Tell Me It's Real (3 page)

What’s funny about Sandy is that when he
is
Sandy, he’s quiet and unassuming. He sometimes stutters over his words and he can be shy, almost as much as I am. He tends to watch people rather than contributing to conversation. Some might think him cold, but he’s really just listening. When he does speak, his words are carefully chosen. We grew up together, and when we got old enough, he dragged me into the gay bar scene, even though I would have rather had bamboo shunts shoved under my fingernails than be in a large group of people. He said it would be good for the both of us, though there were plenty of times we ended up as wallflowers—standing and not speaking much while sucking down vodka cranberries.

But when she’s Helena Handbasket? Holy. Shit. When she’s in full-on drag, you would swear to God she is the biggest fucking diva in the history of the world. Her costumes are completely outrageous, and a testament to the amount of time we spent pawing through thrift stores and the fact that he’s a wiz with a sewing machine.

She moves with the fluid grace of a trained dancer and can lip-synch with the best of them, but it’s her trademarked snarl, as she tears through her routines, that sets her apart. Sandy Stewart might be a quiet twenty-nine-year-old man, but Helena is a hard-core bitch who doesn’t take shit from anyone. It took me a bit to get used to the whole split-personality thing that most drag queens seem to have, but once I did I never looked back.

You’re probably wondering if Sandy and I were ever anything more than best friends. Eh. For maybe, like, two seconds. We got drunk one night at his old apartment and started making out, which somehow led to all of our clothes on the floor. When we realized that we were both bottoms, and didn’t feel like bumping assholes, we decided we were better best friends than boyfriends. Sandy’s brutally protective of me. Everyone knows not to mess with Helena’s “bitch boy,” as he calls me affectionately. Bastard. He’s all class, that one.

Even when he’s reaching to tape his balls to his taint.

“I don’t know why I watch every time you do that,” I said to him. “You look like you’re trying to fist yourself and it’s not going too well.”

He gave a little huff. “It’s the most unladylike thing about becoming a lady,” he said, giving his wrist a little twist.

“It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again,” I intoned.

“That stopped being funny the first thousand times you said it,” he grumbled at me. “Keep saying it and I
will
put you in a hole in my basement.”

“You don’t have a basement,” I said, trying to smooth out the feathers on the boa he wore during his opening number.

“I’ll dig one,” he promised. “Lace me, please.”

He turned, the white skin of his slender back facing me. I slid my fingers through the ties of the corset, pulling them tight, cinching each one up tight like I knew he liked. It helped create the illusion of cleavage so he wouldn’t have to wear falsies in this outfit. Once he added a little blush to his chest for shadowing effect, it’d look like he was rocking some knockers.

“You going to come down and watch?” he murmured, then looked in the mirror to fix the makeup around his eyes.

I sighed. “Not tonight,” I said quietly. “I’ll just stay up here and watch your show, okay?” I didn’t want to go down and mingle with all the hot boys and men who wouldn’t even look at me twice. If you ever want to find out if you’re attractive or not, go to a gay bar. Within the first five minutes of walking in on a busy night, trust me, you’ll know whether you’re hot. I was one of those that could slip through the crowd without anyone trying to stop me by grabbing my ass, or smiling wickedly and asking if they could buy me a drink. The only reason anyone ever looked at me is because of Helena.

Oh, man. I sound way bitter. I’m not, I promise. It’s just how things are. I don’t question them anymore. I just don’t like being reminded of it constantly. The only reason I went to Jack It as much as I did was because Helena performed on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

He sighed too, but it sounded sharp with exasperation, and I knew “he” was slipping into “she.” Sandy took my shit for the most part. Helena thought I was an idiot. “You know,” she said (yes, definitely
she
by the tone of her voice), “the more you hide out up here, the less you’ll be seen.”

“That’s kind of the point,” I reminded her, finishing with the corset.

Helena glared at me in the reflection of the mirror as she handed me a makeup brush to put a bit of glitter on her shoulders. “That’s
not
the point,” she growled at me, her voice going low and throaty. Yep. Helena was here. “How many times do I have to tell you that you are perfect just the way you are?”

I fought against the need to roll my eyes. “You’re a bit biased,” I reminded her, making sure her shoulders sparkled beautifully. She’d look like a disco ball with fabulous legs by the time I was finished. “You going to open with ‘Poker Face’?”

She wasn’t fooled by my feeble attempt to distract her. “Two songs,” she said. “Come down for two songs. Stand amongst the other boys and girls and let yourself feel like you’re a part of something instead of staying up here in your tower.”

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”

“Be serious for one damn minute,” she snapped at me, eyes blazing. She was pissed at my evasiveness yet again.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, trying not to sound hurt.

“Other shoulder, please,” she said. I move to her other side. “I want you to say that you’ll try. I want you to say that you’ll do something different. I want you to say that you’ll allow yourself to take a chance.” She leaned forward to wipe away a smudge of mascara clumped in the corner of her eye. “You’re not getting any younger, Paul. As a matter of fact, on
today
of all days, I would think you’d want to turn over a new leaf.”

I scowled at her, not bothering to reply. I don’t even want to think about today, but once Helena Handbasket got going, it was best to keep your mouth shut or she’d trample all over you. I learned that the hard way. Repeatedly.

Her eyes soften in the mirror. “Honey, I just want you to be happy.”

“I
am
happy,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “I have you and Wheels. My parents are still alive. My grandmother made a deal with the devil, so
she’s
still alive. I have a job and my own house. My car is paid off. What more could a guy ask for?”

“Hope,” Helena Handbasket said. “You could ask for some hope.”

Ew. Gross.

I rolled my eyes. “You just after-school-specialed all over my face.”

“Someone has to,” she retorted. “Nothing else is going all over your face.”

“You don’t think that’s hot, do you?” I asked, stepping back, making sure her shoulders shone evenly.

“What? Spunk on your face?”

“Yeah. I know it’s supposed to be pornographically hot, but isn’t there just something kind of gross about getting frosted like that?”

Helena leaned forward to fix her false eyelashes in the mirror. “Ruins my makeup,” she muttered. “Those queen chasers think its
sooo
hot to see my makeup run when they nut on me. It gets them off even more, for some reason. I can’t stand it.”

“But you do it?”

She shrugged tightly. “Might as well. Helena likes herself some cock.”

And that right there was another difference between my best friend and his alter ego. Sandy wasn’t the type to let a guy nut on his face (sorry for the overuse of the word “nut”; “ejaculation” makes it sound so clinical). As a matter of fact, I don’t think Sandy has ever had a guy do that to him while he’s Sandy. Sandy’s more like me than Helena is, although since Helena would do things that Sandy wouldn’t even consider, I don’t think that can be considered hypocritical. You can’t call a drag queen hypocritical because they have two different personalities. It’s like Clark Kent becoming Superman. Except a whole lot gayer. Okay, actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably like Clark Kent becoming Superman and then going into the phone booth and stepping out as Wonder Woman.
That’s
pretty damn gay.

Oh, by the way, I might also be a comic book nerd, for those of you keeping score of just how cool I am.

Anyway, Sandy wouldn’t ever do that, but Helena? I can say with no reservations that Helena is a
whore
. For some reason, whenever Dr. Jekyll turns into Mrs. Hyde, the gloves come off (and then, if we’re speaking honestly, the rubber gloves get pulled on; apparently Helena is very kinky that way). There are some guys, the queen chasers, that while still gay/bi/whatever, love to see lipstick marks around their dicks. And who else can provide such a service but a drag queen who has lipstick colors named things like “Dick Lip Red”
and
“Prussian Blue Balls”?

The queen chasers understand that queens like Helena aren’t
exactly
women, but for some reason their kink is to
see
her as one. Apparently there are quite a few married men out there who want to get their rocks off with an illusion. To each their own, I guess. Helena doesn’t talk about it a whole lot, and I try not to ask.

“Yeah, well, you can have some cock for the both of us,” I told her. “I’m fine just the way things are.”

“I know you are,” she snapped. “And that’s the problem. You’ve become complacent. Stuck in your routine.”

“This whole tough-love thing is kind of hard to take seriously when you just taped your balls back in front of me,” I said.

Helena stood up and gave herself one last look over. “Go ahead, Paul. Make jokes. Brush it off like you always do. But deep down, you know I’m right. I harp on you because I love you and I worry. I don’t want to see you alone and full of regret after having wasted your life by shying away from the chances you could have taken.”

“How could I possibly be alone?” I asked her quietly as I tried to look away. “I’ve got you.”

She looked at me in the mirror for a moment before turning her sad, expertly sparkled eyes to me. She stayed rooted where she was, but leaned forward and kissed me gently on the cheek. I knew she’d left the perfect imprint of lips there, like she was Marilyn Monroe and the most perfect specimen of womanhood ever. “And you will always have me,” she whispered in a throaty voice. “I love you, baby doll.”

I grinned at her. “I love you too.” And I did. I do.

“How does Momma look?” She stood up straight and preened and posed in front of me.

“Like the hottest, most fiercest thing to ever walk the face of the earth,” I told her in all seriousness. “There was never one more beautiful than you.”

“You’re too good to me,” she breathed dramatically. “What would I ever do without you?”

“Find another homo to stroke your ego?”

“No one strokes me like you do,” she purred. “You sure I can’t convince you to come down?”

I shook my head. “I’ll just stay up here with Charlie.” Charlie heard his name mentioned and grunted at us. He’s the old guy who handles the spotlight and video camera for the drag performances. “You’ll be my boyfriend for tonight, won’t you, Daddy?” I called over to him.

“Whatever you say, boy,” he rumbled at me without even looking. We all think he used to be some big Tom of Finland leather queen back in the day, though no one knows for sure. He’s got to be in his seventies or eighties now, but you can still see the striking big man buried under all that saggy skin. I’m one of the few people who can get away with calling him Daddy. There’s nothing sexual about it; I just think it makes him feel better. I do what I can for the elderly.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered to Helena. “He called me ‘boy’ again. Maybe this will be the start to our beautiful D/s relationship and I’ll call him Master or Sir and we’ll live out the rest of our sadomasochistic days together in perfect fisting harmony. My asshole is all aquiver just thinking about it.”

Helena gave a very unladylike snort. “Yeah, I remember when you thought the Dom/sub route was going to be your next big thing. That leather daddy bent you over his knee to give you your first spanking, and you tried to lecture him with statistics on domestic abuse in Arizona.”

I scowled. “It’s not
my
fault he misinterpreted my intentions.
I
just wanted to get tied up for a bit. How was I to know he was going to go all hard core the first time around?”

“Oh, darling,” she sighed. “If spanking is hard core to you, then it’s probably a good idea he didn’t introduce you to a cock cage to start out with.”

“I don’t even want to know what that is,” I assured her, even though I kind of did. A cage? For your
cock
? Like it was some sort of chicken?

“Helena, you’re up in two,” Charlie called over his shoulder.

“Showtime,” she said as she took a deep breath.

“Break a falsie.”

She flashed me a wicked grin before she headed down the stairs.

I listened to make sure there was no
thump thump thump
, the telltale sign of a drag queen in high heels falling down the stairs. There wasn’t, so
I moved to the balcony that overlooked the dance floor and stage and sat down next to Charlie.

“You going to need that spanking, boy?” he asked me with a twitch to his lips.

“Oh, Daddy,” I said as I blushed.

Moments later, she took the stage and the show was on. I’m sure you’re thinking that if you’ve seen even one drag queen perform Lady Gaga before, then you know what to expect. But it’s not even close. There’s just something about Helena that forces you to watch her work the stage and the runway, stealing kisses in exchange for dollar bills. Drag is not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re an athletic performer like Helena. It’s more than just strutting about and lip-syncing. It’s
art
. It’s
performance
. And, in the case of my best friend, it’s also
gymnastics
, and I winced slightly as she did a cartwheel and then fell into a full-on split during the middle of “Poker Face.” Of course, the crowd went wild, and I was probably the only one worried about her balls. But, as the best friend, if I didn’t worry about them, then who would?