Chapter 7
Tempest at the Red Garter

“I'm not gay, I'm just enchanted.”
 — Butch Ellis, Famous Drag Queen, Host of the Late Great Queen Mary Show Lounge, in Studio City, California

Growing up abnormal requires absolutely no effort to achieve at all. Circumstances and happenstance conspire to mold the truly deviant in a fiery furnace of melted ideals and liquid social delusions of normalcy. Good deviant metal is like a good carbon steel, born of a merging of different elements.

I think the next hammer blow on the abnormal anvil came when I was about nine years old. It was on one of many outings with my grandmother. My grandmother was a wee little Scottish lady who stood only about four-foot-eleven or so. She worked as a confection baker in downtown Denver, at the Top of the Rockies, which in its day was the height of fine dining in Denver. Literally. It was located on the 31st floor of the Security Life Building off 16th street.

My grandmother was quite fond of her tea. So, every Saturday and many Sundays, my grandmother would take me on the bus to different locations around town for a wee cup o’ tea. Or two or three. My granny could swill down a lot of tea. I didn’t like tea much, to my grandmother’s disappointment, but I did like going out and exploring new places. I was an insanely curious kid. My grandmother and I formed a delightful symbiotic relationship. Granny loved tea, and I loved going out and helping her locate places to drink tea. In the pursuit of this, I discovered all sorts of things other little boys my age had no clue existed.

Granny’s favorite tea-drinking place was in the old Woolworth Building downtown. It was a gigantic store for its day, taking up a full city block with its two, count ‘em, two floors of reasonably priced goods and services. Grandmother always made a beeline for the escalators going down and into the cafeteria, where she met up with her friends, and I was left to my own devices to run amok in the store. I had one hour to explore before having to check in with her, and maybe five bucks in my pocket. I never once stayed in the store, where I was supposed to. There was too much to explore outside. Particularly when I went out the back street door. Which opened up on the dark side of the city.

Across 15th street, opposite the Woolworth Building, dwelled sin. Hell, it was a veritable shopping center of sin crowded all into one block. Looking across the street, there were the windows for the Colorado Frederick’s of Hollywood Store. And next to that, an adult bookstore and arcade. And on the southwest corner, beckoning to my sex-curious mind, driving me over the edge, was the infamous Colorado Red Garter. One of, if not the last, surviving true Burlesque Houses, complete with red lights burning in all the upstairs apartment windows.

My first couple trips with grandmother I had merely done recon. I walked around the buildings trying to stop and peek in the open doors, and not look too conspicuous as I peered in the shop windows of Frederick’s, with those mannequins dressed all in marabou feathers and see-through fabrics, baby doll nighties, and wicked steep shoes with pointy thin high heels, mannequins wearing undergarments with all the best parts poking out of cleverly placed holes.

Wow! I had never seen anything like it. Who wore this stuff, I pondered. How come I never saw women on the street dressed like this? Besides the chill factor involved, surely women didn’t buy this stuff only to wear it at home. I mean, why make shoes and stuff only for inside. Shoes are meant for walking. And supposing one were to wear these shoes for walking, how was it done? Those things didn’t look like you could get very far. So many questions I needed to know the answers to, but they were all inside those buildings, and they all had doors bearing signs strictly forbidding me from entering. There had to be a way.

I would lie in bed nights, thinking of ways to gain entrance to these forbidden halls of knowledge. I considered disguises, or perhaps bribery. Maybe drill a few dozen peep holes, or I could pretend I was delivering something. This all wasn’t very practical, so I was left with but one option. I would simply have to walk in, and hope I wasn’t arrested, or something worse. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be arrested, but I had little knowledge of the law, and imagined it a possibility. Sure there was risk involved. But I had never been the type of kid afraid of risks.

I understood consequence as well. As an accident-prone child, I had attempted many highly insane stunts while playing, which had earned me stitches, cuts, bruises, and broken bones. It was almost a boyhood duty, steeped in tradition, to careen through life and test the hardness, sharpness, and momentum of different physical laws and objects that surround us. I even had a couple brushes with death. The risk in penetrating the underworld of smut seemed negligible compared to a good ole near-death experience. All they could really do is throw me out, Right? Or at worst I would receive a spanking with a belt. Big deal, that was no deterrent at all. So I girded my loins, puffed up my budding balls, and the next time we went to Woolworth’s, I went for it.

The results were amazing, if I do say so myself. My first foray was into Frederick’s. What an incredible place. I was entranced by the colors, the fabrics, the bare tittie mannequin. It was sooooo cool! This was where I first had the thought, looking up at a mannequin in a full satin nightgown and floor length peignoir and cute black marabou slippers, “I wonder how I would look dressed like that?” The thought shocked me, but at the same time it also seemed to make me happy. Then my crotch started to tingle delightfully and it was agreed in my body and mind, soul and spirit that...

I was a SISSY!

A pantywaist, a pansy, A twinkle toes, A nelly little poofta.

Sissy! Sissy! Sissy! Nah nah ne nah nah nah!

Of course, thoughts like that were followed immediately by a ration of shame that made me want to hide, but instead I simply ran out of the store and back to my granny and safety. Still, not before I snatched up a catalog of the store’s treasures by the door. At night I played over and over again what I had seen in my mind, and memorized the Frederick’s catalog cover to cover. That tingle I was always seeking was back, and then the shame in bigger heaps. Finally the shame and the tingling merged into one. A kinda joy-then-shame mishmash, that was to play hell on my psyche for years to come. It, however, did not deter me from following through with my plans.

The next time I went with grandmother downtown, I headed across the street, deciding on which place I was going to enter, The Red Garter or the adult arcade. While I was deciding this, I walked down the alley between the two buildings and made a glorious discovery. I discovered real magic in the heart of the city. The back of the Red Garter had several chairs sitting back there. And in these chairs sat two ladies, wearing some of the very fashions I had seen displayed at Frederick’s. Granted, they were covered by robes or coats, but this was exciting!

The ladies seemed unaffected by my sudden presence. They were back there taking a smoke break, and I tried to act nonchalant as I passed, like this sort of thing happens every day. I didn’t know if I should just walk on by, or if I should stop and try to strike up a conversation. And if I did engage them, what would I say? I didn’t know how to address such scantily clad ladies. My mind was screaming around in circles as I continued to walk past them. Fortunately, my dilemma was resolved simply by one of the ladies with red hair (Do you sense a red hair theme in my life?), and some of the prettiest green eyes I had ever seen, saying, “Hi there, sweetie!” The girls laughed.

I searched for a brilliant suave retort. “Ummmmmmm...hi,” I said, rather weakly, in a voice that was way too high on the treble and way too low on volume. But I stopped in my tracks.

“Ah, leave him alone, he’s just a kid,” said an older lady with green stockings, and a coldness in her eyes under brunette bangs.

“I’m not going to eat him,” The redhead replied, smiling at me warmly, “He’s just curious. Aren’t you curious baby?”

“Well, maybe a little.” I lied. I was curious alot.

The brunette stubbed out her cigarette, “Well, I’m not putting on a free show out here for some underage little prick. I’ll see you later.” And with that she turned and reentered the building. As the door opened, music blasted out and I had a tiny glimpse of the interior: very dark but shot with multicolored theatrical lights, cutting beams through the void and cigarette smoke.

The redhead seemed undeterred. “What are you doing back here, little boy?”

“Ah, ya know, I’m just walking, looking around.”

“Seen anything interesting?” She was teasing me. “What’s your name?”

“Brian,” I replied boldly, “What’s yours?”

“Tempest,” she said, sweeping back that ton of red hair like the name was supposed to mean something, and surprisingly it did to me. A storm, a deluge, an inferno. Even at that age I liked words.

“Wow, cool name.”

“Thanks. You’re a nice kid.”

“Hey,” I thought to myself, my compliment worked, she was flattered. It was my first conversation with a grown woman who was not my mother and I was doing great. I should try that again. “I like your stockings, they look like little diamonds.”

“Thank you, they’re my favorite,” she responded, running her finger up her leg.

Holy shit, I’m a regular ladykiller. I congratulated myself on my continental charm. “I think seam stockings are very flattering on a woman’s leg.” I had read that in the Frederick’s catalog, and it was a true enough statement.

“You seem to like stockings a lot,” she said, fixing me with those green eyes. Green eyes that seemed so kind and warm. They said something like “You can trust me, tell me anything. Your secrets are safe with me.” She smiled. “You’re a very sensitive boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I think I am.”

“Do you like girls?” she asked the questions so smoothly I answered honestly without hesitation, just to listen to her voice and not interrupt the flow. “Or do you like boys?”

“I like girls. I mean I’m only nine.”

“Nine years old is pretty old for some things.”

I didn’t know what that meant then, but once again it was one of those statements that has stuck with me over the years because it was such a mystery. I simply nodded my head as if understanding. It’s then that I thought, “She isn’t looking at me, she is looking in me.”

“I like you,” she stated firmly, as if making a decision. “You’re Fey, like me.”

“What’s Fey?” I asked flatly.

“We’re Fey, sweetie. You see, there are people like those people out there on the sidewalk. And then there are the Fey. The Fey are only pretending they are people, because there are a lot more of them than there are of us, and if they found out who we really are, they would not be nice to us at all.”

“Really, why?” I guess you had to be there, but to this day I would swear this woman was not crazy. She simply was what she said she was. Even at nine years old, I knew I was having one of those very rare conversations that happen only a few times in life, where something was being revealed that would change everything. A conversation that opens a crack up in the mystery of the world and lets you see something bigger.

“Because we’re magical. We do things different, we act different. That scares real people.”

“Magical?”

“Sure. You’re happy when you’re alone, you’re quiet and secretive. You dream dreams that you wouldn’t dare tell other people don’t you? You like places where other people don’t go, or are overlooked. You like lying under the stars. You talk to animals constantly, but not like people talk to animals. You talk to animals in their language.”

This was amazing to me, it was all true. Things I never would speak about, she knew.

“I can tell you are an artist. I can tell you have passion and love. Pretty things attract you and they are attracted to you. I can tell that you see things other people can’t, and you can do things that folks would tell you were not real or possible.”

All I could do was nod my head. “How do you know this stuff?”

She smiled and tilted her head. “Because sweetie, I know you.”

“You do.”

“Sure, we’ve been friends for centuries. I know you don’t remember. You are the type of Fey that doesn’t remember. Its ok, I’m the kind of Fey that does.”

“That’s cool,” I said honestly. I was spellbound. “Are there alot of us Fey around?”

“All kinds, I’ve seen fairies, Nymphs, Dryads, Satyrs, gnomes, Kelpie, Pookas, Elves, Dwarves, and lotsa beautiful pixies, all kinds. They live in the real world and they are all pretenders. They have real jobs and real families. A lot of them have jobs like mine. They are performers and artists. We like to touch, we like to feel things and we love to play. We like to play games, you know what I mean. We like jobs that let us play those games.”

Funny, but I knew exactly what she meant; she was talking about sex and selling smut in its many forms. I wasn’t as naive as I appeared. I learned things quickly.

She leaned forward and touched my hand. “And I’ve seen the bad Fey too.”

“Bad Fey? Like monsters? Real monsters?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen monsters.”

Of course I had seen monsters. She wasn’t talking about seeing with the eyes, she was talking about seeing with the gut and the imagination. Yeah, I’ve seen monsters, I thought, and they have seen me.

“Some are invisible and some are as plain as day. Succubi and Demons. Ogres and trolls and gnomes. They are not nice at all, they look for Fey like us, they will hurt us if they get the chance. We’re their favorite food. They like to eat pain, and the best pain is a magical creature’s pain because it’s pure and honest and sweet like you.”

I won’t talk about the truth of what she was saying to me at this point. But I will say, even as I write this, I know the truth of her words and what she was trying to warn me about. All true Fey do. All I will say is, Humanity is not the top of the food chain on planet Earth and what is edible on a human carcass isn’t always what can be seen or touched.

“What kind of Fey am I?” I imagined immediately she would say a werewolf, ‘cause they were cool with their claws and fangs and badass attitudes. Howling at the moon. Ripping through a fortune in clothes.

“You’re a fairy.” She stated flatly. She didn’t even think about it. One look and she concludes I’m a fairy. Ouch. I still did cling to a pretense of Macho, if nothing else as an illusion to make me think that I had a future as a heterosexual.
.
“A fairy? Fairies are girls.” I was insulted momentarily.

“Yeah, well, it’s a good disguise.”

“I’m not a fairy!”

“A lot of fairies look like guys. What’s so bad about being a girl. I like it. You like it too. I can see it. You just wear a boy skin like a cheap suit. Don’t be mad.”

It took a moment, but upon searching my feelings I was surprised to discover I really wasn’t mad at all. Perhaps I should have at least feigned offence for the benefit of my atrophied masculinity. What would be the point? What have the guys ever done for me? Hmmmmm. Lets see, A couple schoolyard fights, A bully situation I took care of by ambush, I ate a grasshopper once on a dare, a lot of stupid pain, and some hard won games of Dodgeball. Yup, the guy thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Besides, Tempest, whether she was crazy or not, was selling something much more alluring. She was selling a better explanation of my gender identity. It was all wrapped up in adventure, and magic, and monsters, and intrigue, and sex! How cool was that? It was the weird impossible truth behind what she was saying. That had me shocked and relieved. Being a changeling Fairy is far more palatable than being a sexually aberrant deviant.

Beyond that, the foreshadowing was uncanny. In case I haven’t made it clear, I am a weirdness attractor, whether weirdness recognizes me as one of its own or I, in the quest for new experience, seek weirdness out. We just seem to meet on the moonless fog-carpeted road alot, and sometimes we collide. I was sensing that this kind of meeting, with the type of person Tempest was, was going to be a recurring theme in my life. My life was going be wild!

There was no denying Tempest was special. She drew me out and made me want to tell her things. I told about my feelings, and my desires, my hopes, my dreams, and my passions. We talked about art, and beauty, then we talked about fashion, and clothes, and makeup, and corsets, and panties, oh my! It was like this giant release for me, and the things she told me seemed to make it all seem less confusing, less dire. Time meant nothing in the alley, and I had completely forgotten that my grandmother had given me a time limit. But I had so many more questions to ask. So many things to learn. I was ready to be filled with carnal knowledge in lieu of carnal experience.

“Tempest, what do you do for a job?’ I finally asked. I now had suspicion, but the details were sketchy.

She never did answer me. She was called inside, and had to go. She smiled at me very warmly, and touched my hand, and disappeared into the darkness. I felt sad, I felt desperate, I watched the door closing and I couldn’t seem to move. I wasn’t stopping it. I might never understand what went on inside the Red Garter.

Just as the door on experience was about to click shut, it stopped, seeming to halt as if prevented from within. The door was left ajar. Whether she did it on purpose or by accident, there it was. Tempest knew my soul, she understood my need, she was magical after all. Did I have the guts to pierce the veil?

Why yes I did.

I edged my way into the darkness of backstage at the Red Garter. There was nobody back there. I stepped back behind an electrical box, and merged with the shadows. I have always had a talent for hiding in plain sight, and it has served me well over the years. The music was loud; I don’t remember what it was exactly. I want to say it was Frankenstein, by those oh so pale Winter Boys. It did however have that nasty funk beat, and bass slapping style, I’m sure of that. Funk really is great fucking music. Whenever I hear it I think more about fucking than dancing to it. I had a perfect view of the stage area from my vantage point. But I could make out little else beyond the apron of the stage. I sensed that there were guys out there watching. I could hear the clink of glasses and such, But no talking. There is very little talking going on in a strip club. At least among the men.

Writhing around on the floor center stage was a full-on bonafide naked woman. It took a minute to recognize the woman as the one who was talking to Tempest earlier. Hands were coming out of the darkness and giving her money. And she was taking that money and doing the most interesting things with it, before it disappeared magically someplace I had no idea where.

The woman onstage was lit in a lavender gelled follow spot, which was flattering on her skin. The dull UV Light gave her a kind of ethereal glow, under her contrasting black hair. Perhaps I shouldn’t have looked too closely, but even from my disadvantaged vantage point, I could see the body makeup was caked on. The eyes were cadaverous. Though she smiled, the smile didn’t go all the way up to her eyes. The Joy stopped at her slightly crooked nose and died. Her movements were strange too. Kinda stiff and jerky like a clockwork creation. I think the movements were intended to be sexy, but at least to me they seemed scary. When she held her body at certain angles, her ribs slid under her skin, which was stretched taught over the frame. Her pelvic bones poked up and out of her nonexistent hips. I thought of The Day of the Dead festival in Mexico, with those gaudy painted paper mache skeletons, and a chill went up my spine watching her. Dead things dancing to me wasn’t very erotic at all. My first glimpse of the female body revealed, and I was kinda horrified.

Every once in a while when indulging a little self-abuse, that image of that heroin-wracked, female anatomy would pop into my mind from out of nowhere, and suddenly the last thing I wanted to do was masturbate. Quite often I’d either roll over and go to sleep, or better yet take a shower.

Tempest stepped out of her dressing room and stood next to me in the shadows. She was wearing a long silk kimono and carrying Two gigantic red ostrich feather and rhinestone fans.

“Well, what do you think?” She asked casually, making no mention of my presence. She knew I was going to sneak in. She had me in her spell. Though I questioned her motives, I am forever thankful for the experience.

“I like your wings.” I told her frankly, “They are beautiful.”

“I meant, What do you think of the dancer?”

“She looks kinda sick.”

“Yeah. She’s all eaten up.”

The music ended. The brunette gathered her things on stage, and exited towards us.

“What the fuck? I can’t believe you brought him in.” She hissed at Tempest without even looking at me. “He’s way underage. That’s illegal.”

“Relax sweetie, Don’t make a big deal about it. He’s cool.” Tempest replied calmly.

The evil brunette shot me a parting slash of a glance, then went into her dressing room.
Tempest set down her fans for a moment, and then slipped out of her robe. Holy shit! It was fantastic. This body was what it was all about! Pert ample breasts, curves, tushy, legs! It was all there, and if it wasn’t there, believe me, it’s not worth having. That old urge stirred in my pants again. This time it rocketed up my spine, smashed through my skull, and split the hemispheres of my brain in two. This woman was as naked as the last, but comparing the two was like looking at two different species. MY fire fairy’s body was built by an artist. An evil genius artist, with a great sense of line and form.

Tempest handed me her silk kimono, and stepped out onto the stage with fans in tow. The fan dance is a thing of the past now. I feel pretty lucky to have seen one of these acts live. Tempest’s fan dance wasn’t exactly the way it had been performed in bygone days, The ladies in the old burlesque houses weren’t working for tips. Tempest had to keep at least one hand free to collect from the patrons. Still Tempest was a whirl of feathers, and flashing streaks of Rhinestones. Backlit by floods set in the apron of the stage, Her silhouette moved like a jungle cat, with tiny muscle groups tensing and slipping her across the boards. It was flying with both feet firmly on the ground. It was pure sex magic to conjure an orgy. I was totally seduced.

“I’m falling in love,” I thought, just before this big hand grabbed my arm and yanked me away.

One second I was standing in the presence of a fallen angel in flames soaring in my mind, the next second I was blinking spasmodically, as the harsh light outside blinded me temporarily. This big dude with a bald head and a rumpled quasi-tux was standing over me, blocking the door he had just pushed me out of. This must have been one of the ogres Tempest warned me about. She was right; he did hurt me. My shoulder was aching from the way he pulled me.

“Stay the fuck outta here, you little shit. The next time you come back you better be 21, or I’ll kick your ass!” His face was beet-red and I knew he was in no condition to kick anybody’s ass. The physical exertion would no doubt explode his heart like a water balloon. The brunette was standing next to him, smoking another cigarette, and she sneered at me, snatching Tempest’s robe out of my hands. “Get out of here, you little faggot.”

I did get out of there, but I didn’t run. I walked away slowly, still wrapped in Tempest’s spell of wonder and sex. It was a feeling that lasted for years. I really had only one regret. I didn’t get to thank Tempest for her kindness, but I think she knew. I think Tempest knew alot. As I reentered the Woolworth store, my senses started to return. I realized my grandmother would be furious with me. But when I found her I discovered that only twenty minutes had passed since I had left her. I had experienced all that in twenty minutes. Incredible! It could have only been Magical. There was no other explanation.

– to be continued –