Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  She was silent for a long time, and I started to think I needed to hug her or something.

  “It’s like society thought a couple had to be a man and woman,” she said. “And gay people just kept thinking that too, acting it out. Even though that don’t make no sense…”

  “But okay,” Ellegrandé said. “I can change. Adapt.”

  “So,” I said. “What are you saying? You mean you’re changing the fraternization rule now?”

  Ellegrandé looked at me. Her dark eyes in her large face reminded me of a cow, sleepy and placid, and yet a cow was such a big, strong animal.

  “Yes. We’re the only house that still has a rule against in-house dating. So. It’s not fraternization any more. It’s just dating now. And if they want to date,” she waved her hand despondently. “Let ’em knock themselves out.”

  “Any other changes?” I asked. My voice was very strained suddenly. My chest felt tight again.

  Ellegrandé slumped. “We won’t be known for the fishiest queens in New York any more. Guess I was the only one who cared about that.”

  “No, you weren’t,” I said. “It’s our brand, mama. There’s a difference between the two things. Customers don’t know what goes on behind the scenes,” I said, and I was realizing it as I said it. I had never thought about it this way before. “They shouldn’t know, because they don’t care. And the private lives of the performers are none of their business anyway. All the customers care about is watching a great show and being entertained.”

  “But,” I put my hand on her shoulder, trying to reach her. “Fishy queens is our brand. I know the facial hair thing, and whatever else, are not new. I know about the Fagettes. I know about the female impersonation laws. I know about the history of drag. I know our place in it. And we should be proud of our history and identity and—and keep true to it. Let the other drag houses do their own thing. We do beauty. We do elegance. We do feminine.”

  Ellegrandé looked at me balefully. I pushed on.

  “If we proceed with this show and we put those two girls on, the way I saw them yesterday, it is going to be—it’s going to be a big old mess, mama. Our old customers will hate it. Any new customers will be confused as hell and they won’t come back. Please don’t do this. Please.”

  Ellegrandé stared at me. “You still want those auditions, don’t you?”

  I felt very small and I looked back at her, then nodded.

  Her lips pursed. “Get this into your head. You are not going to be a pageant queen this year. I am not holding those goddamned auditions. I’m not paying Salazar, I’m not having you put time into it, and I’m not getting my hopes up again. NO. AUDITIONS.”

  “And another thing,” she said. “I want to be there tomorrow night so I can see what you’ve been doing.”

  “But mama,” I said, indicating the club. “Who’ll be here?”

  She looked around the empty club, the guest DJ in his sad little broom closet. “Monday night is always the quietest of the week,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe it. She was closing the club for the second time a week. In seven years, I had never seen her close the club even once outside of the few days a year it was scheduled to shut.

  Damaris’ words echoed in my ears. Suddenly her warning seemed all too real. This was bad. This was really bad.

  “I don’t see,” Ellegrandé continued. “Why it has to be such a disaster as you call it. No reason at all. I want to see this thing before the dress rehearsal. Maybe there’s still time to fix it.”

  “F-fix it?” I stuttered.

  “Maybe the problem isn’t the other two,” Ellegrandé turned and looked at me right in the eye. “Maybe the problem is you.”

  I didn’t do any work when I got home. I put on my running gear and I went out and ran for over an hour. While I ran, I wanted to forget about the talk with DT.

  I wanted to think about something that would make me happy. Something that would make me feel good. So I thought about the talk with Damaris and Anthony at the café.

  Damaris said she thought we should have included Anthony a long time ago. And it seemed like such a small step to take, but the difference…

  And I thought, again, what I had been thinking ever since I got up and left the café a couple of hours ago. I had been thinking Damaris was right. We should have included Anthony. And we should have done it right from when Anthony arrived, when he was a brand new baby drag.

  He had been so cute when he first showed up in our midst. He had this really dorky little mini-fro that looked like his grandmother had taken him to the barber shop and told the man to give him something suitable for church.

  And he always wore the same outfit, a tight, white button-down shirt and black slacks, like he was wearing his school uniform.

  But I guessed I hadn’t seen it that way back then. I hadn’t thought he was cute. I had thought he was a pain in the ass.

  But as I ran down the dark streets and in and out of circles of street lamps, I decided to do a thought experiment.

  I would think what it would have been like, if I hadn’t been that way. If it had been like today from the start.

  Anthony would have been performing within a couple of months. He would have. I could see that now. He was capable of learning, and for some reason now he was making the effort.

  Anthony and I would have gotten along. I always thought that was impossible. But it wasn’t. Just look at the conversation in the café. That was proof. That was proof right there, that we could get along.

  I pushed myself harder, made myself run faster. I was on the flat, just a city block of brownstones with not many lights let on inside.

  If it had always been like today, I would have started to feel this way about Anthony a long time ago.

  The street was dark and empty. No-one around on the sidewalk. I picked up the pace and launched into a sprint, trying to sustain it for as long as I could, until my lungs burned and I slowed down to a crawl, my legs so tired they felt like blocks of wood.

  If it had always been like today, these feelings would have developed many months ago. If I had allowed myself to have them, they would have. And if it had always been like today, I would have allowed myself.

  Because for the first time in so long in that café, I had started to feel good inside. It had felt good being in his company.

  I had been feeling bad inside for so long, for so, so long, that even the slightest touch of good feeling in the café today was like a drop of warmth in the Arctic wastes. I had been feeling bad for so long that I had forgotten what it was like to not feel that way.

  If I had felt this way before, it would have changed how I thought about my relationship with Angel. Because I got so used to being bitter and angry at Angel. I got so used to being bitter and angry at everyone.

  If I had felt this way before, then maybe I would have been stronger for Damaris when she got sick.

  I had reached my building. The sky above was dark blue with a yellow moon spreading a stain of light across the stars.

  I started to climb the steps with heavy legs. Not just heavy. My legs felt as hard and unresponsive as blocks of wood. I kept tripping as I made my way up. By the time I got inside and was stripping off for another icy cold shower, my thighs were trembling and wouldn’t support my weight.

  I sat on the floor of the shower and let the water run over my legs. They felt swollen. Not happy about the amount of running I had made them do today.

  After cleaning myself thoroughly, which was really hard to stand in water that cold, I wrapped a towel around my waist and staggered awkwardly into the bedroom. My legs had gone from shaking to numb and they were not obeying my commands.

  What was now Anthony’s bedroom door was closed and there was no light around it.

  When I got into my own room, I closed the door and felt like I was going to collapse. I made it almost to the bed and my knees gave out. I ended up half lying on it, with my face in my hands pressed into the comforter and my
knees smarting from the fall on the wooden floor.

  I shouldn’t have watched.

  I should have turned and walked away the moment I realized what I was looking at. Who I was looking at.

  I hadn’t prayed in years, and I hadn’t prayed for real in many more years than that. But I prayed now.

  I clasped my hands together and felt the tears soaking into the bed linens again as the image rose in my mind once more, of Anthony and what he had done with Clarion in the dressing room, and every part of me wanted to respond to it, and every part of me knew it was wrong.

  Knew I was wrong.

  Knew I had done wrong.

  Last night I thought that Anthony’s spirit had come to me, and comforted me, and I knew I didn't deserve it.

  I didn’t deserve to think about him that way. I didn’t deserve to have those thoughts in my head without his knowledge, without his permission.

  And I had told myself I was going to be different from now on. That I was going to treat him right.

  I was not going to think about him like that again. I was not going to think about the nude Marcus had sent me. I was not going to masturbate to thoughts of him.

  And I had done so well. For all of twelve hours.

  And then look what I had to go and do, watch him and Clarion like a creeper, like a stalker, like a—like a pervert.

  And even these thoughts couldn’t stop the desire running through me when the memory played itself over and over again my mind, relentlessly.

  The sweetness I had seen, the gentleness in the way they touched each other, it reached right inside me to a place deep under my ribcage and it hooked me there.

  I clasped my hands tighter together and tighter still.

  I had treated Anthony so bad. I had made so many mistakes and justified them all, found excuses for everything.

  I didn’t want to do that any more, and I prayed for strength. Strength to stop the mistakes of the past.

  Strength to get through this—through these feelings that were happening to me, so strong, I thought I was going to go crazy.

  I knew I needed to apologize to him, admit what I had done. I knew that.

  There was a knock on the door.

  I looked up, frozen, speechless.

  “Machyl?” Anthony’s voice was quiet.

  I was only wearing a towel around my waist, I was kneeling on the floor crying and praying.

  “Uh—” I got up, confused.

  First I thought I would just get into bed and cover myself up with the blankets. Then I thought I would get into PJs, so I went for the chest of drawers. Then I didn’t want to sleep in PJs because it would be too hot and remembered I had clean undies in my nightstand, which was a weird childhood habit I couldn’t explain.

  I finally just lunged for the nightstand, got into the undies, tossed the towel into the laundry basket in the corner and got into bed.

  “Yes?” I said. “Come in.”

  The door opened. The only light on was my beside lamp on the nightstand, and the light coming in behind the blind from the street.

  Anthony's head appeared, then his shoulders.

  “You can come inside,” I said, then wondered if I should have said it. My voice didn’t sound normal.

  He opened the door wider, but stood half-behind it, as if he didn’t dare to come in beyond that. He was wearing full pajamas, the kind with a button-down shirt, in pale lilac satin.

  “Machyl,” he said, looking at me. Maybe it was clear on my face or from my voice, but apparently he could see something was wrong. “Are you okay?”

  He sounded concerned. Shocked, even. As if he didn’t expect to ever see my composure rattled unless it was in self-righteous anger.

  My chest hurt. I rearranged the bed linens around my chest, propped a pillow behind my back.

  Having Anthony be out there in the world, where I was prepared to face monsters, do battle, where I was ready, that was different from him being here, at home.

  Here, I let my defenses down. I didn’t have to be strong. I didn't have to be the ballroom bitch with the acid tongue who could read them so fast, they’d spin around like a top and I just walked away and left them there spinning.

  “Um,” I said. My voice still sounded thick.

  This was so mortifying. I couldn't remember the last time I had cried in front of another person.

  I could tell him to go away. I could just say I was tired and I would talk to him in the morning. I was perfectly within my rights to do that. This was my bedroom, after all.

  But I didn’t want to.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  He stood like he was using the door as a shield in case I started spitting poison from my eyes. I guessed he was used to that from me.

  “Come in,” I said. He looked so alarmed I hastily added, “If you want.”

  He opened the door wider and inched forward with it .

  “I can tell you what happened with Duane,” I said. “If you want to listen…”

  His face seemed to register understanding. “Was it—” He face looked pained. “Did something bad happen?”

  In the past, I would have jumped on this. The way he had put it was childish. He was letting emotions show all over his face, like he really was in pain. I was sure I would have lashed out with a barb about his looking constipated. Something, anything to defuse the display of willing vulnerability.

  But I didn’t do that now.

  I didn’t want to, either.

  He looked concerned. About me.

  As if his capacity for empathy could extend to me, as well. A creature who I had always tried to believe was made not of flesh and blood, but something much stronger, sharper and more efficient.

  I hoped the light was dim enough not to show the tears that had just slipped down my face. I got a tissue from the nightstand and blew my nose, which allowed me to subtly wipe them off.

  “Sit down,” I said, gesturing at the bed. It was a big double, there was enough space. And there wasn’t anything else in the room to sit on.

  He hesitated, looking at the bed, and then me. “Are you—”

  “You’ll get tired standing there,” I said. “And I’m too tired to keep raising my voice to talk to you on the other side of the room. Unless you don’t want to.”

  He shook his head, closed the door behind him—but not all the way, I noticed—and perched on the very end of the bed, on the opposite side to where I was sitting.

  I guessed I should just cut to the chase.

  “There are no auditions,” I said.

  His eyebrows flew upward in alarm, the rest of his body too, and he whipped around to face me fully, looking utterly shocked. “What?”

  “He’s not doing them. Final word.”

  Anthony kept looking at me for a second or two more, then turned away. “Are you sure?” He was facing away from me, sitting on the edge of the bed like someone fishing off a dock.

  I shook my head, shrugged, spread my hands, clasped and unclasped them. Words failed me. But he couldn't see that, because he was facing the other way.

  Anthony turned around, then, and climbed onto the bed fully, crossed his legs, looked at me. “So what are we going to do?”

  I pulled the sheet and comforter higher up my chest, so I didn’t feel so exposed with him sitting three feet away. I shook my head again, let my hands drop to my sides.

  “Come on,” Anthony said. “You must have a plan. You always have a plan. Right?”

  I looked up and into his eyes. He wasn’t wearing his contact lenses. The sight of his unguarded eyes, and his face, free of make up, looking so unprotected, so young and vulnerable, almost made my heart stop.

  It was as if he had a strange kind of faith in me.

  Faith not in anything else I did, but in drag…

  “It’s his decision,” I said.

  He sat there blinking at me. “So… so, what—is this it? It can’t be. There has to be another way. There has to be something we can do.”
He looked at me in consternation.

  “You got an idea?” I leaned my head against the headboard.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the expert, Machyl…”

  It was weird that I could let Anthony down. That there was one area, just one domain, where he had high expectations of me. And now I was failing in that, too.

  “I’ve never seen you like this before,” Anthony’s voice came to me after I had closed my eyes.

  I opened them again. “You’ve never come into my bedroom after midnight before,” I pointed out.

  And then I regretted it. I had been trying to lighten the mood, but it came out snarky, or sarcastic, or something else not good.

  Maybe I hadn’t been trying to lighten the mood. Maybe I was just defensive.

  He sighed and started to turn away, uncrossing his legs to climb off the bed.

  “I think he hates me,” I blurted out.

  I cringed at how immature that sounded. Like I was a sixth grader who had just found a note from their boyfriend of three days telling them they were dumped.

  “What do you mean? How could he hate you?”

  “He doesn’t think I have a chance of getting in, that’s why he doesn't want to hold them,” I said quietly. “He keeps saying it’s because he needs to focus on the business, but it’s not that.” I smoothed the comforter over my chest, tucking it in under my armpits.

  “If it was Damaris, he would make sure she auditioned. No question about that. Why do you think it’s so late this year? There’s only a week left til the deadline. He has it in a month early every year.”

  “Really?” Anthony’s voice sounded small, too.

  “Don’t you remember last year?” I opened my eyes and looked at him.

  He looked down at the comforter, traced his finger over the check pattern. “I guess. Yeah, I remember now. It was just after my birthday. The weekend after or something.”

  “He wasn’t that focused on the auditions before Damaris came,” I said. “I was here three years before she was. He let me audition, but it wasn’t that big a deal like it has been the past few years.”