by Alexa Davis
I kissed the little robed statue and waved as I sashayed off stage, shook my head back to push the heavy dreadlocks behind my shoulder and performed my best runway strut off the stage, to raucous clapping and catcalling.
I killed time for a couple more hours posing for more photos and at the convention center, if for no other reason than to get the most out of the trouble I’d taken with my Widowmaker costume; it had taken me two hours to get into my costume, even with the help of my friend and stylist, Shelby Grey. Shelby was a professional makeup artist I’d met when I worked for Ford models, who wanted to break into movies, with the help of a few cosplay awards, one of which she’d be able to add to her portfolio after my win. I had a second, less involved getup for the next day.
The afternoon rushed by in a blur of photo ops, Q&A panels discussing women in gaming, cosplay, and my new favorite pastime, streaming my gameplay. At the end of a long ten-hour day of stumping, interviews, and a thousand more photo opportunities, I was just happy to get back to my room, alone. I touched my statue for good luck and stripped down to a pair of men’s boxers and a tank top. The next part of my day was always my favorite, and I didn’t need prosthetic cheekbones or wigs or push up bras to make it work. Not that the guys who watched me minded a push-up, mind you, but they prided themselves on paying their subscriptions to see the “real me,” hair pulled back, glasses on, swearing like a sailor. Me.
I turned on my laptop and started my stream preview, while I stepped away to use the bathroom and pour myself a stiff drink. Usually, the strongest thing I drank online was beer, but it had been a long-ass day and I needed something with the medicinal ability to calm my jangling nerves. Headphones on, I did a quick camera check to make sure I wasn’t giving my viewers too much skin, and started my one-woman show.
Chapter Two
Jackson Dean Hargrave
I only had a few days of freedom left before classes started, so I let my brother drag me out for an evening ride on my favorite old nag, Coddle Me. Daniel was good to ride with. He never had much to say, and this ride was no different. It was a companionable silence, one reason I chose to stay on the ranch every summer instead of with Tucker, despite his frequent invitations, was the amount of silence you could find in the wild of the pastures and the forest.
Coddle was usually sweet natured and calm, but not too far into the ride she began to sidestep and pull against the bit. I fought her at first, but after a couple of minutes, Danny agreed that we should stop and check her out. It only took a cursory check to see that somehow she’d thrown a shoe, and the rocky trail we were riding was all sharp edges in her poor foot.
We opted to take a short cut through the tall grass of the dormant hayfield both for the softer terrain and the quicker distance to home. She was much happier for the remainder of the ride, and as I took care of her tackle, Danny let our longtime horse master, Pete, know about her foot so she could be reshod the next morning.
It was only dusk and, left to my own devices, I knew just how I wanted to unwind. I showered off the smell of barn and turned on my computer. I debated whether I wanted to be social and get online for a little first person shooter with Billy, my roommate back at Texas Tech, or just kick back alone. Deciding on the second, I threw on a tee shirt and some cut off sweats I wore to work out in and logged into my account on Twitch TV, a site for gamers to hang out and either live stream their game play, or watch others play instead. I chose the latter and browsed through some of my favorite streamers. There was a former pro-football player who, as it turned out, was great at video games, and his fame had garnered him a decent following. There were stereotypical gamers who had so many people subscribing to their channel that they scored sponsorships and advertising space.
I wasn’t into being on camera, but I subscribed to a couple of gamers who were more interesting to listen to and watch than they necessarily were at gaming. One girl, more than the other gamers, kept me coming back for more. She’d been a successful fashion model, but had spoken out against her industry for the harsh ways they treated women. She’d ended up with no work and a lot of time to sit around playing video games and feeling sorry for herself. Now she was one of the most followed and subscribed to streamers on the internet and, apparently, had found a new way into modeling through character costume play.
Her stream was live, so I tuned in after grabbing a beer from the minifridge I kept next to my desk. I didn’t care about the game she was playing, but I figured not many of her viewers were. Listening to her talk about her cosplay, and watching new videos that had been taken of her at the Gamercon that was just wrapping up, I realized how just the sound of her voice made me feel relaxed and amped up at the same time. She was funny and laid back. There was something about her that made me want to listen to her talk all night.
Of course, that was probably why she was so popular. A hot-as-hell girl who was good at video games and who interacted with social unmentionables like they were all just like her, or rather, she just like them. She seemed to really believe she was as awkward and unpolished as the rest of us, and she didn’t talk down to all the idiots in her chat who hit on her, even if they went too far. The rest of the chat handled those guys.
I watched the video of her getting into costume for the cosplay pageant again. Seeing her in next to nothing as her helper wrapped, taped, and sponged pale purple makeup over her face and breasts was some of the best entertainment I’d seen in ages, and I wasn’t alone in thinking that, from the way the chat screen lit up.
I looked away from the main video to her face in the little box in the corner of my screen. She looked bored and irritable, but I couldn’t help but notice something behind her eyes. She was lonely. I couldn’t blame her. She had the attention of all these guys, but every one of them was just here to consume her like a product, then walk away to blather about how big her tits were when she wasn’t in costume.
I grabbed my wallet from my desk drawer and pulled out my debit card. I hit the donate button and sent her a fifty spot so I could add a message she’d be more likely to see. The character count was limited, and I stared at the screen for a minute, trying to think of just the thing she needed to hear. In the end, I opted for encouraging, with a side of flirtation. I almost laughed aloud when the text-to-voice program she used announced, read aloud the message, reading.
“I happily support your high-octane game play, even when it is occasionally interrupted by intense moments of uncontrollable arousal.” She laughed aloud at the announcement, and paused her game to reply.
“And thank you for your donation of fifty dollars, @lawlessJack, I apologize for any wet dreams and uncontrollable erections my gameplay causes.”
I then privately messaged her that as a bonafide cowboy from Texas, hearing the message in the English accent she programmed them to play in, made my day. In what must have been a moment of weakness for her, she responded to my private message, and included her cell number, along with a request to call her when she was offline.
I switched up my beer for good old Mountain Dew. I was a couple of hours ahead of her by time zones, and I wasn’t going to fall asleep before I had the chance to talk to the only professional model whose phone number I’d ever scored.
We chatted privately some more during slow moments in the stream, and she added me to her gaming platforms. Within an hour of sitting at my desk, I was suddenly playing computer games with the hottest girl I’d ever seen, live on her stream to be witnessed by everyone I knew. So, I sent out a group text to the guys to make sure they knew it was happening.
Between sneaking in texts to C.J. and game play, all I could do as my phone blew up, was laugh to myself about how big this was for my friends. It was the social introvert’s perfect evening. To guys like most of my friends, a girl like her would never talk to them in real life. Not everyone had the benefit of four older brothers, like I did. It was never hard for me to talk to girls, because I was always around my brothers’ girlfriends, growing up.
It also didn’t hurt that all that hard work out in the sun made us all look like muscular, tan, movie cowboys. I loved my friends and would beat up anyone else who told them so, but a few of them would’ve had a lot more luck with women, if they left their desks and went for a walk, occasionally.
Around midnight my time she called it quits with her stream, and as soon as I left the game I checked out the message thread on my phone. My friends had figured out quickly that I couldn’t, or wouldn’t respond. Once that was established, I became fair game. The thread started off encouraging and hopeful that I made a real connection with this fabled creature rarer than a unicorn.
Within a few texts, it moved past supportive and into the territory of, “Thank God my mother won’t see these…” By the end of the thread, it had taken on a life of its own and my presence was no longer necessary, which I appreciated, because I had a call coming in from one professional streamer/model named C.J. Rivers, and I wasn’t about to miss out on it for a bunch of pasty nerds, best friends or not.
I looked down at the glowing face of my iPhone, willing the dampness away from my palms and the desert out of my mouth. I swiped right, and managed to choke out a “Hello” instead of the nervous giggle I was afraid would escape. In an instant, I found new empathy for the guys I hung out with. This, this was what nerd-dom meant to so many gamers, hackers, and programmers.
Her voice, on the other end, was like honey. Without the filters and background noise of the microphone, the computers, or the games, it seemed like I could wind that voice through my fingers like salt water taffy. We talked about gaming and all things computer-related. I was amazed to learn she hired out all her technical work, and told her that I could probably teach her a few simple things that would give her more control at a lower cost.
When she asked about the ranch, I talked for an eternity about the lake, the horses, and the life out at Lago Colina. As it turned out, she’d been raised in Oklahoma before moving to Los Angeles to become famous, and my farm-town upbringing wasn’t so foreign to her as I thought.
We talked for hours, and the conversation never devolved from “Where you from?” to “What are you wearing?” I’d never been the guy who had to use web sites or cam girls to get my rocks off, but I’d been here with other gamer girls and talking to her about how lonely she was surrounded by people who only wanted to use her for their own ends, was enough for me. It was nice just to be honest with her. I’d been surrounded by cattlemen, family, and mustangs all my life. I’d turned to computers because I needed to be different. She’d become a model to escape small town boredom and poverty, but instead, found out what it was like to be drowning in a sea of people.
“Okay, miss hot-shot cosplay champion, what about your new career? I’ve been to a gamer conference or two, that must put some pressure on you, socially.” There was a long pause, and I could hear her take a swig of the soda she’d picked up from the vending machine down the hall while she’d been mocking me for living with my folks.
“I like nerds. A lot of them are like me. Socially awkward and needing a lot of alone time between social engagements,” she laughed. “And apparently, none of us ever sleep. What time is it where you are?”
I looked at the clock on my computer and sighed ruefully. “I should smell breakfast for the ranch hands coming up shortly,” I admitted. “And you have a flight to catch in a few hours.”
“Yeah, I should grab a cat nap before I have to face the TSA with my sex toys and submit to a body cavity search based on my obviously foreign name and physical appearance,” she said. I imagined her shaking out her long blonde hair as she spoke.
“Yeah, those blue-eyed girls with Sooner accents are becoming a real problem,” I teased. I knew she needed to go, but I wanted to keep listening to her. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep to the sound of that milk-and-honey voice with its soft country twang.
Chapter Three
Carina
I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I hung up my phone and tried to look at my clock. My sight blurred and my eyes burned from the effort of trying to focus. I gave up the idea of brushing my teeth, choosing instead to turn out the lamp and fall into bed, dragging the covers across me as I closed my sticky eyelids and passed out.
My dreams were familiar, yet strange, colored with the stories Jackson had told me. In my technicolor imaginings he was my quintessential cowboy, and we rode the plains outside Tulsa, since I’d never been to Texas. The last thing I remembered before even my dream world went black, was a snow storm and a set of deep blue eyes staring into mine, and the sensation of strong, callused hands hot on my frigid skin.
When I woke up, the sun was streaming thin through the sheers over the hotel windows, and I was freezing cold. Somehow, I’d kicked off my covers and had been so exhausted that the air conditioning hadn’t woken me up, just blown over me, cold and steady, until I felt like I’d been asleep in a refrigerator all night. My fingers were icicles hanging off my hands and when looked in the mirror my lips were blue.
I cranked up the heat on the water for my shower, and glanced at my phone. I didn’t know what to expect, but my grin felt like it might split my frozen cheeks when I saw JD, the moniker I’d given Jackson, in my notifications. I fumbled with the phone, trying to unlock it and, on the third try, got it unlocked and read the two messages he’d sent. The first was a simple good morning, and in the second he wished a safe flight for me.
He thanked me for the great conversation, and not once did he tell me I was beautiful or comment on my appearance. It was a nice change, and knowing he’d woken up thinking about me was enough to start a fire low in my belly. I got in the shower and ran my hands over my naked body, wondering if he really was as rugged and hot as his profile picture. I imagined what the rough, callused hands of a working cowboy would feel like on my skin, and shuddered as the fire blew into hot need, that felt like shock inside my frigid skin.
I stayed in the shower long after I was clean and, by the time the water started to cool, I was warm enough to function again, and my libido had calmed a little. I started a pot of coffee and got dressed in the most comfortable clothes I had, pulled my hair up in a messy ponytail, and skipped makeup all together in the interest of time and because truthfully, I just didn’t care what I looked like. I knew I’d regret it later when some slag mag ran a story about my imagined drug habit, based on my lack of fashion and my refusal to be pretty “just because.” I left the being pretty part up to my photographers and their photoshop. It just didn’t matter that much to me.
I stuffed my dirty clothes in one suitcase, and carefully folded and packed my costumes, wigs, and the foam sniper rifle into their wardrobe case. While I secured my gear so that none of it would slide around and get wrinkled or torn, I smoothed my hand over the latex bodice. It was shiny and it squeaked when I rubbed it hard enough.
I loved my new life. I loved talking to people who loved comics and Lord of the Rings, and Marvel movies as much as I did. I’d left my home to escape who I was, and I was finally starting to know what happiness really was since I’d decided to stop putting so much energy into being what other people wanted me to be. I’d been propositioned by a lot of guys since I started streaming my game play, but Jackson had been the first guy I’d ever been interested in. It hadn’t hurt that when I googled him, not only had his picture matched the one on his profile, but he was a hot cowboy, and what proper Oklahoma girl wouldn’t want one of her own to play with?
I ordered breakfast to go with my coffee and considered what I was going to do when I got home. My LA apartment was small, dingy, and of course, overpriced. My bedroom had been converted into my workspace, which meant that half the room was now a sound booth with my computers, microphone, professional camera, and everything I needed to do a proper job of streaming. After all, my demographic was exactly the kind of people who would notice if I used the webcam on my laptop, or used a cheap mic.
The other half of the room was a
dressing area, complete with three-way mirror and clothing racks. Everything I was given by a sponsor or for a shoot was kept in there, away from my cat, Stiles, and temperature and humidity controlled, which was required for a lot of my costume pieces, as well as my audio and video setup.
Instead of sleeping in my bedroom, I’d picked up a Murphy bed that, instead of folding into a cabinet on the wall, turned into a sofa with some shelving above it. Everything else in my home was either from Ikea, or a splurge item purchased in those rare moments when I forgot that I was a celebrity, but not a rich celebrity. I was barely old enough to drink, and I’d already done “Dancing with the Stars.” I hadn’t even won. So, I lived as frugally as I could while still rubbing elbows with the people who might help me make more money.
I scarfed down breakfast and called Jackson while I waited for my ride to the airport. He didn’t answer, so I left him a message thanking him for hanging out the night before and told him I hoped he hadn’t had too rough a recovery after being up until the early hours of the morning. The porter collected my bags and I made one last sweep of the room, and swiped the second bag of coffee on my way out the door. God knows someone had paid for it, there was no point in leaving it behind.
I made it through security and onto my plane with no real trouble, and even got to take a few pictures with some kids who had been at Gamercon and were excited to see me win the big prize. I admitted to them that I was more excited for the chance to work with Bob Mackie than for the money. At his age, and with the state of his fashion empire, he didn’t need to work, let alone give his time to someone like me. I was grateful for the opportunity to up my cosplay game. I’d been a model, I was fortunate enough now to make a living playing video games, but both of those things were going to peter out to sheer abject poverty with time.
