#freshpunch

It starts with nothing interesting. I’m looking at that huge year-end magazine of basically all the runaway looks from the year I splurged on before I got here. I’m not even listening to music anymore because the lip sync songs got grating days into being locked up in this hotel room. There’s no more inspiration to wring from any of these looks either. They’re too modern for Violet and all the 2014 silhouettes have gotten stale. But there’s nothing good on TV and I’m exhausted but still not tired enough to sleep. And there’s something oddly comforting about this routine in the rushed chaos of competing.

There’s a knock on my hotel room door which could mean…anything really. It’s usually some crew member with competition news but sometimes it was one of the other girls. Rarely though. We spend too much time together anyway. Untucked was proof enough that this is a pressure cooker few of us are making it through. But it’s just Pearl. And there’s no tension between us, nothing to make a good episode of Untucked. There’s nothing you could poke or prod the right way to get us to snap. There’s just an easy friendship, an unexpectedly quick connection.

“What’s up?” I don’t mind spending time with Pearl but it’s not like this is normal.

“I wanna practice my fishtail braids and you have the longest hair.” It comes out in his characteristic slow drawl. There’s not really any question to it.

I cock my hip out and pose against the doorway. “If you wanted to see me you should’ve just said so.”

He snorts. “Confidence looks cute on you but not that cute.”

I huff and edge into the doorway a little more, blocking his entrance. “What about Ginger then?”

He’s more than used to my pouting though. “Her hair isn’t long enough and I think she’s sick of me.”

“And I’m not?” I try.

“Well you were just so happy to see me.” He flutters his stubby little natural eyelashes at me and lands a soft hand on my chest.

I fall back and let him in almost immediately. But that’s all it’s ever taken—just a whisper of a touch and something that’s hardly even a suggestion, forget a command. “What about your wigs?” I ask once he’s already settled on my bed.

He looks just as at ease in my room as he does anywhere else. But I guess all hotel rooms are the same. “They’re in the werkroom duh.” He pats the spot next to him. “Come on.”

And I do because all it ever takes from him the barest hint of a request. It’s always so easy when it’s just me and him. “So fishtails?” I confirm, settling into my bed, tucking my legs underneath me.

“They’re hard.” He answers, furrowing his brow as he looks at my hair. I manage to barely catch his eye over my shoulder and he laughs uneasily. “It’s weird doing this in silence.” And he hunts for my remote and turns on my TV to some game show I don’t recognize. It’s hard to pay attention to and not very interesting but I try my best to at least look at it.

Pearl threads his fingers through my hair the same way Pearl—the same way Matt— does everything, calm and careful, methodical and soothing. He gathers my hair and drops it again and again but I guess starting a braid is the hardest part. Maybe I like it so much because routine has become so comforting to me and the gather, part, let go, gather, part and let go again it almost rhythmic. Or maybe I’m just touch starved. Or maybe I’ve forgotten the difference between missing touch like being totally isolated and missing touch like missing the touch of someone I trust. The whole thing is truly soothing though.

Eventually I stop trying to pay attention to the game show and let my head lean back on his shoulder. He’s finally stopped parting, gathering and dropping and started really braiding my hair.

He clicks his tongue and lays his hand on my shoulder. “I can’t do anything with your hair when you’re like that.”

“You’re making me sleepy.” I whine.

“So this is mutually beneficial then.”

“Bitch!” I yell. “‘Mutually beneficial’ shut the fuck up! I bet you can’t even spell that.”

“This isn’t a spelling bee.” He makes sure to make stern eye contact with me from where his head is hanging above mine. “It just means that you’re not just doing me a favor, I’m helping you too.”

“I could’ve slept without you.” I taunt, sticking my tongue out.

“But you didn’t.” He responds surely, lifting up the half-braid he did and dragging a gentle fingertip down the back of my neck and over the bumps of my spine.

Goosebumps erupt on my skin immediately. “Don’t do that unless you’re gonna fuck me.” It’s supposed to come out playful and joking. But my voice gets caught in my chest somewhere and it comes out breathless and tight.

His finger pauses in the middle of my back, over my tank top. “That bad, huh?” It’s half-sympathetic and half-teasing.

“I mean…I wouldn’t have to be driven to desperation to consider you.” I try, looking at him from under my eyelashes.

He just laughs. “No. It’s not happening.”

I huff out a sigh and think about whining like the little brat I am but decide on just looking up with him at pleading eyes. “What if I just suck you off?” I offer.

The look on his face is maybe pity or maybe disappointment. “Oh, Vi,” he sighs affectionately. “Nope.”

“But—“ I try.

He places his hand over my mouth lightly, probably not even enough to muffle my speech. “You remember when Jinkx called all the other drag race contestants ‘cock hungry dick pigs’?” He asks.

“No!” I shriek because I love it. I’m going to start using it immediately. “When did she say that?”

“During the Reunion but that doesn’t matter,” his hand is back to gently resting on my shoulder, “what’s important is that you’re only doing this because you’re trapped in drag prison. You’re not gonna die.”

“I am gonna die!” I cry dramatically, throwing myself into his lap. “Violet Chachki—cause of death: lack of dick.”

“You’re putting ‘Violet’ on your tombstone?” He asks, furrowing his brow.

It catches me off-guard. “Maybe! I don’t know.” I sputter. “Point is: I’m going to die.”

“You’re not.” He drops a chaste kiss on the curve of my shoulder. It’s the barest brush of skin-against-skin, doesn’t even really linger. “You’ll get over it.”

I think about if he wasn’t bare-faced, if maybe he was just that nude lipstick he loves and left a light pink smudge on my skin. The thought makes me squirm. “Maybe I’ll get over your dick but I don’t think I’ll get over you.”

He lets me look up at him with bedroom eyes for a moment. “Sweet,” his eyes crinkle up in a soft smile, “but it’s still not happening.”

I groan in frustration and roll away from him. “You’re impossible!”

“You’re like a fucking cat in heat.” He shoots back. There’s a fire in his eyes. Maybe it’s not because of me. Maybe the competition lit it. Maybe it’s always been there. It’s not bright or intense but it’s steady and it’s there. And it looks good on him.

“Then do something about it.” I challenge.

“It’s not my problem.” He shrugs. “You’ll get over it.” His words are harsh but his demeanor is still soft somehow—gentle.

“You’re telling me you’re not interested at all?” I ask like it’s crazy. It is, at this point in my life, to be rejected when I’ve asked so nicely.

He scrunches up his mouth and his forehead, looking thoughtful. “Not here, not now.” He settles on.

“So, if after I win this whole thing, I send you nudes of just me in the crown, you’ll just ignore them?”

“You’ll have to win first.” He sounds like my parents did when I went on about any one of my wild dreams—gentle, placating, distracted. His hands find my hair again, unthreading the braid.

“I’ll do it.” I promise.

“I’m sure you will.” He encourages but it comes out partly as a laugh.

I feel like pouting and I want to show him up right now but I’m not really mad—just frustrated, I guess.

“So let me fix your hair and I’ll leave, yeah?”

“What if you stay instead?” I suggest.

He gives me a pitying kind of look. “You know I can’t stay the night.”

“I’ll miss you.”

He sighs fondly, running his fingers through my hair. “You’ll be okay, you spend enough time with me already.”

“Yeah but I like you.” He’s good at getting the frustration out of me—at getting me soft and pliant again.

He laughs, all pleasantly surprised. “I like you too, pumpkin.”

“You can stay over whenever you want.” I promise sleepily.

“I’ll take you up on that whenever I’m in Atlanta then.” He lifts up my hair and lets it fall back against my neck. “We can have a sleepover.”

It’s weird to hear Matt call it a “sleepover.” I certainly didn’t use that term whenever I let another queen crash at my place or whenever one of my friends stayed over. I probably hadn’t said the word in years. “What about when I go to New York?”

“I guess I can let you stay over.” He sighs like it’s a burden. I stick my tongue out him childishly. “Fine, you can sleepover too.”

I laugh at the choice of words. “I haven’t had a sleepover in years. Haven’t even used the word.”

“Well, what do you think this is?” He looks pointedly at where his hands are still undoing the braid he made.

I shrug playfully. “We don’t have to call it anything.”

Something lights up in his eyes—a glint of something in the firelight—and I think he gets it. Whatever I’m not saying, not even thinking. He gets it. “I’ll comb out your hair again and then leave, okay?”

“How ‘bout you don’t leave?” I ask sleepily, not even opening my eyes from where my head rests on his chest.

“I’ll give you until this show is over.” He offers. And I haven’t settled or compromised for the longest time. No one made me, no one that I would listen to anyway. But this is okay. I can settle for this. Maybe this is more than enough. Whatever it is.

–

When I land in Atlanta after getting crowned there is so much to do. It’s a blur really—talking with a manager, booking gigs, getting merch together, sleepless nights with only like one of my suitcases unpacked. There’s friends to see and family that wants to talk and offers to consider and social media to upkeep. It is nonstop motion until there is a pause.

By the time I wake up it’s already late afternoon. The sun streams through the curtains at a harsh angle and doesn’t illuminate anything pressing for once. I have a second to breathe, to stumble around my apartment sleepily while checking my phone. I see a picture of Pearl—Pearl for real with her steadily evolving sense of fashion—on Instagram and finally remember. I promised Matt I’d win and I did but I promised him something else too.

The picture I end up taking isn’t the sexy, burlesque perfection of Violet. It isn’t really me either. It sits somewhere in the gossamer inbetween. I’m bare-faced (well…maybe I did my eyebrows, kill me), no pointed eyeliner, no bold lip color. It leaves my face looking softer, rounder, fuller, younger than I’m used to seeing it. There’s no wig, it’s just my real hair let down in soft waves. I’m not wearing anything—it’s a nude after all. But it’s not really a nude, there’s only a suggestion of nudity really. It’s a three-quarters angle, looking over my shoulder, perched delicately on my knees.

In the end, it all comes down to imperfections and curves. There are dark circles under my eyes that I haven’t noticed (or pretended not to notice) from sleepless nights and busy schedules and stress that I am too busy to even really feel. My body comes through in all soft curves—the slope of my shoulder, the soft swell of my thighs pressed together, the roundness of my face. In the background you can see my unmade bed and my half-open curtains. It is a soft invitation, a beckoning except for the gaudy crown perched on my head. It’s too tall, too much to really be elegant, to fit into the scene I’ve set up. But all the million, tiny crystals catch in the late afternoon sun like a corona around my head.

how about now? I send in the text with the picture. I’m not even sure I want Matt to want to fuck me. I’m too tired, too wanted to be as desperate and whiny as I was during Drag Race. I’m just keeping my promise, just keeping him on his toes. Because it’s never been easy to define—to really capture and observe—what was between us. It was never really just sisterhood. It was never just anything. So I yank our relationship back out of simple friends because it never belonged there and send it somewhere else. Where ever. I’m not too picky.