Of Being Yours[another way 2] (3 page)

“Two beers and a plate of wings, please.”

“No problem,” she said with a laugh.

Will flicked my outstretched palm teasingly. “Am I really that predictable?”

“No, I’m just really in the mood for wings and hot sauce.”

“Have you finalized plans for the summer yet?” Will asked.

The waitress delivered our beers and I smiled at her in thanks.

“Yeah. Mama wanted us to stay with her again, but after the disaster of Thanksgiving last year, I said we’d stay with friends.”

“Hotel?”

“You got it. I wanted to try and coordinate it with when my sister isn’t so busy with her degree and she’ll have some time off over the summer. I think she still has to work, though.”

“Flights?”

“Done,” I said.

“Good boy.”

We polished off the plate of wings, then a burger each, watched the Yankees win, and decided to leave before one beer became three and neither of us was able to drive our carful of sequins home. And what a shame that would be.

We were walking back to the car when a familiar little body and sleek red ponytail caught my eye.

“Adele!”

Will glared at me as I smiled down at my ex-girlfriend. She was with a new guy, one I didn’t recognize, and it was clear that she was
together
 with him due to the possessive gleam in his eye and his hand on the middle of her back.

“Hey, Jesse,” she said.

I leaned down and kissed her cheek quickly. There was no love lost between us; we occasionally ran into each other—it was a small city, after all—but we were far from being friends. Still, we were polite.

“This is Seth.”

“Hi,” he said, offering his hand. I shook it and raised my eyebrow at his firm grip. He obviously knew who I was since she didn’t offer any introductions.

“How are you?” I asked as Will introduced himself to Seth as my partner. Even after all this time, it lodged a ball of warmth in the base of my spine that we were able to do that.

“Good,” she said. “Busy.” She looked up at Seth. “We’re expecting a baby.”

“Oh, that’s fantastic,” I enthused and spotted the ring on her finger. “Congratulations.”

“Do you two have any plans for kids?” Seth asked. He seemed genuine rather than condescending, so I answered.

“No,” I said at the same time Will said the same thing. We looked at each other and laughed.

“No,” he repeated. “We’re happy just the two of us.”

Seth nodded, appeased.

“Well, it was nice to see you again,” I said, deciding from Will’s tone that he didn’t want to linger.

“Good luck with the baby.”

“I’m sure we’ll need it,” Adele said, smiling. “Bye, guys.”

Back in the car, I got the impression Will wasn’t too pleased.

“What?” I demanded of him.

“Nothing.”

“Oh, don’t start that with me, Anderson,” I warned him. “What’s going on?”

“I just don’t like her, that’s all,” he said. I let him drive in silence for a few minutes, sure that eventually he’d elaborate. “She’s all settled down and having kids and stuff and we’re not.”

I snorted in amusement. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous? We don’t want children. And you’d look silly with a diamond ring.”

“I’m not jealous,” he protested. “It’s just not fair how easy it is for them.”

“It’s not,” I agreed. “But I’m not bothered about being married to you. We’d both want to keep our own names, anyway. Neither of us is interested in having kids yet. This”—I held up my wrist—“is far more important.”

The blue-and-gold collar had finally snapped after years of being tied around my wrist. It had been subjected to sun and wind and rain, daily washing, various bodily fluids, and a brief stay in the hospital when I’d broken my other wrist while playing a game of pickup basketball with kids in the park. Will had threatened the nurses with actual bodily harm when they’d said they needed to cut it off—apparently the physical representation of our relationship was “unsanitary.”

I watched with a mixture of trepidation and excitement as the threads grew thinner and thinner until finally, when we were cooking dinner one night (it had survived the huge session beforehand, somehow), it snapped. With my heart in my throat, I held up the tattered string for Will’s inspection.

“Oh,” he said softly. Then he pulled out the new one, which he’d clearly been carrying around in his pocket for days; black and silver this time. We ate together, then discussed our relationship over washing the dishes, decided we were both deliriously happy, and exchanged “I love yous” as he secured the new collar around my wrist. It was only when it had been replaced that I realized how much I’d missed it in the hour the old one had been off.

“Mine,” he said, breaking me from my distraction as we pulled up outside the house. “You’re mine.”

“I belong to you, Will. I don’t need diamond rings or babies to prove that.”

He leaned over and kissed me possessively, just like I needed him to.

W
HEN
Laura, my former Domme and a good friend to both of us, found out what our plans for the benefit were, she immediately assigned herself the task of makeup artist for the pair of us. Her twin daughters were at an age where they were happy to be left with Daddy (or better yet, a babysitter), meaning she was free to spend a couple of hours at our house.

Will had convinced me that the concept of dressing up would be easier if we had “characters” for the evening, so we’d styled ourselves as the Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly of the drag world. Will had a short black sequined dress, and I had landed the red-fringed number, 1920s flapper-style. I had refused to remove the hair on my arms or chest, since no one could be absolutely sure how it would grow back, but bowed to peer pressure and shaved my legs. Now
there
was an experience I had no desire to repeat.

“False nails need to be the last thing you put on,” Laura said as she attached tarantula-esque false eyelashes to Will’s face. “Otherwise you won’t be able to pull your panties up.”

“Thanks for that mental image,” I groaned.

I was absorbed with the task of painting my toenails—blood red, of course. Laura had already decorated my eyes with heavy lines and shadows, the color reaching up to my eyebrows and almost to my hairline on either side of my face. My lipstick was a color described on the tube as “Hooker Red,” which filled me with nothing but gut-churning confidence.

When we were finally fixed up after several hours of work, we stood in the kitchen, heels and wigs and dresses in place, squirming and shuffling to try and get comfortable. Laura took one look at us and cracked up laughing.

“Okay, I need to get a look at this,” Will said, pushing past her and out into the hall, where we had an almost full-length mirror. “Oh dear Lord.”

I was halfway out of the kitchen, watching my boyfriend try to pluck his underwear from his ass crack using his false nails, when I caught sight of myself.

“Oh dear Lord.” It was worse than I thought. And I had assumed it was pretty bad. So that was saying something.

When we reached the club that was the location of the benefit, the music was already pumping and the line of men dressed in street wear was long.

“I didn’t know we had the option of not dressing up,” I hissed to Will as I attempted to negotiate getting out of a cab without flashing my underwear.

He just laughed. “Yes, you did. But queens get to skip the line and a free glass of champagne at the door.”

“Whoop-de-do,” I said sarcastically.

We were treated to whistles and catcalls, which were slightly expected, and the flashes of cameras, which definitely wasn’t.

Will rolled his eyes and grabbed my hand. “It’s for a good cause, baby. Now smile.”

He groped my ass and I yelped, then tossed my head in a huff and showed the photographers some leg. I was possibly the least-convincing woman of all time; I couldn’t get the hang of walking in heels, and my underwear was so fucking tight, I felt like my balls were in danger of crawling back inside my body.

I took my complimentary champagne and tossed it back, draining the glass in one gulp and then slamming it back on the tray. The waiters were from a company called “Butlers in the Buff,” which was also sponsoring the event. They were young, toned, tanned, clearly gay, and very, very naked. Champagne Guy was wearing a bow tie, starched white cuffs at his wrists, and socks with suspenders holding them up. And some very shiny shoes that reflected what was directly above them.

I couldn’t help but pinch his ass as I headed for the bar, something he was clearly used to, as he barely flinched. Now if that wasn’t evidence of my new confidence in my sexuality, I don’t know what else could be.

Will joined me at the bar and followed my lead in throwing back a shot of tequila. Then another.

“Are you okay?” he asked, shouting over the noise of The Weather Girls.

“Yeah,” I yelled back. “I need to drink.”

“Would you like a Blow Job?” another Buff Butler behind the bar asked.

“A what?” I asked.

“A Blow Job. It’s a cocktail.”

“A cocktail,” I murmured as Will giggled next to me. “Two.”

We sipped the vile concoctions as we mingled, shaking the hands of prominent businessmen and friends who appreciated my little extra touch of a hand pistol tucked into my garter belt (which was unfortunately sliding down my smooth, hair-free legs and fucking difficult to hitch back up again due to the fake nails.)

A large picture of Marcus “Ms. Fabulous” Marconi, dressed in all his finest queen glamor and pulling it off a hell of a lot better than I was, dominated the back wall of the club. The reason why we were putting ourselves through this hit me like a punch to the gut; Marcus would probably be in the hospital for a few more months while he recovered.

“Come on,” I said to Will, taking his hand. “Dance with me.”

There were plenty of other people on the dance floor, although we were two of the tallest. Especially when the hair was taken into consideration. Quite quickly we got separated, and each of us seemed to find one of the many smooth young boys who seemed to be bouncing around the place decked out in silver shorts and angel wings.

We were all just one big gay cliché tonight.

“I don’t usually go for women,” a kid shouted up at me over the beat of the music. “But you’re gorgeous.”

I threw my head back and laughed, then patted his ass reassuringly. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m taken.”

He pouted and gave me big puppy eyes. I dragged him to the bar to cheer him up.

“Has my pet acquired a pet?” a familiar voice asked over my shoulder. I’d hoisted the boy, Jeff, up onto the bar, and he sat there happily, drinking something vividly pink through a straw and swinging his feet back and forth.

“It appears that way,” I said, turning in for a kiss that never happened. The eyelashes got in the way.

“You’re pretty too,” Jeff piped up.

“You should see me out of the dress,” Will teased him. “I’m even better underneath.”

Jeff swallowed visibly.

“Come on,” Will continued. “Entertainment will start in a minute. You don’t want to miss it.”

“Coming?” I asked Jeff.

He smiled lasciviously and slurped the rest of his drink. “Hopefully.”

I dragged him off the bar and through the club to where a stage had been set up, complete with dramatic spotlight and red velvet curtains. The room was packed, but there were a few tables left around the sides of the room. Jeff sat on my lap. Neither Will nor I made any attempt to move him.

The lights dimmed, and as a guy in a tux played a pretty piano riff, the curtain came up, revealing yet another elaborately dressed queen.

“Hey, lady, you, lady, cursing at your life, you’re a discontented mother and a regimented wife.”

“
Priscilla
,” Will whispered to me knowingly.

“What?”

“
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
,” Jeff said, looking shocked. He turned to Will. “Don’t tell me you let him be a queen for the night and didn’t even make him watch
Priscilla
? Scandalous.”

The singer draped herself over the baby grand piano, singing about her past conquests, as Will reached across the table and took my hand in his. “Love you,” he mouthed at me. I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face.

Later in the evening, I lost Jeff for a few minutes and managed to corner Will at the bar.

“Do you want to bring him home with us?” he asked me with his hand low on my back.

“Hmm? Who?”

“Jeff,” he said. “Do you want to bring him home?”

My jaw dropped. “Do you?”

“I don’t mind.”

“We should probably discuss this sort of thing when we’re sober,” I said, knowing I was feeling the effects of the alcohol.

He shrugged and fingered the thread around my wrist. “I’m not jealous of him. You two are cute together.”

“How would we do it?”

“However you want,” he said, tucking his fingers under my bracelet. “For fun, for one night only, let’s just throw all the rules out the window. I’m confident enough in us that if there are issues that come out of it, we can handle it.”

I smiled and leaned in to kiss his cheek, leaving a waxy red mark as evidence. “I’ll go find him.”

T
HE
three of us piled out of the club and into a waiting taxi, Jeff in between Will and me in the backseat. I’d offered to get his jacket, but apparently he hadn’t worn one. The driver looked more than a little amused at the sight of two drag queens and a cherubic twink in his car.

“We need to shower,” I said, apologizing to Jeff as Will let us into the house.

“Can I watch?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

“Sure,” Will told him. I was too busy groaning in pleasure as I removed my high-heeled shoes, my feet finally relaxing as they fell flat for the first time in hours.

“You have a really nice house,” Jeff said as we led him up to the bathroom, removing clothes and tossing them wherever in our drunken need to get clean.

“Thanks,” Will said. “Can I ask you something?”