Killer Queen: A Painted Faces Novel (18 page)

When my show was over, I changed out of my stage
clothes and into some jeans and a T-shirt. I caught Fred staring at my arse as
we made our way to a cabaret show we’d planned on seeing at another venue
starring a musical comedy act called The Polka Dot Twins. The venue turned out
to be the upstairs room of a bar, which was tiny. I wasn’t complaining, though,
because it meant Fred and I had to sit extra close.

I was enjoying the show and having her next to me.
After a couple of songs, the electrics unexpectedly cut out, plunging the room
into darkness. As the bar workers rushed about trying to figure out what had
happened, I took advantage of the opportunity the blackout presented, sliding
my arm around Fred’s waist and pulling her close. Bringing my lips to hers, I
kissed her softly and ran my hand between her thighs. Her breath hitched, and I
went for it, lifting her quickly and setting her on my lap. I was hard as a
rock and relished how her arse pressed into my crotch. I allowed my hand to
wander under her dress and between her legs, sliding quickly past the barrier
of her knickers and against her
softness.

“Stop it. The lights could come back on,” she said,
panting.

“That's kind of the point,” I replied in a hard
voice. I had the sudden urge to dominate her while I indulged in my penchant
for public sex acts.

“Don't,” she protested further, but I only grinned
and began to move my fingers, rubbing her silky wet flesh. I thought she
enjoyed the danger, too, the idea of being caught, because she came really
quickly, shuddering harshly against my hand.

 “Good girl,” I told her, a note of satisfaction in
my voice.

We sat there for several minutes, enjoying the
aftermath. It became apparent that the power wasn’t going to be fixed any time
soon, so we decided to leave. The Polka Dot Twins invited us to go drinking
with them, and Fred seemed so excited by the prospect that I agreed. What
followed was a night of her getting ridiculously drunk while I watched. I
thought that perhaps what was happening between us was scaring her, and that
was why she felt the need to indulge.

In the end, I managed to get her back to the hotel
room in one piece, but just barely. She was incoherent, but I washed her,
stripped her of her clothing, and put her to bed. It was strange, because I’d
never felt the urge to care for someone like I did for Fred. While she’d been
getting drunk tonight and making questionable decisions, I’d been worried.

I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. In
fact, I would be devastated if she were ever hurt. The realisation was
sobering.

The day had been a long one, so when I had her in
bed, I stripped off, crawled in beside her, and fell asleep almost instantly.
The next morning when I woke up, I savoured the fact that Fred’s scent was
everywhere. Sometime during the night our bodies had become entangled, her
thigh thrown over mine.

Her closeness felt electric to me, and I was growing
more turned on by the second as I breathed in her smell.

I mean, morning wood aside, could you blame me for
being aroused? I moved my face into her neck and breathed in deep, then wrapped
my arms around her waist to pull her closer. I’d stripped down to nothing
before going to bed last night, and quite deviously I had done the same to
Fred. It hadn’t seemed like a bad idea at the time, because Fred was completely
drunk, and I was a little tipsy.

Right now, though, in the bright light of the
morning sun, it almost felt
too
intimate. My heart thumped, and I
suddenly felt out of breath. My feelings for her right then took the wind out
of my sails. I felt her stir and then press her lips against my skin in a soft
kiss.

“Morning,” she said, and I blinked my eyes open. She
looked gorgeous, her pretty golden browns staring up at me. She wasn’t wearing
a scrap of makeup, and her beauty was hard to take. I’d always been attracted
to pretty things, wanted to possess them, but I had never wanted to possess
another human being like I wanted to possess Fred.

Her breasts moved against me, and that was it — I
had to have her. I crawled on top of her, settling myself between her open
thighs. My cock rubbed against her centre, and the feel of us skin on skin was
incredible. I stared right into her eyes, moving her hair out of her face so I
could see her. She was all up in my head, and I didn’t know what to do about
it.

Honestly, it was terrifying.

She owned me so completely, and I’d never liked
being at someone else’s mercy. I felt like her rejection could destroy my very
soul.

I took her in, my face drawn into a frown, because I
vaguely wondered if fucking her was a good idea. If I felt this obsessed with
her now, then what would it be like when sex was added to the equation? Being
inside a woman was a wonderful thing, but I thought that being inside Freda
could have the power to unravel the carefully constructed pattern I’d created
for so many years. I fucked with little in the way of emotion.

With Fred, I felt too much.

“What is it about you...?” I murmured, but didn’t
finish the sentence.

She moved beneath me, causing our skin to collide
once more. I groaned. “This is...dangerous.”

“Probably,” she agreed, the word more air than
sound.

 “I want to be inside you, Freda.”

“Mm-hmm,” she softly moaned, biting on her lip.

“What do you want?”

“I think I want the same as you.”

“Fuck,” I swore, because I knew there was no
stopping me now. I moved my hips so that my cock lined up with her entrance and
then slowly began to push inside. Her gasp infiltrated my senses. I was
breathless — the feeling of her wrapped around me was my undoing. I claimed her
mouth, languorously sucking on her bottom lip as I filled her, catching it between
my teeth before letting it go.

 “Wow,” I breathed, not taking my eyes off her for a
single moment. “You feel so tight, so good.”

I started to rock back and forth then, still slow,
savouring how she sheathed me. Her sweet little sighs filled the room, and I
knew in that moment that we weren’t fucking, we were making love. I felt like
running away and never leaving all at once.

I kept up the tender, steady pace. Slow sex had
never felt so good. I was aware of every tiny movement, and what was usually quick
and simple became drawn out and…complicated. The way I felt when I was inside
her did a number on me. I knew I was never going to be the same again. I was
never going to be able to get enough of this.

Just. This.

“Fuuuuuck,” I swore as I pumped deep into her. Our
gazes met, locked, and a silent communication passed between us. She wanted
more now, and I was happy to give it to her. I started to move in earnest, my
hips jutting in and out, fucking her hard and working her up into a frenzy.

 “Nicholas,” she cried out, gripping the sheets
tightly in her fists.

I held her at the waist, lost in my own need. We
weren’t using protection. I could feel every inch of her, and it was maddening.
Moving one hand from her hip, I softly gripped her neck. I’d always loved that
part of a woman, so elegant, so fragile.

Her pleasured gasp told me she liked it. I had no
intention of choking her, but holding her in this way made me feel like I
owned
her, and I needed that. I needed to feel in control, because my emotions were
losing the run of themselves.

“I love your body. I love your breasts....” I said,
like I was making a vow.

“Please,” she begged me.

“You like this?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I like it, too.”

“I need you,” she whispered then, and it surprised
me because I’d been thinking the exact same thing.

“I need you, too,” I replied with an extreme level
of intensity, and then I was coming inside her. It was the best thing I’d ever
felt; it made me feel the most crazed but at the same time the most sane I’d
ever been in my life. I let my face fall to her neck. It was my safe place, my
refuge. I could have lived forevermore between the beauty mark on her neck and
the freckle on her collarbone quite happily.

“You’re so beautiful,” I told her, pressing kisses
to her skin.

She shook her head, like she disagreed, but she was
incapable of speech.

“I'm clean, by the way,” I went on. “I don't want
you worrying about all that stuff. Are you...are you on the pill or anything?
I'm not normally so careless, but I just really wanted to feel you without
anything in the way.”

 “Yeah, and I'm clean, too, just in case you were
wondering....”

Relief flooded me as my eyes traced the perfect
lines of her face. “I know you are. You are so fucking clean, I don't deserve
you.”

“Oh,” she whispered, and I smiled.

“Oh,” I copied her, and took her mouth in a
desperate, hungry kiss. I’d had my release, and now I was going to give her
hers.

August 6
^th
,
2012.

Soundtrack:
“El
Tango de Roxanne” from
Moulin Rouge

The
following day, everything came crashing down around me. My tentative stable
period hit rock bottom. It was a combination of bad timing and feeling
overwhelmed by my growing attachment to Fred. It didn’t feel healthy to me how
much I yearned for her when she was still in the same room.

We were on the street the same as the day before,
canvassing for my show, when I heard her call to me, “Hey, Viv, I need some
more flyers.”

I turned and teased as I saw her come toward me.
“Run out already? You must be working extra hard, Fred. I'll have to reward you
for your efforts.”

I was being flirtatious because I was in a good
mood. It didn’t last long, because as I brought my attention to the two men
standing behind her, I completely lost it. It was like peering into a looking
glass to the past. One of the men was a dead ringer for Kelvin, and it made my
blood run cold. For a moment in time, I was a terrified little boy again.

This man had his exact same hair and eerily similar
eyes. He was even wearing a business suit, like Kelvin always had. I was in my
full drag outfit, because it worked better when people could see the kind of
show they were in for. It was too bad I was wearing heels, because I
momentarily lost the ability to stand. Seeing the man gave me a shock, causing
me to stumble on my feet. Every awful memory I had was flooding into my head,
and I was powerless to stop the influx.

Fred was by my side in an instant, holding me up and
asking if everything was all right.

 “I'm fine,” I told her, trying to regain some
composure. The men she’d been trying to convince to come to my show both gave
me odd looks before quickly moving along.

“Are you sure you're fine? You don't look fine.”

I took a deep breath. “It's nothing. That man just
bore a freakish resemblance to someone I used to know.”

“Okay, maybe we should go back to the hotel now and
have something to eat. How does that sound?”

It seemed like a good idea, so I agreed, and we made
our way back to the room in silence. I went straight to the bathroom when we
got there, shutting the door tight and calling to Fred that I was going to take
a shower.

I locked the door, pulled off my clothes, and
stepped under the spray. Then I just stood there and let the water drown out
the tears that had started to fall. Silently, I sobbed, my chest heaving. I
hated that a single glimpse of a man who looked like Kelvin could reduce me to
this. I’d thought I was getting better, but I was so far from better that it
didn’t even bear thinking about. When I finally turned off the water, I stepped
out and pulled on a bathrobe. I sat on the edge of the tub, staring off into
space. I don’t remember how long I was there for, lost in my own head, when
Fred’s sweet voice broke through the fog.

 “Nicholas. Are you all right in there?”

I dragged my fingers under my eyes, wiping away the tears
I’d silently been crying and cleared my throat before answering, “I'm fine,
just shaving.”

 “No, you're not. Let me in.”

I sighed and went to the door. I didn’t want her to
see me like this, but at the same time I wanted her comfort. I unlocked the door,
and she came barging through like she expected to find I’d hurt myself or
something.

 When she saw me, her eyes got all soft and sad.
“What's going on?”

I just stared at her. I didn’t know how to explain
it.

 “Who did the man in the suit remind you of?” she
whispered.

A ridiculous amount of shame flooded me, and I
couldn’t look her in the eye when I said, “A friend of my father's.”

She moved closer, her voice probing but full of
tenderness. “You didn't like him?”

“Not even a little bit,” I answered, and began
rubbing my hands on my thighs. I was fidgeting and itching just knowing the
direction her questions were headed. I felt doomed. She wouldn’t want me once
she knew the truth. She’d know I was broken, unfixable, tainted. I felt her
take my hand in hers, and then she was tugging me to stand and leading me back
inside to the bed.