Quicksilver
Peter decided he would only go out with Scott and the girls on the weekend so that he didn’t get into any bad habits and continue doing well with this schoolwork. A week after he’d agreed to the fake ID, Hope went over to their dorm room and showed it to Peter.
Scott took one look at it and said, “Hey, it looks better than mine.”
“I put a little more attention to detail on this one,” Hope replied. “So if the rest of us get caught, maybe he won’t.”
“Wow, real reassuring, Hope,” Scott said back.
Peter was just awestruck by the ID. It looked as real as any ID he’d ever seen. And then he noticed it was a driver’s license. “Oh, I can’t take this. I can’t drive.”
Hope and Scott looked a little surprised to hear this but then Hope shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t drive then. Just use this for getting into bars.”
“But what if there’s an emergency and someone says, ‘You have a driver’s license, drive us to the hospital?’ Except I can’t drive and I get us into an ever bigger emergency?”
“Peter, calm down,” Scott said. “That’s a highly unlikely scenario and it’s what ambulances were made for.”
“What if there’s not enough time for an ambulance?” Peter was very worried.
“Then we die,” Hope said with nonchalance. “And you get to be the sole survivor.”
“Works for me,” Scott said.
“Or I can hold onto the ID for you, Peter. If it makes you feel safer.”
“Wouldn’t really make a difference,” he replied and put the fake ID in his wallet. “But thank you. It looks really well made.”
“Thanks!” Hope replied, beaming at him.
That day, Scott added him to a group chat with Hope and Carol and the four of them talked about different bars that they could try their new IDs at. Carol suggested a gay bar where she’d seen an ad for a drag show and Peter was reminded that he wasn’t out to any of his new friends. No one said any derogatory comments toward the bar being gay or even tried to get out of it. Scott even said that it sounded like a fun time. Peter was boosted by this display of progressiveness that he spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how to word, “I’m bisexual” in such a way that he felt would make him feel good about it.
He’d forgotten to reply about the gay bar until Hope texted the group chat directly asking Peter if he was cool with a gay bar.
“Yeah.” He replied quickly, before going back to his brainstorming on how to come out. All he could think of was, “By the way guys, just so you know, I’m bisexual.” It seemed very wordy to him, but at the same time it didn’t seem like it was full of enough words. It didn’t feel like it had the impact he wanted either.
Hope texted back, “Very enthusiastic,” with a laughing with tears emoji and in a panic, Peter accidentally pressed send on his text. He panicked again, but once he realized there was nothing he could do about it, he took a deep breath and waited for responses.
“Awww shit me too,” came back from Carol.
“Same,” from Scott.
And then Hope finished it off with a, “I’m bicurious.”
The surprise and relief that Peter felt at each of those texts had much more impact than what he’d wanted his text to have. He felt even more lucky that he’d found friends that were even more like him than he’d thought.
“But mostly bifurious,” Carol replied to the group chat. Peter gave a little laugh. All his worries vanished and he was able to relax knowing that he was surrounded by people he could trust.
They all decided to go to a gay bar called Quicksilver on the next Saturday. Scott and Peter quickly got ready and headed over to Carol and Hope’s off campus apartment to pregame while the girls finished getting ready.
Scott made Peter a drink with rum and pineapple juice. Peter was expanding his horizons. And he thought Scott was a great bartender. “We pregame, so that we don’t have to spend money drinking at the bar,” Scott explained to Peter. “However, if you do get a drink at the bar, you should know it’s a gamble. No bartender is the same so they might not add as much juice as I do. But you could always ask for extra juice if you want. Also, you have to tip them. Same with the drag queens.”
Peter was nervous but excited. Nervous that he’d get caught and taken to jail for having a fake ID. Excited in case he didn’t and was able to get in. It would be his first time at a bar, his first time at a gay bar, and his first experience with drag queens. He still wasn’t sure what their deal was. “So are drag queens like...trans?”
“Some of them could be,” Scott said. “Have you never seen RuPaul’s Drag Race?” Peter shook his head. “Well I know what we’re bingeing next.”
“We still have like six seasons of Arrow to go though.”
“Look, we’ll finish up the season of Arrow, then take a break with a season of Drag Race. You’ll love it, I promise. There’s drama and art and drama.”
“I do enjoy drama.”
“But to answer your question, not all drag queens are trans. Most of them are men. But they all like to dress up and perform onstage. If you like them, you give them a dollar. Or several. It’s good to have lots of singles ready.”
“Like at a strip club.”
“Yeah, except we’re not gross old men trying to get some extramarital action.”
“We’re classy men just enjoying a show.”
“Exactly. And maybe next time we can go to the strip club if you want. I’m very curious to hear what Hope would have to say about that.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because she’s very much a feminist who doesn’t believe in objectifying the female body, but also very much enjoys the female body herself.”
“Oh right, she’s bicurious.”
“Yeah, that applies to the male species. She’s not much into guys, but there must be a part of her that she’s tried to repress that is,” Scott said with a laugh.
When the girls were ready, they all headed out. Peter held onto Carol to try and control his nerves. She thought it was cute that he was so nervous, but whispered to him that she was nervous as well. They took a metro train and walked a few blocks to get to the bar. They figured driving would just cost them more.
When they got to the bar, they all took out their fake IDs and one by one showed them to the bouncer. Hope went first, wanting to take all the risk. The bouncer looked at the ID for a second and then up at Hope and handed it back, nodding his approval. She went in and Scott was next. The same thing happened. Peter went in third because he didn’t want to go in last and he could feel his heart beating fast, but when he was handed the card back he smiled at the bouncer and went inside. Peter didn’t allow himself to breathe out until Carol was let in, which she was.
Peter relaxed and let himself take in the surroundings. The place wasn’t big. There was only one bar near the center of the space. To the left of the entrance, there was a small area in a corner where a DJ was playing at a booth and people were dancing before him. To the right of the entrance was a little nook with some couches to sit. Behind the bar were some tables to sit at in front of a small stage area which was currently empty. There were a few doors near the back which Peter assumed led to some bathrooms. As he looked around he caught glimpses of a few other doors with exit signs above them. It was a nice little space.
Carol went to the bar and ordered everyone a round of tequila shots. Peter was already a bit tipsy and he’d been so worried about even getting in and distracted by the fact that they HAD been able to get in, that he just took the shot without thinking about it. It burned on the way down and he almost coughed it up, but he gulped it down. Carol patted him on the back while Scott and Hope giggled about it.
They went over to the dance floor and Peter let himself flail around to the music. He was having so much fun with this friends that he was caught off guard when Carol suddenly said, “Oh fuck, he’s hot.”
Scott followed with, “Holy goddamn daddy.”
And Hope finished off with a, “Eh, I don’t see it.”
However, when Peter turned to look at who their friends were distracted by, he felt like he was frozen in time. The man who had just walked in was the most beautiful specimen he had ever seen. Combed blonde hair, form-fitting clothes that showed every muscle the man had, and a very kind smile and facial features. To Peter, he looked like an angel and he couldn’t look away.
The man walked over to the bar and eight eyes followed him. “That ass,” Scott and Carol said in unison.
“Alright, I’ll give him the ass,” Hope responded.
“That’s America’s ass,” Carol said with a laugh. The other three laughed at that as well. Peter forced himself to look away and keep dancing, but he glanced over at the man every chance he could.
The man got his drink and then went over to one of the tables in front of the stage just as the DJ announced that the drag show would soon start.
“Ooh, we should grab some seats,” Scott said, leading them over to the same tables. They chose a table closer to the bar than the stage in case they wanted drinks. The man’s table was closer to the stage so Peter was able to keep an eye on him. And he couldn’t stop looking.