Wonderful Caricature (Ryden)

VI

i don't know why it's taken me this long to realise that tyv ryan and throam ryan are essentially the same look. oh, well.

but, like. look at this stud.

(side note that will make sense in a minute: brogues are the coolest shoes in the world and i would give both of my kidneys for a pair.)

(double side note: i got my first car on sunday (4/21) and it's a Mercury Milan. i feel like that's some kind of sign, yeah?)

~

"You have to do this all the time?"

"I may not look like it, but I'm a lady who's very particular about her appearance."

Why Dallon seems to be absolutely astonished by the fact that I shave and wear heels, I don't think I'll ever understand. He does remember that I do drag, right?

I only wonder because he asked me earlier if I ever tried to grow facial hair and I stopped him before he even finished the sentence.

You don't wanna see me with a moustache. I don't wanna see me with a moustache. So, nobody gets to, end of story.

"It's not.. strange to you?" He's sitting on my bed while I sit at my vanity, practising new little makeup things I've picked up from girls I've seen walking around recently. I may not be attracted to them in particular, but their sense of style can often be alluring. Dallon's reflection looks perplexed yet, per the norm, curious as he watches me pout in thought.

My room isn't much, but it's a space I can call my own in a house that isn't. Couple of band posters from high school that I never bothered to take down, mostly due to the fact that I still kind of like Queen and Bowie. They cover up some of the wood panelling that make up the walls of my room. Same walls, same brown shag carpet from the basement. Which makes a lot of sense, considering they're in the same place. Might as well have a cohesive feel for a single level. I've got a bed, a dresser, usual stuff. The vanity I got at a garage sale a couple years back. Fifteen dollars. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Gives me a neat place to put all my lady stuff.

"Please," I chuckle at his silly thought, "At age five, my mom tried to put pants on me so we could go to one of her friend's kid's birthday party and I threw a half-hour tantrum. I didn't stop until she put me in this cute blue plaid dress she'd had since she was a little girl. I looked like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz's mini doppelgänger and so many people thought I was, and I quote, 'the cutest little girl in the world,' but I thought so, too."

His eyebrows rise in surprise. Welcome to the land of surprises, "You thought you were a girl?"

I scoff playfully as I scan around for the lipstick I want, "God, no. I thought I was cute. Well, actually, I knew damn well that I was cute."

He smiles and I feel the grin creep its way onto my face as well, "How are you so confident?"

"Hm.." When the hell did I buy orange lipstick? Why would I ever use this? "Well, I was teased and taunted and even pummelled for batting for the 'wrong' team, and I didn't even know that I was gay while that was going on. Everyone either heard it from someone who heard it from someone's best friend that I was a punching bag or they just figured me out on the spot. Once I finally got a clue and figured it out myself, I only told my mom and flipped off anyone else who tried to call me a fairy or worse. 'Oh, no! Look out! The gay little fairy is gonna infect the whole world with homosexuality because that's what we really need to be worried about,'" I scoff bitterly now, letting it lead into a sneering chuckle and devilish grin. Where have you been for the last couple minutes, wine red? "I decided one day that I was done being Raggedy Ann's gay cousin, whose name I won't even bring up due to the sheer stupidity of it, so to shut everyone up, I grabbed the first guy I saw after I walked out of twelfth grade English class and I kissed him," I pop my lips and glance over at Dallon's utterly shocked reflection, "Yeah, I stopped some hallway traffic with my little stunt, but not for long. He knocked me out cold, but I swear on my life, for a good five seconds, he totally kissed me back. Like, seriously. My face was in his hands and everything," I just realised.. That was probably William Beckett, too. Did I have a thing for him? Oh, probably, "Anyway, he walked off with some of his dignity intact and a slap on the wrist, while I almost got expelled, but my mom managed to reason a suspension out of the board, just so I could graduate and get out of their hair."