Killer Queen: A Painted Faces Novel (3 page)

This
was
Paris,
after all.

It was fortunate that
the vast amounts of alcohol I’d consumed were numbing my body to the pain. I’d
be feeling it in the morning, though.

Long story short, the
policemen brought me to the hospital, where a rather unsexy nurse bandaged me
up and sent me on my merry way. I was given some unflattering clothes to wear,
most likely from the Lost and Found, and then an orderly came to hustle me into
a taxi.

This was a new low, but
I didn’t cry on the way home, nor did I feel sorry for myself. Instead, I
planned on taking a very long nap, waking up, locating a bottle of liquor, and
calling up one of the lovely ladies who happened to reside in my little black
book.

Call me a degenerate.

Call me stupid.

All I knew was that I
wanted to forget. I wanted to feel pleasure with my body while my brain and
emotions checked out. I arrived back at the apartment I was renting, flopped
down onto the bed, and promptly fell asleep.

November
1
^st
, 2011.

Soundtrack: “My Alcoholic Friends” by
The Dresden Dolls.

The second I woke up this morning, I
wanted to go straight back to slumber-land. The thing was, I wasn’t alone. I
had company, and not the good kind with breasts. Phil sat on the green velvet
chair I’d placed by the side of my bed, one leg crossed over the other and his
mouth drawn into a thin, displeased line.

Damn him and knowing
where I hide my spare key.

He folded his arms when
he saw my eyes blink open.

“I’m not even sure if I
want to know what happened to you last night,” he said in his lilting Irish
accent. Phil and his current squeeze had been living in Paris for the last two
years. They’d been managing a small but successful gay bar; however, Phil had
been feeling homesick and had just secured a new job in Dublin. He was moving
home next week, and I wasn’t sure whether I was looking forward to or dreading
his departure.

I sat up, rubbed at my
eyes, and winced at the pain in my stomach and chest. I was topless, but there
was a bandage around my torso. Phil sucked in a shocked breath when the blanket
fell from me and he saw the bruising.

“Jesus Christ! Did you
get knocked over by a car or something?” he asked, concerned now.

I located a glass of
water on my bedside dresser and took a long, thirsty gulp. “No, I left the club
in a dress, and a group of ragamuffins decided they had a problem with me,” I
replied with dark humour.

“They beat you up?”

“Yes, but it was all in
good fun. I was a sport about it.”

“Stop joking around,
Nicholas. This is serious. Did you call the police?”

“They were the ones who
came to my rescue, actually. Brought me to the hospital and everything. Very
pleasant chaps altogether. I think I might send a card and a box of biscuits to
say thank you.”

Phil frowned at me but
didn’t say anything. He was right — I was joking around. I just didn’t want to
have to face the depressing nature of my life by discussing the beating in any
kind of serious manner. It would put a dampener on a day that I planned to fill
with the joys of sex and alcohol.

A few moments of
silence ensued before I grabbed my phone and began scrolling through my list of
contacts.

“Who are you calling?”
Phil asked, eyes narrowed.

“Jeanette. I’m asking
her over. You’re welcome to stay and watch if that’s what floats your boat.”

“
Please
. I’m in
no way curious to see you fuck a woman, Nicholas. And if you want my opinion,
that Jeanette is no good for you. All she ever does is ply you with alcohol and
ask you for money that she never pays back. I’m not too keen on her friends,
either. They all strike me as burgeoning alcoholics, and you drink far too much
as it is.”

“Pfffft,” was the only
reply I gave him as I lifted my phone to my ear. “Jeanette, darling, be a dear
and pop over today, would you?”

Jeanette was a petite
blonde French girl with small but delightfully perky breasts. I spoke to her in
English because she was fluent, and my French was garbled on a good day. And
this was not a good day. In fact, I was already trying to remember where I’d
left the painkillers they’d given me at the hospital last night.

“Nicholas,” said
Jeanette, flirtation in her voice. I could hear her smack her lips together.
“So good to hear from you. I will consider your invitation. What’s in it for
me?”

“Orgasms aplenty,” I
replied with a roll of my tongue, giving Phil a cheeky wink. He screwed up his
mouth in displeasure and rose from the chair, leaving me to my conversation.

“Oh, really. I like the
sound of that. Tell me more.”

“Weeelllll,” I began,
rummaging a cigarette and a lighter from a pair of jeans I’d discarded on the
floor, and lit up. “First of all, we’re going to get drunk,
very
drunk.
Then I’ll be quite charming in my efforts to lure you into shedding your
clothes. I’ll spread your legs and perhaps have a little fun with those
vibrators you’re fond of….”

“Nicholas!” she
interrupted me, breathless. If I were being honest, I was just a little bit
hard myself.

“Are you sold?”

She cleared her throat.
“Mm-hmm. Yes. I’ll call over later on. I’m at work at the moment.”

“Marvellous! See you
soon!”

There was a smile in
her voice as she replied, “Goodbye, Nicholas.”

I ended the call and
slumped back in the bed, finishing off the smoke. I could hear Phil messing
around with pots and pans in the kitchen.

“Oh, Philip, you are an
angel sent down from the heavens. Are you making me breakfast?” I called to
him.

A moment later, he
popped his head into my room and pointed a spatula at me. “Only because you’re
hurt. You don’t deserve this after the way you behaved last night.
Unfortunately, I like to think I’m a good friend. And good friends are loyal,
even when their loyalty is shoved in their faces time and again.”

He swiftly left after
that little speech, and I very slowly got out of bed. I took some painkillers
and managed a quick, all-business shower before sitting my bottom down at the
kitchen counter to eat breakfast. I was a sight for sore eyes. Luckily, though,
all my most vital parts were functioning, if you catch my drift, so I would
still be raring to go with Jeanette when she arrived. She’d definitely have to
get on top, though. Hip thrusting was going to be a problem for me for at least
the next week or two.

“So,” said Phil, “what
was it that brought on last night’s display of lunacy?”

“I have no idea what
you mean,” I muttered, shovelling scrambled eggs into my mouth and scrolling
through the messages on my phone.

“Don’t give me that!
You were full-on crazy-times alcoholic Liza Minnelli last night. I didn’t know
what to do with you. You told Ben that his hair looked like someone had
superglued three seagull feathers onto a bald patch. He was very upset, and I had
to let him go home early.”

Ben was a bartender at
Phil’s club and very sensitive about his male pattern baldness. I winced
guiltily and glanced at Phil. “I said that?”

“Yes, and you also told
numerous customers to fuck off. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you perform tomorrow
night. There were too many complaints.”

“I’ll apologise. It was
the vodka. Well, it was me plus vodka, which usually equals extreme fuckery.” I
paused and decided to tell Phil the honest truth. “I got some news yesterday
evening over the phone. It kind of sent me off the deep end.”

He frowned and looked
at me with concern. “Oh, yes?”

“Yes. You’re going to
think I’m crazy, but, well, I’ve been keeping tabs on Kelvin the past few
years.”

Phil’s eyes widened.
“What!? Your dad’s friend Kelvin? The same Kelvin who….”

“Yes, that’s the one.”
I interrupted him quickly before he delved into my horrid past and the abuse
I’d suffered at the hands of that disgusting, vile old man. “And it’s not what
you think. I was keeping an eye on him because he was never prosecuted for what
he did to me. Too much money and too many friends in high places. You know how
it goes. So I needed to make sure he wasn’t going to submit some other poor boy
to what I had been submitted to.”

“Nicholas…”

“Look, just hear me out.
So I might have called up a few people I knew he associated with who had young
children and warned them about him.”

“Nicholas!” Phil said
my name a second time, now with a tone both fearful and apprehensive.

“I had to do it, Phil.
I just had to. There was this one woman, the wife of a business associate of
his, who said I was revolting, cursed me out, and told me never to contact her
again. I felt like I had done my part and there was nothing I could do if she
wasn’t going to see sense. I mean, I could hardly go and take her kids away
from her. Well, last night that very same woman called me back, bawling her
eyes out. It’s been over a year since I originally called her, and lots of
things have come to light about Kelvin and her thirteen-year-old son. She and
her husband are pressing charges. They might just have more money and more
friends in high places than Kelvin does, because I think he actually might get
sent down this time.” I finished talking, took a sip of orange juice, and
glanced at Phil. He was studying me closely.

“Okay, I completely
disagree with the way you went about things, but this is good news, isn’t it?
Aren’t you happy he’s going to be punished?”

I swallowed hard, a
burst of emotion suddenly coming over me as I slammed my hand down on the
countertop. “No! I’m not fucking happy, Phil! All these years since I got away
from him he’s probably abused countless other boys, and there was nothing I
could do to prevent it. I’m worthless for not trying harder!”

The guilt that had been
festering inside me grew in size. In fact, the hole grew bigger every day, and
I was helpless to stop it.

I slumped back down on
my stool, my eyes growing wet with unshed tears. The next thing I knew, Phil
was out of his seat and throwing his arms around me. “You did try, Nicholas.
But you were hurting so much…so, so much. That pain consumed you for a long
time, and you are not to blame for this. Don’t ever blame yourself. You were
the victim.”

“I hate it. I hate that
word. I hate the shame it makes me feel.”

“You have nothing to be
ashamed about,” he told me with conviction.

“I know that, but
despite knowing it, I still
feel
it.” I thumped myself in the chest.

Phil led me over to the
couch, and we sat. We talked for an hour or two before he had to get to work. I
went and took another nap, and was woken by the ringing of my doorbell.
Groggily, I went and answered it, and was greeted by Jeanette holding up a
bottle of red wine. Yes, that would do nicely. She had also brought several of
her friends with her, but I didn’t mind. I needed the company. Solitude leaves
too much time for dwelling on the past.

I probably shouldn’t
have been drinking after taking the painkillers, but I wasn’t of a mind to
care. Soon enough, my apartment turned into an a-party-ment. There was dancing
and merriment, and some sexual acts that should have been performed behind
closed doors. More drinks were poured, and eventually I was having such a good
time that I blacked out.

Ah, the joys of sex,
wine, and alcoholic friends.

May
31st, 2012.

Soundtrack: “Take Me to Church” by
Hozier

I was in Berlin. I fucking loved Berlin.
One of my absolute favourite places on God’s green earth. Unfortunately, Berlin
did not love me. It often seduced me into true degeneracy and wild behaviour of
the most depraved kind, and I could not for the life of me tell you why.

I was performing in a
tiny little club last night with two other drag queens, one a friend of mine
from Brighton. His name was Dave, but his stage name was Linda Lovely. The
other was a performer I’d just met a couple of weeks ago, a German who simply
went by Agnes. She had quite a large following, since this was her home city.

We were doing a
three-way performance of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” along with a
little dance routine we’d made up. A lot of heel strutting and sassy hip
tilting. I was in the
zone
, high on a cloud of alcohol-fuelled zeal with
a deep-rooted misery beneath.

I was exuberant because
I’d just been informed that Kelvin was being sent to prison for twenty years. I
was triumphant, but I was not satisfied. In fact, the surface joy was slowly
dissipating, and the emptiness in my gut was growing fast. I’d thought that
once I knew for sure he was going to be punished, the clouds would part and I’d
suddenly be this whole new man. A man who could be happy and content with his
lot. A man who didn’t feel the need to constantly be on the move, running away
from nothing but himself.