Exotic - Chapter 33: Chapter 33

"Alright," Aaron placed his drink down on the table we shared on the balcony. I'd taken off my heels, feet blistered from the show, and was sitting forward on the table, having just laid out my entrails for him to peruse. "Let me get this straight. Every Friday you haven't been able to hang out with me, this is what you've been doing?"
I nodded. "It's not the most conventional money maker, but I was never cut out for pizza delivery."
The show had wrapped up an hour ago, and after an hour of dancing, we'd escaped the crowds upstairs. People approached every so often to strike up a conversation with me, but most of them had the self-awareness to see my attention was occupied. Aaron was drinking Shirley Temples. When I coaxed him to try something stronger, he'd argued that he was driving.
"You drove to a club on your eighteenth birthday?" I had laughed.
"If you had told me it was a club, I might have gotten an Uber," he'd argued back. "Besides, I didn't know whether you were going to explain yourself. I wanted an exit strategy."
I had shut up at that and gotten myself a fruity mocktail to match his pace. Being sober at Crescendo was a new experience. The vibe downstairs was very different from our domestic hangout up top. It felt very Miles-and-Aaron, chilling out at his place in front of a movie, despite the lights and flashiness around us. I had decided I didn't hate that, although I had warned him we would be joining the mosh pit at some point. It was his eighteenth birthday for crying out loud.
"And no one knows about it," he was asking, tapping the rim of his drink. "Alba knows about the clubs, and Lauren knows about the drag, but no one knows all of it?"
Everything on the table, except Caleb. It had been the one thing I held back on. But there were ways I could leave him out of my story without lying to Aaron's face. My relationship with Lauren had only really started after she'd begun tutoring me; it was easy to leave out our first meeting, and explain the misunderstanding with Reece and her mother without mentioning I'd rushed to her brother's rescue after a night of misinterpreted signals. It was sad, how easy it was to write him out of my narrative. "You're the only person I ever wanted to know about all of it. I just worried you would... disapprove."
"Because of the drinking and women's lingerie and the fact everyone this side of town thinks you're twenty-two?" he shook his head at the table. I crossed my arms over the lone white bra I had on and shrugged. "Even if I did disapprove, when have I ever acted on things I object of? I greet every one of Max's girlfriends with a smile, and I've been your alibi to Reece more time than I probably even know."
"It was never about you spilling the secret," I argued. "I knew you wouldn't. But it's a lot, and I never want you to feel like I'm forcing you to keep my secrets. What I'm doing here isn't legal."
Aaron nodded like he had already considered it. "How'd you get the gig? Fake ID?"
"I never needed it," I sipped my drink. "People trust each other in these clubs until you give them a reason not to. I started hanging around the clubs a few months after I started painting myself, and apparently, I look older with lipstick and fishnets because they generally let me in, no questions. There was a karaoke night at Avenue Q, the manager asked if I wanted to host a few of them after hearing my killer rendition of Holding Out For A Hero. Then she recommended me to a few other clubs because I arrived on time and could generally hold a crowd's attention and suddenly I had a resume and legitimate referees in place of legitimate ID."
Aaron whistled. "Isn't it difficult? To keep up the ruse?"
You have no idea. "I have the occasional slip-up, but again, people trust each other. It's a community where we protect each other, look out for one another. I wanted you to see the slightly more fabulous side of this heteronormative cesspit."
He looked out over the dancefloor, surveying the sights. Crescendo was packed with people who felt safe out in the open, men, women, and everyone in between or nowhere on that spectrum pulsing and swaying and dancing in the arms of whomever they pleased. It was a far cry from Truman High School, a far cry from anything Aaron had probably ever seen. He was used to absorbing gay culture through the screen, never breathing it in. He hardly looked at home in a crowded, sweaty club, but he wasn't looking away. He wasn't asking if we could leave either.
"It's something, isn't it?"
He looked up at me, a faint smile playing at his lips. "It's... incredible. And here I was, thinking you were fresh out of the closet."
"Oh, Miles is still a complete closet-case in dire need of gay mentorship, so don't get lazy," I warned him. "But out here, I feel like I can be anything. I am everything."
His frown came out of the blue and made me nervous. "What do you mean? You're also Miles."
"No, I'm not, really." His frown deepened significantly. "It's complicated. I'm not Miles when I look this way. I'm the furthest thing from him. I mean, I'm obviously me, but Sephora isn't just a look. She's a state of mind. She's a character I created who is everything I'm not. She's sexy and brave and talented and out. Out there, outgoing, outspoken."
"Well, Miles is most of those things too," Aaron countered. "You're brave. You're talented. You're blunt as a hammer, and you speak out when you need to. And hey, I'm sure someone finds you sexy."
"Rude," I stuck my tongue out at him. "Look, it's hard to explain. I need Sephora to do all the things I can't as Miles. And I need Miles because... because... well, there's got to be someone behind the mask, right?"
Aaron put down his drink and pointed at me accusingly. "Look, Sephora, I don't know you all that well, but if you keep insulting my best friend, we might have to take this outside."
I laughed lightly. Aaron's expression returned to its usual bemused placidity, and I reached across the table to squeeze his hand.
"I'm sorry," I repeated for what had to have been the hundredth time that night.
"You don't need to apologise," he replied right back for the hundredth time. "You've told me... everything. Maybe too much. I really didn't need to know about last Halloween."
"It wasn't my proudest hour," I grimaced. "But it should have been the kind of thing I could call my best friend to talk about. I feel like you deserve to be caught up."
"I'm glad," his smile turned a little wicked. "Can you catch me up on what's going on between you and Caleb Proust?"
My mouth went dry, bare toes clenching. I was done lying to Aaron, but I wasn't about to out Caleb to him. That would have gone against every moral I held dear. Aaron, despite his suspicions, had waited for me to come out on my own. Every person deserved that luxury.
"I was crushing. Bad." It wasn't the whole truth, but it was the truth. "Still am. But I heard what you said, and you were right. He's a nice guy, but nothing is ever going to happen between us. As I said, Lauren said she'd help me out, so Reece would get off my back, but I held onto her longer than I should have because it meant I could see him."
"Does she know that you're crushing on her brother?" he asked, dragging a finger around the rim of his glass.
"I don't know if there's anything Lauren doesn't know," I snorted. "Except maybe primary human interaction. She was cool with it. Probably thinks I'm a little pathetic."
"I doubt that," Aaron advised. "Besides, if selling your soul for Caleb Proust to look twice at you makes you pathetic, you're in good company. I'm sure he's been personally responsible for the sexual awakening of every girl in our year. Hell, some of the boys too. That, and he's raised the standards of every straight woman this side of the river. Why settle for less when that is available?"
I did well not to topple sideways off my chair, over the railing. I had never heard Aaron speak so frankly. "He's... attractive, yeah."
"If you like that kind of thing," he said simply, completely at odds with his previous ramble on Caleb's physical merit. "He's still an enabler. Doesn't seem all that gifted in the personality division either. The guy is like a cardboard cut-out of a human."
I couldn't help myself. "He's not an enabler. He took a punch to the face to get Aidan kicked off the team."
"Yeah, you don't need to sing his praises. He's okay in my books – as long as he follows through on testifying and getting Aidan barred from ever coming close to my brother again," Aaron sipped his drink nonchalantly. "I'm just saying he's a little bland for my taste. Broody jock, nice when he wants to be, quiet when he doesn't... sue me for asking for a little more in my eye candy."
Despite my initial reaction to rush to Caleb's defence, I bit my lip. Telling Aaron that there was more to him that the person he presented as at school would only open the floor to the inevitable How do you know? "How does an emo of your calibre and commitment not have any love for a sad teenager with naturally black hair and Andy Biersack's eyes plucked straight out of their goddamn sockets?"
"For your information, I now identify as a new wave punk rock fusionist with occasional lapses into emo nostalgia," he prattled off. "And I like BVB's new stuff better."
"Sacrilege," I gasped, clutching my chest. Aaron laughed into his drink.
"Careful, Sephora. Your Miles is showing."
I gave him a long, hard stare, shaking my head in exasperation. Thankfully, he didn't push it any harder.
"So how much do you have saved?" he asked, diverting the conversation massively. "Or does it all go back into the craft?"
"Ha. No," I polished off my drink, missing the burn of liquor but savouring the sweetness. "I've got about three thousand in savings. It's not much, but it'll give me a safety net to start renting once I finish school."
"Wow," Aaron looked legitimately impressed. "So you're definitely moving out next year?"
"The sooner the better," Reece was getting nosier than usual, more outspoken on his views on my life and crimes. If he started poking around for real, like into the bank account I'd set up when Mum had been around which I funnelled my contract payment through, there was no telling how he'd react. I'd had nightmares about waking up with a zero balance in my bank, and Reece telling me he'd taken it as a necessary contribution to the household.
"What about uni?"
"Honestly?" I said, with intentions of being completely transparent with the statement which followed for the first time in my life. "I don't know if tertiary study is for me. I was kind of planning on working full time. Getting a day job, performing at nice. 'Hone my craft'."
Aaron was back to frowning in an instant. "Are you sure? Everyone has a degree these days. It's kind of the lowest bar to cross for employment."
"Hey, I'm employed," I joked. "I'm making bank."
He raised an eyebrow. "How much did you make tonight?"
In tips, I'd gathered all of forty dollars. But with Jamie's hourly wage... "About two hundred."
"Uh-huh," Aaron sat back in his chair. "Two hundred a night. Two nights a week. Take off rent, bills, food, clothes, and Uber costs because you sure as hell can't afford a car. God forbid you run into some big expense, I know lace-fonts aren't cheap. You're probably looking at two dollars left over each week from your pay-check if that."
"I said I was going to get a day job."
"Do you know how hard it is to get a job these days with no prior experience?" he asked, not unkindly. "I've been trying for three years. Even Maccas can afford to be selective. And this..." he gestured out to the club, "...isn't exactly a transferrable skill to hospitality or retail. Do you even have your RSA?"
"Can we not talk about this right now?" I said firmly. Aaron put up his hands in submission.
"I'm just pointing out that moving out can great in concept, but hard in practice," he said. "Right now you live in a two-storey house in fucking Mandurey, Reece pays the bills and buys the food... as he should, that's what he gets government cheques for," he added at my betrayed look. "It's not going to be glamorous."
"Neither is my life with Reece," I pointed out. "I can't live in that house, Aaron. It's suffocating me."
He smiled reassuringly. "And you'll get out. Just... let's hang out one day and make a spreadsheet, okay? Actually plan this thing out. We'll break out Excel, budget you first year of expenses, hell, I'll go apartment hunting with you. Let's make this thing feasible, okay?"
I hung my head as my heart swelled. "Don't make me cry. My eyelashes are already holding on by a goddamn thread."
The track changed to a familiar one, something newer than the 80s glam rock that had been on loop all night. Hot Chelle Rae wasn't exactly Aaron and I's band – Green Day would always hold that title – but they were a blast from our earlier years and I liked the excuse to drag us away from the introverts corner. I slipped out from the table and struggled back into my heels, extending a hand to him. He protested weakly, but a good amount of head bobbing and glaring later he took my hand and let me drag him downstairs. We were immediately overwhelmed by bodies, but the crowd parted to let us onto the dance floor.
Aaron loosened up by the second chorus, after scoffing at my shamelessly terrible moves; all windmill arms and jerky hip movements. He danced with the same lack of enthusiasm as Caleb, but none of the thinly veiled insecurity. Once he adjusted to the press of people against his back and started to get into the music, there was no fear of judgement behind his smile. He just lost himself to the beat, occasionally taking my hand to spin me this way and that.
It was all so harmless and stupid and fun. When Aaron sang, all the tension released from his face, and he looked completely in the moment. When his hand grappled for mine and I staggered forward on the toes of my heels, I remembered that I was in full drag, and I felt us connect on a deeper level than ever now that he had seen the other side of the coin.
I was perspiring by the time the song finished, and my voice was hoarse. I laughed when Aaron groaned as the Spice Girls immediately followed, and dragged me away the way we'd come.
"Who is in charge of these playlists?" he demanded as we collapsed at the base of the steps, occasionally shifting for people to pass by us. "That transition gave me whiplash."
"Jamie usually finds a Mardi Gras playlist on Spotify and tells the booth to prioritize requests," I told him. "He's not a big consumer of popular music. Jamie only listens to jazz."
"Well, he must think we're a pair of musical degenerates," he laughed, and when he closed his lips, I saw him start chewing on the lower one. "Whose Jamie? Was that the guy doing Frankenfurter?"
"Oh god no. Jamie's the manager. He was up at the start, could barely string a sentence together. Poor hermit," I mused, before clocking the tone of Aaron's voice and immediately switching on. "Zsa Zsa Magnifique was playing the good doctor tonight."
"Is that his given name?" Aaron joked, utterly failing to sound flippant. I smirked as he fretted, knotting his fingers in his back curls. "You guys looked... friendly up there."
Our curtained sexcapades might have been slightly more shameless than his chemistry with anyone else on stage, but that was only because we knew each other so well. My orgasmic moaning had been purely an attempt to out-do Susan Sarandon on the big screen. I had been pleased with my efforts, and the entire time, Zsa Zsa had struggled to get out his lines from how hard he was laughing.
"Jealous?" I teased.
"Of you, yeah," he surprised me by saying. "He's beautiful."
Only Aaron would describe a guy he liked the look of as beautiful, over hot or sexy or whatever other offhand labels there were which weren't quite so intense. It reminded Caleb's first compliment to me, all those weeks ago. You are spectacular. Adjectives like that were confronting in the best sort of way.
"He is," I mused, and considered both of them meticulously. I'd never intended for my worlds to meet, considering them like two magnets. I was starting to see them more like salad dressing; the two components separated on their own, but it wasn't bad to shake things up every now. Especially when Aaron was fully briefed on my many secrets. I popped up from the bottom stair, extending my arm to him once again. "Come on. I'll introduce you to him."
Aaron's eyes widened instantly in unadulterated panic, and he reeled back from my hand as if it had just turned green and fallen off. "No! No, no way. I can't."
"Why not?" I demanded, placing my rejected hand on my hip. "He's very three dimensional. Just your type."
"Because... because..." Aaron spluttered, so overwhelmed with reasons that he could not settle on only one. He threw up his hands helplessly. "It's just not a good idea."
"Just tell him you're a family friend and don't contradict my story," I suggested. "You're freshly eighteen, he's freshly heartbroken. You're a match made in heaven. Come on, he's even hotter up closer."
"Jesus," Aaron hissed, standing up and crossing his arms over his chest nervily. "Do you want to get caught? I'm terrible at lying. What if he asks how we know each other, or where we met or why you're hanging out with a high schooler..."
"Oh, Aaron Sanchez," I sighed. "He won't ask you about me. He won't talk about me, he won't even think about me the second he lays eyes on you. You are so his type."
"I am?" Aaron couldn't help but look pleased. I respited the urge to pinch his cheeks.
"He's into shy, non-Caucasian, attractive bi-linguists," I adjusted Zsa Zsa's criteria because, for Aaron, rules deserved to be bent.
"Bi-lingual?" Aaron made a face. "I haven't spoken Portuguese since pre-school."
"Well, brush up on your conversational verbs or whatever. I'll go find him," I squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Aaron looked like he was about to protest but sealed his lips at the last second and nodded, a determined look in his eye. He began fixing his hair when I left him, venturing out with my eyes scanning the crowd for black lingerie and a killer set of legs.
The only problem being, that it was Rocky Horror night and every second person I crossed was dressed as the fan favourite, Dr. Frankenfurter. Zsa Zsa was a particularly sparkly needle in a haystack, and despite knowing him as well as I did, it was almost impossible to sort through the flock of black wigs and red lips to find the person I was looking for.
I was knocked off-kilter by a sweeping arm colliding with my chest, and staggered heavily against a tiny woman in Riff Raff cosplay, nearly sending her flying. I steadying myself against her shoulder before continuing forwards, wriggling through the densely packed dance floor.
I was just thinking that I would have a better chance of spotting him from the balcony when I felt fingers encircle my wrist and gently bring me to a halt.
I glanced down, half expecting Aaron to have changed his mind, but instead found a set of chrome blue nails at the end of slender, pale fingers. One of said fingers was decorated at the base by a familiar red and black design, inked into the skin just above the third knuckle. It was a design I'd grown accustomed to seeing on the dark, delicate fingers which wrote observations about my life with flourishes of her pen, and drummed out nonsense whenever she thought I was withholding something.
My heart pumped ice water through my veils as I twisted to face Alba's fiancée. Rory was decked from head to toe in Columbia's signature gold sequins, cheeks streaked with hard lines of red and eyes circled in heavy amounts of eyeliner. Her mullet was partially hidden by a lopsided top hat, and her eyebrows had been painted over and relocated to the top of her hairline. Her many piercings were connected with strings of fine chain, septum to earlobe to auricle, and a curtain of feathers hanging from the rings in her eyebrow. Her bare arms bore her extensive tattoo collection to the world, and her bare midriff exposed an intricate reproduction of the London tube system spiralling out from her belly-button.
Rory smiled at me, and thankfully it was not the smile you gave an old friend; rather, the semi-nervous greeting to a stranger. Some of the tension in my chest released in time for her to speak.
"Sorry," she said brightly. "I just caught a glimpse of you and thought, what the hell, I'll say hello. I know you've probably been getting this all night, but I've been following your Insta for a while, and bloody hell, I think you're just brilliant. Complete stunner. Didn't know you could sing as well."
I peeled myself away from her grip. It was clear she didn't remember me as the scrawny Tolkienite she'd met outside a club weeks before; and even if she did, it wasn't like Alba was allowed to tell her about me. She was no risk, but I could assume that on a Saturday night out, Rory hadn't come unaccompanied, and I couldn't trust that Alba wouldn't recognise me after weeks of staring at my sorry face under the harsh lights of her office.
A quick scan of the dance floor bought up nothing, so I didn't sprint at my first opportunity; my first mistake. "Thank you."
She beamed. "I usually don't come out for anyone specific, but when I saw your post I just had to. I cannot believe you sang that live."
I forced a smile, but I didn't have to try all that hard. Compliments were compliments, no matter the circumstances, and Sephora drank them up. "You look... incredible."
"This old thing?" Rory scoffed, still kicking up her left heel to give me a side-on look of the outfit. "I'd swap it for yours in an instant. As long as I get the body to go with it."
If my heart hadn't been pounding in fear, it might have just swelled with pleasure. "You're too much."
Rory grinned wider, sticking out a hand in a mirror of how we'd already met. "I'm Rory. I don't want to keep you, just... needed to say that you're gorgeous and to keep doing what you're doing. You're going to be big."
I smiled weakly back at her, letting her shake my hand eagerly. She pulled out her phone, a battered smartphone with a green peace sticker on the back. She waved the shattered screen in my direction.
"Would you mind taking a photo with me?"
I blanched and staggered backward. Rory's face fell at my blatantly negative reaction.
"No photos," I said, probably sharper than was entirely necessary. Rather than hanging around to explain and get caught up in a web of lies, I searched the floor for Alba again before rushing to the door. I couldn't have even one night, could I? Not one night without the balance of my life coming under threat. I dug my phone out of my pocket to call Aaron – there were plenty of other clubs to spend his eighteenth in, without the risk of running into our school councillor.
I slid by the weekend bouncer Patrick, who was funnelling people through to door, out onto the safety of the open street. The strip was alive with activity, coloured lights pulsing from the doorways of rival clubs across the road. Crescendo's neon sign out-did them all, turning the damp street pale blue under its ultra-violet light. It was icy cold, especially on my bare legs but with the roaring Saturday crowd spilling out on the pavement, I felt completely safe in a bra and tennis skirt. Drunk couples waited for rideshares on the curb, eager patrons lined up around the block and a hen's party staggered past me, screeching with laughter.
I dialled Aaron's number and wandered into the mouth of the alleyway next to the club for some peace as I waited for him to answer. It was the same lane I had walked down many times to reach Jamie's apartment door, so I didn't think much of it; not until I heard someone shout from the darkness, followed by the crashing of sheet metal. It sounded like someone being shoved up against the side of a skip bin. It made me jump, and automatically back away from the shadowy walls, unwilling to get involved in a back alley scuffle.
A rush of footsteps soon followed, fading away as someone fled in the opposite direction. The crash I'd heard had apparently been the conclusion of the physical altercation. I took a step into the light, my first instinct to run for the bouncer's help; a muted groan reached my ears, followed by a soft cry, and I turned back, teetering on my heels. I crept back into the shadows cast by the alleyway's narrow walls.
"Hey?"
Aaron's voice in my ear made me jump nearly a foot in the air. I'd completely forgotten that I had my phone pressed to my ear.
"Hey," I whispered. "Sorry, I'll call you back in a second. Someone's hurt..."
"Miles?" a shaken voice called from the darkened alleyway. My heart immediately clenched in horror, and I let my phone fall from my ear as I dashed towards the whimper before I even registered the familiarity of the voice.
There was only one person besides Aaron at Crescendo who knew my real name.
I'd shared it with him less than a week ago.