The Queen & the Homo Jock King (52 page)

I didn’t think attraction had ever been our problem. At least it hadn’t been for me. Some part of me had always known Darren was attracted to me, but it was a peripheral thing, something I didn’t allow myself to focus on.

Not until this ridiculous fucking scheme Mike had come up with that I’d barely hesitated in agreeing to and then fucked up completely so that Darren and I were stuck in this weird push-and-pull where it felt like I was both pushing
and
pulling.

Whatever.

I could stand between the legs of a nearly naked Darren Mayne and be perfectly fine. It wouldn’t affect me in the slightest.

I bent over in front of him until our faces were inches from each other. Strictly to see the canvas I’d be working on and nothing more. I barely even saw him as anything more than that.

His tongue darted out, wetting his lips.

Okay.

You can sure as shit bet I saw the fuck out of that.

My breath caught in my chest and he
knew
.

“Sandy,” he said, and it was like he was
growling
.

I glared.

“Helena,” he corrected.

“Yes?” I frowned, running a finger over his eyebrows, wondering if I needed to pluck them at all.

“Are we going to talk about this?”

“About what?”

His thighs brushed against my leg, applying the barest bit of pressure, like he was thinking of trapping me against him. That was a bad idea in a long history of bad ideas.

“You know what.”

I sighed and looked up, making sure no one was listening to us. “There’s nothing to talk about.” I considered taking a step back. I settled for standing straight up. “And even if there was, now certainly wouldn’t be the time to do so. In two hours, the doors are going to open and I’ll have to pimp you bitches out so we can raise enough money to save Jack It, so anything we
would
need to talk about can surely wait until that is over.”

He arched an eyebrow up at me, and I decided yes, I very much liked being above him, Helena or not. “Pimp you bitches,” he repeated.

“Oops,” I said. “I mean auction you for a good cause.”

“That’s better.”

“Like cattle.”

“That’s… not better.”

“You haven’t even asked me who you’re going to be. Surely you must be wondering what I have up my sleeve.”

He frowned up at me. “I don’t
care
who I’m going to be. I care about why all of a sudden you completely shut me down like I’m
nothing
to you.”

“You’re not
nothing
,” I said, because it was the truth.

“Then—”

“What are you to me?” I asked sharply before I could stop myself.

“As far as everyone else is concerned, I’m your boyfriend.”

What a safe answer that was. “And you and I both know that’s not—look. I don’t have
time
for this right now. I’m serious, Darren. I need to get you done up so you can finish downstairs so
I
can get ready for tonight.”

“This isn’t over.” His hands were on my hips, pulling me toward him, so much so that my knees were pressed right near his crotch, the outline of his dick and balls evident as he slid slightly down in the chair, his underwear pulling up against him. His fingers dug into my sides and I wondered what it would look like to be bruised by him, the outline of his fingers against me. To be marked. Owned, in a way.

He sat up in the chair and curled his hands around to my back, his fingers resting on my ass, using me to sit up straight, his biceps flexing against my sides. He looked up at me, his chin pressing against my stomach. “I don’t know what happened,” he said quietly and I could
feel
every word he spoke. “I don’t know what I did or what you think I did. But this isn’t over, Helena. Not by a long shot.” With his eyes never leaving mine, he pressed a gentle kiss to my stomach before sitting back in the chair, all that skin on display.

He smirked up at me.

I scowled down at him because how
dare
he.

He asked, “So, what are you making me up as?” and sounded smugger than I’d ever heard him before.

He seemed to have forgotten who he was fucking with.

The Homo Jock King needed to be put in his place.

I was all Helena when I slowly reached out and gripped his chin in my hand, rubbing my thumb just under his bottom lip.

I was all Helena when I grinned at him and pressed my knee none too lightly up against his balls, causing him to gasp.

I was all Helena when I leaned over and brushed my lips over his forehead, sticky and sweet while he squirmed in my grasp.

His smirk was fading.

His pupils dilated as I pressed my knee just a
tad
bit harder, enough to feel the weight of his cock and balls pressing against me.

Goose bumps broke out along his shoulders, prickling his skin.

His fingers twitched in his lap, like he wanted to reach for me but decided against it.

What a good boy he was. Keeping his hands to himself.

He deserved a reward.

When I spoke, Helena Handbasket was in control, just the way she liked it. Him too, if the way he was trembling in my grip meant anything.

He wouldn’t get something like
this
from fucking a hipster twink, that was for sure.

Interesting.

“Tell me, baby doll,” I purred, digging my nails into his cheeks just to watch him blush. It was a wondrous thing. I leaned over, and when I spoke again, my lips were brushing against his ear and how he
shuddered
. “Just how familiar are you with late nineties seminal classic songs that changed the pop landscape forever?”

“Um,” Darren said, voice scratchy and weak. “Not very?”

“For
shame
,” I said, sighing directly into his ear.

He made a slightly strangled noise that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear. “Yeah,” he managed to say. “So shameful.”

“I have six words for you then, baby doll,” I said. “Just to give you an idea of what you can…
expect
.”

He nodded and my bottom lip caught briefly on the lobe of his ear. Without giving it much thought, I scraped my teeth against him. “Six words,” he panted. He was hard against my knee, his cock straining, and I
pushed
against it. It seemed the rumors of his… physique weren’t unsubstantiated. He groaned, low and guttural, and I gave serious thought to getting him off right then and there, just to say I did.

“Six words,” I agreed. “Are you ready for them?”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely.

“Good,” I said. “Here they are.” I pulled away and saw his eyes were blown, face red, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. I gripped his hair, snapping his head back, keeping his chin in my other hand. I leaned forward until our noses bumped, until his breath was on my lips. I sneered at him and hissed, “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”

And Darren Mayne swallowed thickly.

THERE IS
something kinetic about the moments before a show. It’s a visceral feeling, almost primal. There’s excitement in the air, but it goes beyond that. In those moments, I wasn’t the humdrum Sanford Stewart that I sometimes thought I was. That Sanford was trapped in a dead-end job as a claims representative for an insurance company. That Sanford Stewart was uncomfortable with people he didn’t know. That Sanford Stewart liked to pretend he wasn’t affected by everyone else around him falling in love and being happy while he stayed behind, smiling and nodding and saying things like
congrats
and
you two are meant to be
.

Helena didn’t have a single fuck left to give about Sanford Stewart.

Because when I was Helena, I was powerful. I was revered. I was
feared
. People came from far away just to see me perform, to shake my perky ass on the dance floor, to sweat and bleed in heels that defied gravity. I had been trained by the great Vaguyna Muffman, and I was
good
at what I did. Sure, maybe that was mostly ego talking, but you had to
have
ego if you were going to be a queen. You couldn’t get away with being humble and being a queen. You’d be eaten alive.

Possibly even by me.

Tonight I was dressed like a circus ringmaster by way of Cruella De Vil. The wig was long, the hair curling at my clavicles, one side white, the other black. I had a tight black suit jacket with tailored coattails that fell against the black thigh-high boots. Under the jacket was a white unitard that proclaimed me as
MADAM
in sequined letters across my chest. My makeup was dark and smoky, smeared just the barest amounts.

This morning I had woken as Sandy, meek and mild Sandy.

Tonight, I was a star.

It was a duality I was used to, even if it was getting harder and harder these days to shake Helena. She was me and I was her, but sometimes, it felt like she just took over and something I would say as her would come through when I was Sandy and it would be almost shocking.

Yes, it’s essentially Sybil.

But I had no problem with it.

Mostly.

Especially on drag bachelor auction night, the most fired up I’d felt in a long while.

It felt good.

It felt
right
.

“Whatever you do, don’t fuck this up,” Mike said, coming behind the stage as I took breaths to focus on my inner queen. “Pretty much everything is depending on you. So. No pressure.”

It felt like
rage
.

I turned slowly to fix him with the most horrible expression I could muster, one that usually sent others running in the opposite direction. If anyone saw this look on my face, they
knew
death was to follow.

The other queens standing with me scattered like cockroaches, fleeing from my unholy light. I thought Summer might have even hissed trying to escape, cowering against the wall.

They were smart. Well, most of them.

Mike, though.

Mike was fucking stupid.

Or he didn’t give a shit.

Which was pretty much the same thing.

He didn’t even flinch.

“Mike, now is the time you walk away unless you want to see what your blood looks like on my hands.”

“Easy, princess.” He patted me on the arm. If I’d have been the type of drag queen that carried a sword, he would have had one less limb to worry about. Luckily for him, I was not that type of drag queen.

Yet.

“I know what’s at stake,” I said coolly. “If you’d done your job with the Super Gays, we wouldn’t even have to be worrying about this right now.”

He rolled his eyes. “You can’t always depend on the Super Gays, Helena, no matter how much you believe in them. They can be kind and giving, but they can also be cheap-ass motherfuckers, just like everyone else.”

“Maybe if you’d sucked on their cocks a little more—”

“I have
standards
, princess. I don’t just swallow down every Tom, Dick, and hairy-chested man that comes around.”

“That wasn’t witty,” I said. “Also, you should get out of my sight. I’m preparing. Leave, before I have you thrown out. Tonight I will not be slighted by one such as you.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s
my
club and you might do well to remember that.”

I patted him on the cheek. “It’s funny how you still think that. Move along, Mike. I don’t have time for you anymore.”

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and murmured “good luck” in my ear. Because regardless of how antagonistic our relationship was, we did care about each other, even if we didn’t really show it. I knew that moment I’d laid eyes on him the first time that one day either he or I would end up murdering each other. It was inevitable.

THE IDEA
was that each queen would present their own homo jocks. I was in charge of overseeing the entire show, but each queen would get at least a few minutes in the spotlight to present their charges. We’d thought about letting each of the homo jocks do their own little performance, but nixed that because it would have probably taken too long. And also, I wanted people to actually bid on them and not be frightened away when the homo jocks tried to lip-synch and dance at the same time. I didn’t think the world was ready for such horrors.

The roar of the crowd was almost deafening when I took the stage. The room was packed wall-to-wall, with barely any room to move, the most crowded I’d ever seen it. I thought it was possible we were over capacity, but knowing Mike, he’d probably greased a few palms to have the fire marshal look the other way for the night in exchange for a go-go boy or two.

The spotlights were blinding as the crowd screamed my name. I glanced toward the balcony briefly, seeing the silhouette of Kori and Charlie. Kori waggled her fingers down at me and I winked back up at her as I let my people worship me.

One of the barbacks, clad only in a tiny pair of shorts that were apparently designed to show off his balls, handed me a microphone and a shot of tequila, courtesy of my straight bartender dream. I knocked it back, much to the delight of the crowd. I never really understood why they enjoyed seeing a queen drink so much, but I wasn’t one to deny them whatever they wanted.

Within reason, of course.

Also, tequila was delicious and made me feel happy.

I handed the shot glass back to the barback and smacked his ass as he walked away. He grinned at me over his shoulder and I thought he’d probably graduated high school within the last year or so, and that made me feel old as fuck.

“Helena,” Charlie said into a mic of his own, sounding like God speaking from above. Well, if God was an elderly leather Dom.

“Shh,” I said to the crowd. “Shh, shh, shh. Daddy’s talking. And you know when Daddy talks, we must listen.”

They quieted down, most of them turning toward the balcony. Most regulars knew who Daddy Charlie was, that he was a goddamned treasure and deserved to be treated as such.

The DJ lowered the music.