#pilandok

            Trixie is here because he wants a drink and what other place in the world would never leave her with an empty glass other than a gay bar on a drag night? In fact, as soon as he steps through the back door, one of the local queens screams his name and hands him her own drink. Trixie graciously accepts it, fully enveloping this queen he didn’t know into an embrace. Who’s acting grand now?

He sits on the battered sofa that seems to be in the back of every bar he’s ever performed at, complete with a ripped out corner and a slight incline because of its uneven footing— he knows exactly how to make himself comfortable in it. The queen that greeted him sits beside him, talking animatedly. She has a million pounds  of make-up on and a name that references something he doesn’t understand. Trixie can’t imagine how a would look like as a boy. He’s not the one to talk though, so he leans in closer than she probably expected him to and when he smiles like she’s the most entertaining person he’s ever met, he shows off his veneered teeth.

            The music from the stage echoes as a faded bass line on the walls of the room. He recognizes it, a Top 40 song from about two decades ago but he knows he won’t understand the words— Katya once told him that with his abysmal French, he has zero chance of learning Russian. (Sweet gesture, though, Katya said. Trixie was obviously joking.)

            Trixie is here because she can be— because in almost every gig, they tell the promoter that the other Brian might show up. Even when it was physically impossible for them to be. Still, there’s always that proverbial seat saved for the other. As soon as she walks in, give Katya a cigarette, Trixie would tell them. For him, a drink. This bar came through and now Trixie’s on his third glass of a random alcohol mix (his ninth if you count what he drank in the other bar before he mustered up the courage to go here, and his tenth if you count the one he had in the hotel.)

            Trixie is here because Katya expected him to be, two weeks ago. Trixie said he could watch her, he’s playing the venue three days later. He should be able to make it before her set and that she would expect him here. But judging from Katya’s reaction when she spots him on the couch with the other queen’s legs resting on his lap, it looks like neither of those things are true anymore.

            Trixie is here not because Katya has decided to stop making out with him nine days ago.

            “Trixie,” Katya calls, a full mouth smile as if she’s excited to see him but he can see the confusion in her eyes, the slight tilt of her head. “You’re here.”

            “We gave her drinks just like you told us to,” says the older drag queen that entered with Katya, probably the host of the show, “but it looked like she already had a few before us…”

            The tone of her voice, Trixie imagines, is trying to suggest something. He recognizes a tongue that’s looking for drama and with his relationship with Katya so publicly ambiguous, he all but expects this to happen. He doesn’t give a shit anymore, honestly. They’re praying for my downfall, he thinks, then laughs to himself.

            Katya’s smile barely falters but Trixie sees it. He watches her turn to the older queen and they converse in low voices that is easily drowned out by the music. He wants to tell them that he knows they’re talking about him. Instead, he focuses on the drag queen sitting on the other side of the couch whose legs are sprawled in his lap, he leans in as if he’s going to tell her something but he just flashes a lazy smile at him which she returns, equally buzzed. She’s about five years younger than him, easily excitable and eager to please.

            “Trix, honey. Hi.” Katya kneels on the rug in front of him, ignoring the pair of legs strewn over Trixie. “I have to do my second set. Wait for me, okay? I’ll take you back to the hotel. ”

            He expected as much, that his thinly-veiled attempt at making Katya jealous wouldn’t phase her so he moves his head into what he perceives to be a nod. Katya stares at him for a second and he could see that she needs to retouch her make-up. It’s kind of a hot, sweaty mess at the moment but in the way that everyone likes, with her hair sticking to her face and her lips slightly smudged. It takes a few numbers for Katya to be in her most flexible and sensual self. That’s when a strong, complicated, feminine energy exudes itself from Katya. None of these things he would have noticed before— before Katya made a mission out of making out with him every chance she got (or was it Trixie letting him?)— now the sight of it brings a stirring between his legs. Is he even gay anymore?

            “Cut her off,” Katya orders the young drag queen.

            A few moments after she leaves, they hear the explosion from the crowd.

            Trixie lifts his drink to take a sip and the young queen makes a halfhearted motion to stop him. Trixie laughs, he knows that preventing people from drinking goes against the hard-wiring of a drag queen. When he raises his glass at her, giving her a mischievous wink, she can’t help but toast hers.

            “Jesus Christ, you’re heavy,” Katya tells him.

            “It’s muscle mass,” Trixie slurred “I’ve been working out, bitch.” He tries to flex his bicep but his arm is slung around Katya’s neck who was keeping him stable on the curb as they wait for the Uber.

            “Sure, hon,” Katya mumbles distractedly, preoccupied with tracking the car on the app.

            It’s not lost on him that Katya didn’t take her things from the club, that she’s standing empty handed beside him. He realizes that “bringing you home” meant sending him off in an Uber and leaving him to the hotel staff. It seems that Katya fully intends to continue her cold streak, barely acknowledging Trixie since that day in her apartment. What did Trixie do wrong this time? Why does she get to act this way? Before it was because he cared too much and didn’t let her kiss him. Now is it because he lets her kiss him and he doesn’t care enough? Damned if I do—

“Katya, you— Kat,” Trixie starts, because what’s the point of getting wasted if you’re not going to let the words vomit out of your mouth? Katya looks at him like he’s expecting a train-wreck. “You don’t have to remember, Brian. It’s fine, you dont have to tell me— You don’t have to be anyone. You don’t have to be him. I don’t care.” Katya looks at him, exasperated, like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Whatever, Trixie knows he’s not a fun drunk. “I know you know what I’m talking about.”

            At this, Katya purses her lips into a hard line.

            “But you do care,” Katya says in a whisper.

            “Fine, if I do, then I do. But just because I care doesn’t mean it matters, Kat. It hasn’t mattered in fifteen years. No matter how much I wanted it to. It still doesn’t matter now. Nothing has to change.” Trixie has an idea of what he looks like to Katya, he’s always been a pathetic drunk, Kim would never let him forget that. Even sober, his mouth is always faster than his brain— all the fucking trouble that caused for him. “Katya— Brian just— don’t disappear on me again.”

            It’s too much for Katya, he knows that, he can see the wheels turning in hehr head. He wants to do something about it but freshly digested alcohol is clouding his brain, probably the ones from the queen.

            “Trixie,” she starts, her arm faltering on his waist. Katya doesn’t sound like she was going to say anything more, just saying his name for the sake of it, to test it out on her tongue. But it’s the most sure she’s ever sounded in weeks. Trixie can’t help but feel his heart climb up his chest, he can hear his pulse in his ears and the dizzying spell of the beat. He wants to swallow it down, the feeling rising in his throat, but it’s impossible. “Brian I—“

            He stops Katya with a retching noise. He lurches forward, slipping his arm off of her neck, and heaves. He empties out the content of his stomach, the sound of him throwing up echoing on the empty street.

            He’s always been a terrible interrupter.

             Those are my feelings, he thinks, watching the sickly colored liquid flow into the gutter.

             It’s the last thing he remembers from that night.

            Trixie dreams of the world in Katya’s head.

            The artist’s kisses drive him crazy— verrückt. That must be it, why else would he be watching him right now? He’s never met a man so… obscene. He kisses all his models, especially after they’ve opened their legs for him. Not for sex, no, but maybe something more intimate. He watches him kneel in front of the bed, staring intently at the genetalia that has been spread before him. He sees the furious sketches on his pad.

            “Nicht fickstück,” the artist had told him, Russian accent heavy, and he blushed at the vulgarity.

            It’s only his turn when it’s late at night and everyone has left. The name he gave was Byron and the artist had laughed at this. It doesn’t suit him at all and he can’t quite pronounce it right, but the artist never asked for the truth. He only replied, “dann bin ich Katya.”

            Byron doesn’t take off his clothes, he is never asked to, only his jacket so he can roll up his sleeves. He sits on the piano waiting at the other side of the room. It’s damaged but it’s still better than anything he’s ever owned. The fact that he can play this late at night without anyone coming up to complain tells him the character of the place and the kind of residents there are in this building.

            For Katya, he plays the pieces he learned in the academy— he doesn’t let him listen to any of his compositions. In turn, Katya never shows him what he’s painting while he watches him play.

            But he does love Katya’s self portraits.

            “Ich habe so etwas noch nie gesehen,” Byron tells him, and then in his best english, “beautiful.”

            Katya beams and points to the canvas he hasn’t been able to see.

            “I will make you walk in the most beautiful.”

            In the morning, Trixie wakes up with a hang over so bad that he swears he’s lost feeling in his limbs. He was a mess last night, he knew. Katya knew, the queens in the club knew, and the night shift staff of the hotel knew. Hell, Kim probably knew, somehow. It’s fine, he can bounce back from it. He has the emotional and mental fortitude. But physically, he’s a goner. He’s thirty years old and a hangover can kill him now.

            An hour later, he peels himself off the bed to trudge up the bathroom. The sound of the water hitting the sink helps him gather his thoughts and the water is refreshing to touch. But he catches himself before he washes his face. He leans forward to observe his face in the mirror, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. He touches his forehead like he can’t believe it. A red stain in the shape of a kiss. He knows what shade that is— hes’ making a lipstick in that exact color.

           “You know, you’re not really my type.”

            Violet stops, his jeans mid-thigh. He’s in the middle of redressing but he turns to look at Trixie, aghast.

            “What the fuck, bitch?” he demands and tries to shoot him a withering glare but Trixie has that hazy look on his face when he’s freshly and very well fucked. Violet huffs and spotting Trixie’s boxers on the floor, he crumples it and throws it at the owner.

            “Mm?” Trixie says through the fabric. He picks it off and snapping out of his daze, he sits up, the blanket pooling at his waist. “No, Vi, I mean— c’mon don’t pout.”

            “I’m not,” Violet responds. He knows that Trixie wasn’t being mean and Violet has full confidence in himself, and really, Brian is just stupid sometimes. But Violet is known to be petty and nobody can get under his skin as much as Trixie does. He always had but how could Violet complain now that it’s manifested quite magnificently in their current fuck-buddy status. Still, he wants to be petty because he’s Violet Chachki and goddammit, he’s everyone’s type.

            “You’re Violet Chachki and you’re everyone’s type,” Trixie echoes his thoughts. Violet can hear the amusement in Trixie’s voice so he picks up another article of clothing to throw. Trixie catches it this time and returns Violet’s half-hearted animosity with a boyish grin. He looks apologetic enough, in the kind of casual way he does when he’s willingly submissive to Violet’s whims.

            Violet forgives him easily, and he delivers the sentiment with a different kind of glare.

            Trixie laughs because he’s well-versed in Violet’s temper tantrums. Violet kind of hates it, how Trixie makes him so childish.

            “I was just thinking out loud,” Trixie tells him.

            “Congratulations.” Violet rolls his eyes. He goes back to gathering his things, he needs to leave soon. There’s a plane to catch and he’s sure that the shelf-life of a hook-up has long been passed. Is this a hook-up? He wonders every time, but if this isn’t a hook-up then what the hell would it be?

            Violet feels a sharp pull on his arm and he falls back onto the bed. He lands awkwardly on Trixie who catches him by the armpits. After some urging, he sits up and finds himself being spooned. Making a show of fighting against it, he berates Trixie for making him miss his flight and taking up all his precious time but he gives it up soon enough and lets Trixie wrap his body around him— his arms hold on to Violet’s waist and he has his knees bent on either side of Violet. He wonders how could Trixie like cuddling so much. Still, he leans into Trixie’s chest and figured he could always just bribe the Uber driver to floor it later.

            “Am I really not your type?”

            “Vi, it’s not—,” Trixie cuts himself off, then rests his chin on Violet’s left shoulder and sighs. “I mean, do you see how gay this room is? So ridiculously pink that Barbie would tell me to tone it down. I’m gay-gay, look at me. I mean, would you think that you were my type?”

            All the while, Trixie is tracing circles on Violet’s abdomen.

            “Well, some of us aren’t so hung up on heteronormative ideas of gender.”

            Trixie laughs out loud, not a screech (thank god for Violet’s ears), but a hearty one. Violet can feel him shaking his head.

            “Yeah, you’re right.”

            The smile in his voice tells Violet that he’s wearing stupid, boyish grin again.

            Trixie places a soft kiss on the back of Violet’s neck which Violet barely feels, but when he reacts to it approvingly, Trixie does it more, leaving a trail from his nape to his shoulder.

            “You’re very pretty,” Trixie says in a low tone, “and I definitely like pretty things.”

            Violet feels the blood descend from his head. He loves a compliment, and he especially loves it when Trixie does it while slowly reaching down to unbutton his pants. After his briefs get pushed down and his penis springs out in its full glory, Violet thinks, fuck that flight.

            “This is definitely my type,” Trixie whispers over his shoulder and begins to work on Violet’s cock. “Would you like me to get you off?”

            Violet doesn’t dignify that with an answer but he pushes himself up against Trixie and reaches to grip his thigh hard.

            “Okay, ow. Message received, Violet, jeez.”

            Trixie quickens his pace, stroking Violet’s length and using his other hand to cup Violet’s balls. When Violet has been reduced to shallow breaths and very soft moans, Trixie focuses the pressure on the head. Violet almost lets himself be led to completion but when he feels Trixie’s hard dick through the sheets, he places a hand on top of Trixie’s who was working him. Trixie makes a confused sound and Violet reaches under the blanket that collected on Trixie’s waist to feel for his penis. When Violet has a steady grasp on it, Trixie understands immediately, as given away by his audible swallow. For good measure, Violet grinds his ass against him.

            Trixie urges Violet to lift himself up slightly and in a sequence of events that’s almost comically hurried, Trixie rips the blanket away, grabs the lube over the bedside table, and lathers his penis with it. If there was any doubt about his attraction to Violet, it’s been completely obliterated now.

            After sliding his jeans and boxers down to his knees, Violet slowly descends onto Trixie whose shaking hands guiding him by the hips seem to be indicating that he’s fighting the urge to just ram it in. Violet feels it push against his entrance then lets the tip enter before lifting his ass again and letting it out.

            “Fuck, Violet—” Trixie pleads.

            “That’s what you get,” Violet tells him smugly. Okay, he really is petty.

            “You’re definitely my type. You’re my only type. Fuck, you’re so hot, how can you not be my type?” Trixie says in rush, almost tripping over his words, “You’re literally the sexiest— fuck.”

Violet slides himself down all the way to the hilt— taking all of Trixie in one go. Trixie bucks against him immediately. Violet lifts himself again, letting Trixie slide out of him. He settles himself on the base of Trixie’s thighs and he can feel Trixie’s penis press against his ass cheek, lube and pre-cum marking the spot. Looking over his shoulder, Violet sees Trixie looking at him incredulously. He looks like he’s about to cry.

            “Beg a little more,” Violet demands although he doesn’t know how long he can keep it up.

            Trixie does, in desperate fashion, no time for dignity when his dick is as hard as it is.

            “And, fuck, Violet, anytime I’m in a room with you and you’re wearing something so sexy which is honestly more than eighty-percent of the time I have to fight the fucking urge— you know I barely top but when I see you and fuck, I just want to push you down and—“

            “Do it,” Violet says, voice as steady as he can keep it even though the moment Trixie painted that picture, he felt a fire ignite in his body.

            Trixie doesn’t need to be told twice. He pushes Violet down in front of him. Violet’s face lands harder than expected but Trixie is too distracted by the ass that gets lifted into the air. Before Violet could even turn his head to the side, Trixie already lined his dick up and shoved it inside and— holy shit.

            Trixie goes at it hard and unforgiving but it hits Violet right where he needs it to and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to muffle his moans. Violet feels so fucking good that it’s kind of surreal, it’s baffling, and is there such a thing as feeling too good? He tries to lift himself up with his arms to get a hold of the full force of Trixie’s pounding but as soon as he gains some elevation, two hands grabbed him by the wrist and pin them on either side of him. He lands on his face again he feels the full arch of his back and Trixie’s dick inside him.

            “Hold still,” Trixie demands, “I’ll make you feel good.”

            The combination of Trixie’s uncharacteristic demands and uncharacteristic forcefulness and his own uncharacteristic submission makes Violet cum hard on the spot. He thinks it’s too soon but after a few hard thrusts, Trixie cums inside him too.

            Holy fuck, that felt good. Unbelievably good. It’s mind-boggling. That may be the best sex that he’s ever had and it’s with Trixie. Violet needs a moment to process that thought.

            “What the fuck?” Violet asks out loud, in a breathy whisper that was mostly intended for himself. He turns to look at Trixie, half-expecting him to be as confused as he was, but he has completely fallen asleep, looking absolutely spent. Violet wants to shake him awake, to help him understand what makes sex with him feel so good. He doesn’t. Inexplicably, he has a stronger urge to leave a kiss on Trixie’s forehead, light enough to not wake him up.

            Trixie needs T-Rex to stop looking at her like that. He doesn’t really understand why T-Rex insists on acting the part of a concerned mother when he knows they both have the same crass humor and prefer the midwestern brand of pick-me-ups— which is honestly more about the booze than the consolation.

            “Save it for the kicked puppy down the street, T,” Trixie deadpans. Diversions like that only work when it’s entertained and T-Rex pointedly does not stop looking at Trixie like he’s the most pitiable thing in the universe. Trixie gives up and slumps down his chair, lifting his cap to fix the non-existent hair on his scalp out of habit. T-Rex doesn’t even look like he’s going to make a joke about it. Trixie sighs.

            “Kim told you, didn’t she?”

            “You know it, girl,” T-Rex answers, finally breaking eye contact to grab his drink and take a sip. Then a little quieter,  “Shea probably knows, too.”

            “Shit,” Trixie puts her forehead on the table. The opening riff of a Dusty Springfield song echoes in the near-empty bar. Son Of a Preacher Man. Jesus Christ. He could just imagine how pathetic he looks like right now.

            “Frankly, I’m a little offended.”

            “Maybe if you visited me more often…” Trixie says onto the table.

            “Bitch, don’t even start,” T-Rex tells him, “am I not sitting in this straight bar with you right now?”

            Trixie looks up and shoots an apologetic look to T-Rex. It’s easier now that he’s not being treated so precariously.

            “Thank you,” he says, too genuinely that T-Rex looks a little disgusted as if he, himself, hasn’t been a sap all night. Trixie scream-laughs at this reaction and the people around them look.

            “Looks like our cover is blown, they know that there’s a couple of queers in this place,” T-Rex mock whispers at him, “Which is a waste cause I butched up. I wore a denim jacket.”

            “Shut up,” Trixie laughs, “I like it here! The bartender knows me.”

            “Yeah, you and your hillbilly music.”

            “She’s a queer icon!”

            The song swells into its chorus, the only one who could ever reach me, was the son of a preacher man. Trixie scrunches his face like he’s in physical pain.

            “Kim didn’t need to tell me, anyway, everyone saw that picture of you and Katya messing up each other’s faces.”

            Oh. That fucking picture. It’s the blurriest picture someone could take from across the street but it’s undeniably him. He’s always dreamed of being recognized along Hollywood Boulevard and there it is: the make-up is unmistakably Trixie Mattel and she got caught in a reddit-level scandal. And what other drag queen of that build and hair color would make out with him in public if not Katya? Trixie doesn’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that everyone just assumed it was Katya.

            Anyway, why does the universe always have to go out of its way to Aesop’s Fables his life? How many roundabout ways can they tell him that the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for?

            “T, I don’t know what to fucking do.”

            T-Rex looks at him, gaze softened. He reaches out to squeeze Trixie’s hand once.

            “It’s okay—“ he begins but cuts himself off, “actually, I don’t know if it’s okay. I have no idea how Katya thinks. He’s great, really, I just— I just know how you are when you fall in love. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. And he’s done it before.”

            “Don’t,” Trixie says as a warning.

            “I know. I know what happened. You forgave him so I don’t really have a right to say anything. But Trix, if you’re not going to let yourself be worried about that, let me be worried. I’ll hold that little grudge for you.”

            Trixie takes a moment, feelings of affection bubble in his chest. It’s probably the alcohol in his system but he begins to wonder if there’s an alternate universe in which he moved to Chicago after Drag Race instead of L. A. He could go to Roscoe’s and Berlin regularly to watch T-Rex host and hype him up and get drunk with him back stage. Maybe he wouldn’t be as busy as he is now and he would have more nights with Shea and Kim and all the girls that accepted him ten years ago.

            “T…” Trixie begins, her voice cracking.

            “Don’t cry, bitch,” T-Rex puts his hands up and Trixie can see the flush on his cheeks and hear the light slurring of his words, “cause I’m tipsy enough to cry and they’re gonna see that we’re sissies and they will beat us up, I swear.”

            “Ahh! Stop acting like this bar is Westboro Baptist!”

            Trixie is laughing loudly, too emotional to care when a couple of tears slide down his face. He appreciates T-Rex, really, although it begins to dawn on him that something doesn’t add up.

            “What exactly did Kim tell you?” Trixie asks after running the back of his hand across his eyes.

            “That you were fulfilling your fan-manifested destiny and slowly realizing that you were in love with Katya,” T-Rex shrugs. At Trixie’s lack of response, he squints his eyes, “Why? Is there anything else?”

            It’s a half-truth, Trixie thinks. Maybe Kim deserves more credit than they usually give him. The bitch knew what really needed to be kept a secret. Besides, Kim telling their friends is probably as much of a push on Trixie’s back that Kim will ever give him, since he’s always been too stubborn to ask for help. Trixie supposes that “being in love” is a way to summarize it, albeit misleading.

            “There’s a ghost haunting me,” Trixie admits.

            “What?”

            “And I think that he’s haunting Katya, too,” Trixie stares at a space just above T-Rex’ head, “He’s been freaking out and kissing me so much suddenly.”

            “Wait- wait- what?”

            “I don’t know, I think he knows. I think he does, I think it’s starting to manifest onto him and I guess being someone’s reincarnation can drive someone a little crazy.” Hearing himself say it out loud, Trixie recognizes the absurdity of the situation. He begins to suspect that maybe Kim just didn’t believe him after all. “I don’t know if Kim is being a good friend or a bad one.”

            T-Rex, still confused, looks like he’s about to give up on the night. He taps his bottle against Trixie’s, the clink is loud against the song fading to the end. The only one who can ever prove me was the son of a preacher man.

            “What else is new?” T-Rex scoffs, “That’s why I should have been your first call.”

            Katya knows he’s being greedy. He knows that’s it’s just selfishness when his hands wrap around the back of Trixie’s neck so he can pull him down harshly for a kiss. He knows that he’s acting spoiled when he scratches on Trixie’s nape so he can feel him gasp against his mouth, so Katya can slide his tongue between Trixie’s lips. Katya’s always been susceptible to indulgences— no need to hold back when the world is unstoppably racing to it’s tragic finish—and indulge he does because Trixie’s so hot when he has that hazy look in his half-lidded eyes and when and Katya can feel Trixie’s low moan vibrate throughout his body when he kisses him on his throat. He’s only fucking human.

            Really, Trixie should be the one with the self-control about this. As much as Katya feels sorry for burdening the boy with the mental labor, Trixie is the one who picked that role for himself when he decided to be the straight man to Katya’s performative sexual advances.

            An hour ago he invited Trixie over to “hang-out” and the pregnant pause that followed told Katya that Trixie knew exactly what he wanted. Katya waited on the rejection but the only thing he heard was “yeah, okay.” The phone call equivalent of a shrug. Katya feels like a kid being given free reign of the Chocolate Factory.

            What business does Trixie have indulging him in his whims? Katya should really be filing a complaint; this is not the relationship dynamic he signed up for. But then he hears Trixie whimper when he bites his lips and Katya can’t help but think, praise Willy fucking Wonka.

            Katya drags Trixie across the room by the lapels of his shirt. Walking backwards, he’s relying on his muscle memory of the general location of his wares so he won’t trip on a coffee table on the way to the couch. Trixie grunts, complaining wordlessly, but he moves along obediently. When Katya’s calves feel cushions, he spins them both around and pushes Trixie onto the couch and he lands with a huff. Trixie frowns at him, but Katya immediately climbs on top of him, knees on either side of Trixie’s thighs, and smashes their lips together again. He feels Trixie freeze, and whenever he does, Katya thinks Trixie is finally going to push him away and ask questions. He never does. Soon enough, Trixie’s back on the same page, and Katya feels Trixie’s fingers curl around his belt loops.

            Katya is stupidly hard against his briefs, the kind of achingly hard erection that he thinks is impressive for his age. Trixie is, too, probably, but they never go further than this. Katya is sure that that would be too far for Trixie— he doesn’t want to think of what it means if it wasn’t.

            Still, like a true hedonist, he double downs on his kisses. He knows he can make-out for hours, he loves it. Katya wants Trixie sweating under him, he wants his tongue sliding in between Trixie’s lips to press on the roof of his mouth and feel the canines of his teeth. He needs Trixie to swallow all of those questions he won’t ask. Katya knows he’s being greedy.

            In the pause of catching their breath, Katya is resting his head on Trixie’s shoulder, pressing lazy kisses on Trixie’s collar bone.

            “Brian,” Trixie whispers. Katya’s body goes rigid, he can feel his heart beat in his ears. “My jaw hurts. Can we take a break?”

            “Oh,” Katya makes a move to get off Trixie and when he plops down on to the space beside him, he begins to feel the strain on his thighs. He watches Trixie walk to the kitchen, picking up the electric kettle on his way to the sink. Katya can feel the sweat run down from his forehead. He ponders on turning up the AC but he decides against getting up. Trixie already has an unopened box of tea from the cupboard and Katya notes how effectively Trixie navigates his space— he’s pretty sure the tea is something Trixie gifted him from before. When the water boils, Trixie pours it in the mug with the bag he place inside. He waits a few seconds before turning around to face Katya.

            Katya is immediately reminded why he doesn’t like this much distance between them. It’s because Trixie looks at him like that. Like he’s looking for something in Katya, something that’s impossible for him to give. Katya hates it when Trixie has that gaze that doesn’t seem to see him but something beyond him. Something in him that deserves all the tenderness from Trixie that he never worked to earn. It’s because Trixie looks at him like that that Katya kisses him roughly, can’t help but dig his nails into Trixie’s biceps and bite hard at his earlobe. The harsher he treats Trixie, the more that Katya feels like Trixie is really looking at him. The more Trixie bites back, the further away they get from the gentle, school-boy kisses in his dreams. Katya needs this to be realer than the dreams.

            But somehow, after everything, Trixie can still afford to look at him like that.

            “Why are you letting me do this to you?” Katya asks suddenly. The distaste sits on his mouth. Still, it throws Trixie off like he wanted to and the affectionate gaze turns into a scowl.

            “Don’t be a cunt,” Trixie replies curtly.

            Katya deserves it, he’s not the one who should be asking questions. Not when he hasn’t answered any of Trixie’s unspoken ones. He sits up properly and his right leg starts to bounce as soon as his feet hit the floor. He should let it go, just enjoy what he’s getting, enjoy that Trixie hasn’t been demanding anything from him. But Katya sees the angry bruise forming on Trixie’s neck from when he sucked on it so much, he sees the slight swell on Trixie’s lips.

            “I’ve been dreaming about you, you know,” Katya breathes, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

            Trixie tries to hide his reaction by sipping on his tea but Katya sees the whirlwind forming in his eyes.

            “Tell me about them, Brian.”

            And Katya should tell him. Tell him about the dreams where he wasn’t himself but Trixie was Trixie and he was looking at not-Katya and kissed him so tenderly. In those dreams he was a different boy and made promises he swore he could keep and counted the bruises on Trixie’s skin. In that other life, Trixie would fiddle with the rosary around his neck while he’s telling Trixie he would never hurt him.

            Katya doesn’t understand it, but he knows that that’s what Trixie has been looking from him, in those longing looks. He feels like if he gives it to Trixie, Trixie will never look at him again. Trixie would only see the stupid illusion of a boy that his brain pretends to be when he’s asleep.

            “Brian, tell me about the dreams,” Trixie asks of him again, his voice cracking, “please.”

            “I was a painter in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. I first saw you from my balcony window and called for you to come up. I kiss you and every night you would climb my window so I can kiss you some more. I never ask you about your job or your family or the sheet music you dropped that had the name Екатерина crossed out on top,” Katya says this in a rush and he can see Trixie slowly deflate, his lips pressing into a thin, hard line. It’s a lie, he thinks, and Trixie recognizes the lie. “Every time I see you, I paint a little bit of you. My canvas is starting to look like a grotesque monster.”

            After a beat, Trixie sets his cup down loudly on the counter. He marches over to the couch and Katya wonders if he’s finally crossed the line, if he’s pushed Trixie over the edge and he’s going to lose Trixie forever. He thinks that Trixie is going to slap him. Instead, Trixie grabs two fistfuls of his shirt and pulls him up to a rough kiss. Their teeth clack painfully but Trixie doesn’t stop, keeping Katya suspended, half-sitting. The hands are holding onto him so tightly that he starts to feel lightheaded. Trixie’s never been this rough with him. And he hates pain, but if Trixie manhandles him, he doesn’t mind, especially not when he can practically feel his dick pulsating in his pants.

            Trixie shove him back to the couch, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Before he can catch his breath, he’s already being straddled, Trixie grinding roughly against his concealed boner. Katya groans and grabs Trixie’s ass, pressing them down against him as he bucks his hips upward. Katya feels fingers dig at his shoulders.

            When he looks up he sees Trixie glowering over him, hot angry tears sliding down his face. Katya stops. His hands reach up to touch Trixie jawline, he feels the moisture on his thumb. He makes a move to wipe them, he wants to.

            “Trix, let me fuck you,” he tells Trixie instead.

            Trixie throws his head back to laugh a humorless laugh.

            “You’re a fucking psychopath,” Trixie says before reaching down and sliding his hand inside Katya’s pants, cupping his erection over his underwear. Katya’s breath hitches. Trixie leans forward until his lips touch Katya’s earlobe. “If we’re going to have sex, I’ll be the one fucking you.”

            With that, Trixie promptly gets up, collect his things on the coffee table, and walks out the door without looking back. The door frame shakes at the impact of it being slammed shut.

            When Katya first touched his hand, it delivered a jolt of something he couldn’t understand but was quite explicit. It was flashes  of the Wisconsin forest and a clear country sky with stars you didn’t have to squint to see. The sensation of a boy holding his hand while they lie down in the grass. Trixie felt the trepid excitement of youth, like he was barely fifteen again. Katya flashed him a blue-white smile and Trixie imagined the stiff collar of a home-schooled teen that he always thought it belonged to.

            Trixie froze, then recovered in a second. He wondered, why now? If there was anything he could need less right now is the memories of a dead boy haunting him. But that might be exactly what is causing this, the pressure of the drag competition is probably messing up his psyche.

            Later, when it kept happening after the show has been fully wrapped, aired, and provided itself as a proverbial launchpad for his career, he began to think that it might be something else entirely.

            Kim Chi knows the story of the boy. Relayed long-ago in the haze of post-gig exhaustion, counting change on a shared floor, wondering what product they could scavenge with it. Kim Chi never heard it again, filed under things that was too tragic to bring up, so when Trixie starts, remember when I told you about my first love? Kim Chi nods tentatively, no clever quip waiting.

            Trixie is quiet for another movement, takes a deep breath, and starts over.

            “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

            No, Kim Chi doesn’t. Or maybe he does, he realizes that he never thought about it, not in the serious way that that Trixie’s eyes seem to be pleading right now.

            “Sometimes,” Trixie begins again, her third start, “I think Katya is him.”

            “That’s crazy,” Kim Chi replies before he can stop himself. He regrets it a little, but it is crazy. At least, a little too crazy for Trixie Mattel who was as much as a realist as he looks absurd in drag. Kim Chi recalls Trixie’s first love who was this bible-thumping, home-schooled neighbor that kisses him in secret. 

            “I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense, I mean Katya’s older than him. And they’re nothing alike,” Trixie rubs his scalp from the back of his head to the top, “except when they are. They smile the same and laugh the same and the way they get excited about things I don’t understand and there’s something about the way he holds my wrist. When he slides his thumb to press on the vein that’s popping out on the back of my hand.”

            “Girl,” Kim Chi relaxes, oh he’s just in love with Katya.

            “Maybe reincarnation doesn’t really work with linear time, you know. Or maybe it isn’t really a reincarnation thing but like a twin spirit thing. Oh god I need to read up on this shit.”

            “Okay, now you’re sounding like Katya,” Kim Chi jokes, feeling that he can at this point.

            Trixie smiles but doesn’t look at him. 

            “Kim, sometimes I have visions,” Trixie says, almost in a whisper.

            “Visions?”

            “When he touches me, I see things,” he sighs,”scenes from the past. From Wisconsin, from when I was fifteen. Memories of him.”

            Kim Chi slumps back in his chair. He knows that Trixie went to him cause he’s probably the only one who’s more pragmatic than him. But if Trixie swears on something so absurd, what can he say to that? 

            Before they go their separate ways, Kim Chi tells Trixie “for your sake, I hope reincarnation is real.”

            Trixie can only look back at him helplessly.

—

            “How come I’ve never heard about your old best friend?”

            Trixie looks up, not really registering anything. He sees Katya idly reading the papers strewn on his work table. This is not the first time this has happened, Katya can be horribly nosy when he wants to be and he was the type of person who would read anything he gets his hands on. Trixie thought that this must be what made him so smart. Katya laughed at this when he told him, open-mouthed and familiar, then raised his hand to show that he was reading through some random gas receipt he found on the floor.

            Trixie never minded, didn’t think he ever wrote anything down that he couldn’t have Katya read. They’re just phrases most of the time, things that would eventually turn into songs. Sometimes, a journalistic entry just to remember the event he wanted to write about.

            “Ooh, a first love, too?” Katya wiggles his eyebrows teasingly, “It’s honestly very Trixie. I mean, it’s a little barfy and blegh. But very Trixie.”

            Trixie feels like he can’t breathe, it’s horrible. The mood registers on Katya’s face and he looks like he’s cursing his mouth for the things he said. Trixie would’ve been quick to comfort him if he wasn’t being bombarded by the images of a similar apologetic face of wide-eyed country boy. These visions are happening too often— have been frighteningly vivid these days. What the hell.

            Trixie swallows the lump in his throat and tells him the story of his childhood friend. A homeschooled kid he ran into while walking in the woods. He was the eldest of the pastor’s children but that day he skipped Sunday school and would probably get a beating as soon as he went home. He wanted to be a priest, still, he believed in god and all the heavens and angels, but he wasn’t so sure about the church. Trixie thought he was the smartest boy he ever met, Trixie couldn’t even imagine thinking about god so much. He couldn’t imagine thinking about anything as deeply as he does. All Trixie could think about was how much he didn’t want to go home.

            “I don’t want to go home, too,” the pastor’s son told him, flashing a blue-white smile.

            The day the pastor’s son stole his first kiss was the first time he ever got on his knees to pray.

            Trixie ends his story with how when he was taken out of his house at fifteen, he never saw that boy again. But he heard that the boy grew up and became a priest like he had always wanted.

            “Don’t lie, Brian,” Katya tells him. Trixie is stunned but so is Katya and Trixie watches his visible confusion. “What? I don’t— I don’t know where that… Trix?”

            “I’m here, I’m here,” Trixie reaches out fo him but he doesn’t know how to feel now. He hadn’t meant to test his theory so uncouthly, but what if Katya really is who he thought he was? What if it really is reincarnation? Would he remember? Was he— was he allowed to tell him?

            “I just— I-I don’t know if it’s cause you told that story so well,” Katya was gripping his wrist tightly and it was hurting Trixie but he doesn’t dare interrupt him now, “I felt like I was there.”

            “Katya, I know this sounds crazy but—“

            “And it hurt, Trix, it hurts a lot,” Katya has tears streaming down his face although Trixie isn’t sure if he had noticed. He was obviously so baffled by all of this. “What’s— I don’t know what’s going on. Trixie—“

            Trixie never imagined it would be like this, never thought about how much it might hurt Katya. Trixie wants it so bad, to be right, to get any part of him back. He didn’t realize that it might mean losing a little bt of Katya.  

            “You were right, I lied, I’m sorry,” Trixie tells him, “but it’s a little too sad to tell you now that you’re crying.”

            Katya reaches up to touch his cheek and flinches at the moisture.

            “Oh Jesus Christ, I am crying,” he stares at his fingers in confused amazement. For some reason this makes Trixie laugh which Katya takes as a cue like he always does, and soon enough they’re cackling like hyenas on Trixie’s couch.

            When Katya touches his arm again, Trixie fights the visions.

            It’s okay, he thinks, as long as Katya stays as Katya, it’s fine.