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‘Keep it subtle, she has to go home at twelve,’ Noah instructs behind me.
‘Noted, sweetness,’ says Peaches as she gets to work applying a dark eyeliner on my lower lash line. Then, she directs me to look to the ceiling as she swipes a wand of mascara over my top and bottom lashes. ‘You have the most gorgeous eyelashes, lovely.’
‘Um, thank you,’ I say. No one’s ever complimented me on my eyelashes before.
After a long while in the chair, Peaches drops her tools like she’s just finished surgery. ‘My masterpiece.’
I open my eyes, not sure what to expect, and for a second, I’m not even sure the person in the mirror is me. But it is. Noah appears behind me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.
‘What do you think?’ he asks.
‘Well, I don’t think anyone will recognise me.’
The Gabriel in the mirror has flushed, soft skin that glows like I’ve just got out of the sauna. My eyes are bright and large, framed by long black eyelashes. I’ve never thought I have particularly nice lips before, but now they’re coloured a dusky pink and look glossy and full.
‘I look ridiculous,’ I mutter, but even I know I don’t sound convinced.
‘You’ll be wearing skirts on the court before we know it,’ Noah trills. ‘A versatile, gender fluid queen.’
A scandalous idea.
Peaches gives me the once-over, admiring her work. ‘Enjoy, you two. I’ll see you during the show.’
Noah thanks Peaches again, and we go out to the bar. It’s dark, and the unique smell of club fog fills the narrow hallway. Whatever confidence I’d mustered looking at myself in the mirror disappears as soon as I emerge onto the pumping dance floor. I can’t bring myself to go out there; step out of the darkened doorway we’ve found ourselves in and beseen.
Noah’s fingers lace through mine and he gives me an encouraging smile. ‘No one here knows who you are, promise!’ he yells over the thumping music. ‘Come on.’
I wish I could believe him, but as we make our way towards the bar people seem to turn to me, like moths to a flame. Something deep in me twists with fear. Of all the times to be recognised, it’s going to be in a dress, heels and a wig.
‘People are staring.’
‘Yeah, because you lookfucking hot,’ he says, and oh, I hadn’t considered that. ‘Seriously, Gabi, you look bloody amazing.’
Another woman—another drag queen—looks me up and down, and the darkness in her gaze is . . . hungry.
‘Looking good, sweetie,’ she practically purrs.
We grab a drink as more people enter the bar. Soon, I’m just another person in a sparkly dress and wig in the crowd—and we’re practically a dime a dozen.
On the main stage, a man slowly slides down a pole to a Saweetie song, his long, muscular legs perfectly horizontal. This place isn’t at all what I expected—it’s risqué and confronting andthrilling; it’s everything I shouldn’t be doing right now, but the sheer rebellion of tonight is everything I didn’t know I needed. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to drills, diets and match-day prep, but tonight I can just be.
Noah claps as the dancer flips and lands elegantly on his heels. He finishes his performance with a flourish before prancing backstage. The lights dim, the music dies down, and then Peaches O’Plenty appears to the rapturous applause of the crowd.
‘Friends and enemies of Flamingo Bar,’ comes an announcement, ‘welcome to Drag Queen Karaoke! It is my esteemed honour to introduce the despicably sexy, devilishly handsome and all-round singing superstar, Peaches O’Plenty!’
The audience erupts into cheers and hollers. Confetti falls from the ceiling as Peaches makes her way onto the stage. The frilled hem of her hot-pink baby doll dress flares as she twirls and dances and her long scarlet hair falls over one shoulder, vibrant and glossy under the stage lights. She grabs the microphone with a gloved hand.
‘Come on, cunts, you know this one,’ she says in a comically harsh Australian accent, and then launches into a rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’.
Noah looks wonderfully stunned beside me, but the crowd behind us is dancing and singing, and their enthusiasm is infectious. I pull Noah closer to the stage, feeling the music wash over me.
Tonight, I’m not Gabriel. For this brief, beautiful moment in time, I’m just a guy dancing with a guy, quietly and desperately in love with him.
‘I never knew she could sing,’ Noah says as he huddles against me. He’s quite drunk and I’m incredibly, painfully sober. Still, he insists on riding back to my apartment with me, which is very sweet. It’s just after eleven and the city is bustling. We order an Uber and wait the fifteen minutes it’ll take for the driver to pick us up on the corner of the next block—away from the crowds that spill in and out of the Flamingo Bar.
‘She’s an excellent singer.’ I nudge him as he begins to slump against me. ‘So are you.’
Somewhere between his second gin and tonic and the round of Jägerbombs, Noah had leapt to the stage during the open mic break in the set. His rendition of ‘Memory’ had both surprised and moved me, and the club had stood, in stunned silence, as he’d belted out the final, haunting chorus, before breaking into rapturous applause.
