While it didn't seem Jonathan had done much with his other belongings, the contentious dressing table had been installed under the window in Gethin's bedroom and populated with jewellery, make up and perfume bottles. Gethin's chest of drawers had been shoved onto another wall to make space, and a bright boudoir stool with a padded cerise seat set in front of it, looking far too fragile and small for Jonathan's powerful frame.

'Right, you sit you down on the bed and watch over my shoulder,' Jonathan said. 'Already shaved and washed and cleansed so there's a good base for the slap to go on...'

He spread a little skin-toned liquid onto a small sponge and began to apply it to his forehead with little circular motions, moving down to his nose and cheeks.

'I didn't start out with this sort of cosmetics, naturally, I began with greasepaint – now, that really was slap, of course, the whole point of stage make-up is so it's easier for the audience to read your expressions... used to be a bugger to take off at first, you get used to it. So this is simple by comparison.'

He paused to reload the sponge and began to apply it to his neck and chin.

'Even the most experienced women tend to forget to blend,' he said. 'Nothing worse than a tidemark.'

'Won't it spoil your clothes?' Gethin asked. 'Smudge, or something?'

'The teal dress has a zip up the back, can just step into it. Funny thing, though. The first question Luke asked,' Jonathan said, still working in the foundation, stretching his face as he did so, 'when I wanted to wear a dress to go out in, was 'Why?' I told him, because I bloody well can! Not sure I should have, in retrospect.'

'Perhaps it was the way he asked?' Gethin suggested. 'Because, there's being interested enough in a person to want to understand them, and then there's when someone asks something like it's a challenge...'

'Well, I like doing it, and I don't intend to stop. Just so we're clear.'

'And just so we're both clear, I wouldn't expect you to stop.'

'Okay, then.' Jonathan finished with the foundation, and moved on to eyeshadow. 'Green, I think, keep it simple.'

He took a small sponge-tipped applicator and dipped it in an emerald green pressed powder which he applied with care to his eyelids.

'Generally speaking, blue highlights green, and green highlights blue. It goes better with my eye colour, too. So, you've got a shop full of books on all topics non-normative-conformative downstairs, worked me out yet?'

Gethin thought about the shelf of titles to do with cross-dressing, transgenderism, transvestism, and shook his head.

'I thought you'd tell me, if you wanted. Didn't want to read something and make the wrong assumption...'

'Well, good for you, Gethin. Too many people just run with the first thought that occurs to them. The main point is, this is different from work; this isn't drag. Drag to me is performance art, Aunty Phyllis, one or two other characters – I've one called Shileen, but she's a cow, I don't bring her out in pubs, only on proper stages where it's further away from the audience so I've more chance of ducking the missiles... Drag is three layers of make-up, falsies – both sorts – towering wigs and affectations. This, these things, it's just fun. I like to wear nice things, and men's fashion these days, frankly...'

He paused to pick up a tube of eyeliner, twisted it open.

'Forest green, lovely dark shade. Avoid black, it's too harsh for almost everyone... need to concentrate a minute here...'

Gethin watched in the mirror as Jonathan stretched his eyelid and swept the tip of a fine brush across, leaving a dark, sultry green line behind. The process repeated on the other eye, then with more delicacy on the lower eyelid, just on the rim of the eye over the lashes.

'Does that hurt if you miss?' he asked.

'As in, do I poke myself in the eye? Not so often, not these days. I'm careful what I buy, some of them can sting a bit. And some have been tested on animals, not good. No bunnies were harmed in the making of this face, I promise you... costs more, but I feel better.'

He swivelled on the stool, and Gethin saw the difference just eyeshadow and liner had made; Jonathan looked exotic, beautiful, but still very masculine.

'You know, Gethin, a bit of eyeliner – very dark charcoal for you, I think, with a touch of shadow... or the darkest purple – you'd look stunning, it'd make your eyes really pop, sweetheart... not that I think I want anyone else looking too closely at you, you understand...'

'Well, not sure about that... but thank you.'

'Mascara next, and I will go with black for this, takes a moment or two, not quite as tricky as liner...'

He turned back to the mirror. A brush pulled from a tube, applied with care, up strokes, down strokes, cross-ways sawing...

'The fact is, however you want to dress it up, excuse the phrase, I like women's clothing, it's comfortable, easy... something Luke said when we were rowing, you know the day, that I looked like a man in a frock... well, that's what I am, really, when I do this. I'm not trying to pass for a woman, and I don't underdress – except when I must, for drag or a performance – but it helps me connect.'

He turned back to Gethin, making real eye-contact.

'Another thing I learned from RADA, you have to open yourself up to your feelings if you want to connect with an audience. You have to know how to show all the emotions clearly and with integrity. And that's hard, sometimes, bloody hard for a bloke. And, yes, I'm gay, but I'm still a bloke, Gethin, still struggle with all that stuff that women seem to do so easily; love and expressing it, and faithfulness, and compassion... I find that in a dress, some of the barriers come down; it helps me understand the people around me a bit better. I keep hoping it might help them understand me more clearly, too. Does that make any sense?'

Gethin nodded slowly.

'What I don't understand, though...'

'Yes?'

'All that stuff you put on your eyes... how come they don't hide you, how come I just see your eyes more? Bloody gorgeous, too...'

Jonathan leaned across from the stool and kissed him.

'Thank you. That's one of the sweetest, best-timed compliments ever.'

'Best-timed?'

'No lippy yet. Two more minutes, you'd look like you'd been eating straight from the jam pot.'

He turned back to the mirror and dusted a little blusher under his cheekbones, then went for the lipstick. Expecting him to pick a vibrant phone-box red, Gethin was surprised when he went instead for a more muted plum tone.

'Right, ready for clothes now,' Jonathan said turning back. 'Are you sure you don't want to try a bit of eye-liner?'

'Maybe another time? Possibly when we're staying in, not going out, would that be okay?' Gethin mumbled.

'That would be lovely. God, I can't wait, you'll be amazing to work with... right, where's that dress, will you help zip me up?'

Jonathan got to his feet and discarded the dressing gown he'd been wearing; beneath he wore only his briefs, and reached for the teal frock, stepping into it and pushing his arms into the short, capped sleeves, settling it against himself.

'Another thing, unless you have perfect arms, you need a little sleeve... got that zip? Perfect...'

Gethin pulled the zipper up the back of the dress, trying not to yank or tug. There was a little frill of gathered fabric at the top that helped disguise the fastening, and Jonathan's neck, beneath his hair, was temptingly revealed.

'You have freckles!' Gethin leaned in to kiss the exposed skin. 'I like freckles.'

'Well, good,' Jonathan said, turning, 'because I have a few more you've not discovered yet. But you carry on like this, and we'll never get out. Well, I just need gloves and shoes and a wrap. How long do you need to get ready?'

'Um... I thought I was...'

Jonathan ran his eyes over Gethin in a way that made him hungry.

'Well, the jeans are lovely, but I'm afraid that shirt's going to clash with me a bit... where are your clothes?'

Ten minutes later, wearing a dark grey shirt instead of the yellow tee he'd started out in, Gethin picked up his leather jacket and locked the door after them.

Arriving at the Frog in a Tutu almost an hour later than planned, they found it still not too busy.

'You been here before?' Jonathan asked.

'No, tend to stay near home, really. Or occasionally, the big clubs.'

'Not a bad place. Well? Buy a bloke a drink?'

Music loud, too loud to talk, and bright lights through the dark, illuminating the dancers in the open area. A DJ whose voice echoed and boomed, unclear, Jonathan leading Gethin through with expert familiarity, greeted by every other man in the place, it seemed.

Not that it was immediately obvious that some of them were men; many wore dresses, or blouses and skirts, and Gethin found himself grinning to himself as they wedged themselves at the bar and ordered drinks.

'You see?' Jonathan said, lighting a cigarette and holding it between elegantly-gloved fingers. 'There's a lot of it about.'

'No-one looking better than you, though.'

'You really think so?'

Gethin nodded. Jonathan had added no padding, and so the shoulders of the dress slipped a little, revealing his chest hair in an asymmetric sweep. But the colour of the ankle-length dress went beautifully with his hair, and that, combined with the cosmetics, simply made him more Jonathan, more gorgeous, than ever.

'You look amazing,' he said. 'See so much of you, like that. It's like – the clothes, the make-up – it just enhances what's there, the glory of you. Distilled Jonathan, if you like. Going to have to find a seat, though.'

'Oh, why?'

'Sit on my hands, or else I won't be able to keep them off you.'

Jonathan grinned.

'Who says you have to? That's what the dance floor is for. Coming?'

'In a minute.'

Gethin took a steadying gulp of his beer and allowed himself to be tugged onto the dance floor, Jonathan a glorious blue-green kite, himself the tail, possibly the string.

Jonathan didn't dance like he was in a dress, damn, just danced as if it he believed it was the reason for his existence, hips circling, swinging, every inch of his body expressing the music, creating it, making it his own, and Gethin following as best as he could, laughing when the swirl of skirts brushed his legs, bumping hips, mesmerised by the joyous freedom of Jonathan's movements, clasping hands for a few bars of rock and roll, taking his chance and ducking in under the windmill arms to grab Jonathan around his waist and attempt a body roll that would have worked better were he taller, but which still did what he wanted – brought Jonathan's very-fine-even-in-a-dress backside close against his groin for a hot, heady half-minute before Jonathan swung away to pull back in and shout 'Cheeky!' into Gethin's ear, and allow him to steal a swift kiss...

...and then the realisation that everyone else had cleared off the floor and it was just him and Jonathan, strutting, posing, posturing in perfect rhythm until the music ended with a long drawn out note, and Jonathan threw his arms around Gethin and drew him in, there and then, under the lights and the otherwise empty floor to kiss him, to pretend nobody else was there and focus just on him, only on him, as applause and catcalls rose around them, Jonathan's name shouted and repeated, and the DJ hastily throwing on another record.

Finally, Jonathan allowed the kiss to end.

'Funny,' he said. 'I never thought to ask if you could dance. Glad to know you have a few moves, there. I used to feel so silly, dancing with an amateur. You, now... wonderful!'

He linked hands with Gethin and they returned to the bar where their drinks were waiting, untouched. Gethin downed his pint swiftly, out of breath from the swift exertion of the dance floor, hot from the club.

'Another?' Jonathan suggested, and that set the pattern of the evening; a drink, half a drink, a dance or two, more tantalising proximity separated by the public privacy of the dance floor, quick kisses, swift squeezes, hips writhing for a second or two always at the perfect moment, and while Gethin would have liked to stay home tonight with Jonathan and the evening to explore each other, this was probably better, this not-quite-knowing and shared music and movement, this proper, formal date.

Towards the end of the evening, as they returned to the bar, hands hopelessly glued to each other, there were people in the space where they'd been, though, people who moved up to let them get to their drinks.

'Well, this is a surprise!' a known voice said. 'But then again, not entirely!'

Gethin laughed.

'Peter, Duw, it's a small world! Don't know if you know Jonathan...?'

'Oh, we know who each other is, I think...'

'Jonathan, this is my friend Peter, and his boyfriend Gordon...'

'Yes, I know Peter a bit. Not Gordon, so much... Ivan's friend, is that right?'

Gordon nodded.

'But I have lots of friends,' he said. 'Other than Ivan, that is...'

'Yes... how is he...?' Jonathan asked. 'Last time I saw him he'd just made a slightly unfair comment about my act... still, they do say, everyone's a critic... You weren't there for that bit, darling,' he added, looking fondly at Gethin before turning back to glance from Gordon to Peter. 'Well? Ivan? Out of hospital, in hospital, in jail, deported...? God, that sounds like the dreariest game of dibsies ever... How's his hand?'

'He's had to have surgery,' Peter put in, sensing and undercurrent and trying to get everyone to shore safely. 'Which is why he's still in hospital.' He focussed his eyes on Gethin. 'He was asking again if... anyone else... was likely to visit him...?'

'You should,' Gordon said, ignoring Jonathan and any claims he might possibly have on Gethin's time. 'He did get hurt because of you.'

'No, you can't blame me for that,' Gethin said. 'Anyway...'

'No, you should visit,' Jonathan said smoothly, his face too innocently concerned. 'Really to hear everyone talk, you were friends... not such friends as we are, obviously...'

'But... Jonathan...'

'Or, better idea...' Jonathan slid his arm around Gethin's waist and cuddled in. 'Why don't we both go? Tomorrow afternoon, what do you say?'

'Erm...' Gordon began.

'If you want, why not?' Gethin said. 'I'm sure it'd take his mind off things...'

'Oh, listen... I love this tune!' Jonathan tugged at Gethin's arm. 'Come on, dance with me? Nice to see you, Peter, Gordon...'

'I dunno, Jonathan,' Gethin half-protested as they reached the dance floor. 'Do you really think it's a good idea? I mean, if you want, we can...'

'Sweetheart, Gordon has been pimping for Ivan for years now, not that I expect you to know it. Or your friend Peter, who I quite approve of, by the way... no, Ivan isn't going to stop pestering you unless he sees you're otherwise involved. And you are, hope you know that. Very otherwise involved.'

'As long as you're very otherwise involved too, fine.'

'Well, good.'

'One question?'

'What?'

'Are we dancing, or what?'

'Bit of both, I think, it being a slow one.'

And after a little confusion about whose arms went where, they found an arrangement that suited them both, pressed close together and moving gently around the dance floor in a very different change of pace from previous dances. Somehow, in spite of being taller, Jonathan managed to put his face up for a kiss, and, blending in amongst all the other couples making similar exchanges on the floor, Gethin captured Jonathan's lips and began to forget about music, and Ivan, and anything other than the sensory bliss of holding and being held, being kissed and kissing.

The music faded, the dance slowed, and Gethin found himself looking into those Jonathan-plus eyes.

'Home?'

'Late supper, then home. Don't know about you, but I didn't get any tea. I know a lovely little place round the corner. Shall we?'