"Are you always this nosey?"
☆

He didn't know why he had ended up back here of all places. Queens had never been a place he had frequented before, not before last night. His clients usually prefered swanky hotel rooms, but it was better than his bedsit. Dexter wanted to be alone but not be on his own and for some reason unbeknown to him, this was where he had found himself. 

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the mystery man." The Queen of the bar says as Dexter approaches. She looks along the length of the bar to see no one but a canoodling couple at the far end, before looking back at him as he takes a seat at the mirrored counter. "I knew I was your type." She adds with a subtle wink. 

"I just want a beer." Dexter says with a slight irritation in his tone. Maybe he didn't want to be around others after all, especially if they were cracking unamusing jokes.

"Suit yourself." She huffs, fulfilling his order. As she pulls the lever of the pump to fill the pint glass, she glances up at him, noticing how he seemed to have the world on his shoulders compared to the night before. "Penny for them?" 

"Mm?" Dexter refocuses on the lady, watching as she finishes pulling his pint and places it before him.

"You look a little sad, hun. Jomumma has an eye for these things." She ends the words with a smile, trying her best to coax something out of the handsome stranger. 

"Are you always this nosey?" Dexter says as he pulls the pint towards himself, as he paid contactless. 

"You are a customer right now, I like to take care of my customers. Plus, if you didn't want to talk about it, you wouldn't be propping up my bar." She raises an eyebrow, accompanied with a know it all grin. 

Deep down, Dexter knew that she was probably right. The closest person he would have possibly spoken anything relationship wise with, was Brian and that would have probably only been on a superficial level. The sibling rivalry of keeping score of their sexual conquests seemed to be the only bond they had, before Brian made sure to severe it.

"Are you looking for Simon?" She questions.

"Who?" Dexter says looking lost at the landlady. 

"Simon!...the guy you were so keen to chat to last night." She then leans across the bar to speak low in his ear. "Do you want me to pass a message?"

"What? Is this twenty questions or something? I just want a quiet drink. Dexter complains, taking a sip of his beer. 

She straightens back up, again giving him a quizzical stare. "You're a gigolo aren't you." 

Dexter nearly sprays his beer across the bar. He ends up choking a laugh. "What the fuck? Who calls it that? I prefer the word escort."

"I have an escort and it has four wheels and a gear stick, you're a gigolo." She now places a hand on her hip. "Do you know Neil Rose?" She asks again, in not such a discrete manner this time around.

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you." He replies, before adding. "Client confidentiality." He looks at the landlady with a smug grin.

"So if you're not here to work, why are you here? Because it's clearly not friendly chit chat." She again asks. Dexter wonders whether he should divulge how he was feeling right now…vulnerable, angry, but most of all, stupid. Stupid for letting his guard down. Stupid for letting Jack in. Stupid for letting himself care, but most of all, stupid for running away. 

He takes in the lady in drag. Her blonde wig cascading over her shoulders like a golden waterfall. Her makeup so perfect, it put Barbie to shame. "Tell me, does anyone know the real you?" He puts the question to her. It makes the landlady hold out her hands as it to suggest the obvious.

"I beg your pardon, this is me!" She proclaims. "I may wear fake, but this is me one hundred percent." 

"So you're telling me, that when you take all that shit off, you are exactly the same?" Dexter sees the comment hit a nerve, but she masks it with a slow clap. 

"Ok, I see what you're doing here. You want me to admit this is a persona. Very clever mr gigolo." She rests a hand on the bar as she ponders the answer. "There is more than one version of me. I don't have all sides of me on display all at once. Does everyone know me without my fake tits? No. Only a few." She folds her arms. her eyes analysing Dexter. "Have you let someone see you without you titties?" 

"What the fuck are you on about now? Does it look like I wear fake tits?" Dexter had now come to the conclusion that this bartender was off her trolley. 

She just rolls her eyes at the reply. "Hun it's metaphorically speaking. I mean, have you let someone see your vulnerable side?" Dexter's stare instantly gravitates towards the pint glass. It's enough to know the landlady is on to something. She takes a sigh before carrying on. "Y'know, we're not that different, you and I…"

"Is that so?" Dexter snorts at the ridiculous suggestion that he would be any way like her. 

"Your trade is an act is it not? You pretend to be all people for your clients, but the one person you are afraid of portraying is your true self. I guess my makeup does the same. Jojo the welcoming landlady of Queens. Always here to talk, listen, flirt…" she winks at Dexter. "Better to know Jomumma than Johnny Webb, living alone, watching Bridget Jones….anyways I digress…'' She places a manicured hand on Dexter's sleeve. "If you found it within yourself to be you in front of that person, then they must be somebody special." 

Dexter takes in the words. This apparent stranger may have been onto something. "So, oh wise one, what do you suggest I do now?" Dexter looks up at the lady, who seemed to have a warm smile on her face. 

"Isn't it obvious hun? You don't let them go."