Campo Royale #5
It’s going to take all his skills to keep an innocent songbird safe.
Duri Yoo is struggling with life. Maybe the funk that’s hanging on his shoulders like a soggy sweater has to do with his thirtieth birthday, which is just around the corner. Maybe that blah feeling is due to everyone at the Campo having found their true heart’s desire except for him. Over the past few months, Duri has started questioning everything right down to if he needs to change his stage name from Jo-Jo Jewels to…well, he hasn’t a clue. All he knows is that he’s feeling down in the dumps. Heck, even his fellow queen has picked up a new secret admirer/super fan. He’d stamp a high heel in vexation, but the way things are going the darn heel would snap right off. When he’s sure life couldn’t get any worse, he’s proven wrong. And yet horribly right…
Keaton Black Bird’s job is straightforward. He’s hired to protect people. Generally, ridiculously rich business tycoons or heads of state. Being hired to keep a drag queen out of harm’s way is a new one for the former Secret Service agent. However, he’s being paid incredibly well to ensure that one of the Campo Royale’s performers isn’t harassed off-stage while the tiny queen’s hockey playing boyfriend is on the road. It’s while he’s protecting one drag queen he meets another, and the connection to Jo-Jo Jewels is undeniable. Keaton’s never been in such a unique situation before. All the men in his past were more or less like him: austere, professional, athletic. Jo-Jo is none of those things, but the owner of Black Bird Executive Protection is falling hard and fast for the delightful and quirky songbird. Unfortunately, emotions tend to cloud the mind, and Keaton and Duri soon find themselves in a situation that’s far more dangerous than either of them could have imagined.
The Chanteuse and the Bodyguard is a bodyguard romance with an anime-loving songstress, a rugged guardian, lots of BL adoration, a huge loving family, rainbow-toned wigs, unexpected danger, and a techno-colored happily-ever-after. (This book contains scenes of stalking/violence that some may find upsetting.)
ONE
Duri
If I had to pick a favorite gummi bear flavor, it would be grape.
There was just something about purple bears that always cheered me up. The tiny, sweet treats did nothing for my teeth—just ask my dentist who tsks me every time he has to give me a filling. Nor did they help my pudgy waistline—just ask the guys who swiped right on my dating app profile. But they did cheer me up. Usually…
“…told her it was going to get severe if she did not remove her grubby paws from my man. Honestly, puck bunnies are so grabby. So when I asked her to politely cease and fucking desist from goosing my guy, she got all flip.” Gigi was talking steadily while applying eyeliner. It was a gift that only she possessed. Every time I tried to kiki and paint, I had a mess. “Do you love this liner or what? It’s from the new line by Wanda Wixie. Her makeup is to die.”
“I like her foundation. It’s so hard to find the right tones for Asian skin,” I replied, popped another bear into my mouth, then ran a finger along said Wanda Wixie foundation bottle resting on my dressing table. “It has the right undertone of a light green and really covers well.”
“I love how you paint. Honestly, I wish I had the berries to be so brave and bright with my face, but my fans fly off the fucking frying pan when I try to change up.” Gigi sighed, lowering her liner to look my way. “You get to explore all those gorge anime styles as well as your Korean heritage. I’m totes envious.”
As I passed her a purple bear, she grinned widely because she knew purple was my favorite. “Oo grape! Yummers!” The door to the dressing room opened and Yampier trotted in, fully frocked for his set tonight. He was so adorable in his cowgirl outfits and was getting quite a following as Trixie Lee Belle.
“I miss Clarice.” Trixie sighed, bumping the door shut with her padded hip right in the face of some drab man peering in at us. “Honestly, if we don’t find a new manager soon, my boyfriend is going to combust. Is that for me?”
I nodded, then placed another of my prized purple bears into her gloved hand. She was all kitted out in white suede, fringed gloves and skirt, and a cow-print vest. She had gone with a soft gold wig set in a ՚40s modified pomp with soft sides and a teensy cow-print hat perched jauntily on her head.
“You rock.” Trixie chewed as she passed next week’s stage rotation to Gigi. “Jordan set this up so it might not be exactly what you both wanted, but he’s kind of frazzled.”
I leaned in to peek over Gigi’s shoulder. Ugh. We were all scheduled through the weekend, which was fine for me. I didn’t have a sig other to spend time with. Which was depressing as hell, but what could a girl do? Gigi was going to combust over working seven days a week, though. She and Tyr had been trying to align their schedules more closely during hockey season as he traveled a lot, and so did she, but it looked like we were all pulling double duty for a while. I slipped back to my table as Gigi came unglued.
“Oh my gods, this is inhumane! I cannot work every day. I’ll get blotchy and bloated. You need to tell Mother that this treatment is primitive!” Gigi railed, jumping to her tiny slippers to glare at Trixie.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Trixie fired back, tossing up both hands, fringe swaying. “You’re not working every day. Just mostly every day.”
“Sorry. I love you. I’m going to go yell at Mother,” Gigi said, making a kissy face at Trixie, then stormed off, throwing the door open with attitude. The same guy who had been at the door when Trixie entered was still there. He smiled in at us. Then, out of nowhere, a big hand latched onto his coat and yanked him out of sight.
“Eladio is on the job.” Trixie sighed, then walked over and closed the door on nosy fans, leaning against it with a huff. “Honestly, I do not know what we’re going to do here. Jordan is not up for all this managerial work. He’s always hated it. His sleeping habits are terrible. All he does is toss and turn. I can’t believe that we’ve interviewed over two dozen queens and not one of them wants to sign on as shift manager.”
I nodded along in commiseration, then ate another bear, a red one this time to try to even out the colors in the dish.
“Well, to be fair, it is a lot of work. All the paperwork for the bar and the rotating work schedules for us girls,” I said, picking up my pick to start teasing the silver-blue wig I was wearing for my set tonight. I’d planned out a gorge face to paint that would work well with the makeup style I was going to create. It was a huge nod to Eli from My Hero Academia right down to the red contacts I had in my bag. Few here would get the homage to the positive little heroine, but a couple of my die-hard fans would. “I wouldn’t want to take that responsibility on.”
“No, me either. Not for minimum wage.” Trixie groaned wearily. “But times are hard all over. We’ll get through this just like we have everything else.”
I nodded. “That’s the attitude,” I replied as cheerily as I could as I began spraying the living hell out of my wig. “Jobu is always telling us he prefers to look on the bright side of life. Then he begins whistling.”
“Oh cool. Is that a South Korean folk song or something?” Trixie asked, glancing down to see an envelope slide under the door and come to rest between her cowboy boots.
“No, it’s from Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” I said, my teasing comb pausing.
“Your grandpa is the coolest,” she answered and bent down to pick it up. Love letters weren’t uncommon. Men—and sometimes women—developed crushes on our stage personas. That was part of what made dating so difficult. You never really knew if the man was with you for you or your fictional character. Add in being a little chubby and Asian with an anime/manga/BL obsession and your chances for that happily-ever-after dropped significantly. Or maybe that was just the case here in Wilmington? The gay dating pool was pretty shallow in our town. “Another fan letter for Gigi from her new admirer.” She held up the light pink envelope to show me the neatly scrawled lettering that was now familiar to us. This guy was crushing big time on Gigi.
For the most beautiful songbird in the Campo Royale…
The envelope always read the same thing, and inside would be any number of things. Poems, little charms for Eli’s wrist bracelets, pencil drawings of songbirds from around the world. Whoever the man was, he was talented and sneaky. No one ever saw anyone slipping the gifts under the door, even though Eladio was always within twenty feet. Either Gigi’s fan was a ninja or Eladio needed to glance away from his telenovelas a bit more.
“I wonder what’s inside it this time?” I stalled in my wig teasing to pop another gummi bear into my mouth as I pondered. In a way, it was kind of romantic, a secret admirer. Eli had no interest, obviously, as he was crazy in love with Tyr. More than likely, the newest gift would be tossed into the trash unopened as most of them were after Eli tore them open and made fun of this poor lonely soul. I loved Eli to bits, but sometimes he could be super catty. And when those claws came out, they dug deep.
“Hard to say.” Trixie tossed the pink envelope on Gigi’s dressing table. “I’m heading back into the lion’s den to see if Jordan needs me to do anything else while he’s doing the intros.”
“KK. Thanks for the work schedule.”
I blew her a kiss and then got back to my wig. When my sister songbird returned from sassing off to Mother, she sat down with a huff, crossed her legs, and spied the envelope lying atop her blending powder.
“Really? What is up with this man?!” Gigi handed me the envelope. “Here, you open it. There’s no time for fan shenanigans. I’m due on stage in ten minutes and look at me!” She waved her hands up and down, her beautiful face pulling into a frown. “I’m not sure I can even perform up to par tonight. Can you imagine working all weekend? It’s just—”
“Inhumane,” I filled in for her before laying the envelope down on my table. “Let me help you get cinched and ready.”
“You are an angel! How would I ever manage without you?” She bussed my cheek as she rose. Fifteen minutes and one irate shout from Mother at the door and Gigi was ready. She scurried out the door, her frothy lilac and black taffeta dress swirling around her lithe form, a cloud of perfume and hairspray in her wake.
Once the door closed, I exhaled and tore into the fan letter as if it were water and I was a parched man. In some ways I was thirsty, and not in that “I need dick now” way. Although I did need dick, so maybe I was slang thirsty too.
Inside the soft pink envelope was a small sheaf of delicate-looking paper. Easing it out of the envelope, I shook it open. Several iridescent blue-black feathers floated to my makeup table to rest amid the palettes of eyeshadow and blusher.
“Oh,” I whispered in surprise, pausing to gather up all the feathers and return them to the envelope. When that was done, I took a second to listen closely. I could hear Gigi’s music through the thin walls, some old ՚40s tune about lost love. Trixie was probably with Mother in her office or behind the bar helping Cord out, as our bartending staff was as thin as our performers’ lineup. Hoping I’d have a few minutes of solitude, I gently opened the folded vellum. The edges had been burnt. Small flakes flitted down to my lap. I absently brushed them off my old robe with the foundation-stained collar. “Oh wow.”
The drawing looked to be a white wagtail. Maybe it was an American bird—I wasn’t a birding expert—but the white mask and dark feathering resembled the birds that gathered in my uncle’s garden in Seoul. Closing my eyes, I could hear the bright chirping call as well as the chimes of Aunt Min’s homemade pipe wind chimes. It had been several years since I’d been home. I missed my homeland even though I’d been just a toddler when my parents had come to America. There were tons of relatives here in Wilmington. My parents and two sets of aunts, as well as a billion cousins, but there was something special about South Korea. Someday I’d travel back when I could afford it, but for now, it just the grind of working hard to pay the bills. Shaking off the daily doldrum worries, I read over the short poem.
Your song sweeps me high into the clouds
But then I crash down to earth
In a tender swoon
Your voice in my ears
Sing loud for me, my beautiful songbird.
“Amazing,” I whispered as I read the prose several more times before tucking it back into the envelope and placing it on the overflowing table next to mine. Whoever was in love with “the most beautiful songbird in the Campo” really had it bad for our Gigi. Staring at myself in my smudged mirror, I wondered if someday a man would ever pen sonnets about me and my voice. “Doubtful,” I told my reflection and then got to work. The show must go on.
* * *
Driving home at two in the morning was always a challenge.
I was exhausted, hungry, and generally not paying attention as I should have. Eli liked to say that my driving was maniacal, which always entertained me. If he thought I drove poorly, he should ride with my father or grandfather. My mother refused to go anywhere with my dad unless she was behind the wheel. Lead-foot sickness as my mom called it. I liked to think I wasn’t that much of a speedster, but as I cruised through the now silent and dark Hockessin neighborhood my family resided in, I found myself driving about fifteen miles above the posted speed limit.
“Oopsie,” I said, easing off the gas and then slowing at a stop sign. Delaware had a pretty large Asian community. Thirty years ago, before my brother had been conceived and I was still just a baby, my parents settled here to accommodate my father’s promotion in the Miller & Draper Carpet Company. They’d brought my maternal grandparents and my mother’s younger twin sisters with them. Dad was now purchasing supervisor and my mother owns her own bookkeeping company. Something that she is very proud of since back in South Korea, women don’t generally own their own businesses. It’s a very patriarchal society, sadly as well as homophobic. While I love my homeland greatly, I’m very glad to be an American citizen. I may not be rich, but I was living my life my way.
BLACKPINK’s song “Boombayah” was roaring out of the speakers of my new used Prius as I pulled away from the light, taking the first left down my quiet street. At the next stop sign, I broke into seated dance moves to match the ones in the upbeat Korean girl group’s video. Our house was one among many that looked similar to the others surrounding it. We’ve lived here in this suburban neighborhood forever, in the same house. My parents had never changed their phone number until their landline became obsolete. And then they still had to keep the house line because my grandmother refused to get a cell phone. When she passed two years ago, we’d given my grandfather his first Android phone.
He now spent all day on his phone and spent most of that phone time sending me TikToks from other drag queens, funny animal videos, or any updates from the million BL shows I watched. Grandpa was super accepting of my being gay and had dove into the LGBT community as a staunch ally. My whole family was pretty cool after the initial nose-punch of the eldest Yoo son being queer and a drag performer. My dad had struggled a bit at first but came around as had my mother and aunts. One uncle was still uncomfortable, but he hid it well. All my cousins were incredibly supportive. I extremely lucky. Not all my fellow queens had this degree of family love available to help shield them from the arrows that the haters fired our way on the daily.
Pulling into the driveway of the split-level, I parked behind my brother’s car, then sat in the drive until the current song was over, knowing that everyone inside would be sound asleep. My brother Hey was away at college in New York studying fashion. He was killer with design and had created several looks for me to wear on stage. I did most of my anime/manga costumes myself, though, as he lacked the adoration for the genre that I had. His looks were more downtown zeitgeist than what I preferred on-stage. He, too, was queer. A brilliant and fiery genderflux human who came to family affairs in anything from a 1920s flapper dress to a kilt and heels to a sleek motorcycle black leather daddy look. I guess my family wasn’t gently led into the wading pool of queer culture. They were kind of shoved into it by those two flamboyant Yoo boys. Sink or swim hunty as Mother would say. Most of them were paddling along really well.
Stepping out of my car, I yawned and watched the fog of breath float skyward. It was chilly in Delaware in late February. Shivering in the light jacket I’d tossed on after work, I jogged to the steps, stopping suddenly. Lying on the first stair was a dead bird. A dark one, perhaps a blackbird of some sort. I rolled my eyes to the house, muttering a curse at my mother’s cat Herman. The ginger tabby was mostly an indoor cat, but on occasion he would sneak out and kill something. Generally, the birds that visited the feeder in the back yard. How fat old Herman had scaled the stockade fence around our little yard was anyone’s guess, but cats could do amazing things.
“Damn it, Herman.” I sighed, stepping over the offering to climb the stairs and find some gloves. Once in my apartment, I flipped on the lights, dropped my bag containing my sweaty costume and wig, and went off to find some rubber gloves. My small place was terribly warm, so I dropped the thermostat as I passed and then began the search. I found no cleaning gloves—probably because I rarely cleaned as my mother could attest to—but I did find some woolen mittens and a plastic sand shovel and bucket from my trip to Atlantic City last summer. I’d gone with Eli and Tyr and had a blast, even if I was a major fifth wheel.
Padding back down the stairs, I used the pink shovel to nudge the dead bird into the matching pink pail. Then I raced around the side of the double-garage to dump the offering into the green trash can. I’d inform my mother of Herman’s murderous rampage tomorrow morning when I joined them for breakfast. Once I cleaned up the crime scene, I went back upstairs, ready for a long hot shower and my Genshin Impact hooded onesie. Once I was warm and cozy, I’d check out the tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream while I lay in bed re-watching any of my favorite BL drama/romances. Oh, to have a romance like the boys’ love shows have. I might have sighed just a little. It was weird how I was constantly surrounded by people—Asian culture was incredibly family-oriented, which was why our elders lived with us—and friends, but yet was so lonely. I guess having cousins lying around your place playing your PS5 wasn’t the same as having a man you loved lying around playing your PS5.
Toeing off my boots, I took one step toward my bedroom, which was one of two doors off the large main space of the living area and kitchen, when my phone vibrated in my new Sailor Moon handbag. Finding the battered cell under an opened tube of pumpkin lip gloss, I checked the caller ID, saw it was Mother Sitka, and took the call.
“Mother,” I said and hid a yawn behind my hand. “Did I leave something behind again?”
“No, pudding, there’s been a slight thing with Eli. He’s quite distressed. Can you come back to the club? He’s asking for you to hold his hand.”
If my best buddy was in distress, I could make the twenty-five-minute drive in under ten minutes as long as the lights ran in my favor. I shoved my feet into my fuzzy yellow slippers, pulled my coat back on, grabbed my purse, and ran to my still warm car.
Monday Musical Melody
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee.
(Not necessarily in that order.)
She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
EMAIL: vicki@vllocey.com
The Chanteuse and the Bodyguard #4
Campo Royale Series
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