(Riff! What’s sex with your sister like?) LIKE YOU’RE UNDER SEDATION!

“Do you really think I’m… pretty?”

I had my keister parked on one of the two fold out couches that occupied the vast majority of the Chaos Central living room, enjoying a rare moment of privacy in the apartment. The cordless phone was pressed to my ear, and I was working on the edge of one of Kevin’s knives with a whetstone as I talked to Bob. “Hey, I never say anything I don’t mean.”

“But as a boy? Or when I’m a girl?”

I know a loaded question when I hear it. “I like both sides of you.”

“I always feel better when I’m dressed up.”

“So… why don’t you do it more often?”

I could almost hear him blushing. “I’ve wanted to. I’m just scared… worried about what people will say.”

“Cutie, you pass pretty damn well. I thought you were a girl the first time I saw you. Anyone who didn’t know you would never know the difference.”

“I dunno.”

“Do you have any outfits that aren’t costumes?” I was sure he did. I was pretty sure he was wearing panties right at that moment.

The response was shy and almost inaudible.

”yes”

“Do you wanna go out with me tomorrow night, dressed up?”

”yes”

Friday night at Club Laga was Ceremony. Goth/Industrial night. It was also an all-ages night, but I told ya all about that when I was talking about Carrie, so I ain’t gonna rehash it now. Either way, it ran on Friday night, so it was either the perfect pregame for Rocky or Rocky was a great way to unwind after dancing yourself dehydrated in a sweaty nightclub the night before.

Bob was supposed to meet me there, and since it was a date I got myself pretty well duded up. I know, lookin’ at me now it’s hard to believe, but I used to clean up pretty good back in the day. That night it was just a pair of baggy black dress pants and my red button down, along with one of my hats (I think I was still wearing the grey wool Stetson at the time). What I’m say is that I looked about as good as I reasonably could. If Bob was going to go to the trouble to look good for me, I might as well go the extra mile myself.

So I was sitting at the baby bar (the underage side) sipping a club soda with lime, and pretty sure I’d been stood up because it was closing in on 10:30 and the doors opened at nine. I was just about at the point of swapping sides and getting something appropriately alcoholic when I felt a light tap on my elbow.

I tend to run towards the paranoid, so it’s pretty hard to sneak up on me, and I don’t react well to physical surprise contact. I grew up in a pretty inner city sort of place, and back home that kind of thing would have probably been the precursor to a fight. Needless to say, I turned quickly, coiled like a snake and ready to strike. What I saw stopped me short.

Dresses looked damn good on Bob. He was wearing a little green off the shoulder number that hugged a pair of slim hips and showed off his legs beautifully, legs that he’d either shaved or depilated in some way, I noted with pleasure. A light dusting of freckles showed on his neck annd shoulders in the dim club lights and those fire engine red tresses of his were sculpted into some sort of elaborate pattern that was so well put together that it looked natural. His makeup was light— he didn’t need much help with his skin tone, and I could tell that he’d spent a lot of time on his eyes and mouth, only doing the slightest bit of contouring on his already angular features. He’d turned already sensual lips into veritable soft red pillows that put the ones on the Rocky poster (fun fact, the lips at the beginning of the movie on “Science Fiction/Double Feature” belong to Patricia Quinn, the actress who played Magenta… but the voice is Richard O’Brien’s) to shame.

All of which added up to him looking like a very beautiful girl. The kind that turns heads.

They talk about trauma response. The five F’s that kick in when the autonomic systems get flooded with adrenaline. Well. I don’t have a flight response, and I don’t fawn, fall, or freeze. When my brain gets marinated in adrenaline I fight or do the sixth F that they don’t talk about. I fuck. Sudden surprises get me hard. In my misspent youth there were many a beat down that I delivered, only to realize that I had an erection you could do chin-ups on. Now don’t don’t take that to mean that I get off on beating people. That has its time and place, and can be lots of fun for everyone involved if you’re all on the same page; what I’m saying is that I got that same boner when I was held up at gunpoint.

This is a really round about way of saying that all the blood in my body felt like it was running to my dick. I’m normally a pretty articulate guy if you set aside the occasional stutter when my mouth fails to keep up with my brain, but right then and there words failed me.