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do. I do! And my act is ENCORE! ENCORE! 29
    good, damn it!”
    Dark eyes lifted to gaze at Shawn, patently disbelieving.
    “ Fuck you!” Shawn spun for the door and this time Roscoe didn’t follow.
    ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
    The walk and the subway trip home didn’t help his mood any. He cursed Roscoe’s existence and kicked at every rock or suitably heavy object in his path. By the time he reached his drab apartment building, his mood hadn’t improved, but he had come around to the real problem.
    Roscoe was right.
    Shawn hadn’t been happy with his act for a long time. The shiny newness of it all had long since worn off. The lip syncing had been fun at fi rst, but now, months later, not so much. The open mike stuff, telling jokes and such, he really kind of hated, and always had. Oh, it was okay with the right audience, but those audiences were few and far between. Plus, coming up with jokes was just a nightmare. Amazing how much of a difference there was between that and being in a play. He’d always hated improv and always preferred interpreting a script. He was popular at Ms.
    Tyken’s because he was young and cute, not because his act was particularly good.
    Fuck Roscoe, anyway.
    Only one of his roommates was home when he arrived, and Don barely looked up from his place on the couch before the TV. Much love there. Not that he could blame the guy. He hadn’t developed much of a relationship with either Don or Eddie, even though he’d been living with them for a year. The two of them were buddies because they worked together, but Shawn pretty much kept to his room, with only occasional bouts of sociability.
    That, too, was strange. He’d been a social butterfl y most of his life. He’d had tons of friends in college, and quite a few while he’d lived with Roscoe. Now he spent most of his time at Ms.
    Tyken’s or at other gay and drag bars around the city. He didn’t have any really close friends, just a bunch of buddies to hang 30 Mykles ~ Much Ado
    out with. Dating had been superfi cial at best. Except for three strange nights since he’d left Roscoe, sex had been non-existent.
    Sex night #1: Rhonda, a.k.a. Robby. Another drag queen, two months after he’d left Roscoe, and one week after he’d been hired at Ms. Tyken’s. The night had been a surreal mixture of makeup, lace and alcohol that Shawn only recalled in bits and pieces. He still saw Rhonda since they worked together, but neither of them had initiated a repeat performance.
    Sex night #2: Max. A fan who’d fallen for Shawna. The night had consisted strictly of oral, on Shawn, since Max had problems getting it up. Nice but not something he wanted to repeat. Evidently, Max felt the same since he’d not been back to the bar since.
    Sex night #3, which had actually been a night and a day: Cody.
    Shawn remembered having hopes for that one. He’d met Cody at another bar. They’d spent the night fucking in Cody’s apartment and it was good. Not as mind-blowing as Roscoe, but Shawn had come to terms with never matching that again. Cody had been fun. He might have turned into more of a fuck buddy than anything. But then he’d learned about the drag, and things had cooled. He wasn’t into it, and had a mental glitch about it, so what could have been nice ended abruptly.
    Since then, Shawn barely tried. He simply wasn’t interested in one night stands, and none of the men he met impressed him beyond the superfi cial. He’d even given some thought to dating a woman again, but his current lifestyle left him with even fewer options in that arena. Most of the women he met these days were far more excited that he was gay. So, yes, he was aware of the strangeness that had become his life in the last year.
    Okay, so Roscoe was right. That didn’t make him a white knight to swoop in and make great changes in Shawn’s life. If Shawn wanted out, Shawn would get himself out. He didn’t need Roscoe to bail him out.
    He went to work the next night with renewed vigor,