Killer Queen: A Painted Faces Novel

  I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. In fact, I would be devastated if she were ever hurt. The realisation was sobering.

  The day had been a long one, so when I had her in bed, I stripped off, crawled in beside her, and fell asleep almost instantly. The next morning when I woke up, I savoured the fact that Fred’s scent was everywhere. Sometime during the night our bodies had become entangled, her thigh thrown over mine.

  Her closeness felt electric to me, and I was growing more turned on by the second as I breathed in her smell.

  I mean, morning wood aside, could you blame me for being aroused? I moved my face into her neck and breathed in deep, then wrapped my arms around her waist to pull her closer. I’d stripped down to nothing before going to bed last night, and quite deviously I had done the same to Fred. It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea at the time, because Fred was completely drunk, and I was a little tipsy.

  Right now, though, in the bright light of the morning sun, it almost felt too intimate. My heart thumped, and I suddenly felt out of breath. My feelings for her right then took the wind out of my sails. I felt her stir and then press her lips against my skin in a soft kiss.

  “Morning,” she said, and I blinked my eyes open. She looked gorgeous, her pretty golden browns staring up at me. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of makeup, and her beauty was hard to take. I’d always been attracted to pretty things, wanted to possess them, but I had never wanted to possess another human being like I wanted to possess Fred.

  Her breasts moved against me, and that was it — I had to have her. I crawled on top of her, settling myself between her open thighs. My cock rubbed against her centre, and the feel of us skin on skin was incredible. I stared right into her eyes, moving her hair out of her face so I could see her. She was all up in my head, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  Honestly, it was terrifying.

  She owned me so completely, and I’d never liked being at someone else’s mercy. I felt like her rejection could destroy my very soul.

  I took her in, my face drawn into a frown, because I vaguely wondered if fucking her was a good idea. If I felt this obsessed with her now, then what would it be like when sex was added to the equation? Being inside a woman was a wonderful thing, but I thought that being inside Freda could have the power to unravel the carefully constructed pattern I’d created for so many years. I fucked with little in the way of emotion.

  With Fred, I felt too much.

  “What is it about you...?” I murmured, but didn’t finish the sentence.

  She moved beneath me, causing our skin to collide once more. I groaned. “This is...dangerous.”

  “Probably,” she agreed, the word more air than sound.

  “I want to be inside you, Freda.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she softly moaned, biting on her lip.

  “What do you want?”

  “I think I want the same as you.”

  “Fuck,” I swore, because I knew there was no stopping me now. I moved my hips so that my cock lined up with her entrance and then slowly began to push inside. Her gasp infiltrated my senses. I was breathless — the feeling of her wrapped around me was my undoing. I claimed her mouth, languorously sucking on her bottom lip as I filled her, catching it between my teeth before letting it go.

  “Wow,” I breathed, not taking my eyes off her for a single moment. “You feel so tight, so good.”

  I started to rock back and forth then, still slow, savouring how she sheathed me. Her sweet little sighs filled the room, and I knew in that moment that we weren’t fucking, we were making love. I felt like running away and never leaving all at once.

  I kept up the tender, steady pace. Slow sex had never felt so good. I was aware of every tiny movement, and what was usually quick and simple became drawn out and…complicated. The way I felt when I was inside her did a number on me. I knew I was never going to be the same again. I was never going to be able to get enough of this.

  Just. This.

  “Fuuuuuck,” I swore as I pumped deep into her. Our gazes met, locked, and a silent communication passed between us. She wanted more now, and I was happy to give it to her. I started to move in earnest, my hips jutting in and out, fucking her hard and working her up into a frenzy.

  “Nicholas,” she cried out, gripping the sheets tightly in her fists.

  I held her at the waist, lost in my own need. We weren’t using protection. I could feel every inch of her, and it was maddening. Moving one hand from her hip, I softly gripped her neck. I’d always loved that part of a woman, so elegant, so fragile.

  Her pleasured gasp told me she liked it. I had no intention of choking her, but holding her in this way made me feel like I owned her, and I needed that. I needed to feel in control, because my emotions were losing the run of themselves.

  “I love your body. I love your breasts....” I said, like I was making a vow.

  “Please,” she begged me.

  “You like this?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I like it, too.”

  “I need you,” she whispered then, and it surprised me because I’d been thinking the exact same thing.

  “I need you, too,” I replied with an extreme level of intensity, and then I was coming inside her. It was the best thing I’d ever felt; it made me feel the most crazed but at the same time the most sane I’d ever been in my life. I let my face fall to her neck. It was my safe place, my refuge. I could have lived forevermore between the beauty mark on her neck and the freckle on her collarbone quite happily.

  “You’re so beautiful,” I told her, pressing kisses to her skin.

  She shook her head, like she disagreed, but she was incapable of speech.

  “I'm clean, by the way,” I went on. “I don't want you worrying about all that stuff. Are you...are you on the pill or anything? I'm not normally so careless, but I just really wanted to feel you without anything in the way.”

  “Yeah, and I'm clean, too, just in case you were wondering....”

  Relief flooded me as my eyes traced the perfect lines of her face. “I know you are. You are so fucking clean, I don't deserve you.”

  “Oh,” she whispered, and I smiled.

  “Oh,” I copied her, and took her mouth in a desperate, hungry kiss. I’d had my release, and now I was going to give her hers.

  August 6th, 2012.

  Soundtrack: “El Tango de Roxanne” from Moulin Rouge

  The following day, everything came crashing down around me. My tentative stable period hit rock bottom. It was a combination of bad timing and feeling overwhelmed by my growing attachment to Fred. It didn’t feel healthy to me how much I yearned for her when she was still in the same room.

  We were on the street the same as the day before, canvassing for my show, when I heard her call to me, “Hey, Viv, I need some more flyers.”

  I turned and teased as I saw her come toward me. “Run out already? You must be working extra hard, Fred. I'll have to reward you for your efforts.”

  I was being flirtatious because I was in a good mood. It didn’t last long, because as I brought my attention to the two men standing behind her, I completely lost it. It was like peering into a looking glass to the past. One of the men was a dead ringer for Kelvin, and it made my blood run cold. For a moment in time, I was a terrified little boy again.

  This man had his exact same hair and eerily similar eyes. He was even wearing a business suit, like Kelvin always had. I was in my full drag outfit, because it worked better when people could see the kind of show they were in for. It was too bad I was wearing heels, because I momentarily lost the ability to stand. Seeing the man gave me a shock, causing me to stumble on my feet. Every awful memory I had was flooding into my head, and I was powerless to stop the influx.

  Fred was by my side in an instant, holding me up and asking if everything was all right.

  “I'm fine,” I told her, trying to regain some composure. The men she’d been trying to convince to come to my show both gave me odd
looks before quickly moving along.

  “Are you sure you're fine? You don't look fine.”

  I took a deep breath. “It's nothing. That man just bore a freakish resemblance to someone I used to know.”

  “Okay, maybe we should go back to the hotel now and have something to eat. How does that sound?”

  It seemed like a good idea, so I agreed, and we made our way back to the room in silence. I went straight to the bathroom when we got there, shutting the door tight and calling to Fred that I was going to take a shower.

  I locked the door, pulled off my clothes, and stepped under the spray. Then I just stood there and let the water drown out the tears that had started to fall. Silently, I sobbed, my chest heaving. I hated that a single glimpse of a man who looked like Kelvin could reduce me to this. I’d thought I was getting better, but I was so far from better that it didn’t even bear thinking about. When I finally turned off the water, I stepped out and pulled on a bathrobe. I sat on the edge of the tub, staring off into space. I don’t remember how long I was there for, lost in my own head, when Fred’s sweet voice broke through the fog.

  “Nicholas. Are you all right in there?”

  I dragged my fingers under my eyes, wiping away the tears I’d silently been crying and cleared my throat before answering, “I'm fine, just shaving.”

  “No, you're not. Let me in.”

  I sighed and went to the door. I didn’t want her to see me like this, but at the same time I wanted her comfort. I unlocked the door, and she came barging through like she expected to find I’d hurt myself or something.

  When she saw me, her eyes got all soft and sad. “What's going on?”

  I just stared at her. I didn’t know how to explain it.

  “Who did the man in the suit remind you of?” she whispered.

  A ridiculous amount of shame flooded me, and I couldn’t look her in the eye when I said, “A friend of my father's.”

  She moved closer, her voice probing but full of tenderness. “You didn't like him?”

  “Not even a little bit,” I answered, and began rubbing my hands on my thighs. I was fidgeting and itching just knowing the direction her questions were headed. I felt doomed. She wouldn’t want me once she knew the truth. She’d know I was broken, unfixable, tainted. I felt her take my hand in hers, and then she was tugging me to stand and leading me back inside to the bed.

  She set a sandwich and some tea in front of me, but I had no appetite. Still, I could see that she was worried, so I mustered up the will to take a bite. She didn’t say anything more, and I was grateful. I could feel her unanswered questions hanging in the air, though, and they stifled me.

  Then a sudden need to get it all out hit me. So, with my back turned away from her, I started to speak. Fred sat close by the whole time, silently listening.

  I told her about how after my mother died, I sought comfort in her things. How it had developed into a love of dressing up and becoming a woman. Becoming a beautiful being like she was. I told her how it was my secret and how Dad would never approve if he found out. I told her how my Dad’s friend Kelvin came into the house one day while I was alone and discovered my secret, how he began blackmailing me in order to keep it to himself.

  Somewhere along the way, I started crying again, and Fred came and wrapped her arms around me, cocooning me with her openness and understanding.

  I told her how Kelvin destroyed me, stole my innocence, and turned something I’d loved into something I felt ashamed of. I told her that he never let me be a girl with him, always a boy. I told her that now every time I become a woman on the stage, I’m reclaiming a little piece of myself that he tried to ruin. I told her that when my father discovered what Kelvin had been doing, he’d beaten him so badly he’d almost killed him, and that afterward I’d run away to Europe and hadn’t stopped wandering from place to place since.

  “Nicholas,” she murmured, holding me tight, her voice full of empathy.

  I was on a roll, and the information just kept on spewing forth. “I ran away to France first, and for a year I did nothing but drink and take drugs and try to forget who I was. Then I pulled myself together and started experimenting with shows in tiny venues, and the whole thing grew from there. I created the Vivica Blue persona, and I haven't stopped travelling and performing since. I get that some men want to dress up as women because they want to be a woman. I don't want to be a woman, though, at least not when I'm off the stage.

  “I perform for the catharsis, because it's freeing. It's the opposite of what Kelvin wanted me to be, so it's also a strange sort of protest. Every time I put on a dress, I'm sticking two fingers up at what he did to me. In the same way that an actor needs to become another person when they act, I need to become another person when I sing. And now, when I'm Nicholas, I can truly reclaim myself when I can get lost in a woman like you because you could never be anything like him. I can be a man with you, strong, in control, not a scared little boy. So, this is me, darling, a complete and total contradiction. A fucking mess.” I was just about suffocating in my own self-pity, but I couldn’t seem to help it.

  “A beautiful mess,” Fred added.

  “But a mess nonetheless.” I frowned.

  “Hey, that rhymed.” She tried to make a joke, but I wasn’t feeling the humour.

  “It did, didn't it?” My voice was flat, my stomach twisting. Now she knew who I was; all of my flaws were there for her to see, and I felt terrible. In fact, I wished I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t want her pity, and her beautiful eyes were simply full of it.

  “I don't think I'll ever be the man you deserve, Freda,” I said sadly.

  “You already are,” she told me, disagreeing.

  “I'm not. I have issues a mile long. Issues that might sink into the recesses, but never quite go away.”

  She sat up straighter and looked me dead in the eye. “The fact that you think you're not good enough just shows how good you are, Nicholas. Do you know that you're the first man who's ever looked at me and actually seen me? When you're fat your whole life, you get fairly used to people looking through you, dismissing you simply because you don't fit with their aesthetic ideals. So I either get men looking through me or men looking at me because they think I'll have low self-esteem and will be easy to manipulate. You didn't do any of that. You made me feel like a woman, a woman worth getting to know.”

  “You're not fat, Freda,” I told her, frowning again.

  “Maybe not to you, because your beauty standard is different from the norm. But put me standing next to someone like Nora in a nightclub, and I might as well be a part of the furniture. So, don't you see, you are the man I deserve. You saw me, changed my life, made it better, and I'm completely fucking in love with you.”

  I stared at her, open-mouthed, unsure whether I’d just heard her correctly. Time moved slow, like molasses. After a long stretch of silence, I frowned at her. “Oh, Freda, honey, no.”

  I knew her words couldn’t possibly be true. I didn’t even love myself, so I knew it was impossible that someone else might. It was sympathy she was feeling and mistaking for love. And really, I feared the idea of her loving me. I didn’t want the responsibility of keeping her precious heart safe. I never knew when I was going to go off the deep end, and I cared too much for Fred to let her invest her emotions in someone who couldn’t be trusted.

  “You don't love me,” I told her firmly with a hint of desperation. “I'm not the person you should love. I'll let you down.”

  Her face went bright red, and she swallowed visibly. “I – I didn't mean that,” she mumbled, trying to take it back.

  I studied her for a long moment, my gaze narrowed. “You didn't mean it.”

  “Yeah, I, um, I was trying to make you feel better.”

  Her response caused my gut to sink and my temper to rise. I couldn’t believe she’d say something like that just to make me feel better. “By lying and telling me that you're in love with me?”

  “It just came ou
t,” she replied meekly.

  I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. This entire conversation had me all twisted up inside, and I needed distance. “Okay. This has been a long day. I tell you what, you take the night off. I'll do the show by myself. You can go and see the sights or something.”

  She sat there for a minute, looking at me like she couldn’t figure me out. Then she got up from the bed and began searching for her handbag.

  “I'm going to go for a walk,” she said quietly. I nodded, and a moment later she had slipped on her shoes, opened the door, and was gone. I flopped back on the bed, my entire body feeling as though it was in physical pain. I wished with all my might we could rewind the clock and forget this whole day ever happened.

  I couldn’t do that, though. And the fact that Fred knew all my shameful secrets was killing me. I had no idea what she thought, but if she felt the need to tell me she loved me just to make me feel better, then I didn’t know if I cared anymore. I mean, pretending you loved someone was cruel.

  At least, that was the way it felt to me. Perhaps because nobody had ever really loved me other than my mother, it meant that much more to me. I got up from the bed and called down to room service for a bottle of wine. I needed to get drunk.

  Before I knew it, I was running late, and the manager from the venue where I was performing was calling my phone nonstop, asking where I was. I finally found my way there and managed to dress myself for the show. My performance that night was sloppy, to say the least. There was no cheeky interaction with the audience, no upbeat numbers. I spent most of my set sitting by the piano and singing dark, depressing songs about lost loves and broken hearts. I was angry. Angry for allowing myself to get as close to Fred as I did. Angry at Fred for pretending to love me when she didn’t. Angry that I was never going to be worthy of the love of another.

  I was also drunk off my face on wine. A glass sat in front of me on top of the piano, and I was knocking it back all through my performance. I was surprised nobody had come and taken me off the stage by that point, because I was clearly depressing everyone. I’d been on for about thirty minutes when my eyes met a pair of golden ones. Fred was standing at the very back of the club, watching me. Her hair was windswept, and her clothing looked like it had been thrown on haphazardly.