DC Trip

by Sara Benincasa

“Yes, let’s definitely leave after the first round,” Gertie said. “We have to get to the Henry. It’s super late and it’s going to be a lot harder to find Danny Bryan if he’s asleep.”

  They watched everybody dance for a few minutes, and then the waiter was back with three shot glasses, plus three limes and a little dish of salt. Three BIG shot glasses, bigger than the ones they’d seen back at the frat bar.

  “I assume you babies like tequila,” the waiter said, distributing the shots.

  “Like is a strong word,” Gertie said. “Why are these shot glasses so big?”

  “Oh, these are double shots, honey,” the waiter said.

  “Thank you!” Rachel chirped.

  “Yeah, that’s cool of you, man,” Sivan said.

  “Um, do you know where the Henry Hotel is?” Gertie asked. “We’re kind of in a hurry to—”

  “Oh my God, you can’t miss the drag show,” the waiter said. “It’s just about to start. It’s amazing. A. Ma. Zing. Hurry, everybody shoot your liquor. Go! Go! Go!”

  Sivan smiled a little and did a shot. Rachel cheered her on and then did a shot herself. She slammed the glass down on the table and wiped her mouth.

  “Shit,” she said. “All right Gertie, it’s your turn.”

  “But I just want to know where the Henry Hotel is,” Gertie said.

  “I’ll tell you if you take that shot,” the waiter said.

  “Shot! Shot! Shot! Shot! Shot!” Rachel chanted, and Sivan joined in, laughing.

  Gertie took the shot.

  “Oh, shit,” she said as she put down her glass. “I’m gonna get real drunk, aren’t I?”

  “Probably,” the waiter said. “But the drag show is even better when you’re drunk.”

  As if on cue, the lights in the club dimmed.

  “Oh, fuck,” the waiter said happily. “She’s amazing.”

  “Who?” Gertie asked.

  “Octavia Thunderpussy,” the waiter said. “She’ll change your fucking life. She’s even better than the queen we had last week, Regina Whore-ge.”

  “All right, queers,” came a voice from the speaker right near Gertie’s head. “Are you bitches ready for Octavia Thunderpussy?” The crowd roared its assent.

  Gertie winced and moved away from the speaker.

  Just then, a familiar song began. Gertie stood up very straight.

  “Oh my God,” she said, slurring her words. “It’s ‘Kids in America’!”

  And it was.

  That’s when, from the wings of the stage, a gorgeous blonde punk rock drag queen emerged. She had a beautiful, fluffy mane of blond-and-pink long hair and wore a shredded black T-shirt and a black leather miniskirt. She had chain bracelets and sexy black boots covered in spikes. She wore what looked like a fancy bike chain around her neck.

  “She’s like if Dolly Parton fucked Sid Vicious!” the waiter shouted. “Yes, bitch! That is some straight Hedwig shit! Yesssss!” The girls had no idea what he was talking about, but they soon shared his enthusiasm.

  Because Octavia Thunderpussy was truly amazing. She didn’t just lip sync to “Kids in America,” preening and posing. Oh, no. She lived the song, right there onstage. She was an incredible dancer, throwing in backflips and splits and all kinds of acrobatic stuff made all the more impressive by her size. She had to be at least six feet tall in those boots, and she was muscular and built, not a tiny little thing. She projected femininity and masculinity in equal measure, and she was sexy and confident and wild. Even Gertie found herself forgetting about the Henry Hotel and Danny Bryan for a moment and being swept away in Octavia’s amazing energy. It was like a Broadway show and a rock concert and a million shots of tequila and a bunch of Pixy Stix full of sugar all thrown together at once. Before they knew it, the girls were on their feet with everybody else, jumping up and down and cheering.

  But Octavia wasn’t done after “Kids in America.” She segued right into Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” which was another one of Gertie’s favorite songs even though it didn’t totally fit in with her usual ’90s girl rocker aesthetic. Then she did Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n Roll,” which was incredible. Octavia Thunderpussy jumped off stage while doing Roxette’s “Listen to Your Heart,” and walked slowly across the dance floor right to the VIP section! She serenaded (well, lip sync-enaded) the group next to them, a bunch of guys in leather who seemed thrilled by the attention.

  And then, after “Listen to Your Heart,” there was a pause. Octavia Thunderpussy looked at the crowd.

  “Are you bitches having a good time?” she called out, breathing heavily.

  “YES!” the crowd screamed.

  Then she whipped around and looked right at Gertie, Sivan, and Rachel.

  “But are YOU little bitches having a good time?” she demanded.

  The girls shrieked and jumped up and down. They were drunk, sure, but by that point they all basically wanted to be Octavia Thunderpussy.

  “Then get your basic little asses on stage,” Octavia said, grabbing Rachel and Gertie. “I need backup dancers.” Sivan cheered for her friends.

  “You too, Tom Thumb,” Octavia said to Sivan, who grinned and followed behind them.

  “This is incredible!” Rachel screamed.

  “I know, right?” Sivan yelled. “I feel like we’re famous!”

  “I don’t know how to dance!” Gertie yelled.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” Octavia Thunderpussy said. “Just let the music get inside you and let yourself be swept away.”

  She pulled them all onstage and gave them places to stand.

  “Now we do a tribute to the queen herself, Miss Tina Turner,” Octavia announced, and the opening strains of “Proud Mary” drove the crowd absolutely wild.

  “Just follow me,” Octavia told the girls. “Do exactly what I do. Got it?”

  “Got it!” the three girls shouted.

  What followed were the six most fun, most incredible, most exciting, and most exhilarating minutes of their lives. True to their promise, they did everything Octavia Thunderpussy did. They moved. They shook. They kicked. They were too drunk to be embarrassed, and too happy to think about anything else that had bugged them throughout the trip—the cuntriad; their first strike; grades; Danny Bryan; anything. It was just about having fun. And there were no parents and no teachers and no judgmental classmates. There was just a giant, adoring audience that loved every single thing they did. When they finished singing about the world’s most famous riverboat, Octavia brought them all up for a great big bow.

  “Now get off my stage, you adorable tiny baby cunts,” she said. “Javier, bring these bitches some water. They’ve had enough to drink for one night!”

  Their waiter hurried forward and led them back to the VIP lounge, as the crowd parted and cheered for them. Then he sat them down and ran to fetch them waters. They had finally begun to catch their breath by the time he plunked down three Evian bottles in front of them.

  “She never does that,” Javier said incredulously. “Ever. Her show is all about her, and nobody else is allowed to interfere. She must’ve really seen something special in you girls!”

  “We’re pretty fuckin’ special!” Sivan yelled over the noise of Octavia’s closing number, Alannah Myles’s “Black Velvet.”

  The girls were too busy guzzling water to do more than clap furiously for Octavia—no more jumping up and down for them. After the show, Javier brought Octavia a towel, and she glided through the crowd, graciously accepting the compliments from the assembled guys.

  “Oh my God,” Rachel said excitedly. “Octavia’s coming over to us!”

  The girls looked at Octavia Thunderpussy, awestruck, as she entered the VIP area and put both hands on her hips.

  “Little late to be out on a school night, isn’t it, babies?” she asked.

  “We go to Georgetown!” Rachel said.

  “And I’m a straight married man with a lovely wife and two adorable twins, Angelina and Maleficent,” Octavia sai
d, rolling her eyes.

  “That’s funny!” Sivan said, overcome by a fit of the giggles.

  Octavia sighed and plopped down on the couch beside the girls.

  “Okay,” she said, and suddenly her voice changed. It became deeper, more masculine.

  And it sounded kind of familiar.

  “I have to say, this is pretty impressive for kids from Jersey,” Octavia said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

  “OMG,” Rachel said, her eyes wide with wonder. “Are you psychic, too?”

  Gertie studied Octavia’s face. Beneath the layers of makeup, and the fake eyelashes, and the sparkles, and the glitter, and the glitz, and the shine, there was someone she recognized. Someone tall, and muscular, and very … authoritative.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Gertie said, her mouth dropping open. “You’re Bob Reina.”

  Brian Kenner wrapped his arms around Alicia Deats in a warm, friendly hug. It was kind of an awkward hug, because this was Brian Kenner, after all. But it was nice. It was really nice.

  They both pulled back and looked at each other a little shyly.

  “So you like Dungeons and Dragons,” Brian said. “Or liked, I mean.”

  “I still like it,” Alicia admitted. “I wish I still played. Just like I wish I’d kept on watching Doctor Who. I feel like I gave up all my favorite things just because of some dumb boy.”

  “It’s okay,” Brian said soothingly. “We all do stuff like that. My ex—you know, the one I told you about? She used to love Thai food. And I haven’t eaten Thai food since we broke up.”

  “But it’s so good!” Alicia said.

  “I know,” Brian said. “It really is. I really miss it!”

  Alicia had an idea. And, being Alicia, she immediately blurted it out.

  “Let’s order Thai food!” she said excitedly. “This is D.C. There has to be a late-night Thai place. Let’s order Thai food and watch something like, um …”

  “Like Doctor Who?” Brian said.

  Alicia paused.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for Doctor Who,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m ready for Thai food, but I’m willing to try,” Brian said with a smile.

  Alicia smiled back at him.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll find a Thai place online if you find the sixth season of Doctor Who.”

  “Oh, I own it,” Brian said. “This is easy. I was literally thinking of watching it before I fell asleep.”

  “No way,” Alicia said.

  “Way,” Brian said.

  They smiled at each other for longer than was absolutely necessary. And this time when Brian leaned in, Alicia knew he was going for more than just a hug.

  She was right.

  It was one of those kisses that felt simultaneously like the world’s biggest and most electrifying fireworks explosion and the most soothing, relaxing relief. Alicia Deats felt her shoulders drop and relax for perhaps the first time since that night after Chili’s. They both pulled back after a long moment and looked at each other.

  “Here?” Alicia said, almost not believing it. “In the Holiday Inn?”

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” Brian said, and they both grinned at each other.

  “Like super quiet,” Alicia whispered.

  “Yeah,” Brian said, drawing her close to him again. His hand found his way under her skirt, and Alicia was almost embarrassed at how wet she already was until she remembered that like, hello, it was completely a compliment to him, and there was no reason to be embarrassed because this was her sexual expression of—

  “Oh, fuck,” she moaned a little too loudly as his fingers entered her.

  They looked at each other and cracked up.

  “Okay, I’m going to be really quiet,” she whispered. “I swear. But you’re kind of making it difficult.”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

  By now he was taking her underwear off (oh God, they weren’t even cute, but whatever) and her Birkenstocks and pushing her skirt up and burying his face between her legs.

  “Oh my God,” she said loudly again, and clapped her hand over her mouth. Without lifting his face, Brian reached out and grabbed a pillow, handing it to her. It wasn’t long before she was screaming into that pillow.

  It wouldn’t be the last time that night. It wouldn’t even be the second-to-last time. What Alicia Deats learned that night was something she’d assumed without proof in the past: Brian Kenner was really fucking good at math, but he was really fucking great at fucking. And to her surprise, she remembered she wasn’t so bad at it herself. At one point, while her legs were practically behind her head and he was fucking her up against the headboard, she reflected that all the yoga was really starting to pay off.

  “Gertie,” Rachel said. “Who the fuck is Bob Reina?”

  “The guy who caught you the other night,” Bob Reina said. “I know I look a little different tonight.”

  “Oh, shit, you ARE Bob Reina!” Sivan said excitedly, dissolving into a fit of giggles. “No fucking way! Oh, shit! This is so cool!”

  “It’s not exactly cool,” Bob said. “Because now we have a situation on our hands.” Javier brought him a bottle of water, and he took it with a sigh.

  “Oh, no,” Gertie moaned, the joy of the preceding few minutes instantly evaporating. “You have to tell our teachers, don’t you?”

  “Oh no no no no no no no,” Rachel begged Bob/Octavia, getting down on her knees and clasping her hands.

  “Oh, honey, no,” Bob said. “No, no, no. Have some dignity. Sit back on this couch right now.”

  Rachel obeyed him quickly.

  “If I’d seen you on the street in my usual clothes, you bet your butts I’d have brought you right back to your teachers,” Bob said, patting his elaborate wig. “But this … presents a complicated situation for me. If I call your teachers and tell them where I found you, everyone at work will know how I found you. And then they’ll know what I do when I’m not at work. And I can’t have that.”

  “Ohhhh,” Sivan said. “They’re like, homophobic?”

  “The opposite,” Bob Reina said in disgust. “They’re so aggressively LGBTQIA-positive they’d all show up when I perform. And I can’t have that. I don’t need some annoying, boring people from work showing up and telling everybody here what a great director of security I am. My performance life is very separate from my work life, and I like to keep it that way.” He looked around quickly and then leaned in toward the girls.

  “You’d better not tell anyone here who I am,” he said urgently. “Octavia Thunderpussy is mysterious, and that’s why people like her. These people treat me like royalty because they have no idea what I actually do all day.”

  “We won’t say anything,” Sivan said.

  “We promise,” Rachel said.

  “We won’t breathe a word,” Gertie said. “We’ll just walk out of here and go about our business, and you’ll just stay in here and go about your business, and nobody else will have to know.”

  “Well, you’re almost right, kid,” Bob said. “You will walk out of here and go about your business. And that means I’m going to put you in a cab and you’re going straight back to the hotel.”

  “No!” Gertie practically shouted. “No! We have to go to the Henry Hotel! We have to see Danny Bryan!”

  “Don’t shout at me, missy,” Bob said. “I have half a mind to just let the police scoop you up and sort things out. And if you claimed you saw the director of security at your hotel doing the most amazing drag show in the history of the art form, I would just deny, deny, deny.”

  “You know,” Sivan said. “Some people think drag is offensive to women.”

  “Those people are fucking assholes,” Bob said.

  “Fair enough,” Sivan said, impressed.

  “You wouldn’t call the cops on us, would you?” Rachel said, horrified.

  “No,” Bob relented. “I wouldn’t. If only because the
club would get in trouble for serving minors. I love this place. But you are getting in a cab, and you are going back to the hotel.”

  Gertie fought back tears. The whole night was ruined now. All her hopes of seeing Danny Bryan were dashed.

  Bob walked the three drunk girls out of the club and flagged a passing cab. He put them in the backseat and gave a wad of cash to the driver.

  “Take them to the Holiday Inn,” he said. “And keep the change.”

  The cab took off, with Gertie in the backseat wedged between Rachel and Sivan.

  “Whoa,” Sivan said. “This night is the best.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gertie snapped. “This night fucking sucks.”

  “Gertie,” Rachel said. “Count your blessings. He totally did us a huge solid. Now all we have to do is sneak back into our hotel room without getting caught. Besides, we got to do a lot of cool stuff.”

  “You got to do a lot of cool stuff,” Gertie said, trying not to cry angry tears. “You got to be flirty, and Sivan got to be gay, and I didn’t get to be anything!”

  They were all silent for a long minute. Then Gertie leaned forward.

  “Take us to the Henry Hotel,” she said to the driver.

  “But the drag queen said—” the driver began.

  “Yes, I know,” Gertie said. “And I’m saying take us to the Henry Hotel.”

  “That’s right,” Sivan said. “Take us to the Henry Hotel.” She stumbled over the words and started to giggle, then shut up when she saw the determination in Gertie’s face.

  “Yes,” Rachel said, and she slurred it a bit.

  “Okay, it’s your dime,” the cab driver said with a sigh. He turned a corner and screeched off in another direction—for about thirty seconds.

  They pulled up to a building on the same block as the gay club.

  Like, seriously three doors down.

  It was big and white and eight stories high and it had a big, beautiful neon sign that spelled out in pink letters THE HENRY HOTEL. Two big neon arrows pointed

  to it.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Gertie exclaimed, and started giggling uncontrollably. Rachel joined her in giggling, and then Sivan went back into a giggle fit, and the driver rolled his eyes.