Lexicon Chapter 15: Sir Kinkalots
by JudgeDreadz
The next day I caught up with Danny and brought him up to speed with the night’s events.
“Man. Stefania Lorenzo is like the alpha dog of Heaven’s Gate. I mean, not that I’d call her a dog. You know what I mean. Nice work man.”
Danny affirmed my feelings that Stef could be interested in me. I asked Danny where I could buy some clothes that would help me fit in to Heaven’s Gate. I wanted to be part of Stef’s world and I knew the pink dress shirt wouldn’t cut it two nights in a row.
Danny told me what he knew about Stef. It was not much because apparently she kept to herself and her tight group of friends. This made her invitation to me feel so much more special.
“Stefania is really fine, buddy. It looks like she likes you as well. You should totally hit that.”
Danny gave me the name of the place where a lot of the Heaven’s Gate crowd bought their stuff.
I knew the place: Sir Kinkalots. It retailed the type of clothing known as alternative, as well as a bunch of other products that fell into the alternative basket. That is what Danny told me anyway.
I did not want to be seen anywhere near the place. I was always afraid that someone from Walter Clarke might see me there and then I’d be known around the office as that guy who is into kinky stuff .
I wondered what to do. For all my tiptoeing around Walter Clark, I ended up losing what I tried to protect anyway.
And besides, that was the old Lex. I wanted to bury any memories of the old Lex by doing things he would not do. It was Sunday, the beginning of the week. A perfect time to reinvent myself.
When I left home, Dad was out. It was just as well, I hated lying to him. I always got the feeling he knew I was lying and was just keeping up the facade to watch me squirm. I had not quite reinvented myself enough to have the desired level of courage to tell my Dad I was going to a place as radical as Sir Kinkalots.
Danny was more than willing to come with to help me pick an appropriate outfit. This relieved me more than I was willing to express to him. Not only was I still carrying the fear that the old Lex had. I also had no idea what I was looking for and I could see myself ignorantly looking my new flashy Stef-winning wardrobe amongst the ladies’ sex toys section.
Sir Kinkalots was in a central part of the city near Walter Clarke which was why I feared running into some of my former colleagues. As we walked down the steps to Sir Kinkalots underneath the street level, I felt the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I felt when entering Heaven’s gate
I did not know what to expect. My first reaction was surprise. The place was much bigger than I thought it would be. The shop was staffed by one girl at the counter. I did notget a good look at her though. I was doing my best to keep my eyes forward, afraid of catching the eyes of someone I knew lurking behind one of the displays of human desire.
Danny led me to the back of the store. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see all the colourful and unusual looking shapes and displays of nakedness on the shelves. Near the back of the long, narrow shop was a rack of clothes that did not appear to be sorted in any particular manner. Unlike the rest of the store, the predominant colour was black and the predominant texture was smooth and shiny. I had never seen clothes like this before.
With the discerning eye of a fashionista, Danny pulled out different items, inspected them and either put them back or threw them on top of the rack to suggest they were in the “maybe” pile.
Danny handed me a pile of clothes. “Try these on. I think these are your size. I’ll be out here.”
“Are you getting some new clothes too?” I asked as he ushered me into the sole fitting room without checking to see if anyone was inside. I wondered how often Danny came to this place. The usual air of slight awkwardness seemed to dissolve as soon as we crossed the threshold in this underground lair. He seemed more at home in this store under the street than anywhere else.
I drew the curtain closed and looked with great anticipation at the pile of black material in my hands. There were three items. One was a long coat. The other was a pair of shiny black pants. The last piece was a garment made completely out of a light mesh material. By a process of elimination, I concluded it was a shirt-like thing.
I put the pants on with a lot of effort. It was a lot tighter than what I was used to wearing. To my relief, when I looked in the mirror, it actually looked pretty good. I negotiated the mesh top over my head and onto my shoulders. I took the time to admire my new image in the mirror before unfolding the coat. I was about to slip it on when I heard Danny’s harsh, anxious whisper “Lex!”
Before I could respond, Danny came bursting through the curtain and pulled it closed. He looked terrified.
“What?” I asked feeling very confused. I had never seen Danny look so scared. I wondered if the meatheads from Wayne’s tribute had stumbled into the place and were looking for retribution for getting kicked out of the party. I had a lot of trouble with letting go of near misses like that.
“What?” I asked again.
Danny closed eyes and took a deep breath in. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but your dad is here!”
It took a while for the words to sink in.
“My dad?” Danny must have been mistaken. I was sure he was mistaken and I didn’t feel comfortable spending anymore time with Danny inside that tiny fitting room wearing these tight, revealing pants and even more revealing mesh top.
I put the coat on and flipped the collar up as if this would give me extra camouflage from whoever it was I was hiding from. I was not ready to entertain the idea that my dad would even have a concept of a place like this, let alone have any interest in buying something from here.
But sure enough, there he was. My dad was looking through a shelf of strange looking bottles. He was wearing his dad uniform of polo t-shirt tucked into his track pants. It was difficult to describe how out of place he looked. However, he seemed to know exactly what he wanted. He investigated the stock on the shelves with the same confidence that Danny picked out the clothes I was wearing.
Danny and I looked at each other perplexed as we hunched behind a rack of porn DVDs.
“Are those pants OK? Or do you want one size up?” asked the shop assistant. Women seem to be sneaking up on me a lot these days I thought as I allowed myself a slight chuckle despite the surreal situation.
“No, that’s OK” Danny blurted out nervously and loudly.
Dad turned around from the shelf.
“Danny?” he exclaimed with surprise. His eyes then darted across to me where the top half of my head was poking out of the top of the shelf of DVDs
“Lex? What are-”
“These are good. I’ll take them” I said. I was so flustered that I unbuttoned the pants and almost took them off in the middle of the store and brought them to the counter. I then regained just enough composure to shuffle to the makeshift fitting room, almost tripping on the long trench coat milling around my ankles.
Inside the fitting room, I sat against the wall with my head in my hands. My dad is in here buying some perverted bottles of who knows what? My world seemed to keep unravelling.
Shamefully, I texted Danny “Is he still here?” I could not face my dad right now.
Danny poked his head through the curtain “He left pretty much as soon as you had your meltdown.”
“What the fuck is he doing here? What the fuck is my dad doing at Sir Kinkalots?”
“It looked like he was just buying some massage oil and massage candles.”
“Just massage candles? What is he going to do with a massage candle? He is always at work” I decided to stop asking questions. I knew the answers would scare me. I did not even know what a massage candle was.
