I sketched a huge firefly on my pad’s body outline. I liked the idea of bright yellow and white rays of light emerging to chase away the darkness. Firefly as superhero. I could go with that. It reflected the novels I enjoyed reading. The more I thought about the firefly as a superhero, I started to get a mess of images. Some were like Spider-Man, where a human had the image of a spider on the chest. In others, the firefly had an image of a human on its front. That one made me smile. I decided to have my firefly (Fireguy?) sporting a pink triangle, and instead of a big S in a triangle, I’d have a picture of me. That might help me remember what I was trying to learn from the retreat. I tried to think of personal symbols that Sam had talked about. Some we weren’t supposed to share with those outside of the Church. I decided to go with a star. That would be vague enough not to arouse too many questions. I could have my firefly leaving the star behind the way I had when I boarded the airplane for Boston.
I was having fun. I was getting into it. The firefly was looking good.
“Brett, right?”
I looked up. Max was standing there with his pad.
“Since I got to paint half your face last time, it seems only fair you get a chance to paint me.” I nodded, and he sat beside me and I showed him what I had been doing.
“I’m from the Bronx. I didn’t know there were fireflies here. You should do a children’s book. I like the way your bug looks.” He showed me his design.
“Why a duck?” Max had drawn something that looked like a Disney’s better-fed Donald. The blue sailor suit top left a sizeable amount of belly showing beneath. Over the years I had seen a couple of guys in my gym who looked like that in their tank tops. I assumed they had bought their gym wear at an earlier time, when they hadn’t been bulking up.
“I think of the duck as my spirit guide,” he said. “There’s an old joke where some guy goes up to a parrot and asks, ‘Can you talk?’ And the parrot goes, ‘Yeah. Can you fly?’ A duck can fly. But a duck can swim. And a duck can waddle.” He laughed. “Just like me. A duck teaches me to be able to cope in all environments.” He looked up and smiled. He had a great smile. It was contagious. “A duck is protective of her ducklings. I’m the director of a Head Start program. I have a lot of little ducklings I watch out for. Do you know what Head Start is?”
“Um—it’s like a kindergarten, right?”
“It’s a preschool for the poorest of the poor. I work with all sorts of people, a lot of whom don’t speak English. We provide an array of services for them—not just education. We screen for things like hearing loss or vision problems. We provide the kids meals because some of the families aren’t always able to feed them.” He hesitated for a second. “Sometimes food isn’t enough.” I waited, expecting him to make a joke of that. He didn’t.
“What about the drag?”
He spent a moment coloring in part of his duck’s top. “I’m one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. I’m patient. I’m polite. I was raised where not to be those things meant you learned very quickly to be those things. To never talk back. Never challenge authority.” He put his coloring pen down. “Now I try to teach the parents I work with the most effective way to advocate for themselves and their families. How to give voice to the voiceless. How to do so without losing your temper. It’s stressful. A lot of the parents come from macho cultures. It pains me sometimes to see how several of the husbands treat their wives or their little girls. Then on my birthday, my boyfriend took me to a drag show. I was transfixed.”
He got up and pulled a couple of water bottles out of a cooler and came back. He handed me one and opened his. “As soon as the show was over, I went up to the performer and asked her to teach me what she was doing. Drag allows me to say all the things I can’t say when I’m just Max. I can be the total bitch I can never be when I’m meeting with parents or with the city representatives. I can talk as filthy as I want to, after spending my working day being polite and productive. I think of my drag persona as like being an orchid in a hothouse. Inside a protective and contained environment, I can be beautiful. I can flourish. For so many people, I had spent my life just being the fat guy. The jolly one. For the first time when I put on the corset and the push-up bra that made my moobs look like something Dolly Parton would want—when I put on the wigs that scraped the bottom of heaven—I was sexy. Hunky men who ignored me or sneered at me when I was just Max flirted with me. My sex life spiked. Drag has given me so much. And I think it makes me better at my job. Whenever I get frustrated, whenever I get to the point I want to strangle some asshole who’s threatening to cut the budget I need for those little kids—I think about what I’d say if I were wearing the wig. And on those nights I do wear the wig and command the stage, I say those things to my audience that I wasn’t able to say as Max. And they laugh. They applaud. They stick enough money in my overfilled bra to let me buy more bras and better wigs.”
He was riveting. I suddenly realized after a lifetime of being around Eddie and his troupe, Max was like a different species. A sincere drag queen. A drag queen with nobility. His round face was so expressive. He looked like James Corden’s younger, rounder, and blonder brother. As we drank our water, we discussed the colors we’d need and the brushes and other things we could use.
“And—just to be clear,” Max said after he finished his water, “you’re gonna go for au naturel, right?”
“Let’s just say that after the erotic massage workshop, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for taking off my clothes.” I screwed the top back on my empty water bottle. “Besides, we won’t be nude—we’ll be wearing paint.” I looked around. Some of the others were already starting to paint one another. All the ones so far were nude, just like the majority of the ones in the photo albums.
Sam left the couple closest to me and came over to join us. “So—I’ve been very curious about what the two of you have come up with.” We showed him our sketches and answered his questions about our designs. “A duck and a firefly, huh? I can honestly say in all the hundreds of painted bodies I’ve been involved with, you’ve both come up with new categories.” He then spent a few minutes making technical suggestions about how best to indicate my firefly was properly shining and how Max’s duck could have more impressive fluffiness, which was important to Max. “I think you’re ready,” he said. He left us for another couple.
I stood up and started undressing. If I had known in Utah that I’d need to keep getting nude, I wouldn’t have come. Now it just seemed as commonplace as brushing my teeth. I glanced over at Max. “Hey—you’re undressing me with your eyes so fast I can’t keep up with my own clothes.”
“Oh, I don’t mind if you do it slow. That just makes it last longer.” He pulled up his top to demonstrate. The bottom of his belly began to emerge, and the combination of top and tubbiness looked as if he had modeled for his duck design. As he continued to expose his middle, a magnificent treasure trail seemed to follow the edge of the shirt. His belly button looked deep enough to contain a roll of quarters. I had never seen Uncle George shirtless. For some reason, Max reminded me of the sunflowers I used to plant as a kid. It seemed each day when I went to check on them, they had grown taller. Eventually they’d always be bigger than I was. The shirt kept rising, as if Max were growing, and he was definitely bigger than I was. His striptease (was it a striptease if there was no music and it was in slow motion?) was mesmerizing. His remarkable moobs began to appear. It was as if the shirt was a curtain going up to expose them. He was pale. His nipples were the color of pink rosebuds. I had never really looked at a fat person before, just as I had spent so much time trying to avoid looking at someone’s dick. His skin looked soft. I wondered what it would feel like.
I sat with my chin on my hand, distracted from taking off the rest of my own stuff. Now his double chin was coming into view. Then his smiling lush lips. I thought of the drawing of the Cheshire Cat in the Alice in Wonderland book that Aunt Lindsey had given me when I was ten. I remember the Cheshire Cat was s
hown as roly-poly. I liked how those words felt in my mouth. Max was roly-poly. He let his shirt fall on the table next to his pad. He began to rotate, the way a globe of the earth would. He was all tender curves and roundness. He had turned enough where I could see the start of his crack peeking above the top of his sweatpants. When he was facing me once more, he tugged at the cord that held up the sweatpants, and with infinite slowness, they began to lower. In another moment it seemed like he had a baby belly underneath the big one. I didn’t even have a word for it. Surely there must be a word for it. Just because I didn’t have one of those, it was obvious Max did, so there had to be a name. The pants continued sliding south. His dick came into view, looking like the head of a turtle coming out of its shell, nearly buried in the baby belly. I hadn’t noticed before how much a cock could look like the head of a turtle. His pubic hair was almost golden and had such a beautiful sparkle in the sunlight that it reminded me of the fireflies. His hips were impressively wide.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away. I heard someone behind me and glanced over to see Sam also watching the show. I thought of how my granma would have told him, “Shut your mouth before it fills up with flies”—and that made me smile. I looked back at Max. His butterfly had come back into view. I tried to see Max’s body through the eyes of an artist like Sam, and I understood why he was so fascinated. There had been a fat girl in elementary school who others used to mock without mercy. I never said anything bad about anyone, fearful they’d say bad things about me. Not that that stopped them. But I sort of understood that if Max had been a chubby kid, he’d probably been humiliated the way I had been for being a sissy. God, I hated that word. But just looking at his body as a shape, as a form, it was—it was something that should be sculpted. I thought of how his body would look rendered in soft charcoal. It made me wish I was an artist so I could be the one to do it. I looked over at Sam and envied him. Max was facing us once more. I would have honored him like a successful drag queen, but I had no idea where I could put a five-dollar bill at the moment. He stepped daintily out of the sweatpants. His feet seemed tiny, and I was amazed they could support all of his lushness. I almost applauded.
I stood up again. “Max, there’s no way that I could ever compete with you.” I unbuckled, then unbuttoned my jeans. I suspected the drag gene wasn’t passed on to me, and at this point I had concluded my Mormon gene was just as defective as those of the three siblings in the previous generation. Now it was Max’s turn to inspect my canvas. He seemed to approve. It felt strange to accept so much attention after trying too hard to avoid it. Now I wanted to shine brighter. I thought of Karl and felt dimmer.
“Should I go first? Or should you, because you’ll need more time since I’ll require more paint?” I laughed. I followed Sam’s initial instructions and lightly sketched the outline of the duck I would use as my guideline. On the table there were a few dishes of water and some dishwashing detergent. If I messed up, there were rags where I could simply wipe my mistake away and start over. This close I could see Max had at least as much body hair as I did, but his was fine—more like Danny’s, but coarser than Mr. Mystic’s soft Asian-American almost nonexistent fuzz. As I would move to fill in different parts of the duck, the sunlight would play with the hairs on his chest and belly. A random hair would trap the sunlight and then give it back in a burst, just like the fireflies. “I didn’t know nipples could be so pink,” I said softly, trying to concentrate on my work. “Do you mind if I try something?”
He nodded, obviously curious. I took another brush and dipped it into the blue we had settled on for the duck’s sailor suit top. I used it to make five-pointed stars with his pink rosebud nipples in the center. “They’re wonderful,” he said when I finished and stepped back. “I look like I’ve gone from a drag queen to a stripper wearing pasties!”
“You’ll probably think this is silly,” I said as I worked on his duck, “but I felt proud of the fact I even know what pasties are. I grew up with my grandparents, and they were active in the LDS Church in a little town outside of Salt Lake City. Let’s just say it wasn’t a wild and crazy time. I was fairly—or unfairly—sheltered. One night I was staying over at a friend’s house, and his older brother had gotten hold of an old video tape. It was a comedy. Totally PG these days, but we were, as my aunt’s friend would say—and he’s a drag queen—we were young, dumb, and full of cum. We watched it, loving it and knowing that if any adults found out what we were doing, we’d be grounded so long we wouldn’t leave for our Missions until we were in our thirties.” I stepped back again. The little cap on the duck’s head looked a bit off. I frowned and reached for the soapy rag I had ready and wiped the canvas clean. The back of my hand brushed against the bottom of his moob. I found I couldn’t take my hand away. I had never fondled a woman’s breast. Without the fine golden hairs, his moob looked like it could belong to a woman. It was so soft. Without thinking I began to make slow circles around it with my finger, avoiding the star I had so carefully added.
“That feels good,” he said as slowly as I was moving my finger.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I got distracted.” I went back to redrawing the cap. “There’s a scene where the heroine gets hit on the head, and the male hero asks, ‘How’s your head?’ She looks up and says, ‘No one’s complained yet.’ Anyway it looks like the two of you would wear the same bra size. At the end of the movie she’s shown wearing pasties that have tassels in the center, and she begins to twirl them without touching them with her hands. We watched and wondered if it was special effects. Then she took it up another level, and as we continued to watch, she made one tassel whirl around in one direction and the other in the opposite direction.”
“Damn,” said Max. “Now that’s what I should have done for the talent show!”
The duck was almost finished. I was pleased with how it was turning out. “You have such a beautiful body,” I said without thinking about it. I looked into his face, slightly embarrassed. Then I stopped myself because I realized I had nothing to be embarrassed about. I did find his body not only beautiful, but something I wanted to touch. I wanted to squeeze him. I wanted to fill my hands with him.
“Thank you,” he said softly. “Your dick has been telling me that too.” I looked down and laughed.
“You must be used to this.”
“Trust me, it never gets old. When I was younger, I thought men who wanted men would never want me. All the magazines and all the online sites just showed—well, they showed men who looked like you. Or Karl. Then one night I was at a bar I had never visited before. A guy not only hit on me, but he did it with a lot of enthusiasm. At first I thought he was making fun of me. You know—like in the teen movies where the high school quarterback asks out the fat ugly girl on a bet. Then I thought there must be something wrong with him. He scared me, and I left the bar. Then I went back the next weekend. He wasn’t there, but a couple of other guys bought me drinks and flirted. Later on I found out I had stumbled into a bear bar. A lot of bears like well-marbled men. They introduced me to the fact that there were all sorts of men who found men like me hot. It was like discovering God not only blessed me for being gay, but for being who I am. Why be twinky when you can be tubby? Why be meh when you can be massive? The following week I met my boyfriend. He moved in a few months later, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“Does he look like you?”
Max laughed. “Oh, no! Together we look like a toothpick and an olive.” He looked at me carefully. “If you want to touch me, I won’t mind. I’ve seen that sort of look in your eyes a lot. If Sam comes by and asks, you can tell him you’re just preparing my canvas for the next bit of the painting.” I felt my eyebrows go up as if there were balloons as round as Max attached to them and they were pulling away from gravity. I put down my brush and traced the curve of his belly. “My boyfriend loves to do that. He likes to lift it up to feel how heavy it is. Then he lets it go to watch it bounce. He calls it my belly dance.” As if under a spell, I did
just that. The surface was soft, but as I pushed in farther with the effort to lift it, I felt he was firmer deeper in. I followed the swell of his waist, reaching back. There was so much of him. I couldn’t imagine being like this. I didn’t need to be. He was. I came around and touched his butt, using my fingertip to follow the outline of the butterfly tattoo. “Now you know why it’s there,” he said quietly.
“Thank you,” I said. I went back to finishing the duck. I used my phone to take a picture to show him our progress. He was pleased, and I switched brushes and added all the swirls, curved lines, and circles he had used on his sketch. I was so focused on what I was doing it took me a moment to realize I was done.
“Outstanding work,” Sam said. He pulled out a small fancy digital camera and took several shots from different angles. “I saw from the workshop info I was given that you’re in New York,” he said to Max. “I need to be there for a conference in October. Would you consider modeling for me? You have such an incredible body. There’s so much I can do with it—” There was a slight silence, as if he were on Skype with a time delay. “—in terms of art.” When Max happily agreed, Sam left his card on top of Max’s clothes, asking Max to e-mail him and they’d work out the details.
Max began to outline my firefly. “That happen a lot?” I asked. The coolness of the paint and the almost tickling feel of the brush felt good in the warmth of the day.
“More than you might think,” Max said, concentrating on his effort. “Artists—photographers. They’ll come up and ask if I can pose for them. But my favorite is when a relative stranger will come up and accidently brush against me, but it’s so obvious he’s been dying to feel what it’s like underneath my shirt. My belly, my moobs, my ass. It’s very reassuring. Early on I used to look at twinks like Karl and think how lucky he was so many men wanted him. Now I don’t care. We both have men who want us. They may be different men. Mine are lusty for busty.”
Mild to Wild in Massachusetts Page 7