The Frog Prince

Chapter Fifteen

C hapter F ifteen

I t’s Wednesday, the last week of October, and the Leather throws in a handful of ice, glugs of orange juice, a squeeze of lime, and floats of Grand Marnier and pushes “Liquefy.” Seconds later we’ve got slushy-smooth margaritas, and I—crystal-savvy girl that I am—have the right glasses for the occasion. Katie takes the glasses, dips the rims in water and then the salt she’s remembered to bring.

You know, if Katie were a man, we’d be formidable together. One of those power couples. We know each other, get each other. Why the hell don’t guys get girls?

Why are guys guys ?

But that’s a moot point, and Katie and I clink glasses and drink. Awesome. The best margarita I’ve ever had. And it’s damn strong. “You’re going to get me wasted,” I say, but it’s a compliment, not a protest, because I’m going to need to be a little loopy to wear fishnet stockings, black boots, a leather G-string, and a bustier that presses my breasts up toward my chin.

“Good.” Katie knocks a little salt from her glass. “Hopefully you’ll have fun.”

“I’m going to be sitting with my boss. In what amounts to leather underwear.”

“Could be awkward, but I think you’ll handle the challenge beautifully.”

“ Hmph. ” I glower at her and then at the gray light coming through the kitchen window. The shorter days have arrived, and setting the clocks back an hour last Sunday didn’t help.

“Kirk will be there,” she reminds me. “You said you like him.”

“Yeah, I do like Kirk, but I still wish you were coming.” It’s going to be an incredible party. Katie would love it. She’s so much wilder than I am, and I’ve heard all the stories, how people parade around the decorated convention center like something from a twisted play—drag queens and divas, dominatrixes and sexual playthings. There are whips. Chains. Boots. Heels. Masks. And that’s just the beginning.

“Maybe next year.” Katie tops off our drinks, draining the blender. “You’ll just have to tell me the stories tomorrow when we meet for brunch.”

I nod. “You still want to go to the movies afterwards?”

“If you’re not too hung over.”

“I won’t be.”

She makes a hmphing sound, and I shrug.

“Okay, I might be a little buzzed, but I’ll be fine. Especially since we’re going to see Orlando Bloom’s new movie. I loved him in Troy .”

“I liked him in Pirates of the Caribbean better. He seems more innocent.”

“You like innocent?” I ask Katie as I lick my finger, sticky from the margarita.

“It’s sexy,” Katie answers.

“I like wicked.” I lick the other side of my finger. “I would have loved to be a pirate.”

“A pirate ?”

“You didn’t ever want to be a pirate?”

“No.”

“How about do a pirate?”

Katie groans. “You’re really buzzed.”

“I’m serious.” I lick the other side of my finger. “I’d love to be a pirate. Be a bad girl. Break all the rules. Fly in the face of convention.” I nod, thinking about it, picturing myself on a big ship flying over white-tipped waves, sails snapping, wood creaking and groaning. I’d be free. So free, and no one, no one , could tell me what to do. How to act. How to speak. “It’d be great.”

“You’re not a pirate kind of girl.”

“I could be.”

“You like nice things.”

“True,” I say, and yet I know I’d look damn good in long, tattered skirts and my leather bustier, big gold hoop earrings, and a knife tucked inside my boot. Maybe I’d even wear an eye patch. Have a parrot on my shoulder. I’d swagger, swear, spit. Sit with my legs far apart, and sip straight rum from a split coconut. “I could still have nice things. I’d buy nice things with my share of plunder.”

“Your plunder.” Katie’s trying hard not to laugh in my face.

“It’s possible,” I answer primly, and maybe it’s not, but it should be. We shouldn’t have to be good girls. Sugar-sweet girls who follow all the rules. There’s no reason good girls can’t still be good girls even if they’re bad. Who gets to define what’s good and bad anyway?

“So how are you going to wear your hair tonight?” Katie asks, and I’m back to the party and off my Johnny Depp-Orlando Bloom-inspired fantasy.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Go severe,” Katie suggests. “Pull it back, gel it smooth.”

“That is severe.”

“And go crazy with your makeup. I’ll do it for you. Super-pale face. Heavy black eyeliner. Dark red lips.” Katie’s carrying her drink and heading for my bedroom, where all the purchases are waiting. “Did you buy the fake eyelashes?”

I follow her into my room. I do feel a little bit unsteady on my feet and reluctantly set my glass down. I definitely don’t need anything more to drink right now. “They’re in the smallest bag.”

Katie dumps everything out on my bed, sorts through the clothes, the stockings, the boots. She nods approvingly. “Let’s get to it.”

*

Thank God for my nice black wool coat, I think as I climb into the back of a yellow cab an hour later, black fishnet stockings peeping from beneath the coat hem.

Even fortified with great tequila, there’s no way I could go out in public without my coat.

The cab drops me off in front of the convention center as the setting sun turns the sky a dark blood red. People are streaming in, and it’s like a circus atmosphere. The energy’s up; everyone’s talking and laughing animatedly, eager to be there.

I give my name at the door, they assign me my dinner table number, and I check my plain wool coat once I’m permitted in. I feel naked, but I’m also distracted by the red chiffon draped everywhere. The entire convention center is a sea of red. And the dinner tables are all swathed in black. Music’s playing, the first of three different live bands, and somewhere a photographer is taking pictures, little white flashes popping in my peripheral vision.

I wander between tables, keeping my eye out for Tessa and City Events staff, but all I see are caterers and wait-persons rushing around. But then someone’s shoving a glass of red something at me, and I look at a masked face, the glimpse of light brown hair, and then the pale bare chest with the pierced nipple. I don’t take the drink. I can’t stop looking at the pierced nipple above tight black leather pants.

“It’s Josh,” the voice says.

I kind of thought it was. But the nipple ring? “Is that fake?” I ask, gingerly pointing to the silver ring protruding from his nipple. “No.”

I can’t believe Josh—quiet, corduroy-wearing Josh from the Beckett School—has a pierced nipple. It’s just too bizarre, too out of character. “Did you do it for the party?”

“No. I’ve had it for years.”

I want to be a pirate, and Josh has body piercings. What is the world coming to?

Josh thrusts the red drink into my hand. “I’m not the nice gay boy you thought I was, am I?” Still smirking, he walks away, fading into the crowd.

I watch him go, and I think, fuck ’em .

Fuck polite society. What did polite society ever do for me? Nothing.

And with that, I sip my red drink—a cosmo, thank God—and decide that no matter what happens tonight, I’m going to have a good time.

*

Dinner’s a relatively straight affair, considering I’m one of only two women sitting at David Burkheimer’s table. I’m introduced around the table, shake hands with a couple of the men, getting a blur of names and faces, before David suggests I take the empty seat next to Kirk, who looks as if he’d just returned from a Hell’s Angels road trip: black leather motorcycle pants, white T-shirt pulled tight over bulging biceps, black vest, black boots, and a faded bandanna tied around his shaved head.

But Kirk the hell-raiser is still a gentleman, and he rises, holds my chair for me while I sit. “Nice dog collar,” he says, leaning forward to kiss my cheek.

“Katie liked it, too.”

He grins, sits, muscular forearm resting on the table. “Did she also want to put a leash on you, take you for a walk?”

I shoot him a dark glance from beneath my lashes. “I don’t do leashes.”

“You might like it.”

“Shut up.”

He laughs, reaches for the bottle of red wine in the center of the red-and-black table, and fills David’s glass and then mine. Candlelight flickers, shadows dancing across everyone’s faces. I glance at David, who is talking to the man seated to his right. In the candlelight David looks relaxed. Young. I smile faintly, a little wistfully. Life’s good, I think. Hard, but good.

*

Later, as the dinner plates are being cleared, the band starts playing again, and it’s a great song, one by Wild Cherry. Play that funky music, white boy…

I can’t sit still. I’m tapping my foot, drumming with my hand, dancing in my seat. David looks at me, black eyebrow arched, and I toss my head and just keep dancing. It’s been so long since I felt this good, so long since I had fun like this. The costumes, the colors, the mood, the music, make me feel as if anything is possible, and maybe anything is possible.

Kirk rises, grabs my hand, and drags me out onto the dance floor. “What about David?” I protest, but follow him anyway, eager to be free of my chair and out on the dance floor, where the party has moved.

“He doesn’t dance, and I’m doing him a favor. You’re darling in that outfit, but your breasts were jiggling quite a bit back there.”

Before I can punch him, Kirk takes my hand again, pulls me against him in a provocative bump-and-grind that’s meant to shock, and hip to hip, knees between knees, Kirk and I do some very dirty dancing.

We dance for nearly an hour straight, the dance floor jam-packed, outrageous costumes everywhere, shocking amounts of skin exposed. It’s hot on the dance floor, but Kirk and I keep dancing and sweating, and we don’t stop until the band takes a break.

As the band clears the stage, we thread our way back to the table, breathless and laughing. Kirk’s T-shirt is plastered to his chest. I reach up to catch the perspiration running down the side of my face, and my fingers come away inky black.

“What’s happening to my face?” I ask as we reach our table, showing him my hand smeared with black color.

“You’re melting,” he answers in a wicked-witch voice, “and it’s very scary.”

At the table, Kirk drops into his seat, and I reach under the table for my purse and head for the ladies’ restroom.

In the bathroom mirror I inspect my face, and it’s even worse than I thought. One false eyelash has lifted up and off, as if about to fly away, and the heavy mascara and black eyeliner form circles and smudges that make me look like something from The Rocky Horror Picture Show , when Frank and gang have all been swimming and are dancing wet on stage.

I do my best to wipe away the excess eyeliner and blot the rest of the face, apply a little powder over the still damp skin, and redo my lips. As I snap my purse closed, I realize I’m having an absolutely amazing time.

This is craziness—me in leather and fishnet stockings and a wide dog collar—but it’s the kind of craziness I needed. This is freedom. Freedom and fun.

Leaving the ladies’ room, I go in search of Tessa and Josh, but before I make it very far, someone grabs my hand.

I look up, a long way up, straight into a mask.

He’s tall, and he’s wearing a loose white shirt and strange-looking pants and he’s carrying a… whip.

My mouth opens, closes, as he snaps the whip and it makes a sharp cracking, hissing sound.

“That’s… impressive,” I say.

The masked man laughs and uses his whip to push up his mask onto his forehead. Brian Fadden smiles down at me. “You think so?”

I make a face. “So what are you?”

“A eunuch.”

“A eunuch ?”

“I’m in charge of the sultan’s harem,” he answers quite seriously. “It’s an honor.”

“Yeah, after you’re castrated.”

“It was quite painful.”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiles. “If I’m allowed to compliment you, you look…” He shakes his head and exhales. “Hot.”

“I am hot. I’m sweating like a pig.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” he says delicately.

Brian has always been able to make me laugh, and I laugh now. His humor is such a relief. It’s wonderful to feel light, easy. “So what are you doing here? I didn’t think this was your kind of thing.”

“It’s a good cause.”

“So people say.”

“And I’d hoped I’d see you,” he admits.

I blush, suddenly shy. “It’s a lot of money if you just wanted to see me.”

“The ticket was donated.”

“Well, there you go. I’m a cheap thrill.”

“You’re a thrill, but cheap… no. This outfit cost a fortune.”

“Never mind the castration.”

Brian’s blue eyes glint. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about that.”

“Sensitive subject?”

“Very.”

“Pointed comments getting to you?”

“You’re a funny girl, Holly Bishop.”

“I try.”

He takes my hand, fingers wrapping around mine. “Come on. Let’s dance.”

And we do.

Brian and I spend the rest of the night dancing, and it’s close to two thirty when he finally puts me into the back of a cab. We don’t make any plans to see each other again, but somehow I know we will. I just don’t know when.