‘Elly Phant was here’ is written next to a giant purple lipstick mark. ‘Dawn Raid is a fugly slut and PROUD!’ is written just below that.
‘Come on, sweetheart, we don’t have all day,’ Kaye says from the top of the stairs.
I vault the last few steps and walk into the room. It’s not what I was expecting, not by a long way. When Kaye had mentioned a dressing room, the first thing that came to mind was something close to one in a theatre with the mirrors surrounded by yellowish white bulbs and vanity mirrors. This is an out-of-use function room.
The paint on the wall is peeling and was blue once upon a time but is now more of an off-green colour. Dotted around the room are tables with mirrors, some with lights in them, some without, all of them covered in make-up. There are people already in here, most of them in daywear, almost all of them fixated on their own reflections.
‘Ladies.’ Kaye claps his hands. ‘I’d like to introduce a friend of mine. This is Robin, he is a musical-theatre boy—’
‘Gross.’ My eyes flick to the far side of the room where Pristine Gleaming is wandering around half in drag, half out, in a corset, a wig cap and some tights. She’s big, she’s black, she’s cinched like you wouldn’t believe and is already fully painted.
‘Pristine, don’t start,’ Kaye says. ‘Pristine hates musical theatre,’ he whispers to me. ‘If someone dares to do a musical-theatre number and Pristine is here, she will boo and she will heckle.’
‘Wow.’
‘She made Julie Mandrews cry once, Julie freaking Mandrews.’
And he says it like I should really know who Julia Mandrews is. But, beyond a name, I don’t. So I just nod, trying to look surprised.
‘Anyway, Robin has come here to learn a little something about drag,’ Kaye says, clapping his hands together. ‘Please be kind to him, nothing too vulgar. He’s still at school, after all.’
‘Us? Vulgar? Never, darling.’ Someone with no eyebrows is currently in the process of drawing them on with a vibrant blue neon pigment, particles of it floating in the air, a lot of it on the table.
‘Are you . . .’ I hesitate. ‘Are you Carrie D’Way?’
‘All the time, dear boy.’ He reaches out a hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Entity.’
‘I’ve actually been here before,’ I say. ‘I was here a couple of weeks ago for my birthday. You were amazing, by the way.’
Carrie shrugs and pouts. ‘Well, what can I say? You have very good taste.’ He looks at Kaye. ‘Though you’re spending your time with this one, so perhaps not.’
‘Carrie has been hosting these nights for . . .’ Kaye turns to Carrie, an evil smile spreading across his face. ‘How long has it been, my dear? When did the dinosaurs go extinct?’
Carrie sits up straight and blinks, her mouth forming a perfect ‘O’. ‘I don’t know, dear, but they clearly missed one.’
Kaye cackles and we move on to where there is a girl getting ready. Her hair is whipped up on top of her head in a messy bun and she’s using the smallest brush to paint green vines extending from her hairline across her face.
‘Our resident conceptual, this is Anne Drogyny.’
She looks up at me and I blink. ‘Oh.’
‘Oh?’ She fixes me with a look of pure disgust. ‘Does it look that bad?’ She goes back to her mirror and paints another line.
‘No, I just . . .’ I don’t know how to word this because even I know that it makes me sound ignorant. ‘I was expecting Anne Drogyny to be a guy, that’s all.’
Anne takes a deep breath, putting her brush down. Kaye backs away a little. I know I’ve put my foot in it, but I’m not a hundred per cent sure how.
‘You think that gay men have the monopoly on drag or something?’
‘No, not at all, I—’
‘Because you don’t,’ she snaps. ‘Women can do drag, Michelle Visage says what she does is drag, Elvira says what she does is drag.’ She sighs. ‘You watch RuPaul’s Drag Race, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That barely scratches the surface,’ she hisses. ‘There are trans queens and AFAB queens out there who would blow your freaking mind.’ She sits back in her chair. ‘I mean, look at me – I’m a bio queen. Did I blow your mind the other night?’
I shrug. ‘You did, actually. I’ve never seen anything like . . . well . . . most of you,’ I say, looking around. And it’s in that moment that I really understand what she means when she says Drag Race barely scratches the surface. In this room alone there are acts that I never imagined I would see at a drag show. I thought it would be all lip-syncing, but there are dancers and singers and conceptual art pieces. The way that Anne is painting her face right now – you could put her in an art gallery.
‘There are people who don’t think The Duchess is a proper queen, just because she’s trans.’
‘The Duchess?’
‘The very same!’ I flick my eyes in the direction of the new voice to see a black woman standing by a table covered in make-up. She’s a little shorter than me, wearing a pair of skinny blue jeans and a figure-hugging maroon top that shows off every curve and swerve. ‘Lovely to meet you,’ she says, shaking my hand.
‘Lovely to meet you too.’
‘The Duchess is my drag mother,’ Anne says. ‘Raised me from a baby drags to what I am now. You’ll never see a lipsync artist like her, never hear a singer like her – she is the real damn thing.’
‘Leave the boy alone,’ The Duchess says. ‘You watch Drag Race, right?’
I’ve already answered this question once and responding feels like a trap. ‘Yes.’
She puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Think of Drag Race as your gateway drug,’ she says. ‘The beginning of the rest of your life. Are you coming to the show tonight?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Two weeks ago for my birthday was the first time I’d ever been to a drag show.’
The Duchess smiles. ‘Then you have a lot to learn. But you can learn a lot at Dragcellence. Keep your eyes, your heart and your mind open, and who knows what you’ll find!’ She kisses me on the cheek. ‘It was lovely meeting you. Enjoy the show.’
Anne has gone back to painting her face. She eyeballs me in the mirror. ‘Sashay away, race chaser. I’m still mad at you.’
‘I-I-I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—’
Kaye grabs my arm and ushers me away. ‘She’s not really mad. She just needs to cool off,’ he whispers. ‘She has that speech ready at the drop of a hat for anyone who dares to question what she does.’
I look at Kaye. ‘Do people do that often?’
Kaye raises a glued-down eyebrow. ‘All the damn time. And it’s not fair because she’s fierce.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Trans queens and AFAB queens don’t get the love they deserve amongst the LGBTQIA+ community,’ Kaye says. ‘And don’t get me started on drag kings. Where the hell is their TV show?’
Kaye leads me across the room to a dining table with a small, round, lit mirror on it. Without even looking, he grabs a stick of purple glue and runs it over his eyebrows again.
‘So, Robin, I’m glad you actually came,’ he says. ‘When you didn’t show up on the dot, I thought you might have changed your mind. A lot of people think they want to be drag queens until they realize how much work it takes.’
‘I’m not afraid of hard work.’
‘You’re a theatre kid so that doesn’t exactly surprise me.’ Kaye flicks opens a fan, the thworp sound echoing through the dressing room, and starts fanning his brows. ‘So, you say you’ve been painting. What are you painting with, how often are you doing it and please tell me you’re taking care of your skin.’
‘Um . . . mostly drugstore stuff,’ I say a little sheepishly, seeing the plethora of brand names on the table in front of him. Fenty, NYX, MAC, bloody hell.
‘Nothing to be embarrassed about, sweetheart,’ Kaye says, putting on another layer of glue before thworping his fan again and fanning away. ‘You’ve got to
start somewhere and better to practise with something that doesn’t cost you the earth. How often?’
‘Whenever I can,’ I say, tugging my phone out of my pocket. ‘And I think I’ve been getting better.’ I swipe through a few of the photos and even I’m a little bit pleased with how I’ve come on.
‘While you’re practising,’ he says, ‘it might be an idea to use a straight edge for your contour. It will get it a little more even and a lot more severe. If that’s what you’re into. And, like I said last night, eyeshadow primer is your friend.’ He rummages through his make-up bag and grabs one. It’s still sealed. He hands it to me. ‘Try this and call me in the morning,’ he says in an unmistakably Mae West voice.
‘Kaye, that’s so kind. You don’t have to—’
‘Don’t speak too loudly. They can’t know I’m nice,’ he growls. He takes my phone off me and looks through a few more of the photos. ‘Have you found a style you like?’
I shake my head.
‘That will take time,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to stick to just one look, but if you find something you like then it can’t hurt, of course. If it’s something you can do quickly, even better. You never know when a gig is going to appear and it’s nice to be able to do a thirty-minute face.’
‘Thirty minutes?’ I repeat. The faces I’ve been doing take me the best part of two hours. How the heck could you get that down to thirty minutes?
‘Don’t look so alarmed, sweetheart – it’s all practice,’ he says, applying one last layer of glue before covering his brows with powder. ‘Now, the key to brows is to press down, hard, though I imagine you’ve watched enough tutorials to know that.’
I nod.
‘Sometimes it’s worth doing an extra layer if you have time.’
‘Or just use spirit gum, it’s a lot easier!’ Pristine booms from next to me.
‘Don’t confuse the boy, Pristine,’ Kaye snaps, applying another layer of glue and more powder. ‘Let him get used to the glue first, then we’ll talk about spirit gum.’
‘Ooh, look at her. She gets herself one drag daughter and decides it’s her way or the highway.’
‘I’m just trying to keep it simple, stupid.’
Pristine Gleaming thworps a fan and starts to fan herself. ‘Well, each to their own, darling, but I’m a sweaty bitch and a sweaty bitch needs to make sure her brows are a hundred per cent covered.’ She spins slowly on the spot and walks back to her station, continuing to add to her impressive face.
‘We’ll talk about spirit gum another time,’ Kaye whispers. ‘Look, the first thing I should probably tell you is that there is no correct way to do this.’ He gestures to himself. ‘It’s all about what you feel most comfortable in, what makes you feel your best. Every queen looks different and that’s what makes all of this so exciting. Look at how many freaking tutorials you’ve done, every single one of them showing off a different face. You just need to find one that suits you.’
It’s only now that he points it out that I can really see it. No two queens really paint the same face. There are similarities, of course, but they all have their own way of doing it and their own look that evolves and gets perfected over time.
‘So, why do you want to be a drag queen?’ he says, putting on some primer as he starts to get ready. ‘We’ve already established you’re a performer . . . kinda.’
‘Well, I messed up getting into drama school this year,’ I start, with an attempt at breeziness. ‘It’s all I wanted and it’s gone, just like that. And the thing that brought me out of that funk was seeing this show a couple of weeks ago. Seeing all of you up there doing your thing brought me back to life, I guess, and it was a kind of performance I hadn’t even considered for myself. But it was inspiring and exciting, so different to what I usually do . . .’ I lower my voice so Pristine doesn’t hear. ‘Musicals and stuff.’
‘Well, honey, it ain’t no walk in the park,’ Kaye says. ‘There’s a lot more to it than looking fabulous. Sure, I look gorgeous, you don’t need to tell me . . .’ He trails off, waiting for me to chime in.
‘Oh, you look gorgeous. I thought it went without saying.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Well saved. But you also need to perform. The singing thing you did—’
‘I’m way better than that, I swear.’
‘Thank God!’ Kaye says. ‘Otherwise there’s no way anywhere would take you. Where did you audition?’
‘Everywhere.’
‘Like . . . ?’
‘The Arts Centre, Hillview, LAPA . . .’ I trail off. But that dream is gone for now. I don’t even want to think about applying again next year.
‘Look, rejection sucks,’ Kaye says. ‘But it’s part of the business. You aren’t the first kid to be rejected from drama school and, sweetie, you won’t be the last. You ain’t so special. I got rejected two years on the bounce.’
‘You did?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Kaye says. ‘Got in third time around. Hillview alumni, honey.’ He shrugs. ‘Maybe you weren’t ready.’
‘But I felt ready. I did everything I possibly could and—’
‘Get out of your head,’ Kaye says. ‘You’re probably getting in your own way most of the time. Now, what you need to do is apply that same discipline you had with your performing to your drag. It is an art form, so you better get to learning if you want in.’
‘OK.’
‘My advice is to absorb as much as possible,’ he says. ‘Paint as often as you can, watch a lot of drag, breathe it all in and you’ll discover so much about yourself and the kind of drag you want to do. Find the performance forms that excite you, either here or online or at other clubs. You may even surprise yourself.’
As he talks, Kaye paints. Foundation, blend, highlight, blend, contour, blend. It’s amazing watching his face transform into Kaye Bye’s – the high cheekbones, the overdrawn lips – it’s astounding. And she’s beautiful.
‘Stick around and watch the show,’ she says. ‘It should be a good one. Dusty Rhodes is coming down from Liverpool, and, honestly, wait until you hear them sing. You’re going to die. Oh! And, if he actually bothers to show, Just Jeff will be here. Now that is a king that will blow your mind. Andi Vaxxx will also be here, a trans man who was a queen before he was a king and is honestly the most beautiful porcelain prince you will ever see in your life. We have a packed bill tonight.’ She stands and walks over to a row of wigs perched on top of mannequin heads. She chooses a big, blonde one with wavy hair and puts it on. ‘Then you can come back tomorrow, if you like. We’ll paint a little more, talk about what kind of performer you want to be, see what we can do – how does that sound?’
‘It sounds great,’ I say, a little breathless. ‘I . . . I . . . I’ll be here.’
I finish watching Kaye get ready, then head downstairs to watch the show.
I take a few videos and shoot them over to Nat: Pristine lip-syncing to a Whitney Houston ballad and tearing the roof off the place. Dusty Rhodes, wearing a full tux and a harness, singing songs they’d written themselves that left everybody more than a little speechless. Just Jeff looking like a five foot two lumberjack with a beard that I could only dream of and lip-syncing to ‘Soliloquy’ from Carousel. Pristine heckled the whole way through, but was crying by the end. Andi Vaxxx wore a crown and deservedly so. He did a burlesque act and it was honestly hard to keep my eyes off him. He’s beautiful. Like. Stunning. It’s hard to believe that I didn’t even know this place existed a few weeks ago.
My phone buzzes in my pocket – Mum.
Everything OK? Thought you’d be home by now.
I check the time. Shit. It’s a rare day that Mum gets home before I do.
Just on my way. Class ran over.
I squeeze through the crowd and out into the night, pedalling like mad to make it back in time to have conceivably been at a dance class, but I’m already buzzing at the thought of being back tomorrow night.
‘How was the class?’ Mum asks as I walk in the door. She’s
sitting at the kitchen table, her nose stuck in a book, a pair of glasses on the end of her nose. ‘It’s late.’
‘I know,’ I say, a little out of breath from the bike ride. ‘We just lost track of time. Every time I finished it was like “let’s do it once more” and then it was ten. Wild.’ The lies fall off my tongue so easily and I sort of hate it.
‘Well, I’m glad you went back,’ she says. ‘I know you were worried about it, but it’s fine now that you’re there, right?’
I nod. ‘How was your evening?’
‘Really nice, actually,’ she says, dog-earing the page she’s on and putting her book down. ‘I had some soup, read my book, listened to the music you hate – it was nice. I never have the place to myself. It’s a novelty.’
‘True.’
‘I’d better make the most of it. You’ll be here all the time when school’s over,’ she says, but her smile slips when she sees my face. ‘Oh, Robin, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know what you meant, Mum,’ I say, walking into the kitchen, grabbing myself a glass of water, trying to not let the thought of the future ruin my right now. ‘You’ll have me tomorrow night, though, right?’ I say. It’s the best way to ask without arousing suspicion.
She sighs. ‘Alas, dear heart, no,’ she says. ‘There’s an extra shift going, and I jumped on it. Forgot you were off tomorrow; it would have been nice to see you. Maybe at the weekend?’
‘Yeah, maybe at the weekend,’ I say, washing my glass up and putting it back in the cupboard. ‘I should probably get to bed,’ I add. ‘Unless you want to talk or something?’
‘No, you head off to bed. You must be shattered,’ she says, ruffling my hair. ‘You need to get this cut, by the way. It’s out of control.’ She looks me in the eye and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Unless you want to talk? Is there something on your mind, you seem a little . . .’ She trails off.
‘A little what?’
‘Elsewhere,’ she says. ‘Not your usual bubbly self after a dance class, that’s all.’
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