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Adore was in a kind of mental haze. She was used to this state by now, a kind of cloud keeping her down. Staring down the place where the floor tiles met the running board, she felt a kind of psychic itching. And all she wanted was to not.
Someone walked past Adore to another mirror, momentarily drawing her eye. Adore pulled out from the haze enough to do a double-take. Laila McQueen leaned over a table to rearrange her brushes. All she was wearing on top was a stuffed bra, giving Adore a full view of what looked like, at a glance, stretch marks all over Laila’s torso and inching down her hips into the waistline of her gym shorts. Adore’s mouth hung open as she stared, unbridled by shame, at what she realized were the other queen’s scars.
It was almost like a ruler, the lines were so evenly spaced, and the longer she stared, the more she realized every mark on the right side had a twin on the left. That couldn’t be natural, they were too even, and were too numerous to be surgical.
“Admiring the tiger marks, there, ‘Dore?” Prompted Laila. She sucked in her cheeks to start up a contour line.
Adore’s teeth clacked when she slammed her jaw shut. Embarrassment flooded through her. What kind of person just stares at someone else’s scars? I guess, thought Adore, someone who’s building up a collection of their own.
“I’m not upset,” said Laila, breaking through Adore’s inner monologue. The pink-haired drag queen blended out her cheekbone, continuing to work as per usual. “I’m not like, ashamed of my scars — like obviously,” she chuckled and motioned to how obvious the marks were without a shirt on.
Adore let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Oh, uh, gool.” She winced. You were about to say ‘good’ then switched to ‘cool’ you fucking mess.
Adore pressed their hand into the top of their thigh and felt the warmth of a little blood being squeezed to the surface under her palm. They squeezed their eyes shut. Laila was getting ready to perform, getting ready to work. Why did that feel so daunting to Adore now?
“Never seen tiger marks before or something?” questioned the queen at her mirror as she applied harsh black liquid liner to her waterline.
“I— uh… what?” Adore asked eloquently.
Laila rolled her eyes. “Oh riiight, not everybody knows my slang — tiger marks. Scars that look like tiger stripes?” She paused to blink a few times and tilt her head into better lighting. “Um, yeah I call ‘em tiger stripes cause it sounds like I got into a badass fight with a tiger and lived to tell the tale. Which,” she shrugged and looked back at Adore in the mirror. “I mean is kinda what happened.”
Adore rubbed the top of her thigh. The Itch wasn’t so strong when Laila was talking -- maybe because she had something else to focus on. Adore swallowed and tried to keep the other queen talking. “You… you call, like, depression a tiger?”
Laila switched to the other eye. “Well, I mean, not exactly.” She looked up at Adore again. “Is this like, too much of a downer makeup counter convo because --”
“No,” said Adore. “I want to know.” She tried to keep her face neutral, but sensed maybe Laila could see how close to breaking she was. That she could see the single thread holding her together. Adore offered a flash of a smile and felt immediately exhausted. The fog crept back in.
Thankfully, the lighthouse that was Laila’s voice started up again. “Uh, well, ummmm what do you want to know?”
“Why?” Adore’s voice sounded robotic. She couldn’t look at Laila. “Why did you cut?” How did you stop?
Laila breathed out for a long time and chuckled. “Ah, fuck it, let’s go there. Okay, so um people cut for different reasons but like… I did it because I was depressed and shit but I couldn’t tell that I was depressed I just didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me and shit and I held a lot of bad energy in and it kinda, directed itself at me? If that makes any sense?”
Adore nodded. “It does.” The words took so much energy to produce Adore thought she might need a nap.
“I don’t know if that was the answer you were looking for, but um, yeah, when -- this is a little dark but fuck it we’re in this deep -- when I cut… I got this peace? Like a high. And it was, yeah, it -- it’s an addiction, like y’know, your body makes these chemicals that ease pain because your cells are damaged, and then you feel that pain relief and it feels good, y’know?”
Adore closed her eyes to keep the tears inside. I know. I know far too well.
“But yeah, like any high it can be addictive ‘cause the more you get used to it, y’know, the more you need to find that same peace and good feeling and eventually you run out of body that you can hide and people get concerned. But like, that’s not to say I wasn’t concerned, like I genuinely thought hurting myself would solve my fucked-up-edness like, I knew it wasn’t gonna fix it, it just felt good and like, it was the only thing that made sense for a while.”
“For a while,” echoed Adore. She thought it would barely be audible, but Laila heard.
“Yeah, a teacher noticed, I got sent to the counselor, it was a thing. They took away my X-acto knife, which was a bad choice on their part.”
Adore’s eyes snapped open. They could take away her Swiss Army knife.
Laila saw her reaction. “Yeah, so taking away a self-injurer’s tools is a bad idea, ‘cause when you do that, you just send them looking somewhere else and they end up picking something they’re unfamiliar with. Like, I knew my X-acto knife, I knew how not to go too deep, but when they took it away and I picked up a Cut Co. Shit was bloody, man.”
Adore rocked a little on the bench.
“You dealin’ with something sister?” asked Laila, one glued eyebrow rising as much as it could. “You’re looking pretty pale, and also interested in something people don’t really talk about.”
Adore’s string broke. Her house of cards blew down. Her mask fell. She started to openly weep in the dressing room. She pulled her hand away from her thigh, there was blood soaked through the fabric and leaking onto her palm.
Laila put down her makeup and made her way over, her arms slotting around Adore’s shaking shoulders. About to ask what was wrong, Laila looked down and saw the blood soaking through Adore’s jeans. “Okay,” she said calmly. “I see.”
Adore wailed a little. She’d kept this from everyone. There was relief that at least someone else knew, but also fear -- what would Laila do now? Would she tell? Who would she tell?
“Shhh, okay,” said Laila, sliding onto the bench next to Adore. She brushed hair behind Adore’s ear and searched out her green eyes. “No one else knows about this, do they?”
Adore shook her head.
Laila rested her hand on Adore’s knee. “We can keep it that way if you want, okay?”
Adore nodded fervently.
“Okay, just us then. I can help you, Adore, do you want me to do that?”
Adore grabbed Laila’s hand with both of hers and squeezed,
“Okay, first I want you to breathe.” Laila demonstrated, slowly in, holding for a second or two, even slower out. She waited and breathed with Adore through her erratic cry-breathing until she could form a few words in a row.
Laila asked what she used to cut.
“Swiss Army Knife.”
Laila asked when she’d last cut.
“After lunch.” Adore sniffled.
“And here?” Laila pointed to the brown bloodstain on Adore’s jeans. “This is where you cut? Anywhere else?”
Adore pointed to her opposite thigh without saying anything.
Laila asked how often Adore did it. She started using that kind of language, a less obvious, less painful language. Adore felt relieved, like being able to look away from someone yelling at you.
“Adore?”
“Oh, right, um, like, it’s every day but sometimes… not, and sometimes it’s… multiple times…” Talking about it was starting to hurt, and not even in a good way. Adore shook her head. “Laila, how do I…” her voice trailed off. Do I want to stop? Can I?
Laila sat back. “How do you what, Adore?”
Adore felt fresh tears silently spill over. Her jaw clenched. “I shouldn’t want this,” she sobbed. “It’s bad and it’s crazy and I want, to want to stop but I don’t and--”
“Shhh,” soothed Laila, rubbing Adore’s shoulders again. “First of all, ‘shouldn’t’ is a stupid word. Expectations are toxic and bad for you mentally. It doesn’t matter what you should want, it matters what you do want.”
Laila leaned onto Adore’s shoulder. “So what do you want?”
A guy knocked on the dressing room door to give a reminder call. Half hour to showtime.
Adore started to panic. “Half an hour and I don't have even my fucking brows glued down--”
Laila kept the bare-faced queen on the bench. “They, can wait. It’s still a bar, there’s still alcohol, they can wait an extra ten fucking minutes for you to put a lip on after we’re done, because this is more important.”
Adore silently nodded.
“Now,” said Laila. “The question was: what do you want?”
Adore made no reply, biting down on their lip and staring into space.
Laila started tracing spirals over the tops of Adore’s jeans, pulling her back to the room. “Do you want to stop cutting? Do you want to keep going? Do you want to stop but are afraid to?”
“That,” breathed Adore. “I don’t… maybe I’m not ready? To stop? If that makes sense?”
“It absolutely does,” answered Laila. “It’s where I was for a long time.” She watched Adore relax at that, and decided to pull her in for a half-hug. “I get that you’re scared,” said Laila. “But you’re also strong. Last question, I promise.”
Adore groaned. “I gotta get in drag.”
“So do I, cunt, I’ve got top face, no lash and no lip on -- not to mention no wig. Neither of us is going out there on time and that’s okay. Now, do you want to hurt yourself right now?”
Adore swallowed and looked away.
“How bad? One to ten, ten being you absolutely have to.”
Adore went to press her palm against the stain. “Seven.”
“Okay.” Laila turned to her own station and grabbed an eyebrow pencil. “Gimme your arm -- your non-dominant arm.”
Adore held out her left for Laila to take. While Adore got started on her makeup, Laila traced the eyebrow pencil around Adore’s forearm. It was a pulling sensation, like with cutting, and it felt real, like a knife. But this one had zero chance of accidentally puncturing a major blood vessel or leaving permanent scarring. Occasionally, Laila would go over a ticklish spot, and Adore would twitch, making Laila smudge her drawing and have to go over the spot again.
It became their thing, that Adore would be feeling a 7 or 8 and Laila would draw on her until it went away. That night it only took one forearm, but Adore would be known to sport full sleeves of temporary tattoos, leaking onto her neck and back when it was especially bad.
Adore’s thighs scabbed over, and Laila got her a henna kit so Adore wouldn’t pick at her scabs. It didn’t always work, but it worked enough.
Every once in a while, Laila would stick out her own arm and let Adore go to town. Something in Adore wanted to believe that once she’d been clean a certain number of days or weeks or months that she’d stop wanting to ever again. Maybe with other people that’s how it works. But The Itch came back for Laila sometimes. Even Laila got white with the fear. She scratched at her scars as if they were still healing, as if she could just reopen them for a little release… but she didn’t.
Instead, she stuck out her arm, and Adore would draw stick figures in a conga line.
And maybe it was the drawing, and maybe it was having someone who understood, but eventually, the itch got quieter for both of them, and that was all either queen could have hoped for.