“That’s not making me feel any better.”
“Because I live to make you feel better,” he said, voice as dry as I’d ever heard it.
I couldn’t stop the laugh even if I wanted to. “You’re not supposed to be funny,” I scolded him. “You’re a homo jock. You’re supposed to work out and fuck twinks and then go drink kale smoothies or something.”
“Because that’s exactly all I do with my time,” Darren said. “God, it’s like you know my innermost secrets and wildest dreams.”
“Don’t lie,” I said. “You don’t have those.”
“I do too. I have so many secrets that you wouldn’t even believe. I’m mysterious.”
“Yeah, not even remotely mysterious.”
“You just want to know my secrets.”
I rolled my eyes. “I have so many better things to worry about.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Was this flirting? I thought this was flirting. I didn’t know if I liked that. “Okay, then tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“An innermost secret and/or wildest dream. Preferably something embarrassing so that I can lord it over you later.”
“Why, Sandy,” Darren said, sounding amused. “Is this you wanting to know things about me? And here I thought you were just using me to get what you wanted.”
“Oh, I am,” I said, resolutely not blushing. “Know thy enemy and all that.”
“You keep calling me that.”
“What?”
“Your enemy.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Second time. First time it was friends close, enemies closer.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose.”
“Am I your enemy?” He didn’t sound angry, just honestly curious.
Which flummoxed me. “Uh. Yes?”
“You sure? You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m sure. Like, so sure.”
“Positive?”
No. “Absolutely.”
“Huh. All right, then. Let me see, a secret or wildest dream.”
“That’s it?”
“What?”
“I tell you that you’re my enemy and you don’t even want to know why?”
“Oh,” he said maddeningly. “There’s a reason?”
“Of course there’s a reason!” I sputtered.
“There you go. Anyway, I suppose a secret—”
This most certainly wouldn’t do. “Don’t you want to know the reason?”
“Eh. Not really. I’m sure you think it’s justified in that weird, twisted way that you have. Okay, I’ve got a secret. But then you have to tell me one too. It’s only fair.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“You wanted to know one of my secrets. That’s why you called me, remember?”
“I didn’t call you! You called me to tell me bad news!”
“Wow, you can get loud rather quickly,” he said. “But that doesn’t count as your secret because I honestly already knew that.”
“Gaaaah!” I shouted into the phone.
A moment of silence.
Then, “Feel better?”
“Kind of,” I said. Because, oddly enough, I did.
“Good. Okay, ready for my secret?”
“It better be good, Mayne. I don’t have time for petty bullshit. I want something hard-core.”
“Oh, it’s good.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“When I was in third grade, I had a crush on my teacher, Mr. Mitchum. I used to draw hearts on my paper with our initials in the middle. On the last day of school, I told him that when I graduated high school, I’d come back for him and we could run away together and get married.”
I refused to find that adorable. “Oh my god, that’s adorable.” I apparently didn’t refuse very hard. “Please tell me you saw him again when you were older and he made fun of you.” I paused, considering. And then, in a more horrified voice, “Or you went back and actually had sex with him. You went back and fucked him, didn’t you. Jesus Christ, Darren.”
“I don’t have sex with everything, Sandy.”
“Almost!”
“And no, I didn’t see him after that. But only because he was fired and went to prison my freshman year.”
“What? Why!”
“Apparently he was having sex with a guy in the grade above me. He was sixteen, I think.”
“What?”
“I know, right? If only he’d waited one more year, it could have been me.”
I choked. “Did you just make an underage sex joke?”
“Yes, yes I did.”
“Oh my god.”
“I don’t even feel ashamed. Should I feel ashamed? Wow. I really don’t feel ashamed. That’s probably not good.”
“Oh my god.”
“Okay,” he said cheerfully. “Your turn.”
“I don’t have anything to top that.”
“It’s a good thing we’re not topping each other, then.” And then his voice dropped and he said, “At least not yet.”
I dropped the phone, because what.
It clattered to the floor and I gave very real thought to just stepping on it as hard as I could to shatter it to pieces so I could resolutely avoid thinking about topping anything having to do with Darren.
(Though, Helena found it to be a fine idea, because of the miles and miles of tanned skin that could be stretched out before her as she fucked up into him, nails digging into his thighs, her mouth latched on to one of his nipples as he writhed above her asking for more, begging for more—)
I picked the phone back up.
He was laughing at me.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
“You’re not funny,” I said.
“I’m hilarious,” he said. “Drop your phone, did you?”
“Slipped from my hand. Had nothing to do with our conversation.”
“Sure it didn’t. Your turn.”
“Or maybe you can just tell me why you called.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“In your delay tactics?”
“Probably.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Probably.”
I sighed. “This was such a stupid idea.”
“And yet, here we are.”
“Yeah, with you and your pedophile teacher.”
“Hey, it could have been real love, you don’t know. He was hot. Had this whole daddy thing going on. I had this fantasy about him that I’d get a B on a test and need to stay after for extra credit. Dirty extra credit.”
“We’re going to hell for even having this conversation.”
“Nah, this won’t be the thing that sends us there,” he said. “We were probably on our way a long time ago. Your turn. Think you can beat me?”
Oh, what an amateur little boy, thinking he can go up against a queen. His naïveté was almost precious. “When I was seventeen,” I said, “I was living with Paul and his parents. I wanted to have sex, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to do that with a person. So I stole Nana’s credit card, went online, bought a twelve-inch dildo because I really wasn’t sure what to get. I ingenuously thought it was the bigger the better.”
“You still think that, don’t even front. Size queen.”
“Shut up. Anyway. I got it delivered, pretended to be sick one day on a family outing, stayed home by myself, lubed it up, and sat on it. Long story short, I had forgotten to completely remove my shorts and underwear, and the end of the dildo got tangled up in my clothes and stuck in my ass.”
Darren started coughing roughly.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” he managed to say.
“Should I continue?”
“There’s more?”
“Three hours later, I still hadn’t gotten the dildo out of my ass, and everyone came home. I shouted for Paul to come save me, because I was getting fucked to death by a big green cock. He ran into the room, followed by Matty, Larry, and of
course, Nana, who started screaming that I had been fisted by the Hulk and wouldn’t someone please save her step-grandbaby.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier than I’ve been right now,” Darren gasped. “This moment… it’s just wonderful.”
“So Paul did what he did best and burst into tears, saying that he didn’t want me to die, that he would do his best to save me. So he untangled the dildo from out of my clothes, wrapped both hands around it, counted to three, and pulled so hard that he fell backward. Since I’d poured three bottles of lube on it to try and slick it up to pull it loose, it slipped from his fingers, went over his head, and broke the window in my bedroom. He told me later he felt like Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone. He wondered if that made him a king or something, given the strength it took to pull the dildo from my anus.”
I thought it was quite possible that Darren was dying on the other end of the line. I didn’t know why I was telling him this, nor why I thought his laugh was one of the nicest sounds I’d heard in a long time. It wasn’t forced or controlled or done in contempt; it was an honest, free sound that was a little manic and it was the best I’d ever heard him.
“That’s not the end,” I said. “It happened in the February. Do you know what happens in the February, Darren?”
“I… can’t… breathe….”
“Girl Scouts sell cookies in the February, Darren. Door to door. And my bedroom window happened to face the front entrance to the house. So not only did my lubed up twelve-inch dildo get stuck in me, only to be forcibly removed from my ass, breaking a window in the process, it struck a twelve-year-old Girl Scout named Tiffany Moore in the side of the head who was about to knock on the front door to sell us Thin Mints. I knocked down a little girl selling cookies with a dildo, Darren. She had a bruise in the shape of the head of the dildo for two weeks. She apparently went to a Catholic school, too, and had to have that bruise in front of nuns. I felt so bad, that for the next three years, I saved everything I could and bought every single box she had to sell because her mom told me that I needed to find Jesus and the only way to do that would be to buy all her cookies. So I did.”
That set him off again, and I was oddly pleased. I thought it possible that he should always sound like this, like he wasn’t trying to prove anything, that he wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone. It was a nice thought, and I wondered why things couldn’t always be like that. But I didn’t let myself be fooled. This wasn’t him, not really. This was a part of him, sure, but it was buried under the cocky persona I despised for rather shallow and petty reasons, but reasons nonetheless.
“I have nothing,” he said, breath hitching, “nothing that will ever compare to that. I am horrified and in awe of you.”
“As one should be of a drag queen,” I said. “That’s something Vaguyna first told me. That a drag queen was here to entertain, but also to make things as awkward and uncomfortable as possible. And most likely scare you the tiniest bit.”
“She was your mentor?”
“Yeah. My drag mother. Taught me everything she knew. She was one of the best who ever lived, though she wasn’t that well-known outside of Arizona. No one could do a Madonna like her. She never took shit from anyone, either. I saw her kick a Marine’s ass, just for disrespecting her as a lady.”
“What was her real name?” he asked. Then, “I can ask that, right? I’m not breaking some kind of… drag… secret code?”
I was a little taken aback by how nervous he sounded. “No. You can ask that. I honestly can’t remember the last time anyone asked me that. They always just think of her as Vaguyna and not as a man. She was like me. She wasn’t transgendered or a transvestite. She just liked to perform in drag. Uh. His name was Billy. William. William Solomon. He was a nurse at the university hospital for going on twenty years, kind of like your mom, I guess. They all loved him there; almost every one of his shows had a coworker or two at them. This was the late eighties and nineties, too, so it was good to know he was so accepted for who he was.”
“I saw her perform once,” he said.
“You did?” I hadn’t known that.
“Yeah. Years ago. I’d just turned twenty-one, first time out to the bar. She was doing some Cher thing.”
“Oh god,” I said. “I hated that wig on her. She loved it, but I thought it looked like a dead poodle on her head. She told me little baby queens like myself should learn to not be so mouthy.”
“You were there?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Probably. I usually went to most of her shows, even if I wasn’t performing in them. I would have been twenty-four then, I think. Since you’re almost thirty.”
He snorted. “Yeah, you just had to get that dig in, didn’t you.”
“Eh. It’s not bad. You get used to it. Though, you’ll probably just fall apart. It’s what happens to attractive assholes like yourself. You’re on top of the world, then you hit thirty and your hair falls out and you get fat. It’s going to be amazing.”
“You think I’m attractive,” he said. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“What?” I said. “No, I don’t. Shut up. You don’t know me. I would never say that.”
“You called me an attractive asshole.”
“I meant that in the general sense. Not specifically you. Just… general. Like, all the homo jocks.”
“So, all the homo jocks are attractive, is what you’re saying.”
“Exactly.”
“And I’m a homo jock. Or even the king.”
“Right.”
“So, if homo jocks are attractive, and I’m their king… wow. You must find me really attractive.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Now that’s the secret I should have been told, not that beating a Girl Scout upside the head with a dildo isn’t a good one.”
“I didn’t beat her upside the head—”
“Semantics. If it makes you feel any better, I already knew you found me attractive, so it’s no big deal. I could see it in your eyes.”
It was said with that familiar cocky tone of his, that swagger that irritated me to no end. And it reminded me just how big an asshole Darren was. And how cruel he’d actually been the first time I’d ever tried to speak with him. Maybe I shouldn’t have still been upset by it, because everyone does stupid things when they’re young, but I was having a hard time equating that Darren to this Darren, and the sooner I remembered that they were one and the same, the better. This whole thing was a farce, a means to an end, and nothing more. I was sitting here on the phone flirting with him. I felt rather disgusted with myself over it.
“Why did you call?” I asked, voice clipped.
He heard the change immediately. “Hey, no. Sandy, I didn’t mean it like—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Did you need something?”
He sighed. “Would you just—”
“Darren.”
“Goddammit,” he growled. “Why do you have to always make things so fucking difficult?”
“That’s who I am,” I said. “Just like this is who you are. Last time, Darren. What did you want?”
“I spoke with my father.”
That made me pause. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He sounded frustrated. “I was surprised too. I thought I’d have to push a few more times before I’d actually get through to him. But I told my boss I was thinking about reaching out to him and the next thing I know, Mark is telling me that the mayor wanted to speak with me and maybe I could call him.”
“When was the last time you spoke with him?”
He laughed bitterly. “Vince’s mom’s funeral. He told me I was a disappointment when I sided with you all over him.”
I didn’t know Darren had talked to him privately. All I could really remember was the low-level fury I felt watching Andrew Taylor berate his son while his wife and the mother of his child lay in a casket at the other end of the church. He was an almost stereotypical villain, with his rants
and diatribes about the liberals who were destroying America and how immigrants and gays were going to bring the downfall of civilized society. His followers ate it up, and there was talk that years down the road, if groomed just right, he could be a potential presidential candidate. That thought was more terrifying than any other. All I had to do was turn on the news and see the rabid Tea Party or religious right frothing at the mouth, eulogizing the morals of America by way of pointing fingers and casting judgment. This was a man that I didn’t fear, per se, as much as I feared how he could easily corral his followers like sheep behind him.
Who’d also had an affair with a nurse, resulting in the man I was speaking to on the phone.
“What did he want?” I asked.
“It was weird,” he said. “He acted like he actually cared about what was going on with me. He asked me how I was liking my job. Where I was living now. What I did outside of work.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “That’s good, right? Well, as good as talking to evil can be.”
“Uh,” he said. “That’s not the bad part.”
“Oh. What is, then?”
“I may or may not have told him I was seeing someone.”
I sat straight up. “You what?” Holy shit. If Darren told his dad that he was gay, it would be a huge step for him. Yeah, it’d probably fuck up our plans, but even I knew what was important here and if he’d finally made that decision, then I’d—
“Yeah,” he said. “That just really slipped out. I don’t even know why I said it. One minute we’re talking about the city council, and the next he’s asking if there’s anyone special in my life. And before I knew it had even happened, he was under the impression that I had a girlfriend named Helena and now he’s invited us both to a lunch at the country club because he wants to meet the girl that’s managed to tie me down. So, it’s not too bad, right? I mean, what’s the worst that could possibly happen? Good. I’m glad we’ve had this talk. I’ll text you with the details and we’ll figure it out later! Bye!”
“Darren Rasputin Mayne,” I growled. “If you hang up that phone, I will end you.”
“My middle name’s not Rasputin,” he said. “What the hell. How does that even sound like that’d be my middle name?”