Charlie in a Red Dress

by Zoe X Rider

  I’d enjoyed seeing myself transformed into Charli. Like suddenly I could be two people. I could be everything, all at once. And it could be fun. Don’t feel like being Charlie today? No problem. A little make-up and three bottles of Nair, and I get to be a whole different person—someone who gets men’s attention and has women talk to her like she’s one of them, who feels protected when Jeff puts his arm around her shoulders.

  And if I sat here and said that it was “Charli” who’d slept with Jeff, not “Charlie,” I’d be That Guy, compartmentalizing and rationalizing. I’d be just like that “heterosexual both ways” guy.

  I crawled up the bed and dropped on my stomach, shoving an arm under a pillow.

  I’d kissed him and liked it. Let him remove my clothes and really liked it. The weight of him on me….

  It was Charli/Charlie who’d slept with Jeff, both of us there through the whole thing, Charlie saying, “Okay, what do I do? How do I do this?” and Charli coming up with quick answers: “I’m ashamed of my clit. It’s so big.” Warmth filling both of us when we saw that it worked, when we felt Jeff’s lips touching us, accepting our story.

  It was like that scene in my favorite Netflix show, where Frank Underwood and his wife have that threesome with Frank’s bodyguard. I was Frank and Claire in that scene, and Jeff was Meechum.

  I thought of Jeff locked behind his invisible walls, pretending to be “normal,” pretending to be what people expected. Him looking at everyone coupling up, telling himself he just hadn’t found the right girl. The right girl-who’s-really-a-girl, who’s enough to make him stop thinking about guys who were girls. It hadn’t been bony Clementine Darling, that’s for sure.

  The cynical corner of my head piped up about how what it really was was that Jeff still hadn’t put his finger on what he wanted. That this is just a gateway to him admitting he actually likes guys. That somehow this felt easier to him than accepting that he was just plain old gay.

  But what if I was wrong?

  What if the whole world had fucked it all up, shoving people in a few select boxes?

  What kind of world would it be if everyone could just like what they liked and be with people who liked them, and no one gave a shit ‘what’ anyone was?

  I lay awake for hours, weaving like a drunk between conscious thought and subconscious edge-of-sleep shit that didn’t make sense. By four a.m., I was imagining giving the middle finger to the world. Dresses, jeans, red fingernails against the curve of smiling lips, engine grease under short, unpolished nails. I could be one thing in the morning and another in the evening. I could be whatever, whenever. Watching Orange Is the New Black with Jeff, straddling him on my bed with my skirt hiked around my thighs, doing the Hippo de Mayo taco tour downtown with Jeff as Jeff and me as Charlie.

  My thoughts got confused again; I was in the Underwood kitchen in House of Cards and Meechum was Jeff, and I was two people, and even though that scene didn’t happen in their kitchen, there we were, making out while other people passed through the room, saying “Hey, Charlie,” and “I almost didn’t recognize you two.” I had one eye on them, and Jeff put his hand against my face, blocking them out, and kissed my mouth.

  When I confronted the morning, it was because a headache leaned on the backs of my eyeballs. I squinted against the sunlight streaming in the windows. I knew exactly what’d happened last night, but the red panties on the floor still threw me. Did I have a girl over? Oh. A leg of pantyhose reached from under the heap of the dress by the end of the bed. The wig’s curls hung like worn springs over the side of my nightstand.

  My fingernails were fuck-me red.

  I stopped by the bathroom and confirmed that I looked like I’d fallen face-first into the cosmetic’s department. I pissed, then scrubbed, then scrubbed some more, until all that was left was some stubborn mascara on my lashes and a pink in my cheeks from all the rough handling.

  The smell of coffee led me to the kitchen, where Jeff was just stirring a cup for himself at the counter. “Coffee?” he asked, his hair rucked up, his green T-shirt with our old high school’s name on the front showing a hole by the seam at the shoulder.

  “Yeah.” I dropped into a chair. “Thanks.”

  In a moment, hazelnut filled the air. He delivered it in a steaming mug. Those coffee pods weren’t cheap, but damn I liked how fast I could get a cup of coffee. He dropped his own mug off at the table at the same time, before heading to the cabinets, the fridge.

  I clasped the mug’s handle. The fingernails made it awkward, digging into my skin. “I’m going to have to Google how to get these off.”

  He glanced over.

  I held up a hand.

  “Probably just need some nail polish remover to soften them up.” He set a box of cereal and milk on the table. A pair of spoons slid in the stacked set of bowls he had in the crook of his arm. He gave me one, set the other in front of his place. Hooked the chair away from the table with his ankle and sat down.

  I watched him pour Frosted Flakes in his bowl.

  I kind of wished we hadn’t had that conversation. I wished we’d just fooled around, then joked about it, and maybe opened a bag of Cheetos and watched a bad movie. Then I could sit here checking him out, thinking about how maybe we could do that again sometime.

  Instead I was thinking about what an ass I was.

  Someday one of us was going to meet someone, move out, get married, raise kids. We’d find ourselves heading down different paths, the distance between us spreading. When we met up by chance every now and then, we’d be strangers, looking for common ground to fashion a conversation around. How’s work? How’re the kids? Seen any terrible movies lately? Our friendship wouldn’t—couldn’t—be one of the primary facets of our lives forever. You literally cannot put everything first in your life, and one day one of us—or both of us—was going to find another relationship to put first.

  “So, are you going to try to find someone online?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I think that’s what I’m gonna do.” He scooped Frosted Flakes into his mouth.

  My chest grew tight. Someday he was going to meet someone. Someday probably sooner than later if he was actually looking for someone. Because, like, I wasn’t. I’d been lazy about that since I dropped out of college. Like, I’m happy to just be a bro: get up, go to work, come home, hang out playing video games and watching movies with Jeff.

  Even if he didn’t leave, if he just started spending time with another guy—some guy who could meet those other needs—I’d be the third wheel.

  What if the guy was all the way across the country? In another country altogether? I saw myself watching him climb in a U-Haul packed with his shit and pull away, his car towing behind.

  I saw myself watching his plane take off from an airport window.

  I saw myself watching him be happy and start a new life, and leave me behind.

  He chased the last couple of flakes down in the milk.

  I picked up the box and started shaking cereal into my bowl.

  “Okay,” I said as the flakes rattled against each other.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’m gonna keep the dress.” I set the box down. Picked up the milk carton. Started pouring while he watched.

  Finally he said, “It’s your dress, do what you want with it.”

  “I’m going to keep it. I might wear it.”

  “Like I said.” He poured another bowl of cereal. “It’s yours.”

  “Would you not look for anyone online if I did?” The spoon felt just as shaky as the keys had last night. I poked at the wet flakes. I couldn’t look at him. You know: what if he shot me down?

  His spoon crunched through his cereal. The handle dropped against the side of his bowl. He clasped the handle of his mug, his fingers gripping and loosening and gripping. Finally he said, “If you want me not to, I won’t.”

  I wanted him not to.

  But at the same time, it felt like a big ask. Don’t see if you can find someone to
fall in love with. Give up your shot at finding someone who’s been looking for someone just like you.

  Without looking at me, he said, “But you can’t just say ‘don’t do that’ and then go back to acting like everything’s like it fucking was a week ago.”

  “No.”

  His fingers still held on to the handle of his mug, his thumb rubbing it in little jerks.

  My fingers still had red talons on the end of them.

  What did Charli want? Had anyone asked her?

  I felt her heart beating in my chest.

  I liked Charli.

  Charli had liked Jeff a hell of a lot.

  I liked Jeff.

  I said, “I know. I’m not asking you to go back to the way it was.” The Frosted Flakes were collapsing in my bowl, turning it into a soggy mess. “I don’t know exactly what I’m asking, outside of not wanting you to find someone else.”

  He’d set his hand on the table, his fingers curled like he was still holding that handle. I put my fingers into that curve and rubbed his knuckles with my thumb, the bright red nail glossy in what sunlight made its way through our north-facing kitchen window.

  “I’m asking you to give me a chance,” I said.

  He squeezed my fingers.

  His chest collapsed inward.

  He scrubbed his eye with the heel of his other hand, squeezing my fingers harder. He swiped at his other eye. It left his cheek wet. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.” He swiped at his eye again.

  My chair shoved backward as leaned across the table.

  I turned his face toward me, red fingernails against five o’clock shadow.

  I kissed him. Not the sexy, tongue-y kissing of last night, just the two of us with our mouths pressed together, the moment stretching until he put his forehead against mine.

  “I don’t want you to leave me.” I curled my hand around the back of his head.

  “Don’t fucking make me start crying again.” He gripped my shirt.

  My cheek was damp from his tears. Or maybe they were mine. I closed my eyes and another slipped free. “I don’t know what we’re crying about,” I said.

  He laughed and held my shirt tighter.

  And that’s how we got here.

  “Are you ready yet?” he calls through the bathroom door.

  Fabric rustles as I pull my stocking up. “Almost!” I’d wanted to go as Frank and Claire Underwood, but Jeff pointed out that he couldn’t pull off a Kevin Spacey, and I kind of had to agree. Too lean, too good looking, too much awesome hair on his head. Not that I had a chance in hell of pulling off a Robin Wright, but he’d been too kind to mention that. I straighten and look in the mirror. The diamond pendant hadn’t gone with this outfit. I’ve got a long string of fake pearls instead, a low-waisted dress. I’d hoped for something beaded, but we’d settled for something that had the right style…in our price range.

  The thing I like about going as a flapper is I can use my own hair, styled in an Eton crop—with liberal help from Lydia, who’d wound up rolling her eyes about our whole relationship. We haven’t broken the news to our parents. Eventually one set or the other will start making noises about settling down and starting families; we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I slide the headband on, its perky feather waggling. I strike a pose, hand on my hip, my leading shoulder rolled forward, one knee bent in front of the other. I smile, playful. You can’t help but be playful dressed as a flapper.

  I smile wider. I’m wearing the same shade of lip color that I did last year. It’s perfect for this outfit.

  “Okay,” I say through the door. “I’m coming out.”

  I take a breath before I turn the handle.

  He’s waiting for me, his fedora cocked toward his eyes, his light trousers baggy, his dark shirt freshly ironed. He looks like something out of a Dash Hammett story. I laugh.

  “What?”

  “We should stay home,” I say, though I know there’s no way we’re going to pass up a chance to go out in public. But he’s hot. Really fucking hot. He puts his hands on my hips, cocking one of his.

  “What, and not get to show you off?” he says.

  I drape my arms over his shoulders. Still smiling.

  His body is familiar now. Comfortable.

  Sexy.

  He’s a keeper. His hat starts to slide off when we kiss. I catch it and hold it against his back, pushing my fingers into the back of his hair. His body presses against mine.

  He hugs me, and we stay there a moment, quiet, before he takes my hand, puts his hat back on, and takes me out for a night on the town.

  We’re both smiling as we step out of our apartment into the sunshine.

  ###

  Also by Zoe X. Rider

  Games Boys Play

  Down a Notch

  Down Another Notch

  “Whiskey & Bedposts” (Breaking In Bryce #1)

  “Pins & Need” (Breaking In Bryce #2)

  “Skin in the Game”

  “Coming Clean”

  “Hotel Rooms (and Their Deleterious Effects)”

  “Caught in Cuffs”

  As Holden Wells

  Roughing It

  “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”

  Zoe X. Rider writes dark and erotic fiction, usually featuring musicians. She doesn’t think twice about driving eight and a half hours to a dark armpit of a club to see a favorite band. She can’t play music (seriously: do not ask her to sing), but her life runs on it. When she’s not chasing bands the way some people chase tornados, she spends her time at home in the Appalachian mountains with two dogs and a very patient partner, who thinks she should get out more in the daylight hours—and not just to drive to another venue. Reading and eating are her other hobbies. Her favorite foods include Milky Way candy bars, collard greens, NY strip steak with butter, soy-mustard roasted Brussels sprouts, and rum milkshakes. (Milkshakes are a food, right?)

  Zoe can be found at www.zoexrider.com, zoexrider.tumblr.com, zoexxxrider.tumblr.com (NSFW), twitter.com/zoexrider and facebook.com/zoexrider.

  Table of Contents

  Summary

  Charlie in a Red Dress

  Also by Zoe X. Rider