“Can it, princess,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for your shit today.”
“Make time,” I replied, not taking a seat just to piss him off more. “You can’t expect me to take you seriously with that thing. Also, it seems as if your chest hair is trying to escape from the collar of your shirt. At least we know where your hair has gone.”
“Clyde likes it,” he said.
“Clyde,” I repeated blankly. “You know I don’t keep track of your flavors of the week, Mike. I have far more important things to worry about.”
He rolled his eyes. “Clyde is my partner of twenty years.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “Because that was obviously Clyde I saw you jerking off three weeks ago in the back room. Looked a little young to have been with you twenty years. Unless you started early. Like,
really
early.”
He waved his hand at me. “Clyde doesn’t give two shits about that. We fuck around with whoever we want and go home to each other. It works for us.”
I shrugged. “I suppose. It’s not for everyone, but as long as you’re happy.”
“Because you care about my happiness.”
I grinned at him. “Always.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” he said dryly. “Thanks for trying, though.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” I said. “Stroking your ego is my number one priority.”
“How is Corey?” he asked, looking back at his computer.
“Fine,” I said. For some reason, Mike had a strange fascination with Corey, though I didn’t think it was anything sexual. I’d already threatened him egregious bodily harm if it ever tried to go that direction, but I didn’t think it was actually necessary. He apparently just had a soft spot for Corey, and I tried not to question it too much. “He’s got late class today, so he won’t be in.”
Mike nodded as he opened a drawer on his desk and pulled out a fifth of Jack. He slid the bottle over to me. “Drink this.”
“I hate Jack. Not my drink.”
“I don’t have any tequila.”
“That’s fine, because I’m not getting drunk with you.”
“Sandy, take a hit. You’re gonna need it.”
I laughed at him. “I’ll need far more than this if you’re going to try and fuck me, Mike.”
I tried not to be offended when he made a face at that because
I
knew I was a pretty spectacular lay. I had many references that I could provide to support this, and none of them ever complained, not even if they had to go to brunch and eat all my bacon. “I think we both know I’m not your type,” Mike said.
“That’s pretty much true,” I said. “Though, if I had a power kink, you’d be the first I’d go to.”
He snorted. “Take a drink, princess.”
I did, only because I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like what was about to be said. The Jack burned on its way down and I shuddered against it. It hit my stomach and blossomed into something warm.
“One more,” he said.
“You better not have roofied this,” I told him. “I don’t want to be involved in your old-men sex ring.”
“Not that you’ll be awake to even notice,” he said with an oily smile.
“Gross.” I took another drink before capping the bottle and sliding it back over to him. The Jack went back into the drawer and he sat back in his chair.
“Good?” he asked.
“As good as I can possibly be given how vague you’re being.”
And then he said the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life. “I need you to seduce Darren Mayne.”
Because.
What
.
“I’m sorry,” I said, Helena roaring forward with an answering smile that was all teeth. “I think I need you to repeat that because I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“Darren Mayne.”
“What
about
Darren Mayne?”
“I need you,” he said slowly, “to seduce him.”
“Mike.”
“Helena.” Because he
knew
who he was dealing with now.
I tapped my fingers on his desk, fingernails clicking a distinct pattern. “What,” I said, “the
fuck
.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Look, I know there’s no love lost between the two of you—”
“Understatement,” I snapped.
“—but I’m being backed into a corner here. I don’t have much else of a choice and I don’t know what else to do.”
“About
what
?”
“I’m going to lose the club.”
That… was not what I was expecting to hear.
“What?
How
?”
“The fucking revitalization project the city council is pushing at the behest of our glorious leader, Andrew Taylor. They’re deciding whether or not Jack It fits into the family-friendly front they want to portray to bump tourism.”
“You have a contract,” I said. “With the city. They can’t renege on that. You could bring a lawsuit against them if they tried.”
“That’s the fun part about contracts, princess,” Mike said. “Sometimes they expire. There are negotiations that take place where new demands are made and people get jacked trying to run their business.”
“Why wouldn’t they renew the contract?” I asked. “You’ve had it for years. And before you bought Jack It, this bar was still a gay bar. That’s not anything new.”
“I know,” he said. “But it doesn’t have shit to do with contract negotiations. It’s the revitalization project as a cover for a religious freedom bill.”
I blinked at him. “But that was shot down a couple of years ago. Jan Brewer vetoed it when it got to her desk. Signing it would have been career suicide. Look what happened with the governor from Indiana last year. I thought he was going to be tarred and feathered.” And maybe he should have been. I thought it was cute how quickly he backtracked when he realized the entire world could see what a douchenozzle he was.
“The fact remains we live in a red state,” Mike said. “And that Arizona is fucking backward when it comes to everything else. We broadcast a ‘fuck you’ mentality to the rest of the country. Arizona borders Mexico, and yet we don’t seem to like Mexicans very much, do we? That sheriff up in Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, is as fascist as they come, and yet he gets elected over and over and over again. Do you know how many times he’s been sued because of discrimination? And he’s
won
. And Brewer is on her way out. Her successor will probably be Republican again. Taylor got reelected last year. There are already rumors that his people are preparing another version of the religious freedom bill to attempt to get it into law. Couple that with the SCOTUS ruling to legalize gay marriage, and those Tea Party fucks have to start getting their revenge somewhere.”
“What does that have to do with us?” I asked. “Or the bar? It’s not like we’d ever turn anyone away because they were gay or straight. That’s not how business works. Business is about providing services or goods in exchange for compensation. Fuck anyone that discriminates. They’re the ones losing money, not us.”
“That’s where the Renew Tucson project comes into play.” He turned his computer around, showing me a spreadsheet. “Look, the bar clears $40,000 per month if I’m lucky, more in the fall when the college kids come back and in the summer when there’s the Pride events. With that, there are the overhead costs, the operating costs, the upkeep, taxes, talent, employees, liquor, food. Everything chips away at that until we’re barely in the black. This used to be about coming out, having fun, getting shitfaced, and maybe hooking up. But now there’s Grindr and Tinder and whatever else come-fuck-me apps someone can think of. Attendance is down. It’s why we started a cover charge at the door last spring.”
“I still don’t see what this has to do with me. Or Darren. Or the whole
seducing
thing.”
“It’s a Hail Mary.” He spread his hands. “My last, wild chance.”
“And it’s dependent on me seducing the Homo Jock King,” I said. “This is the worst idea you’ve ever had. The fact that you would even
ask
me such a thing is borderline reprehensible. And that’s without mentioning it makes no fucking sense. Because, Mike?
It makes no fucking sense
.”
“Darren’s father is Andrew Taylor.”
“Well fuck,” I said succinctly. Because that was supposed to be a
secret
. “And you know this how?”
He shrugged. “People talk. I listen. You know how it goes.”
“I still don’t see what that has to do with me.”
“I’m still going to be fighting this legally,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can to try and get the contract renewed. But Darren is connected to the mayor and I
know
he’s the one pushing this.”
“Uh, flaw, buddy. He doesn’t know Darren’s gay. And as far as I know, Darren doesn’t even really speak to him. Or work for him. Which means Taylor won’t give a shit about what Darren thinks.”
“Semantics,” Mike said with a wave of his hand. “Darren’s an actuary for the city. His boss is friends with Taylor. There’s no nepotism there, at least none that I could see, but Darren has a direct line to his father even if he doesn’t really use it.”
“Why me?” I asked, feeling slightly ill. “Why not Vince?”
“Vince can’t really seduce Darren, now can he?” Well, he could since I’d dreamt about it, but Mike didn’t need to know that. “And there’s the simple fact that Vince wants nothing to do with Taylor.”
“And Darren does?”
“Don’t you think it’s odd that for all the shit he’s talked about his dad, he still works for him? Maybe not him
directly
, but still. There are plenty of financial firms in Tucson that would salivate over him. Insurance companies, healthcare companies. And yet he still works for the county. You know what that says to me, princess?”
“Not a clue, but you’re going to tell me, aren’t you.”
Mike leaned forward on his desk. “It tells me that Darren still cares about what Daddy thinks about him. That he’s still searching for some kind of approval.”
“That’s reaching, even for you,” I said. “Psychoanalyzing was never your strong suit, Mike. You don’t even know him.”
“And you do, don’t you?”
No, I didn’t. For the most part. I knew
of
him. I knew
about
him. I knew the type of person he was. But that didn’t mean I knew
him
. But here I was sounding like I was
defending
him to Mike. I needed to back this shit right the fuck up before it spiraled out of control. “Everything I know about Darren Mayne does nothing to endear him to me,” I said.
He cocked his head at me. “Why do you hate him so much? It can’t be
that
bad.”
“Let me tell you why,” I said. “Seven years ago, there was a cocky little drag queen who saw a homo jock and was slightly smitten. This cocky little drag queen thought that this homo jock was just her type and she wanted to have him. Maybe for fucking. Maybe to keep. So she flirted with him and he smiled at her and she thought maybe good things could happen. He’d told her she was beautiful. She told him he was too. He’d laughed and the sound alone had made the little drag queen’s heart beat faster. And since she wasn’t always a little drag queen, she tried to talk to him when she was the little boy instead. Because surely if he could accept the side of the queen, he’d be okay with the boy too, right?”
I had been happy. Nervous. It’d been a long time since I’d been that enamored by someone. He was new and exciting and maybe he just wanted to fuck, but I was okay with that. I told myself that was just fine. I could work with that. And maybe I could convince him of more. So I took Helena off and was just Sandy, just plain Sandy. And I went back downstairs and he was there with his friends, those nameless and cookie-cutter homo jocks.
“Hey,” I’d said. “Hi, Darren.”
And the look of such
derision
I’d been given almost caused me to take a step back. But I thought maybe there was a mistake since he’d
smiled
at me before. And so I’d tried to talk to him, tried to act like I could be someone he could see (because he
had
seen me, he
had
smiled at me and acted like I was something).
But his friends had laughed and he had laughed at me and there was a bit of a sneer on his face when he’d asked if I’d
needed
something because why else would I even be approaching him?
“Trust me,” he’d said, “you have absolutely nothing that I want. I don’t know if you’re someone
anyone
would want.”
I hated the fucking Homo Jock King.
“And maybe it’s petty,” I said to Mike, “and maybe I should just forgive or, at the very least, forget, but I still remember the shit I got being a skinny little faggot in high school, that queer who liked to wear makeup who swished his hips too much when he walked. Whose locker got vandalized with homophobic slurs. Who had people walk all over him and look at him like he was nothing but
trash
. So I know a bully when I see one, okay? Some people grow up and change. Some don’t. The Darren Maynes of the world don’t. He goes through his little twinks and spits them out like they’re nothing, all the while showing everyone else he’s better than them.”
Mike was quiet for a while, letting me get my breathing back under control. I tried not to think about Darren from all those years before, even if it colored my perception of him as to who he was now. Maybe he’d grown up and become a different person. Or maybe he was still a bag of assholes. It was obvious which seemed more likely.
Mike said, “And yet he’s here, isn’t he? For every single show you’ve done. He hasn’t missed one, not really. Not even Paul can say that.”
“That’s not—” And I had to stop myself because it
was
true. Maybe my memory was a little bit fuzzy and maybe I couldn’t really think clearly, but I couldn’t remember a time when Darren
wasn’t
at my show. Wednesdays and Saturdays. He was always there. Without fail. Either by himself slinking off in the shadows or surrounded by the homo jocks, their T-shirts tight and their grins cocky. “That doesn’t mean anything,” I said finally. Because it
didn’t
.
“Sure it doesn’t, princess,” he said. “But just think, this is the perfect opportunity for you to get revenge against the Homo Jock King. You seduce him. Get him to talk this place up to those who have the ear of his father. Best-case scenario, we get to keep the bar open and you get to see the look on his face when you break up with him. Worst case, you get laid and this place still closes.”