Winter advent 2011 - Day 7
adventchallenge Day: 7 Title: With Bells On
Fandom: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Pairing: Adam-Felicia/Tick-Mitzi (as played by Guy Pearce/Hugo Weaving)
Rated: R Words: 2831
Warning/s: drag queens (in case you haven’t seen the movie) swear words, brief sex scenes
Disclaimer: characters and background events created by Stefan Elliott (who also directed the Fish Heads video clip)
Summary: Tick’s son Benj hasn’t spent Christmas with them before. Tick is stressing out about his parental abilities and Felicia’s in a tizz about what to wear.
“That one’s going to get himself into trouble one day, and if you play your cards right you might just be the lucky fellow!”
Tick’s wife had said that a little over three years ago in reference to a man working at her casino in Alice Springs, completely unaware that Tick was already captivated by Adam, bitch that he was then. Bitch that he still is when he loses his temper, like now.
Clothes and accessories fly through the air along with “Shit. Shit. Complete and utter faggoty shit! Why is everything I own so fucking shit?!”
Adam retreats into his onstage persona when he needs to feel beautiful, confident, and appreciated. Tick’s son Benj was the one who pointed out that they’d get along better offstage as well as on if Felicia felt happier with being Adam. “Then you can get on with getting together” - cheeky little shit. Benj had been right, though. Adam/Felicia is an absolute catch, in menswear, drag, a towel, or nothing at all; clever, funny, brilliant dancer, stubborn, strong, with a wicked tongue - in every context.
Tick risks concussion from an airborne 12-inch platform cork-sole jandal to put his arms around Adam. “Everything’s shit compared to you.”
“You’re only saying that so I won’t go shopping!” Felicia tries wriggling free from Tick’s calmly tightening embrace. Tick digs his chin into the struggling shoulder.
“No, you can still go shopping. Your birthday suit may be the sexiest thing you own, but it’s hardly suitable attire for Christmas dinner.”
“You didn’t mind last year.”
Benj didn’t spend Christmas with them last year, that’s why. But at least Felicia’s getting back in her box. Tick and Adam have a bit of fun rooting about on the floor amid the mess Adam made of their bedroom, recalling how they’d fucked on every piece of furniture in every room when Adam first moved in.
“You’re such a root rat Mitzi. Poor Bernice always thought you were a nice girl,” Adam teases as he rocks his hips around Tick’s cock. “She blames me for corrupting you; you know that, don’t you?” He emphasises his powers of corruption by exaggerating his movements until Tick comes. “Aw, bless.” Adam smugly smiles down at him.
“Prick.” The pleasant motion on top of him stops.
Adam covers his drooping doodle with one hand and adjusts his hair with the other. His eyes focus on Tick’s chest. “Do you love me?”
“Do you really think I’d put up with you twenty-four hours a day if I didn’t?”
“That’s alright then.” Adam swings his leg over in a dramatic dismount and leans forward to kiss Tick. “Because I love you,” he adds quietly as he snuggles against Tick’s chest. Tick wraps him in a heavy embrace.
“Remember our first bus trip back from Alice with Benj? You two were having so much fun, so comfortable around each other. I felt left out.”
“Is that why you came onto me? To impress your son?”
“I worried that you only said yes to me because of him. Travelling with Bernice turned you into a bitch, but something about Benj set you free. I’d never seen you so vibrant, weightless, and irresistible before. Waiting for an opportunity to root you was torture.”
“You’ve certainly made up for that now.”
“I’m still jealous as all hell, of both of you.”
Adam reaches past Tick’s head for fresh underwear as they kiss again. They rummage through the jumble for the clothes they had on and Tick offers Adam his debit card once he finds his wallet. He pulls it back a smidgeon before Adam’s finger and thumb close over it.
“Don’t go wild with it. Two Christmas outfits only.” Tick repeats the action. “And you tidy this stuff away.”
Adam’s Felicia pout is sexy. Everything but Adam’s temper is sexy-no, that too.
“You’re fucktastically fuckable when you pout like that.”
“How about when I smile like this?” Adam smiles coyly.
“Yep, always.”
Adam kisses him while taking the credit card. “Love you. I just want our first family Christmas to be perfect.”
“Benj knows we’re a couple of drag queens, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“You’re a drag queen. I’m gorgeous,” Adam boasts while jutting his undie-clad bum at a flattering angle. Tick smacks it.
“Love you, too. Two outfits only,” he reminds Adam.
“Yeah, alright Scrooge McFuck!”
*~~~*
This seemed such a good idea until Adam saw himself in the mirror. Too sexy, sparkly, and bloody transvestite! This is supposed to be a bleeding family day, not some awards night at The Cross. What was he thinking?
Oh god, I don’t want to be a stepmother.
“Alright in there, Darl?” Tick sounds as though he cares more about Adam than the trauma they’re about to inflict on an impressionable teenage boy. If he sees this he’s going to be disappointed and humiliated in front of his son.
“Will be,” Adam calls back then mutters “once I throw up, grow up and start acting like a man.” He hooks false nails under the fringe of the curled, auburn wig but Tick opens the door before Adam gets it off. The bastard’s wearing a swanky suit!
“I was hoping you’d wear that one. I snuck a peek.” Tick’s eyes take a leisurely stroll over the silver, red, gold and green shimmering frock with chain-link shoulder straps, matching iridescent heels and nails, make-up and wig. “Very festive.”
“Fuck off,” Adam says tetchily. Tears prickle. Sobs threaten. He sees his fraudulently feminine hand grasping for the hairbrush to turn it into a projectile and hates himself. Wearing this stuff onstage is one thing, offstage it’s got to stop.
“We only get one first Christmas with Benj so it should be a thorough celebration. He’s dressed up too.”
“Not like this!” Adam sharply turns his head away, causing the tiny silver bell in each ear to tinkle.
Tick carefully moves auburn strands from Adam’s left ear so he can see the source of the sound. “Silver Bells has always been my favourite Christmas Carol.”
“Fuck off,” Adam says with less anger than before.
“Ask Benj, or his mother. And for the record, no man or woman can dress up like this. Why a beauty like you settles for a grumpy bushpig like me…”
Adam holds Tick’s hand to his cheek, closes his eyes, inhales deeply, then turns just enough to lightly kiss Tick’s wrist. “I suppose it’s too late to change now, anyway.”
*~~~*
Tick promised Benj it would be worth getting out of his casuals and into a suit.
“What if Adam doesn’t frock up?” Benj asked.
“Better for us to feel like an idiotic pair of tits, don’t you reckon?”
Benj concedes it’ll be safer too. He doesn’t understand why his dad and Adam are so nervous about today. They shouldn’t worry about upsetting him by not being archetypal blokes. He doesn’t think either of them are warped. Benj thinks they’re both great, particularly together. Adam brightens Tick’s solemn side and Tick curbs the worst of Adam’s excesses.
“You look incredible, Adam.” The effort he went to makes Benj feel like the most important Christmas guest since Jesus. Tick was right. The suit is worth it.
“Thank you, darling boy.” Adam smiles and drops a half curtsy. “You’re simply dashing yourself.”
Tick smiles proudly as he pours them all a festive tipple, only a small one for Benj, and raises his fancy glass. “Merry Christmas to my favourite young men.”
“Flatterer,” Adam murmurs with a dimpled smile as he sips his drink.
The present exchange is recorded on video, with the camera being handed around so everyone gets a turn, followed by a family photo, followed by lunch. Benj’s worries that they’ll be having a formal meal are squashed flatter than a baby bilby under a wombat’s bum. He grins as they sit on the couch with trays over their knees and eating off paper plates with plastic cutlery while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.
“This is grouse!”
Tick and Adam smile at him, then each other. Tick rather throatily suggests changing into casual gear later on for a spot of backyard cricket or …something.
“I’ve got enough to keep me occupied if you want to have sex.”
“Shit,” Adam and Tick say together as they lose control of their trays with Adam spilling his drink and Tick’s plate landing potato-salad first in his lap.
“Sorry, I’ll let Felicia fix you up.” Benj suppresses a chuckle, but not his cheeky smirk as he leaves them to fluster over the mess.
“Knew there’d eventually be a downside to the open and honest way your mother raised you,” Tick called after him while scooping potato-salad onto the plate.
*~~~*
“Stop acting like this is a disaster you drama queen,” Adam reprimands Tick while helping dab at the rented trousers with serviettes. “We have how many milestones to get through yet and you put all this pressure on me not to cock it up.”
“I do not!” Tick assumes full control of the dabbing. “I’m the one cocking up.”
“No you’re not.”
“Then why do I feel like Benj is yours most of the time and I’m just your mistress? I’m his bloody father but you’re the one whose ideas make him feel like part of our family. He interprets everything I suggest as a veiled excuse to have sex with you.”
Adam’s Felicia nails press painfully into Tick’s knees. False lashes add emphasis to his wide eyes. His padding bosom heaves. “You really think we’re a family?” There’s no Felicia-camp to the question.
Tick nods. His hands frame Adam’s face, fingers moving behind his ears so the tiny bells tinkle as they kiss. He loves Adam so much, it’s ridiculous. He balances the weight of each tiny bell in his palms. “Leave these in when we change, and at bedtime. Please?”
Adam nods and the merry sound makes them both smile.
*~~~*
The jingling sound follows Adam’s progress toward the stumps as he bowls Benj out. Benj notices how his dad watches Adam’s camp victory dance more avidly than Adam’s bum when he bends over to bat, how Tick smiles every time Adam and Benj goof around together, and how neither adult is trying to impress Benj. They’re just being themselves.
“Tick,” Benj asks once the three of them flop in the shade to eat ice-cream containing alcohol-soaked fruit, “would it be okay if I started calling you Dad?”
Tick’s been an absent parent for most of Benji’s life and isn’t comfortable with the term ‘dad’ as though it’s a title he doesn’t deserve. He glances guiltily between lover and son. Adam declares the decision is nothing to do with him by keeping his eyes on his bowl, although his spoon anxiously mushes fruit instead of transporting food to his mouth.
“Is there a Sydney thing I’m missing here?” Benj asks.
Tick answers carefully. “Not a Sydney thing…”
“A cultural thing, then? You can’t expect me to know everything about…”
“About our lot,” Adam says snidely. He brutally stabs a cherry and squirts blood-coloured brandy across the dried grass.
“Back in your box Felicia, he doesn’t mean it like that.”
Adam glares as he stands without uncrossing his legs, tips his melting ice-cream onto the grass, drops bowl and spoon after it, then flounces off inside.
“Bloody diva,” Tick mutters. Adam turns with one hand on a jutting hip as the other closes the sliding door. Stone-faced, he gives Tick the bird as the tinted glass obscures him from view. Tick scrabbles up off the lawn before Adam can lock them out. “It won’t change anything between us,” he calls. “Don’t be such a bitch.”
Benj uses the mobile phone Tick gave him for Christmas to call Mum and ask her how he might have caused offence this time.
“Isn’t it obvious, sweetheart? Adam’s Mitzi’s boy.” Once Mum explains her explanation, Benj decides to keep calling his father Tick.
*~~~*
The door is unlocked but Felicia remains implacable so Tick stays outside with his son until sunset.
““Sorry Benj. I understand if you don’t want to hang round til New Year like we planned. Want to catch a bus tour of the Christmas lights before they’re all taken down?”
“No. Try again.” Benj gestures toward the house with his eyebrows.
“What’s the point?” Tick asks dejectedly. He looks at each window facing the backyard, hoping to find Adam peering out in equal despair.
“The point is he loves you.”
“Wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Tick mutters to a dirty fingernail and continues plucking bark from the Banksia tree.
“He bought that bus so Bernadette couldn’t talk you out of bringing him to Alice Springs, and was prepared to hate me on principle. You weren’t even together yet. He’s only being a cow now because he’s jealous and scared you don’t love him as much.”
“Of course I bloody do! Why does he think I asked him along in the first place? Bloody troublemaker. There were half a dozen queens with more talent and experience, leveller heads.” There are hundreds of divas, but only one Adam. “You going to be right while I sort this out?”
“Der.”
*~~~*
Felicia sashays past Tick to go outside, mildly tells Benj to come in before the mosquito offensive begins, whirls back into the house, and hides in the master bedroom because he’s made a dick of himself. He no longer jingles with every movement. Tick aches. Mutual silence digs a deeper trench between them. Not knowing what to say lines that ditch with spikes. He hasn’t been in a relationship with a man before. His marriage to Marion hardly provides benchmarks for success. He leans back against the kitchen wall, pointlessly rolling a cricket ball from hand to hand.
“Let me have a go at talking to him.”
Tick doesn’t see how that can achieve anything, but it can hardly hurt. Benji knocks at the bedroom door and asks Adam to come out and watch a movie with them. The door opens.
“Which movie?” Adam asks haughtily.
“Your pick.”
Adam’s eyes flit toward Tick then back to Benj. “Alright then. Not bloody Top Gun, Tom Cruise gives me the shits in anything but The Outsiders.”
Benj admits he’s never heard of either film and shrugs in reply to Tick’s silent ‘that’s all it took?’ as they follow Adam’s swinging hips to the couch. The war isn’t over yet, but. Adam squashes into one corner of the couch and suggests with a glare that Tick should avoid encroaching upon his personal space. Benj sits between them.
Nobody’s paying attention to the movie. Forty two minutes in, Tick isn’t even sure which one it is.
“How’d you guys meet?” Benj asks without warning. Tick holds his breath. Adam shrugs. “How did you notice each other?”
“Your father kicked a shoe at some wanker and I laughed,” Adam said rather snappily.
“His cackling shriek made everyone stare and he lapped it up. We weren’t letting Felicia and her perennial limelight prance about with another fairy troupe.”
Benj ignored the potential for further bickering. “You knew you could lose Felicia professionally, as well as any shot with Adam on the trip to Alice.”
“Definitely would have if I’d left him behind. This inquisition isn’t achieving anything Benj, so shut up.”
“Don’t talk to your son like that. He’s only trying to help.”
“He shouldn’t have to. He doesn’t - get - certain things Felicia. You can’t fly off over every perceived…”
“I said I was sorry. What more do you want, a kidney? Benj knows I’m not pissed off at him, don’t you darling?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Adam dons an exaggerated ‘I win’ face.
“Your maturity astounds me, Adam.”
“That’s what you get for being a cradle snatcher.” Benj’s flippant remark makes Adam laugh, as does Tick’s shocked expression.
“New Year will be fabulous,” Adam says to father and son, “promise.”
“Next Christmas, too?” Tick’s meaning isn’t lost on Adam.
“Promise.”
*~~~*
The silver bells are back in Adam’s ears.
Tick watches them sway and listens to them tinkle as Adam sucks him off and then rides his hardened cock. Tick’s hands are all over Adam. He pantingly admits that he wants to touch Adam, inside and out, with every part of him, inside and out, for the rest of his life. “You bring so much passion into every hour, every day, all the colour would fade from my world without you. My wonderful, lovely, boy,” he declares in a hush with each thrust before he comes.
Adam knows he’d been foolish earlier, but he can’t help but ask in a deep, teasing voice as Tick makes him come too. “Who’s my daddy?”
“Mm-I am.”
“Would daddy like me to wear the bells next year, too?” he asks seductively, draping his sweaty body against Tick’s exhausted one.
“Every year, and nothing else unless Benj is here.” They kiss indulgently. “Nothing but me, anyway,” Tick adds.
“Promise.”
Fandom: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Pairing: Adam-Felicia/Tick-Mitzi (as played by Guy Pearce/Hugo Weaving)
Rated: R Words: 2831
Warning/s: drag queens (in case you haven’t seen the movie) swear words, brief sex scenes
Disclaimer: characters and background events created by Stefan Elliott (who also directed the Fish Heads video clip)
Summary: Tick’s son Benj hasn’t spent Christmas with them before. Tick is stressing out about his parental abilities and Felicia’s in a tizz about what to wear.
“That one’s going to get himself into trouble one day, and if you play your cards right you might just be the lucky fellow!”
Tick’s wife had said that a little over three years ago in reference to a man working at her casino in Alice Springs, completely unaware that Tick was already captivated by Adam, bitch that he was then. Bitch that he still is when he loses his temper, like now.
Clothes and accessories fly through the air along with “Shit. Shit. Complete and utter faggoty shit! Why is everything I own so fucking shit?!”
Adam retreats into his onstage persona when he needs to feel beautiful, confident, and appreciated. Tick’s son Benj was the one who pointed out that they’d get along better offstage as well as on if Felicia felt happier with being Adam. “Then you can get on with getting together” - cheeky little shit. Benj had been right, though. Adam/Felicia is an absolute catch, in menswear, drag, a towel, or nothing at all; clever, funny, brilliant dancer, stubborn, strong, with a wicked tongue - in every context.
Tick risks concussion from an airborne 12-inch platform cork-sole jandal to put his arms around Adam. “Everything’s shit compared to you.”
“You’re only saying that so I won’t go shopping!” Felicia tries wriggling free from Tick’s calmly tightening embrace. Tick digs his chin into the struggling shoulder.
“No, you can still go shopping. Your birthday suit may be the sexiest thing you own, but it’s hardly suitable attire for Christmas dinner.”
“You didn’t mind last year.”
Benj didn’t spend Christmas with them last year, that’s why. But at least Felicia’s getting back in her box. Tick and Adam have a bit of fun rooting about on the floor amid the mess Adam made of their bedroom, recalling how they’d fucked on every piece of furniture in every room when Adam first moved in.
“You’re such a root rat Mitzi. Poor Bernice always thought you were a nice girl,” Adam teases as he rocks his hips around Tick’s cock. “She blames me for corrupting you; you know that, don’t you?” He emphasises his powers of corruption by exaggerating his movements until Tick comes. “Aw, bless.” Adam smugly smiles down at him.
“Prick.” The pleasant motion on top of him stops.
Adam covers his drooping doodle with one hand and adjusts his hair with the other. His eyes focus on Tick’s chest. “Do you love me?”
“Do you really think I’d put up with you twenty-four hours a day if I didn’t?”
“That’s alright then.” Adam swings his leg over in a dramatic dismount and leans forward to kiss Tick. “Because I love you,” he adds quietly as he snuggles against Tick’s chest. Tick wraps him in a heavy embrace.
“Remember our first bus trip back from Alice with Benj? You two were having so much fun, so comfortable around each other. I felt left out.”
“Is that why you came onto me? To impress your son?”
“I worried that you only said yes to me because of him. Travelling with Bernice turned you into a bitch, but something about Benj set you free. I’d never seen you so vibrant, weightless, and irresistible before. Waiting for an opportunity to root you was torture.”
“You’ve certainly made up for that now.”
“I’m still jealous as all hell, of both of you.”
Adam reaches past Tick’s head for fresh underwear as they kiss again. They rummage through the jumble for the clothes they had on and Tick offers Adam his debit card once he finds his wallet. He pulls it back a smidgeon before Adam’s finger and thumb close over it.
“Don’t go wild with it. Two Christmas outfits only.” Tick repeats the action. “And you tidy this stuff away.”
Adam’s Felicia pout is sexy. Everything but Adam’s temper is sexy-no, that too.
“You’re fucktastically fuckable when you pout like that.”
“How about when I smile like this?” Adam smiles coyly.
“Yep, always.”
Adam kisses him while taking the credit card. “Love you. I just want our first family Christmas to be perfect.”
“Benj knows we’re a couple of drag queens, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“You’re a drag queen. I’m gorgeous,” Adam boasts while jutting his undie-clad bum at a flattering angle. Tick smacks it.
“Love you, too. Two outfits only,” he reminds Adam.
“Yeah, alright Scrooge McFuck!”
*~~~*
This seemed such a good idea until Adam saw himself in the mirror. Too sexy, sparkly, and bloody transvestite! This is supposed to be a bleeding family day, not some awards night at The Cross. What was he thinking?
Oh god, I don’t want to be a stepmother.
“Alright in there, Darl?” Tick sounds as though he cares more about Adam than the trauma they’re about to inflict on an impressionable teenage boy. If he sees this he’s going to be disappointed and humiliated in front of his son.
“Will be,” Adam calls back then mutters “once I throw up, grow up and start acting like a man.” He hooks false nails under the fringe of the curled, auburn wig but Tick opens the door before Adam gets it off. The bastard’s wearing a swanky suit!
“I was hoping you’d wear that one. I snuck a peek.” Tick’s eyes take a leisurely stroll over the silver, red, gold and green shimmering frock with chain-link shoulder straps, matching iridescent heels and nails, make-up and wig. “Very festive.”
“Fuck off,” Adam says tetchily. Tears prickle. Sobs threaten. He sees his fraudulently feminine hand grasping for the hairbrush to turn it into a projectile and hates himself. Wearing this stuff onstage is one thing, offstage it’s got to stop.
“We only get one first Christmas with Benj so it should be a thorough celebration. He’s dressed up too.”
“Not like this!” Adam sharply turns his head away, causing the tiny silver bell in each ear to tinkle.
Tick carefully moves auburn strands from Adam’s left ear so he can see the source of the sound. “Silver Bells has always been my favourite Christmas Carol.”
“Fuck off,” Adam says with less anger than before.
“Ask Benj, or his mother. And for the record, no man or woman can dress up like this. Why a beauty like you settles for a grumpy bushpig like me…”
Adam holds Tick’s hand to his cheek, closes his eyes, inhales deeply, then turns just enough to lightly kiss Tick’s wrist. “I suppose it’s too late to change now, anyway.”
*~~~*
Tick promised Benj it would be worth getting out of his casuals and into a suit.
“What if Adam doesn’t frock up?” Benj asked.
“Better for us to feel like an idiotic pair of tits, don’t you reckon?”
Benj concedes it’ll be safer too. He doesn’t understand why his dad and Adam are so nervous about today. They shouldn’t worry about upsetting him by not being archetypal blokes. He doesn’t think either of them are warped. Benj thinks they’re both great, particularly together. Adam brightens Tick’s solemn side and Tick curbs the worst of Adam’s excesses.
“You look incredible, Adam.” The effort he went to makes Benj feel like the most important Christmas guest since Jesus. Tick was right. The suit is worth it.
“Thank you, darling boy.” Adam smiles and drops a half curtsy. “You’re simply dashing yourself.”
Tick smiles proudly as he pours them all a festive tipple, only a small one for Benj, and raises his fancy glass. “Merry Christmas to my favourite young men.”
“Flatterer,” Adam murmurs with a dimpled smile as he sips his drink.
The present exchange is recorded on video, with the camera being handed around so everyone gets a turn, followed by a family photo, followed by lunch. Benj’s worries that they’ll be having a formal meal are squashed flatter than a baby bilby under a wombat’s bum. He grins as they sit on the couch with trays over their knees and eating off paper plates with plastic cutlery while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas.
“This is grouse!”
Tick and Adam smile at him, then each other. Tick rather throatily suggests changing into casual gear later on for a spot of backyard cricket or …something.
“I’ve got enough to keep me occupied if you want to have sex.”
“Shit,” Adam and Tick say together as they lose control of their trays with Adam spilling his drink and Tick’s plate landing potato-salad first in his lap.
“Sorry, I’ll let Felicia fix you up.” Benj suppresses a chuckle, but not his cheeky smirk as he leaves them to fluster over the mess.
“Knew there’d eventually be a downside to the open and honest way your mother raised you,” Tick called after him while scooping potato-salad onto the plate.
*~~~*
“Stop acting like this is a disaster you drama queen,” Adam reprimands Tick while helping dab at the rented trousers with serviettes. “We have how many milestones to get through yet and you put all this pressure on me not to cock it up.”
“I do not!” Tick assumes full control of the dabbing. “I’m the one cocking up.”
“No you’re not.”
“Then why do I feel like Benj is yours most of the time and I’m just your mistress? I’m his bloody father but you’re the one whose ideas make him feel like part of our family. He interprets everything I suggest as a veiled excuse to have sex with you.”
Adam’s Felicia nails press painfully into Tick’s knees. False lashes add emphasis to his wide eyes. His padding bosom heaves. “You really think we’re a family?” There’s no Felicia-camp to the question.
Tick nods. His hands frame Adam’s face, fingers moving behind his ears so the tiny bells tinkle as they kiss. He loves Adam so much, it’s ridiculous. He balances the weight of each tiny bell in his palms. “Leave these in when we change, and at bedtime. Please?”
Adam nods and the merry sound makes them both smile.
*~~~*
The jingling sound follows Adam’s progress toward the stumps as he bowls Benj out. Benj notices how his dad watches Adam’s camp victory dance more avidly than Adam’s bum when he bends over to bat, how Tick smiles every time Adam and Benj goof around together, and how neither adult is trying to impress Benj. They’re just being themselves.
“Tick,” Benj asks once the three of them flop in the shade to eat ice-cream containing alcohol-soaked fruit, “would it be okay if I started calling you Dad?”
Tick’s been an absent parent for most of Benji’s life and isn’t comfortable with the term ‘dad’ as though it’s a title he doesn’t deserve. He glances guiltily between lover and son. Adam declares the decision is nothing to do with him by keeping his eyes on his bowl, although his spoon anxiously mushes fruit instead of transporting food to his mouth.
“Is there a Sydney thing I’m missing here?” Benj asks.
Tick answers carefully. “Not a Sydney thing…”
“A cultural thing, then? You can’t expect me to know everything about…”
“About our lot,” Adam says snidely. He brutally stabs a cherry and squirts blood-coloured brandy across the dried grass.
“Back in your box Felicia, he doesn’t mean it like that.”
Adam glares as he stands without uncrossing his legs, tips his melting ice-cream onto the grass, drops bowl and spoon after it, then flounces off inside.
“Bloody diva,” Tick mutters. Adam turns with one hand on a jutting hip as the other closes the sliding door. Stone-faced, he gives Tick the bird as the tinted glass obscures him from view. Tick scrabbles up off the lawn before Adam can lock them out. “It won’t change anything between us,” he calls. “Don’t be such a bitch.”
Benj uses the mobile phone Tick gave him for Christmas to call Mum and ask her how he might have caused offence this time.
“Isn’t it obvious, sweetheart? Adam’s Mitzi’s boy.” Once Mum explains her explanation, Benj decides to keep calling his father Tick.
*~~~*
The door is unlocked but Felicia remains implacable so Tick stays outside with his son until sunset.
““Sorry Benj. I understand if you don’t want to hang round til New Year like we planned. Want to catch a bus tour of the Christmas lights before they’re all taken down?”
“No. Try again.” Benj gestures toward the house with his eyebrows.
“What’s the point?” Tick asks dejectedly. He looks at each window facing the backyard, hoping to find Adam peering out in equal despair.
“The point is he loves you.”
“Wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Tick mutters to a dirty fingernail and continues plucking bark from the Banksia tree.
“He bought that bus so Bernadette couldn’t talk you out of bringing him to Alice Springs, and was prepared to hate me on principle. You weren’t even together yet. He’s only being a cow now because he’s jealous and scared you don’t love him as much.”
“Of course I bloody do! Why does he think I asked him along in the first place? Bloody troublemaker. There were half a dozen queens with more talent and experience, leveller heads.” There are hundreds of divas, but only one Adam. “You going to be right while I sort this out?”
“Der.”
*~~~*
Felicia sashays past Tick to go outside, mildly tells Benj to come in before the mosquito offensive begins, whirls back into the house, and hides in the master bedroom because he’s made a dick of himself. He no longer jingles with every movement. Tick aches. Mutual silence digs a deeper trench between them. Not knowing what to say lines that ditch with spikes. He hasn’t been in a relationship with a man before. His marriage to Marion hardly provides benchmarks for success. He leans back against the kitchen wall, pointlessly rolling a cricket ball from hand to hand.
“Let me have a go at talking to him.”
Tick doesn’t see how that can achieve anything, but it can hardly hurt. Benji knocks at the bedroom door and asks Adam to come out and watch a movie with them. The door opens.
“Which movie?” Adam asks haughtily.
“Your pick.”
Adam’s eyes flit toward Tick then back to Benj. “Alright then. Not bloody Top Gun, Tom Cruise gives me the shits in anything but The Outsiders.”
Benj admits he’s never heard of either film and shrugs in reply to Tick’s silent ‘that’s all it took?’ as they follow Adam’s swinging hips to the couch. The war isn’t over yet, but. Adam squashes into one corner of the couch and suggests with a glare that Tick should avoid encroaching upon his personal space. Benj sits between them.
Nobody’s paying attention to the movie. Forty two minutes in, Tick isn’t even sure which one it is.
“How’d you guys meet?” Benj asks without warning. Tick holds his breath. Adam shrugs. “How did you notice each other?”
“Your father kicked a shoe at some wanker and I laughed,” Adam said rather snappily.
“His cackling shriek made everyone stare and he lapped it up. We weren’t letting Felicia and her perennial limelight prance about with another fairy troupe.”
Benj ignored the potential for further bickering. “You knew you could lose Felicia professionally, as well as any shot with Adam on the trip to Alice.”
“Definitely would have if I’d left him behind. This inquisition isn’t achieving anything Benj, so shut up.”
“Don’t talk to your son like that. He’s only trying to help.”
“He shouldn’t have to. He doesn’t - get - certain things Felicia. You can’t fly off over every perceived…”
“I said I was sorry. What more do you want, a kidney? Benj knows I’m not pissed off at him, don’t you darling?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Adam dons an exaggerated ‘I win’ face.
“Your maturity astounds me, Adam.”
“That’s what you get for being a cradle snatcher.” Benj’s flippant remark makes Adam laugh, as does Tick’s shocked expression.
“New Year will be fabulous,” Adam says to father and son, “promise.”
“Next Christmas, too?” Tick’s meaning isn’t lost on Adam.
“Promise.”
*~~~*
The silver bells are back in Adam’s ears.
Tick watches them sway and listens to them tinkle as Adam sucks him off and then rides his hardened cock. Tick’s hands are all over Adam. He pantingly admits that he wants to touch Adam, inside and out, with every part of him, inside and out, for the rest of his life. “You bring so much passion into every hour, every day, all the colour would fade from my world without you. My wonderful, lovely, boy,” he declares in a hush with each thrust before he comes.
Adam knows he’d been foolish earlier, but he can’t help but ask in a deep, teasing voice as Tick makes him come too. “Who’s my daddy?”
“Mm-I am.”
“Would daddy like me to wear the bells next year, too?” he asks seductively, draping his sweaty body against Tick’s exhausted one.
“Every year, and nothing else unless Benj is here.” They kiss indulgently. “Nothing but me, anyway,” Tick adds.
“Promise.”