“That’s why she started,” Lauren tells me. “To pay for her breast reduction. But now she doesn’t know what to do because they’re literally her gravy train.” She laughs even though I’m not seeing the humour. “But how do you know ElBaby?”
“I…” I stop. I was about to say I don’t know them, but that’s so far from the truth it feels like an egregious lie, the kind of mistruth that will come back and bite me on the arse in the future. “We’ve had some conversations online. They seem… nice.”
“Oh, you should totally fuck him,” she says but then her eyes widen and I wait for her to realise what she just said to me, someone who just explained to her what being an asexual means. “Sorry,” she says. “I mean them.”
Pressing my lips closed, I barely contain the long exhale that pushes out of my nose.Longest flight of my fecking life.
*****
I lose Lauren in the queue for Border Control and by the time I’ve collected my luggage, I’ve stopped looking around for her. I’m not even thinking about the hours and hours of mostly awkward conversations we shared as I pull away from Las Vegas Airport in a taxi. By the time I reach the hotel I feel the full weight of my exhaustion, I wasn’t able to sleep for much more than a couple of hours.
All I want to do is check-in, wash my face, find my pyjamas, and crash in bed for a few hours. I don’t care that this will likely screw me over with jetlag for the remainder of my trip. I don’tcare that it means I will be up most of the night. I just need to not be conscious for a while.
God, or whatever higher power is in charge today, deems me worthy enough to get an early check-in and barely half an hour after setting foot in the hotel, I’m tucked up in bed, my blankie nestled under my cheek as I lie on my side and flick through the notifications I haven’t yet seen after being offline for most of the last twelve hours.
My eyelids grow heavy as I open up TikTok and read through a few messages that have come in as a response to my latest video in which I announced I would be at XXXCon. One of the messages is from another TikToker who talks a lot about being asexual online and her message throws me.
Her number’s attached but I don’t save it. There’s something about her message that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It seems… prickly. Like she’s assuming the worst. Like she doesn’t think I’ll be safe. It also reads like something I could have written, all her assumptions ones my brain wouldn’t have had to work too hard to reach for. And that makes me feel a little dizzy with unease. But then I reassure myself that I’m doing something to try and undo these assumptions. I’m here to learn. I’m here to open my mind. I’m here to grow.
I tap out of that message and find myself scrolling down until I find my conversation with Loncey.
I read their last message to me and wonder for possibly the hundredth time why I didn’t reply. I also don’t know why Ididn’t tell them the news about my niece because I’d practically itched to do so the day I found out, and the next day, and the day after that. And I don’t know why I’m not texting them now, telling them I’ve landed in Vegas and that I’ll see them at the conference, if not before.
But more than all that, I don’t know why I tap through to their profile and start watching their latest video, closing my eyes and letting their voice lull me to sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Loncey
“Fuck,” I grunt as I thrust up.
“Shit,” I hiss as I lower.
“Fuck,” I groan again as I lift my hips once more, the bar pressing into my hips. Maybe this weight was a bit too much for me. Maybe I should have warmed up my hips more. Maybe I should have skipped weights completely after burning over 500 calories on the stair machine.
“Argh,” I moan as I lower for the fifteenth and final time. I should do another set of fifteen reps, to go for failure like I normally do, but I’m exhausted. My legs are shaking, my glutes are burning and sweat is dripping into my eyes.
Reaching for my towel, I wipe my face thoroughly and then move it around to the back of my neck. Staying seated, I look around the hotel gym, which is all but empty apart from someone on the bike who is thoroughly engrossed in the e-reader they’re reading while their legs pump a mile a minute. From the looks of their curves, tattoos and piercings, I wouldventure a bet that they’re at the hotel for the same reason I am, for XXXCon, but I don’t recognize them so I leave them alone.
Besides, it’s not them I’m looking for. It’s Maeve.
She must be getting in some time today. The underwear photo shoot is tomorrow and I can’t pretend my stomach didn’t surge when I saw her name on the final call sheet. A part of me was worried she was going to change her mind, and a bigger part of me would have very much understood and supported that decision. But there’s a smaller slice of me who is pleased she didn’t. I also feel this slightly unnerving sense of pride, which makes no sense. Like what right do I have to feel proud of her making this decision? Either way, I can’t see her wanting to fly in on a red-eye and then go straight into that tomorrow. No, she must be here already, or getting in soon.
Not that I actually expect her to be in the gym. Of all the things Maeve and I talked about, her workout routine was so very far from one of them and in fact, I’d hazard a guess that Maeve rarely steps foot in a gym and would quickly have some witty dig to throw at me about my near-daily gym habit.
And here I go again. Thinking about Maeve.
That prompts me to get up, collecting my towel and water bottle on the way, and walk into the locker room. Twenty minutes later, I’m showered and smelling a lot fresher. As I get dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a sinking feeling settles in my stomach when I realize I’ll have to sleep in my boxers tonight.
Would Miko and Harley think anything about me sleeping in the lingerie that I like to wear? No, almost certainly not. They wouldn’t give a flying fuck. They’d probably understand better than most, and yet, I’ve never shared this side of myself with them, and I certainly don’t plan on doing so now.
Even with the cameras off, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to show them the feminine side of my character that I indulge in. Albeit that side of me only exists in the darkness of night, in theprivacy of my own home – or rather, cabin – despite it being a side of me that has roots in my bone marrow, in my atoms, in my stardust.
And how can it not? I was raised by a strong Black woman who made it her sole purpose in life to understand and get closer to the divine feminine energy she was born with. Through books, through meditations, through art, through movies and songs and conversations that my house was full of growing up, aside from the stars in the night sky, the main spiritual power I knew about was female. I understand this as clear as day, but it’s hard to explain to others, especially when I have dressed up my non-binary identity as something free from any kind of socially-constructed gender.
It's even harder to share it with others and risk their… reactions. Whether it’s a scathing comment from someone I loved and trusted, or whether it’s society’s judgement that my masculine-looking body wearing so-called feminine clothing is deemed a threat, there’s just too much at risk.
