Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  And I—I hated him. Didn’t I?

  I thought I hated him and therefore, my feelings were justified. I thought he deserved to be told everything that was wrong with him, that made me dislike him so much.

  Was that not still true?

  It had been so unexpected, and so intense, what happened in a night and two days, and I still couldn’t admit that it was happening.

  I still couldn’t say what it was, that started on Thursday night and plunged me into dreams and the feelings and—

  All I knew was that I was still burning and the panic that went with it was still there, even though I had realized what it was, and named it, it was still there.

  It felt so unbearably bad that I cried even more, and at the same time I was still being filled with the sadness that gripped my heart, and I was a mess.

  I was a hopeless mess.

  Hey.

  Hey, Machyl.

  It’s okay.

  I got a tissue from the nightstand and blew my nose.

  I can forgive you.

  Is that what you want?

  I settled my head back on the pillow.

  Did I want Anthony to forgive me?

  I had done wrong. I had done wrong by him. I knew that now.

  Maybe you’re not ready for that.

  But you have to be nicer to me.

  Okay?

  I can stay with you now. If you want.

  But only if you’ll be better to me from now on.

  The tears were flowing thicker again.

  Was I a terrible person?

  I closed my eyes and curled up again, hugging the damp pillow. I was going to be nicer to Anthony from now on.

  For real.

  As I lay there, I felt a sense of peace flow over me and, I didn’t know why, it seemed to me that Anthony was there, lying next to me.

  Go to sleep now, Machyl.

  There was a scent in my nostrils. Sweet and heady at first, deepening and mellowing to smoky and spicy.

  I reached out and found his warmth radiating toward me. My hands touched his skin, ran over his chest. He moved and his weight and the heat of his bare skin came to rest along my side.

  I sighed as I ran my hands over his limbs and he settled against me. I could feel his legs twine together with mine and I found his waist and pulled him toward me.

  His minty breath ghosted across my face and then I felt his lips brush against mine and I reached up and pulled him down and caught his mouth in a kiss that tasted as sweet and spicy as his fragrance.

  His lips were so full and silky that I couldn’t get enough of them, I couldn’t stop sliding my mouth over them and dipping my tongue in and out of his hot mouth and feeling his rough tongue against my own.

  His hands rested on either side of the pillow while we kissed, and then he moved his hand to touch my face, and lifted himself up on top of me, deepening the kiss powerfully and moving against me until I gasped.

  His hand moved down my chest, and then I felt his lips on my throat, my chest, and my stomach. I moved my hands to touch his shoulders, the neat rows of braids lining his head, and his arms, whispering words to him, how beautiful he was, how much I wanted him, and my heart began to throb with the expectation of what he was going to do next.

  His lips trailed down my belly button and the trail of hair leading down from it, and he was adjusting his position and I was adjusting mine to accommodate him, and the anticipation was growing so that I could hardly stand it any longer.

  My erect penis had kept slipping back and forth under him as he worked his way down my body, and now he half-knelt, half-lay in front of me, slowly kissing down my knee to my thigh, and my erection got harder and harder, and I could feel it leaking and twitching as he got closer.

  As he lay down fully between my legs, I reached down and took his hands and enmeshed our fingers, gripping hard as I felt his breath on the head of my cock. I let out a moan and then I felt his mouth on my balls and I gasped and gasped again, and pulled his hands higher up my stomach and held them to me.

  His mouth moved to the base of my erection and then up the shaft and finally he enveloped the head of my cock and licked it over and over with the flat of his tongue and he stuck the tip of his tongue in the slit, and then all I could feel was hot, slick and gorgeous pressure that made me moan his name and grab every part of him I could reach and wish that I could kiss him while he was doing this, and then I felt his tongue swirling around the head of my cock again and the pleasure became so intense that I couldn’t feel it all at the same time, and I came into his mouth and tears slipped out of my eyes.

  I lay there in the dark, my chest heaving, with my cock in my hand. Eventually I got another tissue from the nightstand and cleaned myself up.

  Is that better, Machyl?

  Do you feel better now?

  Go to sleep. Okay, Machyl?

  Goodnight, was the last thought that crossed my mind as I drifted into the darkness.

  Goodnight, Machyl

  Some Day

  I woke up and I could tell that I hadn’t overslept this time. I could tell it was still early. I looked at my phone. It was seven-thirty. And I had managed to be in bed by midnight, so that was something.

  I got up and pulled some workout gear out of the chest of drawers, went to the front door and put my athletic shoes on, stuck the keys in the special little key pocket in the inner waistband of my pants and set off.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone running.

  There was a lingering coolness in the air, but I could tell it wouldn’t last long. The sun coming through the leaves of the sidewalk trees on my block was bright and hot.

  I ran north. I had set the timer on my phone for twenty minutes, and stuck the phone in the arm holster I managed to find at the back of the drawer.

  The gray sidewalk beneath, the tall buildings above, I ran across the thin shadows of fire escapes and past the windows, some dark, some lit white from within, of corner delis, bodegas and barber shops, wine stores and flower stalls.

  I stopped at a light, breathing deep the scent of the city.

  I felt like I didn’t have the right to what happened right before I fell asleep last night. I felt like it wasn’t mine to have in my head. I felt like if Anthony knew, he would—

  He would recoil in disgust.

  He would feel violated.

  The light turned green and I picked up my feet and crossed the road at a run. When I hit the pavement on the other side, I found myself at the bottom of a long incline that got steeper as it went up, and I launched myself at it.

  I went fast because it felt good to bound over the ground on my toes, the wind flying past my face.

  The going got harder as the incline increased and I threw myself at it, pumping my arms and keeping my gaze straight ahead. My high school cross country coach told us to imagine here was a rope anchored to the center of your chest, and it was pulling you up the hill.

  We didn’t sprint up the hills on those cross country work outs. We slogged slow and tired, up and down and up and down those hills.

  But I was sprinting. I jackknifed my arms and brought my knees high and made each push off the ground explosive and went, just went.

  I had been looking at the picture of Anthony ever since Marcus sent it to me. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I didn’t even look that much at his erection, or at how his smooth bare skin glowed in the soft lighting. I looked at his face. At the expression in his eyes.

  That was why I reacted so defensively at first when Anthony wanted to check my phone. Then I remembered that Anthony wouldn’t expect me to be secretive about having it. I had nothing to hide. Except I did.

  He felt violated when he got confirmation that Marcus had forwarded it. And he would feel violated if he knew I had been looking at it in that way. Wouldn’t he?

  Would he feel violated if he knew how realistic my fantasy had been of him last night? How it seemed like his voice was really speaking in my head? How it s
eemed like he really was there with me?

  Or if he knew what I had done on Friday morning when he kept talking through the bathroom door. Would he feel violated by that?

  I reached the top of the hill and let go of the sprint, let it dissolve into a run and then a walk. I heaved breaths, rested my hands on my head to open my diaphragm and squinted in the bright sun.

  My lungs and muscles were burning, but with exertion. That part of the shame sensation had dissipated, leaving behind it an intense sadness that lingered even after all the tears I had cried last night.

  I walked and walked.

  My chest was tight and I stopped, squatted down and hugged my knees, staring at the fine grain of the sidewalk, its texture close up. It wasn’t tight because of the exercise.

  Desperation gripped me again, like it had last night, pushing questions at me that I had no answers to.

  Why did I feel this way? Where had this come from? Why was it happening to me? And what was I going do about it?

  I stood up and walked a little more, then broke into a slow run as I headed back toward the hill.

  I needed to apologize.

  The hill was a downward slope now, and I remembered the advice to lean back and with long strides just take it easy all the way down.

  I had to apologize to him.

  I took a deep breath, let it out, and with my arms resting at ninety degrees, let myself roll on down the hill.

  To Anthony. Anthony Alcantara.

  The dream last night had been the same as the one I’d had on Friday night. I found myself sitting on the edge of Anthony’s bed and he turned around and looked at me, having just taken the picture. He went and stuck his phone under the pillow, then beckoned to me.

  I looked down and was surprised to discover I was naked. I got onto the bed and crawled toward him. When we lay on the grass, I had been clothed. Now we lay on the bed, and I wasn’t.

  “You can look at that one later,” he said, pulling me on top of him.

  I looked down at him and he looked up at me. His face looked peaceful, and I touched it carefully.

  “Now do that again,” he said, “but in here.”

  He put my hand onto his chest, so his heart beat under my palm, and pulled me down, and we kissed.

  The roof blew off and the walls fell down and the air was filled with a swirling, flashing tornado of holographic glitter which made rainbows appear in the air all around us. We were still in the desert and everyone was scattered, being blown here and there by the strength of the tornado.

  I pointed, suggesting we go to help, but Anthony wouldn’t let me go.

  “Make love to me,” he begged, and I did. “Look,” he cried out in ecstasy when I was inside him. “Look, they’re flying away.”

  I looked up and the fuchsia kite was ascending into the sky on the winds, and both of the white-gowned women were clinging to it, their long hair flying in the breeze as they held on to their sunglasses.

  Still fucking, we both watched until the kite was nothing but a speck in the blue sky and its trailing tail as fine as a hair.

  I was watching out the window when the cab pulled up and Anthony got out. It was just after nine am.

  I got up, propped open the front door and went downstairs and propped open the street door, too, with a rubber wedge from my apartment.

  I went down the steps and out to the curb, where the driver was manhandling suitcases out of the trunk. Then he pulled another two out of the back seat and lined them up next to the others.

  The car pulled away and Anthony finally seemed to notice me, though he didn’t say anything. He just took hold of a suitcase and started pulling it toward the open door.

  I took two more, one in each hand, and followed him inside. When I got to my floor, I put them down and turned around to go back for the fourth one.

  When I got back a couple of minutes later, puffing and with a trickle of sweat coming down my temple, the suitcases were gone and he was nowhere to be seen.

  I went inside and as I got to the couch, he came out of the spare bedroom and closed the door. I sat down. He stood.

  The certainty I had felt during my run had melted away, replaced by anxiety and scattered thoughts. My tongue seemed to have dissolved, leaving me unable to form words.

  Anthony sighed, crossed his arms in front of him.

  “Why did you tell me the auditions were on?”

  I looked at him. He had always been a clotheshorse for women’s fashion, but he seemed to have kicked it up a notch recently. And he was definitely wearing more make up than he had in the past. It enhanced his beauty to the point of picturesque flawlessness.

  “I told DT you refused to come back unless you could audition.”

  “Why?” His shaded-in eyebrows knit slightly together in the middle.

  “Because DT was refusing to listen to sense and put them back on. He wanted me to get you back, so I saw the opportunity for leverage and took it.”

  He came to the end of the couch and leaned against the arm rest, looking at me down it. “Is that true?”

  “Yes?” I replied.

  “How am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth or not?”

  His words made me more aware of the tightness in my chest, they seemed to make it more intense. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  His lips tightened. “You really thought I would buy this story? Why would DT agree to me auditioning? He’s never given me the time of day for over a year. It’s crystal clear what he thinks of my abilities.”

  I looked at him again. He was blushing now, his cheeks turning rosy pink. He must be embarrassed, even if it did look attractive.

  My chest got tighter and tighter and I was faced with the full knowledge that I had never felt this way around him before.

  “He didn’t agree to it,” I said. “Every time I bring it up, he says he’s not going to go ahead with the auditions. It’s like I told you last night. I need more time to work on him.”

  “When you called me—” He cut himself off and I saw that the blush had deepened. He shook his head.

  In the past when I saw him embarrassed, humiliated, in pain or asking for help, I had felt disgust, rapidly followed by anger. I didn’t feel that way now.

  “I didn’t know the auditions could be cancelled,” he said. “That’s why I believed you at first.”

  “Participation is totally voluntary. No house has to submit auditions if they don’t want to.”

  “So—” he said, sounding like he was making a big effort to sound confident. “I still don’t get it. You need to explain more.”

  “Explain—”

  “Explain why you want the auditions,” he said, his braids swinging in formation around his face as he raised his eyes to mine.

  I swallowed, frowning.

  “If DT doesn’t want them,” he said. “Shouldn’t you just… do what he says?”

  “Yes…” I peered at him. What was he getting at?

  “I thought,” he said. “That drag daughters are supposed to do what their drag mother tells them without questioning it. Isn’t that right?”

  I folded my arms. “Yes.”

  “So if he doesn’t want the auditions, but you’re going ahead as if they’re on, while trying to persuade him to do them, don’t the drag mothers call that… oh, I don’t know… manipulation or something?” He asked in a faux-casual tone.

  The thought popped into my head unbidden. I could lay it on the table, now. I could put it all out in front of him. I could explain the issues. Explain what was at stake. Explain my problems. Explain my worries.

  I put my hand over my chest involuntarily and rubbed the skin over my chest, as if that could dispel the tight and uncomfortable feeling within.

  If I did tell him, maybe there was a chance that he would start to feel included, and maybe he would start to feel more invested, and maybe he would start to want to stay.

  As soon as these thoughts crossed my mind, I couldn’t believe I had just h
ad them.

  Me, confide in Anthony Alcantara?

  Something twinged hard inside me, a painful shock, like a piece of skin caught in a hinge.

  Over my dead body.

  Right?

  Because I could see now that despite his denials yesterday, he hadn’t come back for real.

  He had come back to prove a point, or try to get even with me, or something like that. He hadn’t come back because he wanted to work toward the betterment of House Ellegrandé.

  I had tried flattery, lofty talk of ideals, appeals to authority. And other methods, intimidation and… and worse. But he had seen through it. He had seen through it all.

  I never thought he had any kind of backbone. I thought he was submissive in body and mind.

  And I had been wrong.

  I had wanted him gone, so bad, for so long, and now I was sitting here trying to figure out how to get him to stay.

  “Why did you want me back?” He said, sounding exasperated.

  “Because he had no choice,” I said. “Because DT can’t just magic up a new drag artist. It’s either get a transfer, which is only going to happen in dire circumstances, like Monday, or train someone from scratch.”

  “Say it.”

  I glanced at him. My chest felt even tighter now, like it was made of rubber and was being stretched and stretched until the tension was unbearable. “Say what?”

  “Don’t BS me,” he was angry again. Angry or determined.

  “What do you want me to tell you?” I said. I wasn’t being facetious. I was really asking. Because I was scared now. I was scared of what he might make me tell him.

  Whatever it was, the twinge, inside, hurt again, hurt more than before.

  He did get angry then, and he let out a noise of frustration. “Admit that you wanted me out!” He didn’t shout, but his voice sounded strained, a controlled explosion. “Admit that you planned it all to get rid of me. And then you had to turn around the next day and ask me to come back. And you couldn’t even do that gracefully. You had to lie and twist it around. Because neither of you wanted me back. We’re all just stuck with each other.”