Killer Queen: A Painted Faces Novel (2 page)

Soundtrack: “I Who Have Nothing” by
Shirley Bassey

London was a weird city for me. I had a
love/hate relationship with it. I loved it because there was constant activity.
No matter the hour, you could find something to occupy your time, and I was a
breed of gentleman who needed that. I didn’t like to be left alone with my thoughts.
When I took a trip down that road, my life usually took a turn for the worse.

I liked to keep busy.
It was a flawed practice because it only worked about eighty percent of the
time, but I supposed eighty percent was better than a kick in the bollocks.

But back to the other
side of the London coin. I hated it because the majority of the people seemed
to be miserable, yet wholly unaware of their own misery. It was like they had
lived so long in the noisy, overcrowded metropolis that they couldn’t see how
it was killing their souls.

I didn’t plan to stay
for long — just a few more days, and then I would leave for pastures new. I had
no idea where I was going to go yet, but really, that was half the thrill. I
liked the mystery, got off on the unknown. For three years I’d been travelling
from one place to the next, and I didn’t have any intention of breaking the
habit.

Movement meant constant
flux, which also meant no slowing down, no time to review or assess. I was
moving forward, never backward.

I pushed open the fire
exit and stepped out the back of the club I’d just been performing in. My pay
for the night was a measly fifty quid, but I didn’t need to worry about money.
The thought caused a trickle of emotion to infiltrate a heart I always tried to
keep guarded. My father had passed a couple of weeks earlier, and I was his
only living heir, as they put it. I was still trying to come to terms with my
feelings on the matter. We were never close. In fact, all through my life we’d
had a strained relationship, barely even knew each other, really, yet now all
his wealth was being handed over to me.

I felt bad because I
wasn’t sad that he was gone. After all, how can a person be gone when they were
never really there to begin with?

He’d stated in his will
that I was to get everything, and I knew deep down the reason why. It was
guilt. He felt guilty for being absent while I raised myself in a house that
was eternally empty, a house that echoed with the premature death of my mother,
who died when I was just a little boy. He felt responsible for the fact that I
was left alone and vulnerable to being exploited and abused by a bad person who
never should have been allowed access to me.

I tried to shake those
thoughts from my head, didn’t want to think of them.

I’d just changed from
my stage outfit and into a pair of trousers and a shirt; I’d removed most of my
makeup, but there were still traces of it on my face. Swearing under my breath
as I remembered I’d left my lighter back in the dressing room, I noticed two men
chatting and smoking beside a dingy, graffiti-laden wall. One of them wore a
yellow shirt and had a hoop earring in his ear. His attention came to me as I
stepped over and asked if I could get a light.

“Sure you can, blue
eyes,” said the man flirtatiously, a smile shaping his lips, his accent Irish,
if I wasn’t mistaken.

The guy beside him
stubbed out his butt and said he had to be getting back inside.

The yellow shirt held
up the lighter for me as I lit my smoke. His gaze ran up and down my body, and
I had a feeling he was getting ready for a come-on. It was a bit of an
occupational hazard, blokes thinking I was gay, but at this point I was used to
explaining to them that I didn’t swing that way.

“I’m Phil,” he said,
holding his hand out to me.

I took it, and we shook
briefly. “Nicholas.”

His smile deepened as
he teased, “Oh, I thought it was Vivica.”

I gave him a small
smirk. “I take it you saw my show.”

“I did. Had a whale of
a time. You make a stunning woman, Nicholas, but I have to say, I much prefer
you as a man. Look at all that gorgeous jet-black hair.” He reached forward and
tugged at the collar of my shirt. “It’s very sex-ay.”

I laughed and drew
away, taking a drag of my smoke. “Appreciate the compliment.”

He nodded and took me
in, looking like he was thinking of something. “You free for the rest of the
night?”

“Free as a bird.”

“Want to come back to
my place for a drink? I’m staying just around the corner,” he said, his
intention blatant. A lot of gay men were like that, no messing around. If they
wanted sex, you knew about it. Of course, there were the shy ones, but I could
already tell that Phil didn’t have a shy bone in his body. I thought he might
be a little bit tipsy, though.

I exhaled some smoke,
flicking away the ash. “I’m straight.”

Phil’s eyebrows shot
right up into his hairline. “No shit?”

“None at all, Philip. I
like to think of myself as a wonderful and unique snowflake,” I joked.

Phil laughed softly,
his features marked with interest. “Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed. But
you know, the offer still stands. I’d love to hear about how a straight boy
from…New Zealand, if my accent-detecting skills are working correctly…came into
the business of dressing up as a woman.”

I grinned at him. I
didn’t know what it was, but there was something about Phil that I warmed to. I
could tell he was the kind of fellow I could get along with.

“Do you have any
whiskey at your place?” I asked.

“I do believe there’s a
bottle of Jameson knocking around somewhere.”

“Then you’re on.”

We chatted as we walked
to his apartment, which was located on top of a newsagent’s. His place was
small, as was usually the case if you lived in London, but it was clean and the
furniture was nice. I sat on his couch as he put a CD on and began pouring us
both a glass of whiskey. “I Who Have Nothing” by Shirley Bassey streamed
through the stereo speakers, and I briefly considered adding it to my set list.
I loved those big diva tunes that you could belt out with a fiery passion.

Phil sat down next to
me and handed me a glass, crossing one leg over the other and eyeing me
curiously.

“So, go ahead and tell
me your story, Nicholas. I’m dying to hear it.”

“How I got into the
biz, you mean?” I asked after knocking back a long gulp. There was something
about Phil that made me want to talk, spill my guts. It was surprising, because
usually I was very private about my past.

“Well, how do most of
these…quirks, for lack of a better word…come about? It’s normally down to
adults fucking our heads up, right? My story is a typical one. Little boy’s
mother dies when he’s just six years old. Little boy seeks comfort in the
things his mother left behind, clothes, jewellery, makeup. They’re the only way
he can feel close to a woman he never got the chance to know. Little boy’s
father is a workaholic, never home. Little boy’s quirk is discovered by a
predator named Kelvin, the predator takes advantage, blah, blah, blah.”

I felt Phil’s hand come
up to squeeze my arm before I looked at him. He was frowning, empathy in his
gaze. “Oh, no.”

“We’re all a product of
our experiences, and I do what I do because it’s the only way I know how to
cope. What’s strange to the rest of the world is normal for me.”

“I’m sorry that
happened to you,” he said, chewing on his lip as he considered me. Then he
slapped his palms down on his thighs. “Well, how about a private show? I have
Vivica Blue in my living room, and I plan on taking full advantage. Sing me a
song.”

I smiled, liking how he
chose not to dwell on my sad story. Setting down my glass, I stood and walked
over to his stereo, starting up “I Who Have Nothing” again and singing along
with Shirley from the beginning. I hammed it up to the max. Phil was thoroughly
delighted and applauded loudly when I was done. We spent the rest of the night
talking about our lives and getting to know one another, and I felt like I’d
made new friend, one that would last for many years to come.

Soundtrack: “The End” by My Chemical
Romance / “Four Kicks” by Kings of Leon

Last night…last night I was a hot
fucking mess, and that’s putting it mildly. It was Halloween. There’s always
shenanigans on Halloween, par for the course, as they say. Yeah, you all bloody
know the story. One too many vodkas, and I was up on that stage, crying my eyes
out and singing “We Are the Champions” at the top of my lungs to a club full of
unsettled French men.

Picture it here: stage
lights come on, music starts up, and out totters yours truly in a pair of
six-inch diamante fuck-me heels. Always fabulous – even when I’m having an
emotional meltdown in public. I went for a floor-length black velvet dress that
would put both Elvira
and
Morticia Addams to shame, topped off with a
black beehive wig that could’ve been a good homage to Amy Winehouse if I hadn’t
been so drunk I’d put it on askew.

Normally, I like to
think of myself as a classy drag performer. But not last night. Last night I
was pure garishness in its physical form, and I didn’t give two fucks at the
time.

Phil sat by the bar,
nursing a whiskey sour and giving me the concerned-parent look.

“Some people don’t know
how to have a good TIME!!” I’d shouted at him. God, I feel like a right shit
this morning for that one. As I got to the part of the song about having no
time for losers, I’d pointed right at Phil. In the end, he gave me a deathly
scowl before swiftly flouncing out of the club with all the pomp and ceremony
of a royally pissed-off homosexual.

Good riddance
,
I’d thought at the time.
Good grief
, is what I’m thinking right now.

A pretty horrific
night, you’re probably all saying to yourselves. A real ghoulish tribute to the
holiday of All Hallows. Yeah, well, it didn’t end there. Usually, after I’ve
done a show, I change out of my stage clothes and into something a little more
comfortable. No, not a negligee, you saucy little devils. A pair of jeans and a
T-shirt are my usual go-to items. But last night? Last night I went backstage,
pulled off my wig, grabbed my stuff, and tumbled out of the bar in all my
hermaphro-guy-in-a-dress glory. You may well suck in your breath at what a vastly
misguided decision that was. The club was located in a less than savoury area
of Paris. Needless to say, I lasted about three minutes before a group of
hooligans began to follow me and shout insults. Since I know enough French to
get by, I knew exactly what they were calling me.

All the usual gay
slurs. I won’t be so crude as to recite them here. Little did they know, I’d
probably fucked more women than they would combined in their entire lifetimes.
It’s not something I’m proud of. In fact, thinking of my many conquests can
often leave me feeling a little bit empty and worthless. Still, like the
glutton for punishment that I am, I keep going back for more. Somewhere in my
psyche there’s this firm belief that I will one day find solace in a vagina.

My psyche’s a deceiving
little prick.

“Go fuck yourself,” I’d
shouted at one of them when he insinuated I’d probably love to suck his cock.
The next thing I knew, a foot was making contact with the back of my knee and a
fist was flying full steam ahead at my face. I ducked to avoid it and pulled
off both my heels. FYI: They are lethal motherfuckers when used as a weapon,
and I was drunk enough to start wielding them like a crazy ex-wife who just got
shafted in the divorce settlement and was now out to draw blood.

The pavement cut into
my stocking-clad feet as I lifted one heel high into the air before bringing it
down hard on the head of the shit who had attacked me. A dangerous move that
could very well have killed him, but I was running crazy on alcohol, and he
had
started it.

Wallop. Thump. Wallop.

Before I knew it, his
friends were advancing on me, and no matter how lethal my shoes were, they
weren’t going to be a match for five-homo hating ne’er-do-wells.

The irony of the entire
situation was that I’m about as straight as Clint Eastwood smoking a cigarette,
wearing a brown leather jacket, squinting his eyes and casually pointing a gun
in your face. Unfortunately, this was not my first queer-bashing rodeo, and,
sadly, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

Some people might say
that I’m asking for it.

Those people would be
right in many respects.

However, it still
seriously pisses me off that we live in world where you can’t be free to
express yourself in whatever strange way you happen to choose. I clutched my
stomach and grunted in pain when one of them landed a kick to my abdomen. They
kept going at me then, and I was far too outnumbered to be able to defend
myself.

Oh, well, at least I
put up a decent fight with my Jimmy Choos.

Before I knew it, my
attackers were scarpering, and two French policemen were staring down at me,
wearing ever-so-glum frowns. They didn’t seem too shocked, though. I wondered
vaguely how often they came across men in drag who’d just had the living shit
kicked out of them.