Title: Personality Crisis (Part Two of Nancy Boy)
Author: mao
Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine characters, likenesses, and plotlines belong to historyÉI mean, Todd Haynes, Michael Stipe, and the rest of those crazy kids. The song "Personality Crisis," which is featured in the film is the source of the lyrics. I'm making no money off this (at least, not that I know of), nor do I get credit for any of that stuff. Suing me will accomplish nothing. So there. :P
Author's Notes: From Arthur's point of view this time, so we can get his idea of how things are going, etc. Enjoy.
Warnings: None. It's clean!
Dedication: for Katy. Kisses.
The bulk of you your narrow hips and flat stomach, the curves of your legs are hidden behind the pillow you've taken from his bed, wrapped around it like gift paper. Your long arms hold it in place against your torso, against the itchiness of the wool sweater your mum knit you a couple years ago too short now, it shows your flat stomach if you lift your arms above your shoulders. You know your flesh teases him and, unused to having such an effect on another person, especially another very attractive man, you do it often to see the slight blush that races over his cheeks when he looks at you.
There's something frightening in that delicious power, and you're uncertain that you should be using it so lightly so now that you're alone with him again, for the first time in two weeks since you moved here you hold the pillow over your chest, to hide what you know he'd otherwise glance at constantly, and you'd feel tempted to bare.
He's smoking a cigarette, and very delicately looking everywhere in his room but at you, his eyes roving over a collaged cigar box, books and records, posters, as if this were not his room but an intricately made copy, and he were searching for flaws. You're tempted to crawl towards him over the bed, pushing back the rumpled coverlet, to lay one of your virginal hands on his thigh, to tempt him further.
But that's as far as the vision you have of it goes. After he kisses you something that even then begins to lose clarity, as you speculate whether his lips would be soft or unyielding, supple or chapped you don't know what would happen next. Suburban life with mum and dad never prepared you for this. And Ray is no help; he's clearly as nervous as you are he simply doesn't know what he's allowed or where the boundaries are.
Then again, so are you, and for the same reasons.
You don't know anything past the fact that you'd like to kiss him if he would to kiss you, touch you, hold youÉ You wish you could infer something, but the simple truth is that aside from that one blown kiss, the jumpy way he behaves around you, and how kind he's been, you have nothing to make you think he might want you.
He might just enjoy being kind to a poor young man, kicked out by his parents and new to the city (oh Arthur, look harder!).
He might just be jumpy from doing too many different drugs too close together, from too much cocaine, too much caffeine (oh please, please, just ask him!).
"D'you think," Ray's voice interrupts your silly thoughts, casting them aside like Moses and the Red Sea, and you turn your head quickly to face him. He pauses, then starts again. "D'you thinkÉ" a pause that makes you nearly pant with desire to hear the unspoken question, and then he begins a third time, letting all the words out in a rush. "Would you like me to do your makeup before we go out tonight?"
You needn't think about that at all. You've always loved makeup. You've wanted, from a young age, rather desperately to wear it, but your dad didn't let your mum keep any, as if that would stamp the fairy out of you. You can think quite quickly of other times he tried to deny you yourself a doll you wanted as a young child that he wouldn't let you have, the times he forced you to go to football practices when all you really wanted to do was stay home and color, the time he took all your stuffed animals and burned them in the yard because, as he put it, you were "tae claos tae them fer eny li'l buy."
You nod to Ray, and he takes your hand a faint tingle passing from him to you as he connects with you, sending a single shiver down your spine and leads you to his vanity, seating you in the delicate, curved-backed chair. You sit, uncomfortable in the delicate thing, and wait as he opens his huge makeup box, revealing lacy whites and thick pinks, violent purples and blues pale like veins. Rouges to smear over your lips and cheeks, shadows for your eyes above heavy liner, and glitter, iridescent in the dim light of his room. You can't help a feeling of awe spreading over you at the unveiling of these cosmetics, like a sacred token, and a small gasp comes out of your mouth.
"You like them?" Ray is grinning now, actually proud, and able to speak without pausing to feel silly or embarrassed, but neither of you notices it for a moment and he pulls out the powder concealer, explaining to you what he'll be doing as he mixes a color that's right for your skin tone.
With a pad, he's spreading it gently over your whole face, taking away the depth of your cheekbones and wiping your face into a nearly flat mask, with just your nose disturbing it and casting shadow. Then he's deftly adding a pale pink blush just the color of a newborn's underarm to your face, sculpting in the perfection of your high, arching cheekbones. And then eyeliner, with his hand resting steadily on your nose and fingers gently brushing your skin, setting it on fire; and the eyeshadow and glitter, with small brushes like butterfly wings; the mascara, where you looked up, then down, then right and left; lipliner, with his hand resting now on your chin to keep the lines straight.
And the whole time he's talking, giving you guidelines and tips so that you can learn to do it yourself, but you just want his voice to go on and on, and that light pressure to keep at your face.
Then it's time for the lipstick, red, to be smudged on your lips. He quickly, deftly swipes it across your lips, then uses his finger to gently clear away a couple spots where it moved outside your lips. You savor that pressure, the feeling of his finger against your lips, until he tells you that you're done. You open your eyes into the mirror, and you're amazed.
"I'm prettyÉ" the wondering compliment is out of your mouth before you can stop it, but it's true. Your eyes have been delicately lined, and gold glitter shimmers from the lids. Your cheeks are sculpted perfection, and your lips glow with innocent promise. There's something about knowing that the you in the mirror is also the you in life that emboldens you. Before you can speak though, Ray has laughed, a little jittery.
"Of course you are," he tells you, not looking at you, cleaning his fingers smudged with red and lined with black and gold and pink with a tissue. "Even without the makeup, anyone can see that."
There's a long moment, and you can't quite believe your ears.
You don't want to believe your ears, because what if they're wrong, and he didn't just say that. Then Ray stands, suddenly all business again, and begins collecting the cosmetics and putting them away. And the golden moment of the makeup application, that moment when he'd accidentally spat out something finally! telling is past.
You stand as well, and go to the door, suddenly frightened by what just happened. As you're leaving, you turn back, and speak for just a moment.
"Thanks." He doesn't turn, doesn't acknowledge your statement, and so you leave.