Chapter 24

Dawn Chorus

uite apart from usual, Aix woke up after a whole nine hours, and kissed René’s cheek, even though René couldn’t feel it, and left the box bed, making sure to shut the door until it clicked locked, and then went to shower.

The guest bathroom was charmingly 90s mod, but René’s bathroom was… well, it wasn’t Baroque, like his bedroom, only because Aix suspected Baroque was too hard to keep clean; no, instead it was breathtakingly, unsettlingly, Gothically Nouveau.

A mosaic of tiny glass tiles mimicking the whorls and eddies of water (or perhaps smoke) in high Nouveau style covered the floor and the raised, organically-curvy dais under one of the false skylights, the tiles covering the sunken curves of the keyhole tub, which Aix had only ever seen an example of in one drawing. René’s was blues and purples, a pattern evocative of a pond, with shining brass faucet in the shape of a flower, and wide, deep steps down into the tub curved just right for laying in, the edges of it demarcated with dichroic glass in concentric ripples that mimicked the patterns of foam on water. Aix wanted to use it, but had a bit of difficulty getting a bath started—it was just so much time, and waiting, it was hard to sustain the enthusiasm long enough to have the tub fill and then soak there? With nobody to talk to or anything? He’d managed a bath in a clawfoot tub once, and it had been amazing, but it was difficult to get himself to do it again because of how awful his ex had been about him daring to do something that made Aix feel good…. But Aix wanted a bath, and a bath with René was possible in a tub that big….

Or… or maybe Cthulhu liked the water? Maybe. Aix wasn’t sure about the etiquette there, but tagged it for later, since he was going out to look at houses today….

The shower was just as beautiful, tucked away in a corner, another false window lighting it, the tiles in here paler colours of lilac and roseate and soft aqua blue, like a dawn sky. The quarter-circle curved archway had a door that was glass etched with an image of a lissom boy merrow, and there was a bench in the shower. Fresh black towels monogrammed with a black R were hanging on rods integrated into the copper pipes of the radiator system, warm and ready.

It made showering much, much easier, and Aix found he was able to gently re-align his association of lavender scent because of René’s soap, which was not simply harsh artificial lavender but was fine-milled, the scent softened with vanilla and probably a touch of musk or something. René’s waist-length curls meant Aix could share his hair products, too (and since Aix had less hair, he didn’t feel very guilty about it).

Aix wore perfume instead of anything from the deodorant aisle, and since finding out René was from perfume country, Aix had been hesitant to wear his various ‘body spray’ style perfumes from the store at the mall. He knew they were artificial, and not of quality; the knowledge of fine things was only a curse when you couldn’t afford fine things, Aix thought with annoyed despair.

Which was why he’d just been showering every day, instead.

…tomorrow, when you wake up, you are going to let Domine dress you in fine things.…

Reasonably that also meant perfume, Aix thought, particularly if René was from Grasse. It would be nice to have a perfume that suited him, that he could just keep getting the same one. He’d found a good one but a cursory search on the website for the shop said it was no longer being offered, which was frustrating.

Was there a Nez in Baltimore? Aix wondered. The idea of going to an expert and talking to them about their expertise was one of Aix’s favourite things; he was autistic, and one of his joys was learning new things from someone who knew everything about them. It wasn’t the same out of books or impersonal tutorial videos; Aix needed to learn from a person who was enthusiastic and good at explaining things, the old way people learned things: from autistic people with a special interest, Aix thought with fierce satisfaction.

Or, he supposed, was it changelings and fae with special interests? The idea he’d run into at some point years ago, that ‘changeling’ was how people understood autism, had been one he adopted immediately—it was nice to think of himself as being another sort of species entirely from human, because humans often seemed so alien to him. But then Heather had said he just… was fae, was an actual changeling, and that yes, in fact, literally everyone with autism was a changeling of some kind, even if they weren’t exactly fae, they were something, it was very much a literal fact.

That was very cool, but also weird as hell to think about. He had parents somewhere, different parents, which was just like he’d always imagined, as a child in a broken home, in a family that rejected and did not understand him. He wasn’t at all eager to meet them, not in his rational mind, that knew he had so much trauma from parents of any kind that he now mistrusted them as a whole group (and anyway, what kind of parents just abandoned their kid like that? Not good ones).

Still, it was sort of weirdly comforting, knowing he’d been right about something like that. It sort of made the rejection easier to understand, on the basal level that didn’t respond to therapy.

Why was he always so maudlin in the shower? He should sing something.

Hey, Daddy
Won’t I look swell in sables?
Clothes with Paris labels—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me!

Hey, Daddy!
I want a brand-new car,
Champagne, caviar—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me!

Here’s ‘n amazing revelation:
With a bit of stimulation,
I’d be a great sensation,
I’d be your inspiration—Daddy!

I want a diamond ring,
Bracelets, everything—Daddy!
You oughta get the best for me…

René heard the singing when he emerged from the bed, Michel waiting to feed him. Michel—a very beautiful and wonderfully tall black man with dark brown skin, another werecat¹—quirked a brow at René silently, smiling; René gave an answering smile and a very Gallic shrug, sitting down beside him on the chaise and settling into their favoured position, Michel sitting with his back against René, bending his neck and giving the beautiful, soft noise he always did when René bit him, his cock rousing even further, the human glans shifting to a feline’s smooth point covered in soft spines, Michel shivering as René gently stroked them, sweetening his blood with pleasure.

René hoped very much Aix would not interrupt; Michel was shy and spooked easily. The singing stopped, but the water didn’t, and after Michel had come, just as René was finishing closing the bite on Michel’s neck, the water stopped and Aix started singing again, his voice much lower and smoother now.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper, ‘I love you’
Bird singing in the sycamore tree,
Dream a little dream of me…

‘He’s very good,’ Michel murmured, his eyes closed.

‘He is,’ René agreed, still running his hands over Michel the way Michel liked, after an orgasm. The years of a cabaret needing a regular singer were over, but René rather missed them, and… but no, Aix was not merely a pretty boy, he was their witch, he had an occupation already.

Say, “nighty-night” and kiss me,
Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me
While I’m alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me…

Aix had to pause singing because he was brushing his teeth, and there was a knock on the door just as he was rinsing his mouth. Hurriedly splashing the foam away, he said, ‘Come in!’ and dried his face.

‘Good morning, cher agneau,’ René said, ‘or should I say oiseau?’

Aix ducked his head and covered his bashful smile, which René thought was particularly endearing given that he was naked, his hair slightly damp.

‘Are you ready to dress me up like a dolly then?’ Aix asked.

‘I am. Come, we will dress you and then go to see Ms Amber.’

‘Oh, I didn’t check the time,’ Aix said, following him.

‘It is afternoon. I will be as veiled as you, or take the car and stay inside.’

‘Ooh, well, it’s summer so I don’t want you to be hot…’

René chuckled. ‘Ah, chéri, do you know how long it has been since I have been permitted to leave this building without myself or my club being accosted by Ana or her police friends?’

‘Jesus,’ Aix said, and hugged René tightly, and for a long time.

René was—surprised, at the fact that he was so moved that his eyes pricked with tears, vision blurring. He hugged back.

‘So like, do we outnumber the cops in this town? Can we just remove them?’

‘Chou—’

‘I’m fuckin’ serious, dude! If they thought of her as a cop they’re gonna retaliate and I’m not having with that. Not in my steading! I can call Cthulhu’s people! I will go full Weirdmageddon on this!’ Aix’s anger was a little frenetic, because it was disguising real terror.

Ah yes, the modern terror of the police; and yet, for those now called queer, it was not so modern at all, but… what had Victoria called it? Generational trauma? René held Aix a little tighter.

‘Aix,’ he said, because he knew using the name would still his witch. ‘Aix, I have been a pirate against the East India Company, I have been a male whore with a brothel for longer than this country has been a country.’

‘They have a lot more weapons now,’ Aix said in a smaller voice, the anger washed away, uncovering the terror as he clung to René.

‘Oh, la, chou-chou,’ René said softly, holding him snug and safe, and feeling very old, suddenly, ‘but they always have a lot more weapons, or more spies, or cleverer disguises. But we are still here, chéri. We are here and they cannot be rid of us.’ He pulled back, cupping Aix’s face, kissing him, resting their foreheads together. ‘They are only the same men as they were through the past few centuries, petit. I would rather my witch were enemies with them, than friends of theirs.’ He pulled Aix close again, ‘You have freed me, and I will protect you.’

Which was something he had never done for Ana.

Not under his own will, anyway.

Aix held him, but it wasn’t so desperately panicked now, it was stronger, steadier, more grounded in the history René knew Aix knew already.

‘I can’t protect anyone from actual violence,’ Aix said, eventually. ‘I’m so scared, René. I don’t know what everyone expects me to do if there’s a real threat. I just got lucky, asking for help and—and Cthulhu and Michaela being here when the wolves were, yesterday—’

‘Mon sorcier, have you considered that perhaps that luck is your power? That the names you ask for help, that you think of exactly whom, that you can bring yourself to ask others for aid so easily, is the thing at which we marvel? It is not easy for everyone, doing that.’

‘It’s… not?’ But Aix knew it wasn’t, otherwise why would so many character tropes involve not doing it? Otherwise why would he have so many memories of being punished and abused for the crime of asking for help? Otherwise why would 2019 even have happened.

‘I… I guess I knew that, but I didn’t… register it,’ he said, as usual struggling with explaining exactly how he could know something and not apply it to himself until someone else connected the dots for him.

‘You are very friendly, you build community around you easily.’

Aix had nothing to say to that, completely gobsmacked. It was so totally, completely, and entirely the opposite of everything he’d been told and how everyone had treated him his whole life. He was autistic, that meant he couldn’t do those things, right? that was kind of the whole point. Autistic people got ‘rejected by their peers immediately’ as kids, Aix didn’t have friendships like normal people, had drifted transient through his entire life until now. He still felt transient, and having been on the street had made him feel like ‘Homeless’ was a status he’d never shake free of.

‘I… what?’ he said, sitting down on the nearest piece of furniture, utterly flabbergasted. ‘You can’t… you can’t be serious.’

‘You cannot hold yourself to human standards, chou-chou,’ René said softly, sitting beside him. ‘You are among your people now, you are home.’

If Aix was a changeling, he needed to be told that, to know that the effort he made all his life, the things he’d learned he needed to do in order to be seen as Polite and even Respectful no longer applied. The ways he’d been told he was wrong were just him being Faerie, and so far, René had seen him have perfectly reasonable and very charismatic social skills—for Faerie: He didn’t look at faces, he didn’t introduce himself, he didn’t sit ‘unnervingly still’, he didn’t ‘talk with nothing to say’, he wasn’t ‘suspiciously obliging’; in short, he didn’t make any of the mistakes that René had made upon first encountering Faerie culture.

Given he’d only ever been in human culture, though, he also likely didn’t notice this, not yet.

‘…Oh,’ Aix said, in a small voice. René hugged him, and got up.

‘Now,’ he said, knowing Aix did not like to linger on revelation, ‘stay there, petit, let us dress you… ah,’ he said, at the tapping on the door. ‘That is George, with coffee for you.’

Aix immediately got up, somehow George was in a category of People I Don’t Want To See Me Naked, and fled to the bathroom, knowing there was a robe in there, even though it was René’s and probably not big enough around. They were of a height, but René was smaller around the hips (not difficult—Aix didn’t feel big around the hips, but according to the measurements of most clothing, he was). It was soft terry, very plush, and deep blue, and Aix put it on, making sure it didn’t gape too much before going back out to see the pretty tea-cart with its carved wooden wheels and curvy rails, a tiered plate of pastries on the top, along with a porcelain coffee service for one. As Aix came closer, sitting back down on the settee George had stopped the cart next to, he noticed the sugars were little roses, some of them pink.

René laid out an outfit for Aix, expecting him to comment; but Aix didn’t comment, for a few moments, and René wondered why, looking over to see Aix busy calculating with his fingers… something.

Aix stared at the tea set and his hand, trying to figure—without scrap paper—how many cups of coffee he would need before hitting his limit of exactly six ounces, how much he could fit in the cup and have space for all the cream he used, and how many sugars he might need given that he didn’t usually even use white sugar but chocolate syrup.

He’d really gotten extremely fussy over the past three years, he realised with some despair and more than a little annoyance. The problem was that it wasn’t without cause—overdosing on caffeine was very easy and very unpleasant. Still, knowing that the coffee cups were exactly the right size, because it was an old and formal coffee-set, helped. George had stayed, and cleared his throat like a sheep on a far-off cliff.²

‘I can only have six ounces of drip-brew light roast coffee per diem,’ Aix said in reply, ‘but I add about four ounces of cream—I think, I never measure the cream. Usually I use my blender cup, and that’s sixteen ounces, but there’s five ice cubes and a jigger of chocolate syrup, and the six ounces of coffee, and then I just add cream and fill to the top.’

‘Shall I fetch sir measuring vessels?’

‘Oh—yeah, actually, that would be helpful, thank you.’

George shimmered off, and Aix, unburdened with the math he’d been doing, turned attention back to René.

‘Jasper would adore your coffee order,’ René said, with a smile. ‘But here, chéri, but these on first.’ He held out a bundle of black clothing, and Aix was just glad he’d either keyed into Aix only wearing black, or possibly remembered it,³ or was just as goth as he looked all the time. Aix wasn’t going to have assumed the goth thing, because René was usually in very dark blue, which set off his eyes best.

Aix untied the robe, moving away from the coffee cart and discovering the bundle was an old-style linen shirt, a pair of those lovely stockings of the kind René had been wearing last night, and slops with an elastic waist and modern piecing. The fabric was very dense, and the thread making it very fine, indeed; it had to all be hand made, from the roving upward, and was soft as a dream. Aix put his face in it, smelling cedar and lavender from the wardrobe, and sighed at how soft it felt against his sensitive skin.

René, back at his closet (the wardrobe by the bed was for sex equipment) snuck a glance at Aix when he heard the little moan, and saw the boy practically rolling around in the linens like a pleased cat. He smiled, but knew Aix was a little skittish, and didn’t want to spook him, so he went back to looking through his wardrobe for his more oversized pieces. Aix was narrower in the shoulders but wider in the waist and hip than René, but not by very much. Something that could be worn open, then… there was the coat from Siramargian, a recommendation from a film composer René had met years ago—

‘Is that a Siramargian coat?’

‘Ah, you know of her?’ Every conversation was making René feel more and more the comfort of being in the room with another fop, again.

‘My first job I worked at a bookstore and saved my paycheque for months to buy that coat—mine was red—and she had to custom make it because I have a ribcage that is apparently too small to be believed. It wouldn’t fit me now and I left it with a friend in Brooklyn a decade ago but oh my god her stuff is so good. When it arrived I stripped naked and put it on and it was so wonderful I came.’ Aix paused, as though he hadn’t meant to say quite that much, but René was pleased to see him relax enough to babble enthusiastically about things.⁴

‘She’s a good tailor,’ Aix concluded, and got up, coming over to René. ‘That looks… ahhh yeah, you gave her real silk to use.’ It was a black and blue brocade, with the edge in a plain black chenille, and a blue satin silk lining; the buttons were also different from the ones Aix knew she used—these were of finer quality, pewter instead of brass, and had a heraldic sea-lion rampant with a tiny sapphire eye on each one. The detail was exquisite.

‘Yes, and finer brocade. She was very accommodating. It would fit you, this one.’ René leaned over to kiss Aix’s cheek. ‘Go on, chou-chou, put your linens on and then you can wear this.’

‘You… you probably don’t have a waistcoat that would fit me, do you?’ Aix said, trying not to hope.

‘Alas, no,’ René said, draping the heavy, ankle-length coat over one arm and stroking Aix’s face with his freed hand. ‘But soon, chou-chou. Soon.’

Aix put on the shirt, and just as he was about to ask René to help with the little buttons, the door opened.

‘I need help with the buttons,’ he said, even so—because he was well-aware George was listening, and smiling a bit at the small sound of that little throat-clearing noise, which really did sound quite ovine, but somehow dominant. Aix very much hoped George was a dom, and was starting to find himself rather attracted to him. René smiled at Aix, stepping away.

‘Ah, George, did you wish to help the young master Aix dress?’

‘As you say, sir,’ George said, and Aix was trying very hard not to grin, though he wiggled, unable to help himself, biting the right side of his lower lip to stifle a smile—in vain. Still, as soon as George actually got to him, there was frisson, so much that Aix went a little wobbly at the knees.

Contrary to being rough, George was very gentle, manifesting a button-hook from somewhere and using it to fasten the tiny buttons of black pearl that fastened the shirt, each button carved in the shape of a tiny peony.

Aix sat down to very, very carefully put on the stockings after that, worried they were going to get ruined on him, because he wasn’t at all used to his feet not being a mess; but Michaela knew somebody in a small town in Tennessee that owned a salon,⁵ and even though the last (and only) time Aix had gotten a pedicure it had been a bad experience, he’d braved it because Michaela had assured him, and it had been very nice and now Aix had pretty toes again, and the fancy gel (which he’d gotten in hot pink with the white French tip) actually helped set them into the right shape.

Thinking of toes, though… Aix still couldn’t find sandals that worked for him, that he liked. He was Californian and from the beach, he didn’t like having to wear shoes, and had spent most of his youth barefoot or in sandals (he had very fond memories of a pair of platform foam and jelly strap sandals from when he’d been about thirteen, and often wistfully looked at all the similar ones on offer from the only goth shoe label in America, none of which came big enough). If René knew a shoemaker, though… Aix was very excited about that. He’d save up for months for good custom shoes if he just had access to a shoemaker.

The problem with the modern world was that it was so difficult to find the old professions, anymore; and when you could find them, you had to be super fucking allistic to communicate with them at all, and have lots of money for travelling to wherever they were.

But René knew a shoemaker.

Aix traced the curves of his own feet, fascinated by how soft the skin was now, and as always loving the plasticky smoothness of the fake nails. He carefully rolled the stockings on, and immediately realised they were not going to go much past his knees, so he folded them down, then put the slops on. It was novel, to wear such a garment—it was pieced in a modern way, but the rise was higher than modern clothes, which meant it actually came to his real waist, comfortably. He didn’t like how it looked, but it was comfortable and it fit, which mattered a bit more. He could recalibrate his eyes.

He went over to the tea tray, pleased with the glass measuring beaker and delighting quietly at the jars of hot chocolate mix from his favourite spice shop. He measured everything carefully, using the glass swizzle to stir the powder into a little coffee, then pour the rest in, and the cream, and finally had a sip of coffee. It was lovely, and Aix felt better afterward, starting in on the pastries—some of which, he found out, were savoury.

Which was about when he realised he didn’t see his shoes where he’d put them last night. He finished his bite of pastry, and said, ‘George, did you move my shoes?’

And George was just there at his side, which Aix very much liked. ‘I took the liberty of polishing them last night, sir,’ he said in that soft, smooth baritone.

‘Thank you,’ Aix said, feeling embarrassed about the state of his shoes—he’d only ever polished them a couple times, and they were bashed all to hell despite Aix only wearing them inside—but he managed to keep himself from apologising, because one of the things he didn’t like doing was apologising for everything, since he found it so damn annoying when others did that. Apologies should mean something.

René came to sit with him when George shimmered off.

‘How are you feeling, chéri? You seem tense.’

‘Just… highly aware I’m extremely poor and in a place that extremely isn’t, is all,’ Aix said, and tried to joke, ‘I can’t afford to breathe the air, here, you know?’

‘I do,’ René said, and canted his head. ‘But we are pirates, are we not? We steal whatever rich things we desire.’

‘That… makes me feel better, thank you,’ Aix said, sipping his coffee. ‘I forget. Because of all the…’ he waved a hand. ‘Online stuff.’ By now, he’d told almost everyone new in his life that for almost the entire past decade he’d only had access to online spaces for socialising, which had, he had to admit now that he had real-life examples, skewed his perspective, and affected him deeper than he wanted to admit.

René stroked his hair. ‘This is only a brothel, anyway.’

‘Is it really? Like, full-service, I mean?’

‘Mm, for those who aren’t mortal or human. Why do you ask?’

‘I just—it’s my favourite profession, I think. Because it’s so hard for me, and yet it’s sort of…’ Aix trailed off, trying to figure out how to put it. His favourite song about it was from a little-known musical, and the lyric was ‘you sell it your way, let me sell it mine’, addressed to the upper class women who fancied they weren’t whores, when it was simply unsaid that all women were exchanging sex for livelihood, whether it was directly for cash or bartering in a marriage—at least, that was the world Aix had grown up in.

‘The only profession, for those born with your body shape?’ René suggested.

‘Yeah, exactly! But like… even blue-collar work is selling your body, isn’t it? I destroyed my feet working retail, and—and for what? Nine dollars an hour?!’ Aix was still massively horrified about this, about the permanent damage that had done, and how nobody he’d gone to for help had even thought to mention this—or indeed, to help him.

Ah, René thought, there it was. The answer to the question. He held Aix, wondering if it would go amiss to ask if there was nothing to be done, truly, or if it was simply that Aix could not afford it by himself. But René had to be careful with gifts; he would wait, then, for Aix to settle, before giving more gifts. He kissed Aix’s temple. ‘Shall I let you linger, to lance your wound, or shall I offer you a new subject, chou-chou?’ he asked softly. Aix nuzzled into him, wrapping arms around him.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how to deal with this, that’s why it keeps being something I want to tell people, you know? I just—I don’t know what to do, I don’t know and I just keep wanting to grab people and tell them because nobody—nobody told me! I didn’t know! I just got told the pain would go away that I was just—just getting used to working again! When my arches were literally being destroyed and—and I can’t fix it!’

René held him, and kissed him, and finally, Aix said,

‘Does dressing me up today include perfume?’

‘Oh, la, chou-chou, I do not have perfume that would suit you; but,’ René said, taking Aix’s hands, ‘we can go and see Le Nez and make you an appointment.’

Aix squeezed his hands, which were nice and cool, and took a moment to admire his hands again; René hadn’t yet put his rings on for the day, nor his makeup, and his nails were long, and thicker than normal, and filed to a pretty almond, though Aix recalled René having told him that one of the few things correct in published stories of vampires was the ‘glass-like nails’—technically it was because they were claws, and could extend like a cat’s, though not with the same mechanism.

They were beautiful, Aix thought, and all the more for the tiny rhinestones glued to René’s. ‘I would like that,’ Aix said, and looked up into René’s pretty eyes. ‘Can I watch you put on makeup?’

‘Ah, you have a good eye—I know I put it on well.’

‘You do!’ Aix rushed to reassure him, ‘You do, it’s not—it’s not obvious, I just notice because I really like makeup. It’s my favourite magic.’

He chuckled. ‘Magic?’

‘It is! It’s the Beauty Magics.’

‘Are they so mysterious to you?’ René asked.

‘Oh yes! And just as forbidden as magic, too. Wanting to be pretty is a sin, you know,’ Aix said, with the satirical cheerfulness and flashy but brittle smile he used for mocking things he’d been taught.

‘Ah,’ René said, somewhat ruefully, ‘so, your maternal family’s Puritanism did not dilute, over the centuries.’

‘Oh not at all. It never does.’

George returned, and from the little squeaky steps with him, so had someone else.

‘Pippin!’ Aix said, turning and holding out his arms. She gave a happy beep and jumped into his lap with surprising gentleness (well, if you were used to cats and their disregard for their own weight). ‘How’s my girl, how’s my little beany-bean? Are those squeaker shoes?’

‘Ye!’ Pippin wiggled her feet, which were clad in tiny blue baby shoes that had little fox faces on the front, and from the sound with every step, squeakers in the heels. René smiled, seeing them snuggle.

‘I am glad we have found her such a boon companion, though the boys shall miss her awfully.’ He knew he hadn’t given his blessing overtly yet, and that Aix needed to be told with clear distinction. Pippin purred as he reached a hand out to her and she butted up against his palm, nuzzling and wordlessly asking for skritches, which he gave gladly.

‘Glad to hear you aren’t, um, upset?’

‘Not at all,’ René said. ‘I wish nothing but happiness for Pierrette, even if I cannot give it.’

Pippin jumped off Aix’s lap and went over to where George had set Aix’s shoes down (by the coat on the valet-as-in-furniture), picking one up—it was more than half the length she was tall—and carrying it over to Aix.

I help!

‘Aw, thank you, bibi,’ Aix cooed, noticing the shoe had been re-buckled and bending down to unbuckle it—it was messy, but his right foot had a bone callous on the tarsometatarsal, now, and it made shoes difficult. It also made not feeling visceral body horror difficult, because he couldn’t get rid of it himself and all he thought about when he looked at it or thought about it was cutting his foot open and grinding at it with a Dremel and that was not a happy thought, especially considering how sensitive feet were and how utterly sadistic and unhelpful all the podiatrists he’d gone to had been. He’d given up, though Victoria’s mention of a vampire surgeon in Brooklyn had re-lit that spark of hope.

He just wanted to stop having the intrusive body horror thoughts, really.

Pippin got his other shoe, and squeak-squeak-squeaked back over to him, setting it down and throwing her hands up, tail high and flagging cheerfully.

‘Ba baaa!’

Aix giggled. ‘Ba baaaa! Yay! Detu.’

Today, Pippin was wearing little dark blue gingham overalls with gathered ankles and a little blue t-shirt beneath—that covered her to the elbow, clowns were very fussy about that. They didn’t show their thighs or upper arms, not unless they were actively displaying for mates (or bathing). Aix had seen Pippin in the shower, she was definitely just small but fully grown; but clowns didn’t have a discernible yearly season, they just seemed to go into it like humans, whenever they decided conditions were right or the right person came along that they wanted. The short sleeves showed off her little wrist ruffs, which had tiny feathers but weren’t all down like the rest of her. She reached in the little front pocket of her overalls (Aix admired this; whoever had made that had made it for clowns, they preferred tummy pockets to hip pockets) and rummaged theatrically for a bit, her little tongue poking out, before pulling out in triumph a tape measure.

‘Un mètre ruban!’ René said, with theatrical surprise, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’on fait avec un mètre ruban ce soir, Pierrette?’

Pippin walked over and put the tape against the leg of the sofa they were sitting on. ‘Hmmmm,’ she said, with her Mask all in thoughtful frown. She went over and measured the tea-cart wheel. ‘Hmmmm.’

Aix was treated to the idea—difficult to convey in mime or words—of looking for a house that would fit Duckie and Pippin and Little Brothercat and Eight Foot Joe, this last of which surprised Aix into a shriek of laughter because that was apparently the nickname she’d given Cthulhu.

‘Sorry,’ Aix said, aware that—when surprised into that sort of shriek—it was startlingly loud and sudden. ‘She—we’re going to look at houses. Also she—she gave Cthulhu a proper clown name.’

‘Do not apologise for laughing merrily, chou-chou,’ René said, touching Aix’s arm gently in emphasis. ‘Come, I shall paint my face and then yours, yes?’

‘Oh, would you?’ Aix said happily. ‘Yes, please!’

Even wearing a veil, it was nice to know he was pretty beneath, because he was lifting the veil a lot more these days, hanging about with people who couldn’t catch or carry diseases of any kind. And, anyway, grooming was one of the ways he felt loved by others, and one of the ways he showed his regard to others.

‘Ear!’ Pippin mewed, and Aix picked her up immediately, which she quite liked. She hugged Aix around the neck and kissed his cheek.

‘We’re going to put our faces on,’ Aix told her, following René over to the vanity, and feeling well cared-for when René pulled over a comfortable chair near the little pouf in front of the vanity table—this latter of which he himself sat upon, and put on a headband of black towelling, and began.

Aix had seen someone do this, but only the once.

He’d been in a subway car in New York, one of the newest ones, that was empty in the middle and only had long, blue hard plastic benches along the sides, with poles in the middle. He always sat wedged at the end, against the guardrails by the door, because he liked to sit in corners, it helped with keeping your balance.

A lady had gotten on, bare-faced, and as the train started to pull away, making a long haul sort of go between stops, the lady pulled out a makeup pencil, and had begun to utterly transform her face. All the colours were almost invisible on her skin, but as she blended them in—quick, well-practised, passionless with skill—she transformed, and it was all the more magical for how Aix understood her to be doing it. That was concealer, that was a colour correction, that was doing this manipulation of light and shade and tone…

When the train had stopped, she was a different woman, and had simply gotten up and walked away to live the rest of her life that way, utterly uncaring, all unknowing of the awed child inside of Aix, gawping with the wonder of one who had witnessed a great working of magical power.

Aix thought about that woman a lot, about her magic, so casual and mundane to her, yet so sublime to Aix. Aix, who had been told that wanting to look prettier was to be frowned upon; Aix, who had been raised with the message that as a girl he was allowed to do anything he wanted as long as it was being a boy (but not a real boy, what on earth was he on about with this ‘I’m trans’ stuff, I don’t understand, you’re so girly); Aix, who had then had been sharply told, at the tender age of twelve or so, that all he was good for was sex, and that he had sinned by becoming beautiful. Well, not all of this in so many words, not in any words at all—those descended from the Puritanical English were not people who spoke about anything. But children, even changelings, will listen—even if they have been denied the words to articulate the lesson, they still learn it.

Aix watched René do the same thing as the woman on the subway all those years ago, turning up the vanity lights—they were warm, marvellously incandescently warm, and Surprise Pink, the perfect colour for putting on makeup—and starting to open the little drawers, taking out his jars and bottles and pencil-crayons. Being bloodless, René needed different illusions of colour and cream to give that undefinable brightness to his skin; but then, Aix saw lilac-coloured powder, and realised quickly this was not going to be an illusion of life, but something more artistic.

The cadaveric nature of vampiric skin only needed to be hidden before the 1980s, after all.

‘So,’ Aix said, watching René set everything out (could you call it mise en place when it wasn’t food?), ‘You are a goth.’

‘But of course,’ René said softly, as he lifted the lid-applicator of an old brass kohl container and started lining his eyes—the old way, by putting the tip in the corner, closing his eye, and drawing it carefully toward the outside corner. ‘You were in doubt?’

‘I don’t assume,’ Aix said.

‘It is truly stunning that you mean that.’

‘I’m autistic; when I say something, I mean exactly what I said.’

René hummed, picking up a slant-tipped pair of tweezers and sharpening them briefly before pulling the small mirror close. ‘Very fae of you,’ he said. ‘George.’

‘Sir?’

‘Where is our other guest?’

‘In the library, sir; he has been quite absorbed in linguistics. His speciality of study, I’m told.’

‘Ah, yeah,’ Aix said, looking away from René—he couldn’t watch plucking or anything that looked like it hurt—to look up at George. ‘He’s a grad student of linguistics. Oh, do you want George to hold you?’ he asked Pippin, who was reaching up for him now that he was closer and making little impatient noises in her throat.

‘Su! Su pae!’

René chuckled. ‘Quelle politesse!’ he murmured.

‘I believe you taught her that, sir.’ George said, submitting to Pippin’s request and picking her up under her arms, holding her close to his chest in a way that made him that much more attractive to Aix; Pippin immediately wrapped her legs and tail around George and purred as he skritched her ruff, Pippin making it sparkle blue and yellow and pink in happiness.

Do you like George, baby?

George my faebrit!

‘She says you’re her favourite,’ Aix told him, smiling. Pippin shared with him how happy she was to finally be able to tell George that, hugging his neck and purring as she rubbed her face in her feline (and definitely not clown-like) way against him.

I luv u George!

‘Aww,’ Aix said. ‘She says she loves you.’

‘That is most gratifying,’ George said, but the passionless façade cracked a little as he touched noses with Pippin’s little red one, and Aix could see a blush—blonds blushed just as obviously as redheads. Pippin beeped, of course, because that’s just what you did when you touched noses.

Aix glanced back at René, saw he’d finished with the tweezers, and was brushing on contour in a way that Aix envied—wearing glasses meant he had to get very close to the mirror to do his makeup, and that made it a little difficult to do the larger sweeping shapes that contouring required.

René paused. ‘Oh, you look envious, chéri, what is it?’

‘Glasses,’ Aix said. ‘It means I can’t really get farther than a couple inches from the mirror.’

‘Ah, well, I am here,’ René said, continuing. ‘Would you like to shave before we begin with your face?’

Aix thought on that, while battling the instinctive shame at acknowledging he had any facial hair—even the men in his family were shamed for having it, and he’d been raised thinking any kind of facial hair was a sign of slovenliness.

Why Duckie sad? Duckie need help? George help!! He a Helper. Pippin looked up at George and beeped.

‘Hep Duckie pae, George,’ she said, because apparently she could read Aix well enough to know he needed help but also needed help asking for help, and oh dear, Aix thought, putting fisted hands against his cheeks so the backs of his fingers could cool his cheeks (he was fairly sure he didn’t blush, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the emotion) and hide his face, at least a little.

‘That would be nice,’ he forced out, because there was nothing fucking wrong with this, there wasn’t.

Stupid trauma. Shut up, Kyle! Aix thought angrily, using the name he’d always called the nasty, mean part of his inner monologue.

‘I shall have to put you down, madam,’ George told Pippin gravely. ‘Do you think you can bear it?’

Pippin put a determined little pout on her Mask. ‘Hup. Ba pae, George.’

‘Very good, madam,’ he said, setting her down on the floor gently. Aix giggled as he realised…

‘Ohh, she likes you because she’s a Pierrette, and you’re very grave.’

It took the giggle from the vanity, the giggle that turned into René stifling his laughter, for Aix to realise he’d made a pun.

And then he got the giggles.

As both of them were not looking at him, George allowed himself a very slight smile that didn’t reach his mouth—Pippin saw, however, because he allowed her to see such things, and it was likely one of the reasons she liked him so much. She understood the art of being the Straight Man, of letting others make all the punchlines. George had been a clown, in his youth—of the professional variety, not the animal variety—and he understood them. Pippin was much, much older than she looked, and while he hadn’t known her, he’d heard of Smallest Pierrette from clowns he had worked with in his life as a human, and it was no doubt this was she.

‘I shall fetch the razor,’ he said, with a bow, and Pippin followed him as he left the room.

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