Page 88 of Marked By Shadows
“Perv.”
“Only for you, babe.” Alex pulled me into a hug and kissed the side of my head before we got on the bus and found an empty seat away from all the grandmas.
Chapter 25
The day actually went pretty smoothly. We got through most of the rest of the booths, spending enough time browsing to buy another heap of fabric and even meet a few more budding designers. Alex hopped around a handful of classes, standing on the edges, listening to the overview of what they had to share.
He’d spent more time interested in fabric than the machines this time since he had chosen the one he wanted. As the time neared for us to do the costume thing, my anxiety grew. Normally I didn’t mind dressing up. I liked being someone else. But the crowd in front of the booth began to extend out into the aisles, and there was a lot of murmur about seeing some cosplay stars. I was not a star by any means. Not anymore. Three years ago, maybe. A baby at twenty, I’d done my share of conventions, with people waiting to see me, snap my picture, and get a signature. A lot of the female cosplayers started as young as fourteen. I’d been sixteen when I made my debut, then spent almost four years in the spotlight, being small and cute, attracting a lot of unwanted attention as well as adoring fans. I didn’t feel like that person anymore.
And I had a growing unease with my hardcore porn past. At the time, I’d thought it empowering. Only looking back now, realizing I’d let Tim treat me like a sex doll, did it feel demeaning. It was why I ultimately gave it up. Not my disappearance or even the end of my relationship with Tim. Other guys messaged me all the time, volunteering to be my ‘daddy’ or to ‘use me’ or a million other things. In general, I’d thought sex on screen wasn’t a big deal. If I ever did it again, it would be much different, with me in control. I wasn’t a kid desperate for affection anymore. Okay, so I was an adult desperate for affection, but I had boundaries too.
Would people recognize me? It was one of the reasons I had no desire to dress in any sort of girlish costume. No school girl. No dresses. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and think of the little boy I’d been. It wasn’t me anymore. I wasn’t even physically the same guy. Not as thin or delicate, since time filled out my face and my body. Could I still pull off looking like a girl? Probably. With the right clothes, wig, and covering part of my face, but I didn’t want to hide like that anymore.
Alex squeezed my hand. “What’s up?”
“Regretting this cosplay thing,” I said.
“You love dressing up.”
“Not for crowds like this. Not anymore.”
We headed toward the booth, trying to find someone in charge to lead us back to the changing area and where Freya had promised to have our costumes waiting.
“You made an amazing Inuyasha. Why don’t you design more stuff like that for yourself?” Alex asked.
“Not much occasion to wear them.”
“That’s never stopped you from designing for Sky or me. No reason we can’t have random costume nights at the shop. It’s a craft shop. We specialize in random.”
I paused to look at him. Again, he was right. I sighed. He smiled that boyish grin that made me want to curl into him forever. “Stop seeing me so clearly,” I grumbled at him. “It’s not fair.”
He waved an employee of the booth over and got us led to the back where a bunch of hanging fabric had been created into dividers for makeshift dressing rooms. There were dressing bags hanging on a rack with names pinned to them. Alex grabbed ours.
“Did you give everything over to Freya this morning?” Alex asked with a frown. He lifted my bag a few times. “It feels really light. The red part of your costume was heavier, I thought.”
I took it from him and it was extremely light. The bulk of the fabric from the red outer layer alone had weighed more than this. “I gave her the whole thing. Wig and all.” I knelt at Alex’s feet, hoping I was out of everyone’s way and unzipped the bag. My heart flip-flopped. It wasn’t my Inuyasha outfit. It was the baby doll dress Freya had made me. I zipped it back up, my heart pounding, emotions rolling through me in waves of anger, terror, and sorrow.
“Maybe they just made a mistake.” Alex went to the rack and pushed through all the bags. “It should be here.” He paused to unzip his own bag. It was his Shaggy costume, untouched. “Fuck.”
I stood and put the bag back on the rack. Emotions slamming down on me. The wall I’d spent so much time erecting inside me to keep them back, shattered in an instant. Silence descended again. Not paranormal this time, but my own shutting out of all noise. Too much in my head. A thousand questions, thoughts, emotions all so jumbled I couldn’t even pull out a single one in that moment to form a coherent thought. I could barely breathe. All I felt was Alex’s arm around my waist. His breath tickled my ear but I couldn’t hear him, not until he wrapped his arms around me in a fierce hug.
“Hey, breathe,” he said. “It’s okay. No one is going to make you put that on. I’m here.”
Freya and MaryAnn appeared, both in costume, but neither wearing the ones they’d designed last night. No, these were fully polished feminized versions of their Mario and Luigi outfits with super short shorts and T-shirts that revealed more of their breasts than they hid. These were the type of costumes that made them famous, the crafting, the detail, and the sex. That too, made me even madder. We’d all busted our asses to make costumes in a few hours, that they insisted we wear in public and not have time to polish, while they came out looking like rock stars in stuff that had obviously taken weeks to complete. Were they trying to make us look like amateurs? It wasn’t going to hurt my business since cosplay wasn’t my venue anymore, but the rest of the group still had real attention focused on them for their design. Yet there was no warning? No note that they would be showing up in full gear and the rest of us would be Johnny-on-the-spot? Oh, except me. For some reason I’d be in a pro costume too, half naked, and relegated to the role of the fem boy again.
I don’t think I’d ever really related to the comment ‘I saw red’ before. But I’d also never been so angry. Anger was easier than sobbing hysterically or running away. And I was fucking pissed.
“Where is my costume,” I demanded of Freya.
Her smile faded and she frowned. “Right there on the rack with the rest of them.”
“Mycostume. Not that doll clothes crap you made me. I didn’t make that. What kind of insanity makes you think that I am going to wear that in public? This convention isn’t even cosplay related. There are more old people here than those under forty and you think I’m going to dress like that? I thought this event was to display the fabric sold by these people, not put on a sex show.”
“She made your costume from Haut Apparel fabric,” MaryAnn defended.
“Shemade it. Not me. Where is the costume I made?”
“We thought you’d have a great rerelease debut with the outfit Freya made,” MaryAnn said.