Eliot Prince
I spend most of the dinner cowering next to David, as far away from Robert as I can. I need a break, and I also don’t want David asking any more questions. But half of the restaurant is a bar area with a dance floor, and as the booze flows the aunts hit the dance floor, as aunts are prone to do, and start begging everyone else to join. Robert gets up and stands in the corner with his drink, our eyes meeting every thirty seconds or so.
Soon David touches my leg.
“Aunt Susan is getting impatient, and we’re done eating, anyway. Let’s go for a minute.”
“Ugh, but…”
“But what?”
I bite my tongue. “But nothing. You’re right. Let’s go.”
A dance remix of Daddy Issues by Demi Lovato hits the speakers, and Robert and I exchange a knowing, slightly horrified smile. And shit, he can really dance. The song is only highlighting how fucking badly I want to jump his bones – or want him to jump mine. This is crazy. I can’t do this. But I am doing it.
Lucky for you, I’ve got all these daddy issues…
At one point, I’m dancing with David, with my back to Robert – who won’t leave me alone. I hear some drunken giggling, and suddenly my mom’s arm is around my shoulder – and to my abject horror, her other arm is around Robert.
Both of us freeze. She pulls of us in, laughing as Robert grimaces with terror.
“Isn’t this funny?” she asks, looking from me over to Robert. “All of us back together again, for the first time in, what – ten years? One big happy family!”
Robert glances over at me, frozen. “Uh, yeah,” he says, trying to play along. “It’s…great.”
“Isn’t it? I feel so comfortable. It’s like we never got divorced at all!”
At this point I feel like I am going to fall down, dead.
“Yeah,” Robert says. “Um, maybe I’ll even find my next spouse tonight.”
My mom’s eyes turn to stone as she drops her arms. “I said I felt comfortable,” she says. “I didn’t say I felt that comfortable. You’re still my ex-husband, and I don’t want to see that. Hit on someone in front of me, and I’ll eat your balls for breakfast.”
My mom storms off, leaving us staring at each other in silent terror. That’s when David’s voice cuts through the awkwardness.
“Hey! Eliot! You and your hot dad – I just found out there’s a gay bar around the corner! Let’s go!”
“He’s not my dad!” I shout. Then I freeze again and push my mom’s statement out of my head. Oh, God – now my ex is getting flirty with Robert, too. I’m actually weirdly jealous, but at the same time I can’t react without inciting suspicion. I’m so turned on, I’d rather walk a hundred miles than be alone with them right now. But since I can’t object, I wave my goodbyes at the family and then follow them out the door to Boone’s only gay bar.
“How’d you find this place?” my cousin Gracie asks toward David, and I shrug her off.
“The gays just have a sixth sense for these places,” I explain. “Whatever city I’m in, I can just find the gays. I can smell them, or maybe it’s just the poppers. Anyway, you’ll have fun.”
The gay bar is a small, dark place. (We are in the Deep South, after all – not exactly a bastion of the gay nightlife.) We order drinks and then settle into the circular booth in the corner – and of course I get shoved in between Robert and David.
The air is so charged now, I can taste it. Honestly, I’ve felt anxious in gay bars anyway ever since Pulse, the Orlando shooting that killed fifty on a gay dance floor. I try not to think about it, but sometimes I do. To be gay in a place like the South is to constantly be aware of your surroundings, and always have to monitor your own behavior. Really, you have to be two different people at once. I act like one version of me in a place like this, but out where I’m surrounded by people who might be homophobic, I have to be someone completely different. You have to think about everything. But then again, black Americans face worse discrimination every day, and deal with things I’ve never had to imagine, so I try to keep things in perspective. At least I can walk into a room and “pretend” to be straight, to keep from ruffling the feathers of those who might have problems with me. People of color will never have that option.
Still, I can’t get away from how edgy Robert makes me feel. To escape the tension, I take out my phone and pull out Twitter, where I’ve been trying to find spoilers for the next episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I go to a drag fan account and then hear Robert sort of gasp beside me.
“Wait, you watch Drag Race, too?”
“I invented watching Drag Race. Do you?”
“I’m obsessed. I really respect guys that aren’t too proud to be into it, too. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating campy, ridiculous stuff. Who are you going for this season?”
“Is that a serious question? Who else but Glamourama?”
“Oh my God, you’re the only other Glamourama fan I’ve met. Everyone else loves Mrs. Fame.”
“Eh, she’s too self-impressed, and she’s not as funny as she thinks she is. If white male privilege ever existed in a drag queen, it would exist in her.”
He stares at me, mouth agape.
“What?”
“It’s just…we’re like the same person. Keep going, I’m enthralled.”
For probably twenty minutes we talk Drag Race, discussing all our favorite moments, most-hated contestants, and more. I find very quickly that we really do speak the language – underneath the formal exterior, he’s just like me. I guess we just needed to break the surface and find common ground, and it seems Drag Race was that ground. Who knew a bunch of feuding cross dressers could bring two guys together like this?
At one point David gets up to order another drink, bored with our chatting. We talk some more about our families, and Robert tells me he’s mostly been cut off by his sister, just for being gay. Gracie goes to the bathroom, and that’s when Robert squeezes my leg so quickly I almost don’t notice. Then he leans into me.
“That was hard,” he whispers.
“What was?”
“Sitting next to you all this time and pretending like I didn’t want to be kissing you.”
My eyes expand ten sizes.
Soon, David returns.
“Are you two the same age?” Robert asks, motioning at us. “What happened, anyway?”
“Yeah, what happened?” I ask, turning to David.
“Ugh, because I’ve had to explain a million other times, I’ll do it again,” David sighs. “I made a mistake, and Eliot has been kind enough to give me a second chance.”
“But you’re not together?”
“Um, not technically.”
Robert’s eyes shine. “So one of you could go fuck someone in the bathroom right now, and it wouldn’t matter, because you’re single?”
An awkward moment passes. My dick is so hard at this point, it’s seeping again.
“Kidding,” Robert says as he gets up and angles toward the dance floor. “Kidding. Let’s dance, one more time, before we have to go. Okay?”
I follow before anyone can tell me to stop.