Tied Together

by Z. B Heller

  I picked Brandon up at ten o’clock, which, in clubbing terms, was like going for the early bird special. Things didn’t start to pick up until later, but I’d promised Sam we’d come to the dressing room and hang out while he got ready. Brandon had never seen a drag queen get ready, and it was certainly a sight to behold. There were times I watched Sam become Jasmine and seriously questioned my sexuality because she looked fucking gorgeous as a woman. I explained to Brandon it was important to get the pronoun usage correct when you were around queens. When dolled up in drag, you referred to a queen as she. For example, she looked like a fucking whore wearing thigh-high boots and a leopard print leotard. Actually, that’s what Jasmine said about her fellow queen Imgonna Eatchu when she performed.

  We passed through security and entered the club, which was surprisingly busy this early in the evening. The club was about as kitschy as it got. There were shiny red leather couches, Christmas lights strung in all directions, chandlers and disco balls dangled from the ceiling, and mirrored walls made the club seem double its size. There was a small stage where the girls performed and a rather large dance floor in the middle. Everyone gathered on the floor when the queens performed and then danced to the DJ when they were finished. Pearl drew in a variety of people: gays, lesbians, straights, bisexuals, transsexuals, bears, twinks, and I think I even spotted some furries. I couldn’t stomach what a costume full of jizz smelled like.

  I led Brandon up the stairs to the dressing room. I knocked on the door because one time I let myself in and Sam was having sex with some dude wearing only a strap-on on his chest. Honestly, I was a little jealous. Out of respect to her holy majesty, I now knocked.

  “You may enter,” Sam called. I opened the door, and Sam was putting on makeup, but still hadn’t slipped on her wig or dress. The dressing room had a mirror like the ones on Hollywood sets with bright lights to maximize your features. Costumes of every shape and color hung on racks against the wall and a small couch, which was currently covered in Sam’s Madonna costumes, sat behind Sam’s chair.

  “Nice of you two to grace us with your presence.” He smiled and held out this hand. I walked over to him, bowed down, and kissed the back of his hand. I looked at Brandon and gave a little nod in Sam’s direction. Brandon caught on and copied me, giving Sam a kiss on the hand.

  “Have you ever seen a queen prepare herself, Brandon?” Sam put the final touches of lipstick on.

  “Can’t stay that has been one of my action items,” he replied, sticking his hands in the pockets of his black pants.

  “It’s very technical,” Sam said and stood, dropping her robe to the floor. She stood as naked as the day the doctor spanked him on the ass for the first time. I was used to Sam au naturel, as it was his usual state at home. Brandon’s eyes looked like they were about to fly into outer space. The show didn’t end there. Sam spread his legs, took his junk, and started to tuck.

  “Sam! No one wants to see you play peek-a-boo with your dick,” My hand flew to cover my eyes.

  “Ryan, my darling, this is a real world problem of being a queen. One must tuck her jewels away for safekeeping. You don’t see the Queen of England leaving her crown jewels out for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to steal. Plus, Tom, Dick, and Harry already got to wear these precious jewels the other night.” She giggled as she continued the tucking process. I looked over at Brandon, who was inspecting the cobwebs on the ceiling. He was also shifting on his feet, and I sensed he was nervous about something. It was time to get him some liquor.

  “Sam, I know you wanted us to chill with you, but we’re going to head to the bar for a drink. Brandon just had a crap date, and I promised him booze to ease the pain.” I linked my arm through Brandon’s and pulled him toward the door.

  “I would need a drink if I had come that close to having a vagina in my face, too. Hell, I would need a whole bottle and a six pack.”

  “You would need a lobotomy because it would scar you for life,” I yelled behind me as we walked out.

  Brandon and I made our way through the crowd until we reached the bar. Dave, the bartender, was working. Sam had told me that Dave had a crush on me, but I didn’t generally go for the skinny type of guy. I went for guys like… Brandon. I mentally damned myself for the thought and promised God I would flog my back like the guy did in The Da Vinci Code. Then I apologized to God because I had no intention whatsoever of flogging myself.

  “Ryan, nice to see you.” Dave’s eyes smoldered. Then he noticed Brandon and he soured.

  “Hey, Dave. I’ll take a Bud Light and my friend here will take a Fireball.”

  Dave quirked an eyebrow but kept his mouth shut and went to make our order.

  “What’s Fireball?” Brandon asked.

  “Think of it as your one-way ticket to Numbville.” Dave brought us the drinks, and I passed the small glass to Brandon. I picked up my beer and held it up for a toast. “To a night of friendship,” I said, clinking Brandon’s glass. What I really wanted to say was, “Here is a liquid potion that will automatically turn you gay so I can get well acquainted with your butthole.” I’d keep that one for the day he got married. Brandon downed the liquid and his hand flew to cover his mouth when he swallowed. I patted him on the back while I laughed.

  “What the fuck did you give me?” He coughed, his face growing red.

  “I’m just following your directions, remember? Get you drunk.”

  “I said get me drunk, not try to kill me.” He laughed, and I couldn’t help swooning more and more by his sweet features. His cheeks were flushed from the alcohol, and he drew my attention toward his lips when he bit them. I could’ve sworn he noticed me checking him out and dragged his teeth over his lip slower. A voice over the speaker alerted the club that the show was about to start. I ordered Brandon one more drink, and then we took our places on the dance floor.

  A queen dressed like Marilyn Monroe in a low-cut dress took to the stage to welcome everyone to the performance. She even sounded like Marilyn, using her famous airy voice and lip movements. After getting the crowd worked up, she introduced Jasmine to the crowd. Hoots and hollers echoed around the club as Jasmine stuck out one black pant leg from the wings of the stage. The song “Vogue” played on the speakers, and I rolled my eyes at the cliché of it. I definitely was going to have to talk to Sam about new material. However, no one in the club seemed to mind because the catcalls only got louder when Jasmine came out in her black cone-shaped bra and slicked-back blond ponytail. Even Brandon put two fingers in between his lips and blew out a whistle. I was insanely jealous of those two fingers.

  I watched Brandon out of the corner of my eye as he bounced to the rhythm of the music. He clapped his hands and let out a few wolf whistles, which encouraged Jasmine to come out into the crowd and dance around Brandon. I saw the blush on his cheeks when she vogued around him. I smiled and shook my head, admiring how cute Brandon looked.

  Jasmine performed two sets, changing a total of three times. During the show, Brandon had visited the bar at least two more times and was officially three sheets to the wind. After Jasmine’s show came to a close, the DJ started pumping dance music through the speakers. Crowds of people congregated on the dance floor, making the whole place vibrate with energy.

  Brandon turned to me and said something, but the music was so loud I couldn’t hear him. I shook my head and put my hand up to my ear to signal I didn’t hear him. He looked at me for a moment with glassy eyes. Then he grabbed my shirt with both hands, pulled me close, and spoke in my ear.

  “I wanna dance!” His breath floated in my ear, and I smelled the remnants of the alcohol he’d drunk.

  “Go ahead!” I yelled back.

  He shook his head and pulled me closer. “I wanna dance with you!”

  Well, fuck me and call me Frank.

  My heart picked up the beat of the bass as Brandon took my hand and led me to the middle of the dance floor. Sweaty bodies surrounded us, and it got crowded on the floor, giving us no option but to
touch. We moved to the beat and before I knew it, Brandon whipped behind me, grabbed my waist, and ground his hips against my ass. I felt his stiff erection as he pulled me tight against him.

  In that very moment, I promised God if this were all happening for real, I would gladly go home and start a strict regimen of flogging myself of a daily basis.

  We got back to my place well into the early hours of the morning. The apartment was empty; I wasn’t expecting Sam to be home because he liked to hang at the club and then go out with a few of his drag sisters.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I asked as if Brandon hadn’t been here a thousand times in the past and capable of getting his own.

  “No, I’m all right.” He gave me a slight wave of his hand and sat on the couch.

  “Okay, I’m going to grab some water. Make yourself at home.”

  What the fuck? ‘Make yourself at home’? I sounded like a bad episode of an eighties sitcom. I went into the kitchen and filled a glass with cold water. I brought the shaking glass up to my lips and chugged the water down, hoping it was enough to settle my nerves. I set the glass on the counter but missed the edge and it crashed to the floor, splintering into chards. Fuck.

  “Are you okay in there?” Brandon shouted from the other room.

  “Yeah, I just dropped a glass. I guess I have butter boner. I mean butter fingers!” I squeezed my eyes shut and bent my head down to my chest. Christ on a cracker. Why was I so nervous? It was just Brandon. Oh, perhaps it was because I felt his erection against my ass when we danced.

  I bent down to pick up the slivers of glass and cut myself on the first piece I touched.

  “Fuck!” I cried out while grabbing my finger.

  “What happened?” Brandon came rushing into the room.

  “I sliced my finger on the glass.” I stuck my finger into my mouth to stop the bleeding.

  “Here, let me look at it.” Brandon stepped over the debris on the kitchen floor.

  “I’m okay, really.”

  “Hey, I’m studying to become a doctor, remember. A little blood doesn’t scare me. You can pretend to be one of my patients.”

  Oh, shit balls.

  The idea of playing doctor with Brandon was one of my biggest fantasies. I imagined him in blue scrub pants and a stethoscope hanging from around his neck. Maybe he’d even be wearing one of those little caps surgeons wore so I could rip it off and pull at his hair. Damn, now the half hard-on I was sporting had turned into a full boner, pressing against my jeans and aching to break free. Forget the finger, maybe he can check the blood flow that’s going straight to my dick. No, bad Ryan. I needed to think of my grandmother naked or something.

  “It’s just a little cut. Doesn’t look like you got any glass in it.” He walked over to the sink and wet a paper towel. He came back, took my finger in this hand, and wiped the blood away.

  “Where are the Band-Aids?”

  “In the cabinet over the coffee maker.”

  After finding the Band-Aids, Brandon came back to me and wrapped my cut.

  “There, all done.” He shot the wadded-up paper towel into the trashcan, lifted my finger to his lips, and kissed it. “It always helps when you give it a kiss.”

  Where did my saliva go? I couldn’t swallow. All the saliva in my mouth had pooled on the floor at Brandon’s feet.

  “Is that how you plan on treating all your patients? With a kiss?” Oh fuck, I wanted to go hide somewhere. Seconds passed as I waited for his answer. He chuckled and put his hands into his pockets.

  “Since I’m planning on going into gynecology and obstetrics, that probably wouldn’t be such a great idea. I don’t think women would be too happy if I attempted to kiss their vaginas to make them feel better.”

  “I’m sure there are a lot of woman out there who want you to kiss their vaginas.” My eyes shifted to the floor and my mouth turned down as I thought about the time Brandon was with Nicole. I tortured myself while I lay in bed, wishing Brandon’s tongue was on me instead of lapping at Nicole’s nasty pussy. After getting a small taste of what his tongue felt like, any woman should be so lucky to have that tongue on them.

  “Maybe that’s not where my tongue wants to be,” Brandon said in a low voice.

  My head immediately shot up, and I looked straight into his brown eyes. They turned dark and predatory. For as long as I’ve known Brandon, I’ve never seen him look so serious.

  “Where does it want to be?” I asked in an equally quiet tone.

  Brandon moved toward me, crunching glass under his shoes. He lifted his finger and touched it to my bottom lip, dragging it from corner to corner. I closed my eyes to soak in the sensation.

  “I want to kiss your bottom lip and maybe slip it between my teeth and nip at it.” He studied my mouth, dragging his finger back and forth. Then his eyes moved from my lips to my eyes. He saw straight into my soul, searching for an answer to his unasked question to continue.

  I hoped Sam wouldn’t freak out when he came home and saw parts of my body splayed all over the apartment because I was about to combust. It would be like a CSI crime scene, and all detectives would be able to identify was my rock-hard dick standing proudly amongst the rumble. God, why does my mind go on weird tangents? My best friend wants to kiss me.

  Brandon leaned in further, and I met him the rest of the way, sealing our lips together. My eyelids shut, but I wanted to open them again to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Just to make sure, I snuck a look and there was Brandon. My Brandon.

  A flood of confusion mixed with happy relief coursed through my body. I’d wanted this for so long and spent many nights jacking off to the thought of Brandon sucking me or me lodged deep inside of him while he screamed my name. Ever since our first kiss in my bedroom after graduation, I’d compared every man to Brandon. They never came close to how his lips felt, the taste of his tongue was so unique, and the way his fingers felt when they grazed my cheeks put me into a daze. But with those memories came another memory I detested. The one right after that kiss when he said it was a complete mistake.

  I broke off the kiss and took two steps back, panting from the adrenaline.

  “What’s wrong?” He blinked.

  “I… I just… I don’t know what happened?”

  Well, jackass, you just experienced one erection-inducing kiss. What part of that doesn’t make sense? Oh yeah! The part where it’s your best friend, who you thought was straight, but is ready to devour you like a prime rib dinner.

  “Brandon, do you know what you’re doing? I think you might be drunk.”

  “Liquid courage,” he croaked. “Isn’t that what they call it?”

  I placed my hand on his cheek and stared into his deep brown eyes. They were glazed from drinking, but they held so much heat and lust. Was it possible Brandon wanted me? We’d been best friends for so long and established a perfect routine between us. How did I not see this? Was this part of him so guarded that even I couldn’t see it? Or maybe it was my hope making his desire come to life. Perhaps I wished and prayed for my best friend to return my feelings so badly I projected my feelings onto him.

  “Brandon, I don’t know if we should do this,” I said, letting my hands fall to my sides.

  Brandon’s face fell and he took a step back. “Right, umm, I should get the pan and broom to clean this up.” He started searching the kitchen, looking everywhere but at me.

  I caught his arm. “Bran, talk to me.”

  “What? There is nothing to say.”

  “ ‘Nothing to say’?” I said incredulously. “I think there is a lot to discuss. We have a whole Oprah special to discuss between us.”

  Brandon put his hands in his pockets. He nodded slowly at me and went back into the family room. I cleaned up the mess on the floor. For a brief moment I considered the shattered glass a foreshadowing of what was about to happen to our friendship.

  After I finished cleaning in the kitchen, I walked into the family room. Brandon sat with his elbows resting o
n his knees and his face buried in his hands. I sat next to him and pulled at his forearm to reveal his eyes. Brandon always felt like safety to me; whether it was right or wrong, he was the one I went to for comfort. I wanted nothing more at this moment than to be the comfort he needed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Brandon sat up, puffing his cheeks and letting out a breath of air. “You know the first time we met in the field next to the high school track?”

  “You mean when I came to your rescue like a white knight on his noble steed?” I smiled, trying to lighten the situation.

  “Yeah, something like that.” Brandon smiled sadly. “Do you know what happened?”

  I shook my head.

  “My fucking dick got hard.”

  My breath hitched, and I felt a little light-headed.

  Brandon huffed. “Don’t look so surprised. You were licking that spoon like it was the last dick you were ever going to have in your mouth.”

  “I—”

  “No, let me say what I need to say.”

  I shut my mouth and nodded for him to continue.

  “My dick was so hard because I was so attracted to you. It was everything—your looks, your charm, the way you took over the room with your personality. I wanted to know what you tasted like, even rub some of that cherry filling onto your lips and lick it off.”

  Brandon paused and brought his finger back to my lip, drawing a line back and forth as he had in the kitchen.

  “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to want those things. I had school to worry about. If my family had even the smallest hint that I was attracted to guys, my dad would have found a way to destroy everything I wanted. And he would have come to hurt you. So I locked that part away and tried to ignore every feeling I had. I let my true self slip the night of your graduation party. I’d become desperate and needed a small part of you that I could carry with me. I thought that if I had just that small part, I would be okay. But it wasn’t enough.”

  I nodded, urging him to continue.

  “I was in such denial. But when I went out with Nicole, everything just fell into place. I didn’t want to be there with her. I realized I wouldn’t feel comfortable with any woman the way I feel when I’m with you. When Nicole kissed me, it didn’t feel the same as when we kissed. There was something missing. When we were in the club, and I was dancing with you, I felt the connection I’d been trying too hard to fight. But I don’t want to fight it anymore.”