The Queen & the Homo Jock King (At First Sight 2)

“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.”