*

I couldn't be there to send Cryssie to the angels the way she'd wanted but I did speak at her funeral. Not at Mom's. I wish I could’ve thought of something, but every time I practiced saying even the most generic eulogy I ended up balled up on the floor trying not to lose it halfway through. I was there for her, I'd sung Harf for her, and that had to be enough. Mamaji wanted me to sing it for the rest of them in that Temple, but for one thing, it's not a Jewish song at all-- it references the Catholic Mary, for crying out fucking loud, and she knows that. It has nothing to do with that kind of mourning; it'd be a disrespect to the mourning songs that are already part of the service. For another, half of the people there didn't deserve to hear it anyway. Granddad was there, of course, and he ESPECIALLY didn't fucking deserve it. His face was wet with tears and snot from the beginning, of course-- a lifetime of terrorizing his wife, his daughters, his grandchildren (except for Ebi of course, the good one, the REAL man), and he's always the one crying in the end. Like the pain he inflicted on others was simply an extension of his own pain, the only pain that mattered. He's still alive and Mom's dead-- a god of justice, eh?

At least I didn't cause a scene in refusing to sing; they just chalked it up to grief (I feel the Rabbi would've agreed with me anyway). I didn't sing Harf at Cryssie's funeral either-- well, I'm calling it her funeral, but it wasn't her official funeral. Her official funeral was in a fucking Catholic church, so they didn't recognize her as Cryssie, of course. She was "Carlos" Sandoval, and it's how she'll be buried. Fuck them.

Anyway. Her REAL funeral was held at La Rosa, because that was her home. I wanted to be Marjan for it or at least Julie, but every time I tried to look like either of them I wanted to strangle my reflection. So I was near completely out of face, just subtle eyeliner and contouring, silver jewelry and silver-accented belt instead of my usual gold, black silk shirt, slim black slacks, black boots, hair moussed up a little extra, etc. Not quite pretty, but hopefully suggestive enough of a past beauty, one that Cryssie had always seen in me. Still far more comfortable than the regular suit I had to wear for Mom's. Not that that's what's fucking important anyway, ugh. I just knew Cryssie would've liked me to look good for her. She wouldn’t want me to “wallow” too much. I tried my best not to use before either funeral but had to relent to a bump each. Pat and the rest wanted me to speak first, because I'd been her apprentice, her daughter. I could refuse Mamaji and had good reason to, but I couldn't refuse Pat or anyone else at LR. And as I said before, I felt as though I had an obligation to after missing her passing. So I said:

[paper placemat attached via paperclip:]

"First of all, HER name was Crystal Sandoval. The obituaries in the papers and the assholes from the Church will call her something she left behind years before I even met her because they refuse to understand who she really was. Her name was Crystal, her name was Cryssie, she was a full-time queen, and no-fucking-body can take that from her, not even in death. None of us can allow that to happen.

I wouldn't be who I am today without Cryssie. When I met her, I was twenty-four years old but thoroughly unprepared for life. I was destitute, I was living in my car, I was doing stupid and dangerous things with men for drug money, and that was the only way I was allowing myself to do anything to and with other men at the time. I stumbled into La Rosa basically by chance. I knew it was a gay club, and I was afraid of it and afraid of myself, but it was better than going back to sleep in my car and better than trying to find work outside in the pouring rain. She noticed me almost immediately-- she told me I looked like a "bedraggled gutter kitten"-- and those of us who knew her know she's always had that mothering instinct. She offered me a place to stay and helped me get back on my feet, but not only that, she taught me how to feel actual pride in myself. Places like La Rosa and people like Cryssie save peoples' lives. More than that, they save peoples' souls. I really believe that. Churches can get offended by that thought as they like. I don't give a damn.

Cryssie never let me or anyone else get away with much and she always spoke her mind. She was probably the most critical out of everyone of me joining the band straight people know me for. She was afraid I was going to leave you all behind, leave HER behind, and never look back. I resisted the idea that I ever left her or any of you behind in any way. It hurt too much to think about. But in a lot of ways she was right. And I think in a lot of ways, a lot of us-- especially the men here-- have left our full-time queens behind. They became passe, they became embarrassing, they reminded us of too much pain, a pain we were able to bury but they never could, or refused to. But if we leave them behind we leave the heart and soul of our family behind. We need to do what we can in Cryssie's memory, but also and especially for the queens that are still with us.

I couldn't be the best daughter, but Cryssie was the best club mother a part-time queen could ask for. She deserved so much fucking more than what she got. She deserved the world. I wish I had more time to give to her even more than what she gave me. She saved my life and I'm not sure if she saved my soul, but she put up a helluva fight for it and I hope I can honor that fight the best I can, with all of you."

--Not perfectly coherent, but it was written on a paper placemat in ten minutes. I collapsed again in the bathroom, away from everyone else; I didn't want to become some dramatic centerpiece to an event that was supposed to be about Cryssie (and everybody's stories about her and relationships with her, not just mine). It took a few minutes before I realized I was in the stall I first blew Ricky in. The stall where I looked up at his gorgeous face, his beautiful smile, and he asked me if I wanted to spend the night with him. So much love in my heart, so much hope for the future. And now there I was, more than ten years later, a wretched thing curled up on the floor, heaving sobs into my arms, increasingly alone and not seeing any future at all.

--Later, I was able to hang around everyone, hug and talk and exchange condolences, but I wasn't entirely there at that point. I guess it doesn't matter. I was there enough to not cause any trouble for anyone else.

I keep thinking I can't hurt anymore than I already do when I can feel anything, that there's no possible way to feel more pain, and then it happens. When I feel at all I feel like I'm being turned inside out, all my guts and nerves on the outside, everything raw and exposed. A sort of pain that cutting used to short-circuit, but no longer does. Speed only makes a dent in it (and my stomach still can’t take too much booze at once, my throat can’t take smoking pot, weed cookies/etc take too fucking long to hit...). There's no true respite or escape from it anymore until my brain flips the emergency off switch and I go completely numb again. I feel a scream caught in my throat that I don't think I can ever let loose. The scream makes it harder and harder to sing. I have to sing anyway.

PS: Eli’s nearly three now, and toddled right on over to me at Mom's funeral to say hello before he went up to anyone else. A bright spot, in a way, but still one that threatened to rip me apart. I’m not anywhere near good enough to be this kid’s fucking uncle, regardless of what Anna believes. He’s still the only one I sang for that day, though.

*

Ricky,

I haven't talked to you in so long. I guess I don't want you to have to see me like this. I'm uglier now than I ever was with you. A lot of it is a necessary ugliness, a cold precise ugliness-- and I know you wouldn't understand that either, and neither did Ben-- but the rest of it is a fire threatening to burn me from the inside out. I try to starve it and it just makes it hungrier instead of simply dying. I'm on the precipice of so many awful things and I guess part of me cares enough to talk to you about it but at the same time, I don't care enough to seriously try and stop it anymore. Really, I don't think I can anyway.

I remember the beauty of when we first met, of being a young increasingly confident queen surrounded more and more by people who saw me and understood me and accepted me, of finding you and falling so in love with you (and you with me), and it feels like a heaven on earth or an Eden I was cast out from for daring to want even more for the two of us. Surreally perfect, dreamlike, untouchable. My life could have been that. And then you had to fucking die and turn everything back into a hell (and you never had any idea of the hell I escaped from before finding you to begin with). If everything's a hell, can you really blame me for acting like it? When in Rome and all that, right? If I'm a fire the way Walter apparently says I am (or at least, what he said to Greg)-- if I AM the fire, instead of the thing the fire's threatening to burn-- it's only because that's what I'm surrounded by, what I've had to live with and endure my whole fucking life, with only the most depressingly short respites from it. --Then again, god, talking to you about fire must feel insulting to you. You’re far too familiar with fire and I've never been burnt, I've never even burnt myself on purpose, so it's an even sicker irony, but I’m not sure what else to use as a metaphor.

What I have now used to be my dream. It used to be OUR dream. Would it feel any better if you were still by my side for it? Or would you have left me to fend for myself at some point the way Ben did? ...Or would I have been the one to do it to you?

I tried so hard for you, even after you died. I tried so hard for you, for Cryssie, for Ben, for Mom, for Anna and Eli. Hell, even for Shann, though that was more difficult. But there's nothing good left in me to keep trying, and nearly everyone I would try for is dead, gone, angry with me for reasons I can't fix yet, or far too good to bother when I’m like this. I’ve ruined things for enough people – you’re included in that (if you didn't meet me, you wouldn't have been at that party, so you wouldn't have driven home from that party). I don’t want to ruin things for anyone else.

I can't do anything to change what I am, but I am sorry for it. And I'll always love you, no matter how angry I get with how hubristic and avoidable and frankly fucking stupid your death was and no matter how ugly and awful I've become in its long wake. I hope you know, wherever you are, that you were always the brightest light in my life.

Always,

Jules

*

The only respite I have from my life, the only good feeling left, is sex-- odd to say after a lifetime of it being so fraught, and it being so fraught now for far less personal differently-dangerous reasons, but there it is. I know it's not completely safe, even with tests actually existing now. But I'm doing it as safely as I can and to hell with the rest. I'm not attached enough to life to care about the percentage of a percentage of a chance. We're so much smarter and more resilient than straight people think anyway, and honestly, I'd like to keep it that way-- them ignorant of our collective strength, that is. If they're going to be hateful enough to wish (or inflict, or attempt to inflict) death on us then they don't deserve to know about us. Fuck them. And I'm personally not good enough of a person to keep myself from wishing death on them back.

But yes, I've hidden myself – zipped myself up, one could say – in leather. It's been fun being more like Robby. It's a helluva lot easier than being Julie Rajani these days (god forbid being Jules Riley). And it probably suits me more as I age anyway. The top/left half of my hair is long enough to comb and tie back into a ponytail and do other fun things with again which is nice, but the natural prettiness Cryssie noticed in me is squaring off, aging, masculinizing. My heart's too broken by everything else to be phased much by it yet. I might do something about it someday. For now I'm leaning into it some. Less effort anyway. And other men're certainly interested enough in it, and I very much appreciate that, and I appreciate the way they've been interested in it and me-- I was worried I'd just look silly or completely unbelievable, but it turns out the secret to it all is acting like you belong already and going from there[67].

And the leather itself has such a weight to it that's surprisingly comforting. All that, alongside the fact that I've been able to keep most of the muscle I gained for the last little tour I did despite not wanting or being able to eat much, makes me feel almost good about myself despite other complicated feelings-- as close as I can get when everything else is the way it is. I've pierced my ears more, too. For the feeling more than anything[68]. It's quite a minor pain-- the couple “conch” ones being the most painful-- but a nice one and a productive one. And cleaning the piercings every night’s a nice little ritual. If tattooing wasn't permanent I'd think about that, too-- I can't say I'm not curious. I've heard some places are more painful than others. I can't think of anything I'd like permanently needled into me, though, and it still might not be safe regardless. The scars are enough permanence for me, and piercings can close.

Sex is the only thing (beyond force of habit) that's motivated me to keep in shape, honestly. Pain and sex-- sometimes combined-- are the only things that can cut through any sort of numbness. It can be distracting, too, though. Very. We'll be in the studio and I'll notice Nate's arms flex and all I can think of is maintaining a balancing act of looking at them long enough to make it last as a memory for later fantasies, not thinking about "for later" to the extent that I have to excuse myself and make "later" "NOW", and still also pretending that I'm completely focused on work (...admittedly, this is most difficult right after a bump). I dream about either terrifying things or about sex (sometimes combined). I wake up and need to rub one out before doing anything else, whether the dream was good or terrifying, it's disconnected from the need, and it’s never really about the dream, but if the dream was disgusting I'll still feel a disgust at myself after all's said and done. On the other hand, I also know it won't matter when all's said and done. I know it'll just repeat the next day until I can get my brain stuck on work instead of sex or pain or both or worse. I'm flipping thru porn as often as a teenage boy would want to[69], even though my imagination’s so often been enough. It doesn’t matter.

I've figured out ways to get to the raunchier clubs/nights without getting noticed for who I am-- the darkness helps, of course; the idea of Jules Riley showing up to a gay SM club in full leather flagging black right sounding like a bad joke also doesn’t hurt (...I guess that time in NYC rubbed off on me more than I expected it would). Most recent one wasn’t an SM club, just a strip joint. Ogled men with objectively-perfect bodies-- some already wearing only cock rings or jockstraps and boots, some eventually stripped down to that or to nothing-but-boots or nothing-but-harnesses and boots or simply nothing-- sweat and oil on muscles reflecting in strobelight; watched those bodies flex and bend, saw their pornstar cocks throb while they gave each other pornstar kisses and groped each other. Felt mine throb watching them. The music itself throbbed-- the DJ really had a perfect set. Started attending to my own throbbing without thought to myself otherwise, just staring around me in a daze. Eyes not able to settle for too long on a single thing because *everything (really everyone)* felt good to look at (does it even have to be said that it smelled amazing?).

Someone noticed me feeling myself up under the table and got my attention, gave me a grin and a nod that I returned, crawled under to suck me off. I had no idea if he knew who I was and I didn't care. I shifted around to let him do whatever he wanted, because I'd take whatever he had (and it was really something, him sucking my dick while I imagined sucking various other guys). When he finished me it was with one long, wide lick from balls-to-tip and I couldn't help but shudder in my chair, groan into my arm, bite into the leather--

I wonder if Nathan would think whipping and getting whipped is like crashing his bike.

ANYWAY. All of this is to say that it did nothing in the long run. I feel as starved of touch and pleasure as I've felt for months. I'm writing about it to feel it again because at least it's something I can feel-- but even that doesn't last, obviously. I'll feel another man's body and cum and feel alive for awhile and then it's gone again. I'll watch or attend or participate in more and more raunchy, kinky things as safely as I can and get off on/with them for awhile, anything that can sufficiently hurt or bruise or mark me without drawing blood, and then it's gone again. I'll get high and feel kind of alive for awhile and it's gone again. All that's left is a hunger that seems impossible to placate. Not just for sex, though that's one of the things. A literal hole to fill, so to speak (not that I've actually had that sort of sex since Ben... I think of it and I can only think of death, and there’s been enough fucking death. --Plus the mess with my legs). But also a metaphorical one that's been there for a longer time than I like to admit even to myself. Recent events have made things so raw that it's impossible to ignore all the things I used to. Nothing buries them anymore, just defers them for shorter and shorter periods. Everything's catching up to me. And yet, I still have an album to finish. Promotion to do. A tour to help plan and execute. I have to look and act like a normal person-- and not just that, a leader. Christ.

*

[67]I do sometimes still get a guy that’s skeptical, thinks I’m too much of a prettyboy to be serious about what I want from them– it’s either the hair or the voice– but they either move on or stick around n’ get taught otherwise, and the ones that stick around honestly might be the most fun.

[68]I guess physical pain’s the other thing I can always feel, and that can be a good feeling when it’s intentional – more on that later.

[69]I denied myself a lot of it when I was a boy– well, even the catalog/ad things that were actually available and close enough; strong men with lips curled in proud knowing smirks, shirt opened around chest hair, sitting wide-legged, cigarette in hand, hand on thigh; all far too suggestive and inviting to allow myself, my imagination too strong, too desperate to allow it anything– but still.

[lil author's note: can i just say i love that the 69th footnote turned out to be about porn. amazing. yay~]