Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  “Anthony—” I gasped, thinking of what I had seen yesterday and today, that I shouldn’t have seen. I wanted to see him, had to see him— “Can I turn on the light?”

  It was a wrench, but he let go of me and the air felt very cold on my hot dick compared to his mouth. “Okay,” he panted, sounding slightly out of breath.

  I reached over—it wasn’t far—and flipped on the light switch.

  Soft light showed him kneeling on the floor in front of the bed, sitting back on his haunches, his untouched erection bobbing slightly in front of him, his balls tight.

  Our eyes met and I reached for him, and he reached his arms around my hips again. I touched his face, his eyebrow, his cheek, and I felt my heart clench, hard, and then release.

  I pulled him up, I pulled him close to me, I pulled him onto my lap and he was hot and pliant he put his arms around my neck, groaning as his erection brushed against my stomach.

  “Touch me,” he begged, his lips brushing against mine, his weight on my thighs. “Put your hands on me,” he commanded, and I was still being ginger with him, not believing this was real or that he wanted me.

  “Machyl,” he gasped, kissing me. My hands were still at my sides, resting on the comforter. “Machyl—” he took his hands off my neck and took my hands and put them on his hips and then he reached down and aligned our erections and pressed them together with his hand and we both moaned simultaneously.

  He gently squeezed the heads together and we both gasped and I ran my hands up his thighs and over his buttocks, took one in each hand and squeezed hard.

  He let out a guttural groan.

  And that was it.

  I flipped us both around and pushed him back on the bed and he grabbed me as I climbed on top of him and he splayed his legs, wrapping them around my hips.

  I held myself above him, taking hold of our erections and fisting them, spitting in my hand for more lubrication because I sure as hell wasn’t stopping to look for lube.

  Looking into his eyes was so intense that it almost overpowered the sparking, rushing pleasure shooting through my abdomen and building in my balls, which were rubbing against his in a way that felt so unbearably good, I thought I was going to lose my mind.

  But he kept looking back at me, his mouth open and panting as he held on to my arms, his legs tight around me, and the faintest outline of abdominals showing when his chest contracted as he breathed.

  “Machyl,” he gasped, and his big brown eyes were looking into my eyes when he said it, and it made me come.

  My balls contracted and the intense pressure built up in the pit of of my groin released in a torrent of sweet pleasure and semen went all over his stomach and chest.

  And the next second, as I watched, he screwed his face up and gasped, “Oh, St Sebastian—Machyl, oh, god—” and a spurt of warm come splashed onto the center of my chest. He collapsed back onto the comforter, panting.

  I let go of both our dicks and rolled off him, panting myself. Come dripped down my chest. I awkwardly got off the bed, trying not to get it or my sticky hands on the comforter, and got a tissue from the nightstand and wiped it off. I got him one and handed it to him.

  He sat up and accepted it, wiped it off, and then got off the bed and put the bathrobe back on. Seeing him doing that, I got dressed again too.

  “I need the bathroom,” he muttered, and left.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, and after a few minutes I heard the bathroom door open, and a few moment after that, I realized that he was still gone.

  I stood up and opened my bedroom door. The light was off in the bathroom and the door was open.

  His bedroom door was closed, and there was no light around it.

  I frowned, went into the bathroom and washed my hands and washed the cum stains off my chest, and didn’t look at myself in the mirror before turning the light off and closing my bedroom door, though I looked at his bedroom door, and thought—

  Maybe I should—

  But then I closed the door, leaving it just slightly ajar, and got into bed and I lay there trying to figure out what had just happened.

  But I had fallen asleep before I reached any meaningful conclusions.

  Friday

  “Friday!” Tracy Bierbaum passed my desk. “Can I get a whoop whoop!”

  Everyone had agreed to leave early this Friday, as a big project had just finished up for a client.

  No-one had mentioned the fact that I had slacked off last week. I hoped I had made up for it somewhat over the last four days.

  I had actually been here since Tuesday morning, sleeping three or four hours a night in the nap room and showering in the twenty-four-hour gym on the third floor that our company had a deal with.

  I hadn’t attended the rehearsals since Monday. DT said there was no group performance, so I didn’t see why I had to.

  I had offered Anthony to do them together, but I hadn't heard a word from him since he walked out of my room late Monday night.

  Clarion couldn’t get away from work on Thursday afternoon as DT had wanted, so there had been no walkthrough of tonight’s performance.

  So I had no idea what Anthony was doing for the performance.

  And I didn’t care, either. He could parade around in a giant banana skin for all I cared.

  “Marsh!” Tracy called, passing my desk again. “Can I get a whoop whoop?”

  I did a half-hearted, “Whoop whoop,” and went back to the spreadsheet I had been staring at for the last half hour.

  People usually thought my name was Marshall and pronounced it accordingly, adding an R, even after they saw how it was spelled.

  “Okay, come on, Marshall,” Tracy came around and clapped me on the back. “We’re about to go downstairs to O’Finnegan’s. You joining?”

  I looked up at her. She was a chubby little white woman in her thirties with curly brown hair always piled on the top of her head.

  “Sorry, Trace,” I said. “Got a big new drag show debuting tonight.”

  “Oh my god!” She squealed. “Why didn’t you say anything? This is perfect! We have to go!”

  “You’re all welcome to come,” I said. I hadn’t mentioned it because I had been trying to forget, myself, about the living nightmare that most parts of my life apart from work had become.

  “I’m going to make the whole team come down there after happy hour,” she clapped her hands together like a delighted child. “What time does it start?”

  “Nine pm,” I said, glancing at the time on my desktop. It was just after six. “I gotta go. Okay, maybe I’ll see you there, Tracy.”

  I gathered my things and headed out the door. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, which in and of itself showed just how weird things had gotten.

  Normally I would have made sure to be around for them to thank me for putting in the eighty hours over four days. But now I just wanted to slink out unseen, do the gig tonight, go home and barricade myself in my bedroom and sleep forever.

  At work I didn't hide the fact that I did drag. I didn’t need to. I was chair of the company’s working group on sexuality inclusion. And drag was considered so cool, now, that I was more used to being treated like a bit of a celebrity rather than fending off negative reactions.

  Not that it never happened, especially with some of the guys who thought working on Wool Street meant you had to constantly wave your dick around, loudly shouting it was bigger than everyone else’s.

  I breathed in a deep breath of the city air as I left the building and set off for the subway a block over. The grays of the city—street, buildings and clothes of the office workers—made a backdrop for occasional splashes of color, yellow fall leaves, a billboard or the pink plastic bag fluttering, caught on the leg of a bench in the sidewalk and unable to break free and fly away.

  I couldn’t help the feeling of dread, that tonight was going to be a disaster of absolutely epic proportions. But DT hadn’t been in touch since that night either.

  He
didn’t want my help?

  He wanted to take over?

  Fine. It was his house, after all. I thought I had something to contribute, but apparently not.

  I reached the subway and left the city colors behind.

  Foreboding reached a hand into my chest and gripped my heart as the artists’ entrance came into view.

  I could see that the hoardings in front of the club had been changed for tonight’s show, with a new poster with the photographs from Sunday, but I didn’t go any closer and look at it in detail. I just didn’t want to see.

  As I opened the door and my nervousness increased, I thought back on the many years I had been coming here. It had always been a sanctuary, an escape. It had been my happy place.

  And now, to dread coming here, that was… that was…

  That wasn’t right.

  I pushed the door open and there was no Marcus and Anthony up against the wall. I walked toward the dressing room, much more slowly than I should have, and pushed the door open—there was no Clarion and Anthony on the make up counter.

  No, there was Clarion at his station, there was Anthony on the opposite corner of the room at his, and there was Luka and beside him, Harley, shirtless and in a headband and with a face of foundation already applied.

  So Harrie Debby was being permitted to perform here.

  Even though she was retired, she theoretically still belonged to House of Cosmosis.

  I had always suspected that high-ranking queens from Cosmosis had more direct access to the drag mothers, and this possibly confirmed it. For many a queen it would be impossible to appear at another club in this manner.

  “Darling,” Harrie Debby stood up when he saw me come in. “Look at yourself, sweetheart, you’ve left home without your organ grinder again,” and she burst into raucous laughter, and came over and kissed me on both cheeks.

  “Machyl,” Luka waved at me.

  I went straight over and we hugged. “How are you?” I asked, looking him over. “How’s your foot?”

  He shrugged. “The same.”

  I had left the office for a couple hours, twice, to visit Luka at home and check on how he was doing after he got home from the hospital. He had been propped up in a restored vintage armchair in the front room of their restored brownstone townhouse, which looked like it came straight out of an interiors feature, while the Latina housekeeper served us drinks.

  “It only hurt the day after,” Luka said. “It feels fine now. At the check-up they said I should be able to take the boot off in six weeks.”

  “Machyl,” Harley broke character, putting his hand on my arm as he both stood behind Luka’s chair. “Now, I’m waiting for a call from my lawyer. We’ve been waiting to hear back from these Persimmon people for three days, hon, but I think we’re going to get something out of them today.”

  I repressed the urge to rub my stomach. I hadn’t been able to eat or sleep, I was so sickeningly guilty over this. Over and over again, I imagined being dragged into court.

  I kept picturing Marcy sitting there in a formal pant suit, testifying to the conversation she had had with me where she informed me in no uncertain terms that the floor was unsafe for anything other than low-impact stuff.

  I kept picturing myself on the stand, being cross-examined and having to admit that I hadn't told them the truth because I was trying to make myself look good. Trying to make the club look good, too, but mostly myself.

  I imagined having to admit that I had willingly put them at risk and it was all my own selfish fault.

  “Harley?” Luka turned around in his chair to face his husband. “Are you talking about the dance studio again? I told you. It’s just a hairline fracture—”

  “Monkey,” Harley turned back around and went back toward him. “Let me take care of this.”

  Luka didn't look too happy, though, and Harley sat down. I knew when to take my leave and as I walked away, they started talking very seriously in whispers.

  I sat down at my station and heaved a sigh, then realized what I had done, and it was too late to take it back, if anyone had noticed.

  I glanced to my right, to where Anthony was sitting at his station applying his eyeshadow and I was grateful that we sat on the same side of the room so I couldn’t see him in the mirror.

  I had woken up on Tuesday morning and when I poked my head out of my bedroom door, his door was still closed. I had breathed a sigh of relief and left for work.

  It was after I had been at work for a few hours that I realized I couldn’t go back home, because he would be there.

  What did I think would happen, when he offered to take his clothes off in my bedroom?

  I didn't think.

  Obviously.

  We had sort of been on the way to becoming friends, before. And then that had ruined everything. I didn’t know how I was going to keep working with him, let alone living with him.

  Just being in the same room as him now made me hyper-aware, on edge and ready to cringe at the slightest movement.

  I just kept replaying the shameful moment when I realized that he wasn’t coming back from the bathroom, and I had been sitting there, waiting—waiting for what?

  What did I think would happen after two, basically, enemies frotted on top of the bedsheets on a Monday night?

  How did you climb down from that?

  I hadn’t thought about what would happen.

  And now I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about any of it. I had been working nonstop for the last four days to try to make sure that I didn’t start to.

  I didn’t want to think about the sequence of events on Sunday night leading into Monday morning, when I had spilled my guts to Anthony over my love life for no good reason.

  I didn’t want to think about the walk where he had asked me a million questions about how to perform and I had given him every tip I could think of from seven years of experience.

  And I had even shown him how to practice lip sync with another person, by mouthing along while they said I sure would like to buy some eggs, Mrs. President, or You seen Miss Minxy’s monkey’s missing mink monk mama made?

  Well, that one we stood on a street corner about fifteen minutes because we both kept breaking down laughing.

  I didn’t want to think about the events of Monday night, which when I looked back—which I didn’t—seemed like a fever dream or something stranger.

  My decision to have 80s fuck me in the morning had resulted in me spilling all over Anthony’s bare stomach at night.

  Do the math on that one.

  Cause I couldn’t.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Ellegrandé swanned into the dressing room with two sheets of paper fluttering in her hands. “Tonight’s running order,” she said, taping one over each mirror.

  “Harrie Debby,” she continued, going over to Harley and—I had never seen her do this—curtsying. “What an honor to welcome you to our humble little establishment tonight.”

  Harrie Debby jumped up and kissed her cheeks and they started chatting away.

  I turned away, not wanting to watch.

  Did I want to be like Harley?

  Did I consider him to be a role model for any aspiring queen in this city?

  Of course I did. Just because he had never competed in a pageant, didn’t mean I didn’t admire him.

  What I would give to have a life and career like his.

  Twenty years at House of Cosmosis, seeing it rise and rise to become the most successful drag club in New York’s history, joining the growing popularity of drag combined with the return of nightclubs, a phenomenon worldwide—just look at one of the biggest clubs in London, the Drag Emporium, where Bone China had come from.

  Then of course he had a very successful corporate career as well, becoming a partner in a litigation firm. And he was married, obviously very happily—if a little too cutely for my taste, but I was probably just jealous, wasn’t I? And they were starting a family.

  He was, like, everyt
hing I aspired to.

  He was someone I could point my finger at to my parents and say, There. It is possible. You can pursue your passion without compromising your career and wasting all those years of education.

  And for so many years, I had made plans for how to improve the House of Ellegrandé, make it a competitor, make it everything it could be. Bring it into this millennium while holding on strong to the proud heritage that had led us here.

  I had tried to show Duane Tyrone how it could be if he was just willing to try new things, make a few changes.

  I had tried so damn hard.

  And… what had it all come to?

  Nothing.

  Duane wasn’t interested. Didn’t want to hear it. Wanted things to go back the way they were before, to the comforting routines of the past.

  Or if he did change, he was doing it with no understanding of how the market had changed. How the city had changed. How savvy you had to be to do business now.

  It wasn’t enough to just get a liquor license and provide a safe refuge for society’s outcasts, for people who found themselves in the outer limits, excluded from the bright, warming rays of society’s sun.

  We weren’t outcasts any more. The number of straight people in House of Cosmosis every night outnumbered the gay, because there were just more of them. I wasn’t saying everything was perfect.

  But things were different now. We could get married. We could have everything that straight people had.

  Duane didn’t think that mattered to how you ran a drag club. I disagreed.

  Anyway. He still hadn’t said anything to me that echoed what Damaris had said about the club being in trouble.

  But now he was on his own with that.

  I would come in four times a week as I always had and do my numbers and I would go home again.

  No need to interact.

  No need to invest anything of myself.

  I just wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to keep doing it, if there was no future for me at House Ellegrandé.