p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Jeordie woke up. He was in a hotel room where everything was such a depressing shade of off-white that he felt like he was turning that same non-color. Brian. Fuck, he missed Brian. Just thinking of his name sent shivers down Jeordie's spine. When he had left Brian and the band behind, it was like he had been leaving a part of himself behind as well. He had been Twiggy Ramirez, the androgynous goth bassist with the dresses and the dreadlocks. But as soon as he left Marilyn Manson, he was just Jeordie White again. The first thing he had done after the fight was cut his dreads off. It was symbolic for him, even though he didn't really like his hair anymore. It wasn't pretty. It didn't stand out. It was just a black bob, slightly longer than most men's hair, but not by much. Without Brian, Jeordie was nothing. Just an empty shell of a fucking person. Jeordie had also left behind the dresses he loved. Now, he just wore shirts and pants like any other guy. He was nobody./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Angry, spiteful tears welled up in Jeordie's hazel eyes. He found himself getting out his laptop and searching "Marilyn Manson". After a few minutes of internet browsing, he found out something that stabbed his heart like a knife. Brian was married now. Choked sobs emerged from Jeordie's throat. She was pretty. Jeordie used to be pretty, even prettier than Brian's new fucktoy. But Brian had ruined him. God, how he wished he had just said something when they were still best friends. Said something about the way he got all bubbly when he looked into Brian's eyes, or the times he was thankful for dresses because they hid the boners Jeordie got when the two friends did each other's lipstick. Jeordie wiped his tears on the stained hotel sheets./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He poked around in his black leather suitcase until he found a bottle of pills, unscrewing the pure white lid, taking a handful, and popping them into his mouth. With every handful of pills, he whispered something else. "I wanna be special..." "I wanna be pretty..." "I wanna be loved..." "I wanna be skinny..." "I wanna be Twiggy..."/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"And with that, he passed out, hitting his head on the beige carpeted floor. He wouldn't be dead. Not like it mattered anyway. Not without Brian./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"As Jeordie lay on the floor of the shitty hotel room, he dreamed about the past. His mind wandered back to when he had first met Brian. They were both little more than kids. Jeordie's hair had been long, brown, and curly back then. They met in a record shop, where they talked about their metal lunchbox collections and Ozzy Osbourne and how they both wanted to be rockstars when they grew up./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Then, they made their first album together. Brian had been nervously holding a lunchbox from that collection on the day when they started recording. Jeordie still remembered his crimson trench coat and candystripe tights as clearly as if it had been yesterday when he saw them. Jeordie quickly took on the name Twiggy Ramirez. He immediately developed a huge crush on Brian/Marilyn, but denied the fact that he was anything less than 100% heterosexual./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"After that came Antichrist Superstar. Jeordie remembered how happy everyone had been when the album became a hit. He remembered comforting Brian when Daisy left and helping him find a replacement named Zim Zum. His crush only got bigger and bigger, and he became quieter and shyer as a result./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Then, Mechanical Animals. Fuck, those prosthetic tits. Jeordie remembered practically drooling over those. That sultry wink Brian had given him when Jeordie saw him in his Omega costume for the first time.../p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Holy Wood. The last album where Twiggy was alive. Then, the fight. It was all gone. Years of friendship and love were over now, and Jeordie had never even gotten to tell Brian how much he meant to him. Because he wasn't Twiggy anymore. He was just Jeordie./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"With shaking hands, Jeordie picked up his cell phone and dialed Brian's all too familiar number. As the phone rang, he reached up to play nervously with his dreads before remembering that he was normal now. "Hello?", the voice on the other side was sexy and deep, raspy and even slightly more mature than the old Brian's voice. It made Jeordie's heart flutter, and he would be lying if he said he didn't get a hard-on./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""It's Tw- Jeordie...", he whispered nervously into the gray phone. "Oh, hi, Jeordie. How are things?" Jeordie wanted to tell him the truth. He wanted to say how he had cut off his hair and looked normal and how he missed Brian so much from loving him that he had gained a bunch of weight from stress-eating. But what came out was, "Good..." Somehow, Jeordie could tell that Brian didn't believe that answer for a second. "Mhm... can I come over?" And Jeordie couldn't say no. So he gave him the hotel's address and his room number, and he waited./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Around twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Heart pounding, Jeordie opened it and saw his secret love's eyes widen. "Jeordie..." Brian looked as though he was about to cry as he took in the sight of the new Twiggy. He meant Jeordie. He always meant Jeordie./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Of course, Brian was flawless and goth and hadn't aged a fucking day. Twiggy (he subconsciously started calling himself Twiggy again) wanted him so badly that it physically hurt. Deep inside, he knew that he would have to tell him the truth./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Brian, I'm in love with you, and I feel so lost without you. I mean, look at me. I'm not even me anymore... No dreads, no dresses, I gained so much fucking weight. I'm just normal, and you're just as much a sex god as ever." "Twiggy...", the older man purred. "I feel the same way." And for the first time in months, Twiggy smiled./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-size: 15.12px;""Wait, aren't you married?" "Nah, she left me.", Brian explained with a brief hint of sadness in his eyes. Twiggy hugged him. "U-uh, Brian? I sorta... c-can you do me a favor?", asked Twiggy nervously. "Yeah, what?" Twiggy blushed madly. "C-can you... put lipstick on me like you used to?" "Of course, baby boy."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ten years passed. Brian and Jeordie got older and more mature, marrying and adopting a little girl in the process. Brian quit the band as well. They weren't Marilyn and Twiggy, not anymore. Just a nice gay couple with a cute adoptive daughter who's name was Marilyn. This had been a little joke between the two former bandmates, and whenever someone asked Marilyn's name, they shared a special little smile./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Jeordie wasn't self-conscious about being chubby with short hair and a little bit older anymore, since now his husband was the same way. They loved their new life. One day,Brian saw some high school age goth kids. They were smoking and wearing Marilyn Manson shirts, and judging conformists who walked down the street, including him. If only they knew who I was, he thought, or at least who I used to be./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Long box-dyed black hair and eyeliner. Dark red lipstick. White pancake makeup. Drinking absinthe. Thongs and hospital bandages. All of these things were foreign to him now./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Angry, spiteful tears welled up in Jeordie's hazel eyes. He found himself getting out his laptop and searching "Marilyn Manson". After a few minutes of internet browsing, he found out something that stabbed his heart like a knife. Brian was married now. Choked sobs emerged from Jeordie's throat. She was pretty. Jeordie used to be pretty, even prettier than Brian's new fucktoy. But Brian had ruined him. God, how he wished he had just said something when they were still best friends. Said something about the way he got all bubbly when he looked into Brian's eyes, or the times he was thankful for dresses because they hid the boners Jeordie got when the two friends did each other's lipstick. Jeordie wiped his tears on the stained hotel sheets./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"He poked around in his black leather suitcase until he found a bottle of pills, unscrewing the pure white lid, taking a handful, and popping them into his mouth. With every handful of pills, he whispered something else. "I wanna be special..." "I wanna be pretty..." "I wanna be loved..." "I wanna be skinny..." "I wanna be Twiggy..."/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"And with that, he passed out, hitting his head on the beige carpeted floor. He wouldn't be dead. Not like it mattered anyway. Not without Brian./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"As Jeordie lay on the floor of the shitty hotel room, he dreamed about the past. His mind wandered back to when he had first met Brian. They were both little more than kids. Jeordie's hair had been long, brown, and curly back then. They met in a record shop, where they talked about their metal lunchbox collections and Ozzy Osbourne and how they both wanted to be rockstars when they grew up./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Then, they made their first album together. Brian had been nervously holding a lunchbox from that collection on the day when they started recording. Jeordie still remembered his crimson trench coat and candystripe tights as clearly as if it had been yesterday when he saw them. Jeordie quickly took on the name Twiggy Ramirez. He immediately developed a huge crush on Brian/Marilyn, but denied the fact that he was anything less than 100% heterosexual./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"After that came Antichrist Superstar. Jeordie remembered how happy everyone had been when the album became a hit. He remembered comforting Brian when Daisy left and helping him find a replacement named Zim Zum. His crush only got bigger and bigger, and he became quieter and shyer as a result./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Then, Mechanical Animals. Fuck, those prosthetic tits. Jeordie remembered practically drooling over those. That sultry wink Brian had given him when Jeordie saw him in his Omega costume for the first time.../p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Holy Wood. The last album where Twiggy was alive. Then, the fight. It was all gone. Years of friendship and love were over now, and Jeordie had never even gotten to tell Brian how much he meant to him. Because he wasn't Twiggy anymore. He was just Jeordie./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"With shaking hands, Jeordie picked up his cell phone and dialed Brian's all too familiar number. As the phone rang, he reached up to play nervously with his dreads before remembering that he was normal now. "Hello?", the voice on the other side was sexy and deep, raspy and even slightly more mature than the old Brian's voice. It made Jeordie's heart flutter, and he would be lying if he said he didn't get a hard-on./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""It's Tw- Jeordie...", he whispered nervously into the gray phone. "Oh, hi, Jeordie. How are things?" Jeordie wanted to tell him the truth. He wanted to say how he had cut off his hair and looked normal and how he missed Brian so much from loving him that he had gained a bunch of weight from stress-eating. But what came out was, "Good..." Somehow, Jeordie could tell that Brian didn't believe that answer for a second. "Mhm... can I come over?" And Jeordie couldn't say no. So he gave him the hotel's address and his room number, and he waited./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Around twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Heart pounding, Jeordie opened it and saw his secret love's eyes widen. "Jeordie..." Brian looked as though he was about to cry as he took in the sight of the new Twiggy. He meant Jeordie. He always meant Jeordie./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Of course, Brian was flawless and goth and hadn't aged a fucking day. Twiggy (he subconsciously started calling himself Twiggy again) wanted him so badly that it physically hurt. Deep inside, he knew that he would have to tell him the truth./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Brian, I'm in love with you, and I feel so lost without you. I mean, look at me. I'm not even me anymore... No dreads, no dresses, I gained so much fucking weight. I'm just normal, and you're just as much a sex god as ever." "Twiggy...", the older man purred. "I feel the same way." And for the first time in months, Twiggy smiled./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"span style="font-size: 15.12px;""Wait, aren't you married?" "Nah, she left me.", Brian explained with a brief hint of sadness in his eyes. Twiggy hugged him. "U-uh, Brian? I sorta... c-can you do me a favor?", asked Twiggy nervously. "Yeah, what?" Twiggy blushed madly. "C-can you... put lipstick on me like you used to?" "Of course, baby boy."/span/p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Ten years passed. Brian and Jeordie got older and more mature, marrying and adopting a little girl in the process. Brian quit the band as well. They weren't Marilyn and Twiggy, not anymore. Just a nice gay couple with a cute adoptive daughter who's name was Marilyn. This had been a little joke between the two former bandmates, and whenever someone asked Marilyn's name, they shared a special little smile./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Jeordie wasn't self-conscious about being chubby with short hair and a little bit older anymore, since now his husband was the same way. They loved their new life. One day,Brian saw some high school age goth kids. They were smoking and wearing Marilyn Manson shirts, and judging conformists who walked down the street, including him. If only they knew who I was, he thought, or at least who I used to be./p
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Long box-dyed black hair and eyeliner. Dark red lipstick. White pancake makeup. Drinking absinthe. Thongs and hospital bandages. All of these things were foreign to him now./p