“What the fuck kind of list do you have?” I asked him.
The bikers leered up at him, and I had no doubt that Brian would have a good time riding their hogs. He hopped off the stage as well as someone dressed up as a geisha could, and hobbled his way over to the biker gang. They swallowed him up almost instantly into their fold, but not before I saw the blissful look on his white face.
I felt like a pimp whose first working girl found love.
It almost brought a tear to my eye.
But since I didn’t cry for whores, the tear never fell.
Besides, I had something else to focus on.
“Now,” I said into the microphone as the crowd fell into a hush before me. “I may be a tad biased when it comes to this last drag bachelor, though bachelor might be a bit of a misnomer.” More like asshole, but they didn’t need to know that. He knew it, I knew it, and really, who else mattered? The crowd chuckled, though, like they were in on the joke. Caleb too, but I tried not to look at him at all. “It was quite difficult to decide what to dress the Homo Jock King in for his drag debut. Did I go something fierce like Beyoncé? Or did I go old school and make him Barbra? So many, many choices I had for him. In the end, though, there really was no contest.”
Britney started singing overhead about how her loneliness was killing her, a remix I had the DJ put together that raised the bass and made it crawl along the walls and floor. Upon hearing the song, the audience started going nuts as the lights flashed.
“She was my first.” I grinned wickedly. “Fitting, since he’s going to be my last.” And they took that how they wanted to, sexy and romantic. And maybe I meant it like that, or at least wished to mean it like that. That little secret part of me that still hoped I could get my happy ending with the Homo Jock King.
The problem with that little part, however, was that it was attached to the bigger part of me, the one entrenched in the morbid cynicism that came with being Helena Handbasket. That part looked upon the little part with scorn and disdain, wondering how it had led me to believe I could have anything with Darren at all.
That was the part that was pushing for control at the moment. That was the part I used as a shield, maybe more so than makeup and a sharp tongue.
But it all pretty much went by the wayside when Darren stepped on the stage.
Because, honestly?
Darren Mayne did not make an attractive woman.
And it wasn’t for lack of trying, god no.
He was trying.
It was just terrible.
“Oh my god,” I choked into the microphone.
Darren—excuse me, Ms. Spears—rolled his eyes at me out from under the blonde wig, two pigtails expertly braided on either side of his head. Little pink pom-poms were attached to the top of the braids. The white button-up shirt was open all the way to the bottom, where it had been tied off across his flat stomach. Underneath he wore a black bra, stretched tight against his chest. The top was completed with a gray sweater that looked like it was about to tear at the shoulders, the fabric clinging to his biceps.
The rest of the outfit was just as ludicrous. The dark pleated schoolgirl skirt wrapped around his waist, stopping midthigh. How Paul had found a skirt that fit him like that, I didn’t know. Darren also wore black stockings that came up just above his knees. The outfit finished off with patent loafers, shiny and black, little pink bows on the top of each. Luckily, he hadn’t been forced to wear heels, otherwise, he would have been towering over everyone in the room like a muscular giraffe.
I was right, in that the contrast between the masculinity that was his normalcy meshed wonderfully with the femininity of the costume, especially his legs and thighs. The skirt was just long enough to cover his ass, but not by much, hinting at the small briefs I knew he wore underneath. However, he looked so jacked up, like he’d been bench pressing a few hundred pounds for a couple of hours before the show, that it was almost uncomfortable.
The audience didn’t give two shits about that, though.
All they cared about was the Homo Jock King in drag.
They roared their approval.
He came up to stand beside me. He covered the microphone with that big hand of his to block out the sound. He leaned over, lips near my ear, and to anyone watching, it probably looked like he was kissing me.
He wasn’t kissing me.
“I am going to kick your fucking ass for this,” he growled at me.
“Oh, bae,” I said, not even trying to stifle my delight. “Don’t lie. We both know you wouldn’t even get close enough to touch me before I took you down. Also, don’t stand with your legs bent like that. You look like you’re about to take a shit on my stage. You are supposed to be a lady, for fuck’s sake. And not just any lady, but an icon. Treat it as such.”
“Out of everything you could have chosen, you picked this?”
“Could have been worse,” I said. “You could have had to wear the ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ red catsuit.”