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It’s 3pm on a bright LA Tuesday when Katya receives the now routine telephone call, answering within a tenth of a second of spotting the caller ID. It’s Trixie, obviously, her voice a little wet and a little thick through the crackly phone speaker as she asks, “Are you busy? Stupid question — are you home? Can I come over to your place and cry for a while?” And Katya agrees before her brain has even fully comprehended Trixie’s request. No, of course she’s not busy, and even if she was there is nothing she wouldn’t cancel in a heartbeat if it meant securing a safe place for her best friend to weep her little heart out.
“Do you want me to pick you up?” Katya asks.
“No, I have some errands to run, I guess,” Trixie replies, misery lacing her tone at the prospect of being out and about at this sensitive time.
“Alright, you know my door is always open for you, mama, come whenever,” Katya says. The line is quiet for a second too long like Trixie is trying to think of a joke to make but can’t muster the brain power and Katya begins to worry she said the wrong thing.
“Okay,” Trixie’s voice comes through, small and defeated. “Okay, thanks, see you later.”
The call drops and Katya sits in the still silence with her phone to her ear until it feels right to move again.
So, her best friend’s breakup is none of her business and the strain of not being able to talk about it publicly is killing her. It’s not like she wants to hop on the podcast and ask with a straight face, so when he told you he didn’t love you anymore, how exactly did you react?, because Trixie already told her that in explicit detail, but it would be nice to be able to make a playful reference to it. Perhaps ask Trixie if she’s moving on yet, if she’s had any hot sexual experiences as a single woman, even if she knows the answer is no, and, I don’t think I’ll ever love anyone like that ever again.
It’s not the first time they’ve had to draw a line in the sand and boundaries are boundaries. Katya, as loose as her mouth is, knows her limits. Anal? Fine. Emotions? Strictly off camera.
Maybe it’s because Katya has nothing to compare it to — her longest relationship (and that’s only if you can call it that because she certainly didn’t at the time) lasted a couple of months. Losing a person you built an entire life with? Incomprehensible. Ungodly. The blues must be catastrophic.
Trixie arrives in the early evening dressed in grey fleece shorts and a matching zip-up hoodie. She looks tired, which Katya tactlessly comments on only to receive a scathing look in return— maybe that was predictable.
She dumps her bag on the closest available surface and asks, “When was the last time your cleaning lady was over?”
“Yesterday,” Katya replies.
“Okay, great, I’m going to lay on the floor.”
“You’re underestimating how much damage I can do in a day, mama,” Katya says, but Trixie is already brushing past her, wandering bleary-eyed into the living room to deposit her body onto the expensive hand-woven rug, tank top riding up to reveal a strip of smooth, tanned skin.
It’s a slow moment before the water works begin, but Katya watches in real time as Trixie’s shoulders tremble and she lets out the first, pathetic whimper. It’s almost — almost — comedic, because the Trixie Mattel is laying face-down on her floor and she’s not even been in Katya’s house for a full minute.
“You wanna glass of a water?” Katya asks because she’s a gracious host.
“I want a gun,” Trixie replies.
“I got a dangerously caffeinated black tea, if you can make do with that.”
“No sugar.” Trixie says, voice muffled by the carpet.
“Coming right up,” Katya replies, gaze lingering on the vaguely human shaped blob on her floor until she has to turn away to avoid walking into the door frame.
❋❊❋
Trixie pulls herself off the floor to accept the mug of tea that Katya only bought for Trixie in the first place. Her eyes are red and her nose is snotty and she looks like a distraught bald little kid with a dangerous pout. Katya fetches tissues and tries not to inspect the rug too hard for evidence of tampering. They move to the couch so Trixie can do what she really came over for: free friend therapy.
“I don’t know why I wasn’t enough for him,” Trixie says. “Okay. So, I’m never home and I’m super demanding when I am home, and I couldn’t handle monogamy but it’s not like he could either! Is that so bad? Am I fucking crazy?”
“Not crazy,” Katya fills her friendly duties out perfectly. “He’s crazy. You’re a catch, you’re thee catch. Look at you: hot, rich, successful. The never being home part would be a plus for me, personally.”
Privately, Katya always had questions about their relationship. She was never close to Trixie’s boyfriend nor did she have much of a desire to be. He was someone that she saw at Trixie’s house sometimes, a man who was not Brandon who was at Trixie’s side on set or who lingered backstage at shows. A silently supportive type. He never asked for too much, but he never delivered too much either. Their relationship was all halves from Katya’s perspective, at least. If they each gave half then that makes a whole person in the middle, right? That’s what makes a relationship?
“Dating is a fucking nightmare in this town and I was lucky enough to avoid it for eight entire years. It felt like I struck gold finding him and keeping him. He was steady. He just went along with anything — complained, but did it. We waited six years to move in together — to be really sure, and he was fine with that. I guess I just kind of thought it would go like that forever, you know?” Katya hums. “Is that stupid? Am I stupid?”
“No, Trix, you’re not stupid. Naïve, maybe.”
“Well I feel like a fucking idiot.”
Trixie out of drag is softer and rounder with no harsh black angles to be found. She’s blotchy red all the way over her forehead, face shining with tears. Still pretty, objectively. Still everything to her. Katya would never admit it out loud, but Trixie is at her most beautiful when she’s in drag and a little sad, the way her makeup exaggerates her misery, the way her over-drawn mouth pulls down into a frown when she’s coming off stage exhausted and uncomfortable. Katya vaguely wishes she wasn’t a fucking pervert.
Trixie sniffs and it’s wet and disgusting and lets out a self-flagellating laugh.
“The house is so empty now. What was the point of doing all of that work just for him to leave? You know how many things I let him have in that fucking house so it felt like it was for both of us — why did I do that?” Trixie is talking to the room more than she’s talking to Katya.
She wasn’t at her best during the renovation filming. The stress of it got under her skin all too often and Katya doesn’t want to think about what the editors had to wade through to give her the polite cut. Maybe that was the beginning of the end for them, if either of them realised. Katya is not going to ask.
“I’ll never find someone like him again,” Trixie says.
“That is perhaps for the best,” Katya replies.
“It’s not!” Trixie all but wails.
“You don’t want another man to waste eight years with, mama, let’s be serious. Do you want to do this again when you’re my age? 42 and newly single? Count your blessings it happened when it did.”
“You’re so bad at this,” Trixie mumbles. She sinks back into Katya’s couch cushions, mug of tea resting on her stomach. Her pout is so pathetic Katya could pounce.
“I’m not, I’m operating on a higher cognitive level that isn’t clouded by your yucky breakup romance brain,” Katya argues.
Trixie doesn’t look at her. She debates what she says next, kicks her sock-clad feet a little. “You know he was jealous of you,” she says and Katya’s stomach swoops low.
“Trix,” she warns. It’s a kind of unspoken truth, because who wouldn’t be jealous of their relationship? Well — most people if they were in it, but. In all of the polite small talk she shared with Trixie’s boyfriend over the years at events and parties, he never seemed particularly thrilled to see her. He never laughed at her jokes the same way Trixie did and was always silently unimpressed at their easy banter.
“He never said it, but I could always tell and I never did anything about it. I get why, he was my boyfriend but you’ve always been my person,” Trixie says. Katya lets her keep going even if she already understands on a fundamental level what is being said. “He knew that, and I knew that he knew. What was I supposed to do though? Choose? He just went along with whatever I wanted until he couldn’t anymore. He could’ve broken up with me years ago sand saved me the hassle.” Trixie sighs and then groans. “This is so stupid.”
For once, Katya doesn’t have anything to say.
Trixie sits up and puts her mug on the floor, tucking her leg beneath her body and turning to face Katya. Katya watches her every move, the way her hand rests on top of the couch cushion, cautious, centimetres away from her own thigh.
“How much more simple would it have been if we were just the perfect compatible partners?” For a moment Katya doesn’t realise which we Trixie is referring to and then Trixie keeps talking. “I wish it was you sometimes.”
“It wouldn’t be perfect if it was us. It wouldn’t work, you know I don’t do all of that,” Katya says, mouth moving on autopilot.
“I know, but isn’t it nice to pretend it could’ve worked?”
“It’s been a long time since I wanted you like that, Trix,” Katya tells her a half-truth that she’s certain Trixie can see straight through.
When they were a whole decade younger and first starting their post-Drag Race careers the most natural thing in the world to Katya was to try and fuck Trixie. She was so young and fresh and funny and they were learning their secret language one word at a time. Trixie let Katya get her energy out in fan-service kisses and stray touches. In all the times out of drag where Katya clung to her and Trixie politely pretended not to feel the force of emotion behind it.
Those days are long behind them. Katya buried it in a box in the garden of her parent’s house when Trixie’s boyfriend came into the picture.
It’s an impulse. Katya couldn’t have stopped her if she wanted to as Trixie closes the gap between them to kiss her. Her wet mouth meets Katya’s unresponsive lips, her tongue pressing in when she doesn’t get the response she wants.
“Brian, stop,” Katya says as she pushes Trixie away, hands on her shoulders. There’s fresh tears in Trixie’s eyes and she goes where Katya moves her. It’s a wild dream of Trixie offering herself over like this, open and willing and totally fucking inappropriate. “Not like this, Mary, you’re upset and you’re tired and you cannot do this. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me either.”
“I’m sorry,” Trixie says, face crumbling like a little kid. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s okay, it’s fine. Let’s get some food, hm, let’s get something for you to eat,” Katya says, for lack of anything else to say.
❋❊❋
So, Trixie will tell her the length and girth of her boyfriend’s penis but she kept it quiet for the longest time how he was losing interest in her and how she could tell, even between the travelling and the TV show and the endless other odd jobs she was involved in. She talks about it now that it’s over, and she’s retrospectively concerned about fans being able to tell in the way that he looks at her.
It’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s agony. Katya respects her boundaries and orders noodles and leaves Trixie stewing in her house to go and pick them up so she can smoke a cigarette on the way there and on the way back.
Trixie settles, picks at her food but is in good spirits when Katya puts on a movie she doesn’t understand the plot of.
As soon the credits begin to roll Trixie asks if it’s okay for her to stay the night because she can’t stand going home to an empty house every night and Katya agrees because she knows. She knows. It’s fine. It’s— whatever.
❋❊❋
Later, Katya stares at her bedroom ceiling through the hazy dark. Her body is waiting for something to happen. The air feels thick and wrong.
There were times in the past where she wanted Trixie so bad it made her stupid. Times she would’ve asked if the travel clause in her relationship extended to friends and family, but lines are lines and boundaries are boundaries. She resisted like a fucking saint and found a nice boy on the internet to sit on her face instead of digging up the box in her parent’s back yard.
“Brian?” Trixie’s voice comes soft through the night.
Even in her anticipation it makes Katya jump, heart beating almost audibly through against her ribs. How did Katya not hear her get up?
“Fuck, Trix, you scared me,” she says, sitting up with her hand over her heart. She leans over to flick the bedside lamp on, bathing Trixie in the yellow glow. She’s standing in the doorway of Katya’s bedroom dressed only in the boxers, but at this late stage they’ve both seen each other naked so many times that part doesn’t even make Katya flinch.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
Katya sighs through her nose.
“Of course,” she says, because how could she say no to Trixie when she’s like this? She’s not a monster. “Come here,” she says and only hears the softness in her own voice.
Trixie comes. The mattress shifts beneath her weight as she settles on the edge of Katya’s bed. She looks down to her hands in her lap. Katya waits.
“I’m sorry I kissed you,” Trixie says, looking up finally. “I can’t sleep because I keep thinking about it.”
“If I started apologising for all the times I kissed you then we’re be here until morning,” Katya replies.
“True, but that was always on camera and a joke,” Trixie says, “And I always want to kiss you back.”
“Wrong! You rejected me plenty of times, remember Boston?”
“It was fun! If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have stopped,” Trixie says. Katya doesn’t agree with her — they aged out of the kissing more than anything, it was a novelty that was bound to wear off — but she doesn’t argue. Trixie never initiated it, because that wasn’t part of the gag. Trixie continues, “I just wanted to apologise for being a mess — and don’t say you’ve been worse because I know but this isn’t about you.”
“Thank you for apologising. You didn’t have to, but I appreciate it,” Katya says.
Silence settles between them. What else is there to say? Katya watches Trixie try to figure out what to do with herself. There’s no way she’s going to back to sleep soundly after this conversation where nothing really feels like it’s fixed.
“I feel like I’ve wasted eight years of my life,” Trixie says quietly.
Trixie told Katya about the breakup between episodes of the podcast in their dressing room while they were changing boy clothes.
“I think it’s over,” she said, and at first Katya didn’t realise what she was even talking about. For a startling second she thought Trixie meant the podcast, that she’d had enough of spending so much time with Katya and wanted to move on with her life.
“What do you mean over?” Katya asked.
“I think he’s done. With me. He’s had enough of me,” Trixie explained one word at a time without giving too much away. Her voice was dry and emotionless as she continued getting dressed. They had another two episodes to film that day.
“Oh, baby,” Katya said for lack of anything else. “I’m so sorry.”
Now, Katya is facing a similar loss for words. She reaches out to take one of Trixie’s hands, hopes her own isn’t sweaty, hopes the touch isn’t totally unwelcome and pulls it into her own lap.
“Look, Tracy, you haven’t wasted anything. People come and go, it sucks, but you’re gonna make it. It’s not terminal, mama.”
Trixie looks at her with her big brown eyes and sad little mouth and Katya wants to kiss her more than she’s wanted to kiss anyone, ever, even though it’s a terrible idea and the middle of the night and Trixie is grieving her relationship.
Still, she says, “Come here, Trix,” and Trixie does, meeting her in the middle. Katya cradles Trixie’s face in her hands as they kiss, soft and sweet and completely chaste. Trixie makes a gentle noise in the back of her throat and leans in closer.
Katya kisses her slowly, remembers what it felt like to do the same thing a decade ago when they were in drag, wonders if it’s something that will be on the table a decade from now. If Trixie will be married by then, if she’ll have a family and will see Katya every three to six months for a catch up. If this will one day be a funny story to tell on camera when it isn’t quite so raw.
Their lips click when they pull apart. Katya opens her eyes into Trixie’s and measures the situation.
“Katya…” Trixie starts, voice unsure.
“I wanted you for a really long time, I think you knew that, but we can’t right now. If we do this then there’s no going back and I don’t think you can make that decision right now,” Katya tells her. She’s not usually the one laying it down like this, the words feel like they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth.
“I really fucking hate that you’re right,” Trixie says after a long moment.
“Me too. Look how responsible we’re being right now, this is unheard of,” Katya says.
“What now?” Trixie asks.
“Bed time,” Katya replies, “If you still want me tomorrow then we can get breakfast, okay?”
“Sure. Okay. I’m holding you to that.”
Trixie lingers for a moment, leaning it for one last kiss that Katya accepts with a smile this time. It’s over before it begins and Trixie is getting up and leaving and Katya is watching her go.