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“Depending on where you mail your postcard, the postage is different. Have you ever stopped at a stop sign at a roundabout on a two-lane road and find the stopped cars spread four-abreast? That’s what happens here.”
“It’s a wonder this country ever united under anything,” he grumbled.
“It always took much drama and even more wine.”
He chuckled.
They came into an alleyway. She wore her floppy hat and the glasses again, with a pink scarf around her neck and her tight, flowered skinny jeans. She could have passed for an Audrey Hepburn lookalike.
She’d given him an aloha shirt she found in the closet and a baggy pair of jeans that were way too loose on him. She found a piece of orange twine used to wrap grocery packages to cinch him up. Luckily, the shirt would cover all that. He’d wear his slip-ons until she could buy him some local-looking shoes, she’d said.
They walked through a beaded doorway into a dark bar with faint music playing. In the center of the room was a dance floor, highlighted by a silver ball twirling and sending shards of bright light all over the room.
He had to wait for his eyes to get used to the dark. Then he saw several shapes, tall shapes, in the corners and scattered at tables in the shadows at the edges. Two such forms came toward them. The closer they got, the more uncomfortable Dimitri felt.
He’d seen pictures of drag queens before in magazines and on news reports, but never up close and personal. And that’s how they approached him.
One wore a bright orange wig, Lucille Ball orange, wearing a black bustier over a tennis skirt and black fishnet stockings and high heels. That part he could accept, but it was hard to look at their face. The eyebrows were penciled in heavy, extending halfway from the natural brow to the hairline on top. Lips over exaggerated and filled with Botox injections, every word had an element of a sucking sound to it when this person talked.
The other one was not quite what Marilyn Monroe really looked like, but it was an attempt at doing so. They had breasts augmented by the bustier with cutouts and tassels dangling from the nipples. It was unkind but hard for him not to stare.
“Oh, Moira, what have you brought us?” the redhead said in a low, lustful growl, her sucking lisp interfering with her diction.
“Dimitri, this is Doreen, and this is Angelica. And you are to call them ladies. Ladies, this is Dimitri.”
“Uh oh. My panties are getting tight,” said Doreen as she slipped Dimitri’s large shirt off his shoulder and slid her red fingernails down his muscled arm covered in tats.
“Moira?” he asked as he stepped back, away from her clutches.
“He’s not used to this.”
“Oh, honey, I’m not either!” Angelica turned to the audience at the bar. “Ladies, we have a very handsome straight man in our midst. A virgin!”
It was going from bad to worse. Dimitri was cursing himself for suggesting she take him to meet some of her friends. No one back in D.C. or Coronado was ever going to hear about this. He didn’t know where all of it was leading.
Squeals of joy and rustling fabric and the clickety-clack of high heels over the dance floor sounded like a stampede of baby goats. They formed a circle around Dimitri. Moira leaned into him. “Trust me. You will not be harmed in any way.”
“Only my ego. No word of this, do you understand?”
“Scout’s honor.”
She made a show of removing his shirt, removing his undershirt, and letting his physique charm them. She took his hand and lead him around in a tight circle, so they could see all sides of him. He tucked his other hand into the gaping jeans pocket, unsure how to react under the scrutiny.
The oohs and ahhs bothered him a lot but didn’t seem to faze Moira one bit. He kept trying to gain eye contact with her again but was failing. He didn’t want to look at the painted faces in front of him for fear he’d have nightmares.
“Your mission, ladies, if you should accept it, is to make him look like one of you. I need a perfect disguise for him, so he can walk around the streets for a few days.”
“Who’s your favorite actress?” someone wanted to know.
“What’s your shoe size?”
“Capris or skirt?”
“Do you have a favorite hair color?”
“Can I shave him?”
It went on like that for far too long. He grabbed Moira and drew her to the side. In the background, he could hear laughter. Someone said, “Oh, isn’t that cute! He’s shy.”
