Page 54 of Watch Me

Fuck!

If David finds the mask, he’ll piece the whole thing together—that I snuck into the club against his wishes, that he had sex with me, that I had sex with Nick. He’ll be able to tell Nick what happened, too. All of the anonymity I felt on Saturday night has evaporated, and the weight of consequences hangs like the sword of Damocles over my head. I bury my face in my hands and fall back down on the pillow, feeling humiliated and exposed.

I try to relax back into sleep by talking myself through it. It’s four o’clock on Monday morning. The club is closed and there’s nothing I can do about it now anyway—nor later, since the club is closed on Mondays. What are the chances he’s even been into the office washroom? If I show up the minute the cleaning crew arrives on Tuesday, maybe I’ll be able to get it before he even sees it. Finally, as the sky begins to lighten and the first birds of the morning start chirping, I fall back into a restless sleep.

* * *

Monday passes like Sunday, with no sign of David at home, but when Tuesday rolls around with still no sign, I get a little premonitory twinge of angst.

It’s not unusual for David to be gone for a couple of days at a time, especially when he’s starting a new romance, which is pretty often, but his absence seems loaded in the aftermath of our secret threesome.

As planned, I arrive at the club promptly at noon and enter through the back door with the afternoon cleaning staff, who have seen me rehearsing numbers so many times that I’m sure they know all the songs by heart. I say hi to them and then walk down the corridor to David’s office at what I hope is a relaxed and normal pace, but once I get inside, I drop my bag and sprint across the room to the bathroom.

The counter… is empty. The mask, which I clearly remember spreading on its surface, is gone.

My heart slams against my ribs as I move to David’s desk, lifting piles of paper and books to peer underneath them and then opening the top drawer as if I intend to ransack the place. I don’t have to look any further, though, there it is—my vinyl hood, folded up and stashed on top of a mess of pens, chewing gum, and condoms.

Only David could have put it there.

He knows.

For six months I’ve been dreaming about getting a text message from Nick. Something confessional, something heartfelt, a prayer that we can be together, an apology for leaving me—just some sign that he’s been thinking of me somewhere out there. That he misses me. That he loves me.

At first, it was a certainty. Every time I picked up my phone, I was sure I would finally see the waited-for message, to have that confirmation at last that he felt as I did, that what happened between us was real. Eventually, certainty diminished to hope, and finally, hope became despair. I was beginning to accept that I would never hear from him, that there was no resolution for us.

I never expected that instead of a text message, we would end up sleeping together as two masked strangers.

And as a result, that obsessiveness has started up again. By Wednesday, I can’t even bear not having my phone in my hand, certain that the long-awaited message will finally arrive. He must know by now, and once he does, surely he’s not so heartless that he will continue to ignore me?

Tate’s up and left, I know from his Instagram, posting about a new life in Oregon with a girl who wears too much highlighter and uses a filter in every photo. And Nick’s here. We’ve been together. There’s no way David wouldn’t have told him—I know David. He can’t ignore that… can he?

* * *

I’m back at the club the next night at nine o’clock to prepare for the night’s show. I still haven’t seen David, although there were signs that he’d been home this morning, and I don’t feel ready to have the confrontation yet. I stash my bag backstage and get changed there instead of going into his office as I usually do, then I climb upstairs to the tech booth to give a USB key to the sound and lighting technician.

Movement is my first language, and it will always be how I express myself best. When Nick first left, all those months ago, in that strange time when I was living alone in his house, I had choreographed a dance to express my sorrow and grief. Mostly a modern dance, it had no place on stage at the Paradise Lounge or in the ballet studio, but I danced it over and over again in the house, working through my loss and loneliness in the only way I knew how. Later, when I shared it with Andre, we workshopped it for the stage at the Ball & Chain, but we’ve never quite fit it into the show. It’s raw and emotional, slow and sad compared to our other high-energy, upbeat numbers. But tonight, I don’t think I can do high-energy and upbeat. Tonight I can’t escape how I feel and pretend to be fine.

From the high of what happened on Saturday night, I’ve reached an utter low, like I was marched up to a cliff and thrown off.

I’ve always felt a little kinky, a little different, a little too into sex, a little too into exhibitionism. Being with someone like Tate made me feel ashamed of who I was. But on Saturday night, I felt a complete, wild freedom, using my body in a kind of dance I’d never done before, on a kind of stage I’d never been on before. There was the thrill of being seen and exposed, the ultra-heightened sensation of being with two men at once, and a third, surprising feeling: one of warmth and safety, the satisfaction of being so desired by two men, the sheer affection of being held by them both. It was one of the all-time highs of my life.

Finding out that Nick was the bull was shocking, strangely humiliating, and deeply heart-warming all at the same time. He felt so absolutely right, so exactly perfect, and there’s a validation to knowing that we would seek each other out, even unknowingly.

But the fallout over the past couple of days has devastated me. Hearing nothing from either of them, even David, has given me a profound sense of rejection. As if, now that they know it was me, they are both ashamed. Too ashamed to even reach out and see how I feel.

Every time I pick up the phone and see that there is nothing there, my heart breaks a little bit more—just like when Nick left, texting only to say goodbye and never again.

I had told him that I loved him, and as humiliating as it is that he never reciprocated, I know that it’s still true. I would choose him over and over again in the unlikeliest and most inappropriate of circumstances: as a masked stranger in a room full of hundreds of willing men, as the father of my boyfriend. I couldn’t not choose him, and for all the hurt it’s caused, I would do it all over again every time, given the chance.

* * *

I bow out of the group numbers for the first time since we launched the show, leaving Rachel, Andre, and Tomas to dance the four-person choreography on their own.

“I can’t,” I tell them, and the despair must be so obvious in my tone that none of them hesitate.

“Of course, sweetheart,” says Rachel.

“We love you,” says Andre, kissing me on the forehead.

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