Tell Me It's Real(14)

“It was like you flung battery acid at my face,” I snarled at her as I followed her back up the stairs.

“You are such a drama queen,” she huffed. “It’s about fucking time something happened, and since you weren’t going to do it yourself, you left me no choice.”

“Meddlesome homo,” I muttered.

“Paul!” she snapped. She was a little pissed off, I could tell. Nobody can rage like a drag queen. “You need to come out of your shell or step into the light or whatever other clichéd metaphor you would like to use. It’s high time people got to see the real Paul Auster and love him for who he is.”

I knew I was being a bit of a whiny ass, and I knew, of course, that Helena only wanted good things for me, but I couldn’t help but feel attacked, pushed outside of my comfort zone without my consent. It rubbed me the wrong way. “I don’t want to,” I sulked. “I don’t care about stuff like that. Why can’t you accept that? I like the way things are. Besides, I’m pretty sure you are overestimating what would happen if I did what you asked. It’d probably be like expecting a beautiful butterfly to emerge from a cocoon, only to have it actually become a mentally disabled giraffe with eczema.”

Helena twitched her lips and I knew I almost had her. She’d break and laugh and hug me and tell me she loved me and then we’d go back to the way things were until the next time she got a bug up her ass. “Giraffe, hmmm?” she murmured.

“Mentally disabled,” I agreed. I leaned over and rubbed my nose against her cheek and hummed. She chuckled.

“What about that guy?” Charlie asked.

Helena reared back. “What guy?” she asked, looking suspiciously excited.

I whirled around and glared at Charlie. “I will put you in a retirement home and no one will visit you!” I hissed at him.

“What guy?” Helena barked.

“Some guy bought Paul here a shot and had Eric bring it up,” Charlie said casually, as if my threat meant nothing. Which it didn’t. “A very… fit-looking fellow.”

“Ouch,” I said, my feelings slightly hurt.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t a dig against you, boy. You need to stop thinking that everything is about you.”

“Ouch,” I said again, my feelings more hurt.

“Where is he?” Helena asked, looking down to the lower floor, where people were starting to trickle back in. “Seen him before?”

Charlie shook his head. “Fresh meat, I think. Was hanging out with Darren and his group.”

Helena looked at me, astonished. “You have a hunky jock wanting to jump your ball sac and you stayed up here?”

“He spit his shot down onto him,” Charlie said helpfully.

Helena was horrified. “You did what?” she shrieked at me, going all Xena: Warrior Lesbian on me.

“It was whiskey,” I said in my defense. “And it didn’t get on him. Mostly. It was all on Eric!”

“I think that boy gave me crabs,” Helena muttered, scratching herself obscenely.

“That’s who you were doing last month?” I said with a grimace. “Ew. Show some respect for yourself. It’s fun to have standards.”

“When was the last time you got laid?” she retorted. “Let’s go find this guy. I want to know who he is.”

I took a step back. “Uh.” I looked down at my hands and blushed, my shyness returning in full force. “No, thank you,” I mumbled.

“Paul,” she said, taking a menacing step forward in her red vinyl platform boots.

“Just drop it,” I said, not looking at her. “It wasn’t like that.”

“And how do you know that?”

I was getting mad again. Meaning I was getting whiny again. “Because guys like that don’t go for guys like me. It was a fluke. A joke. And even if it wasn’t, the lights probably played tricks on him, making him see something I’m not.”

“Paul….”

“No, Sandy,” I snapped at him, breaking one of the cardinal rules of drag: in costume, she is Helena and she is a lady. But I was too pissed to care. I could see through the makeup to the guy who’d been my best friend for as long as I could remember, and it was him I was pissed at. “I’m sick and tired of you trying to change me. Why can’t you just let me be? I like the way I am.” Okay, that last might have been a bit of a lie. “I’m sorry if you don’t, but that’s not my problem.”

His eyes flashed angrily at me, but then he seemed to deflate. “Oh, baby doll,” he said. “I think you are perfect just the way you are. I just want others to be able to see how perfect you are too.”