“I get to,” he said. “I get to because those are the rules. Do you remember?”
“I remember rule one,” I said hoarsely. “Where I said you didn’t get to touch me unless I invited you.”
“And you did,” he said, lip curling. “You asked for my help. Rule two. The first rule was stupid.”
He lifted my foot from between his thighs and, in one smooth motion, pulled the boot off and let it fall to the floor beside us.
I thought it strange that there were a few hundred people below us and none of them knew about the way he touched me.
He stared down at my foot in his hand, his thumb brushing along the side.
“Rule ten,” I said.
He laughed and finally,
finally
looked up at me. His eyes were dark and hooded, that familiar smirk on his face that I knew so well, that I sometimes despised and sometimes adored. I didn’t know which it was right now that I felt, because I thought it a very real possibility I was in shock. “That’s the one we don’t talk about,” he said, and his eyes darted down my chest, my nipples harder than they’d ever been. I felt his gaze crawl along my skin, goose bumps rising in the wake.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why,” he repeated.
“Why don’t we talk about it?”
He pushed my foot off his lap. He rocked back on his heels. “Stand up.”
“Darren.”
“Sandy. Stand
up
.”
I did. His face was near my groin. I could have put my hands in his hair, if I was so inclined. I didn’t.
He said, “I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” his breath hot against my legs, and I thought maybe I felt the scrape of a kiss on my thigh. I didn’t look down.
“Why are you doing this?”
He shook his head.
“Why do you always come to my shows?”
“Not yet.”
“Why do you keep doing this to me? What the
fuck
do you want?”
“Not
yet
,” he snarled and pushed himself to stand. He rose before me, and I was no longer Helena, so I didn’t tower above him. If anything, we were almost the same height, but the width he had over me more than made up for that and he was so much
bigger
. He might as well have been twice my size, and it wasn’t helping that I thought about curling into myself.
He said, “Finish changing.”
And he didn’t move.
I said, “I’m not doing this in front of you.” Paul was fine. Charlie was fine. Corey and Vince were fine. Darren was
not
fine and I wasn’t comfortable being fully nude in front of him, especially not knowing what the fuck this was.
“I can turn around,” he said.
“Or you can leave. I don’t need your help anymore.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling uncomfortably bare.
He shook his head. “You can’t carry all this shit down to your car by yourself.”
“That’s what the bouncers are for,” I said. “They’ll help me. I don’t need you.”
“Finish changing,” he said through gritted teeth.
There was an old folding screen in the corner. It’d been Vaguyna’s, and like most of her stuff related to queendom, it’d passed to me after she’d died. She’d said it was from the Orient, the cherry blossoms adorning the screen handwoven by elderly Asian women, passed down for generations until she’d been given it by a queen in New York. Part of that was right, because the tag did say made in China, but it also said Bed Bath & Beyond, because at her heart, Vaguyna was a drag queen and drag queens could be full of shit. But I had allowed myself to believe her just because she believed, even if it wasn’t necessarily the truth.
And it was mine now, these little remnants of her.
Darren didn’t turn around.
I didn’t think he would.
I was taller than the screen, but barely, and I could stand on my tiptoes to see him. He hadn’t moved away from the vanity, but he didn’t look away, either. I knew he couldn’t see through the screen, but it was unnerving.
I peeled my way out of the unitard, flipping it up and over the top of the screen. The air conditioning above was cool on my heated skin. I stood there for a moment in nothing but thin, perfunctory underwear, trying to gather my thoughts.
Well, I tried anyway. It’s hard to gather your thoughts when you’re untaping your scrotum that has your penis wrapped in it and allowing your balls to descend again. Most people don’t understand how hard it is to be a queen. Most see a man in a dress. They don’t see the hours spent making sure the illusion is impeccable. The makeup. The shaving. Shoving your balls up inside you so there’s no hint of a bulge. Coupled with the hours spent rehearsing, it can be hell on a body.
We don’t do it for the money. Most of us don’t do it for any fame, because unless you’re nationally known, chances are you’ll always be one in a made-up face of thousands.
I rolled my shoulders and reached for a pair of sweats, pulling them up and over my hips. There was an old silk robe hanging behind the curtain that I wrapped around myself.
I peeked over the top of the screen.
Darren was still watching me like a fucking creeper.
I sighed. There was no harm in trying again. “You can go now.”
“Come out here.”
“Fuck you.”
“Sandy.”
I stepped out from around the screen. Because
I
wanted to, not because he told me to. In fact—
He took a step toward me and then another. He said, “I don’t want you to see Brian.” Like he had any right to say anything.
I glared at him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’m telling you anyway.”
“Why?”
“
Because
.”
“Not good enough,” I snapped at him and then he was standing right in front of me. “Especially not because of your fucking double standard. You don’t want Brian to touch me yet you let that fucking
twink
rub up on your shit like it’s going out of style. You don’t get to be that person, Darren. Not when you’re a fucking hypocrite. Fuck him, don’t fuck him, I don’t give a shit.”
“Really,” he said. “Funny how you not caring looks exactly like someone who cares too fucking much. Did you ever stop and think about that?”
And didn’t that just irk me. What was it he’d said weeks ago with that smug look on his face? That he’d known I found him attractive, like it was a fucking given I’d want him, because how could I
not
. And of course, I did, even though it was bullshit. It was all fucking bullshit and I fell for it
again
. This wasn’t about him being jealous. No, this was about him being fucking butt hurt because I wasn’t collapsing onto him like everyone else did.
I stepped around him and made my way to the door, the silk robe trailing behind me. I reached the door and threw it open, turning and scowling at Darren. I nodded toward the open doorway. “Go.”
“Sandy,” he growled. “Why the hell do you insist on making things so fucking difficult?”
“Because that’s just who I am,” I said. “Now get out.”
“No.”
“I’ll call security up here, don’t think I won’t. I’ve had enough of your—”
“You won’t.”
“Try me, asshole. See what happens.”
He took a step toward me, hands raised like he was talking to a spooked animal. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said slowly.
I snorted derisively. “Well that’s certainly not true. There’s not enough time in the world to list all the things you’ve done wrong.”
“I don’t want him.” Another step.
“Not my business.”
“You don’t want Brian.” Another step.
“Not your business.” I was getting agitated and pissed off with myself that I wasn’t being more assertive. But the cockiness had faded quite drastically from his face, and he was looking slightly panicked again. Like he knew he’d done something. That I was getting fed up.
He said, “
Sandy
,” and he was standing right in front of me, our knees knocking together, both of us breathing heavily, my robe open, the sweats slung low on my hips. And I
liked
it. I liked him so close that he could reach out and touch me if he wanted to, the fucking bastard.
And just when I thought he was going to, his arm raised, hand reaching for me, he instead pressed against the door, the knob slipping in my fingers as he pushed it shut. He crowded me up against the wall and his chest was against mine, the door at my back, the knob digging into my ass. He brought his arms up, placing his hands against the wall, bracketing my face. I felt the long line of his body radiating heat against mine. His face was near mine, eyes wide and bright and searching for
something
. I looked away, unable to take the closeness. He leaned forward and trailed his nose along my cheek. I sighed a low sound, unable to bite it back before it spilled out.
“We’re not together,” he said, breath hot against me. “Not really.”
“I know,” I ground out. “I despise you.”
“No you don’t.”
“I do. I have. For the longest time. Everyone knows that.”
He chuckled near my ear. “The longest time.”
“We fight.”
“We flirt.” The bass shook the door at my back.
“I can’t stand you.”
“It’s funny how you still think that.” His lips pressed against my jaw.
“We want nothing to do with each other,” and I absolutely did
not
groan.
“The list of the things I
want
would astound you.” He pressed up against me, and he was
hard
.
I refused to look at him. “This is how you do it, isn’t it?” The sound that poured from me when he started grinding against me was filthy and I thought I would vibrate out of my skin.
“Do what?” he asked as he pushed harder.
“This is how you get them. Your fucks. You press them against walls and breathe shit in their ears and they just do whatever the hell you want.”
“No, I don’t do this.” He knocked my feet apart gently, spreading my legs, and pressed his thigh up against my dick. I was still looking away from him, my ear flat against the door, hands curled into fists at my sides. “I don’t
do
this,” he said. And he
pushed
into me, teeth scraping along my neck, a whine pouring from my throat. His hips rolled and I was fucking
riding
his goddamn thigh and the friction was good, so damn good and—
“Bullshit,” I panted. “Even I’ve seen it. Seen you with a different fucking guy, doing—”
“You don’t get it, do you? I want—”
“I don’t fucking
care
what you want,” I snarled at him, turning to look at him. My nose hit his, and I felt the blatant
scratch
of barely there stubble on his chin. His pupils were dilated, and I knew he was turned on, and I knew
I
was turned on, and this could go one of two ways. I could close the minute gap between us and taste him, lick into his mouth, and just fucking
take
like I’d wanted to for years. Or I could remember my place, remember this wasn’t real, remember that not an
hour
ago, Darren had himself some fucking hipster twink pressed up against his side like it was old times, like these past weeks that had somehow meant the world to me meant absolutely nothing to him.
He pressed harder and his mouth drifted to mine.
I said, “Stop.”
He stilled. Whatever he was, he wouldn’t take something that wasn’t being offered. I knew that about him. Regardless of whatever else he was, he wasn’t that.
And I owed this to him, maybe. But more so, I owed it to myself.
I said, “Years ago, you made me feel like I was something beautiful. You made me think I was something special. And then you turned around minutes later and treated me like
trash
, like I was
beneath
you. I thought you were different, that you weren’t some meathead jock, the same ones that had been cruel. The ones that had called me a faggot and a queer and had laughed when they pushed me around. You didn’t hit me. You didn’t touch me. But you fucking
cut
me with your goddamn disdain, with your disgust at my hope that someone like
me
could ever stand a chance with someone like you. And you and your friends had a nice little laugh about it right in my face. So I turned and walked away. You fucking asshole.”
He had gone rigid against me, his breath ragged, shoulders tensed and drawn up.
“I’m doing this,” I said, “because I need you to save the bar. Nothing else. You don’t deserve anything more from me after the way you treated me. Because no one should ever be treated like they’re nothing when everyone is
something
.”
He took a step back.
I felt like I could finally breathe again.
He didn’t look at me, gaze resolutely downward.
It hurt to finally say this all out loud.
Especially to him.
After all that we’d gone through these past weeks, it fucking sucked. But I was nothing if not protective of my heart. And I couldn’t trust him to hold on to it. He was attracted to me. That much was obvious. And that was fine, because maybe I’d proven my point. It was the rest I worried about. And it was easier to push him away rather than pull him close.
When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry. I never meant—”
“That’s good,” I said. “And thank you for saying so. You should probably leave. It’s late, and I have to get home.”
“Sandy,” he said.
“Please.”
And with that one word, he looked up at me. I don’t know what he saw, but he flinched, barely. He nodded at me and his hands twitched like he wanted to reach out to me, but was able to stop it.
I said, “We’ll finish this up. We’ll do the auction. We’ll save the club. And then we’ll go our separate ways. We stick with the plan like we should have and we’ll both get what we wanted out of this. Mostly. Okay?”
I thought that’d do it. I thought he’d hear those words and be out the door and gone and I would collapse against it dramatically as the music swelled upon my realization that I was
alone
and I would always be
alone
.
Darren, though.