4. Aspen #2
“Please sign me up for that if you ever do decide to do it. I won’t fight you. I’ll even hold the rope in my teeth if you need me to so you can get the knot tight enough,” Phoenix said. “If you plan on cooking too, I’ll pay for the experience.”
Errrrrrrrttttttt!
I nearly blew through a flashing, four-way stop light, slamming the brakes at the last minute while my poor, scrambled thoughts lay in the dust where they’d crumbled after his words had left my brain in disarray.
“Oof,” Parker groaned when the seatbelt snapped him against the back of the seat, the same as it did to Phoenix.
“Come on, man, if I go back up to the ER and tell them I have whiplash, they’re gonna make a lot of unfortunate assumptions about the people I spend time with,” Phoenix complained. “Present company included.”
“I think we’ve just been compared to ruffians,” I declared before proceeding across when it was my turn to go. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“I don’t know,” Parker muttered, primping in the rearview now. “I think I’d make a dashing ruffian.”
It was a pleasant change to show up to the club in a haze of laughter instead of the silence that usually filled my car when I made the short drive alone.
I’d have listened to music, but every time I tried, I got inspired by a song whose name I forgot by the time I had the chance to write it down.
Instead of rage-baiting myself, I didn’t bother.
Tonight, however, laughter spilled out the doors and followed me around to the trunk where they grabbed my things.
When I stepped through the back door and headed to the dressing room, it was with Phoenix on my arm, and Parker a few steps ahead of us, opening every door.
No one had to know that I was mostly leading Phoenix, since it was dim as fuck back here.
Every head turned our way when we stepped in, envious eyes following as I led them to my booth and started laying out my costumes.
“Since I can’t protect his virtue from back here and you have none left to speak about, you’ll have to safeguard Phoenix during the show,” I told Parker as he set my makeup case on the counter and made a show of wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Guess it was arm day today,” he said as he fanned himself.
“You just cost yourself a tart, mister,” I said, wagging my finger at him.
“I’m sorry,” Parker sputtered, clasping his hands beneath his chin. “Seriously, I was just giving you shit. It wasn’t heavy at all. Not any heavier than the wig case actually.”
I wasn’t the only one busting a gut when he finished his tirade. Half the dressing room, most in some state of half-dressed upheaval, had gotten in on the fun. Phoenix leaned against the wall, hand pressed to his face, cracking up right along with the rest of us.
“You must stay in the good graces of the maker of the tarts,” Phoenix declared once the laughter had died down. “Would think you’d have learned that by now.”
“Guess there’s always something new you can learn about someone, even when they’re one of your oldest friends,” Parker said, pausing to grin at me. “Break a leg. I can’t wait to see you in action.”
“Come on,” Phoenix said, tugging his arm. “I know how these things fill up. If we don’t get a seat now, we will be way the fuck in the back when the show starts, and that just fucking sucks.”
His voice grew softer the farther away they walked, leaving me to go through the process of transforming myself through drag.
Fishnets first, then the padding. I didn’t require much, I was slight and slim, so the bodysuit I slipped into just enhanced the padded bra I put on once the suit was in place.
It added a bit of curve to my hips, created the illusion of an ass, and provided a descent enough C-cup that would show off beautifully in the latex catsuit I pulled on over it all.
The legs zipped up mid-thigh, and the arms at the elbows and shoulders, allowing me to modify it to suit whatever mood I was in. Tonight, I removed just the left leg and the right arm, before layering the schoolgirl pieces that went on top of it.
Makeup was next, and I went with soft blue highlights at the tips of my eyelashes, bringing out the shade, with blue and gray eye shadow that matched the plaid stripped skirt and blazer.
My white knee socks and pleated skirt, coupled with the white blouse I wore beneath the blazer, completely hid the catsuit beneath it.
The same way the long, spiral cinnamon curls of my favorite wig obscured the electric purple bob underneath.
It would be crooked and drooping by the end, my clothes messy, pieces left behind on the walkway, but tonight I was going to show them how a lost little girl went from fallen angel to broken doll, all in a three-act performance.
I was used to people coming to see me, it was what the fuck Christian had called me for, but it was rare that I had my people in the audience.
Especially Parker.
Had I misjudged him all this time? Kept him out of this part of my life when it didn’t have to be that way?
He hadn’t balked at coming down here tonight, and while his days on the runway were well and truly over, people still recognized him, regularly, and even asked to take selfies.
He always acted so flattered, but a part of me assumed that was just for show.
The man I spent time around was infuriatingly aloof and at times overbearing, not that I had room to talk.
We might have developed our more theatrical tendencies while traveling different paths, but there was no denying that we’d come by them honestly. Now I wondered if he used them the same way I did, to both fit in and stand out wherever we went, whether we wanted to be there or not.