The Queen & the Homo Jock King

by T. J. Klune

“And you know what?” I said. “I’ll even make it easier. You only need to recruit eight. I can get the last one.”

  “Who?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Why, Brian, of course. I’m sure my one-night-stand-and-almost-more-but-I-set-him-free-for-his-own-good would be more than willing to participate. After all, he owes me.”

  “Brian,” Darren repeated flatly. “You’re going to call Brian.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “You still talk to him?” Darren sounded awfully put out at the thought.

  I grinned. “Every now and then.” I didn’t really, but Darren didn’t need to know that. I didn’t know if he was jealous or just annoyed that I’d fucked one of his minions. Either way, I was in control again and it was amazing and I was going to extort it for all it was worth.

  “Rule six,” he snapped. “No fucking homo jocks.”

  “I haven’t. You’re my one and only, bae.” And there I was, losing control again already, because why the fuck did that sound so nice? He wasn’t my one and only anything.

  “I’ll call him,” he said. “You just focus on the logistics. You don’t need to worry about the homo jocks.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to overburden you. I can do it. Besides, I’ve been meaning to give him a call. You know, just to touch base.”

  “That better be the only touching there is,” he growled. “There are rules, Sandy.”

  “I’m well aware of the damn rules,” I said. “I made up most of them.”

  “Half. You made up half.”

  “The better half,” I muttered under my breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Then, “I’ll see you tonight?” I tried to make it sound like fact, but it came out a question against my will.

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding softer. “I’ll be there.”

  “Good,” I said, feeling awkward. “Okay. Um. So. Bye.”

  “Bye, Sandy.” And the line disconnected.

  Mike was staring back at his computer. “The second Saturday in December?”

  I nodded.

  “And are we sure it has to be one hundred percent of the proceeds?” he lamented. “Maybe we could do a split. Seventy-thirty?”

  “Jesus Christ, Mike. Let it go for once. We need all the funds we can get. One hundred percent of the door charge, the liquor sales, the money from the auction, the Super Gays donation. All of it.”

  “You’re going to bankrupt me, princess.”

  “Bullshit. It’s one fucking night. You’ll live. And in case you forgot, I’m doing this for you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s strange.” He looked back at me. “For someone who claims to hate him, you do seem awfully affectionate with Darren Mayne. The flirting alone was out of control.”

  “You know that whole smug thing you’re doing?” I asked. “Stow it before I scratch your fucking eyes out. I wasn’t flirting.” I was totally flirting. And Darren was totally flirting back, what the hell. Today had been the weirdest day of my life.

  His grin only widened. “So defensive. One might think you’re hiding something, princess. Care to share something with a dear old friend?”

  I glared at him. “One, we’re not friends. Two, there’s nothing to share. Three, Darren and I are not together, we’ve never been together, and we’ll never be together. I’m only agreeing to fake date him so we can take down his father and save this bar. That’s it. Nothing more.”

  And didn’t I just feel shitty saying that out loud. Even though it was the truth. Because that’s really all this was. Maybe Darren was flirting with me, but that didn’t mean anything. He was Daniel Day-Lewising me just as much as I was Meryl Streeping him. I couldn’t let myself forget that.

  But before I could respond any further, the jig, as they say, was up.

  “Of course it wasn’t that easy,” a voice sighed behind me.

  I whirled around.

  Charlie stood in the doorway to the trailer, looking strangely saddened as he watched me.

  “Well shit,” I said.

  HAVE YOU ever had an old leather daddy stare at you in such a way that you know he’s extremely disappointed in you and if he thought he could get away with it, he’d have you spread bare ass over his knee and would give you the spanking of your life in a nonsexy way?

  Yeah. Me too.

  Mike took the reins, filling in the blanks after I started blabbering at Charlie, trying to salvage the situation, because if there was one thing I hated more than almost anything else, it was to see Charlie looking upset over something I’d done. It might not have affected him, not directly, but he still felt responsible for me, a years old promise he’d made to Vaguyna about watching over me after she was gone.

  After Mike had finished and threatened Charlie (“This is going to stay quiet, Charlie, so help me god. I know people and can have you taken out.”) and Charlie gave the appropriate response (“Boy, you don’t know shit, and I’d be careful if I was you before you find yourself tied to a sawhorse and get the strapping of your life, you understand me?”), Mike kicked us out of his office with a meek “Yes, sir,” leaving me on my own with Charlie. As soon as we were out the door, I heard it lock behind us, the traitor.

  “Charlie—” I started, but he held up a hand to cut me off.

  “Not here,” he muttered. “You get your butt up to the Queen’s Lair. No dawdling. Don’t make me tell you twice. Step to it.”

  And when Charlie told you to do something in that tone of voice, you did it.

  I didn’t dawdle.

  Well, a little dawdling. But only because I tried to beg Izaac silently with my eyes to save me from the ass chewing I surely faced.

  He frowned when he saw me.

  Then he saw the look on Charlie’s face and smiled sympathetically at me.

  That bitch. I would see him fired before night’s end for crossing me.

  I thought about making a break for it out the door and then fleeing the county to some mystical faraway land like Toronto or Bismarck, North Dakota. But then I remembered I was a queen and a queen always held her head high, even upon facing her execution by an aging leather daddy. I had my pride.

  I walked up the stairs resolutely.

  Charlie followed me.

  I entered the Lair.

  He closed the door behind us.

  I turned to let him know I wasn’t afraid, that I would always be a queen. I squared my shoulders and jutted my chin defiantly. I said, “I will be remembered for sparking a revolution. You may silence me today, but my words shall rise tomorrow in the cries of a million voices saying, no, no, we won’t stand down and take this tyranny any longer!”

  Charlie sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. “What in the holy hell are you talking about, boy?”

  “You know, I don’t really know,” I said. “It just sounded good at the time.”

  “Uh-huh.” Charlie moved slowly toward his stool. “I have a feeling your life is directed by ideas that sound good in your head but maybe not so much in reality.”

  “Hey! That’s not even… remotely… false. Huh. This… is probably not the best time to be having that realization. I should think on this some more. By myself. Not here. I’ll just leave you to it.”

  “You take a step toward that door and you’ll have my handprints on your ass.”

  “Stop flirting, you old charmer.” But I didn’t leave.

  Charlie grunted as he sat down, spinning until he was facing me. I tried to maintain eye contact, but couldn’t quite keep it up.

  He said, “What are you doing?”

  I shrugged, going for casual and missing by a mile. “You heard. Trying to save the gay bar.”

  “By pretending to be in a relationship with Darren to convince his father to somehow come over to your side but now you’ve somehow found yourself lying to all of your friends except Darren and are now on the losing side of a bet that I don’
t think you ever had a chance of winning.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Someone doesn’t believe in the power of positive thinking.”

  “Probably because I’m too busy being rational,” he said. “Who am I speaking to right now?”

  “Huh?” I looked back up at him.

  “Is this Sandy or Helena? Because depending on what frame of mind you’re in right now, I’ll have to take this one of two ways.”

  “Because that doesn’t make me sound bipolar at all.”

  “If the straitjacket fits,” he said.

  “Funny man,” I said, lips quirking into a smile. “Sandy. Just… Sandy.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Sandy.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a fucking idiot.”

  “Hey!”

  “No, seriously,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What the hell were you thinking? Playing with someone like that. You’re not a cruel person, Sandy. I know you’re not. But now I see this in front of me and I don’t know what the hell to think.”

  “I didn’t play with anyone. He knew what this was before anything happened.”

  “Only because you blurted it out to him. You agreed to it beforehand without his consent. Why would you even agree to do this?”

  “Because,” I said. “It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Darren. It was about the bar. Okay? It was about this place. Yeah, maybe we went about this the wrong way. But I would do anything for Jack It. This place belonged to Vaguyna and now it’s mine, and she would have done the same.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But Vaguyna wasn’t always the nicest person, Sandy. You never really got to see that. She could be mean when she wanted to. Never to you, of course. You were her baby and she wanted to impart as much of herself on you as she could. But I saw it. She could cut people down with that knife she called a mouth. She didn’t care who she stepped on to get where she did. I loved her. Understand that. I don’t know if anyone loved her more than I did, aside from maybe you. But even I could admit she wasn’t a very nice person. And I don’t want that for you.”

  Charlie very rarely ever talked about Vaguyna, and when he did, it was usually done in a vague sort of way. And I wondered at them. These pseudo-parents. I thought maybe I could ask. “Did you…?”

  He waited.

  “You and Vaguyna. Were you…?”

  He shrugged. “Most of the time. She thought I should find someone my own age. Someone less flighty. ‘You’ll be happier that way, Charlie,’ she used to say. ‘I’m a queen, no man can tame me. It’s useless to even try.’ But I didn’t want to tame her. I just wanted to be by her side. Be happy with her. And have her be happy with me.”

  “Were you?” I asked hoarsely. “The both of you?”

  “Most of the time,” he said again and that hurt, a little. To know that maybe some of the times they weren’t happy together. And that I was so caught up in myself that I never noticed. “But that’s not what’s important right now. What’s important is that you are in a very precarious position.”

  “I’m handling it just fine.”

  Charlie snorted out a laugh. “Are you?”

  “Darren knows what this is.”

  “Do you?”

  I took a step back. “I know it’s not real.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Apparently I don’t.”

  “So you’re asking me to enlighten you,” he said.

  And no, I really wasn’t. In fact, Toronto was starting to sound really good right now. I looked around surreptitiously for something to throw at him, not wanting it to be too heavy, because he was older and I didn’t want to break a bone. Just needed something to distract him so I could become Canadian.

  “You throw something at me and I’ll tan your hide,” he warned.

  “Dammit,” I muttered.

  “I’ve been around queens for thirty years, Sandy. I know how you all think.”

  “That’s kind of sweet, in a creepy sort of—”

  “You like him,” he said bluntly.

  “That’s stupid. Of course I don’t.”

  “Boy, you can’t bullshit me any more than Vaguyna could. I don’t know why you think you can pull the wool over my eyes. You know that makes you stupider than you obviously think I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  “You must if you think you can bullshit your way out of this one.”

  I glared at him. “Old people are supposed to be jolly and say things like ‘Do you remember when we went to that sock hop and ate penny candy? Those sure were the days.’”

  “I won’t have no problem popping you in the mouth if you sass me,” Charlie said. “You would do well to remember that.”

  “My old person is broken,” I mumbled. “I demand a new old person.”

  “You like him,” he said again.

  I was annoyed. “Okay. Fine. What if I do? Nothing’s going to come of it.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’m not going to be a notch on his bedpost. I’m not some fucking twink he can screw and discard. I think I have a bit more self-respect than that. And there’s also the fact that I might like him, but I still hate him too.”

  “Boy, you haven’t hated him in a long time.” Charlie shook his head. “You talk a big game. Queens always do. But in the end, you’re just like the rest of us. The others might not see it. But I’ve been around for a long time, okay? I know how you are. I know how you act, how you move. How you get when you’re nervous or upset. Or happy, even. You may think you hate him, but you don’t.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Or maybe I’m just that good. Maybe I’m Meryl Streeping the shit out of this, and you don’t even know.”

  “Sometimes I don’t think even you hear the bullshit that flops from your mouth.”

  “You don’t know what he did,” I hissed at him, starting to pace back and forth. “You don’t know how he—”

  “Made you think you were something to be treasured, then treated you like shit just when you thought you were getting somewhere?” Charlie asked lightly.

  I stopped and stared at him. “How the fuck do you know that?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. “I know everything that happens here. You think crap like that can happen inside this place without me finding out?”

  “You never said anything!”

  “Neither did you,” he said. “I waited for it, or at the very least, I expected you to say something to Paul. But you didn’t, so I let it go. But here we are, bringing it up like it matters to you.”

  “Because it does!”

  “Why now?” It was maddening how calm he was.

  “Why not now? People like that don’t change. They’re always going to be assholes.”

  “Then why did you agree to this?”

  “For the bar,” I said. “I already told you that.”

  “The bar,” he said. “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And people don’t change, do they?”

  “No. They don’t.”

  “Well, then. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a loud and persistent little gay boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was annoying and fearless and an asshole of the highest order. He was a teenager, so it was to be expected, because most teenagers are assholes. But you know what? It worked for him at the time. Because it got his foot in the door and people to take notice of him. And you know what? Maybe he continued to be an asshole for a little while, but eventually he grew up into this person that I could be proud of, this person that I love almost more than anything else in the world. That little boy is not the same person that I see now, so don’t you tell me people can’t change, Sandy. Don’t you tell me that at all, because they can. I was the asshole stuck in a marriage even though I knew I didn’t love her. I was the asshole that agreed to bring kids in this world. I was the asshole that finally told the truth and had it all taken away from me. And you know what? I c
hanged too. And some days, even, I like to think that maybe it was for the better. I know you’re hurt. I know he hurt you. But don’t you tell me that people can’t change. Because you did. Because I did.”

  I was in awe of him.

  I said, “You’re pretty much my most favorite thing in the world.”

  The harsh look on his face melted a little. “Likewise, boy.”

  I went to stand beside him and held his hand, pretending it was because he needed the comfort, but both of us knowing it was what I needed even more.

  He waited for me to gather my thoughts.

  “Maybe…,” I started, then stopped. Because I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said gruffly.

  “What?”

  He squeezed my hand. “I’ll let you go on as you are. I’ll even help you with this foolish plan of yours. Lord knows part of me wants to see how this turns out. But when this is all said and done, you sit down with him. You tell him how you feel. You can even tell him how he hurt you. But you have to remember that people can change. Who we once were isn’t who we’re always going to be.”

  And if that wasn’t the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard, I didn’t know what was.

  But what choice did I have?

  I said, “Sure, Charlie,” and I meant it.

  And maybe we didn’t say any more after that. And maybe he let me hold his hand for a while longer.

  Good man, that Charlie.

  Chapter 16: The Dark Twink Rises

  I LOVED Charlie.

  I really, really did.

  So of course I took his words to heart.

  I did feel something for Darren. And maybe it was possible that he felt something for me too.

  But the fact remained that I was still a drag queen.

  And drag queens were assholes.

  We have to be in order to put up with some of the shit we get.

  So while Charlie was absolutely correct that I’d grown and was different than I’d been at seventeen, I was still an asshole and would most likely always be an asshole. At least partly.

  Which explained how a twink named Caleb came into our lives, creating havoc unlike anything the world had ever seen.

  And in the process, became my most mortal of enemies.