Authors: Rona Jaffe
Steve jumped up to fix Bonnie a drink, but Dick beat him to it. Bonnie sat down on a chair slightly removed from the rest of them, crossed her legs, and waited. She said nothing. Dick brought her the drink and she murmured “Thank you” without smiling; the paint on her face was still too fresh and felt uncomfortable. It was obvious from the conversation that Dick had not told any of them Bonnie was a boy. Steve was knocking himself out trying to be witty, and Truffle was looking lost. Bonnie continued to sit there saying nothing, sipping her drink, looking at the two men from her flawless huge violet eyes, waiting and enjoying it. Dick came to sit on the arm of her chair. He liked her! Wasn’t that nice! Well, he wasn’t so ugly.
Maybe I
will
have him
, Bonnie thought.
She thought of Gerry, but it didn’t seem at all disloyal to Gerry to be here with Dick, even if she decided later to go to bed with him. After all, Gerry was a girl, with all the right plumbing and all the advantages. If Dick wanted her, Bonnie, instead of Gerry, or in addition to Gerry, it wasn’t like taking a man away from another girl because Bonnie
wasn’t
a girl. If Dick wanted her, he wanted a boy. One thing had nothing to do with the other. Bonnie would never be jealous if she lost a man to a real girl, even though she might be sad or feel frustrated about her bad luck in having all the wrong plumbing. She thought about it. No, it definitely wasn’t bitchy or underhanded to be here with Dick. If Dick was an old closet queen he might as well find it out now. For even though Bonnie insisted all her dates were straight before they met her, and even though most of them insisted it themselves, she knew in her heart they were fags.
Fags
. Why deceive yourself? If they went to bed with her they were fags. They’d tell themselves: “Well, it looks like a girl so I’ll tell myself it’s a girl while I’m playing with its cock,” and they were fags.
Bonnie looked around Dick’s apartment, seen now in twilight. It was tasteful and luxurious, but certainly not a fag’s apartment. There was nothing nitty about it, no little touches, none of that self-consciously over-masculine stuff either. It was a great apartment. None of the queens in the bars had ever heard of Dick Devere, so it was more than likely that he
was
straight but just had this little inclination that’d come out when he met Bonnie. Bonnie felt sorry for Gerry, not because
she
was with Dick tonight but because Dick was a shit and Gerry was a wonderful girl who deserved a real man who would love her and marry her and give her babies. Old scarecrow, big nose, bald head! Bonnie would fix him!
Vincent
would fix him!
Oh, yes I will
, Bonnie/Vincent thought, looking at Dick with the most innocent, sexiest possible look in her eyes.
I’ll fix you, you old lecher, scarecrow, bald head, big nose! I’ll fix you for making Gerry cry every night when she thinks I’m asleep and don’t know. And when I’m finished with you maybe I’ll have a crack at your friend Steve. I think
he’s
cute
.
It turned out that the girl named Truffle was an actress, and Steve was Dick’s attorney. Bonnie had never seen Truffle in anything so she dismissed her immediately. But Steve continued to intrigue her. She’d never been out with an attorney. She reminded herself to keep to the business at hand: the wrecking of Dick Devoid, and she noted with delight that even though she’d stationed herself at a distance from the others in the room they had eventually all grouped around her—first Dick, then Steve, finally Truffle who discovered herself left out.
Truffle and Steve brought out some pot and they all turned on. Dick was acting prissy about it (old queen! probably afraid he’d get nelly when he was high) and took one little poke and then said he’d stick to his martinis. Bonnie pretended disinterest but she enjoyed getting high on the pot, it was so much nicer than drinking. Then, as usual, the pot made her hungry.
“Aren’t we going to eat?” she asked.
“Of course, of course!” Dick said, jumping up. They were out on the street in about two minutes. Bonnie’s wish was his command tonight, and Bonnie loved it.
They went back to the place where Dick had taken Bonnie and Gerry. Bonnie ordered her favorite, spaghetti, and then discovered after two bites that she couldn’t eat a thing. She was nervous. Dick kept talking, as usual, trying to charm and impress everyone, and Bonnie decided that he had a nice voice and a nice way about him. If she didn’t know what a shit he was she’d really like him. He had a lot of charm. He had to have something to make all those girls fall in love with him. She’d already cruised his box but you couldn’t tell what he had; he was too secure and well tailored to let the public in on the mystery. She’d find out later, all right. And she’d make
him
blow
her
. Oh, wouldn’t she, though! She’d twist his mind, she’d wreck him.
She remembered one guy she’d dated, a really masculine guy, the butch number to end all butch numbers, and then in bed he’d wanted
her
, the little flitty paint queen, to screw
him!
What a shock! Bonnie had done it, just out of curiosity, but she hadn’t liked it at all, and after that she’d used him as an escort and nothing more. Wouldn’t everybody be surprised if they knew what he was really like, the big queen! She thought now that it would be fun to warp Dick’s mind that way, but she knew it would be impossible to bend his mind that far. No, she’d just get him to fall in love with her, and then she’d make him admit what a big fruit he was, and then she would have another conquest and Gerry would be avenged.
It was fun going out with straight people, here in this straight restaurant, knowing she was the center of attention because she was so pretty, knowing they all accepted her and didn’t think she was a freak. She was nervous but happy. Maybe she
would
be a big star someday. Who would ever dream it, the little misfit from Irvington, hiding in the house all day like a mole … a big movie star! God bless Mr. Libra. God bless Gerry, and all those people who’d been so nice to her/him, poor Vincent. Weren’t people kind! Wasn’t life good! Wasn’t it lucky that if he had to be born a he/she freak at least he’d been born a beauty! God bless Flash for plopping his first wig on his head. God bless his father for never playing baseball with him. God bless his mother for buying him his first nurse kit instead of a doctor kit. God bless God.
Steve and Truffle were going to a midnight movie. Dick took Bonnie back to his apartment without asking her what she wanted to do next, and Bonnie went with him placidly.
In his apartment Dick turned on the lights and put some records on the turntable. He made drinks for himself and Bonnie and they sat on the couch. Bonnie couldn’t think of anything to say, so she drank the drink, knowing that two drinks made her very drunk and this was the first. She needed to be drunk. She was a little afraid of what would happen next.
“I could still never believe in a million years that you’re a boy,” Dick said. “To me you’ll always be a girl. Who could ever believe you’re a boy?”
Bonnie smiled.
“I have a present for you,” Dick said, and took something out of the desk drawer. It was two amyl nitrites. He popped one and put it into a Benzedrine inhaler, holding his finger over the hole on the top, and handed it to Bonnie.
Bonnie loved amyl nitrite. It was her favorite buzz. She held the inhaler to her nostril and breathed in greedily.
“You’re taking the whole thing,” Dick protested, amused.
Bonnie waited for the buzz—then it came, and she sat on the floor and giggled uncontrollably. Everything was tingling and she felt goofy and happy.
Dick picked up the empty inhaler from the floor where she’d dropped it. “Good thing I have a whole box of these,” he said. “You’re a dope fiend.”
Since he was being so nice she felt it was only fair to share, so she took two blackbirds from her purse and offered one to Dick. They gulped them down with their drinks and sat there smiling at each other, waiting for that buzz to start.
“Let me pick some records,” Bonnie said, walking unsteadily to the record player. She pulled her favorite albums out of the neat row in his bookcase: all the sexy female vocalists she loved. Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick—oh, no one could touch them! She saw an album by Silky and the Satins and put that on the stack too.
Dick took it off. “Don’t play that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not in the mood for it.”
Bonnie knew Dick had had an affair with Silky Morgan. The poor old queen is feeling guilty, she thought, amused. Well, now they’d have a contest of wills. “I like it,” Bonnie said. “Please?”
“All right.” He put the record back on the stack.
He was putty in her hands. “Can I have another drink?” Bonnie murmured.
Dick made the drinks and took them into the bedroom. He turned down the bedcovers. Bonnie followed him and switched off all the lights except for one dim one in the corner. She didn’t want to shock him to death. Dick was taking off his clothes calmly. He acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be here in his bedroom with a girl who was really a boy. Dionne Warwick was pouring honey through the bedroom speaker. Bonnie took off her bats and laid them on the dresser. She couldn’t stand to have sex with her false eyelashes on because one of the queens had told her once that they could get stuck in your eye and make you go blind. She glanced at Dick to see if he was disillusioned with her, seeing her without her eyelashes, but he seemed oblivious. It was so dim in the room that maybe he hadn’t noticed. Thank goodness her own eyelashes were so long.
Dick lay on the bed, naked. Well, look what he had! Wasn’t
that
nice.
He’d kill me with that thing
, Bonnie thought.
I’d be screaming in pain
. She took off all her clothes except her underpants and got under the sheet quick as a flash, pulling the sheet up so it covered her lack of tits. No point in disillusioning him now.
Bonnie had become adept at hiding her deficiencies in bed, like the dance of the seven veils, so that all the man usually saw was her lovely face and a glimpse of shoulders. She’d learned how to keep the illusion going until the last possible moment, and besides, she was really very shy about her body. Naked she wasn’t much to look at as a boy or a girl. Just a pale, skinny kid. No tits and no muscles. Nothing for anybody. As always, she waited for Dick to make the first move, lying far on her side of the bed.
There was a large mirror above the low dresser opposite from the bed, and Bonnie saw the reflection of herself in the bed lying under the white sheet. The image of Bonnie vanished, and there was only Vincent. Vincent the freak. Vincent didn’t have a semblance of a hard on. He didn’t care if he stayed or left. His heart was pounding with fear. He reached out a pale, skinny arm and took his drink off the bedside table, spilling some of it on the sheet.
Dick had a big hard on. “Look at it,” Dick said tenderly, in love with himself. “Isn’t it nice? Do you like it? Don’t you want to do something to it?”
“No,” Vincent murmured shyly.
“Why are you wearing your pants?” Dick asked. He reached over and tried to pull them off. Vincent held on to them with both hands, struggling to keep his modesty and the last vestige of illusion. “That’s so silly,” Dick was murmuring. “Take them off. Come on.”
“No,” Vincent said. “Leave me alone.” He waited for Dick to reach out to take him in his arms, to kiss him, neck with him, do what boys always did. Boys loved to kiss him for hours because he had such a beautiful, sexy mouth. Vincent was a champion kisser. He didn’t care much about other things, considering them degrading, but he loved to kiss.
Dick took a tendril of Vincent’s hair between his fingers and played with it shyly. They looked into each other’s eyes.
“Just touch it,” Dick said.
Vincent reached over and took it in his hand. How degrading! He certainly wasn’t going to service this queen! He leaned over Dick and tried to kiss him on the mouth. Dick turned his head away.
“I just can’t kiss you,” Dick said apologetically. “I can do anything else … I’ll ball you … but I just could never kiss a boy because I’m straight.”
Oh, the gall! Vincent felt himself blushing with humiliation and fury. All the boys in the world wanted to kiss him and this skinny, ugly old queen thought it wasn’t masculine! What a laugh! Waves of hate and rejection poured over him, making him feel faint.
You’ll kiss me, Mary, if it’s the last thing you do
, he thought with fury.
He got to work on Dick then, doing all the things he hated to do that he knew Dick would love. Dick was going out of his mind. It felt like he was working on Dick for hours and hours. The more Dick liked it, the more Vincent hated him. He was going to get that damned fruit so hot he’d kiss him, yes he would, he would … Dick was reaching out now, grabbing for a tube of Vaseline he’d carefully put on the bedside table before the evening had started. It was brand new.
Oh, no you don’t
, Vincent thought.
You’ll kill me
.
Vincent still had his pants on and Dick was trying to pull them off. “Please,” Dick was saying, “Please … please.”
“I’m tired,” Vincent said. “I want to go to sleep.” He slithered over to the far side of the bed and held the pillow in his arms like a child holding a teddy bear and closed his eyes.
“Please,” Dick said.
Beg me, Mary
, Vincent thought. He smiled a sweet gentle little smile. Through his eyelashes he could see Dick edging closer to him. Dick had the Benzedrine inhaler in his hand now, and held it under Vincent’s nose. Vincent inhaled deeply and flew with the buzz. He let go of the pillow. Dick was sniffing the inhaler now, his eyes shut.
Now!
Vincent thought. He floated into Dick’s arms softly, making himself as limp and cuddly as any girl in the world, and when Dick opened his eyes there was Vincent’s tender Bonnie face, those huge violet eyes open, tender and gentle.
Dick kissed him on the mouth.
Vincent sighed a gentle sigh of triumph, knowing that his world was safe again, a place where he could always be sure and strong. And for Dick, he knew, the world would never again be safe, and Dick would never be sure of anything again.