Exotic - Chapter 50: Chapter 50

"End of the line, bud."
I jolted upright from my sitting foetal position, hidden in the back seat. The bus conductor was watching me with a dash of concern, but it was watered down by frustration. He had probably been calling out at me for a while.
"Sorry," I managed around the bubble in my throat. "Where are we?"
He let out a heavy, I don't get paid enough for this sigh. "Lakeview Shopping Centre. Do you know where you're going from here?"
I wiped my eyes and lied. "Yeah. Thanks."
With the wig still cradled to my chest and Caleb's phone in one fist, I shuffled across the seat and stumbled my way to the door. The second I was off, the door hissed shut behind me and the bus trundled off and veered off onto the street. I was left in front of a metal bench, stationed in the middle of a mostly empty carpark. An elderly woman with a cheetah print trolley at her side stared at me openly behind yellowed reading glasses. I remembered my school uniform and wondered vaguely what the time was. Then I remembered the wig and thought that was probably the reason for her open gawking.
I stuffed it self-consciously under one arm and buried my chin in my collar, shuffling in the direction of the shopping centre. It was a somewhat depressing time to be during school hours; deserted save some pensioners and school kids who looked way more obvious about skipping school than me, constantly checking over their shoulders and hissing at each other behind cupped hands as they skuttled between stores. I walked without purpose until I reached a MECCA store, and after a moment of hesitation, my legs forced me through the door. As soon as I was inside, surrounded by colour and light and the faint chemical smell of palettes upon palettes of makeup stored in a single location, I felt a wave of relief. My shoulders loosened and my confidence blossomed, as I propelled myself to a stand of lipsticks. The woman on the poster above them was wearing all red, legs splayed, and mascara smeared down her cheeks. Her lipstick was thick and mauve across her mouth, not even smudged despite her dishevelled state.
The caption read; JUCE: FOR WHATEVER LIFE THROWS AT YOU.
I picked up the tester for the colour SEX BEETLE and wiped the end with a provided tissue before dragging a line across my bottom lip. I pressed my lips together and rubbed them, staining my mouth violent red. A mirror off to the side of the display showed me how my face lifted around that single blossom of colour; my eyes widened and red returned to my cheeks. The right side of my mouth lifted ever so slightly into a Sephora-esque smirk.
"Uhm... excuse me, you're supposed to swatch on your arm."
I turned smoothly to face the shop assistant, tall and hunched over and clearly uncomfortable having to confront me. My first instinct was to stammer an apology and run out, but when I recognised her hesitance as the sort that came when someone was intimidated, I stood my ground.
"Oh, my god," I gasped, and then laughed effortlessly, dismissing the faux pas as easily as tossing my hair. "I didn't see you there. I get a little in the zone sometimes. Sorry."
The girl seemed to shrink even more, thick brown hair cloaking her face. I wanted to tell her to stand up straight. She was at least six feet and owning exactly zero inches of that. "That's okay. It's a... nice colour on you?"
I couldn't believe that after being kicked off a bus with the tears still fresh on my collar, and blatantly breaking the rules of the store, I was the more self-assured one in this exchange. "You think? I'd usually go for something more garish."
The girl's mouth opened and closed, visibly at a loss of what could be more garish than a bright red lipstick called SEX BEETLE. "We have... uhm... other colours."
My god. It was like flashing forward of me working retail to make rent after Reece changed the locks. Sephora could sell anything, but Sephora didn't come out for menial tasks like making commissions. I was also pretty sure that there were rules against turning up to regular jobs in full drag.
"I like this one," I reassured her, and turned back to the mirror. My confidence dwindled somewhat as I recognised that I still looked very much myself. I felt Sephora deflate a little, as my plain brown eyes critiqued every little part of me.
"Uhm... sorry," the girl crashed my pity party with an apologetic wince. "Can I help with anything else?"
I turned back to her, hating how full my eyes felt. "Do you have a time machine?"
The girl looked grateful to have been given a task and started to turn her back on me before realising I was making a bitter joke. "Oh. Bad day?"
I let out a flat laugh. "You could say that." Then, thinking twice about how pathetic it was to be airing my disappointments to a shop assistant, I added, "Sorry. You're not paid enough to deal with this, I know."
She gave me a tiny smile, finally meeting my eye. "Doing a little shopping therapy?"
"I wish I could," I admitted. "I just lost about 700 dollars worth of makeup to a grown man's tantrum about my sexuality. I think I needed to be reminded it's here for me to start again when I have the money."
Her genuinely outraged expression was such a sharp contrast to her previous timid nature that I took a step back. "Seriously? I'm so sorry. That's... sorry, that's heartbreaking."
I hadn't really lingered on the loss of my wardrobe. All that time and money, and all I had to prove Sephora had ever existed was a single wig, growing sweaty in my palm. My collection of makeup was expansive, and a big source of pride. I still had some of my mother's original empty compacts and lipstick tubes amongst them. I had no idea if I'd ever see them again.
The thought bought tears to my eyes, and I fought to hold them back. It would be selfish to cry in front of this stranger. To burden her with all my anxiety when she was just here to make sales and stop idiots from using the testers in a way that could cause a herpes outbreak.
"Wait," she said desperately, and disappeared down the aisle. I was grateful for the space to let a wet gasp free and to bury my head in my collar. I dragged my face through the fabric, meeting eyes with the boy in the mirror; my cheeks were wet, and my hair was wrecked, bangs sticking up in every direction but the logical one. The lipstick, I noted, had not smudged. For whatever life throws at you.
I heard a clatter of objects clicking together in a small space and footsteps approaching. I struggled to compose myself as the shop assistant returned with a plastic box pressed against her chest. Her expression was one of determination.
"Look, it's... it's not the same," she began, looking already like she was regretting her choice. She looked over her shoulder as if a manager was about to pop out and berate her. "But... look, this is all expired stock. It's all headed for the bin. I was planning on filling my pockets tonight, but... look, it's all good stuff, and if you want... yeah."
She thrust the box at me and averted her eyes.
I stared, mouth hanging open, hands slack by my sides. My brain had short-circuited in the face of such generosity. "I can't just take that. It's too much."
The girl flustered and thrust the box at me again firmly.
"Seriously. It'll go to waste otherwise," she insisted. "My ex flushed my entire collection when we broke up. Literally thousands of dollars worth. It's not much but I know that it's hard to start again. So... take it."
I forced myself to reach up and take the box from her. She dropped her arms, shoulders finally pushed back, chin tilted up. Her badge read Hi! I'm KARLA. How can I help you?
"Thank you," I said, stunned. "I don't know how... I don't know how to accept this."
"Like this," she told me, and took me by the shoulders, marching me to the exit. I was stunned by her shift change in demeanour. Once I was at the doorway, she released me and stood there with her hands on her hips. I stood there, mute, trying to work out what kind of test from the universe this was.
"Everyone deserves nice things," she told me. Her smile returned, slight and nervous. "Just... stick it to him, alright? And don't tell my supervisor."
I nodded in agreement to her bizarre terms, and she waved me off. I kept turning back to make sure no one was chasing after me. The plastic box of various products rattled with each step. I walked all the way to the other side of the mall before sitting down and cracking it open.
There were lipsticks, a contour stick, blushes, highlighter, a packet of marked-down brushes, a tube of mascara. Several palettes of eyeshadow with a few of the pans cracked, a bunch of eyeliner pens, and a small eyebrow kit. All that and more; plus, a very new, very not-expired tube of SEX BEETLE places strategically off to the side. I couldn't believe it. She was the kind of terrible salesperson I aspired to be.
I stood with a newfound levity and trotted across the food court to a rare indoor McDonalds, pushing my way inside. The bell startled the sole cashier up from their phone. They hastily shoved it into their pocket and stood to attention, but I strode straight to the bathroom and was halfway in before he called out to me.
"Bathroom is for customers only!" he sounded as if he was fully prepared for me to ignore him. I paused with my hand on the door.
"Surprise me then," I slipped through the gap before he could respond.
The bathroom smelt as if it had been recently bleached, and the mirror had a vicious crack cutting horizontally through it. I poured the contents of Karla's gift across the counter, and set Sephora's wig beside them. I ran my fingers through the blonde waves, smoothing out the kinks and knots.
I slipped out of my shirt first, flipping it inside out to hide the Truman logo. I made the mistake of glancing up, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror while I was pulling it back on. I was skinny, a stressed-out kind of skinny that didn't look appealing to anyone. My body was up and down, flat and plain with nothing to grip onto. My face was cut off by the deep fissure in the reflective glass, fragmenting my head into two halves. My face curled into a scowl, directed at my own reflection. The lipstick looked ridiculous on my thin, chapped lips. My skin was patchy and ashen, and all the crying had left me looking insane. Hair dishevelled, eyes bloodshot, cheeks shiny. No wonder Karla had taken pity on me.
I took a paper towel and ran the tap, scrubbing at my face until it was pink. I combed water back through my hair with my fingers, forcing it to sit flat. Then I got to work.
A healthy squirt of foundation gave my skin a more living glow, and the concealer evened it out until I no longer resemble a walking corpse. Eyebrows next, thickened and elongated into Sephora's signature expressive arches. Lipliner gave my mouth a defined pout, plumping them until they were kissable, with three layers of SEX BEETLE: For whatever life throws at you to turn my smirk from try hard to dangerous. I contoured every bone in my face until the shape of it seemed to shift before my very eyes. Miles disappeared beneath the expert movement of the brush, my hands painting on autopilot. Eyeshadow, smoky and erotic, eyeliner heavy, layer after layer of mascara until the brown of my eyes was obscured under a hundred spidery strands. Highlighter was difficult under the dim bathroom lights, but I took the opposite route of less is more. When I was positively glittering, I dropped the brush and picked up the wig. I set it carefully over my head, arranging it to tumble over my shoulders, painting another layer over the hairline.
I gave myself a good long stare. Sephora Utah stared boldly back, somehow making my school uniform look chic. My lips parted, and so did hers. I tossed my hair and winked and stuck out my tongue and Sephora followed my lead. Suddenly everything would be okay because look who I could be with a box of expired makeup and a battered wig. Look who I could become.
"Better," I purred. Sephora echoed the sentiment.
Tucking the box under my arm for safekeeping, I strutted out of the bathroom with my head held high, just as the cashier was folding over the top of a brown paper bag. He glanced up, back down, and then did a double-take. I sauntered past the counter to the exterior door, school shoes tapping like heels against the tiles, and threw my head over my shoulder as I reached the door.
"I think he'll be a while!" I called cheerily, before spilling out into the carpark.
At the bus station, the old woman with the trolley was still sitting and waiting. She looked up as I approached, and her eyes quickly turned into saucers behind her glasses. She quickly busied herself inspecting the veins of her hands. I took a seat closer than I would have ten minutes ago, crossing my legs at the knees, and when she glanced up for another peek at me, I smiled broadly.
My remaining two dollars put me on a bus into the city. I ended up, by no mistake, outside Crescendo. In my dwindling list of places I felt safe, Crescendo was untouched.
I cupped my hands over my eyes and looked in the window, narrowing my eye to see past the tinting. Jamie was leaning on the bar with his back to the door, phone to his ear. I pulled back a hand and knocked unabashedly.
Inside, he turned and tilted his head at me. Mouthing 'Seph?', he walked over to the door, pushing it open with his phone against his shoulder.
"Hi?" he sounded baffled. "You're early?"
"Don't sound so surprised," I teased and followed him inside when he gestured for me to do so.
"Let me rephrase. You're very early," he looked me up and down. "Cute shorts. What are you, a sailor?"
I tugged at my uniform self-consciously. "It's laundry day."
He raised the phone back to his ear. "I'll let you go. Talk soon, take care."
He hung up and sighed. "That was Zsa. He says he's got the flu or something, but I don't buy it. I think it's something to do with Peter. You haven't heard anything, have you?"
I felt sick at the prospect of lying to Jamie, especially when he looked so concerned. But Zsa Zsa had chosen not to tell him what was really keeping him from the club, and it wasn't my place to correct the record. I did wonder how Zsa Zsa hoped to keep up the ruse though; flu didn't last longer than a few weeks, and he wouldn't be dancing again anytime soon. Not with broken ribs.
The memory nearly made me blurt it out, furious that Zsa insisted on this secret. Protecting Peter. Even though that wasn't why he was lying, it created an indirect get-out-of-jail-free card. But I held my tongue.
"I think he's just burnt out," I replied, and at least it wasn't completely untrue. "He works hard."
Jamie looked guilty. "I know. I don't like him working so much, but he was here practically all week. I don't think he felt safe at home. And now, nothing for three days? I don't like it."
I squeezed his shoulder. "He's okay. He's... going to be okay."
Jamie let my hand stay there for a few seconds before patting my hand and stepping away. He pinched the bridge of his nose and returned to his regular grumpy self. "So, what's up? You're not rostered tonight."
"Trouble at home," I said vaguely. "I won't bother you. Just needed to get out and well... you don't have any spare clothes, do you? Something with a little more..." I gestured to my frumpy, inside-out uniform, "...pizazz?"
He looked me up and down, seemingly confused that my outfit wasn't intentional. "I don't have anything with sequins if that's what you're asking. But you can go through the back room if you want."
I clasped my hands and shook them at him in thanks. "You're a lifesaver."
"Don't mention it," he started towards the back door but stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "Seph?"
I didn't like the pensiveness of his tone. "Yeah, huh?"
"You know, if things at home are... worse than usual," he hesitated. "I have a couch. And... long term, I know people who are looking for tenants. Or flatmates. Or... sugar babies, whatever arrangement suits you. Just say the word and you never have to go back there."
I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and folded my arms. My heart soared. "I'd never invade your hermit cave. You don't bear any responsibility for me beyond employment."
"You're my friend, Seph," he said bluntly. "Fuck knows where I'd be if I hadn't had the friends I did at my lowest points. Probably still with my ex-wife."
"Your ex-what?" I yelped, but he was gone, through the door. Jamie never ran out of secrets. It made me feel a little better about keeping mine.
Crescendo's back room was a cornucopia of neon colours and glitter, storing dresses in need of repairs, forgotten accessories, and about ten year's worth of lost property from performers and audience members alike. I ran my fingers along the rail of fabric, avoiding pieces with threatening notes attached – HANDS OFF! DO NOT STEAL! PROPERTY OF AMANDA HUGGINKISS! – before pausing on a sunshine golden tent dress with an asymmetrical hem. The outer skirt was semi-translucent, which drew my eye despite it being anything but formfitting. Without padding, I couldn't choose anything tailored. The top half was exquisitely beaded, and the neckline was fine lace, smudged with someone else's foundation, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little water.
I plucked it off the rack and held it up to me. The front of it would stop only just below my panty line. I loved it.
Later, as employees began arriving for the night shift and the venue began buzzing to life, I forced myself to put Caleb's phone down and gaze at myself in the mirror. For what I had to work with, I looked good. The brown of my eyes put me off a little, but I chose to ignore it in favour of the rest of my face; the inky black of my eyelashes, the thick pouty mouth, the glittering arch of both cheekbones. The tantalising way the skirt of the dress hem bounced when I moved, exposing way more thigh than should have been legal.
"What are you?" I murmured to myself, and then repeated it, disgusted. "What are you? You are everything."
"Preach, queen," a guest queen I knew from other clubs, London Bridges, mumbled as they pulled down each eyelid to apply liner.
The pep-talk did nothing to alleviate my anxiety, but I straightened nonetheless. Fake it until you make it. Smile through the pain. Sephora was my exit strategy for the real world, and she had never failed me before. London Bridges stood and squeezed my shoulders on their way past, smacking a kiss on my forehead. Their strawberry blonde wig tickled my bare shoulders.
"We're catching up later," they promised on their way out the door, leaving me on my own. I stared forwards, psyching myself up to stand. My chest rose and fell rapidly to reflect my racing pulse. On the table in front of me, Caleb's phone started to buzz. Someone was calling. I picked it up more out of curiosity than any interest in answering it.
Aidan McCaffrey caught me off guard for the second time in 24 hours.
My breath caught in my chest and dread washed over me. I clenched it in one fist, the vibrations trembling up my arm, as I considered. Before it could ring out, I pressed to answer, hit the speaker, and placed the phone down on the counter in front of me.
"Caleb?" Aidan demanded over the line, as if he hadn't been the one to call. "Come on, man. I'm not fucking around. What's it going to be?"
I didn't say a word. The silence weighed heavily over the line.
"You can think whatever you want of me," Aidan snapped defensively, responding to unspoken criticism. "I don't care anymore. I need to be on that team. The team needs me. You think those guys are going to listen to you? It's the only thing I've ever done I haven't fucked up, and I'm fucking good at it. I need it, I need it and I need the reference from Coach or I'm going to be working on the line with my old man straight out of school. You fucking hear me? I don't care what it makes me, I'm not going to be some fucking dropkick at... Caleb? Fucking say something. Just tell me you'll sort it."
I leaned into the phone, clasping my hands under my chin. My mouth stayed firmly shut.
"Whatever, man," Aidan replied to the empty air, sounding anything but indifferent. "Balls in your court. Look, it's not personal. I'm not... I don't have a problem. With it. But there are guys on the team who will, and they deserve to know who they're sharing a shower block with..."
"Fuck you," I blurted out, unable to contain my disgust. I immediately clapped a hand over my mouth, but the damage was done.
There was a pause on the line, and then a very confused Aidan garbled out, "Who the fuck is this?"
I waited for him to hang up, but when he didn't, I slowly peeled my fingers back from my mouth, and inhaled deep, pressing down my fear and rage and answering in my most measured tone, "Caleb can't come to the phone right now. But please, continue with the homophobic vitriol. I can handle it."
"Stewart?" Aidan sounded a little shrill. I wondered if he'd sat on a thumbtack. "What are you doing with Caleb?"
Even recognising how this situation could appear, and how it could further damage Caleb's precious reputation, I couldn't contain myself. I felt safe on the other side of the phone to speak freely. I didn't have much else to lose.
"I'm not with Caleb," I admitted. "Listen, I don't really have the energy to waste on reprehensible human garbage like you, since today has already been such a stellar reminder that what I am is deeply offensive to a disturbing amount of people. You're a bad person, Aidan, and I hope you come to realise that on your deathbed, long after you can do anything to rectify it, and you die knowing you will be remembered as a bitter, angry, sad, pathetic man who bullied his way through life and destroyed every relationship worth having."
Aidan didn't respond. I had to check the phone screen to be sure he hadn't hung up.
"Anyway. I really should go, you're interrupting my very gay evening. I'll just ask you one question," I inhaled sharply through my nose, and released it in an unfortunately timed sigh. "I know your aptitude for empathy is exceptionally low, but here goes. What do you think it would feel like to have what you are turned into blackmail against you? What you are, of course, being completely fucking natural, something that at the age of eighteen you should be realising and owning and celebrating... do you have any idea what that might do to a person? When they start to equate their sexuality to something that can be used against them like criminal fucking activity? Could you even imagine?"
A beat. Aidan swallowed loudly. My teeth were gritted so hard that my jaw had started to ache with the effort it took not to abuse him further.
"You don't know me," Aidan said finally, but he didn't sound sure of that fact.
"I think I do," I snapped back. "Prove me wrong."
And before he could have the last word, I hung up on him. Leaving the phone face down on the counter, I hoisted up my dress, stood, and charged out of the dressing room on a high of righteous fury, straight into the racing heart of the club.