CAPRICORN SEASON
“Open up to new friends or partner(s) about what you really want. Trust them and yourself. You are being offered a chance to redefine who you are in the here and now. Who will you choose to be from this moment on?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Loncey
So this is what being front row of a fashion show is like.
I can barely breathe from all the perfume and cologne in the air. I’m squashed between a woman, who is wearing the most unnecessarily oversized puffer jacket considering it’s 68 degrees in LA today, and an enviably androgynous-looking person who has been talking on their phone since they sat down. I’ve tried not to listen to what they’re saying, but it’s peculiarly fascinating as they rip the caller a new asshole for not selling all the tickets to my agender front-row buddy’s “world-changing sustainable EDM festival 100% powered by solar and the dancers’ energy.” It’s because of how forthright they sound on the phone that I don’t ask them to close their legs and give me a bit more space when the show begins. The good news is that once I see Maeve walk out on the catwalk I forget that I’m folded up like a pretzel and instead focus all I have on her.
Wearing nothing but an oversized blazer that appears to be made out of old Santa outfits, she struts down the catwalk with her head held high and her shoulders back. The blazer has a white fur trim and a patchwork-style pattern made from various cuts of red velvet material, all in slightly mismatched shades of red. Her long slim, creamy white legs are shiny under the bright lights that hang above and I let myself think a couple of sinful things about where I would like those legs. The fact that having them wrapped around my face is likely never going to happen doesn’t even dampen the joy of the fantasy. It’s just nice to feel turned on again for the first time in so long. And it’s nice to know that the person who turns me on that much has invited me to be with her today and tonight.
I feel proud that I get to be her date.
Shit.
Am I Maeve’s date?
Can I call myself that?
Do Iwantto call myself that?
Just as the surge of pride confirms that yes, I want to be Maeve’s date even if she won’t give me the honor, she catches my eye and smiles. I don’t know much about modeling etiquette but I’m not sure that is what she is supposed to do. And yet she does. She smiles and holds my eye contact until she walks past me and my eyes dutifully follow her strutting legs to the end of the catwalk. After she turns, throwing her hair over one shoulder, she begins her walk back and it gives me more joy than I likely deserve to see her catch my eye again and wink. The heat I feel from that wink in my cheeks, my chest and my groin lasts until she disappears and then reappears a few minutes later in another outfit.
*****
I wait patiently for Maeve in the lobby of the Art Deco mansion where the fashion show took place. Standing still, I gaze up at the intricate peacock feather details carved into the stone pillars that hold the tall ceiling up and I then glance around at the many people who are coming and going, or like me, waiting on others. Everyone here is so very painfully stylish and devastatingly beautiful. It’s also impossible to tell if they spent a long time working on achieving such beauty and coolness, and it’s even more unclear if they even like being so stylish and beautiful. In other words, they’re a lot like Maeve.
Unlike how Maeve probably felt at XXXCon, I don’t feel out of place here. I mean, I don’t feel like I blend in. My skinny jeans, Converse and tight V-neck sweater are anything but the height of fashion, but I know that my queerness and my Blackness is not out of place here.
“There you are!” an Irish voice calls out behind me. I spin around and see her walking toward me, all golden hair flying out around her head, thick make-up still on her face but her clothes are more… Maeve. High-waisted denim bell-bottoms, a plain white tee and a vintage baseball jacket shouldn’t look as good as they do on her.
“Hey,” I say, and I feel my smile grow. “You were… amazing.”
“Ah, shut up, would you? All I did was literally walk in a straight line a couple of times.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “You were fucking good and you know it.”
She gives me a hair toss. “I mean, modeling isn’t one of the things I suck at.”
I ignore what threatens to be a self-deprecating tone and I step a little closer to her.
“Can I… Can I hug you?”
I expect a wise-ass response or a flat-out refusal, but instead I get Maeve looking a little sheepish, and a little pink in her cheeks. She nods as she opens up her arms.
As my hands travel around Maeve’s body I notice things I don’t want to notice, but I can’t even say they’re unwelcome. My shoulders relax, my exhale lengthens and deepens, and then my chest fills with warmth. As my arms press her into my body, I feel my heartbeat get louder, but not quicker. It’s more like it gets steadier, sturdier, more resilient. Maeve makes me stronger when she’s in my arms. Like all my heart needs is to have her close.
