Angst angst angst. Why can't I just write porn like regular people?
Brad can't believe the difference a little unconsciousness seems to have made. Frank is sparkling, even putting aside the makeup (which is beyond repair) and he seems to almost burst with energy and life. He cuddles up to Janet, giggling like a teenage ingénue, and is so charming that he's irresistible in a whole different way from the sexual predator of earlier. He's just plain winning, and Brad wants to be his friend, stay around him, listen to him say outrageous and funny things.
It's enough to make him want to get out of here all by itself. It's like a form of magic, or possession. Here he sits, just had sex with a murderer, and yet he's thinking up excuses to stay.
He is aware of Magenta's lackluster housekeeping going on in the background, and knows why she doesn't seem all that invested in doing a good job on the cobwebs. Her attention is all on her master, her charge, and if he turns crazy she'll be there in a flash, Brad has no doubt.
He also knows that it's inevitable Frank remembers everything that happened in those six hours, and the thought makes him flush. There have been veiled and not-so-veiled references; Frank is occasionally not subtle. His time sense seems to be off, though. As far as he's concerned, he'd been interrupted during his little Brad-and-Janet orgy by Riff Raff telling him Rocky was running round the garden, and upon going to investigate had burst in on an attempted kidnapping/murder.
His outbreak of emotion over Rocky seems to be, if not forgotten, under control. Occasionally, as he talks, Brad sees him go blank. There's a moment of thought, as if Frank's subconscious knows the memory is there and is trying very hard to get through to him, but it's obvious that whichever brain cells are supposed to be playing join-the-dots are really not working. Frank shrugs off the blankness without a qualm and goes back to having fun, which is what he does best.
Riff Raff returns with tea. On a hostess trolley which rattles. There's a full tea service, like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story, although the china is a little mismatched and somewhat chipped. Frank is delighted, like a small child. He plays mother, pouring for Brad ("ladies first!") and then Janet, directing them towards the sugar bowl, the milk jug. There is a somewhat suspect looking lemon slice congealing in a dish, but nobody touches it.
Frank puts six sugars in his tea, presumably turning it into some kind of bergamot-flavoured syrup. When his lips fail to leave a red mark on the cup, he jolts, scandalized, and flaps a hand at Riff Raff, who exits once more and returns with a large, padded leather vanity case, which Frank grabs at and clutches to his chest protectively.
Brad tries to drink his tea, which is scented and without milk, and settles for occasionally sipping it. He'd rather have coffee. Janet is politely drinking hers, but her attention is only too obviously on Frank.
It's probably going to be a lot harder to convince Janet to leave here. To leave him. She is past making excuses: she has no doubt formulated reasons.
They need to get out of here, and soon, or they will never leave again.
Frank has abandoned his tea (or more likely knocked it back in one, Brad wasn't watching closely enough), and has started unpacking the vanity. It's like a room in itself. Bits of it unfold, and there are pots of colour and little brushes and a whole separate bag of moistened wipes.
It's only when Frank props up a large mirror (how did that fit in there) and narrows his eyes at his own reflection that Brad realizes what's going to happen and is once more horribly fascinated.
The make-up's going to come off. All of it.
He is suddenly consumed with the need to know what Frank really looks like under all that. Does he look more masculine? Is the heavy foundation hiding stubble? How old is he? He doesn't seem any older than Brad himself.
Janet sets her empty cup down on the trolley with a little click and glances at Brad, almost an apology in her expression. Oh, so she too needs to know, almost desparately. From behind the couch, Riff watches closely, hardly daring to breathe in case he ruins the moment.
What is it about these humans? He's never in all his years seen this before. Frank is a diva with a cause: he's never knowingly undersold – or underdressed. And yet here he is in a public room, about to take it all off, bare his face in the unashamed way that he usually bares his body. He never does this. Frank would rather walk buck naked down Fifth Avenue than appear without his face on.
Oh, by all the gods, if this isn't one of the final pieces of evidence that Riff needs to see that Frank's final deterioration is close…
Frank pouts at himself, and his shoulders raise in what looks like tension as he scuffles up a wipe from the bag. He turns his head this way and that, appraising the damage in the mirror, seeing the smudges, the smears, the bruises under the powder and paint. He doesn't seem aware of just how much attention he's attracting: but then again, he's staring at himself, and that's a hard sight to beat, In Frank's opinion at least.
He starts on the left cheekbone, where the bruises are, and the makeup paints itself in pale fleshy daubs across the wipe.
The bruising is worse than Riff had expected.
There's the marks of fingers (Rocky's presumably, grabbing out at the murderous thing that had been briefly his lover and certainly his creator) and a tiny sliver of grazing that makes Frank wince theatrically as he dabs at it. It's unlikely it does more than itch a little, in reality. Frank is a powerhouse, as Riff well knows. He's durable, flexible and hard to hurt. But then Rocky had been a masterpiece. The colour of Frank's skin, pale but not as dramatically pale as the makeup would have him appear, surfaces gradually under careful sweeps of the cloth.
Brad is struck first by how ordinary Frank looks.
No, not ordinary – that would be unfair on the sharp, almost fey features, the watchful eyes, but how human, perhaps. How human he seems. But not ordinary. Here, with one half of his face still splashed with glamour and the other half clean and free of it, he looks more bizarre than ever, like a circus act – the Two-Faced Clown. He is totally absorbed, concentrating on getting every last hint of the makeup off, making a clean canvas.
Janet makes a quiet sound, like a wildlife photographer finally catching sight of the elusive beast after weeks of solitary pursuit, and like a fellow hunter, Brad darts her a warning look. As if Frank is a deer who will be easily spooked by noise, and then they won't get to see…this.
What exactly is this, anyway? When it boils down to it, it's just a transvestite taking his slap off. It's the cleanup of a night out. Shouldn't be anything special. But the absolute stillness of Riff Raff and Magenta, hanging carefully in the periphery, tells Brad that this is indeed something very special. He's just not sure why.
Frank hums, concentrating and oblivious, and with a final scrub it's all gone, and he's turning his head just-so, this way and that, once again, checking his work.
Bare-faced, he seems smaller, the mass of curls blacker against his skin. His eyes seem smaller, deeper set. His natural skin is an odd, almost golden hue, still frosted pale, like frozen honey. And oh, he looks young – it's like the pictures Brad has seen of wartime recruits who look like hardened killers when they're covered in mud and holding a gun, but who are obviously just teenagers again when they're standing, bandaged and haunted, next to their families.
He was right. In physical appearance at least, Frank's probably no older than they are. In a rush Brad find himself considering the chasm of difference in their lives. It's this, almost more than anything else right now, that brings home the sheer alien nature of these people.
Frank probably never went to high school like he and Janet did. He probably never played baseball or carried his sandwiches in a brown paper bag, or even ate sandwiches before coming here. He probably never got to play out in the dirt or go fishing for crawdads or do anything normal healthy kids do.
Brad has a momentary vision of what he imagines Transsexual, Transylvania must be like, of a younger Frank sequestered away in shadowed, velvety halls, being conditioned and trained by gothic candlelight in dark arts and darker purposes. The inevitable blood looking black in the unending gloom.
It's horrible, to humans at least. Brad wonders if Frank remembers it at all, or if he's constantly recreating himself, day by day, out of the memories he's allowed to keep. He consoles himself that Frank seems happy, on the surface. He's living a life of hedonistic abandon. And he's living it to the full. Surely it's better that he never knows the price of it?
Frank takes advantage of the luxury of no makeup to scrub his knuckles into his eyes, the first real evidence of how tired he surely is, and then darts a sidelong look at Brad. He draws a breath in, sharply, as if he's only just remembered he has company.
Riff hears that breath, and mentally starts a countdown. This could be bad. The last time they'd had even a gentle conversation with Frank about how he was more likely to be accepted in earth society if he wore, perhaps, just a touch less mascara, there had been a week-long fury. It had not been pretty (unlike Frank, who at the time had been wearing rainbow blusher and the very last of the Black Cherry gloss) and it had had Consequences.
But Frank just looks away, quickly, as if embarrassed (Riff knows this is hardly likely, so what the hell it is he has no idea and is almost afraid to find out) and then reaches for his sponges and starts loading up with cream foundation.
Watching the mask go back on is almost as fascinating as the reverse. Frank is like an artist, and a quick one – the smooth white mask is replaced in moments, and the cheekbones are swiped so rapidly that it seems the dusky shadowing has appeared out of nowhere. What on anyone else would look like panda eyes become pure hooded seduction in peacock colors under Frank's deft hands.
Brad finds himself unconsciously pressing his own lips together as Frank applies lipstick, then gloss on top, and then it is done, normality (such as it is) is restored, and Frank beams with utterly wicked delight, flashing triumphant teeth at them all.
Hooray for the return of Useful Frank, thinks Riff Raff, only half sarcastically, and is about to trade a look with his sister when Frank's expression alters sharply, and a sound echoes through the house. Not loud, not here, away from the main reception rooms and the lab, but unmistakable.
Somebody is knocking at the door.