Chapter 5

“Hi, Sara, what are you and your friend up to?” Ryan said as he smiled at us while trying to nonchalantly check Jesse out.

Amazing! Ryan had been in the trig class with us for the entire semester and he had no idea who Jesse was!

“This is Jessica, she’s my best friend from LA who’s spending the weekend with me,” I said, lying to him.

“It’s great to meet you, Jessica,” Ryan said, as his slack-jawed friends looked on. “You’ll have to talk Sara into bringing you by my dorm room later on tonight for a beer.”

“I’d like that,” Jesse said, giving Ryan a big flirty smile.

Jesse might have had the look down for passing as a woman, but his voice was an octave lower than a typical female. We definitely needed to work on that. But Ryan and his friends didn’t seem to notice at all; they were totally enchanted by the pretty little Asian girl who was being flirty with them.

I grabbed Jesse’s hand, pulling him towards my car, “C’mon, Jessica, we’d better get going, talk to you later, Ryan.”

The guys looked positively heartbroken as we started to walk away. “Don’t forget about that beer, Sara,” Ryan said desperately as I unlocked my car.

I gave Ryan one last smile before sliding into my car. Moments later, Jesse slid into the passenger seat next to me. We both looked at each other in amazement.

“I thought he was going to immediately recognize me.”

“Nonsense, with me as your makeup artist they didn’t stand a chance,” I said teasingly. Truthfully, I’d thought Jesse was going to get found out too, but I didn’t want to admit that to him and shake his confidence. “You had better work on your woman’s voice,” I said, smiling at him. “You would’ve been in trouble had they not been so preoccupied trying to mentally undress you.”

It was a very short drive from the UNLV campus to the Piranha nightclub on Paradise Road. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Piranha was a very popular LGBT hotspot in Las Vegas. Jesse and I were able to talk during the drive, which gave him time to practice his feminine voice. By the time we reached our destination Jesse had raised his voice an octave, and when he spoke it was like talking to a demure little minx.

Together, we exited my car and stepped into the Piranha. We were instantly greeted by the loud, thumping house music that was blaring through the club’s large speakers.

I took a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and that gave me an opportunity to check out my surroundings. The club had at least a dozen large stone columns on each side of the expansive dance floor, and it also had hot blue and red lighting that gave the place a fresh and hip vibe. The place was packed with people who were dancing and drinking, which made it difficult to get up to the bar to order drinks.

The patrons in the club were an eclectic mix that would be difficult, if not impossible, to describe in a single sentence. The women were dressed in a variety of clothing that ranged from traditional feminine club attire of short dresses and skirts to more of a masculine, butch-style leather gear. Similarly, the men were also dressed in every type of fashion imaginable, from traditional Dockers and a polo shirt to very risqué costumes. As we fought our way through the crowd, I looked towards the dance floor and saw one young man, about my age, dancing with his male partner in assless leather chaps and an open cowboy vest. I definitely felt out of my comfort zone.