I Am Not Myself These Days (9 page)

The only times during my mom's visit that were awkward were when Jack got beeped. My mother would say something silly like “no rest for the weary,” or “all work, no play,” and I'd feel guilty for deceiving her. By the time Jack returned he'd have concocted a convincing story about a Saudi Arabian sheik or a prime minister's son. Too convincing. It made me realize how good Jack actually was at role playing. Obviously, that's why he makes such good money, but I'd never been on the receiving end of it, and it felt weird. I love my family, and I've never been unable to be completely honest with them before. I felt something slipping away the whole time she was here.

I'm not totally sure we'd actually duped her. She puts on the face of a simple midwestern housewife, but she can be bitingly accurate in her discernment of situations. She outed me as being gay years before I finally was ready to admit it to myself.

One day when I was in high school Mom and I were in the car driving home from the mall.

“If you were planning on living a life like your Uncle Arthur, you would feel free enough to tell me, right?” she'd asked me as we merged onto the freeway.

I wanted to ask her if she meant spending my summers in a chateau in Geneva and my winters in Provence with a fabulous circle of ex-pat artists, but instead I just said, “No, of course not, where'd you get that idea?” As if I was astounded that my being president of the Drama Club and compulsive proclivity to redecorate my room with every changing season could ever
possibly
lead her to the
completely illogical conclusion that I was gay
.

“Are you sure you're not gay?” she asked me point-blank five years later when she visited me in Atlanta.

“Well,” I hedged, “I might be bi.”

Still, this was enough for the tears to start.

“I always knew. Always,” she said.

For several months I was angry with her, and the rest of my family. If they'd always known I was gay, then why didn't anyone tell me? Take me to a few musicals or something. Send me to Uncle Arthur's for the summer. Show me that I wasn't the only freak like this in the world.

When I was ready to announce to my family that I was not bi, but a complete 100 percent Grade-A fag, I was completely underwhelmed by their response. I didn't factor in that they'd been getting used to the idea ever since I'd used Mom's Jolen Cream Bleach to highlight my hair in fifth grade.

 

“I'm actually going to miss her tomorrow,” Jack says, turning over onto his side.

“No more hobnobbing with princes and ambassadors for you.”

“Yep. Back to pig-bottoms and foot fetishes,” Jack sighs.

“I, for one, can't wait to get out of flats,” I reply.

“No more Normal Normans.”

“It was hell while it lasted,” I whisper before dropping off to sleep.

I
am not an alcoholic. I'm a social catalyst. People pay me to illustrate for other partygoers the chemical process involved in transforming from one persona into another drunker, more fun one. It's a matter of going from dull point A to exciting point B. And I'm a raving success at it. So successful that sometimes I wind up at Mysterious Point C.

Like right now. Apparently it's morning. I've just come to, and I'm lost.

Think. Think. Think.

First the obvious. I'm Aqua, and I'm lying flat on my back across the several seats of a subway car. A subway car that's aboveground. Conclusion: I'm not in Manhattan.

Good.

Well, not
good
.

But a good first step.

Okay, the sign indicates it's an F train. This means I'm either in Brooklyn or Queens. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I'm finding the edge pieces first.

It's early in the morning. Probably Sunday. These facts are born out by the presence of a Hispanic family sitting way down at the opposite end of the car from me. They're the only other people in the train car, and the little girls are dressed in frilly lace dresses and holding white books with big gold crosses on the front of them.

They're staring at me. I suppose for good reason. When they were filing out the door this morning in their Sunday best, they probably had no idea that they would get into a subway car with a six-foot guy in a huge blond wig with fish in his breasts and stubble growing through his foundation. From my reclining position, I give them a slight finger wave with my silver elbow-length gloved hands. This ends their staring.

My head is throbbing and my stomach feels like it could rupture and send bile out of every orifice on my body—including my navel. This means I've probably been drinking heavily at some point in the not too distant past. Of course that could just as easily have been concluded from the “waking up lying down across subway seats” portion of the morning.

I give myself a once-over, a feat easily accomplished by raising my head slightly off the hard orange plastic seat. I'm wearing my Jane Jetson outfit—a silver stretch vinyl top, turquoise water for the fish, and a silver miniskirt that's currently hiked up enough to generously show off my matching silver thong. A quick check on the fish shows them happily swimming around in the morning sun.

And one of my silver glitter seven-inch platform shoes is missing. Hmmm. I'm going to put that mystery aside for the moment. Perhaps after I've had some coffee.

Okay. No blood or bruising. Happy Happy Sunday.
See, Hispanic Bible Kids, God loves drag queens too
.

Now, I'm not going to panic because my bag with my money and ID is bound to be tucked away safely under the seat.

Only it's not under the seat.

Thankfully I still have a little buzz going or this could really be disconcerting.

Silver lining: I'm already on the subway so I don't
really need
any cash anyway. I'll simply get off at the next stop and get on a train heading back into town.

Some people might get obsessed with figuring out how they wound up on the F train in drag, with no bag and only one shoe, but that's simply not my style. What's done is done. I'm sure I had my reasons.

I pull myself up with a little help from the pole and wait for the train to pull into the next stop. The Hispanic family is leering again. As the train pulls into the station I stand and hobble over to the door. Before I exit, I turn to the family and bestow a papal blessing on them with an outstretched gloved arm.

Dignity is in short supply as I board the Manhattan-bound train back. Thankfully there's a bedraggled homeless person in the car. I sit as close to him as I can stand, given the smell, hoping that when people stare at me, they might at least think, “Well, at least she's better off than the homeless guy next to her.”

Two hours, three transfers, and one pit stop to vomit into a trash can later, I'm hobbling down Second Avenue toward home. It's actually a beautiful morning. When my mother left a week ago it was unseasonably cold and rainy, but this morning is bright and clear and warm. This is fortunate since I barely have any clothes on. Will my luck ever run out?

I may have to admit to myself that I went a little bit overboard this weekend. Perhaps I had a little bit of Aqua backlog in me after my mother's visit and I had to get it out of my system. But it's a lovely Indian summer morning, I have all day to recover, and I'm sure Jack's at home waiting for me with a fresh pot of coffee.

I pick up the
New York Times
outside our door and ring our bell, since my keys are in my missing bag.

“Who is it?” comes an unfamiliar hoarse voice from the other side. I double-check the apartment number in case I've gotten off on the wrong floor.

“It's me. Aqua. Lemme in,” I shout back.

There's a rustling inside, and as it gets closer there's a sound like somebody throwing themselves against the door. More rustling, and what sounds like metal scratching against the door, and finally after much effort the deadbolt clicks open. A thud as whoever it is slides down and hits the floor, and then, “Come on in.”

I turn the knob and open the door. Houdini is lying on the floor of the foyer, naked, handcuffed and hogtied in his usual manner.

“Hey. How ya doin. Thanks for getting the door,” I say.

“No problem,” he says, as though using one's teeth to manipulate a deadbolt while one's hands and feet are tied behind one's back didn't require a superhuman level of concerted effort.

I step over him and put the paper on the kitchen counter. No coffee. Shit.

“Aidan's not here?” I ask, remembering to use Jack's work name.

“He had another call,” Houdini replies.

“You're an awfully generous man to let him date other people,” I tell him.

“I needed a break. Hey, can you cut some lines down here for me?”

It's the least I can do for the guy, given what he went through to get the door open. I grab the packet and blade on the kitchen counter and divide three lines for him on the parquet floor.

“That enough for you?” I ask.

“For now, thanks.”

“Do you want me to untie you?”

“NO! Aidan would kill me!”

Wishful thinking,
I think to myself while I get a bowl of fresh water for the guy. I head into my bathroom to begin the hour-long chore of getting out of Aqua.

I'm starving by the time I'm through. All I can think about is a greasy bacon, egg, and cheese roll from the deli downstairs. Except that my missing bag had all the cash I had to my name.

“Hey, do you by any chance have a few bucks you could lend me? I'll pay you back when Aidan gets home,” I ask Houdini.

“Sure. My wallet's in my pants. I think Aidan put them in the hall closet. It's mostly pounds, but I think I have a few American dollars in there. Help yourself,” Houdini replies.

I can't believe I'm taking money from a guy tied up on my floor. It's like an absurdist crime scene. Strange man enters home, gets tied up, resident leaves, strange man opens door for roommate, roommate steals all his money.

“Do you want anything?”

“No, I'm fine. Thanks.” The coke is doing its job. Houdini follows my movements with anxious flitting eyes.

I call in my breakfast order and grab the paper before heading into the living room. I'm exhausted, but I know if I go to sleep now I'll wake up this evening and not be able to sleep all night. I'm halfway through the Styles section when I consider calling back the deli to add tomato juice to my order so I can make myself a Bloody Mary. It'll help smooth out the day a little.

When breakfast comes, I can only open the door a few inches so the delivery guy won't see the tied-up naked guy in our foyer.

“Sure you don't want any?” I ask Houdini again, the polite midwestern hostess in me taking over.

“Nah, I'm fine,” he replies. “Can you help me get into the living room, though? I'd like to lie on the futon a bit. I'm getting cramps.”

I help him get semi-upright and he crawls on his knees into the living room. I grab a plate and follow him. He keels over on the cushion next to my chair.

“Want some of the paper?” I ask.

“I'm fine. I'll just wait for Aidan to get back.”

“How long are you here for?”

“Just a day and a half. I go back late tonight. On the redeye,” he answers.

“What do you do over there? Do you mind my asking?”

“I'm CEO of a specialty foods distributor,” he answers.

“Aidan told me you're married.”

“Twenty-two years. Three kids, a daughter, and two sons.”

“Nice,” I say, not sure how to continue a casual conversation with a sky-high, bound-up, naked CEO. I go back to my paper.

“What do
you
do?” Houdini asks me a little later.

“Well, I'm a drag queen at night and an advertising art director by day,” I reply.

“That sounds fun.”

“Which?” I ask.

“Both,” he replies.

“Not really,” I sigh.

“Which ‘not really'?”

“Neither.”

“Neither?”

“N-I-ther.”

“Let's call the whole thing off.” So Houdini's a funnyman. I never would have guessed.

“How long have you been dating Aidan?” he asks.

I add it up in my head.

“Only about three months,” I say.

“And you don't mind what he does for a living?”

“Does your wife mind what you do for fun?”

“She doesn't know about it,” he says.

“Well, I'm one up on you there.”

“Aidan's really good at what he does,” Houdini says. “I've tried a lot of people. Masters, Mistresses. All around the world. He's the best.”

This makes me proud. The best dominating, humiliating, physically abusive whore in the world is mine. All mine. Almost makes me wish I were into getting beat up, just to take full advantage of his talents.

“What makes him so good?” I ask.

“I dunno. He just never lets up. Sometimes even when I'm at home I feel like he still owns me. It's just a residue in my mind all the time. Like I can't fuck up or he'll know.”

“I know the feeling,” I say, and then pushing harder, “Why do you do this anyway?”

“I don't know. I really don't. It's just a different place in my head. Where everyone isn't saying ‘yes' to me all the time,” he says. “And I like the drugs.”

“Fair enough.”

“Why do you dress in drag?” he asks me.

“It's just a different place in my head…and I like the free booze.”

“Maybe I'll take a section of that paper now,” Houdini says, “only you'll have to promise to take it away as soon as Aidan gets back.”

“Deal.” I spread the Business section out on the coffee table in front of him so that he can turn the pages with his teeth.

Houdini and I spend the rest of the morning this way, as if I had an old friend over for brunch. I trade out sections of the Sunday paper for him as he's ready, and we read each other interesting bits of articles we're reading. The Saatchi gallery in London has an exhibit we find interesting, and he invites me to visit there with him if I ever find myself in London.

Occasionally, while I'm reading something I catch him out of the corner of my eye struggling against the wrist restraints behind his back. I don't think he's even aware he's doing it. Just a subtle straining and rhythmic twisting of his forearms against the leather. I'm a little jealous of him. Such a straightforward manifestation of his subconscious. Embracing his trap. Knowing what he's fighting against. People spend thousands of dollars on psychologists and doctors every year of their entire lives just trying to find out what's holding them back while their mysterious enemy slowly decimates their day-to-day lives. Houdini shells out a few grand every couple of months, confronts his demon, and heads back to his successful life stronger than before. He makes it seem so simple—on a par with exercising regularly and eating right.

I give in and have a small vodka shortly after noon. Lying on the couch in my underwear, the cool breeze from the window skips across my skin and I close my eyes and listen to the muted traffic noises far below. Houdini's still wide awake from the three more lines of coke I cut him between the Week in Review and the Travel sections. Without any pen or free hands to hold one, he's silently pondering the crossword puzzle as I slip softly into a deep nap, thinking of the city, and its spaces, and the lulling waves of Sunday happening all around me. For a split second before I fall asleep I realize I'm totally relaxed.