Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  There was half a block of orange cheese in ripped-open packaging, so dried out it had cracks halfway down. There was a plastic bottle of orange juice, about one tenth full, with a small island of green and white mold floating on the liquid.

  Urgh.

  I closed the door quickly.

  I was extremely conscientious in ninety-nine percent of all the areas of my life. As I figured it, something had to give.

  “Spot something tasty for breakfast?” Anthony called from the couch. “Maybe a nice e.Coli scramble?”

  I tsked and rolled my eyes, ambling back around the refrigerator where I could see him. “And I guess you just spend all your time wearing one of those hostess aprons and cooking up a banquet?”

  He grinned. “Of course. I’ll go put it on right now. It’s a little frilly one with a big bow at the back.”

  The mental image popped into my mind instantly, of Anthony in a pink gingham apron and nothing on underneath, looking over his shoulder at me, the aforementioned bow tied above and perfectly framing the pert round cheeks of his ass.

  “Do you want to go to brunch, Machyl?”

  I wanted to lash out.

  I wanted to snap at him, something cutting, something to bring him down to size. Something to prove me had no power over me.

  Because that was what I always did.

  When I felt attracted to Anthony.

  Because this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

  It had happened many, many, times before. It had been happening for months and months and… and years.

  It happened the first time I ever saw him.

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach and like someone had touched a lit match to an oil slick, heat roared up my chest and neck and face.

  My heart started to race and as I recognized the signs of panic, it became a feedback loop and redoubled. I wanted more than anything to turn and run, or just crumple into a ball and be kicked into a corner.

  “Sorry?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Um,” I panted. Hot and cold flashes ran over my skin.

  “If you just wait for me to get ready, we could go to that place downstairs. Brunch?”

  He didn’t seem to be mad.

  He had just asked me to eat brunch with him.

  It must be okay.

  I just needed to calm down.

  I was okay.

  It was fine.

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. Yeah.”

  He gave me a weird look, but got up and disappeared into the bathroom.

  He went to have a shower and I got my laptop and sat at the kitchen table and tried to find the calming focus of work.

  But the panicky feeling kept coming back, along with the burning pinpricks of shame. I breathed out hard, puffing up my lips as I did.

  It wasn’t fine.

  It wasn’t okay.

  It poured through me all of a sudden. Too many times to count. Too many memories to recount. Too many put-downs and snarky remarks and so much nastiness masquerading as reads.

  When he was too self-conscious to tuck in front of the rest of us, I had mocked him for using the bathroom. And when he tucked underneath boxers, I had mocked him for the size of his junk, making damn sure he was never going to take those things off.

  The truth? The truth was that I was too self-conscious to share a dressing room with a naked Anthony. The truth was that I couldn’t deal with the fact that I was attracted to him.

  Damaris’ words echoed through my head like a reverberation chamber.

  I think you have feelings for him and you are very confused and conflicted about them and that’s why you treat him so bad.

  The compulsion, the desperate urge to lash out at him, now I knew what caused it.

  I closed my laptop and sat there, staring at the refrigerator and a magnet I had gotten on a trip to Puerto Vallarta with Angel. I hadn’t slept a wink the entire time because I was so paranoid he was going to get up in the night and find someone in the sauna or out by the pool to have sex with. I had stayed awake, watching him, to make sure.

  Eventually I got up and poured a glass of water, feeling dazed as if my head had been used as boxing practice.

  I picked up my phone and flipped through my messages. I felt too numb and shocked and at a loss to know what else to do.

  That was when I saw the messages from Damaris, and the realization poked through my consciousness like sun rays breaking through thick cloud, that it was almost one pm, and we were all supposed to be meeting in the back studio at Persimmon this morning at nine.

  I was so befuddled, I sat there trying to figure out what day it was and what I was supposed to be doing.

  Instead I kept thinking of Anthony and the look he would get in his eye that drove me crazy, the one where he looked like a trapped animal, pitiful and weak. Whenever I saw that, rage tore through me and I lobbed it at him as hard as I could.

  Wasn’t that me last night in bed when I felt like I was cornered? And did he feel the same rage when he saw my fear and weakness?

  In the dream I had sheltered and protected him with my greater strength as we flew on the kite. And I hadn’t feared his weakness. And I hadn’t hated it. And I hadn’t raged at it.

  I heard a door open and footsteps. He was coming.

  “Did you see this from Damaris?” I asked, half turning in my chair. “She cancelled for this morning…”

  He didn’t reply.

  “She tell you anything about this new roommate she’s moving in with? I just don’t know who that could be…”

  He went to the sink, turned the tap on, turned it off, turned back around, opened the fridge door, then slammed it shut.

  “Um,” I said. “Are you—okay?”

  He spun around so fast, his braids went almost horizontal.

  “They got back together.”

  I gulped. I cleared my throat.

  “They were together for seven years already.” Anthony’s mouth was set, his jaw clenched. “Go on. Laugh,” his eyes darted toward mine.

  I didn’t.

  “This is another big chance,” he did jazz hands. “Another great opportunity to humiliate me.”

  I dropped my gaze and stared at my lap.

  “How did you do it this time?” He lunged for my phone. I didn’t even resist. I just let him take it. He held it out to me and shook it. “What do you have on here? More naked pictures? Were you there filming everything that happened in the dressing room yesterday?” He jerked his chin into the air. “Must have come as a real disappointment that DT had decriminalized the love that dare not speak its name. Your big scoop went splat.”

  I was sure he could see me trembling.

  “At least you told me you were getting back together with Angel,” he snapped. “He acted like…” He put my phone back on the kitchen table, none too gently, but not like he was trying to damage it.

  Then he sat down in a chair and plonked a spotless, brand new pair of sneakers, which he had been carrying under his arm, right on my kitchen table, along with two pairs of new laces still taped into a loop.

  I didn’t say anything.

  He grabbed one of the shoes, clamped it between his knees and started lacing them.

  “I’m not getting back together with Angel.”

  “Why?” He muttered, concentrating on getting the two ends of the laces even.

  “Because they’re getting married and then they’re going to move overseas.”

  He paused, frowned and put the laces down. He looked at me.

  “So you were wrong?”

  I just looked at him. “Wrong that we were going to get back together?”

  “Yeah. You admit you were wrong?”

  “I was wrong. I was totally wrong. I didn’t want to see the signs that this time was different.”

  “I thought it would be different this time,” he said, his words punctuated by him stabbing in the end of the lace, pulling and tightening. “It felt different. And he
was—” Anthony looked down at what he was doing. “He was kind.”

  My chest started to hurt. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be kind to Anthony. I wanted it so, so much.

  “I started to believe it all again. That’s what I did wrong. I give up. You know? I officially give up.”

  “Give up?”

  He looked at me sideways. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “I need more than sex.”

  I cleared my throat. “I, um—” But I couldn't seem to say the words.

  “Damaris wanted to have sex with me. You know that,” he said, not looking at me as he kept lacing. “And be friends. Those two things. I still don’t get it.”

  “Are you still sleeping with her?” I asked the question before I could stop myself.

  “No,” he spat. “I—I said the wrong thing. I thought the wrong thing and hurt her feelings and told me she would never peg me.”

  My eyes widened unintentionally.

  “What?” He turned his big eyes on me. They were blue today, and I wished I could see his real eyes hiding behind them. “Do you have an opinion about that? That my biggest fantasy was being fucked by a woman?”

  I shook my head frantically. If felt so out of control around him. I was on a slippery slope and there was no way to get purchase.

  “Yes, it’s not very macho, is it?” He said, delicately setting the neatly laced shoe back on the table. “So I’m sure you disapprove. I should want to be rammed by a big bull with hot oiled muscles. Right?”

  “I’m not going to tell you what you should want,” I got the words out somehow.

  “And yet that’s what you’ve been doing ever since I got here,” he said, looking at me. “Constantly broadcasting these little messages at me. I’m too femme, I’m this, I’m that. And it’s gotten worse ever since you figured out that I was more attracted to the feminine than the masculine.”

  “No.”

  “Yes it is true. I like feminine men. There, I said it. The unsayable. I like pretty boys, gentle boys, weak boys. I like men like me, men like you. For a thousand profiles tagged No femmes, there’s one of me. And I’m not going to hide it any more and I’m not going to apologize for it.”

  He had stood up and was staring down at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  “I—I’m sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” He stared into my eyes.

  I stared back, and the beauty of the dream mingled with the tenderness in my chest, the place deep inside me that wanted to respond to him, took any opportunity to beat in return to what he did.

  I looked down, touched my chest with my hand. I didn’t deserve these dreams of him, which lived inside me now like bright gems, giving me hope I shouldn’t have.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Everything.”

  “You’re gay,” he said, sitting back down again.

  Duh.

  Does a bear have hair on his chest?

  “What happened?” He asked. “That’s why I told you this. I don’t care if you laugh at me. I need a gay man to explain this to me.”

  I blinked. “W-What do you mean?”

  “Clarion Blackwood,” he said, as if he was addressing an ESL student.

  “Y-you want me to…?” I didn’t understand.

  “Does sex mean anything to you people?” Anthony spread his hands. “Is a hand job like a handshake? Does any more thought go into it than that?”

  I squirmed in discomfort. I shrugged.

  “No,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “You’ve spent over a year trying to prove to me that you’re, like, the perfect gay man. So, I expect your judgement. I expect your verdict.”

  The perfect gay man?

  He thought I was trying to prove I was the perfect gay man?

  “I don’t think it’s like a handshake…” I said hesitantly.

  “Why do you have casual sex?” Anthony leaned toward me, desperation in his voice.

  “Me?” I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t have casual sex!”

  He narrowed his eyes at me, sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “You’ve never had casual sex?” He swung his foot back and forth. “You’re telling me you’ve never had casual sex?”

  I crossed my own arms and frowned. “You haven’t?” I replied. I couldn’t look at him to ask, so I asked a piece of lint I spotted on the floor next to his chair leg.

  “Of course not,” he retorted self-righteously.

  If I had looked at him, his eyes would have flashed. But I didn’t look, so I didn’t see.

  I was thinking of what I would have said right now a few days ago. That I wasn’t going to say now.

  “I don’t understand,” he said despairingly.

  “Did you, um. What did you think he wanted?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he wailed. He slumped in his seat, his face a picture of misery. “He was so upset about the break up. He was really sympathetic about Marcus. He remembered me from when I went to Larry’s with Sue Ellen. He said he recognized me right away…”

  He put his hands over his face.

  I sighed. I just wanted to wring Clarion Blackwood’s scrawny neck. “I think he was playing around,” I said. “He probably breaks up with this boyfriend every few months, looks around for some fresh, um,” I rapidly tried to rethink my wording. “Looks for a side joint to work for a few days or week until they get back together. It’s not uncommon, unfortunately…”

  “Has that… happened to you?” He asked quietly.

  I shrugged. I sort of wished I could say it had. “Angel cheated once,” I said.

  Anthony’s eyes got very big. “Really?”

  “He hooked up with a queen from Cosmosis. I can’t even remember her name. They have so many there. Well, he told me and he apologized, but… how can you trust after that?”

  “I don’t know,” Anthony said.

  “Well, maybe he was just lying,” I said. “His roommates would change every few months. They were always army guys. I bet he was sleeping with them. I bet you anything.”

  “You think so?” Anthony sounded horrified.

  I was still staring at the floor. I didn’t know. Maybe I had just been paranoid, like the time in Mexico.

  “I should just get used to it,” Anthony said quietly.

  “To what?” I looked up and met his eyes, and looked away quickly. I couldn’t take it.

  “Feeling used,” he said.

  I bit my lip.

  “If that’s how it’s going to be…” he trailed off. “I can’t go back to the way I was before,” he said. “That’s the problem. Not now that I know.”

  He must have seen that I didn’t understand.

  “I can’t stop having sex,” he said.

  My stomach clenched as a storm of butterflies erupted.

  “I mean, if that’s the price, I’ll have to pay it, because I can’t give it up.” His legs were crossed and he crossed them tighter. “I’m so fucking horny.”

  It wasn’t just my stomach that clenched his time. My scrotum tightened and I quickly crossed my own legs, uncomfortable. I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, too.

  “This is my problem,” he put his head in his hands. He remained there for a moment, then looked up at me. “Why did you let me stay over the other night?”

  I felt guilty? So guilty I wasn’t sure what I could have done that would make me feel worse?

  “Not even that,” Anthony said. “Why did you take me to that restaurant?”

  “You were upset,” I said. “I didn’t— I was concerned.”

  “You weren’t faking?” He narrowed his eyes. “I thought it was all fake.”

  “I wasn’t… the whole time,” I protested. “Except, the thing about—when I said you were Damaris’ successor. That was BS.”

  “So which is it?” Anthony asked. “Are you real or fake?” He tapped his index finger on the table. “Are you nice, or a bully?”

  “My first boyfriend was straight.” I couldn’t lo
ok at him. I looked at his fingernail scraping over the wood grain.

  “What?”

  “You asked me for my opinion. As a gay man. About sex,” I said. “Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So…” I scratched the wood grain of the table with the long acrylic nail on my index finger. “At least you’re doing it with men who actually like men.”

  “He was obviously bi, but just couldn’t admit it to himself,” Anthony put in unhelpfully. “There is a lot of stigma—”

  “He was straight,” I said forcefully, tracing the whorl of the wood grain harder. “He’s married now. To a woman. Has about three kids, I don’t know.”

  “That really doesn’t contradict what I said,” Anthony kept on. “A bi person’s identity doesn't change just because they get married or are in a long-term rel—”

  “What is this, a lecture in a high school health class?” I snapped.

  “No,” Anthony retorted. “It’s education. I know you don’t believe in bisexuality. But it’s real. And I’m going to educate you. Whether you like it or not.”

  “Believe in it?” I tapped all five tips of the nails on one hand together on the table, then slapped the hand down on the wooden surface. “What is this, like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus or something?”

  “Because of what you said to me at the Ethopian restaurant. You compared it to the insanity plea. I don’t even know what that means, but—”

  “I mean it’s a bullshit excuse to use,” I clarified.

  “What do you mean, excuse?” He shifted in his chair, re-crossed his legs. “Okay, let me ask you this. Do you think I would like Damaris if she weren't trans? Like, if she were a cis woman?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said instantly. I wasn’t going to be dragged into some kind of debate on that topic.

  “Do you think the fact I like Damaris has anything to do with the fact that I’m attracted to men?” He pressed.

  I threw my hands up in the air. “I couldn’t possibly know anything about that. It’s your business.”

  “You do,” he said. “I knew it. Just like Marcus. It’s really—you know, this is the kind of attitude that makes trans women feel excluded from gay spaces.”

  “Have you ever dated a woman?” I held out my hands. “Just tell me that.”

  He glared at me. “I don’t need to validate or prove my sexuality to you or anyone else.”