This story is entirely fictional, and does not reflect the likenesses or actions of anyone even remotely real. I am a god-fearing christian woman who’s never been touched, not ever, not once.
It is late September. Summer drags on, unperturbed by the nearing equinox as an ever-warming planet yields to the endless heat. Malnourished weeds poke through the cracks, wilting as soon as they rise, and I count them aimlessly as I wait for my car. Yasmine, license plate number CRP793, emerges from the heavy traffic and lugs my suitcase into the trunk of her 2014 Corolla. The inside smells vaguely of peonies, potato chips, and dog hair, and like most Chicagoans, she prefers open windows to the AC. My destination, Vivica’s townhouse, is only ten miles away, but as we pull away from the arrival gate, Yasmine informs me the ride will be about an hour accounting for traffic. She makes her discontent incredibly clear between phone calls from her kids. Apparently she will only make a measly twelve bucks from my sixty-six dollar ride, and she can barely keep up with the bills, and she shelled out her entire last check on school supplies, and just last month uber decided not to pay her for a ride just like this because the app fucked up – I listen quietly as we fly by graffitied overpasses, emptied out factories, cracked and sun-bleached billboards. Perhaps selfishly, my mind wanders.
Despite already being sixty-six in the hole, I’m happy to be here, or at least happy to be away from Texas, even if only for a weekend. I look beautifully business casual in Yasmine’s backseat, but her story reminds me that I’m only a few rent payments away from being broke myself. I’m here to scrounge up what money I can hosting a club gig and stuffing it all into my savings, hoping it’ll aid in my quest to escape the South. I hastily changed into a thrifted Apartment 9 blouse in the airport bathroom because there’s a chance I’ll have to accompany Vivica and Princess to Soho House (god, kill me now.) I do a decent enough job of looking more well-off than I am when it’s necessary, but the painful reality is that I’ve left an apartment full of anxieties, bills, and impending threats to my trannylicious lifestyle waiting for me back home. The distance between me and those factors is barely enough to keep the bile in my stomach. If I’m even more truthful, the dreadful grip of the new regime is just as evident here. Its scent wafts off the hordes of police that gather like mercenary gangs on the corners. No, the distance provides no solace. Rampaging tranny murder cults are a nationwide headline. The only real reprieve I have is that this weekend, I will be handed any drug I want freely and without protest, and all my drinks will be paid for. That thought brings me enough real comfort to tune back into Yasmine’s ranting, and I provide her a comforting ear for the remainder of our ride together.
At the townhouse, Princess greets me in an effortlessly sexy lounge set, remarking teasingly at my skirt-blouse-pumps getup. “Where you going all dolled up, Diana?” She calls to me, arms crossed as she looks me up and down. “Apparently not Soho House.” I retort, reminding myself to adjust quickly to her unpredictable day-planning. “Viv wanted Chinese instead; it’s on the way. It’s good to see you bitch!” She hugs me tightly and grabs my bag from Yasmine. Inside, Vivica has already filled three glasses of wine in her equally sexy loungewear. Despite having met her multiple times, I still don’t know much about her. I know this house is hers, that the club we’re hosting at is hers, and that she’s vaguely older than Princess and me, though between her tight body and her unshakable aura of coolness, it’s impossible to tell by how many years. She is something of an OG It Girl, and Princess is her rambunctious twenty-something protege. Her name is an all-access pass, a stamp of pedigree known at all the coolest clubs in this city, and Princess’s name sits emblazoned on every list just below it. She hugs me tightly too, “How are you babe?” I give them both the shortest summaries about the year since I saw them last, placing emphasis on my recent status as a single woman, and one who is ready to cut incredibly loose at that. “Last time I was here- ugh. I don’t know. I was so boring. I want to get fucking nasty this weekend, girl, I need to.” Princess replies with a sigh, “To be honest, girl, we don’t have much going on besides the party. It’ll be a chill weekend. You should stay through the week and come to Saugatuck with us.” This is one of the many ways in which I confuse her; the idea of impulsively traveling for a whole extra week is anxiously foreign to me. I can’t just decide to stay. Thankfully, I also know she can’t resist a party, and that her “chill weekend” is a pipe dream that will dissipate by nightfall.
And sure enough, only shortly after sunset, we’ve magically arrived at a gay club, already sipping our first of the night’s many tequila sodas. Here, the prestige of Viv’s golden seal isn’t necessary, as Princess and I have both built individual cult followings that tend to congregate in such hangouts. We hug and kiss an onslaught of excited homosexuals, like duchesses kissing babies, and eventually, one guides us to the bathroom for a more private meeting. As I powder my nose, I check my phone out of habit, and notice a DM from a boytoy I met on the strip back home. “Looks like we’re both in Chicago ;) We should meet up.” This being one of the hottest encounters I could possibly imagine right now, I give him the name of the bar, and within twenty minutes, he’s there buying me a double round of straight tequila. As any Southern gentleman would, he offers to buy a round for Princess as well, and I inform him that she doesn’t partake in shots. At that moment, she’s standing by the bar with another of our friends, Cleo, looking generally unimpressed by the current goings-on. I know the kind of party she prefers, and a gay club before three AM without a line around the block certainly comes up short. Maybe I’m easier to please – certainly a little too eager to drink with a guy just because he’s tall and charming. I approach her apologetically. “Do you wanna go, babe? If this is lame, we can bail.” She smiles warmly and casts a glance over to Cowboy. “No girl, go have fun with the trade. We’ve got nowhere else to be.” I kiss her on the cheek and skip back.
After that, who can really say? My encounters with Cowboy, whether back home or abroad, always begin with competitive tequila shooting, and end with a lot of stumbling and sloppy public makeouts. Tonight was no different. From the string of disarrayed memories I have, at some point, Cowboy disappeared, and Cleo and Princess carted me from bar to bar as I repeatedly asked them, “WHERE’S COWBOY? WHERE’S COWBOY?” From the videos on my phone, I know that I stood for about three minutes next to an equally confused gay man, both of us thinking a video was a picture. Only while watching it back did I realize that said gay man was actually Willam Belli. I know that somewhere along the way, Princess joined in on my discombobulation, as trashed girls are most legible when you too are trashed, and that we were lovingly shuttled by Cleo to a nearby friend’s apartment. Away from the streets full of prying queer eyes, I added a few chemical layers to my stupor and melted into the couch. A DJ hammered away on the controller a few inches behind our heads, and as my vision warped, I first became a claymation character, and then a wad of scrambled eggs laid within a menstrual pad, and then the entire universe. Princess stroked my hair lovingly until I came to, and then napped on my shoulder as I discussed the fickle nature of love and loss with an ever-emptying room.
The next morning, I was informed that I was driven home by Magick, the DJ from the apartment who orchestrated the soundtrack to my trip. I recall a hazy backseat car ride home in the rain set to Kelela’s RAVE:N, The Remixes album. In the bathroom, I wipe tear streaks of mascara from my chin, brush the knots out of my hair, and clutch my reeling stomach through a too-hot shower. After blowing my hair out, I emerge into the living room where Princess frantically flips between emails, luxury shopping sites, and a pitch deck on her laptop, apparently having already been awake and fully done up for hours. “How you feelin’, mama?” She asks without looking away from her screen, “Did you just get up??” I forgot how allergic she is to sleeping in. “No, mama, I had to blow my hair out,” I reply, faux exasperation dripping in my tone. “Do all white bitches love their blowdryers as much as you do?” She reacts without missing a beat, and we both cackle. Just as quickly, her tone becomes stressed and tired as she tells me, “Well, we’re going to the salon at three, Damien needs to fix my leave-out before the party.” The statement triggers a flashback to the night before, of a gay man at the strange apartment scolding me for letting her leave the house like that while trying to comb down the top of her head. That must’ve been Damien.
We’re about to leave at two-fifty, but then Viv gets home, and of course, we have to fill her in about the previous night’s shenanigans. So we rush to the salon at a quarter after three, but we stop at Sephora first, and then we also stop at Dunkin’ before taking a few wrong turns. When we arrive at four-thirty, we’re shocked to find that Damien is no longer in. We wait for a new stylist, and wait for Princess’s hair to be washed and dried and curled, and then at nearly seven we drive an hour back to the townhouse to get ready for the party, which starts at nine. This is no problem for Princess, as her version of a full beat is lipgloss and a single swipe of designer mascara. I, on the other hand, have work to do. Cleo meets us at the house, equally as ill-prepared, and stays with me while Princess ships out to get everything situated at the club. If I have not introduced her properly, Cleo is a schoolteacher by day and a strikingly tall party girl by night, who I am hoping is at least bisexual. Together we frantically spackle and spray, pulling and pinning our outfits and clomping about as we choose between various uncomfortable pairs of shoes. We managed to arrive late to the event (that we are both being paid to host, mind you) at nine-forty-five. This is plain late for a host, but not “fashionably late,” as lateness cannot be considered haute until at least midnight. Nonetheless, the dancefloor is already packed, as Princess possesses a singular ability to make being early look couture. Wherever her feet land, the party follows.
About now, I should explain that my job as a “host” is to put my name on the poster and drink in the DJ booth. I’ve already completed the former, and so Cleo and I make haste to finish the job. We strut sensually to and from the bar, making small talk and waving royal-family-style as we go, downing expensive smoked cocktails like it’s Deep Eddy’s and fruit punch. We gyrate in the booth and gyrate near the floor, and gyrate our way up to VIP for champagne, and then we gyrate aaaaall the way outside for a photoshoot. We start off posing collegiately upon the steps of a nearby brownstone like the cast of an HBO crime drama. Then we work through a few poses, until I am standing opposite Cleo, both of our asses out, one of Princess’s hands on each of our bare ass cheeks. As I am adjusting the extremity of my arch, I hear a familiar voice call out, “Daaaaamn, Kayla!” and who do I turn around to find? Why, it’s Cowboy, of course. I was sure my drunk ass had run him off last night. But there he is with that big goofy smile on his face, and there I am prancing down to him like a giddy schoolgirl. “What are you doing here?” I ask, throwing my arms around his neck. “I booked my ticket last night, baby. Let’s go to the bar, huh?” And with a hand around my waist, I forget the fact, like smoke, that I am technically working tonight.
Before I continue, I must preemptively defend myself. I am NOT normally swayed to such bimboesque behavior by men as a general rule. If anything, I prefer to make nightlife suitors sweat and work for my attention. However, this particular man strokes a number of carnal, basal desires that few modern men are willing to: Showing up wherever I am, paying for all my drinks, and touching me entirely too much in a way that makes my face hot. He is also an impeccable kisser, and for all of these reasons, I surrender to a type of heterosexual foolishness I usually abhor when he is near. The club photographer captures a collection of shots in which Cowboy and I are tongue-tied against the speakers, behind the speakers, in VIP, on the stairs to VIP… I was powerless to stop it. We devour God knows how many cocktails, forcing me to change into my kitten heels mid-party. I was walking fine in my pumps, but I wanted him an inch or two taller, looking down at me the way I like. God, who the fuck have I become? I find myself smitten even further by the way he bashfully explains the brace on his wrist that he earned after punching through a wall. I let him call a car, I stumble into the back, and we laugh as Princess and Cleo blow my phone up until I remember once more that I am, *technically,* “working.” So I tell Cowboy we simply must turn around, and with a pouty lip, he laments our plans to make out wetly at a dive bar. Like any healthy couple, we compromise, driving back to the townhouse to meet Princess, her crossed arms, and her tapping foot. “Don’t scare me like that again, bitch. We thought you got ‘napped!” The night ends in the basement. Cowboy is explaining his broken hand to Viv and three of the hottest DJs from here to Berlin. Magick plays us out again as I fade out of consciousness, panties flash upon an oversized beanbag. God, I have become a drunken fool.
The next afternoon passes by uneventfully, Princess and I both occasionally suggest the Chinese leftovers in the fridge, knowing neither of us intends to touch them. When nursing a hangover, the Everyman’s solution is to eat a hearty breakfast with a strong cup of coffee. The Partygirl, however, knows she will be going just as hard the next night, and soothes her ache by bitching and moaning from the couch in place of eating. This method is how one achieves what the professionals call “bender body.” (Note: I am not suggesting that this method is healthy or advisable, merely that it helps one avoid having to stop a good night to take a shit.) Around seven, we meet with Cleo and Darren. Darren is a strikingly handsome party boy who I am also hoping is at least bisexual. We’ve gathered for industry night slices at a local pizza joint, at which Princess informs me we will be visiting the Bathhouse for Doll’s Night. Another suggestion, at which I realize Princess fundamentally underestimates my general anxieties; I am rarely naked in front of my friends, let alone strangers or crowds of them, nor have I ever engaged in anything approaching group sex. “Girl, we’re just gonna get a room and chill in the saunas, it’s not that serious.” She assures me. On the basis that she managed to pull me through a multi-substance hero’s journey the previous night, I decided to trust her vision. I release my clamped breath and, while biting down on my press-on, consider, “Maaaybe I’ll make out with someone. I do like kissing…”
Neither Cleo nor Darren can be convinced to join us, but Magick (the aforementioned apartment DJ and getaway car driver) will be taking their place. When we meet her on the street in our cutoffs and dirty tees, she is pumping her way down the block in a black mini dress and eight-inch pleasers. I will soon find out that this is the closest she’s willing to come to “casual.” “Girl, let it be, the gigs have been nonstop, I didn’t have time to change.” She remarks, though I doubt she would’ve, watching her nearly outpace us in our flats as we push on. After a grueling forty-minute wait in line, a snide round of giggles at the posted “no cross-dressing” rule, and a racially charged argument with the counter clerk about Princess’s purse, we arrive at our room in the bathhouse. The room consists of a rubber mattress against a black box spring, four mirrored walls, and a mounted television with nearly 40 porn channels. At this point, my stomach has dropped through my balls like a hernia. Both of these girls are significantly thinner than I am, a fact with which I am deeply uncomfortable. What will the voraciously horny attendees of the bathhouse think of a size twelve? The possibilities horrify me. But, this is the kind of trouble I was hoping for this weekend, I remind myself, so no pussying out. We each take a few minutes to primp and preen, powder our noses, and finally begin to undress. Watching the two of them strip shyly into mirrored corners, I realize they are both secretly nervous as well. Ashamedly, I admit this brings me some comfort. The towels provided are proportioned in a manner that demands either balls out on the bottom or nipples out on top. As my high begins to set in, we exchange encouraging glances and steeling breaths, prompting Princess to decree: “Let’s go on tour, ladies. We’re storming the bitch.”
She rips the door open and begins to duck and weave through the twisting corridors and nude bodies full steam ahead. At the time, I assumed she knew where she’s going. We pass a few interesting prospects, gathering a crowd of shadowy masturbators as we proceed, prowling scare actors in a horny haunted house. We pass by one man I take particular notice of: around 6’4” or 6’5”, white and straw-haired, closely resembling the popular depiction of a sexy protestant Jesus Christ. “Hey, Jesus, could we get a second coming?” Princess calls after him. He chuckles without stopping. We pass many doors open to breathy entanglements, stolen looks at a glittering assortment of amateur porn performers. After touring three floors of desire, she leads us seamlessly to the top of a caged-in bunk bed overlooking a cluster of rooms surrounded by a hallway, as if it were her destination all along. Magick and I fall in behind her. There’s just enough room for us to lie ass up, short-ways across the mattress, and oversee the scene below. Our silent apostles have all stopped in their tracks to stare up and await an invitation into the lovenest. We begin to giggle and whisper about them, pointing polished talons through the cage bars as we chitter. This draws a significant amount of attention. The congregation begins to grow, now clogging the walkway. Watching this, a realization sparks some kind of psychic channel between our brains; Something about three trannies in a birdcage is incredibly enticing.
Now, the following is a practice in mass seduction and mind control: We begin to summon men from the crowd and ask for their names. “I’m John. Who are you?” Well, John, we don’t have names. We live in the walls, Jooooohn. “How many of you are up there?” There are three of us, John, but we are three as one. “What are you guys doing?” We like to watch, John. We’re watching you right now. (Mix in some nails dragged across the bars, some shared giggles, a seductive hair flip to refract the dim lighting.) “Can I come up and join you?” Oooh, John, there’s just barely enough room. It’d be a real tight squeeze. Rinse and repeat. Call it tranny genjutsu, a miasma of hypnotic energy created from our combined mana, or simply an enchanting improv game on a stage most unlikely. Our little witches-three performance packed the place out. And just as the curtains start dropping, as we can barely stifle our laughter at the chaos, 6’5” Jesus appears at the end of the hall. The psychic channel flares white-hot. Six eyes with one shared vision snap to attention, a pack of hungry lionesses roused by blood in the air, and with little more than a shared gasp of excitement, a unanimous decision is made: HIM.
I clamber down the ladder first. Fuck the towels, we’ll get new ones. Magick and Princess follow closely, stark naked, as we push through our audience, bleary-eyed from the grip of our witchery. Sexy Christ waits just at the end of the hall, haloed by the light of a door open to a particularly twinky threesome. He is frozen in place as we approach. Magick and I flank the sides while Princess marches right up to face him, hands upon her hips in all her nude glory as our psychic field hums to a crescendo. It’s a clean operation, a quick extraction, precise and professional. “Hi, Jesus. Do you have a room?” His gaze is locked in hers now. “Yes, I do.” smirks all around. A lone cruiser brushes past our rendezvous and warns him, “Careful, man, they’ll get all in your head…” he avoids eye contact as he exits. Jesus chuckles again, breathy and unfazed, before inquiring with a hand outstretched, “Would you like to see it?”
“Yes. We wanna get saved.”
What took place in that room – after marching the son of God past our many tantalized admirers, after slamming the door shut in their faces as they tried to squeeze in with him – was nothing less than a revelation. I believe his exact words as he lay sprawled out in the afterglow were, “I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life.” Now, I certainly won’t divulge all the details here, as I’m saving all my best smut for the book. I will say that up to the point of sitting perched on his bed like three riddle sphinxes, I’d been running purely on a wave of desire. But as my eyes shot between his face and soft dick, and I realized what was about to go down, I began to sober towards panic. Holy shit holy shitholyshitholyshit. Is he gonna fuck ALL of us? Just as quickly as I began to spiral, the girls seemed to sense it, gently adjusting course to bring me back. Princess coos, “Do you like to take orders, Jesus?” and quickly he assures her, “Yes, I’m suuuuper submissive.” She giggles, and in a language men can not speak nor audibly detect, says to me: See, bitch? We’re in control. It’s all good. Just like that, I am recentered, flipping my hair and batting my eyes as I tell him, “Gosh, I’ve never kissed a guy with a beard before.” A blatant lie. Without a word, he leans in, and I feel him melt as my teeth graze his bottom lip so gently. I see that his eyes are closed because mine are not; they’re trained on my reflection in the mirrored walls. Damn, we look fuckin’ good right now. I push him back, and Magick makes the final shot to set the whole thing off, “I wanna see him with a titty in his mouth.”
Once all the fun was had and we’d left Jesus to his post-nut nap, I recalled that internet evangelicals had actually predicted the rapture to begin that very morning. Is it possible that three exquisitely beautiful trannies persuaded the Prince of Heaven to spare humanity? I suppose anything is. We spent the rest of that night as any girl would, prancing around the saunas, flipping through the porn channels, getting a little higher, and eventually crawling out into the cool early morning with a hankering for greasy breakfast food. At the ass crack of dawn, we took our seats at the Hollywood Diner, where I ordered a Denver omelette with a side of cheesy hashbrowns and drenched the whole plate in Tabasco. I ate greedily as Princess recounted our escapades in the style of a Vietnam War commander giving orders. “HUP TO SOLDIER, WE NEED A MAN ON THAT LEFT NUT, WE’RE STORMIN’ THE BITCH LIKE IT’S D-DAY.” Magick giggled along as she picked mousily at her chicken and waffles. Clearing her throat as the waitress approached, she asked in her soft-spoken way, “Excuse me, ma’am, have you worked here long?” The woman nodded, “Oh yes, about eighteen years now.” “Did you ever meet Tinny?” At this question, the woman gasped, a doleful smile washing over her face. “Oooh, Tinny, yes, gosh, I just loved him. Such a character. I was so sad to hear about his passing.” Now both their eyes were wetter, Magick’s tone just a little softer, “Yeah, she was my drag mom. I didn’t see her much the last few years.” The two recounted fond memories of Tinny for a few more minutes, and then Magick explained to me their estrangement, her regrets, all through tears slowly falling on her waffles. She didn’t eat any more after that.
I guess after she dropped us off, she drove straight to the hospital to accompany her biological mother during the removal of something on her boob or something. Princess and I elected to hide from the sun in the basement, like pill bugs retreating to the underbelly of a flagstone, where I slept for about four hours. As my eyes crack open to the sensation of two nostrils caked shut, I gamble between blowing and sniffing. Choosing the latter provides me with just the unexpected boost I need to get up and at ‘em. Yet another trick up the Partygirl’s sleeve: Save just a little for later. Something feels different today, and as I brush my teeth, I ponder it. I don’t feel as shitty as I usually do after a night out. Maybe I like drugs more than drinking? Maybe that’s it. I’m in dire need of a shower, the heavy scent of over-chlorinated bathhouse water still clinging to my hair. Tangled there as well, though, is a residual glow I don’t want to let go of quite yet. I giggle fondly as I stroke the ruby cross around my neck. Last night feels more like a dream than a memory. I’m not a religious woman, but I believe in signs and symbols, folk charms and wives’ tales. Perhaps I am taken by the wild hunt, pulled unknowingly from my body like a ribbon in the night. Perhaps now I am a heathen spirit, pearly white and glowing softly between the trees, singing as I draw my bowstring back. Look not upon my form, listen not to the baying of my hounds or the blowing of my horn, lest you be driven to madness.
After an impressive three days of working while partying and partying while working, Princess finally succumbs to a long slumber on the couch around five. I assume foolishly that the night is lost, and lie at her side as she snores through the remaining evening like a faithful handmaiden. Shame, shame, I should know my mistress better. At midnight, like a wolf called to the chase, her eyes shoot open. Without so much as a yawn, she asks, “Should we hit Surge?” In mere seconds, I am zipped into a black party dress and daffodil pumps. Pulling back the throw blanket, she reveals that she is already clad head to toe in vintage Cavalli. And so, one more time, we are in a black car speeding downtown, we are pushing past a crowd of smokers, we are shaking hands and doling out sidehugs, we are walking past security and getting stamped for free; we are storming the bitch, Princess tells me yet again. The phrase, though used often amongst her circle, seems to carry a weight that makes me wary to jot it down in my lexicon just yet. Sometimes it’s a joke – thrown about flippantly with a certain sense of irony – but often it functions like a triple-dog-dare or a battlecry. Tonight, she grits her jaw slightly, grabs my hand a little tighter when she says it. I make a note to ask her about this as we dive down the blue-lit stairwell and into the depths of Surge.
Hand in hand, we march straight to the bathroom. The room is hot, wet, and tight; its diminutive size is made up for by mirrored walls that extend the scene endlessly. Teeth clash as tongues intertwine, scuff marks gather on pointy leather boots, tits flash, and sharp talons pass bumps back and forth. The air is thick, a pungent cocktail of perfume, sweat, and fog juice like mist over a swamp. Outside the dance floor is crowded by strangers, but in this room I recognize many faces, DJs and Partygirls I’ve met at Princess’s other haunts. Everyone is tangentially dating everyone else as far as I can tell, or at the very least, they all plan to fuck later on. They swirl around the room to pick at the buffet of gossip, knocking over plastic cups of tonic and tequila as they stumble. Some chat about petty disagreements with girls mere feet away. Others recount beloved elders who have passed, leaving spaces between huddled shoulders for their spirits. They are something more than human, nocturnal, and evolved to flourish in sweltering spaces; night creatures gathered to convene amidst pulsing chaos. It is in these settings that I tend to fall behind – I am enamoured by their world, but I am new to it, teeth still uncut. Princess takes her seat on the sticky sliver of counter like a throne from which she oversees her unseelie court, and soon enough, the conversation gathers around her.
“These goddamn white fucking faggots, they never know how to fucking act. I mean, shit, girl, I don’t need to be here. Lord knows they don’t fucking book me, they don’t book the girls, so why the fuck do I need to be here?”
Many hums of agreement.
“Shit, they don’t book us, but who brings the party? Those white faggots out there? No, the fuck they don’t, we do. We are the party bitch, the party’s right here, and you don’t wanna fucking act right? Right. Crazy bitch. Do I look fucking crazy to you? No bitch.”
Fingers in the air, closed eyes, nodding heads. From my eavesdropping, I gather that there are plenty of interpersonal issues close at hand, but this sentiment seems to be a unifier of sorts. The sermon continues a while longer before breaking back down into many smaller conversations. I meet a few new faces, chat casually about favorite positions and niche horror films, partake in a few bumps shared, laugh at jokes I only half heard. I am unsure of what this room makes of me. They are largely unfazed by my so-called internet “fame,” and for that I am grateful, but admittedly unused to. The quandary of the white faggot rolls around in my skull. I am essentially a minor saint in the margins to them, patroness of hags, bangs, and riddles. Is that an accomplishment? Have I earned the right to make small talk here? My final bump begins to simmer, pulling my attention to the more important matter of uncrossing my eyes. I swallow the lump in my clavicle as Princess grabs my hand.
The Channel, as I will refer to it throughout the rest of this retelling, hums to life yet again. Whether it is the moonlight, the cocktail of free substances, or the energy of attention feeding our egregore, I am unsure, but something activates it just before the party kicks into overdrive. With a shared glance, an impish smile, I see it sparkle behind Princess’s eyes, and at the same moment, I feel that familiar electricity behind mine. Some readers may confuse this phenomenon with plain women’s telepathy, but this is a misreading. We are able to transmit complicated thoughts to each other, much more than simple phrases like, “Get me away from him,” or “I said bathroom, but I meant leave.” A twitch of my pinky finger is enough to notify Princess that that man has an Amex Platinum card in his coat pocket, but he also knows exactly how to find the bathroom at drag brunch, and to then ask her how we should proceed. We are able to stumble off in two different directions and track the other, like particles entangled, and even sense if the other faces mortal danger. The most crucial differentiator is the hypnotic field: Two dolls tapped into The Channel is enough to wring a few bi-curious otters for free drinks, but three, four? A DMV waiting area could be turned into a bacchanal in mere seconds with little more than a wink. The Channel is a connection between sisters of our covenant, yes, but it is also a field of influence, an extra-dimensional frequency, a power called from a place between realms.
With just a touch, we are both tapped in. Time slows down, and the colored lights saturate around us as we move towards the thumping dancefloor. The back of the crowd wriggles slightly out of time in a wall around it (the white faggots in question, perhaps?) We slide gracefully between them without so much as a bump of the shoulders, ensuring our garments are not sullied by strange sweat. Princess leads until we reach the front, where the speakers pound the air so loudly that my eyes vibrate in my skull. A particularly short and curvy doll has stripped down to her panties and pleasers, and is whipping her head about as she spins across the front of the booth. She and Princess grab one another by the shoulders and scream gleefully before she returns to her spiraling. I take station under the arctic blast of the air conditioner, close my eyes, and crane my head back as the music pilots my body. At the back of the crowd, shoulders and elbows slap together haphazardly. “Dancing” becomes an abstract concept, perhaps something lost to time, replaced by a rudimentary shuffling of feet. But up here, there is decorum, a loyalty to the flow of movement. Arms and fingers outstretched, drawing dirty phrases in the air like practiced calligraphy without ever invading another’s airspace. But when bodies do collide, it happens first at the base of the crotch, then up to the navel, then slowly up through the chest as hands hold onto hip bones. Every muscle works with intention so that the body may act without thought. Though I am not sure of my place in the bathroom’s hierarchy, I at least have the experience to hold my own on the floor.
Time becomes unimportant. I open my eyes only occasionally to check who has tapped in or out. Princess has moved under the disco ball, and Magick has appeared at my side. She is, again, wearing eight-inch pleasers, this time paired with a long strip of dagger-slashed purple fabric fashioned into a nearly nude evening gown. I opened them again a little later. Magick is in the booth by the DJ’s shoulder, and he is whispering something in her ear, at which she looks very mildly impressed, and Princess has disappeared. I open them even later. Cleo has arrived surrounded by a ring of mostly naked club kids, no doubt ensnared by the web of her beauty. Magick is gone, and Princess is jumping wildly in the booth. Cleo and I dance suggestively together for a while before one of her many suitors steps in to take my place. The girls cycle in and out like this for what could be minutes or eons, as is their nature, while I root myself in amongst silent dance partners, as is mine. The music grips me mercilessly by the throat, rumbling in my esophagus and down through the hollow of my chest. Back home, I’m accustomed to the disorganized blend of goth rock, post-punk, darkwave, and techno that’s pumped out at my usual crawl. It satisfies well enough, and often even thoroughly quenches, but I’ve yet to feel the kind of frenzied euphoria that I do right now. Something is growling excitedly at the base of my hips as I move, an orgasm just out of reach. In the blackness behind my shut eyes, I see something… a silver thread? A slit of light? A door cracked ever so slightly? I want to stay here until I can figure this out. I want to keep my eyes closed forever. The last time I opened them, though, everyone was gone. My eyelid twitches – a disturbance. I shut just one eye to see if the thread of light still lingers. I find it gone and mourn briefly, a parting wave to the last little tracer in a comedown. I suppose I should go investigate.
Pushing through the crowd, I look back towards the booth to see if I had possibly missed one of them hiding behind the DJ, but I find the booth entirely empty. Pulled instinctually towards the sections, I spot Princess crouched on the floor and rush up behind her. I ask repeatedly if she’s okay to no response, an unmoving hand placed over her chest, a slack jaw, and eyes so wide the whites reflect neon blue. A gentle hand finds my shoulder from the couch before her, and I turn to realize it is Mama, the Queen Mother of Princess’s chosen family. I recognize her only by the hushed descriptions that have been given to me, and swell with hot embarrassment that I had not acknowledged her before she did me. “She’s okay, baby, she just needs a minute.” Her gaze is stern but affirming. I take the hint and find an empty seat by Jema, a slender DJ knee-deep in mollyworld between two of her latex-clad paramours.
At that moment, I turn to see Darren crashing towards us, a forearm swiping against wet eyes as he stumbles and falls on the couch next to me. He hunches forward into his hands and begins to sob violently. The same section of this track has been looping for a while now, I realize. I don’t know him well, but decently enough (I hope) for the hand I place upon his back to be appropriate. He doesn’t protest. I don’t ask questions. Damien soon appears after him, clearly reading the confusion on my face, and pulls my ear to his lips. “Ron Carroll just passed away.”
So, in front of the club in a haze of camel crush smoke, I learn who Ron Carroll is. I’m sure many individuals more cultured than myself are disgusted by that statement. For those who aren’t, Ron’s endless accolades and contributions to music are easily Googleable, and I strongly suggest taking the time to read through the many obituaries written for him. Maybe light a joint, lie back on your bed, and listen through the decades of tracks he’s worked on, see if you can pick them out the next time you’re lost on a club dancefloor. That night, though, I learned about his smaller moments. Words of encouragement over plates of food he paid for, tears wiped away from drunken cheeks, band-aids placed on bloodied knees, lost kids in the night shielded from the rain by his wing. Love, given freely and softly, always when it was needed most. I learn about a hidden weight that Ron had carried all that time. So after some time smoking, staring off, and looking down at their hands, the night children decide that they will not go home just yet. “Ron wouldn’t want us sitting here crying like a bunch of bitches!” Princess shouts defiantly to the pavement. Darren, nose still running, nods as he wipes his eyes and stands in agreement, “Yeah, fuck that, let’s keep it going. I don’t wanna go home.” He flicks his cigarette into the sewer grate like a farewell offering, before setting off to locate an afterparty. The work is quick, though, as he returns only moments later with an address handed down from Mama herself. A kickback at a high-rise with a code and a doorman, and the family is expected to be in attendance. Princess looks at me, “We’re gonna carry it.”
Like every afters we attend, the overheads are off, replaced by cleverly hidden strips of neon LEDS, and a mystery DJ spins at a decked out controller squeezed between the couch and the mantle. The host is a deceptively goofy hippie named Chet, who feels out of place in such a highly secured new build. There are a few barefoot ravers passing a bong back and forth on the couch. I assume they belong to him. Perhaps he’s a tech guy? Once he begins offering hors d’oeuvres, though, I am able to guess his place in the ecosystem more accurately and decide it best not to question too much further. Within about twenty minutes, I have achieved a nearly perfect high, and most of the extended family has filtered in. I am curled up on the couch next to Darren and Damien when a gaggle of stoners pour inside from a balcony I had not previously noticed. I alert them both that in any high-rise, especially during an afterparty, especially when I am so deliciously high, “The only thing I want is to go stand on a motherfucking balcony.” The boys guide me outside, and we are followed by Princess, Magick, Cleo, Jema, and the rest of the dolls, who take to the scattered barstools and dusty lawn chairs like grackles landing from migration. Damien mingles with the girls while Darren leans against the railing, staring sometimes warmly over us, and sometimes absently out into the night. I am looking at the pavement, maybe twenty stories down, with my belly on the railing and my toes on their tippies. Princess’s face moves into my peripheral and we stare together for a long while before she says,
“I think about it sometimes. I mean, I never ever would, but.. I do.” I do too, more often than I’d like. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I kinda already promised I wouldn’t – pinky swore and everything – but still.” Our tones are casual, perhaps more casual than the subject begets, but maybe every intense conversation doesn’t need to feel like a support group. “Imagine I just go flying right now, like what would y’all even do?” She chuckles out, and I pantomime pulling out my phone to record her hypothetical fall. We both reel hysterically at this, rocking back and forth, kicking our feet over the banister, before Cleo pulls us back sternly by the shoulders. “Y’all crackheads are stressing me out. Don’t make me call Trevor, bitch!” She scolds. Princess falls back into an empty lawn chair, while Cleo and I linger to stare out over the skyline. We sit there for a long while, pinky fingers just barely touching, as a silence overtakes me. I eavesdrop on the conversation behind us and consider chiming in, but I just keep coming up short. I recall my last visit to Chicago, during which Cleo and I had ended up on a balcony much like this together. That time, I had drunk a little too much and told her some things even my ex still doesn’t know. My face flushes at the memory. “I’m doing better than last time, right?” I ask her. Her hand moves to my shoulder as she smiles warmly. “What last time?” Thank God. Nicki, a particularly beautiful doll of Russian descent, comes up to join us.
“You’re still in Texas, right?” She mumbles, slightly drunk. “Yeah, I am.” She inspects me for a moment, then the skyline, before continuing, “Florida was horrible. Sometimes I actually forget I’m a southern girl – or I just try not to think about it, anyway.” The words scrape out of her like something pried from a hiding spot. I reply, “Yeah, I don’t know. It’s weird how different everything is here.” My response is maybe one or two steps above a damn, that’s crazy, but I really do mean it. It is weird. I mean, is this the most conventional wake? Certainly not, but it is a wake nonetheless, a family gathering, whatever the reason. As Nicki, Cleo, and I continue, I do my best to spruce up a series of damn, that’s crazy responses. I remember sharing too much last time, talking too much about home. No doubt, Nicki is inviting me to do so, but at some point, it just becomes tiring. Too much like a support group. What should I tell her, exactly? That back home, I am a girl with an old face on my license, an old name on my lease, and a handful of orphan sisters? No mother, no father. It’s a story she already knows, and an unremarkable one at that. As the family laughs and recounts old stories of late nights out, I’d prefer to sit and listen, to stare out at the city quietly as they mourn. I’d prefer to forget that I’m a southern girl, too.
After a while, I do manage to forget again, forgoing every opportunity to open up further. I sink back into the night, I get a lot higher, until I’m kind of just sober again. The wind shifts, and first light begins to break over the horizon, sending a chill of anxiety over the flock. Unlike the mercy vampires are granted by being incinerated in the sunlight, night children are forced to slink back to our lairs in plain view of the morning joggers, piled up makeup, sloughed off sequins, and all. Slink, we do – the dolls off to yet another afterparty, Darren and Damian to chaperone them, Magick back to her mother’s hospital bedside, Cleo to her day job as a school teacher, and Princess and me once more to the Hollywood Diner. We take our seats and place our same orders, neither of us removing our sunglasses. I figure now is as good a time to ask as any:
“So was tonight a carry?”
She nods furiously, fingers twiddling around the edge of her mug.
“Oh yeah, girl. The other night, that was nothing. But we kept it up tonight. No falling asleep on the couches and shit.”
I chew on this, feeling accomplished, like I’ve slowly begun to master a crucial skill.
“And when you say, we’re gonna storm it, what exactly does that mean?”
She swipes off her shades at this, mulling over her answer as the waitress sets down our plates.
“Ya know, a few months ago, we’re all back there at Surge for Jema’s birthday, right? And it’s all the girls, aaaaaaaall the girls are out. And you know Jema, she’s been on this shit since she was thirteen, basically grew up in the fuckin’ club, doesn’t really know anything else. So we’re sitting in the bathroom and she’s got a literal line out the door to give her shit, bitches just lined up in front of her.”
She hammers the fork into her meal, chewing and swallowing rabidly between sections of her monologue.
“So I go out to say hi to someone, or do something, I don’t know, and I come back and the fuckin’ bathroom’s empty. And I’m running around, going Where are the dolls, where are the dolls, and bitch, tell me why I find ‘em outside. All the dolls got kicked out. Some sneaky little lesbian had come in with a bag, and then she turned around and security’s right there. Double-crossed the bitch!”
She throws her hands out, wide-eyed, pausing on this statement.
“Like they don’t know what goes on. They know, and they don’t care unless somebody complains. Before COVID, you used to be able to get in there for free before midnight if you knew a DJ’s password. That was the whole fucking point, so that bitches had a place to party and feel safe, to dance. Now it’s fuckin twenty flat, no exceptions… And look who’s in there now.”
We both look down at our plates for a moment. Then she continues,
“So that night I said no, fuck that. Everybody get up, we’re going back inside, we’re not fucking paying, because we’re the only bitches in there who remember what it’s about. It means something for a black trans woman to be in that booth, to be at the front, to be dancing her fucking ass off up there. Ron knew that, he always did.”
Her voice is shaking now, tears sliding quietly down her cheeks.
“So yeah, girl, it really is like putting on your fucking war paint. Commanding a room. Asserting our place in the community. They don’t wanna book the girls, fine, the girls are still gonna be there, because without us there’s no party.”
We return home to Vivica’s townhouse and slumber extensively. It is not until I wake up around two that I realize I’m supposed to be on a plane in roughly forty-five minutes. I look down at my suitcase, guts splattered and smeared across the hardwood floor, and then I think about Texas. I think of my apartment, dark and empty, save for the mountain of trash and dirty laundry that blankets every surface. Princess is snoring loudly in the bed next to me, one leg slung out from under the duvet and over mine. I think of my bed with just me in it. I’m supposed to be moving soon, and I’m kinda blowing through my savings. I’ve already spent so much on cars and toiletries and drinks and dinners, but I can’t find it within myself to regret anything. I opened the Southwest app on my phone; it’s only another $173.00 to reschedule my flight for next week. I proceed to checkout and fall easily back to sleep. When I awake some time later, I find the lights on, Princess standing over me half-naked as she digs through a pile of vintage designer clothes. “I rescheduled my flight for next week.” I yawn to her, rubbing the mascara-stained crust from my eyes. She appears puzzled. “What, like just now? I thought you already did, girl.” And in a sense, she’s right, I did already reschedule it, or at least I knew I would.
To be continued…
Very very blessed to live in an age where this prose exists
I can’t waitttt til you get that damn book deal Kay. So so good