Chapter Twelve #2
‘I hope you’re right. I should have held back, but I just felt so incensed that she could feel that way.
It’s so wrong. Perhaps I should have shut up and carried on treading that delicate and deeply unfulfilling line between what Julie-Ann wants and what Mandy wants, and ended up with Princess Kate on steroids.
Perhaps I should have just shut my big trap. ’
‘Oh babe, you said what you felt. I mean that speech seriously was awards season worthy. Let’s face it, she won’t be able to hide for long.’
We sat watching the door in silence until the sounds from the room began to abate. Even though it was plain she wasn’t going to come out again this evening, we decided to wait a while longer, just in case.
‘It’s interesting,’ I whispered as the sky became pitch black outside the window.
‘I thought I knew Mandy after following her for so many years. She’s got this presence almost everywhere you look.
She puts it all out there and seems so robust at handling whatever comes her way.
But she’s just a normal human being at the end of the day. And I don’t know her at all.’
‘You’re right about that. She surprised me today,’ Blair replied, picking at the blue gel paint on one of their nails. ‘And maybe she surprised herself too. I thought she was going to get onboard with you at one point, and then she went totally the other way.’
‘I got caught in the crossfire all right,’ I added, beginning to see a little humour in the situation now.
‘You did.’ Blair smiled. ‘I mean she offered you a one-way ticket to Self-Love Utopia – wherever that is. You better go pack your case, honey.’
‘I wonder if BA fly there?’ I added, and we both stifled a giggle. ‘What is it that Winston Churchill once said? “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”’ I smirked.
‘You were bang on,’ they continued. ‘Especially that point about getting to know yourself being the most difficult process.’
They paused thoughtfully.
‘Are you speaking from experience?’ I asked tentatively.
It wasn’t as if either of us had anywhere to go right now, so it felt like a good time to get to know Blair a little better.
They sighed. ‘Oh, I related.’
‘I’d love to hear your story, if you’re comfortable telling me.’ I hoped I hadn’t overstepped the mark.
‘It might take a while, get cosy,’ they said.
‘My story started a long time ago. I was probably around the age of three or four.’ I nodded at Blair, encouraging them to go on.
‘I guess I grew up feeling different. I was the little boy who wore dresses for “fun” and never wanted to take them off. I preferred to hang out with the girls, yet I was the best at football, and the school tug-of-war champion. You should have seen me at clip ’n’ climb – like a mini-Spiderman!
– I was so fast and strong. I always fancied girls and my first kiss was at aged ten with one of the prettiest girls in my class.
She was called Amelia and it happened in the park on the way home from school.
We were the talk of the year, we’d walk around the playground together holding hands at break.
For a long while I enjoyed playing up to my image as a stud.
I used to get through a tonne of gel styling my hair every morning and I got one ear pierced the moment I was allowed to.
But the thing I loved most about it all was the preparation, the whole process of putting on an act.
Then, when I was about fourteen, one night on a Scouts trip, I ended up sleeping in the same creaky single bed as one of my male friends.
I remember our hands touching and lacing together for the briefest moment in the night, and it was like an electric charge.
It was as though I had stoked a red-hot furnace, and the sparks wouldn’t go out.
’ They hesitated. ‘In the morning, we barely said a word to each other, we were so embarrassed. We both knew what had happened, that was plain. I played it over so many times in my mind, hoping that I might get to feel that again.’
My mind turned back to my first kiss with Rob, how the reaction in my body had been like fireworks going off. ‘What happened next?’
‘My family were religious. I grew up in this tiny village in Derbyshire and there were literally no gay or bisexual people we knew. I was terrified about what would happen if anyone – my family or friends – found out about it. I thought I could be kicked out of home for having feelings about other boys. It was lonely. I would stay in my room a lot, googling “Am I gay?” quizzes online. I got bullied badly at secondary school, after the kid from Scouts decided to turn against me and told everyone I had tried to hold his hand that night. They called me names and excluded me. I was lucky he didn’t tell his parents, because I have no idea what would have happened then.
’ Instinctively I reached out and squeezed their arm.
‘I found solace in an online community,’ Blair continued, ‘chatting to others on DM and via dating apps, but being too scared to ever take it further. Everything and anything to do with exploring the real me, and the feelings I was having, had to be done in secret. It was hard to make sense of who I was. The only way to describe it is, I felt like a treasure trove of disconnected items, like I wasn’t going to have the straight trajectory most kids have. ’
‘Really? Do you think most people are straight forward?’ I asked. ‘The older I get, the more I realise that no one knows what they’re doing, least of all the adults. It must have been hard,’ I sympathised. ‘But look at you now. How did you find a way to express yourself?’
‘Fashion had a huge role in helping me to feel comfortable in my skin,’ they continued.
‘There was a show on TV called You, Me and They with a queer storyline at its centre, and a character who embraced gender-neutral fashion. It made me feel seen and inspired me to create my own identity rather than chase the one imposed by society. When you forget about there being clothes for men and clothes for women, once you remove those barriers, then you open up this kaleidoscopic world in which you can have fun and truly be yourself. I go into shops and sometimes I’m drawn to women’s clothes, thinking they’re amazing, and other times I gravitate to the traditional men’s section.
I love mixing the two together.’ They looked at me.
‘Why do we need to limit ourselves? I try not to think too much about what it means – I’m just doing me. ’
‘You do you so well,’ I acknowledged. ‘I love how you put your looks together. It’s so creative. It’s cool. I’m learning a lot from you.’ I smiled, and then asked, ‘Did you come out to your parents in the end?’
‘I waited until my eighteenth birthday,’ they said.
‘I’d been watching the second season of You, Me and They religiously.
Mum had seen some of it too, and she hadn’t yet banned it or run out of the room in disgust, so I figured she was at least aware that not everyone fits a heterosexual mould.
By this time, I was quite clearly dressing differently to other lads my age.
I’d even had a few dates with a guy I met through my Saturday job, working in a bar in Derby.
The whole family was gathered around in the garden, and we popped some champagne, and I did it – I told them I was bisexual and gender fluid. ’
‘How did they take it?’ I asked them.
‘Mum said she’d guessed as much, and Dad gave me a hug.
My sister’s exact words were “No shit, Sherlock! But you’re not borrowing any of my Vivienne Westwood.
” It was such a relief. I even felt silly for not talking to them about it sooner.
After that, the floodgates opened, and I felt like I had stepped across a border onto the yellow brick road.
Like someone had turned the lights on in a dark attic – and they were multicoloured mobile disco lights at that. ’ We both giggled.
‘How old are you now?’ I asked.
‘Twenty-two. I went to fashion college straight after my A-levels and did some work experience at Wonderland magazine. That’s where I met Mandy on a cover shoot.
They photographed her suspended from the ceiling of a church in a white fluffy bikini, garter, and these incredible custom-made fluffy angel wings attached to her back.
There were lit-up crucifixes everywhere. It was epic.’
‘I remember that cover! It was off the scale,’ I raved. ‘I loved it.’
‘She did too. I went fully camp for the shoot and wore a pink fluffy cropped jacket and skin-tight pants with Doc Martens, expressing my individuality in all its glory for the first time at work. I figured this was the place to do it.’
‘I bet you rocked it.’
‘Mandy said she loved my outfit,’ they said, blushing.
‘I looked after all her needs on that shoot, from angling the wind machine to cutting up her chicken breast into bite-sized pieces so it didn’t displace her lip gloss when she ate.
I even went to Boots to pick up a treatment for her recurrent vaginal yeast infection – and that news did not find its way onto Popbitch. ’
I put my hand over my mouth as I laughed. ‘Seriously? Tell me she didn’t really s end you out for that?’
‘She seriously did.’ Blair put their ear to the door. ‘Shit, I really hope she can’t hear any of this.’
I did the same. ‘It’s completely quiet, she must have fallen asleep.’
‘I basically did whatever Mandy wanted,’ they continued.
‘I was her fluffy camp lap dog. Maybe it was a test, because, at the end of the shoot day, she asked when my work experience was ending. It turned out that Mandy needed a personal assistant, so she and Jose took me on. I guess they judged correctly, by my painted nails and pussy bow shirt, that I wasn’t going to threaten Jose’s position as the manly man of the house. ’
‘Well, you were unlikely to try it on, now you knew about her issues down below!’ I giggled.
‘I’m pretty sure it was all fabricated to see if I had what it took,’ they said.
It reminded me of the made-up scenarios Mandy had used in my interview process as well.
‘And Jose judged correctly that I was more interested in the hot male photographer’s assistant, than the superstar striking the poses,’ they said wistfully.
‘He was right, because I also gained a boyfriend in Patrick that day.’
‘Result!’ I held out my clenched fist and we bumped.
‘But test or not, more accurately, you got it because you’re brilliant at what you do,’ I said.
‘Trust me, I know first-hand how hard it is to have a diva for a boss, I used to assist Mona Armstrong. She, who would only drink caffé macchiato from one particular London coffee shop, and had a penchant for never answering her phone, or being polite to people. It’s the hardest job in the world – you have to develop the patience of a sloth and be skilled in literally everything. ’
‘Bump back to you for sticking it out with Mona Armstrong,’ they said, as we tapped knuckles again. ‘I’ve heard her reputation precedes her. They ended up putting a ban on working with her at Wonderland . She was more high maintenance than the A-list stars.’
‘Perhaps your wonky trajectory stood you in good stead,’ I offered.
They smiled. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I was definitely resilient – you have to be, when bullies are on your back. The same skills come in handy when navigating life with a celebrity.’
‘It sounds to me like you understood who you were from a young age. It just took other people longer to catch up. I really believe we’re all at different points on one big scale – labelling people is where the problems lie.
I wish we didn’t have to use labels at all.
But now the world is becoming more open, it might not be so hard for future generations.
Are we full circle with my “Self-Love Utopia”? ’ I smiled.
Blair looked me straight in the eyes. ‘I love your positivity, babe, but the world isn’t nearly there.
I think there is more polarisation than ever.
It’s up to people like us to make a difference – I’m looking to you to keep doing what you’re doing and encouraging authenticity.
There’s no way we can break down barriers if we keep pretending to be somebody else.
We can all have influence, in big or small ways.
When I think about that show I watched and how it enabled me to come out to my family, it literally liberated me from a prison.
It has stuck with me. We have a really important job to do here, Amber, we have the possibility to make change. ’
‘Wow.’ I bowed down before them. ‘Can you run for Prime Minister now, please?’
‘Ha.’ They grinned. ‘That’s your job. I guess this is what I wanted to say to everyone on the first evening, but I felt too embarrassed. Plus it was a little premature,’ they said.
‘I think we’ve crossed that line now.’ I cringed. ‘The question is whether we have to go back the way we came, or move forward. We’re still not even through the first fortnight.’
‘We have to try to convince her,’ they said. ‘If a star like Mandy decides to let down her guard, this could be huge.’
‘I’m with you.’ I smiled. ‘And Blair – thank you for telling me all this. We owe it to you and all the other Blairs out there, to continue encouraging individuality. I think we all have a role to play in this.’
They held out their pinky towards me and instinctively I linked it with mine. ‘BFFs in here?’ they said.
‘Yes, baby, to Beautiful Furry Friends living in a Self-Love Utopia!’ And we laughed together, until we remembered we were meant to be quiet.
After another quick door check, through which we both thought we could hear a soft snore, I unfurled my legs from underneath me and slowly stood up.
My knees cracked as I rose. ‘I definitely shouldn’t be this stiff at twenty-six,’ I muttered.
‘If she’s sleeping, I’m going to steal from the bread bin. I’m starving.’
‘I’ll join you down there in a bit. I’ve got to do something first,’ they said, taking my outstretched hand to help pull them up. ‘I just want to call my mum to tell her I love her.’