Like Sugar

Chapter Four

It was seven in the evening, and people were filtering into the tiny bar as the drag queens walked around backstage, or in Darnell's friend's — Nathalie's — case, they sat at one of the tables in their full gab as they drank beer and waited for the show to start. The bar was dimly lit, and it would be cold too if the densely packed crowd didn't ooze off body heat to the extent that the lace was a sauna. Darnell couldn't understand how Nathalie could sit down tucked, stuffed, and draped in three layers of makeup and clothing without sweating bullets.

"Something on your mind, che?" Nathalie asked, looking up from the money she was counting to stare into Darnell's wide eyes. Darnell shook his head, smiling at the woman before looking down at the mug of beer he hadn't touched. He didn't drink, but Nathalie always insisted on buying him a glass.

Nathalie was the person that pulled him aside when he had first wandered into the bar with a purple eye and red eye whites. He had been kicked out that night, and Darnell appreciated how the women comforted him and cleaned his tears. She'd given him something to eat before leaving him backstage with the other queens for her performance. The other queens were nice, generally, everyone who bumped into him that night was nice. It was a gay bar, and to some degree, everyone knew what it felt like to have non-accepting family members.

Within that time frame of Nathalie's, backstage, Darnell had been asked if he did drag, and when he said he didn't whoever asked would sigh and call him pretty, trying to convince him that he could 'serve fish' with little effort. When Nathalie came back, she offered Darnell the option to come and stay with her for the time being as he got back on his two feet and he agreed. Somewhere along the line, Darnell started doing drag too, and that's he got by and managed to still go to college until he got a better arrangement through a Sugar Daddy app. Nathalie had been the one to help Darnell out with his arrangement, telling him that if he stuck to older nice-looking men, he won't have any problems.

"They get a bad rep, but a majority of older men looking for sugar babies are just socially awkward and craving attention," she had said when Darnell had brought up his worries about meeting up with Jared for the first time. "Give him lots of attention He deserves it going by how much he's spending on you already."

For the first few hours after Darnell had confirmed the deal, Nathalie had just sat around the house sighing and making snide comments about how she didn't get that much from her own sugar daddy in a month and she was getting gender reassignment surgery.

To Darnell, that was one of the confusing facts about Nathalie. She was a trans woman that did drag, and he reasoned that since she was trans doing drag would invalidate or even mock her identity as a transwoman. However, it's not like Darnell had been anywhere around the drag scene until that night of desperation, and he quickly learned that there was a fundamental difference between performing as an exaggerated depiction woman for a few hours a night, and living as a regular woman full time, as Nathalie had put it. Her drag persona was Bonita Lopez, and she was plain old Nathalie out of drag. Many drag queens were trans, mostly because to them drag was a safe place to experiment with femininity before they could safely and publicly live as women. That had been the case for Nathalie. Her parents had accepted her when she came out as a gay man, but they tossed her out immediately when she came out as transgender.

"Are you sure there's nothing on your mind?" Nathalie asked again, making Darnell look up at her before shrugging and resting back on the wooden chair. "Okay, how about your money cow?" she asked, changing the conversation and making Darnell's face warm up. Ever since Darnell had gotten back to the apartment on Sunday evening with a grin plastered across his face, Nathalie would bring up Jared at every chance she got just to make him turn red-faced.

"H-he's fine," Darnell stuttered, not appreciating how Nathalie giggled like a school girl because of his reaction.

"What, you're not texting him heart emojis like last time?" Nathalie asked, making Darnell's tan skin warm up even more. It was one time. One time she looked over his shoulder while he was sending Jared a text and she brought it up at every possible second since then.

"Don't mind me. It's great that he treats you well. You made a great deal," Nathalie said, looking down at the inconveniently long stick on nails she had on for her performance tonight.

"Is it weird?" Darnell asked in such a small voice that Nathalie almost didn't hear him.

"Is what weird?" she asked, drumming the tips of her long coffin nails on the wooden bar table.

Darnell shrugged. "I think he's sweet."

"We think anyone that's Jewish, rich, and not trying to tie us down is sweet darling," Nathalie said in response making Darnell's eyes to go red as Nathalie chuckled. "I'm joking," she said. "It's a bad stereotypical joke, I'm sorry," she muttered, resting her face on her hand. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"I said I think he's sweet. Kind of awkward, but sweet," Darnell repeated before letting out a sigh. "Is it weird to have a crush on him?" Darnell asked, watching as Nathalie raised a brow at him.

"When I was poking fun at you about texting him, I was joking," she said, looking at him like she had eaten something wrong. "Really, you think you have a crush on him?" she asked as Darnell watched her try to digest the thought. He felt his chest squeeze up as Nathalie muttered a string of inaudible words. Nathalie had seen Jared's full profile while Darnell was still trying to make a decision. She had even been the one to pick him out from the others. So, Darnell didn't understand why she was acting like this. Sure, Jared wasn't conventionally attractive, but he had a good soul.

"Darnell, honey, he looks like a blobfish—"

"Don't be rude," Darnell said, his voice quivering. He wasn't sure why he was acting like this. Nathalie said s**t like this about other people all the time and he would laugh.

"Look, I'm just being honest."

"It's not how you look that counts," Darnell said, resting his hands on the table's surface. "He has a great personality."

"That's for ugly people that need to compensate," Nathalie said, and Darnell was about to break down. He wondered if she couldn't see that her jokes weren't funny to him. The club was dim, the show had started, so it was plausible. "Also, someone being nice to you like a decent human being is the bare minimum for attraction. Come on Darnell, you can't be taking scraps when you look like you do," Nathalie said, gesturing at him.

"Okay, I'll stop horsing around," Nathalie said with a sigh before folding her hands in a way that didn't put force on her nails. "He's forty-five. You're nineteen. What kind of cocaine are you on to consider that? Also, you've also known him for a week. A week," she emphasized the last part by putting out seven fingers to show Darnell how short of a period a week was. Darnell curled back into his seat as he stared straight at her. He shrugged, hugging himself. He couldn't help it that he was a stupid romantic. Since the first time Darnell had s*x with Jared, they'd slept together two more times. On Sunday, and on Wednesday when Jared had texted to ask if he was free. They talked, listened to videotapes and watched movies.

"You fall in love too fast," Nathalie said, poking his thought bubble.

"I said it's a crush," Darnell said as Nathalie waved her hand over her head.

"It's the same thing," she mumbled, getting up when her name was called. "I have to leave, it's my turn," she muttered, running her hand through Darnell's hair before walking through the crowd and up the stage. Darnell watched her, thinking of the short conversation they had just had. Nathalie was a comedy queen, but she could sing too, and soon the whole crowd was singing along to old-school drag music.

When Nathalie was done Darnell waited outside for her to change clothes. People kept leaving and entering through the main entrance, but when Nathalie walked out Darnell always knew it was her. She would converse with the bouncer in loud Spanish, drawing on the attention of everyone around. Darnell turned when he heard loud Spanish being exchanged between a female and a male voice. Of course, it was Nathalie. She was in black leggings and a loose red top now. Her dark brown hair was done up in a bun. She had taken off most of her makeup, but if there was something Nathalie was addicted to it was eyeliner, and she wore it everywhere — even when she was at home doing nothing. Nathalie talked with the man for a while before heading over to Darnell.

"I hope you didn't wait too long," she asked, and Darnell shrugged. It's gone, he said, adjusting the sleeves of the long sleeve shirt he was wearing. Nathalie told him about the discussions she had in the dressing room with the other queens, while Darnell just nodded his head as they both walked towards the bus stop. They didn't live far away. It was a little apartment on top of a convenience store. At first, Darnell had hated it. The store owner who was also their landlord was around a lot and always picking fights with Nathalie. Sometimes it was where she hung her clothes, who she let into the house, how they placed their floor mat — basically, anything he could turn into an argument and use as an excuse to yell at Nathalie. But on the bright side, as Nathalie rationalized it; when you're hungry and need canned soup late at night you wouldn't mind having a store just downstairs.

"Hey! Taxi!" Darnell blinked, noticing that Nathalie was now heading towards the cab that had stopped for them. He frowned, wondering how he had zoned out in the middle of the cold night with noisy cars trying to evade traffic.

"Come on!" Nathalie yelled at him, making Darnell muttered an apology before getting into the car. Most of the ride was quiet, but somewhere along the like Nathalie reached over to take a hold of Darnell's hand and give it a squeeze. Darnell looked over at her in the dark backseat as the occasional street light lit up her face as the cars passed by.

"Don't take what I said too seriously, che," she muttered reaching out to push the loose curls that were sitting on his forehead. "Just be careful," she said, leaning away from him before humming along to the song the driver had put on.

"Just be careful." Nathalie's words swarm around in Darnell's mind as he thought of Jared. Nathalie was right. He had a three-year contract with Jared, he didn't want to mess things up with his underdeveloped feelings that had surfaced in the span of a week. He needed the money for school, and he had to be useful in some way with rent so that he didn't feel like he was leeching off Nathalie.

He promised himself that he wouldn't get caught up in crushes. Most of his crushes were harmless — like the fling with the bartender, the thing with one of the bar's drag queens, the brief crush on the part-time worker downstairs in the convenience store. Darnell has as many crushes as a kid had spare change they collected for their piggy bank. This situation was different, though. One misstep could cost him a lot. He would just do what he was supposed to do and push his over romantic thoughts to the back of his mind. Like Nathalie said, Jared being a decent person was not enough to get him all worked up in his feelings.