Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  My eyes rolled up in my head at his words and I wasn’t sure how, but it felt like an extra injection of blood pumped my cock into extra hardness, and it was just like yesterday in the swimming pool showers.

  Him fucking me was hot, too.

  All I could see were his big eyes staring at me, just like in the dream last night.

  He really had me begging on my knees for him to pound me with his big, fat dick.

  “Machyl?”

  When I heard him say my name, I came so hard my knees gave out and I landed on the floor, panting and gasping with the water splashing all over my head.

  “Don’t you agree?”

  I got up, rinsed, re-soaped my dick, rinsed again, got out of the shower and couldn’t look at myself in the mirror.

  That did not just happen.

  This was not happening.

  I picked a new towel from the rack, a big, extra fluffy one.

  “Yeah,” I shouted through the door, regaining at least a bit of my composure. “I agree. I’ll talk to you about it in a sec. Just let me dry off here.”

  “Okay,” he replied.

  I dried off, tucked the towel around my waist, and started brushing my teeth. I still couldn’t face looking at myself.

  I brushed carefully in circular motions as the dentist had instructed and I looked at the porcelain bowl of the sink, with its faint reflections of light and shadow, a distorted representation of the room and me, and I remembered the dream.

  Anthony was peeking though the blinds. “Have you seen what’s going on out there?” He turned to me. “It’s quite wonderful. A woman just flew in on a kite. I think she’s come to visit her sister. And all the boys have gone out to say hello. Isn’t that splendid?”

  I was confused, in the dream, and didn’t know what was going on.

  Anthony got down from the large rock he had stepped up on to look out the window, which was quite high. It looked like a rock, but it was actually a velvet poof.

  I took in his naked body as he walked slowly toward me around the ornamental lily pond. He stopped, kneeled and then lay down next to me in the soft grass, which was really carpet.

  “Are you feeling alright today?” He asked, leaning forward and kissing my temple softly. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  I caught his wrist and kissed the inside of it, on the soft skin there.

  He smiled and stroked his hand down my face.

  “Come here,” he said, pulling me toward him. “I’m going to make you feel better.”

  I spit and rinsed my mouth and the toothbrush, put it back in its glass.

  The feeling in the dream was good, and that same feeling was in me now, in my chest. It seemed to be spreading or expanding, heading deeper.

  It felt good, really good, I felt excited, a little nervous and I put my hands on my head in desperation. It felt tender, that was how it felt. It felt like if someone reached inside me and stroked it, it would feel even better, but they would have to be gentle, very gentle, and not push it hard.

  I wasn’t feeling this, I wasn't feeling anything.

  Nothing was happening.

  I gathered my sweats and went back out the door, shot across the hall to my bedroom so fast I didn’t even have a chance to see him.

  I found clean underwear and socks and a t-shirt and then decided to put on clean sweats as well. And then I had to go out there and face him.

  “So these cacti…” Anthony was pointing out the window and squinting.

  I rushed past him, heading for the kitchen. When I got there, I wasn’t sure why I had gone there, so I turned around and went back. “Where’s your laundry?” I asked brusquely.

  He twisted around and looked up at me from the couch. “Oh, I put it in the washer…”

  I marched away, grabbed the laundry hamper from my bedroom and dragged it into the bathroom, filled the washer, poured in detergent, set the program and shut the door.

  “What kind of load is that?” Anthony inquired from the couch.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. I hadn’t even been able to read the dial.

  “Because those athleisure things are not supposed to be washed hot…” Then he said, “Oh and I left my contacts in a glass of water in there. I couldn’t find any contact lens stuff.”

  “It’s not hot,” I said, “and I don’t wear contact lenses. I stomped all the way to the front door. “Do you want breakfast?”

  He twisted all the way around onto his stomach and looked at me. “Yeah,” he said.

  I couldn’t look into his eyes, which were very dark right now. I just couldn’t.

  “What?” I said, looking at the floor. “They have brunch rolls, bagels, that kind of thing.”

  “Brunch roll…” Anthony said, flopping back onto his back again. “That sounds good.”

  “Drink?” I said jerkily.

  “Um… see if they have any smoothies… if not then juice.”

  “What kind?”

  Anthony looked at me upside down and smiled. “You pick,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything. I turned and went out the door and down the stairs.

  This wasn’t happening.

  “So,” Anthony said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and setting it aside with the crumpled-up paper wrapper his breakfast had come in. “Tell me how all this works.”

  I was sitting on the other end of the couch, sipping my coffee. “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m assuming,” he said. “That you just… make a video. Upload it. In a few months you hear back. Right?”

  “More or less,” I agreed. “DT always has the same guy. Salazar. He sets up in the green room with a cheesy-ass background and some dramatic lighting and we do our thing. Then he does some editing or whatever it might be and gives it back to us. And I do the uploading because DT doesn’t understand technology. The reply period is six to eight weeks but… word on the street is that it can be instant for some folk.”

  “Which folk?” Anthony asked, his eyebrow knitting slightly above his big eyes.

  “The people they really want,” I shrugged. “They want to get in there early. And then there’s Contessa Day.”

  “Oh…” Anthony said, recognition dawning. “I think I know what that is. Is that in the beginning of the season, when they go to the person’s club and surprise them?”

  “Ye-es. They send a camera crew to each Contessa’s club or house to let her know she has been selected. That actually gets broadcast live online on Contessa Day. So all the Contessas for the next season are announced that way. And then clips of that get used in the actual episodes later on once the season has begun.”

  “Ohhh…” Anthony said. “Okay.”

  “So you don’t really follow Vivesse,” I said.

  He pointed at the TV screen which was showing the home page of my Vivesse box set. “I’ve watched a few seasons,” he said.

  “But those are old seasons,” I said. “The pageant has been going for more than thirty years. I mean, do you follow it, like now?” I got out my phone. “Do you have the app?”

  “The app?” He smiled slightly. “I thought what was just for, like, you know…” He must have read my facial expression correctly, because he got out his phone and quickly said, “That sounds great. I’ll go install that right now.”

  “I mean…” I said. “The thing is, since Vivesse got, like, mainstream popularity in the US, you know, there have been a lot of changes. So for someone like me who grew up watching it online, it’s very different.”

  “Different how?” He frowned.

  “Let me put it this way, we didn’t have no app back then,” I said. “It was this strange little institution out in Thailand that only drag queens knew about.”

  “What about people who had seen Drag Queen Beauty Pageant?” Anthony piped up. “They would have heard of it. It won awards.”

  I paused. “Drag Queen Beauty Pageant, I checked the VHS out of the public library when I was eight y
ears old cause I liked the dress the pretty lady was wearing on the cover…” I glanced at him. “I’m dating myself,” I shook my head. “Anyway, I always assumed it had shut down long ago. But then I found out it was still going because at some point in the 2000s they started live-streaming the shows and I stumbled on it one day. And I watched. I mean, I watched. And then, you know, I started wondering if House Ellegrandé was still around. And of course it was and Calleen Jones was still there and—you know DT is in the documentary for, like, thirty seconds—he was still there…” I trailed off, smiling as I remembered. “I was sixteen years old and I thought I had achieved Nirvana.”

  “I didn’t know you were at Ellegrandé for that long,” Anthony said. “Aren’t you twenty-seven now?”

  “I joined the club when I was twenty,” I said. “But when I was younger it was about the dance. I was learning to vogue and all of that. Anyway, it was about the time that I joined Ellegrandé when drag started to take off. Vivesse got big, and then everything else started taking off. Cosmosis—you know they used to be in an old claptrap building in Madtown?” I shook my head. “It’s just gotten so trendy.”

  “Trendy like how?” Anthony looked confused.

  Like Clarion Call, I didn’t say. Like all the hipdippers over in Booklyn who suddenly thought that pushing your testicles back up into your abdominal cavity was a dope thing to do on a Friday night, I didn’t say.

  “Larry’s Last Drag opened…” I squinted. “Six years ago?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Anthony asked, sounding a little defensive.

  “Have you been to Larry’s Last Drag?”

  “What difference does that make?” Anthony raised his eyebrows. A slight trace of snoot was back in his voice.

  Larry’s Last Drag was full of white people with pastel-colored facial hair and bad tattoos, the cocktails had the strangest names which I assumed were supposed to be some kind of joke, plus god-awful music—and the less said about their queens the better.

  What I also meant about drag getting trendy was that a lot of boys were jumping on the bandwagon and most of them were, one, ignorant of history, and, two, floozies.

  Clarion Call? Who was she?

  More importantly, where would she be in five years?

  I could tell you right now. Nowhere.

  She would be long gone by then.

  I cleared my throat. “Anyway,” I said. “That’s a little context for you.”

  “Okay,” Anthony said, shrugging casually.

  He didn’t seem to be taking this seriously at all.

  “You aren’t—nervous?” I asked.

  He shrugged again. “Why would I be?”

  “You do know this is a big deal, right?” I asked. “You need to take this seriously. House Ellegrandé won High Queen—I know it was a long time ago, but do you know how many thousands of drag houses there are around the world that would just die for that honor? I mean, for real? Do you?”

  He shook his head solemnly, his eyes going big again.

  “It’s a short list that has had a High Queen,” I said. “And I’m sure. I’m sure that they keep those houses in the back of their mind when they’re looking for new Contessas.”

  “Really?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “They don’t give out that information. But, you know. We… look at all the evidence and we make… deductions.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Fans. Just fans of drag.”

  “Is this the online thing you were talking about?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I probably shouldn't say too much about that. I always tried to make sure no-one knew exactly how deep my geekery ran.

  “Damaris said you met that way,” he said. “On Monday night. She said the only person she knew in New York was the mod of a forum or something.”

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I used to do a lot of moderation. But that was back in college. I don’t have time for that any more.”

  “So… is there anything else I should know?” Anthony asked.

  “Um,” I said. I felt like I had told my life story, which I hadn’t exactly planned on.

  “I’m not really worried because I know that you’re my drag sister, and you will help me,” Anthony said, and when I met his gaze, he smiled.

  I blinked.

  It still wasn’t easy to meet his eyes, but I did it.

  And I smiled, too.

  “What do they normally do for auditions?”

  “You should present your signature act,” I said instantly. “The best thing you have, that really shows who you are as an artist.”

  “Oh…” Anthony’s voice was small, and he sounded a little worried. “So I guess we should be meeting up on our own to practice for the auditions?” Anthony suggested, and then looked at me with big, very big eyes.

  Oh. Oh, I saw what he was saying. He meant that I needed to coach him privately because, as we both knew, he had nothing ready that he could audition with.

  Well, if he was actually willing to listen to me and follow my instructions, we would actually get somewhere. That had been the main problem when he first joined the club.

  “I can do Saturday night,” I said. “We finish at six on weekends.”

  “That’s tomorrow,” he said, and smiled. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I smiled back. I actually did.

  Flatter Day

  I walked to Persimmon on Saturday morning. The weather was fresh and cool, the sky blue and the clouds white, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.

  Clarion Call hadn’t been there last night. He had texted me at the last minute saying he had an urgent family issue.

  It had been just me, Lucky Penny and Anthony rehearsing last night. It hadn’t been stressful at all.

  For some reason there was a joke about how one of the moves we were practicing looked like someone receiving a blow job, and then every time I demonstrated it, they broke down laughing.

  Normally that would have pissed me off. But last night, I joined in. And then when they practiced it, we all ended up on the floor in tears.

  At one point I caught Anthony’s eye and I felt the same strange feeling in my chest and stomach that I had in the bathroom that morning when I was brushing my teeth.

  I counted the steaming manhole covers on my walk. Five. I saw three one-footed pigeons and one with one leg. And in the nice residential area and the pretty public park, I saw seven dog-walkers and lost track of the numbers of dogs.

  I stopped at a little espresso van and got a cup of coffee, and it was the best latte I had had, maybe ever. I had to turn around, take a picture of the van, so I could find it again.

  And after the rehearsal last night, I had had another dream about Anthony. The best one yet.

  I grinned big at 80s as I walked through the doors into reception.

  “Good morning, handsome,” 80s winked at me as I passed.

  I gave him a little finger wave as I passed and, just for the hell of it, returned the wink. The feeling got stronger as I made my way though the building to the studio and I bit my lip in anticipation.

  When I walked into our studio at quarter to nine, Anthony was already there.

  Not just Anthony.

  Clarion Call, too.

  And they weren’t just ‘there’. Anthony was in Clarion’s arms, sniffling into his shoulder on top of a pile of mats in the corner of the studio.

  Oh.

  Really now?

  It seemed like the bright sun had dimmed all of a sudden, gone behind a bank of clouds that were gathering darkly on the horizon. The old-fashioned fried donut I had bought from a cute vintage stand on the way over here congealed into a hard lump in the pit of my stomach.

  I took a long sip of my coffee and smacked my lips.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, not terribly concerned.

  I didn’t care much for trivial matters like weather, and eating random street food was a bad habit and one I really should
grow out of.

  “He had a fight with his mom,” Clarion said, cradling Anthony’s head in his hands.

  I resisted the urge to tut. Clarion Call was so indulgent of Anthony, he might as well be his mother.

  I busied myself getting my laptop set up for the music and then started stretching until I felt less like a piece of dead wood washed up on the shore.

  When I crossed the room again to get my coffee, Clarion was stretching, but Anthony was still on the mat, wiping his eyes with a tissue and blowing his nose.

  “His mom is kicking him out,” Clarion said from the floor, his voice muffled because his forehead was on his knee as he stretched.

  I raised one eyebrow. I had assumed Miss Clarion Call was going to be something of a dud in the dance realm, but that flexibility was surprising—and promising.

  “What, you his mouthpiece?” I retorted. “He can’t speak for himself?”

  I drained my coffee cup and walked over to the trash can by the door and dropped it in. I paused, looking down at the black plastic trash bag lining the inside. There was an apple core at the bottom and a couple of crumpled tissues.

  I was being too harsh.

  I had walked into the room with the intention of being nice.

  I really had.

  Promise.

  But seeing him there like a wounded baby bird, taking comfort in Clarion who he’d known for, what? Three days?

  It irritated me. It irritated me like my skin was being pricked with a thousand cat claws over and over again, and then the cat scratch fever set in, making my skin hot and itchy but painful to the touch, and it was enough to make me scream.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to walk over to the pile of mats where he was still sitting, cross-legged now, sucking on a straw from a clear plastic cup of what looked like a fruit smoothie.

  “What happened?” I asked, as calmly as I could.

  He glanced up at me with big eyes and pulled on the oversized sweatshirt draped over his shoulders, like he was trying to protect himself from a hail of acid I was about to spew from my eyes.

  I resisted the urge to bite on the inside of my mouth in frustration and took a seat on the opposite end of the mat, giving him plenty of distance.