I met Alex in high school. He was a tall and lanky kind of guy, an inner city Black youth who managed to escape the mediocrity of his neighborhood schools with sharp wits and a lot of self-motivation. We attended an exclusive school in New York called Brooklyn Technical High School and it was there that I can honestly say that I learned everything that I needed to know to have a good solid foundation for everything that I would later experience in life.
I was a senior while Alex was a sophomore. Back in 1984, we always talked about the new kinds of dance clubs and dance music that were emerging. There were plenty of "Eurofags" (men dressed in black turtlenecks) and house music divas back then. Basically, any heavyset woman was a suitable candidate for diva-ship, the heavier the better, and the louder she could belt out a song, the quicker and more easily she was recognized.
Alex knew the names of all of the divas by heart. He was spewing out new names every week and it was hard to keep up with him. He always seemed to know who was the hot new diva of the week. Some suspected that he was linked to the underground culture in more ways than one and that he and I must be either gay or bosom buddies simply because we hung out with each other so much. Even though the school was in the roughest part of Brooklyn, I don't ever recall anyone calling anyone else a derogatory homosexual remark.
Come to think of it, I don't think kids yet grasped the concept of gaiety back in 1984. Everyone was still quite naive about everything. Abstinence? Why bother? Nobody did it anyway. The disco guidoes killed all the fun back in the late 70's. Talk to kids today and they're banging away at the tender age of 13 or 14. Homos and fags? These terms weren't widespread yet and they could have been left out of our everyday vocabulary if news of AIDS and other venereal diseases did not surface yet.
Alex was on the trailing edge of the disco thing. He would go to clubs every other weekend. In New York, for some odd reason, you can be 16 or 17 and get into almost any decent club. If you looked cool, bouncers didn't card you. Alex did the club thing for a while and then he did the DJ thing for a bit more. I never got into the club thing when I was 16 or 17 having planned a completely different path in my life by going to college.
I never thought our paths would cross again.
It wasn't until recently that I got a phone call from Alex. I recently produced a dance record with a song called "The Sound" on it and Alex had heard it. I sent it out to a record pool that he was a part of. He told me he remembered my name from Brooklyn Tech and never knew that I'd one day get into drag and dance records. I told him drag and dance music were in my heart all along. Going to school was more of a favor for my parents and now that I'm done with all of that, I felt it was time to work on and perfect my other passions, music being one of them, crossdressing being another.
Alex and I talked for a little bit and I found out he had a steady girlfriend who was "more mature" than he was. He also said that he had been working in various dance clubs as a DJ and lighting man since high school. I figure with more than ten years of experience in the dance clubs, he'd be pretty popular by now and I was right. He was one of the hottest DJ's in New York and went by a pseudonym. Only his friends knew his real name.
He invited me up to New York to a club he'd be spinning at on a Thursday night. For those of you who don't know, almost every night in New York is a club night, but there are certain nights that are more popular than others for a certain type of crowd. The drag queens in New York all liked Thursday.
Alex told me he'd put me and a guest or two on the club's guest list. He told me it would be necessary because this was the "new" hot nightclub that all the big drag names are going to nowadays. He said the bouncers even stopped Lady Bunny and Coco LaChine once because they weren't on the list. Cool! (Of course, Bunny and Coco bitched about it afterwards and promptly left.) I told him to expect me as "Kalina" and that I was bringing my girlfriend, Mary, with me along with a possible third person. "Great, looking forward to see you again," he said.
So you see it wasn't like I was going up to New York to see a guy I really didn't know. The truth is I didn't know any of his new friends and I'm sure things may have changed completely since 12 years ago. I didn't know what to expect was more like it.
The three of us took the train up to New York at around 10:00pm on a Thursday night. I was in full drag. Mary and I were both in black turtlenecks and black jeans. I wore a beyond-the-shoulder-length wavy wig with burgundy highlights called Sabrina that framed my face beautifully. If you've ever seen the cover of Gloria Estefan's Everlasting Love compact disc single, the one where she's wearing a glittery dress, that's what my hair looked like (I wonder if Gloria was wearing the same wig in that picture).
I wore an iridescent silver mixed with gold nail polish called Shocker that I got from Mary's salon. As I didn't want to be a total shocker to the people aboard the train, since lots of bright and heavy makeup spells "drag queen" from a mile away, I wore my makeup quite subdued and realistic as I usually do anyway, since I'm more of a glamour queen than a clown queen.
We got our friend, Dori, to come with us. Dori wore a white baby tee underneath her tattered blue jean jacket and jeans. It was kind of a dated look, but she wore it well. Dori proudly displayed her gorgeous figure, the type of figure that most models wish they had, if only they could afford the liposuction she had paid to achieve that figure! Regardless, Dori could turn any man's head, since she looked like she could be related to Madonna. She could also beat the crap out of anyone, since she took many aikido classes and carried herself like a tough guy.
You can say that Mary and Dori came along as insurance. In case anything happened to me, they'd be there to call for help or protect me. On our train ride up to New York, we were all talking rather loudly, but no one seemed to mind or pay any attention to us, since there were others who were also doing the same. I thought my low voice would give me away, but it didn't. One of the young secretary-like women in the seat in front of us had a voice lower than mine!
In New York, we took a cab to the Greenwich Village area where the club was located. Just as Alex had warned, there was a line forming outside the club. When the three of us stepped out of the cab and walked towards the front of the line, a big, burly bouncer smiled and said to me and Mary, "You must be Kalina and you must be Mary... and you?" Dori told him her name.
"How did you know it was us?" I asked.
"You mean you don't recognize me?"
I looked at him once, then twice. He was too big to be Alex and none of his features reminded me of Alex.
"I'm Shawn!" he said. I snapped out of my reverie.
"Oh, my God! Shawn! I haven't seen you in such a long time!"
I ran up to hug him and he was able to bear hug me, pick me up off the ground, and spin me around like some long lost girlfriend. I knew Shawn from Brooklyn Tech, too. He was a charmer, so the ladies were all warned about him. The two of us managed to weasel out of swim class, so we hung out at the library reading Penthouses.
Shawn kissed me on the cheek and I smiled.
"I haven't seen you in so long, babe. You look so sexy! So, how was college? Did you learn anything new?"
"It got me places," I said. "But I lost a lot of personal time, too, time that I could have used for music and clubbing."
"Nah..." he said. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd go to school, too. Hey, I'm a little busy now, but I'll stop in a little later to say hi. Alex is inside waiting for you. When he sees you, his mouth will be on the floor because you look so good!"
Shawn was always a flatterer. He knew a lot of good-looking girls back in high school.
"Hey..." Mary said. "Who was that?"
"Shawn, a friend from high school. He's the guy I used to hang out with at the library."
We walked into a long hallway with a coat check room at the end of it. Mary and I checked in our jackets; Dori kept hers on. We opened the door off to the right and was blasted by thunderous music and bright bluish light.
"Shit!" I exclaimed as the sights and sounds knocked us back a few feet.
We quickly walked inside. The walls were vibrating visibly in this place. If there weren't so many people absorbing the sound, I'm sure the music would shake something off a table. The ceiling wasn't very high above us, so the sound was bouncing off the walls in weird ways, creating an odd echo chamber effect. We walked over to the bar and grabbed a drink. I asked the bartender where the DJ booth was and he pointed at a door next to the dance floor.
There were already about twenty people on the dance floor and it was still very sparse. A song by Diva Convention came on and more people joined in. The DJ then played Madonna's "Evita Remix" and the crowd went wild and many more people stepped onto the dance floor.
Mary and Dori agreed to wait by the bar while I went up to meet Alex. I walked up to the closed door, gave a couple of knocks, and was led inside and up a flight of stairs by a club security guy. At the top of the stairs, Alex was in a little room overlooking the dance floor. He was getting the next song ready, but looked up as soon as I walked into the room. My new Organza perfume must have been overpowering the place.
Alex was as I had remembered him: tall and lanky. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt that displayed his lean, muscular arms. He motioned me to come closer.
Alex was now a well-known DJ, loved by everyone who loved good music. He gave me a grin and before he could play the record he was cuing up, he moved to a third turntable and started it up. The record on it looked familiar.
It was my little cow! My cow logo on Vacabala Records!
"You're going to play my record?! Cool!" I exclaimed.
He cued it up and it came on next. "The Sound" was playing and vibrating the club. I always make my dance music bass- heavy, so you can imagine that anything in the club that wasn't bolted down firmly was shaking like crazy. "Thunderous" was too weak a term to describe how good this record sounded.
Alex took off his headphones and stepped up to me to kiss me. I turned my face so he would only get my cheek.
"You look great, CK," he said. Alex always called me "CK" in high school. Those are the initials of my first and middle names.
"You, too, Alex. How is everything?"
"You're looking at it. What I didn't tell you over the phone was that I own this place. Well, co-own, actually. Shawn is a partner and a guy named Miguel, too. We finally bought our own dance club. We've been running this place for well over a year now. Only a month ago did we do some serious promoting and now here we are."
"It looks like a great club, Alex!"
"We're trying to get some famous singers in here, but we haven't been too successful yet. Mostly small names, but we're getting there. But, hey, you're my buddy. I know you, so I can get you a spot one night if you want."
I nodded and smiled.
"Well, let me get back to spinning. I'll stop by a little later and introduce you to my girlfriend. In the meantime, you might want to meet my friend, Jade. She's down by the bar. You see her?"
He pointed to the bar from our vantage point. Besides Mary and Dori, I saw a woman that towered over everyone. She was almost seven feet tall!
Jade saw us looking in her direction, waved hi, and gave us some smoochies. I headed back downstairs to the thunderous music. My song was about to finish and I could that see the people on the dance floor were very enthusiastic about "The Sound." I walked towards the bar and Jade greeted me with open arms.
"Hi, honey honey!" she said as we hugged.
Jade wore a green Vegas showgirl outfit with violet- and silver-colored jewelry. She did a little spin and I got to see how elaborate her outfit really was with all the feathers, sequins, and taffeta adorning it. Her legs were long, smooth, and shiny, just like a real Vegas showgirl's. Except for her height, she looked exactly like the type of woman many men dream of. Her perfume was quite strong, but I didn't recognize it. It seemed like a combination of both a man and a woman's cologne.
Jade's cheekbones were well-sculpted, almost a little too perfect. Her eyes were the focal point of her face and were sparkling green. Her smile was bright white and exquisite. She reminded me of Bo Derek. The only thing that ruined the illusion was her voice, which was a bit too nasally.
"Alex told me you came up to New York from Philly. I'm originally from Philly. I moved to New York when I was 17," she said.
"Yeah, Alex invited me and a couple of friends here. I heard this was the new hot place to be."
"Oh, honey, it is the bomb! We've got shows every Thursday and Saturday. We're open seven days a week. On some afternoons, we have a movie theater showing local films. This is like right after the dancing stops on some nights, so we're open from 9:00pm until way past noon the next day."
It took me only seconds to figure out that she was some manager or promotional type for the club.
"Are you originally from Philly?"
"Actually, I grew up in New York. I moved to Boston, then San Francisco, and then moved to Philly. I've been living there for almost eight years."
"Wow! You certainly got around. Where did you perform?"
"Actually, I never did. I'm just a club queen."
"Ohmigod, honey! You should be out performing! You certainly look darling enough! You would make the biggest tips," she said in a coy way.
"Thanks," I said.
Mary and Dori returned from the dance floor. I didn't even notice they were gone, since I was so engulfed in my conversation with Jade. The four of us had a couple of drinks, I got to dance a little with Jade, and, after an hour or so, Alex approached us.
"I got someone to fill in for me, CK. C'mon, let's go into the back. I'll introduce you to Kiki. She'll be performing a little later."
Alex held my hand and led me through a doorway and into a short hallway with a low ceiling, draped with cloths of various colors. Towards the end of the hallway, a large portrait was peeping out beneath the cloths. It was an autographed portrait of a prominent female impersonator from the mid-60's. I stopped to look, but Alex pulled me onwards.
He led me into a small dark room with lots of colored tassels hanging from the ceiling. Off on one side of the room was a lighted dresser with a full array of cosmetics. In front of the dresser was a pretty, petite woman who was applying her makeup.
"This is my queen," Alex said. "Her name is Kiki."
In her white sequined evening gown and four-inch white sequined pumps, Kiki looked a lot like a blonde Paula Abdul. She turned to look at me and smiled.
"And who's the new queen, Alex?" Kiki asked. She sounded very feminine.
"Her name is Kalina and she is from Philadelphia. I knew her as CK when we went to high school."
"'Kalina' is a very pretty name," she said with an alluring smile. She had a gaze that could make men melt. Her bountiful cleavage wasn't helping the situation, either, and I found myself trying to catch quick glimpses of the space between her breast implants. I'm sure she knew I was looking.
Alex passed my hand onto Kiki's and Kiki stood up, did a little curtsy, and bent down to kiss the back of my hand. She smiled and looked quite radiant. She was an older queen, as Alex had mentioned. I'd guess she was in her late 30's, maybe even 40. Alex with an older woman? That didn't seem like his style. Then again, I had been out of touch with him for so long.
"You are very beautiful," Kiki said, while still holding my hand.
"Thank you, Kiki" I started to say.
She giggled.
"You Philly girls are always so polite. Come sit in front of my dresser and let me spice you up a little so you can look more like a drag princess."
Cool! A chance to look really dragged up!
Kiki brushed her fingertips in a little pot and dabbed a film of gold glitter over my eyelids. She also dotted the sides of my face with the same gold glitter. She wiped my lips clean with a paper napkin and started them anew with a plum lipliner and a bright reddish-purple lip color called Red Raisin. She finished my lips off with a coat of lip gloss.
"Queens always wear lip gloss," Kiki said.
She called Alex over to help out.
"I've known Alex for eight years now and he's never mentioned you... Hmm, keeping secrets on your little Kiki, Alex?"
Alex explained that that night was the first time he had ever seen me in drag. Kiki continued her makeup application on me. Alex brought over a small shoe rack with some of the most beautiful shoes I had ever seen.
Kiki was short, but she had a size 9 woman's foot, the same as mine. I could fit into any of her beautiful shoes without any problem, but I was very hesitant in trying on anything without getting a look of approval first.
The two of them brought out numerous sequined gowns. I picked a gold-colored one with emerald trimmings and they approved of my choice. I slipped out of my turtleneck and jeans and into the dress. It was a little snug around the waist, since Kiki was a true size 7, but the rest of it fit perfectly. The gown had been altered so that it would be smaller than usual at the hips, so the hip portion was lying just fine on my hips and butt. The chest portion had a cutout part to show cleavage, but Kiki was able to dab some makeup in between my breast forms and blend my skin color with that of the forms.
"Kalina, I thought your chest was real. Are you ever getting your chest done?" Kiki asked.
I shook my head and told her the people in my job wouldn't like it. And, besides, I've worn my breast forms for days at a time and I got sick of wearing them after a week, so the idea of having permanent breasts really didn't interest me.
Kiki styled my wig and froze the style with hair spray. She hand-selected a really large pair of clip-on earrings that matched the gown I was wearing.
"I'll have to Krazy Glue them on, otherwise they'll fly off!"
When Kiki and Alex finished, I was astonished. I was absolutely and positively the most dropdead gorgeous and glamorous drag queen I had ever seen in my whole entire life. I looked so phenomenal in the evening gown and matching sequined pumps that I kind of doubled over, partially because of self-shock and partially because of a warm fuzzy feeling growing inside my loins. (Hey, didn't you ever get a warm fuzzy feeling after gawking at yourself in front of a mirror?)
"Eartha Kitt. Definitely a young Eartha Kitt," Kiki said.
Kiki switched her record player on and thumbed through some of her records, asking me if I knew the songs. Either I didn't known them or I didn't know them fully.
"Here's one I know you must know," Kiki said.
It was "Everlasting Love" by Gloria Estefan!
"YES!!!" I screamed as I went into my Gloria imitation, mouthing the words to the song to the beat of the music. I checked myself in the mirror to see if I looked as great as I felt. Of course, I did.
"Everlasting L-O-V-E! Open up your eyes, then you realize, words you can't deny... Everlasting Love!"
Kiki and Alex were cheering me on. It was great. Kiki moved up to me and pressed her chest into mine. We wrapped our arms around each other's waists.
"Silicone on silicone, baby!" she exclaimed in a delicious grin.
Alex moved in behind me and pressed his chest against my back, gyrating his hips around my hips, which forced my hips to move in sync with his (or maybe I wanted to move along with him?).
"So, are you ready to go on a show, baby?" Kiki asked.
I shook my head.
"I'm not ready yet," I said. I knew I had to perfect my lipsyncing, which was still in its infancy stages, before I did a show there. The club probably had a tough crowd and it was in my best interest not to make any mistakes there.
"That's okay. Take your time," Kiki said as she played the record again and all three of us danced and lipsynced to the song, bumping and grinding against each other, and I experienced the one of the most awesome adrenaline rushes in my life.
It was an everlasting love with drag that inspires this club queen to be all that she can be!