arm on the back of the recliner. “Are you pissed at me about that?”
“What do you think?” I spat, reaching for the anger, feeling it fill me with its power. I crossed my arms tightly. “The other night you told me how much you hated the drama around here. And yet when you see Machyl starting lies about me, you do nothing?”
She stared back at me, chewing on her lip.
“How long ago was that?” I said, feeling my face getting hot and my heart starting to pound. Electricity crackled across the skin of my hands and feet. “How long has Machyl been planning this?” My voice rose.
I didn’t know why the words were coming so easily, I could only put it down to the anger and the surety in me, the knowledge I now had, that she had wronged me. “How long have both of you been planning this?”
She sighed and pursed her lips, crossing her arms as well.
I should have known. I should have known it was a set up the entire time. I was just the house bitch after all. Nothing but a target for their schemes. I thought Damaris was on my side. But she wasn’t. She never had been. Damaris was Machyl’s friend. Together they ruled the House of Ellegrandé.
I must have been insane to think that she would put me above Machyl. No. That had never been it.
Damaris was the queen.
I was nothing but a worthless piece of trash.
Why was I surprised to find out she was against me?
“Anthony, please come and sit down,” Damaris said, pushing off from the recliner and indicating the other chair.
I rubbed my face. My thoughts still felt fuzzy and slow, the traces of the pills from last night. I shook my head. “Why do you get to call the shots, huh?”
I saw impatience flash across her face and she pushed her hair out of her face. “Okay,” she said. “I want to explain. But it will take a while. So it will be comfortable to sit down. That’s all I’m saying.”
“What is there to explain?” I snapped, and try as I might to hang on to the anger, all I felt was the despair rising in me. The same deep and desperate sadness I’d felt when looking at her before. The same feeling that I now recognized as the void from last night, the depths of nothingness which had filled me and taken me when I was having sex with Marcus. “I know you hate me. I know you all hate me!”
“And there’s another thing,” I knew I was raising my voice, but it was out of my control. The words poured out of me in a hot torrent. “Why did you ask me to come over on Saturday? Machyl told you that I’m bisexual, didn’t he? And Machyl told you that I’m in love with you. Didn’t he?”
She looked back at me until I couldn’t hold her gaze any more, and when I looked back, she nodded.
When I saw her nod, I wanted to pick up the coffee cup sitting on the table between the recliners and hurl it at the TV screen. But I didn’t. I just stood there.
Now she knew everything.
And I knew, finally, that I was nothing.
“Anthony,” she said softly. “Please let me explain. Please?”
I didn’t fight her any more. I slumped myself over to the other recliner and sat on the edge of it with my arms and legs crossed tightly, not looking at her.
She sat down and after a minute, she said, “You’re right that Machyl said—a bunch of shit—about you. But that’s Machyl. You know how he is. You shouldn’t put too much store by his words.”
I debated getting up and walking out of the room, but I didn’t have the energy any more. I felt as if my life were over. To be honest, I couldn’t see how it wasn’t.
“I can see how much this is affecting you,” she said. “And this is why I’m trying to tell you, don’t let him get to you like this.”
“You’re trying to blame this on him?!” I spat, anger flaring dangerously like a bunsen burner out of control, sitting up and looking straight at her. “I can’t believe it!”
She pursed her lips into a thin line. “Are you bisexual?”
“Yes!” I said. “I’m bi, alright?”
“Okay,” she said, her face hard. “So why is it such a big fucking deal, then?”
I felt as if the primal earth within me had shifted, revealing a river of magma, molten rock which was leaking out and filling me with rage. I was so furious, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“So you like girls, own it, why don’t you?” She jutted her chin at me contemptuously. Then she breathed out hard, rubbed the chin as if to put it back in its place. “If that’s who you are, then—that’s that. Right?”
“Everyone hates bisexuals,” I muttered resentfully.
“Oh, spare me, for Chrissake, Anthony,” Damaris rolled her eyes. “You’re saying this to the trans woman?”
I could feel my face going as sour as a saucer of milk left out in the sun. I wasn’t going to talk to her if this was going to be her attitude. No way,
no how.
No-one believed me when I said I was bi. That was the real heart of the matter.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I—I know it’s not easy for you,” she said. “And it’s not easy for me either. That’s why,” she took a deep breath. “That’s why I sought you out the other night.”
I shook my head bitterly. “You took advantage of me,” I muttered, feeling my heart shrivel up as small, hard and wrinkled as a dried walnut. “You knew how I felt.”
“I took advantage?” Damaris echoed in disbelief. “W-What do you mean?”
I glanced at her. The expression on her face was so shocked that I almost felt bad for a second, before I reminded myself that she was probably just doing it to guilt trip me.
“I can’t believe you would say that,” she said, and her voice sounded distressed. “Tell me what you mean. Please.”
“You knew I wouldn’t turn you down,” I said.
“I—I didn’t know that!” She protested. “I didn’t!”
I closed my eyes to block out the painful vision of her there looking at me so earnestly. “You knew I was—you knew I was a virgin.”
“Anthony, that’s not true, I didn’t know,” she said desperately. “I don’t understand why you’re being like this. It’s like you haven’t heard anything I said to you in the last two days.”
“You already told me Machyl told you, five minutes ago,” I said. “So how come you’re turning around, trying to deny it now?”
“Machyl talks shit like an auctioneer, it’s word vomit, why would I believe any of it?” She said, leaning toward me. “Yes, he told me about your orientation. Your white home girl there told him that one night at the club and he can’t mind his own business.”
“Sue Ellen?” I breathed, meeting her eyes purely in shock and their gaze sent another shock through me purely thanks to the power she still held over me. I couldn’t believe Sue Ellen told him that…
She nodded. “And Machyl told me he thought you had a crush on me because you were always looking at me in the dressing room. I told Machyl that it was probably because my body was changing and you were just curious.”
Fuck. Panic lanced through me and I curled in on myself, looking away. She knows. She knows!
“And about the—virginity thing,” she said. “Machyl is… I don’t know why he acts the way he does sometimes. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
I turned to look at her, going cold all over. “What are you talking about?”
She looked away this time. “Forget I opened my mouth.”
“What has Machyl been saying about me?” I leaned toward her over the table between the recliners. “Tell me! He—he told Marcus I liked him. And what else?”
Damaris had her arms crossed, looking straight at me now. “He told Marcus that, and wasn’t it true?”
“No!” I burst out. “I don’t like Marcus!”
She raised her eyebrows, her lips pursed. “Really.”
If she couldn’t hear the pounding of my heart in the silence, she must be deaf.
“He has this way of figuring people out,” Damaris said. “If he sees the truth, then sometimes I think, what’s so wrong with him saying it?”
I was staring back at her, but I felt as if I was falling, going into a tailspin. When skydivers went into a tailspin from a very high height, there was no way back. The tailspin itself was death.
“The problem,” Damaris said, “is that he uses that ability for his very strange little ends and it’s all to do with what goes on in Machyl’s head and I’m not going to go into my speculations and theories about that.”
“What?” I said. If I was a skydiver in a tailspin, then my parachute was useless and the Earth was rushing up in its vastness toward me.
She inclined her head to the side, licking her lips. “Machyl had this bet,” she said finally.
“Bet?” I echoed.
She breathed out hard, putting her hands over her mouth and nose. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I need to get out of all of this. I told you that already. I’m literally about to—” She sighed, flopping back in the recliner. “Machyl had a bet who was going to sleep with you.”
“What?” I said, blinking at her.
“It was a joke!” She burst out, throwing out her hands. “Do you see that? It was just a joke. Because—”
I could feel the expression distorting my features, feel it pulling my nose up and my eyebrows in, curling my upper lip in disgust at—at who? But I knew what she was saying. That was the thing. “Because no-one would want to sleep with me?”
She groaned. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, Anthony, we all have different tastes in men, okay? Machyl’s a fucking idiot and we all know it—”
But I knew what she was saying. And I could picture Machyl’s gleeful face, I could picture the voguing pose of his exaggerated limbs. I could picture him curling his hand in front of his face, chasing his fingers with a lascivious tongue, twirling his legs one over the other to lay himself out on the bare make up counter and place his hand on his hip, regarding them all with his flashing white stare.
“So,” I said, my voice trembling. “Who was involved in this bet?”
“No-one!” She said. “It wasn’t a real bet! It was a joke. I told you.”
“So why,” I said slowly. “Are you mentioning it?”
“Machyl found out that Marcus liked you,” Damaris said, “and this was his reaction,” she held her hands up. “And this was all he talked about for weeks. I’m telling you, that boy is… I don’t know, Anthony, okay?”
“But…” I narrowed my eyes. “Machyl and Brooklyn are spoken for. So who was supposed to be taking part in this little bet? You and Marcus?” I knew it was wrong, I knew it meant I was sick in the head, but when I said those words, it made me think, Why would Damaris be involved if she didn’t like me?
“No, no-one was involved. This was just the smack that Machyl was talking, I don’t know what he was trying to do, make Marcus jealous—I don’t know, okay!”
“But you’re Machyl’s best friend!” I almost yelled. “And you were going out with Marcus! How could you not know?”
Damaris went silent then, looking down at her hands. “I wasn’t going out with Marcus. We fucked, I don’t know, ten times or something.”
Oh god I did not need to know the numbers.
“I needed a piece, Anthony,” she ground out, still staring at her lap. “I don’t know it works for you, but I get fucking horny, okay? It’s a lot better since I’m properly medicated now, but goddamnit, estrogen isn’t like being neutered, no matter how many men would like to see it that way. It’s normal to have a sex drive and—” she mashed her hand into her forehead, “I won’t apologize for it.”
“But—” I stuttered. I really, really didn’t want to talk about this, because the mere mention of Marcus’ name was enough to send the hot flashes of jealousy up my spine, but I had been trying to understand this for so long, and I needed to know. “Why would Marcus risk breaking DT’s rule for—for—”
“For a DL fuck or two?” Damaris snapped. “Because Marcus doesn’t care that much, Anthony.”
“Doesn’t care about what?”
“He doesn’t care about Duane’s rules. If he gets kicked out of Ellegrandé, what does he care? He has a club waiting for him back in London and they’re on his case to get back there. He’s just fucking around in New York. He doesn’t care about New York drag.”
We can leave New York. Come with me back to London.
“Oh,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows. “That doesn’t come as a big surprise to you, does it?” She slapped her hand on her thigh, smoothing the fabric of her leggings.
“He asked me if I wanted to go to London with him,” I admitted.
“See? I knew it,” she muttered. “And I can see it. You’re all international and shit. You’re not like a normal Dominican immigrant.”
I
smarted at the comment, if that was even possible, given that I felt like I was a ball of hurt, a ball of pounded flesh, nothing resembling a human being any more.
“So what did you say?” She asked.
“I—he just came out with it out of nowhere,” I said.
“So you said no,” she said.
I wanted to say—
I had nothing left, so what did I have to lose? Except I had said everything to her last night, and she had accused me of trying to make her into a whore. So how could I say to her now, I love you more than anything else in the world and why would I even listen to something crazy Marcus said when all I want is to be with you every minute of the day for the rest of my life?
“And… with Machyl…” she trailed off. “If you have beef with him, then talk to him about it yourself.”
My eyes practically popped out of my skull. Talk to Machyl? Was she crazy? “You’re—trying to change the subject,” I blurted out. “I said Machyl is your friend.”
“I don’t want to talk about Machyl any more,” she said. “I said I wanted to explain what happened between us, not gossip about Machyl.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek so hard I swore it would bleed. “Fine,” I said, my voice hard. “Explain, then.”
“I just wanted you to stay over to keep me company. I didn’t think anything would happen, I swear.”
“Oh, yeah,” I rolled my eyes, sitting back in the recliner and looking around at the room, at anything but her.
“I really thought of you as a gay boy,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t see you with a woman.”
Well, she wasn’t the first to think that. Again I felt the desire to get up and leave. What was the point of her explaining anything? It was done, wasn’t it? I didn’t want to know her reasons. I didn’t want to know what she thought of me, what went through her mind when she looked at me.
“I admit it was in the back of my mind,” she said. “And then I… the, uh, energy changed. It was a man and woman in bed together. And I—I acted on it.”
I stared at the soundproofing on the wall, wishing I could block out her words. “If I had known you were just trying to win a bet,” I said, my voice sounding strange in my ears, “I would have got up and left.” I swallowed. There was a lump in my throat and my throat ached. “I would never let you touch me.”
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