DUSTIN CLUNG TO MY ARM like he feared a gay riptide was going to carry him out to sea and spit his body back onto the shore covered in glitter and rainbows. I didn’t learn Lua had invited him to her show until he met us in the parking lot. Dustin had turned eighteen on Halloween, and the bouncer checked his ID and drew a fat X on his left hand in black marker. I didn’t think the bouncer, a tall drag queen, was going to let me pass, but Lua managed to sweet-talk me into the club, just like she’d promised.
The first time Lua had dragged me to a/s/l, I’d expected to discover my tribe. Instead, I’d found an adrenalized horde of radically different personalities, bonded only by their status as outsiders. The club offered them sanctuary. A place where they didn’t have to pretend to fit in. A place to relieve themselves of their chameleon skin for a couple of hours and dance.
Where I’d hoped to find a unified clan, I found a matryoshka doll of diversity.
Swishy gay boys trading catty insults and broad-shouldered gay boys in cowboy boots. Butch girls and punk rock princesses. Boys who kissed boys and girls who kissed girls and both boys and girls who believed who they kissed was none of my damn business. Drag queens and transgender men and women and people like Lua who defied labels.
Despite their many differences, they were my people, even though I still felt like an outsider. The only person I’d ever truly felt at home with was Tommy.
Dustin tapped my shoulder and pointed toward a dimly lit corner of the bar by the DJ booth. “I think that dude’s checking you out, Pinks!” he shouted over a hundred other conversations and the bass-heavy music blasting from the wall-mounted speakers.
I glanced sidelong at my supposed admirer. The guy, who was now smiling in our direction, wore no X on his hand, which indicated he was at least twenty-one.
I didn’t appreciate the attention Dustin’s unsubtle pointing had drawn. The last time I’d watched Lua play at a/s/l, older men in the crowd had smiled and winked at me and grabbed my ass. I’d felt like the last piece of bacon at breakfast. A man my father’s age had even tried to stick his hand down my pants on the dance floor, and when I’d pushed him away, he’d called me a tease. As if wearing pants was an invitation for any man with hands to attempt to peel me out of them.
The guy in the corner seemed harmless enough, though. He was tall and wiry with spiky black hair—an obvious dye job—and sleeves of colorful Japanese-inspired tattoos decorating both arms. I couldn’t tell from one covert glance whether he was a nice guy or a potential stalker, but thankfully, he wasn’t eyeballing me.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he’s checking you out.”
“Really?” Dustin stood taller and returned the guy’s smile.
“Don’t lead him on.”
Dustin shrugged. “Sometimes it’s nice to feel wanted.”
I grabbed Dustin’s shirt and pulled him toward the bar to buy a bottled water. On the way we ran into a couple of girls I’d met before—Lua’s groupies—and we chatted while waiting for the show to begin. Dustin, ignoring my advice, kept flirting with the tattoo guy, who eventually joined us. His name was Nikos, and he spoke with an accent I didn’t recognize. Dustin came clean about being straight, but it turned out he and Nikos were both fans of Akira Kurosawa movies, and they geeked out arguing whether Rashomon or Seven Samurai was his best film.
The girls—Beth, Blythe, and Mindi—dragged me onto the dance floor for a couple of songs, and by the time the spotlights flared and the DJ lowered the music, sweat slicked my skin and my brain swam in an ocean of feel-good endorphins, leaving me happier than I’d felt in a long time. I couldn’t remember when I’d last allowed myself to think about something other than Tommy, and I immediately felt guilty. But I was there for Lua, so I did my best to stay in the moment and give her my full attention.
Lua stood on the tiny stage behind her keyboard, decked out in a striped corset with sewn-on glittery plastic gemstones, a fluffy pink ballerina skirt, and sheer powder-blue tights. She’d slicked back her hair and layered pale makeup and bright rouge on her cheeks so that she looked like a weirdly sexy porcelain doll reject that had crawled from the depths of my nightmares. Lucky on bass, Poe on guitar, and Claudia on drums wore conservative blacks and grays like they were trying to blend into the background, though it truthfully wouldn’t have mattered what they wore. Lua was a star, and everyone else but a dim shadow in comparison.
I didn’t know Lua’s bandmates well—she kept that part of her life oddly private—but they, along with Lua, played the roles of time travelers who zipped back and forth through history and sang about their adventures. It was kind of a gimmick, but also kind of awesome.
Lua’s groupies—who called themselves Lunettes—screamed when she leaned toward the mic, drowning out the smattering of applause from everyone else. Dustin and his new friend pushed their way through the crowd to stand beside us.
“Yeah,” Lua said in a disaffected, flippant tone I knew she’d spent countless hours in front of a mirror perfecting. “So we’re Your Mom’s a Paradox, and we’ve traveled through time to rock your asses off.” Without further introduction, Lua launched into “Heretic in Hosen.”
Lua seduced the crowd with her raspy, raw mezzo-soprano. Her voice strutted and clawed into the club’s dark corners, daring us not to fall in love with her. Lua inhabited every note, allowed the music to possess her. And we were mesmerized. I’d watched Lua play dozens of times, and even I fell in love with her a little more that night.
The crowd bounced to the frenetic rhythm and sang along even though most didn’t know the words. They pumped their fists in the air and howled their approval at the end of each song.
“Damn!” Dustin shouted into my ear. “Lua’s killing it tonight!”
He wasn’t wrong. The band played “Swapping Petticoats for Rifles,” “No One Died in the Longest War,” and “The Enchantress of Numbers.” Lua had just traded her keyboard for her guitar to play a jaunty song called “In the Future We All Eat Bugs” when the hairs on the tips of my ears rose.
I stood on the balls of my feet and scanned the crowd. I recognized some of the a/s/l regulars, most of whom were watching Lua and definitely not looking at me. The one person I wasn’t expecting to see was Calvin Frye, leaning against the bar, wearing his familiar black hoodie despite the oppressive heat. He looked like he’d wandered into the wrong club by accident.
What the hell is he doing here? Since Fuentes had assigned us to work together, Calvin had continued his habit of sleeping through class and acting like the rest of us didn’t exist. I certainly hadn’t anticipated running into him at a/s/l. I considered ignoring him, but I remembered what Trent had said earlier and curiosity overrode good judgment. I zigzagged through the press of bodies until I reached Calvin. He kept his hands buried in his pockets but nodded when I approached.
“What’re you doing here?” I asked. When he didn’t answer, I leaned closer and repeated my question louder.
Calvin motioned at the stage with his chin. “Came to see the band.” He said it casually, like he snuck into club shows every weekend. “They’re good.”
“I know. How’d you get in?”
Calvin smiled. His front teeth were crammed together and crooked. “Fake ID.”
“For real?”