by Violet Blue
Drowsily, I padded to the kitchen. Had it been a dream then, just a crazy dream brought on by the heat? I withdrew the bag of ice from my fridge and went back to bed. I had another hour before work. I broke the ice into the jug, scooped up a handful and cupped it to my skin. Just a dream, I told myself, and I lay back on the pillows, wondering if the heat would transport me to Bar Anise on nights to come.
I smeared the ice over my skin, savoring the trickle of water melting onto my stomach. I murmured softly, imagining the touch was the lick of a lover. Just a dream. Words floated to me as if from a great distance. Stop resisting yourself. And I slid an ice cube up my neck then sucked it into my mouth, closing my eyes as I twirled my tongue around the cube, ice when I wanted fire.
MAN ABOUT TOWN
Amie M. Evans
“Come here,” Joe said, leaning against the doorway to his bedroom, hard hat still in hand from his drag performance at Club Kit Kat’s competition.
Tina, standing five feet away with her back toward him, seductively undid the zipper of her slinky dress and allowed it to slide down her body to pool on the floor.
“No,” Tina said, faking a pout as she turned around revealing her red lace bra and lack of panties, before bursting into giggles.
Joe closed the gap between them with two long steps. Grabbing Tina, he tumbled both of them onto the bed. “Tell me no, will you,” he said, climbing on top of her and pinning her wrists while the hard dildo under his jeans pushed against her leg.
They kissed. Joe continued, licking his way down her neck until he reached her cleavage. Tina’s full, curvaceous body squirmed under him. He released her wrists to fondle double-D breasts then pushed the lace cups off of them, exposing tiny pink nipples. Tina’s hands on the back of Joe’s head pulled him closer. Joe sucked on a nipple, worked it with his tongue, and lightly nibbled on it. Tina squirmed under him, grinding her hips into his. He released her nipple and slid down her until dropping to his knees on the floor. Joe pushed her legs apart.
“What’s the nasty construction worker going to do to me?” Tina asked. She loved the fantasy of having sex in character, and that Joe was always in drag when they went out.
“I won the contest, now I get my prize,” Joe said before ripping Tina’s panty hose open at the crotch, causing her to squeal in delight.
Tina’s bush was the same red color as the long, flowing hair on her head. Carefully, Joe spread her full labia then stuck his tongue into her waiting hole. He probed gently, taking in her taste and scent. Licking up to her clit, Joe worked it in a tight circle with light, but firm strokes. He wanted to excite Tina but didn’t want to make her come, at least, not yet. Slipping one finger into her cunt, Joe stroked in and out a few times. He added another finger and repeated the motion. Tina’s moans became significantly louder. Joe stopped.
Standing up, he undid his jeans, allowing them to fall to his ankles, then pulled the dildo out of the opening of his blue boxer briefs. Tina positioned herself in the middle of the bed and Joe got on top. Using one hand, he inserted the peach-colored dildo into her wet cunt. Tina moaned as the head plunged into her. The shaft followed. Joe quickly stroked in and out, watching Tina’s contorted facial expressions, listening to her quickened breathing, and loving that he was able to give her pleasure. After a few hard, long strokes, Joe pulled out.
He dropped to his knees again and yanked her ass to the edge of the bed. Tina placed her legs on his shoulders. Joe stuck three fingers into her cunt, also working her clit in hard, fast circles with his skilled tongue. Lacing her fingers into his short, brown hair, Tina shoved his face closer into her pelvis and groaned. Her hips began to rock quickly. She sucked in air and held it right before she came, thrusting her hips forward. Joe was careful not to get his nose broken by her vehemence, and not to stop stroking Tina’s clit until he had coaxed a full, sopping orgasm from her. He did, however, stop thrusting his fingers into her, keeping them inside still and motionless as wave after wave of strong vaginal contractions were felt when she came.
Joe slipped his fingers out and lay next to Tina, cuddling her in his arms. He could just make out the faint smell of vanilla with a hint of rose, her familiar trademark scent, over the smells of sex and sweat.
In a few minutes, she would get up, as usual, and get dressed. Perhaps they’d share a glass of wine and talk about the drag show, but just as likely not. Since they were at Joe’s, Tina would leave. This was the rhythm of their fucking. Joe did Tina. Sometimes Joe let Tina suck his dildo, but more likely, he just did her.
Tina rolled over so she was half on top of Joe. Her hair hung down tickling his face. “My turn,” she said. Joe assumed she wanted to suck his dildo, but Tina forcefully pulled at it attempting to remove it from his pants.
“What?” he asked, pushing her hand away.
“My turn,” she repeated, stroking the side of his face. “Let me, please, it doesn’t matter if you come. I want to taste your pussy.”
“No way,” Joe barked, jumping up and moving across the room as he tucked his dildo back in. “No fucking way,” he yelled, as he jerked up his pants.
“Joe,” Tina said as she stood up, arms akimbo. “Come on. Trust me.” She took a deep breath then exhaled. “Sweetie, whatever it is, it will be all right.”
“Forget it. I won’t let you.” Joe crossed his arms on his chest.
“Fine.” Tina started to put on her dress. “I can’t do this anymore.”
She looked at him. He looked back at her. Neither moved nor spoke. After a long, tenuous moment, Tina zipped her dress and left the room. Joe followed her into the living room, his arms still crossed. Putting her coat on, Tina made no eye contact with Joe. He grabbed her purse from the sofa before she could.
“Give it to me,” Tina demanded, one arm extended.
“Can’t we at least talk about this?”
“What’s to talk about? I thought you’d eventually let me, at least once, try.”
Joe put the purse in her hand.
“Will you?”
“No.” Joe looked down at the floor. “You don’t understand, Tina.”
“No, Joe, I do. I understand completely. I just can’t do this.” Tina walked to the door and paused with her hand on the knob. “You don’t understand that I like pussy. I like to please my lover.”
“You please me. You have no idea how much you please me.”
Tina shook her head, opened the door, walked out, and closed it behind her. She was gone.
Joe stood there, not moving, looking at the door as if at any second it would open and she’d reappear. After a few minutes, he walked over, turned the lock then returned to his bedroom. He removed all of his clothing, harness and dildo, and unwrapped his chest binding. With the light still on, he crawled between the sheets.
Joe and Tina had been dating for almost four months. While they’d been having sex since the second week of their romance, they’d never spent the night together. Joe had to get up early for work and Tina, who worked at night, slept late. This wasn’t the real reason for Joe’s reluctance to sleep over though. It was just a good excuse, allowing him to avoid revealing the truth about himself and to continue to protect himself from being exposed to what he perceived as a vulnerable situation if Tina awoke before him. So Joe had begged off sleepovers from the start and, like much in their relationship, not sleeping over had become a pattern. Just like Joe fucking Tina and not getting fucked himself, only seeing each other once a week on the night of the drag show, and Tina not meeting any of his old friends from before his drag king days, had all become patterns. And these patterns weren’t mentioned or questioned, until, that is, this night.
Joe lay on his bed staring at the ceiling. Normally, after Tina and he had sex, once he’d gotten home or she’d left, Joe would get rid of his boxer briefs, take off his harness and dildo, remove his tight panty to release his own flesh-and-blood cock, and lay on his bed in the dark. Taking his cock in his lubed right hand, he would replay his sexual en
counter with Tina in his head and masturbate himself to a proper orgasm. This night, however, the fight with Tina was the only thing he replayed.
Joe didn’t know what to do. He could break up with Tina and find a new girlfriend. A number of the women who attended the drag shows had regularly offered to go home with him. But Joe feared he’d just be reliving the same fight with one of them in a few months. He’d also thought he was falling in love with Tina.
She was different from every other woman Joe had ever known. Of course, as a biological man, Joe hadn’t dated any lesbians except Tina. Maybe it wasn’t Tina after all, but lesbians who were different. So maybe it was lesbians and not Tina he was falling in love with. He was beginning to realize that he was actually in love with the attention that Tina gave him, not with her.
Things with Tina had been so easy; their relationship had just fallen into place. What’s more, Tina thought Joe was a stone butch drag king. A new partner would know, of course, he was a drag king, but would have to learn he was stone butch: not to be touched or probed vaginally. It would be more complicated than it had been with Tina. But at the moment, Joe took little comfort in the fact that he had not actually told these things to Tina, but, instead, she had assumed them about him. He had simply not corrected her; telling himself, with great success until now, that it wasn’t a lie, but an omission of the truth. This normally made him feel better.
At five six, Joe had always been short for a man. His petite bone structure, perfectly heart-shaped, full lips, and long curling eyelashes didn’t help enforce the masculine image he wished he had, but instead lent a feminine air to his features. This was something Joe had hated most of his life, until that first night he had wandered into Club Kit Kat by accident or, perhaps, providence. He’d had a rough day at work and simply wanted a beer before returning home and going to bed. Kit Kat was conveniently located on his walk home, halfway between the bus stop and his apartment. He’d never paid the corner bar much attention, as he rarely went out, and when he did, Joe preferred to have dinner and drinks with friends at a restaurant, rather than go to a club. But that night, Kit Kat’s neon sign called to him, beckoning him to come in. So he did. Paying the two-dollar cover and taking the last empty bar stool at the long bar on the far side of the dark, somewhat dingy club, Joe thought he’d grab a quick beer and head off to bed.
Balancing his briefcase against the bar and foot rail, Joe ordered a draft from the punky, female bartender. He looked around at the cabaret tables in a semicircle facing the small one-foot-high stage with a silver tinsel curtain backdrop. All around the club’s fake wood-paneled walls, generic neon signs announced beer brands in harsh, Day-Glo colors. The concrete floor was painted black and in desperate need of a good mopping. On the back wall, a large rainbow flag was hung over what was most likely a window. Rainbow-colored, glittery streamers were draped across the light fixtures suspended from the ceiling. Tacky, Joe thought, taking a sip of his beer. No wonder he had never come here.
The place, he noticed, was full of all kinds of women—sporty women in pullovers with athletic team logos on their chest, women in dresses with high heels, and women in jeans and T-shirts with short, extreme haircuts and, much to his surprise, what his mother lovingly called, “little men.” Men who, Joe self-consciously realized, were a lot like him. Short by normal standards and sporting what, in his own sensitivity to social norms, he called a disproportionate number of feminine features. Joe turned back to the bar and sipped his beer, telling himself he was projecting his own insecurities onto the crowd.
He had, after all, just had the worst day of his life. Having worked up the nerve to finally ask MaryAnn from accounting out, she had laughed as if it were a joke. When she realized it wasn’t, he had to stand there and watch her recoil as if he had asked her to eat a live octopus, as she told him no. If that wasn’t bad enough, after lunch, the major contract he was working on fell through and he’d ended up staying late to attempt to salvage what he could of the relationship with the client. By tomorrow, everyone in the office would know he had asked MaryAnn out and he’d have to face snickers and jabs for weeks. Not to mention that his boss would be angry for months about the lost client.
Joe glanced into the mirror behind the bar to study the reflection of the crowd. He wasn’t projecting. The man in the cowboy hat with the handlebar moustache couldn’t be an inch over five four, and despite his muscular arms, he was even more slight of frame than Joe. The stocky, blue-collar guy, five seven at best, had the most feminine jawline and nose Joe had ever seen. He was, in fact, almost pretty.
“Are you performing tonight?” a female voice asked the back of Joe’s head, pulling him away from his private assessment of the crowd’s reflection.
“Me? What?” he asked, spinning the stool around, shocked that a woman was speaking to him, and he was not able to hear her over the music and din of the voices.
The woman smiled. She had shocking red hair. Her large breasts and curves were perfectly displayed in a fitted, black dress with a deep V neckline. When she leaned in close to him the smell of vanilla mixed with a hint of rose filled his nose. Their cheeks were almost touching as she said directly into his ear in a soft voice that cut through the din, “Are you performing in the amateur drag king show?”
“Drag king show?” He had no idea what a drag king was. “No…I…”
“Sorry,” she said as she moved away from his ear leaving behind a hint of that vanilla-rose smell. She smiled then shrugged causing her breasts to bounce. She looked him over, moved in closer again and added, “I just assumed. I have to register everyone.” She held up the clipboard for him to see as proof of her duties and changed her smile to add a bit of mischief in it. “You look great, by the way. Just fab.”
Joe had thought she was fetching even before she had told him he looked great. “Thanks,” Joe said, feeling the color rise in his cheeks, unaccustomed to this type of attention from women. “I’m Joe.”
“Tina.” She offered her hand. He shook it, feeling skin like silk.
“It’s nice you dressed up for the event. Usually only the people performing do.”
Joe nervously grinned, “Yeah, I just came to watch. It’s my first time here.”
“Welcome. We do this every Wednesday night.” She handed him a flyer as she spoke. “Maybe you will perform next week.” Her smile had made him want to perform for her. “I’ve got to register all these kings! After the show there’s dancing. If you’re still here, maybe we could dance.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. I have to work early tomorrow, but if it isn’t too late…” Joe said, wishing he had stopped after yes.
“Great. It was lovely to meet you.”
Joe grabbed her hand. Even now he wasn’t sure why or where the impulse had come from. He lifted it to his lips like he had seen so many men in movies about the 1800s do, and said, “No the pleasure was all mine, Tina, I assure you.” Then he kissed it gently before letting it go.
Tina smiled. “See you later. If you have to leave early, my email is on the flyer. Email me, if you want. Maybe we could have coffee.”
“I will,” Joe called out, watching Tina’s full, curvaceous body swing just slightly from side to side as she walked over to the cowboy.
On the quarter-page flyer, above a line drawing of a tough construction worker with his arms crossed over his chest, block letters proclaimed Man About Town Drag King Show, followed by dancing with DJ Snatch; Wednesday nights, Club Kit Kat; $2. Tina’s email was printed at the bottom of the page. Joe folded it in half and slipped it into his wallet. Whatever a drag king was, Joe was determined to become one.
And that’s how it had started—by accident, by chance. Joe hadn’t intended to deceive or hurt anyone. But everything had somehow gotten so complicated. He had been having so much fun; he hadn’t even noticed it until he could no longer ignore it.
Joe had always felt somehow different from all of the other men he knew. It wasn’t just that he was shorter than most o
f them, but inside he had felt as if he was wired differently. Joe hadn’t ever thought of himself as a girl in a boy’s body, and still didn’t. He didn’t feel like a woman; more correctly, he felt unlike a man. He had never been able to verbalize how he felt, not even to himself, but the new life he’d found at the Kit Kat had opened up a whole world with a vocabulary that made it possible for him to begin to conceptualize his long-felt feelings of discomfort. As it turned out, Joe wasn’t a man or a woman. He was a drag king.
Sure, Joe wasn’t what he seemed to be. But then no one at the Kit Kat was what he or she seemed to be. Here were women who wanted to be men, women who pretended to be men by performing drag, and women who were actively changing their sex to male—not just cosmetically like the kings, but physically with surgery and hormones; here were also women who looked like cover girls, but only dated other women, and women who looked like dykes who dated other women, and women who looked like guys who only dated other women who looked like guys. In all the perceived confusion, Joe was only a man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man so he could date a woman who only dated women. Trans wasn’t the right term for how he felt either.
Joe tried to wrap his head around all of this. If a woman was becoming a man and had sex with a woman who was a lesbian, was it heterosexual sex? More importantly, if he had sex with a lesbian while he was in drag as a drag king was it lesbian sex? And if he had sex with one of these new men, was he a fag? Joe had never been sexually attracted to other men, but there was something about the kings and tranny boys that turned him on. He hated admitting it, even to himself, but there it was.
After all, when he was moving through the world as a man, women paid him no attention. Now here at the Kit Kat they were practically throwing themselves at him as he moved through the world as a drag king. They begged him to date them, fuck them and love them. So why couldn’t he be a drag king? How does anyone, after all, become a drag king? Maybe, exactly like he did; with a little research on the Web, a few books, props, and trial and error. Why couldn’t he be a lesbian, if he loved women as a drag king? Surely Tina would understand all of that?