In the Year of the Cat (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

45. Monstrous Tempers

(Warning: This part gets a little rough. Viewer discretion advised.)

I sat before the mirror in Freddie's bathroom, the medicine cabinet pulled open. There I had found a motley collection of makeup products, various stage cosmetics that found their way home with him such as foundation (which I couldn't use, Freddie's skin was much more olive than mine), eyeliner, even blush. There were other things in the cabinet, like aspirin and a bottle of sleeping pills that I pondered abusing, but decided against it.

Still other, more relevant items lined the shelves, but I just pushed them to the back. I knew what was going down tonight, I didn't need a half-used tube of lubricant staring me in the face to remind me.

The clock had struck eight outside, and dinner was in the oven. I knew it was highly unlikely Freddie would bother coming home for dinner, but I had started a little something anyway. A futile effort, but an effort nonetheless. It had been raining since about three in the afternoon, the temperature at a constant seventy-five. The very definition of an English summer. Though not a hot night, it was certainly a wet one. I shivered, my skin feeling as clammy as it had all day.

"That's right, pleased to meet you- I still won't tell you my name," Vanity heaved through my phone's speaker. I had been forcing myself to listen to "Nasty Girl" by Vanity 6 on repeat for the past couple of hours in order to get in the mood. So far, there hadn't been much progress.

I had been wrestling passionately with my emotions, forcing myself not to break down and cry, even though that was the only thing I wanted to do. I was petrified, I was miserable, I was hurt. No, not just hurt, I was bleeding; my heart was dying the death of a thousand cuts. That's how it felt.

I'm going to disappoint him, I kept saying to myself. I won't be able to please him. I don't know how. He'll be disappointed and then I will be nothing to him. Just like that. Because as much as I care for him as a friend, as fond as I am of him in ways besides the physical, I am just a body to him. Oh, why couldn't we have just stayed friends?

Did I really have the right to be so shocked? Was it my heart's privilege to be in such agony? I had known this of Freddie all along. All of this aligned perfectly with his noncommittal attitude from at least late 1977 onward till the mid-1980s, a.k.a. the Prenter Period. Yet now it stung me horribly as I was reminded he truly saw me as just another link in the chain. Freddie's Chain of Fools. It hurt to think such things about him- but I had no choice. They were true.

Maybe I should just run, I mused.

"Yeah," I scoffed aloud. "Run where? Catch the British equivalent of a Greyhound and get off where? And do what?"

I tried to be clinical. To up and run was not a thoughtful thing to do. Besides, Freddie wouldn't immediately abandon me. He still needed me to cook tomorrow. And anyway, I had to offer something in return for his goodness. Freddie had been so good to me, regardless of the motive behind it.

I don't have much to give, I said to myself. Just my virginity. Hopefully that would be enough.

I nodded, swallowed, then bent over the toilet and threw up.

It was all well and fine to tell myself these things. But it didn't keep the tears from sticking in my throat, or my stomach from violently churning. This was not how I had wanted it to happen. It would be so cold, so dispassionate, no matter how hot he might get, or how hard he might thrust. How could it be called making love, when there wasn't any love in his heart for me?

Oh, God. Don't just stand there, do something.

And He did. It took me months to realize that's what happened, but He did.