You’re My Only Ho
@hartrps Merry Christmas!! 🎄🎅🎁
I honestly couldn’t tell you what this is besides a disaster? I thought that Manny and Isabelle had a much longer conversation about this, but upon inspection it was only a couple of text messages.
So I hope you enjoy this story that makes no sense, has no purpose, and will give you whiplash from the tonal shift.
Love you so much and I hope you enjoy your present!
The cardboard box sat open at his feet, the folds of cheap crimson silk and gold foam painted to look like leather facing up towards him. A one-off joke made real due to desperation and inability to do anything else.
Manny sat on Isabelle’s bed in her childhood home, the whisper of voices coming up the spiral staircase to meet him. Nothing that was said was registering though. He could only assume that Isabelle and Jessica were sitting around their dining room table, discussing the latest development in a long line of disappointments.
Only this time, the disappointment was him.
Or rather, his father, but what was the difference really? Santos and his obsession with recognition, with having his name in the mouths of the rich and fucked up. Who had wanted so badly to be brought up in the conversations surrounding San Francisco’s newest royal, so that people would flock to his practice, and he could start raking in dough that he didn’t need. Probably had dreams of seeing his name in Psychology Today.
Isabelle not wanting to speak to press about herself or her past must have been a real blow to him and his ever fragile ego.
What other reason could he have for leaking story after story to the press? Things that Santos and only Santos would know. How hard she’d been hit after the death of her father and how they had led to the panic attacks that were now, thanks to the Genovian monarchy, part of Isabelle’s everyday life. Her feelings of being invisible and inferior in their high school, how the changes of life could set off her disorder.
At that thought, his fingers clenched hard in the fabric as he remembered the series of panic attacks she’d had ever since this whole fiasco had begun. The one the very day Isabelle had met her grandmother, the queen, how she had called him for support when she couldn’t even tell him what was wrong.
Ever since that moment, non-stop incidents. Some rich fuck with too many rings and a fake Italian accent selling Isabelle out to the press for “the prestige,” which everyone knew meant money; paparazzi swarming the campus, following Isabelle to class, and camping outside of their apartment building for a chance to get a shot at her.
She’d spent weeks spiraling in anxiety, having an unprecedented number of attacks. They’d both missed classes over it; Isabelle because she was too afraid to leave the building, too busy forgetting how to breathe to do anything else; Manny because he was too afraid of what might happen if he wasn’t there, too scared to leave her on her own given the circumstances. He’d never felt so helpless.
Usually, he was able to talk her down, to distract her with stories about cryptids and myths and folktales. It was how he’d gotten the idea for his podcast after all. That way, even if he wasn’t with her, she could turn on a story and lose herself.
His stories had lost power though. No matter what weird fact or legend he dropped on her, distraction wouldn’t come. They had gotten bad enough that they’d had to sneak in a physician up through the laundry room so the paparazzi wouldn’t twist the visit into another story of defamation. Isabelle’s anxiety stuck and Manny’s heart felt like it was in a vice while he watched her suffer.
That happy thought forced him into action, pulling the two piece costume from the box and stripping his clothes off.
After a quick but horrifying lesson from Google on how to tuck his junk that involved words like wrap your scrotum and a newfound conviction that he wasn’t cut out for drag, he stood ready in front of the mirror. Tanned skin was on display in abundance, and he was a couple of inches away from an indecent exposure claim.
As he let his fingers trail his skin, ensuring that everything that needed to be hidden away was indeed out of sight, Jackie’s words from a previous conversation entered his mind, unbidden.
“You’re really going to let go of any impression of dignity you have left, huh? What, so she can lead you on again? That’s sappy and dumb, but congrats on the double hit.”
Was he really willing to sacrifice his dignity in order to boost Isabelle’s spirit?
The simple answer, yes.
Jackie didn’t understand love, had never been in love to understand. Manny didn’t care if Isabelle loved him like he loved her. That’s what love was. He would sacrifice anything if it meant providing her with a moment of levity amidst the chaos that was currently her life: his public image, his podcast, his collection of alien memorabilia, and, yes, his dignity. All of that and more. Manny would surrender everything for her, whatever it took for her world to make sense again.
But, given the circumstances, he would settle for seeing her smile again. Sense seemed like too far a reach these days anyways.
Besides, he looked fine.
He gave his own ass a smack for good luck and stepped out to the fireman’s pole outside of Isabelle’s room. After a final check to make sure his balls weren’t going to be putting on their own show from below Manny grasped the pole with one hand, draped his skirt dramatically over his thigh and descended into the kitchen below.
Manny kept his gaze straight ahead, not wanting the sight of Isabelle to crack his façade. As he dropped dramatically, one leg pointed out, free hand held out, wielding an invisible lightsaber, he decided to quote his personal favorite tweet as he neared the end of his journey.
“Help me, Obi Juan whoever the fuck you are!” he warbled dramatically. “You’re my only ho!”
“Good heavens!” The voice that rose to greet him was decidedly posh and European, and decidedly not Isabelle. It wasn’t even Jessica.
Ice filled his veins as he realized who the voice must belong to. Was he about to get sniped right off his pole? That had to be well within a queen’s power. Manny held himself rigid, muscles taut in his fighting stance, but he slowly relaxed when Joseph didn’t pop out of the shadows to end his life.
Isabelle thought she shared nothing in common with her grandmother; Manny would have to inform her later that they had the exact same expressions of shock, down to a very slight twitch in their left eyebrows. Jessica had her coffee cup to her lips and the silent shaking either indicated that she was terrified or holding in her laughter with Herculean effort.
Manny did the only thing he could do; he fanned out the front flap of his prisoner Leia costume and curtsied.
What was he supposed to address her as? His mind blanked out. “Sorry, you royalness,” was the best he could come up with. “If I knew we was having company, I would have broken out the silk skirt.”
“You should have seen the prime minister of Thailand after Drag Race premiered,” she responded faintly, hand pressed against her the spot just above her chest. “We wasted our entertainment budget on our Independence Day Ball that year; everyone simply gathered around him after a couple of gins and watched him try to walk on those stilts he called heels. No one cared to listen to the Norwegian cellist after that.”
He huffed out a surprised laugh at that and grinned across the kitchen. “Now that sounds like a party you’d hate to miss out on.”
“Yes, well…” Queen Clarisse lifted her hands in front of her. “It would be a shame to miss Independence Day Ball.” This was said with a look shot Isabelle’s way, bordering on pleading. Or what counted for pleading in the monarchy. More like a stern suggestion. “I’ll expect an answer in a week’s time. I do hope you’ll say yes.”
The queen stood and fidgeted with her handbag for a moment, as though she was deciding on something. Whatever it was, she seemed to decide not to go through with it. She turned on her heel and Joe immediately materialized from the shadows in the entrance hall to escort her, as she left in a flurry of cream.
Huh. So, Joe was a shadow shifter. He was going to keep that in mind for later.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Isabelle was out of her seat and across the kitchen in seconds, with a punch to the arm that lacked her usual heat. “What the hell, Menudo?” In the background, Jessica roared with laughter that quickly turned into spluttering as she inhaled her coffee.
He shrugged, unbothered that the Genovian queen had seen basically his whole ass and torso. She wasn’t complaining, so why should he? “I think she liked me,” he said cheerfully. “Didn’t ask for an introduction though. Bit rude if you ask me.”
“The rich so often are,” Jessica offered when she was finally able to breathe again. “And hey!” She came up and placed a hand on Isabelle’s shoulder. “Manny managed to buy you an extra week of time to make a decision on attending her majesty’s grand ball. That’s a win.”
Isabelle’s shifted from horror to recognition and Manny couldn’t help being surprised when her arms slipped around him, pulling him in for an embrace. “Thanks, Marzipan.” Despite the nickname, she sounded genuinely relieved. “Another week to figure out how to get out of going? You’re my only ho.”
It wasn’t the hilarity that he’d been hoping for, but his costume had resulted in something even better. Relief from badgering from the royal court, even if only for a week, would give Isabelle a much needed rest from some of her anxiety. As Manny slid his arms around her, he decided he was wrong. Drag wasn’t so bad after all.