by TJ Klune
Before I could reply “Oh, I believe it,” the door to the Queen’s Lair opened and a muscle twink appeared, holding a tray. He looked like every other eighteen-year-old Mike hired. Very specific taste, that one. It was like he had a factory that put out skinny white boys at an alarming rate. The twink’s jeans were slung low on his hips, and you could see the top of his pubes. He had a tribal tattoo on his arm, and I despaired greatly over the future of the gays.
Muscle Twink handed Charlie a bottle of water. “Whatever she wants, it’s on the house.”
Muscle Twink must have been new, because he said, “I think that’s against the rules.”
“Oh boy,” I said. “You should probably reconsider, friend.”
Charlie glared at him. He may have been damn near eighty years old, but if Charlie gave you that look, you either did exactly as he said or you ran in the opposite direction in fear of your life. “Excuse me?”
Muscle Twink fidgeted nervously. “Mike said we can’t give out free drinks.”
“I don’t give a shit what Mike says,” Charlie snarled. “You get the lady what she wants, and you do it now.”
Muscle Twink nodded jerkily. He had sweat on his brow. Sheer terror was a good look on him. “What can I get you?”
“Vodka tonic,” I said sweetly. “With a lime. Please and thank you.”
He spun around and disappeared back through the door.
“Children,” Charlie muttered. “They never learn.”
“Such children,” I agreed.
Charlie snorted. “Dear, you’re still a child yourself.”
I gasped, a hand going to my throat. “I’ll have you know I’m older than I look. You know as well as I do that black don’t crack.”
He chuckled as he shook his head. “Be thankful for it, Kori. When you get to be as old as I am, you’re just happy everything still works.”
“Eh. You’re not that old. And even if you were, love will keep you young at heart.”
“You’re as bad as the others,” Charlie said. “I don’t know how I ever thought otherwise.”
“I might even be worse,” I agreed. “It’s because I was trapped between two worlds: the drama of Seafare and the ridiculousness of Tucson. It changes a person.”
“Well, I for one am glad you’re here, even if it’s ridiculous.”
“Me too,” I said quietly.
I left him alone to play with his camera. It was… nice, being here. Even though I relished having the house to myself for a little while, there was such a thing as too much quiet. I’d even thought about offering to watch Wheels while Paul and Vince were gone, but given that I still had classes before they left, it was best that he went with Matty and Larry.
I would be happy when everyone got home tomorrow, though I’d probably bitch and moan about it to save face.
Muscle Twink returned, eyes wide and looking fearful. He squeaked when Charlie glanced at him. He even bowed a little when giving me my drink, which I was perfectly fine with. I hadn’t lied; I’d spent hours on my hair, and I deserved to have someone bow to me. I considered it reparations.
And I would have been perfectly fine sitting in silence, listening to the sound of the bar filling up below, seeing flashes of queens behind the stage curtain. It was something I was used to, and the cocktail was strong and just what I needed.
Which meant, of course, that Charlie had to prove he was just as meddlesome as everyone else in my life. I should have stayed home.
“I took my gentleman out for a meal last night,” Charlie said, apropos of nothing, and I should have realized it for what it was. I was just happy to hear him volunteer information about Robert. Charlie was fiercely private, even with those of us he considered family. We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Robert since Paul and Vince’s wedding, even though we’d begged to have them over for dinner. No dice so far.
I played it cool, not knowing what lay ahead. “Oh? That sounds lovely. Did you have a good time?” I was already planning ways I could get every single detail to relay to the others when they returned.
“We did,” Charlie said. “I had swordfish. He had the salmon.”
Gross. That sounded terrible. Seafood was disgusting. “How nice.”
“There was a piano player. And candles on the table.”
Oh my god, old people on romantic dates was my new kink. What the fuck. I desperately needed to coo at him and make other assorted appreciative noises to make sure he understood I would die for them. Instead I said, “That sounds like the perfect evening. Very romantic. Did Robert enjoy himself?”
Charlie was still playing around with his camera, not looking in my direction. “He did. We had a most illuminating conversation.”
“The best kind,” I sighed, stars in my eyes. I could just imagine the scene, their hands joined on the table, Charlie smiling quietly, Robert telling some story that was inconsequential to anyone but them. My heart ached sweetly at the thought. I wanted to write love poetry and shout it from the rooftops and—
“You came up.”
I paused the stunning rendition of “Old Love / New Love” that was running through my head. It was a masterpiece. Or it would have been, had I not been startled out of it. “I did? Why?”
“This and that,” Charlie said. “I talk about you kids a lot, you know.”
I didn’t trust him in the slightest. The old man was up to something. I was onto him. “Uh-huh.”
What happened next happened on purpose, though I’d never be able to prove it. But I knew he was waiting for the exact moment when I lifted my drink and took a sip to say, “Just so happened that his son was asking about you. You remember Jeremy?”
Which, of course, caused my throat to lock up, forcing me to cough. And when one coughs with a mouthful of liquid, one tends to spray it out in a most unflattering manner.
So there I was, sitting next to my old friend turned traitor when I managed to hack up half a lung, vodka tonic exploding from my mouth, the liquid glittering prettily in the overhead lights of the club.
And then, from below, came cries of disgust as it rained down on those waiting for the drag show to begin.
Charlie jerked his head up to look at me, eyes wide. “Do you realize what this means?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
I glared angrily at him as I wiped my chin. “No, Charlie, I don’t know what it—”
He was solemn when he said, “You spit your drink over the balcony. It landed on someone. That means you have to marry them. It’s tradition.”
“What the fuck! That’s not a thing! That’s never been—”
“Paul and Vince,” he reminded me, and I was going to end him. “And while Darren and Sandy might not have started the same way, they certainly….” His smile faded. “Well, they did have sex up here. So I suppose that counts.”
I stood immediately from the stool. “Ack! No! Gross! Why! Why are you like this? You’re telling me I could have been sitting in Homo Jock King spooge? Do you have any idea how much this skirt cost?” I frowned. “It didn’t cost that much, now that I think about it. I’m poor, and Sandy showed me the art of thrifting, but still!”
Charlie cackled as he leaned over the balcony. “Let’s see who you have to marry now. Okay, he certainly looks capable of manhandling—wait. No. Sorry. That’s a lesbian. Oh, now there’s someone who could be perfect for you—nope. Never mind. He’s shaking his fist angrily up at me, and I have half a mind to go down there and tell him to watch his mouth.” Charlie turned two fingers toward his eyes and then pointed them down at whoever I’d spit on.
“J’accuse!” I gasped. “I trusted you.”
Charlie snorted as he sat back on his stool. “All I did was say that my date’s son was asking about you. You were the one that overreacted like a drama queen. And believe me when I say I know drama queens.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, wiping droplets off my top. “You did that on purpose.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,�
� he said mildly.
“Riiiiight. You keep trying, Daddy. See where it gets you.”
He laughed again and went back to his camera.
I waited.
He said nothing more.
That was fine. I absolutely didn’t need to know what Jeremy Olsen had asked about me. I hadn’t seen him since the wedding either, at least not face-to-face. Glimpses from across campus, sure, and if he just happened to be in the Health Sciences Library when I was and I hadn’t been able to work up the nerve to go over and say hello and instead hid in the stacks, spying on him through the shelves, that was my business. He was in a position of power. That intimidated me. Nothing else.
So, no. I didn’t need to know what he said to his dad. In fact, it was probably nothing. Just a simple “How is Corey (or Kori) doing?” He was being polite, and even if there’d been a weird moment after the wedding when I walked him back to his car when we’d stood there staring at each other awkwardly, it was nothing.
Charlie was an evil man, and I knew he was waiting for me to ask.
Well, the joke was on him, because two could play at that game.
I settled myself back on the stool, smoothing out my skirt.
Charlie pushed a button on his camera. It beeped.
I took another sip, a smaller one this time in case he decided to be an asshole again.
He didn’t. He turned the camera on the tripod.
Why was it so warm? Had the air-conditioning broken in here too?
Charlie shifted on his stool.
Was this what a heart attack felt like? Was I dying?
Charlie cleared his throat.
No! No! No— “What did he say!” I hadn’t meant that to come out sounding so shriekish, so imagine my surprise when it did just that. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When I spoke again, my voice was even, the very definition of calm. “Not that I care. Or that it matters. I suppose it’s nice when someone is thinking about you enough to ask. That’s all.”
Charlie’s lips quirked. That devious bastard. He was playing me, and even worse, it was working. I was outmatched. Outgunned. Out-everythinged. “It wasn’t much.”
“Oh,” I said, deflating slightly. “That’s… good.”
“Yes, just asked what your plans were for the summer. I didn’t know at the time, so I couldn’t tell him.”
I frowned. “Well, I am interning at Phoenix House. Terrible name, because Phoenix is a cesspool and Tucson is better in almost every regard. I suppose they mean the bird, like the LGBTQ community rises from the ashes more powerful than we were before to smite down heterosexual nonsense—”
“And what you’re doing after you graduate.”
“I don’t even know!” I exclaimed, that old familiar panic starting to wrap itself around my head and heart. “I’ve only gone to school for the last six years in order to do something with deserving kids so they never have to go through what I went through, but who in the hell decided that I need to stick with that and pile on student loans on top of it? What kind of fucking racket is adulthood anyway—”
“And how you’ve been, since he hasn’t really seen much of you as of late.”
I paused, considering. “Fine, mostly. I guess. I mean, I’ve been busy, what with planning for my future and surviving and worrying about how overdraft fees are designed to keep us trapped in debt—”
“And that he wanted Robert to pass on that he was thinking about you and hoped that everything was going well.”
I gaped at Charlie.
“Close your mouth, dear heart,” Charlie said gently. “In a place like this, that could be seen as an invitation.”
I snapped my mouth closed with an audible click. “He really asked all that?”
Charlie nodded. “He did. Or so Robert said.”
I stared at him suspiciously. “Are you meddling?”
He looked like a sweet, rough old man. It was a lie. “Have I ever?”
“Yes,” I said fiercely. “All the time, in fact. It’s like a trait with all of you that you passed on to me like some goddamn virus. You do nothing but meddle. I’ve been made complicit on numerous occasions due to all your meddling. Before I moved back here, I did nothing of the sort! You’ve tainted me.”
Charlie shrugged. “My word against yours. You’ll never be able to prove it. Feeble old man, remember?”
He was a master at manipulation, and I was nothing but a pawn in his Machiavellian game. “I see right through you, don’t think I don’t!”
“You’re getting loud again. A piece of advice?”
I sniffed daintily. “If you must.”
He smiled and reached over to squeeze my knee. His hand was warm and kind, and even though I was currently plotting ways to end him, I loved him so. “Don’t let time get away from you. I know you’ve got a lot going on, and you worry about things. And sometimes you shield yourself away. Armor is all well and good until one day you forget that it’s there and never take it off.”
I stared at him suspiciously. “That sounds like one of those times where you say one thing but you mean something else entirely.”
He sighed. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”
“Never.”
He looked back out onto the floor below. “I made mistakes. I hurt people and told lies. It’s hard for me to have regrets over some of it because I got kids, even if we don’t talk anymore.”
That wasn’t quite true. They didn’t talk to him, and though I could almost understand their reasons, I thought it was extraordinarily unfair. He rarely mentioned his life before, the one where he was married to a woman until he couldn’t hide who he was anymore. I had complicated feelings about hiding one’s sexuality, but it wasn’t my place to say whether the decisions of others were right. Especially not to Charlie. But the fact that he was talking about it now with me was not something I took lightly. It was important. Young queers these days tended to forget the sacrifices of those who came before us, who helped give us everything we had today. While we still had to fight, we weren’t the ones who threw the first brick.
“I wasted a lot of time,” he continued. “And that’s no one’s fault but my own. I wish… I wish things had been different. How, I don’t know, but I do. The only thing I can do is be thankful for all the things I have now and all the people I’ve met along the way who’ve helped me become a better man.” He smiled quietly. It transformed his craggy, wrinkled face into something soft. I wanted to kiss it over and over again. “Vaguyna. Sandy. Paul. Vince and Darren. You, of course.”
“And Robert,” I said, teasing him because he needed to hear it.
“And Robert,” he agreed. “I told you how we met.”
I snorted. “Getting your prostate checked. So romantic.”
“Kid, when you get to be my age, that’s probably the most action you’re ever going to get.”
I choked.
He hit my back a few times until I managed to breathe on my own. “He was sitting in the waiting room with me, and I wasn’t staring, no matter what he might tell you. Going to the doctor is never fun, but when you’re old, it’s one of those things you gotta do to make sure everything is still in working order.”
“And it is,” I said quickly. “Right?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding grumpy. “I told all of you not to worry.”
“That’s not going to happen anytime soon. If we have to continue to go with you to your appointments, we will.”
“Good to know,” Charlie said. “There I was, ignoring the only other man in the room with me because I was hoping I’d douched well enough for—”
I winced. “Yeah, I don’t need every detail. More lovey stuff, less preparation stuff.”
“The doctor was running late—of course he was, doctors never do anything on time—and I was thinking about taking a nap—”
“In public?” I asked, scandalized.
“Just wait,” he said. “One day you’re going to find out that naps are the best thing in the wor
ld. Anyway, I was about to close my eyes when he asked if the doctor was good with his hands.”
I gaped at him.
He shrugged. “I told him I didn’t have any complaints. And he had this look on his face, like he knew exactly what he’d just said and was trying to gauge my reaction. ‘An old leather bear like you, I bet you don’t,’ he said.”
“So romantic,” I breathed.
“I was going to go back to my nap when he decided that we were sitting too far apart. An entire waiting room empty, and he needed to sit in the chair right next to mine. I glared at him, but he ignored me.”
“Sounds like he had you figured out right away. All crusty on the outside but marshmallowy on the inside.”
Charlie scowled. “I’m crusty on the inside too.”
I grinned at him. “Of course you are.”
“And he just started talking, and I remember thinking who the hell is this guy? He had a cane and was wearing a damn three-piece suit to the doctor’s office. And his tie matched the kerchief in the front pocket. Same color and shit.”
“Oh, the horror!” I cried. “Such madness!”
Charlie ignored me. “And he wouldn’t stop talking. He said he’d been reading his horoscope in an old magazine before I arrived. He said it told him that he needed to take more chances and that soon a surly man in a leather jacket would cross his path.”
“Wow,” I said in awe. “Dude’s got moves. Holy crap.”
“I told him I didn’t believe that, and he laughed at me. He said it didn’t matter if I didn’t believe it or not, because here I was, and here he was, and his name was Robert, and that it was very nice to meet me.”
I sighed dreamily.
Charlie reached up and touched his camera again, not really doing anything with it but seemingly just checking to make sure it was there. I wondered if that was his armor, seeing everything through a lens, almost removed. “Before I knew it, he was being called back, and then I was being called back, and for reasons I couldn’t quite explain, I was kicking myself for not doing more. And then the doctor was sticking his finger up my ass—”
“Ugh! No! Go back to the sweetness!”
“—and I told him to hurry the hell up because I had to do something.” Charlie grimaced. “It probably wasn’t the first time I’d said that to someone who was inside me.”