by Arden Powell
“Hey, you,” she said. “What do you think?”
“The press will love it.”
“Sure, but what do you think?” She punctuated the you with a poke to his shoulder.
“I think the same thing I thought when I told Rayne it was a good idea. And Cal seems like a decent guy. They could pull it off.”
“Hm.”
He turned to face her. “What, hm?”
“Level with me a minute. All the kissing you two do onstage, and all the hand-holding and cuddling up you do off it, you really don’t have a thing for him?”
Kris froze, and in that split second of hesitation he knew he’d waited too long. Angel’s expression softened. “No,” he said weakly. “No, it’s not . . . We’re not like that.”
“Kris, honey. I love you, but lying’s not your forte.”
“It’s just a crush. It doesn’t mean anything.” He bit his tongue, hoping his lie didn’t sound as blatant as it felt. “And now that Calloway’s here and they’re doing this whole thing, I’ll get over it.”
“You really don’t want to tell him?”
“I don’t want to fuck up and make things awkward. Brian’s still got me on a trial run, and I don’t want to do anything that could get me kicked out of the band.” He reached over and squeezed her fingers. “Honestly. It’s just a crush because we’re around each other all the time, and he’s a great kisser. And he’s . . . Rayne. But it’s fine. I’m not in love with him, and he’s definitely not in love with me. I’ve got this totally under control.”
“Why don’t you want him to know you’re not straight?” she asked bluntly. “You said you weren’t ready, and I respect that, but I can see you pining for him. I could see you pining from the moon.”
“I’m going to tell him,” Kris promised. “But I don’t want to complicate things, especially not while he’s doing this with Cal. As soon as their stunt’s over, we’ll talk. And I’m not pining.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but he steeled himself and nodded like it was the absolute truth. She finally sighed and patted his knee.
“Okay, hun. Whatever you say.”
Kris took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart. Angel would keep his secret. As far as she was concerned, it was just a crush and it was under control.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Control was only ever an illusion. Kris knew that, on some deep level, but superficially he still had hope. He lost the last of it—hope and control both—after Angel brought out her costume trunk.
It wasn’t her fault— Kris didn’t want to blame her for anything that happened. She was simply the catalyst that sent everything else whirring into motion like a terrifyingly unstoppable doomsday device. It started with a pair of gold lamé booty shorts.
“We’re doing a Rocky Horror tribute,” Billie said.
“I have costumes,” Angel added.
“Okay,” Kris said. “Rocky Horror. Why not.”
“I’m Frankie, obviously,” Rayne said. “Stef dibs’d Riff Raff, as if anyone else would want him. Maki’s Columbia, Billie’s Meatloaf—Eddie—and everyone else is a Transylvanian. We’re throwing everybody in corsets and glitter.”
“What about me?” Kris asked, feeling the answer in his gut already.
“You’re Rocky, of course,” Angel said with a wink. “Not much of a bodybuilder, but I never did like a man with too many muscles.”
“I would’ve thought I was more of a Janet,” Kris said, “but hey, whatever floats your boat.”
Angel pressed the shorts into his hand, and Kris had to turn them over three times to figure out what he was holding. They seemed a lot smaller in person than he remembered from the movie, and he remembered them being tiny. “Where’s the rest of them?”
“Oh hun,” Angel said. “The rest of it’s all you.”
The important thing Kris needed to remember about Purple Sage was that it wasn’t part of the real world. It might seem like it was, being in the middle of a desert that could be found on any map, and the tickets were paid for with very real money, but the festival itself—the part where the music happened—that was somewhere else entirely. That part was just left of reality, where the laws of nature and common sense and outside society didn’t apply. That was the reason Kris didn’t question the Rocky Horror getups, or the way Angel carried a veritable cornucopia of recreational drugs, or his own tumultuous, headfirst tumble into heart-throbbing infatuation with Rayne, which he could no longer deny, though he was trying. Questioning was for the real world, as were consequences. He put the shorts on.
“I think I need a bit more to wear,” he said, examining his reflection in the mirror in the private dressing-room-trailer he and Rayne had appropriated.
He didn’t mind his body. Sure, he was skinny, with no real muscle definition, and maybe his limbs were a little too coltish to belong on a man of twenty-five, but there was nothing offensive about it. It left his gender ambiguous, almost, at the right angle and in the right light. He’d never really appreciated that before the tour. Less ambiguous in nothing but shorts that barely covered the tops of his thighs, but that was probably the point.
“Can I get one of those corsets too?”
“Sure,” Rayne said absently. “You have to feel comfortable performing.”
Kris turned from the mirror to find Rayne rolling his fishnets up with agonizing care, sitting on one chair with his foot propped up on another. His corset was unlaced, hanging around his middle with no thought for modesty, and he was barely covered by a pair of black shorts under his garter belt.
Kris swallowed.
“I don’t recommend wearing stockings, whatever else you’re thinking,” Rayne said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve worn them, but I hope it’s the fucking last. And fishnets aren’t even that bad compared to hose.” He reached his thigh and clipped the first garter in place, shaking his hair from his face to glance up at Kris. “Don’t do it,” he repeated, but he was smiling.
“Noted,” Kris said, his mouth dry. He coughed. “No stockings. I need something, though. I can’t go out there like this.”
“It’s good, though. You sure you need to cover all that up?”
“When I’m wearing my guitar I’m going to look naked,” Kris pointed out. “I’ll look like a slapstick sketch. You have to give me more to work with here.”
“Fine, fine. Crush all my dreams at once.” Rayne rooted through a bag of feather boas, gloves, and costume jewelry to pull a corset from its depths. Like the shorts, it was gold. Unlike the shorts, it covered more than a few square inches of skin.
“Awesome,” Kris said, holding it up against his torso as he returned to the mirror. All the gold brought the browns in his eyes to life and made his hair seem even paler. Once Angel did his makeup, he would look like nothing he’d ever seen before. Not even his first time in makeup could compare to this, with so many glittering sequins and so much bare skin.
He’d never worn a corset before. Or, unlike Rayne, any kind of hosiery—or high heels, or—
The list was endless. There were so many things he had never worn or done or thought about before The Chokecherries, and now he wanted to try all of them at once. He glanced at Rayne in the reflection; he was busy fastening a rope of pearls around his throat.
“Hey, rock star, you want to help me into this?” Kris asked.
Rayne looked up, his expression inscrutable in the tarnished mirror.
Kris hefted the corset. “I can’t reach the laces by myself, unless you want me to wear it backwards.”
“No, I can help you do it the right way around.” Rayne stood slowly. His legs were so long out of his usual jeans. He padded quiet as a panther over to Kris and stopped just behind him, not quite touching, but near enough for Kris to feel his heat. “Here, hold it around you like this.”
Kris obeyed, offering the edges to Rayne without taking his eyes from their reflections. The mirror was an old one, its surface going silver
y and dim, but looking at it, secreted away in the tiny trailer that was all half-lights and dark corners, Kris felt hidden from the rest of the universe, like there was no one in the entire world but him and Rayne. Within this room, no one else existed: not the fans, not the band, not Calloway or the press. It was a dangerous, intoxicating feeling that curled around his ribs as surely as the corset did, and settled in his heart like a bad idea.
It would be so easy to kiss Rayne here, where no one else could see them.
He couldn’t do it.
“How tight do you want me to go?” Rayne asked.
“Tight enough to look good.”
“Such an exhibitionist.”
“Always,” Kris said.
He sank his teeth into his lip at the first bite of the laces; Rayne gave no quarter as he worked his way up, but Kris liked the pressure. It was firm in the way the best hugs are firm, and if it left him a little breathless, that only added to the experience. He watched his body reshape in front of him as the corset forced his waist in, giving the illusion of hips—not much of one, as he had always been flat as a plank in all directions, but enough to stop and take notice.
“Okay?” Rayne checked in.
Kris pressed his hand against his belly and felt nothing but firm, unyielding fabric. His stomach fluttered and he smoothed his hand down. “Perfect.”
Rayne tied the laces off and then stopped to admire his work. His eyes were dark in the mirror, and Kris held his breath as he awaited Rayne’s verdict. The fans would be delighted, but it was only Rayne he wanted to impress. That was easier to admit when it was just the two of them, even if he couldn’t say it aloud.
“You look good enough to eat,” Rayne said, his voice a pitch too low to be teasing.
“Yeah?” Kris caught Rayne’s gaze and held it, his heart beating fast as a hummingbird. “What you going to do about it?”
Rayne’s grip tightened on Kris’s shoulder for a second, his fingers digging into his bare skin as surely as the corset laces dug into his back, and then he let go and stepped away, shaking his head with a rueful smile.
“Let’s get you into Angel’s chair and try not to break any hearts on the way.”
Kris let Rayne guide him from the trailer, infinitely disappointed in his own lack of courage for not pushing further.
Things only got worse once the makeup was on.
Passionfruit and The Chokecherries crammed into the space backstage, all of them centered around Angel and her makeshift makeup station like she was a queen holding court. Passionfruit did their own makeup, for the most part, though Billie and Angel were collaborating more often as Billie’s tastes grew increasingly outlandish. Jay stayed punk and gleefully mocked him, which Billie ignored, and this instance was no exception. Cassie flitted around between the two bands, exploring Angel’s makeup collection, unable to hold still, until Angel promised to do her up in turn, if she would just keep her hands to herself for five minutes. Cass compromised by sitting on Stef’s lap. Stef, busy applying dark shadows under their eyes, didn’t seem to mind.
Rayne’s makeup was heavier than usual for his Frank-N-Furter look—Angel dusted him with black and purple from his lashes to his brows, painting his eyes with kohl and his lips with a wine-dark red that made his mouth obscenely shiny and wet. Kris, she coated in the gold Maki favored, so his eyelids glittered and caught the light with every blink. She gave him his usual red lipstick, and then painted his nails black, the same black Rayne most often wore.
“Now sit tight and let that dry,” she instructed, moving on to Maki’s Columbia makeup next. “If you smear it, I’m putting you in time-out.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kris placed his hands palm-down over his knees and tried not to fidget.
Cassie, though making good on her promise to sit still, lacked any incentive to keep quiet. “So, Angel, are you a professional makeup artist? How’d you meet Rayne?”
“It wasn’t long after I opened my club, and he was just starting the band,” Angel said.
“We didn’t have a record deal yet—we didn’t even have Brian yet—but I was determined to play every club and dive bar in the country that would have me,” Rayne continued. “So I piled everybody into a van and we headed out, usually booking one or two shows ahead as we drove.”
“It was insane,” Stef said.
“We all nearly quit at one point or another,” Maki added. “Our original drummer did. We met Lenny en route.”
Lenny tipped an imaginary hat.
“So we rolled into New Orleans with no real plan, but I’d heard rumors of this new club that sounded queer-friendly, and—” Rayne shrugged expansively “—the rest is history.”
“Just like that?” Cassie asked.
“Just like that,” Angel agreed. “I didn’t start touring with Rayne until after he got his record deal, but we kept in touch the whole time. I visited him in LA a few times and nabbed myself a studio space in his house.”
“Not New York?” Kris asked.
“New York’s my second home,” Rayne said. “My LA place is bigger; it came first. As soon as I had enough pull with the label, I got Angel signed as our official fashion director. Now we don’t do anything without her.”
Angel shrugged. “I can’t complain.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t think to steal you first,” Billie groused.
“To be fair, honey, Passionfruit was pretty grungy when you started,” she said. “I love you, but I wouldn’t have had much to work with.”
Billie coaxed his hair into a giant bouffant. “How about now?”
“Baby steps,” Angel said.
“Why burlesque?” Cassie asked. Stef finished their makeup and slung their arms around Cassie’s waist, holding her in place.
“I started with drag shows back in art school,” Angel replied, taking over the design of Billie’s hair, “but I wanted something more . . . sexual. I liked the camp, but it felt like I was wearing my own skin and pretending it was a costume. Burlesque seemed like the next natural step.”
“More sexual,” Kris repeated.
She shrugged. “It’s fun. And it’s safe, playing onstage like that. There’s no room for misunderstandings when you’re on a stage and everyone else is paying to watch.”
“I get that. I’d never have tried this if it weren’t for the stage.” He drummed his fingers across his knees, waiting for the polish to dry. “I don’t think I’d actually strip, though.”
“It’s not for everyone,” Angel agreed. “Billie would never do it. He’s body-shy.”
Billie rolled his eyes but didn’t stop her from fixing his hair.
“I found it really helped with my body image, personally,” she continued. “And now that I have the body I want, I like showing it off. I worked too hard on it for it to go unappreciated.”
“And unpaid for?” Kris guessed.
“It’s worth every penny. You said no to a dance last time; what about now?” She laughed at the expression on his face. “No? What about from your man Rayne? He can dance, you know.”
“I can,” Rayne assured them, though he threw Angel a look Kris couldn’t interpret. “I’m a great dancer.”
“Can you strip?” Cassie asked.
“Can’t you go back to being all shy and flustered around him?” Kris asked. “He’s supposed to be your idol.”
“Nah, I’m over it. Can you, though?”
“Not wearing a corset,” Rayne said, but when he met Kris’s gaze he was positively predatory. Whatever bait Angel had thrown him, he’d taken it. “But I can do other stuff.”
Jay whooped and finished drawing on the last of his eyeliner. “Give Kris a dance and I’ll give Billie one.” Kris couldn’t tell whether it was a dare or a threat. Either way, with his nails still wet, he couldn’t defend himself.
Rayne stood in a long, languid motion. “How about it, Kris?” He rested one boot on the edge of Kris’s chair, in between his thighs. “Say no.”
Kris should say n
o for the sake of his sanity, but Rayne looked delicious made up like that, and Kris was only human. He raised his hands in the universal symbol of surrender—ostensibly to keep his nails from smearing, but mostly to keep himself from trying to touch. “Go ahead. See who gets more embarrassed.”
Rayne laughed.
“Bad move, honey,” Angel said.
“You know me better than that, Kris,” Rayne said. “I don’t even know what shame is.”
Rayne could move: he had the coordination, the rhythm, and the sex appeal to do it. He danced onstage, or in clubs, or on the bus; something as simple as rocking his hips to the beat had driven Kris to distraction more than once. Kris had just never seen it from so close an angle before.
Rayne returned both feet to the floor and shimmied up, his stance wide, until he stood over Kris’s lap, and rested his arms across Kris’s shoulders, bending at the waist to reach. He moved slowly, either teasing or giving Kris time to back out, Kris didn’t know. He didn’t care. His breath hitched in his chest and he blushed, hard. Swallowing, he tried to brush it off and look nonchalant.
It didn’t work. His face was burning up; he could feel the fever-bright heat on his cheeks and in his eyes, and the way his lips fell open of their own accord as Rayne leaned in, his hair brushing Kris’s face, to whisper in his ear.
“You can still say no,” he breathed, for no one but Kris.
“Do it, you giant diva. Show me what you got.”
Rayne laughed again, lower this time, and tossed his hair back. “Keep your hands up, baby. No touching.”
Jay whistled. “Look at him, all professional. Does it cost extra to touch?”
“Kris isn’t touching anything,” Angel said. “He tries it, I’ll skin him. I’m not redoing his nails before the show.”
“No touching,” Kris promised, not taking his gaze from Rayne.
Rayne’s tattoos showed above the line of the corset, the matching birds dark against his skin. The corset was barely high enough to cover his nipples, and if he shifted in just the right way, they peeked above the border, dusky brown and getting hard from the friction. Rayne either didn’t notice or didn’t mind as he started to move, striking up a rhythm as serpentine as the tattoo that wound around his arm. Kris still hadn’t touched it. The wrapping was off, but after only a week it had to still be tender. Rayne looked like a walking, breathing piece of art, and Kris wanted to fall to his knees in worship, one way or another. He bit his tongue and kept his hands away.