a romantic story i wrote
a romantic story i wrote
"Such Women"
Evergreen Ippolito 2026
In the time between the universal gesture of "come here"—upward hook and tug as if in the pussy of a ghost—and the girl smiling, standing, then walking Eddie's direction, it becomes clear to him that the facepaint is an all down the neck sorta deal. Maybe it goes down into her corset. As much as he looks, he can't make out the tone of her natural skin. He wonders what it'll feel like in his mouth. Maybe like chalk or wet glue.
The girl, who calls him handsome, has giant tits for a trans woman and Eddie's man enough to say it. That's the sorta thing he would've shunned in his mind two years ago but now he welcomes it: sure, he thinks, she's got great tits. He won't say it out loud, but he thinks it, just like any guy would. And she's either a mime or a clown, or she's bad at corpse paint. Eddie's been looking at her a while now and can't clock exactly which one she's going for. Her in a sea of twenty-somethings in the backyard whose commitment to subculture is not really legible to Eddie.
He pushes out a chair with the toe of his boot, showing off the polished leather. "You smoke?"
She sits. "What you smoking?"
"Newports."
"Ew no. Sorry."
"Fuck me I guess."
"Maybe. What's your name?"
"Eddie or E, your choice. What's yours?"
"Tawny."
"Tommi?"
"No, Tawny. Like the owl or the rust color."
"You got the big eyes."
"Thanks."
He gestures to the red bandana in her pocket. "You flagging?"
She looks down. "Oh. No, just a bandana."
"Oh cool. Thought you were flagging."
"What's it mean if I was?"
"Fisting."
"Oh cool."
"I haven't seen you here."
"Yeah I'm actually here with a friend of mine! It's her 'tranniversary.'" She pronounces the inverted commas around tranniversary.
"Would I know her?"
"Maybe. You look like you know girls."
"Not wrong."
"Bri?"
"Honey you gotta get more specific. Lots of girls named Bri."
"I don't know her last name. Just Bri."
"Maybe you point her out if you see her."
"I'm obsessed with this space, everyone here is gorgeous."
Eddie smiles. Maybe she's a younger trans girl than he thought. Not younger like younger, younger like new. "A friend of a friend started this event a few years ago,” he says, “but I haven't come in ages. I remember the first year. They had it at Styx. Way smaller back then. Now they got all these new people coming in, like it's a cultural phenomenon. And it's like, shit, where'd all the first crowd go. Somebody told me Alok showed up."
"I love them!"
"You know them?"
"Not like, know them. I mean I love their work."
"How long it take you to do the facepaint?"
"A while, I don't know. All white matte's great though. You can do absolutely anything with it."
"Cute. You do drag or whatever?"
"I just like makeup. I'm not much of a performer, I'm good as an audience. I'm a visual artist, I do painting and sculpture, and I also dance. And I volunteer with this group that does like, historical reenactment in Central Park."
"You wanna go dance now?"
"You wanna buy me a drink?"
"I sure do," and Eddie puts a hand out like a gentleman. She takes it in her white gloves, hands strangely delicate for a trans woman, not much bigger than his own – though Eddie has been told by such women that he does have masculine hands.
She dances like somebody who likes dancing, and to Eddie's not unpleasant surprise, flits around the dancefloor approaching others as she pleases, coming back to him every few tracks to grind on the thick iron of his belt buckle, which is forged in the logo of a motorcycle company. He watches her kiss a woman about her same height, just a peck on the cheek, leaving a ghostly white mark on the other woman’s skin. She takes her hand and leads her to Eddie, leans in close and shouts, "This is Bri."
Eddie nods. Bri is extraordinary in no way at all. Eventually Bri excuses herself.
His footwork is restrained to the invisible box of a man with other things on his mind, comfortable on the floor yet at a tasteful remove, dancing being not why he comes here after all. Eddie pulls Tawny into him. She's taller than him but not so tall. Her breasts touch his flat chest and he smells the vodka cran on her breath. He lets himself take a rich, earthy pleasure in knowing she drinks on his tab, and he watches her wet mouth a little open. "I wanna smudge that makeup," he tells her.
"Maybe just kiss my mouth," she says over the music. "It takes a while to re-apply."
Okay, Eddie thinks, and puts his hand on her slim waist. He's firm with her. She does taste a little like Elmer's glue. "So fucking gorgeous," he tells her, and she giggles.
Then they're outside again on a slab of cement off the main deck, where the faggots are smoking under a mist of summer rain that lays something romantic over the five boroughs plus Long Island. Actually, the rain isn't specific to New York, it's in Connecticut too, heavier as it goes up the coast, and in Rhode Island it's not romantic at all, it's a storm, and some little boats are tossed around in the harbor. She stops him a couple times when his lips move instinctively to her ear, to her neck. Eddie thinks she kisses okay.
"I think you're just beautiful," she says when he pulls back for a second. "This whole place, really, it's just beautiful. It's just... happy."
"Do you think so?"
"I think it's so great you have a place."
"What do you mean 'you'?"
"Trans people."
"I thought you were trans," Eddie tells her.
"No, I just love trans people. I hope that doesn't sound like a fetish."
"You could fetishize anything you want about me," he says, and sees how it doesn't land.
"No I mean it's like, I think your lives are beautiful."
Huh. "I mean, thank you?"
"I'm drunk, you know, I'm probably not saying it right."
"I think you're very beautiful too," he tells her.
Tawny smiles. The white paint's stayed on somehow through the kissing and dancing and the pretty rain, and though he still wants to fuck her he touches the edge of an unkind thought: the paint is a disguise. A ruse.
Then she says, "It's beautiful to have space for like, everyone in your community, I mean. I don't know if we have that in the—" she struggles for the word "—the straight world, I guess. It's beautiful to come here and see it. Like I know you all go through a lot to make these spaces. It's just beautiful to see the like, vibrant, like, community. You know what I mean? The way you all like, care for each other."
"You think so?" Eddie asks.
She nods with real belief.
"Huh," he says. "You think so?"
Thanks for reading. I've got the worst fuckin head cold right now. Send me an email at eviewrites@duck.com. Get these posts via newsletter. I crosspost blog to IG @everzines but my personal's @evie.evergreen.docx if I know u like that. I also mostly crosspost to Substack @everzines for now but that's on thin ice. Bluesky's out with the new year don't find me there. I'm gonna be giving out zines at a benefit show for F2L QTBIPOC commissary fund at Hart Bar in Bk 2/22 8pm.
Posts have been less frequent cus I'm writing pretty much exclusively fiction these days, mostly longer form! Also, music again. Exciting for me! <3 <3 <3 with love,
maybe a couple of you's valentine but mostly just your friend and confidant,
evergreen<3