“Let me just get that for you…oh, sorry…” It was a familiar refrain by now. She couldn’t move in one direction without someone getting a faceful of fifties skirt in the other.
“Hey, Helena?”
Helena looked up. “Oh, fuck,” she said. “Glue. Right. Tell her I’ll be right there.”
“She says she’ll be right there.”
“She said that five fucking minutes ago,” said Bunny. “Oh my God. I’m going to come down with stage fright at this rate.”
“Calm your fake tits,” said Justin. “She’s coming.” He saw someone moving outside, partially obscuring the old blue neon sign that Bunny still hadn’t got around to replacing. For a split second he thought that Christmas had come early and Chris Hemsworth was standing outside their bar, but then Ryan turned his head and the resemblance was lost.
What the hell was he doing out there?
He was talking to someone. Nodding. One eye on his phone. Justin squinted through the window, then Ryan turned to open the door, and as he stretched out his arm Justin caught sight of the other person out there. A shorter figure. Blond hair.
Then a customer obscured Justin’s view. “Hey, can I get a vodka tonic? Ice, no lemon.”
Justin went to work, one eye on the door. That was the thing about bartending. You learned to keep your eye on about fifteen different things at once. Drinks needed mixed, glasses needed washed, that guy got the wrong change, or that other guy needed someone to toss his ass out on the street, because he’d just fired up a fucking vape pipe and filled the whole bar with bubblegum flavored fog, despite the No Electronic Cigarettes sign prominently displayed beneath the No Smoking sign.
“You need a drink,” he told Ryan, as the latter approached the bar.
“What? That obvious?”
“No, I mean you need a drink,” said Justin. “I make custom cocktails. That’s my thing. Helena’s is the Juan Collins with the twist of salt, Hu’s is that Pink Greyhound thing with the St. Germaine and Bunny’s is the Amaretto Sour.” He moved aside as Helena – and her million petticoats – joined him behind the bar.
“Okay,” said Ryan. “But what makes the Amaretto Sour custom?”
“Prosthetic toe,” said Helena, opening the door to the back.
“I heard that, you cunt,” said Bunny, from behind the door.
Helena laughed. “Love you.”
“If you love me, bring eyelash glue.”
“I got it. Keep your wig on, bitch.”
“Jesus,” said Ryan, shaking his head. “The way they talk to each other. I got an ex-Marine uncle with nicer language. Do you think they’re meaner when they’re in drag?”
“Definitely,” said Justin. “Bunny’s a bitch. It’s what she does. Anyway, what do you want to drink?”
“Vodka, I guess.”
“Vodka?” Justin sighed. Mr. Beer Or Vodka seemed determined to take the secrets of his taste buds to the grave. “Is there anything you like with vodka?”
Ryan frowned. “More vodka,” he said. “Sometimes ice. Why are you fixated on this all of a sudden?”
“I’ve always been fixated on it,” said Justin. “It’s my thing. Like, I’m already figuring out what to mix for when Rose finally turns twenty-one.”
“Now, that’s going to be a party.” Rose and Bunny had the same birthday – April thirteenth. “Where is she, anyway?”
“Upstairs. She’s not supposed to be in the bar when it’s open.”
Ryan sighed. “Right. God, you think they could relax the drinking laws at some point, don’t you?”
“Never gonna happen,” said Justin. “You’re more likely to see a federal rollout of legal weed first.”
“Once upon a time I’d have laughed at you for saying that, but yeah. This country has some bone deep issues when it comes to the Eighteenth Amendment.”
Bunny squeezed through the door, eyelashes firmly attached, fake tits and padded ass filling out a figure hugging ivory gown. Tonight’s wig was brunette, piled curls tumbling down over pale, bony shoulders. Bunny’s usual style was dressing up as a banana or a seven-foot Playboy bunny, and one time she’d made a sensation by being the first drag queen in Pittsburgh to get admitted to the hospital while wearing a Venetian blind. But not tonight. Tonight was pure glamour.
“You look beautiful, baby,” said Ryan, who knew exactly what was expected of him.
“Shut up,” said Bunny. “I know this dress does nothing for you.”
“No, I know. It’s not slutty enough. You know I like something that shows a lot more leg.”
“Behave, you,” said Bunny, fluttering giant lashes. “I’m duct taped down here.”
Ryan grinned. “Go knock ‘em dead, honey. You look good enough to eat. Like a six and a half foot ice cream sundae.”
“You say the nicest things.” Bunny kissed a fingertip and pressed it to Ryan’s lips, which was as close as a drag queen got to a kiss while in full, fresh paint. “I will deal with you two later,” she said, and goosed Justin on her way to the stage. Ryan saw and raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, are we dealing with this tonight?” he said, looking so sexy that Justin had no idea how he was going to survive the next few days of celibacy. “You want to draw straws for the middle?”
The middle. Goddamn. Was there any better place in the world? One time they’d flipped a coin on Justin’s ass for who got to fuck him first, only it had rolled down the crack and gotten lost in the sheets, and so Justin had ended up with Ryan fucking his mouth while Bunny banged him from behind. Definitely up there in his top five sex memories.
Helena took the stage. “Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in-between and outside the gender binary, I regret to inform you that our main event has been cancelled. On her way to the stage, Miss Bunny Boyle tripped over her own tongue and severed her femoral artery.”
“Cunt!” yelled Bunny, somewhere to the side of the stage. The crowd howled.
“Nah, I’m kidding,” said Helena, flapping a wrist. “She’s fine. Get ready to laugh, because you will bust a tuck. Let’s hear a red hot FuBar welcome for the one, the only, the angriest New Yorker since George Carlin – Miss Bunny Boyle!”
“Is that your phone?” said Ryan, and Justin dived to get it. You really didn’t want your phone to start blowing up when Bunny was on stage. She’d be picking you out of her teeth for months.
It was Luis, texting a gif of a puppy that fell asleep on the edge of a sofa, fell off the edge and then was swallowed by the beanbag beneath. The kind of thing people texted when they were bored, which Luis had to be.
“That poor fucking kid,” said Justin, under his breath. Eight months in the pokey for a personal quantity of weed and now he was within reach of freedom and still not there yet. Which was maybe worse, because Luis was up there right now, probably able to hear the party and unable to join in, like Cinderella.
He texted back. don’t text me when bunny’s on stage. she’ll kill me.
“I was so disappointed, you know,” Bunny was saying. “I heard a friend say his sister was having a gender reveal party and I was like ‘Mazeltov – she’s coming out as trans? Good for her.’ No, really. I thought it was that. I thought it was an amazing new kind of coming out party. And then I found out it was…” Pause. Sigh. “That.”
Justin had an idea. He quickly texted again. wait. let me film bunny for you. funny as fuck.
It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do. He took his phone to the end of the bar, where Ryan was dicing was death, texting someone with his phone on mute.
“Have you seen that shit? Have you seen the cakes? Oh yes, there are cakes. Fondant heteronormativity. On one side they got like a set of edible football cleats, and on the other side they’ve got like a fucking tiara or some such shit. Totally binary. Does the as yet unfinished human being wallowing in your amniotic sac have a dick? Because if so, the decision has already been made. That poor little prick is going to spend the rest of his life wearing camo. Doesn’t matter if
he feels more comfortable in a figure hugging asymmetric ivory chiffon with a two-foot train. It’s fucking guns and camo, because that’s how boys do.
“Does the fetus have a vagina? Then that bitch had better not be butch, or she’s gonna have a hell of a time. It’s the most glittery, pink bullshit picture of femininity you can imagine…” Beat. “And I’m a drag queen. You know when a drag queen is like ‘Ugh, too much glitter,’ then you have reached some kind of glitter event horizon. You have reached a level of glitter that can warp the fabric of the universe. And it’s certainly gonna warp your baby.
“Can you imagine how many kids have been fucked up by the expectation of their gender over the years? And let’s be clear on this. What they are revealing at these parties – other than the fact that somehow a baby shower was still not enough attention for some of these assholes…and oh yeah, you know it. That’s what it is. It’s an extra cake, an extra party, some extra gifts and an extra day that’s all about meeee. But aside from that, they’re not revealing gender at these parties. They’re revealing sex. Biological sex. That’s how you can tell this shit started in Peoria or some other white picket hell: because they didn’t call it a Sex Party. Which would at least be accurate.
“It’s a Sex Party. You are having a party to reveal your baby’s sex. Their gender is…well, that’s fucking anyone’s guess. Least of all the baby’s. I mean, have you seen a baby? They’re not finished yet. A baby’s not lying there in its crib going ‘Hmm…gender. That’s an interesting social construct. I might have to get back to you on that one, Mom. You see, I’m not sure if I’m fluid, non-binary or trans. It’s a complicated issue and I may have to spend several years dressing up as Bette Davis in order to reach a deeper understanding. Perhaps we could schedule the gender reveal for…I don’t know? How does seventy, eighty years from now suit you?’”
Bunny sighed. “It’s a baby. It’s not doing that. It’s doing this.”
Bunny had turned thirty-two last birthday, and was wearing more make-up than five Kardashians, but somehow managed to perfectly imitate the gummy, chinless, unfocused expression that all babies wore for the first six months or so of life. Justin had seen the bit a dozen or more times before, but this was the money shot. Bunny’s wavering eyes traced the path of an invisible crib mobile, then her forehead creased and her chin doubled, and everyone knew who had seen a baby in intestinal distress knew what was coming next. The audience was giggling, waiting.
“Oh, I pooed,” said Bunny, quiet and close to the mic, and they erupted.
Ryan’s phone lit up again.
“That’s what your baby is thinking,” Bunny said. “Leave the babies alone. They’ll get to gender in their own time, if we haven’t turned the Earth into a hot, uninhabitable ball of acid before they reach puberty.”
“Fuck,” Ryan muttered, jabbing at his phone.
“Problems?” said Justin.
“None of your goddamn business.”
“Wow. Rude.”
Ryan sighed. “Sorry, hon. Side hustle.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I could really do with unwinding tonight.”
“Oh,” said Justin. “Yeah. About that…”
*
Bunny unfastened her waist cincher and groaned. “Oh my God. Sometimes I think the greatest thing about doing drag is getting out of it at the end of the night.”
There was no reply from Helena, who was lurking in the one toilet stall crammed at the end of their tiny, below-ground dressing room. The building had once been a delicatessen and this room had been the refrigerator. It still had the massive metal door.
“You were sassy tonight,” said Bunny, raising her voice. “Acerbic. Not like you.”
More silence, then Bunny heard the unmistakable sound of duct tape tearing off flesh. A hiss of indrawn breath.
“Duct tape issues, dear?”
“Fuu-ck,” said Helena.
“I don’t know why you don’t just use a gaff and a couple of pairs of pantyhose,” said Bunny, carefully peeling off an eyelash. “I know you hate shaving.”
Helena opened the stall door and waddled out, knees held carefully apart. “It’s not that bad,” she said, resuming her seat in front of the mirror. “I just had an…an incident is all.”
Bunny – in the middle of an application of cold cream – raised half an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”
“Girl, of course you want to know. You always want to know.”
“You’re right. I do. What happened?”
Helena reached for the cold cream. “Okay,” she said. “Did you ever see that YouTube with the lady who cuts out the middle of a grapefruit, then she puts it on a dildo—”
“—and deep throats it while making a noise like a vacuum cleaner getting fucked by a jet engine?” said Bunny. “Naturally, darling. It’s a classic.”
“Well, that. That’s what happened.”
Bunny blinked. “You did that?”
“No. Hu did that.”
“Please tell me he didn’t make that noise.”
“He did not. He didn’t get that far. You ever put citrus juice on razor burn?”
Bunny’s knees locked together. “Oh honey, no.”
“Oh honey, yes. I was the one making all the noise. Screaming at him to untie me.”
“Oh my God.”
Helena sighed and reached for a fresh cotton ball. The make-up was off one eye now, giving the other one a panda-like appearance. “Well, if you ever need to know how to ruin a romantic evening…I’m your gal.”
Bunny winced. “Is that why he’s not here?”
“No. No. He’s fine. He’s working. Besides, you know what he’s like with crowds.”
“But are you two okay?”
“Oh, yeah. We’re fine,” said Helena, but there was a flicker of doubt, and that was enough. Bunny pounced on it.
“No, we’re fine,” said Helena, in response to Bunny’s stare. “We’re just…I don’t know. I’m going through some shit. I’m not sure.”
Bunny pulled her chair closer. “Baby. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. That’s just it. I don’t think I’ve ever been so into someone. When we make love it’s like…” Helena sighed. “It’s deep and special. Like, a total connection.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know. It’s so stupid. I should be so happy, but do you ever have those nights where you don’t want to make love? You just wanna fuck? Do you know what I mean?”
Bunny knew. Ryan was an expert at both. He could go from tender and adoring to turbofilth – panties down, tongue up the ass, growling with lust in Bunny’s ear as he pushed inside, blunt and thick and raw. “Ah,” said Bunny. “You don’t fuck. Is that it?”
“Something like that,” said Helena, wiping off the other eye. “He treats me so gently. Especially since I started therapy.”
Oof. The t-word landed like a sack of bricks. Suddenly it was no longer Helena. That was Stephen sat there, and they were no longer a couple of queens dishing about boys. This was real and serious, because the things that had happened to Stephen back in Montana were so very, very fucked up. First loves were supposed to break your heart, but Stephen’s had broken his heart and his mind, and taken a couple of toes for good measure.
“He won’t lay a finger on me,” said Stephen. “Without asking if I’m okay with it, first.”
“Oh, sweetie.”
“I know.” Stephen swallowed hard, his eyes too bright. “And I know he’s being kind, but part of me wants to scream sometimes. I’m so tired of being damaged, Adam. All I want is to be able to give him everything. Give him permission to do anything to me, because that’s how much I trust him.”
“Baby, come on,” said Adam, running his hand over Stephen’s elaborate auburn curls. “Go easy on yourself. What happened to you was fucking horrible. I can’t imagine revisiting it is easy.”
“It’s not. And that’s the worst part, because I don’t even know if this is…productive or wha
tever.”
“How do you mean?”
Stephen sighed. “It’s like…I don’t know. One time I said to Hu that I didn’t want to see myself as a victim. That’s why it took me over ten years to actually say the word ‘rape’ out loud.”
“That’s understandable. It’s an awful word. An awful thing.”
“Yeah. And I said I didn’t really care for being a ‘survivor’ either. I just wanted it not to have happened. So that’s what I did. I went along and made a conscious decision to tell myself it hadn’t happened. It was nothing but rough sex. And I’d asked for it, in a way. I’d put myself in a position where I knew he was likely to fuck me. You know. All the excuses you give them, to keep from feeling like a victim.”
Adam passed the Kleenex.
“And I still want it not to have happened,” said Stephen. “That’s the fucking frustrating thing. I thought therapy would make me come to some kind of terms with it, but I’m still right back where I was before I ever saw the inside of a therapist’s office. I still want it not to have happened. Like, what’s the fucking point? Is this even worth it?”
Adam pushed back a curl. Pressed a kiss to Stephen’s scalp. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s worth it. I know it hurts like hell now, but it will be worth it. You’ll see. You’re fixing something that’s been causing you pain for a long time, like…like replacing a hip.”
Stephen sniffed, laughed and blew his nose. “I’m not that old yet.”
“No, but it’s the same principle, baby. Like when my mom had her hip done. She kept putting it off and putting it off and popping painkillers and saying it wasn’t a problem, until it got so bad that she had to get the surgery. And she cursed that recovery room blue, Stephen, let me tell you. She was in agony and she let everyone know it. She pissed and moaned and said she wished she’d never had it done, because her hip had been perfectly fine before. She was just old and it wasn’t a big deal, and what did everyone expect? You get old, your joints wear out – suck it up, cupcake, c’est la vie. People expect to be immortal these days, and isn’t that just ridiculous? It was a whole Mimi Berkovich dramatic monologue.”
Seven Deadly Queens (The FuBar Book 3) Page 9