The hand in mine is strong. Our fingers are interlocked and it keeps squeezing mine tight and hard. My fingers turn white under the pressure. I squeeze back and the hand gets the message. The grip loosens and the breath it held escapes from the lips done up in pale blue lipstick.
"I always get so nervous, Trish," says Winona, " I shouldn't be."
"You always get nervous and you always say you shouldn't get nervous, Winny," I say, voice soft, "You're doing fine. It's okay to be nervous. I'm nervous too. Just breathe with me. Ok?"
She nods and she closes her eyes, going back to the breath. I slow down first. She follows. It's hard, but she gets there. The crowd above us in the stadium chanting, cheering, screaming for blood and tits and beer doesn't help. They tend to get everything excited just like them. I hear the collective disappointment at something in the ring and I don't know who. I did not read the card. I know me and her are right near the top, but not quite there. Winny moves and shifts and presses closer to me. She's so much taller, but she sets her head on my shoulder, almost bending in half to do so. I feel her breath shake her entire body. She's back to squeezing my hand too tight. The crowd cheers again. Something good happened. I'm not sure what.
Down the hall, someone's yelling at someone else. The suits are mad. The work has turned into a shoot, or the shoot has gone back to a work. I don't even care. Winny is leaning against me, probably smearing her blush on my shoulders. It'll be fine. I don't care. She's more important than any costume the suits can come up with.
It's always so hard to find a corner to ourselves. There's the control room, with the monitors and the dials, strands running out all over the stadium to the lights, the basement to the high-rise boxes that cost more than a house. That's a hard no, because of that and because its where Marty nests. There's the locker room proper, but that's also a hard no. Too many people running through their pregame rituals and someone always busts out a bottle of tequila. Going out sloshed is going to get someone hurt. We've found that utility rooms are the best spot. Close enough to be accessible in a moment's notice, out of the way enough so that no one stumbles into the meditation.
Someone shouts again and the boys next door are getting a bit too rowdy. We ignore them. We ignore it all. A roar comes from the crowd and I hear the bell ring out three times. Everyone liked the ending from the cheers. Winny tenses against me as the next moment comes along and as a result, we are one moment closer to where we need to be.
Winny's the one to pull us up and out of the cramped room. She usually is. I don't want to pull her out before she's ready. I get the door. She does not let go of my hand.
The hall's busy, suits running back and forth, talent taking up space for arguments and discussions, tables with water jugs and coffee pots, signage so no one gets left behind. They don't mind us. Alfonse and Alice Von Aria, the fake twins, give us a wave and go back to their real marriage flirting. I'm not sure how to feel about that, but the thought always distracts me. I wave back. They're nice enough and mostly harmless.
We draw closer and closer to the stage through the back rooms. No one stops us. No one questions us. The drill is innate and we perform it all so routinely. We step over a set of cables taped down and keep moving. She's squeezing my hand way too tight again. I squeeze back and she relents. That gets her back to breathing and we're good. One more corner and we are officially in the Gorilla position. There's a stagehand waiting for us, glasses trained on a clipboard and a free hand pressed into a headset.
"Hi Lauren," I say. I get a noncommittal wave back. That's fair. She's busy. We're busy. We're all so busy.
The crowd simmers down a bit as some leave to get more beer, more snacks, see how long the lines to the restroom are. The houselights are nice and bright so the stagehands can put everything back in its proper place. There's the winner's music and, speak of the devil, he's here with a broad shit eating grin on his face. I assume. There's a wolf mask in the way.
"I assume you had fun out there, Dom," I say.
"Damn straight," he says, panting. A quick check to make sure we can keep the open secret alive and he undoes his mask. There's a red mark where the leather met the skin. His hair is matted with sweat down his back. He winces as he works his muzzle.
"I was kind of worried about the chair spot, but Raul can take it."
"Really? I thought you were the one who took it."
"Don't even start. We both know you're the one that has trouble walking the next morning."
Winny's dead quiet, not even paying attention to any of this. She's gazing at the break in the fourth wall, the invisible line where fantasy and reality mix into a chaotic swirl.
"I don't have to listen to anything you say, you goddamn furry," I say. He barks a short laugh and holds his side, rolls his shoulder. He's going to need surgery for that and I don't want to jinx anything on my end. He holds out a fist. I tap it and so does Winny with a bit of prodding. He pads away, back to his den to recuperate. My eyes wander to his tree trunk legs in tight shorts and that full little shape sticking out the front. I think about it. I've thought about it. I'm not above it, but there's a lot of obstacles in the way, and I don't want any of them to move.
Raul the Heartthrob does not really pay us any mind. He's nursing his wounds and that excuses almost every level of rudeness he can give. Chair shots suck. They look good, sound good, but certainly don't feel good. My love and care can only extend so far and Winny's taking most of it for herself. I contain multitudes but not infinities. Winny's greedy. I love that part of her.
The crowd is simmering, getting drunker and hungrier and impatient for blood. They'll get it. I need to hold a hand and calm the world down. It's getting there. I watch the walls come up on her body first. The nerves steel and harden. The foundation is laid for her. It's smooth as glass, cold as ice, face set in placid disinterest. She retreats into herself behind ice walls cold enough to freeze the ocean solid. She stops squeezing my hand, but she keeps it in my palm.
