Once Too Often
by Soledad
A "Pathways in the Dark" story
Part 23a of "The Toreador Chronicles". Follows "Walking in Shadows".
For disclaimer and background information see the Introduction. Dancer has been modelled after the famous German drag queen, Olivia Jones. Dawn Cavanaugh is "played" by Lexa Doig.
Rating: 16+, for this part.
The shooting of Rage II – The Black Widow was going well. So well, in fact, that Brett Keller found the time to work on the trailer of the third movie with Michael and Dawn Cavanaugh, planning to include it in the extras of the DVD release. Michael found that the increased strength of his new status came in handy during those days – they worked on vampire schedule, which often meant several days in one go, without longer breaks than a couple of hours.
They shot a few haunting scenes in the local crematorium, which had been chosen as the set for the Shadow Temple, with Imalia, a former supermodel featuring as the Shadow Oracle, a character that was to be closely defined yet. Imalia, who'd been depressed and suicidal ever since Embraced by the Nosferatu, made a stunning figure on the silver screen, although it had cost a lot of cajoling and reassurance to talk her into playing the part. She'd never truly gotten over losing her ethereal beauty, but seeing the results the make-up artists achieved on her finally persuaded her that she would, in fact, look great. Which she did.
Brett wanted Michael to make a cameo appearance in the trailer, too, saying that it would sell the DVDs twice as well. At first, Michael flat out refused, even though Brian – who was working on the ad campaign for the movies – agreed with Brett. But Michael didn't want to become so well-known that people would recognize – and stampede – him on the streets. He valued his privacy highly.
Brett, however, was very much taken with the idea, and kept pestering him about it.
"You know, Mikey, if you don't wanna be recognized, you could always play the scene in drag," Brian suggested.
Alain, who was making sketches of a stark naked Michael for his planned Hermes-statue, raised an intrigued eyebrow.
"You're into cross-dressing, Michael? Kinky…"
"I only did it once!" Michael protested.
"And you looked absolutely gorgeous in that blonde wig," Brian prompted. "Not even your co-workers from the fucking Q-mart recognised you at first sight. You could name yourself Michelle Grassi in the end credits – and offer a prize for anyone who'd spot you. People would go crazy about the DVDs."
"Yeah, sure," Michael snorted, but Brian could see that he was tempted.
"I tell you what," he said. "Let's make a test run: you dress up like you did for the Pride. We take you out to some fancy place, and if people buy the act, you'll do the scene as Michelle."
"Bri, I don't think it's such a good idea..." Michael was still not fully persuaded
"Actually, it's an excellent one," Alain interrupted. "I'd certainly love to see you in drag; I'm sure you'd look gorgeous. And it would be fun."
That about decided the question. Nominally, Michael was expected to do what Alain asked him to do; and the though of entering some fancy restaurant flanked by both Alain and Brian was a tempting one.
"Ask Emmett to make you up," Brian advised. "He did an excellent job on you last time – and it would look more natural than the work of a professional visagist. The wig you wore on the Pride was perfect; I'm sure Emmett can find something similar."
Needless to say that – although nobody actually asked his opinion – Emmett was absolutely thrilled by the idea. He also did his best to reconstruct Michael's outfit from that fateful Pride, more than three years before. Considering that he currently worked for the Costume and Props department of the Vignes Studios, finding the right dress, wig and accessories wasn't really a challenge. But, as he often explained, the devil stuck in the details; therefore it was very important that said details matched each other flawlessly.
"It's a good thing that your legs aren't too hairy," he declared with a critical look at Michael's aforementioned body parts, while Michael stood in the middle of Alain's garderobe, clad only in a G-string, mortified beyond imagination. "Leg shaving is a bitch, and it itches like hell when it's growing back. You'll have to shave your chest again, though. And your belly."
"What for?" Michael protested. "I'm not gonna wear a navel-free dress, am I?"
"No, sweetie," Emmett explained patiently, "But you're gonna wear silk. Very fine, expensive silk that, as they say so nicely, leaves nothing to the imagination. The trail of hair on your belly would be clearly visible through the thin fabric."
"And my dick wouldn't?" Michael countered, hating the idea more with each passing minute.
"Nah, the skirt bells out from the hip," Emmett replied airily. "You believe I wouldn't think of that? Besides, the cut will make your hips look more rounded – more feminine. Now, let's give these a try."
These were a pair of genuine silicone breast implants – small and perky ones, matching Michael's general stature. He got the shock of his life nonetheless.
"Alain, I'm not having plastic surgery just to make your joke work!" he squealed in an embarrassingly high, girlish voice. Alain and Brian were beside themselves with laughter. They were literally howling, unable to get out a coherent word.
Emmett rolled his eyes. "They're not going under your skin," he said with somewhat forced patience. "They're going into a plastic wonderbra, and I wanna see if the size is the right one. Now, stop fidgeting and let me work."
After about an hour of cajoling, encouraging and occasional cursing (from Emmett's side) and endless amounts of giggling and outright laughter (form the other two), Michael finally stood in the garderobe as Michelle, in a golden lamé dress that barely covered his knees – as Emmett explained, knobbly male knees were always a dead give-away – and was held by two thin straps on the shoulders. The implants sat solidly in the plastic bra (necessary for the straps to stay invisible), making the impression of perky little breasts, like those of a teenaged girl.
The high heels changed Michael's carriage, making him stand straighter than usually, and pushing his butt into a more accentuated position, with the effect that Brian's mouth was watering at the sight. The pale blond wig and the bleached eyebrows changed Michael's colouring, building a dramatic contrast with his long, black eyelashes and big, dark eyes. Emmett had used the make-up sparsely, just to smooth out the small irregularities of the male skin and to conceal the shadow of the beard. A pale gold silk shawl, several nuances paler than the dress, wrapped loosely around Michael's neck, hid his Adam's apple. With brown eyelid shades and an apricot lipstick, as well as fake golden fingernails, the illusion was perfect.
"He looks good enough to eat," Alain, who could appreciate feminine prettiness more than the others, judged in satisfaction. Emmett nodded.
"Yes, he's very pretty as a girl. Now we need to practice the proper walking in high heels; and how does a lady sit down and cross her legs without being mistaken for a man… or for a hooker on the prowl."
That part turned out more complicated than either of them would have thought (Michael had a rather graceless way to move), but finally, hours later, Emmett declared himself content.
"Let's give him a break," he said. "I'll come back tomorrow and help with the shaving and the other stuff."
But Alain shook his head. "Not with the shaving," he said. "We want to have some fun, too. Where did you make reservations, by the way?"
"There's a new club named Femboi," Emmett answered, "specialized in transgender dancers, or so they say. I thought it would be the best place for a test run."
"Perhaps," Alan frowned. "I've never heard of it, though. Where is it?"
"Neutral territory," Emmett gave him the address. "Should I check out the owners, just to be on the safe side?"
"No," Alain said. „I'll have the Nosferatu do it; they're the best at this sort of stuff. The neighbourhood is… questionable at best, though. Isn't Dieter's Dungeon somewhere in that area, too?"
Emmett shrugged, not having a clue.
"What is that place?" Brian asked with interest.
"Exactly what the name says," Alain replied. "An S/M club, owned by a Brujah Anarch named Dieter; also known as the leather Daddy of the undead."
"Hmmm…" Brian seemed mildly interested. "Sounds kinky…"
"Believe me, it's not something you'd want to try, unless you're into serious pain," Alain said, the warning very clear in his voice. "It's not something I'd want to try, and I am into pain… well, sometimes. Dieter's Dungeon is a place where doms send their errant slaves to be punished… to be seriously punished. Dieter's sessions are said to be extremely painful, even for one of us."
"You never risked as much as a glimpse?" Brian asked in surprise. "Weren't you even curious?"
"No," Alain said simply. "Taking unnecessary risks is the prerogative of the young and the foolish. I'm none of those things."
After Emmett had left, Alain contacted Four-Eyes and asked the Nosferatu scholar to check out the background of the new transgender club. What he learned made him decidedly not happy.
"I'm not sure that we should go there," he told Brian; Michael had gone out on a shooting with Brett Keller. "Apparently, the club is owned by a fake corporation, the trail of which leads nowhere. It's always suspicious if not even the Nosferatu can find something like that right away."
"They found nothing?" Brian asked in surprise. That was unusual. As a rule, the Nosferatu could find out anything a paying customer wanted to know.
"Oh, I'm sure they'll find it eventually," Alain replied dismissively, "just not before tomorrow. That's strange in itself; Four-Eyes is one of the best. But what concerns me more is that the description of the floor manager of the club reminds me strongly of Dancer."
"Ah," Brian said blankly. "It would be informative if you could tell me who the fuck this Dancer is."
"He's a transgender dancer, as his name indicates," Alain explained. "A very good one, actually. But he's also a Ventrue Antitribu, and a member of the Crypt-Ticks Sabbat pack. He's of Weak Blood – twelfth generation – but vicious and shrewd. Or else he wouldn't have survived the big showdown between the Camarilla and the Sabbat last year. Many of his fellow pack members didn't."
"Any you guys tolerate him in the city?" Brian asked with a frown.
Alain shrugged. "As long as he stays in neutral territory, there's preciously little we can do; one of the few disadvantages of living in a free Anarch city. Besides, alone he isn't particularly dangerous. The real danger comes from the company he keeps."
"Which is?" Brian urged.
"The Crypt-Ticks is a nomadic pack that wanders from one city to another, wreaking havoc wherever they take up temporary resistance," Alain explained. "They consist of Brujah, Ravnos and other such unsavoury characters. Dancer himself, however, is personally associated with Henry Taylor-Slash, who happens to be the progeny of Mohammed al-Muthlim, the Sabbat Bishop of LA."
"Which means that he might be the actual owner of the Femboi, right?" Brian said.
"It's a distinct possibility," Alain replied. "We have no proof, of course – not yet – but I have actually little doubt."
"So does it mean we aren't going there tomorrow?" Brian asked.
Alain thought about that for a moment. "I think we should go nevertheless," he finally decided. "We can't mollycoddle Michael forever; the pathways in the Dark are dangerous, and he needs to face this fact sooner or later. It's better if he does so while we're with him to protect him, if necessary."
"Define we," Brian said. Alain grinned and counted on his fingers.
"You and me, of course. Emmett, definitely; it's as much his show as hours, and besides, he'll fit in better than anyone else. Brett won't miss this for the world, and I think Dawn Cavanaugh will be interested to see the results before the shooting."
"And her presence alone would help to scare everyone to Final Death and into behaving themselves," Brian grinned back at him.
"Exactly," Alain prompted. "Aside from that, we might learn something about the Sabbat and Anarch clientele that will prove useful later."
And so it was decided that they'd go to the Femboi on the next evening, to test Michael's abilities to play a woman. Alain and Brian had great fun with showing Michael's chest, and once again, Emmett outdid himself to make a convincing woman out of him. Then they all got into Alain's corvette and drove over to the Femboi.
The Femboi turned out to be a seedy little club, with a stage for the dancing boys, separated from the club area by a cordon and small loges in the background of the club area, where the more… classy customers could sit and watch the performance. In the middle of the room there were small tables for the common crowd. Half of them were already occupied by what seemed to be the usual clientele in such clubs: sweating, unattractive men beyond their first youth, getting their rocks off by watching the dancing boys – or feeling them up for a tip.
The floor manager came to greet them at the entrance. He was – or at least seemed to be – and exceptionally tall woman: at least six feet barefooted, but the high heels he was wearing added at least another ten inches to his already impressive height. He had a platinum blonde wig, his pale eyes adorned with dramatic eye-makeup and long, false black eyelashes, and he used a lipstick several shades too red for his pale face.
"Alain," he said in a low, exaggeratedly feminine voice. "What a rare honour for our humble establishment. I always thought you'd require more… class from a club."
"Usually, I do," Alain replied bluntly. "This was a bet."
"One that you've lost?" the floor manager grinned.
"That's not decided yet," Alain grinned back at him mirthlessly. "Can you show us to our loge, Dancer? We've booked in advance… the one for Mr. Honeycutt."
"Sure, business first," the infamous Sabbat drag queen led them to their loge, took their orders and promised them that the drinks – containing various percentages of blood – would be served promptly. Before he'd leave them, however, he gave Michael an appreciating look.
"Not bad, my pretty one," he said, "not bad at all. Most people would buy the act from you. But take a piece of advice from a professional: real girls don't glare at guys so straightforward. A bit more coquetterie would improve your performance a great deal."
Michael bit his lower lip and gave the drag queen a coy look through his long lashes. Dancer laughed, and it actually seemed genuine.
"Much better. With a bit more practice you could make a great career on stage."
"Hardly," Michael replied with a snort. "I've got a voice like a crow; and my abilities as a dance performancer are not even worth mentioning."
"With looks like yours, nobody would complain here," Dancer replied, wrinkling his nose in mild disgust; he appeared less than happy with his current job, but apparently, even Sabbat vampires had to take low-scale jobs sometimes. "Talent is the last thing that's expected from our regular patrons."
Less than half an hour later they could see that the Sabbat hadn't been exaggerating. The dancing boys performing on stage were moderately pretty and relatively young, but rhythm was definitely not their forte. Neither did the drunken customers expect them to have any. The only thing expected from them was to show off their youthful bodies… and to let the customers feel them up for a tip. Which the drunken crowd did with enthusiasm, sticking dollar notes into the boys' G-strings generously.
The boys had stupid stage names like Catgirl, Butterfly and so on, and each and every one of them represented a certain type: a furry, a geisha, a nurse a chambermaid… The last one of them was a schoolgirl, and the moderator announced him as Sunshine.
To say that Alain and the others were thunderstruck would have been the understatement of the century.
"That little asshole is like a bad penny; he keeps turning up, no matter what," Brian commented in annoyance. "Do we really want to watch him shake his blond boy ass at everyone who's willing to give a buck for it? I certainly don't. We should leave."
"No," Alain said in an authoritative tone. "We'll stay here, lie low and try not to catch his attention."
"Why not?" Michael asked, puzzled.
"His mind has been wiped by Drusilla; he's not supposed to remember anything concerning Kindred," Alain explained. "But such extensive mind-wipes are always tricky. Memories can be triggered again, by strong enough motivation; and you can't deny that he was always strongly motivated when it came to Brian… or to you, Michael… pardon, Michelle."
"So, it's true then that the little shit used to be the thrall of Jean-Vincent?" Brett Keller asked in surprise. "And the Prince left him alive? Why in seven hells would he do that?"
"The Prince has guilt issues due to his past as the Scourge of Europe," Dawn Cavanaugh commented dryly. "That makes him unnecessarily queasy when it comes to cleaning out human trash. One day, it will be his downfall."
"I hope not," Alain replied seriously. His existence – and that of his undead family – depended on the Prince's favour to a certain extent.
Michael gave Dawn an uneasy look. The most creative Director of Photography of the Vigness Studios was an eerily beautiful woman, in the way a corpse would be beautiful. She had vaguely Asian looks, somewhat marred by her hollow cheeks; her chin was just a hint more yellow-ish than it would have been healthy, and made a sharp contrast with her bluish-black hair, jewelled dark eyes and small, blood-red mouth. There was something cruel and skull-like in her fine-boned features: the true nature of her Clan that she couldn't completely conceal, no matter what. Although they'd worked together since the very first shot of the first Rage movie, Michael couldn't quite suppress his dread whenever he was in her company. He was glad that she was, at least, on their side; at least he hoped so.
The howling of the drunken customers signalled the beginning of the next number. A skinny young man in a blond wig and a schoolgirl's uniform, high-healed red slippers and white stockings swayed onto the stage and began to wriggle around in what he apparently thought was a seductive way. It was Justin indeed, although the first cracks in his erstwhile prettiness could already be seen.
"Well… his dancing skills haven't improved much since the time when he was hopping around in the Babylon, in that stupid angel's custom," Brian commented nastily.
Michael gave him a jaundiced look. "Look who's speaking… besides, when did dancing skills ever count in the Babylon? What the guys wanted to see was exactly what our little Sunshine is showing his fans right now."
The thing he meant was Justin's surprisingly scrawny ass that he was now shaking at the half-drunk crowd, flipping up his skimpy little schoolgirl's skirt.
"He used to have a lot more flesh on his bones when Ma was feeding him," Michael said in mild shock.
"Debauchery doesn't feed one as well as people would think," Dawn Cavanaugh said dryly. "I should know. I have tried."
Alain and Brett exchanged wry grins. Older Kindred were well aware of the fact that – before discovering her artistic talents – Dawn had done her best (or worst) to give Hollywood the reputation of "Sin Capital of the World".
"Of course," Dawn added with such extreme dryness that it would have put the High Gobi Desert to shame, "I was never this cheap… or this low-class."
Following her disgusted look they saw Justin turn around and flip the front of his schoolgirl's shirt to show his fans his dick that seemed almost obscenely large compared with his outfit. Some of the patrons got up from their chairs, stormed forward to the railing and waved at him with dollar notes. He stood fro a while to let them look their full, sucking on his index finger in a falsely sweet manner; then he came closer with a toothy smile and allowed them to grab his private parts while collecting the money they wee offering him for that questionable privilege.
"Quite the downfall for the King of Babylon," Brian said cynically.
Alain shook his head in bewilderment. "And this from someone who used to study at the Belle Artis in Italy," he said, disappointed. "I mean, I know he's an irresponsible little shit, but he used to have some talent. Not enough to become a truly great artist, but with a little luck and a great deal of work he could have made a name for himself as a reasonably good painter."
"Yeah, but that's always been the problem with Justin," Michael said, more sadly than truly aggravated. "He always wanted everything right now, if possible without effort. He always expected people to do everything for him… and most of the time he even got his way," he looked at Alain pleadingly. "Sire, can we go now? The last thing I need to watch is Justin's dick going around from hand to hand."
"Believe me, I understand that," Alain replied. "But we can't go, mon amant, not yet. We must wait until he leaves the stage," he squeezed Michael's thigh under the table. "I'm sorry, Michelle. I'll make up for the inconvenience, I promise."
"I'm sorry, too," Emmett offered. "Next time, I'll find us something with a little more class."
They all grinned and turned their attention back to their drinks. None of them caught the hate-filled glare of the half-naked dancer directed at them from the stage.
~TBC~