Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2)

by Malachite Splinters

  “My counsel, citing negligence, waits three days for a response from this establishment—” Harley caught himself, pulled himself up, tucked up the corners of his mouth in a little smile, and when he spoke again, it was pure Harrie Debby. “And folks, we just heard the straight dope.” She cocked her head to one side and held out her gloved hand to indicate me.

  “You know what kind of floor a dance studio has? It’s not a normal floor, Chip. No, siree. It has. to. have. a. spec. ial. floor,” she stamped her foot on the floor with every syllable. “A floor that absorbs the shock to protect,” Harrie Debby pointed at Luka’s boot. “The joints. The legs. The feet.”

  “But the floor in this dance studio—the one that Miss Giltie Conshens had secured…” She broke off, huffing, then turned to the audience again.

  “Are you having a good night, everyone?”

  A cheer went up.

  “Did you enjoy all the performances you’ve seen so far?”

  More cheers.

  “The voluptuous Miss Clarion Call and her trembling globes. The exquisite Miss Anthony Alcantara and her heart-rending melodies?”

  Whoops and cheers filled the air.

  “Then understand,” she said. “That all of these ladies have been rehearsing in the same studio. Yes, all of them. And we have just learned that the special flooring in that self-same studio was stripped away after a flood. And never replaced.”

  Silence fell over the audience and then, a murmur and hiss. It made me think of a pit of snakes eyeing up a mouse.

  “Oh, that’s not all,” Harrie Debby continued. “The studio was given to them free specifically because, due to the lack of flooring, it was unsuitable for use by dance classes!”

  Her voice rang out loudly across the club.

  “Now where is the mother,” Harrie Debby called. “Where is these girls’ drag mother?”

  “I’m here,” Ellegrandé’s voice came from the back of the club, and it seemed like every head in the crowd turned to look at her behind the bar on the opposite side of the club. “And Miss Giltie Conshens hid all of that from me. I was as ignorant of it as all the other girls.”

  And every head that had turned toward her, turned back to the stage, and every one of them was on me.

  Harrie Debby turned around, looked at me, smirked widely, and, opening her hand, dropped the mic.

  I cringed, waiting for the ear-crunching sound of the crash, but when it made impact, she had turned it off already.

  She and Luka curtsied and walked offstage, her supporting Luka with his hand on her shoulder.

  I stood there, but there was no way out through stage left. Unlike a normal theater, there were only wings on one side of the stage. I looked, but Anthony and Clarion were still there, in the wings, as Luka and Harley were still making their way back into the green room.

  I stood there, and the crowd hissed and undulated like it really was a seething mass of snakes, the serpents I had imagined manifesting in reality.

  And then they started booing, the sound rose to a roar and something hit me, bounced off and landed on the floor. I looked down. It was a rose. My head and shoulder took hits. More roses. They were throwing them back.

  I could go to the green room, go backstage, and face them, face Luka, who I was responsible for getting hurt, and it could have been so much worse.

  Face Harrie Debby, see a role model look at me as if I was a scurrying roach she wanted to crush under her stiletto.

  Face Clarion, see the amusement clear in his face. He had been in my house two seconds and he was getting to see me destroyed, and he would be loving every minute of it.

  Face Anthony, who… who I had humiliated over and over again and I had loved it, loved every second of it. Anthony, who I had shown things to, and I didn’t know why. And he was stuck deep inside me now, and I didn't want to get him out.

  And I had made him feel like this.

  Yes I had.

  I had.

  Or I could go into the crowd. They were chanting at me. Chanting one word over and over. I saw the girl with the glasses in the front row and she was chanting, too.

  “Expel, expel, expel, expel, expel—”

  Feet were stamping, hands were clapping in unison, and the chant went on and on.

  I didn’t even look at the wings again. I had decided.

  I went to the edge of the stage, sat down and forced myself between the shoulders of those pressed against it. I expected to have to fight my way through, but the crowd parted like I had waved a magic wand.

  They formed a solid wall on either side of me, and it changed to, “Get out, get out, get out, get out—” and I walked it like I was passing through a chasm of hell with every foul demon grasping at me and trying to tear my clothes and hair.

  By the time I staggered to the main entrance, the one that customers came and went by, I was shaking and I thought I was going to puke.

  “Here,” Phil put her meaty hand on my arm. “Come out here.” She pressed a fifty into my hand. “Pay me back tomorrow,” she said, leading me to the curb and hailing a cab. “Go home,” she said, putting me inside. “Go to bed and get some sleep.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs and jerked awake when they stopped and a figure loomed above me. I must have dozed off.

  “You forgot this,” Anthony handed me my backpack, which contained my house keys which I had left at the club three hours ago.

  He stepped around me and put his key in the apartment door, went inside, leaving the door half open.

  I had already taken off my shoes and wig and peeled off my false eyelashes and sat there on the stair landing outside my apartment. I had been crying and I knew my make up had smeared and run all down my face.

  The whole time I was here, I kept thinking that if one of the neighbors came up here and saw me on their way to the third or fourth floors, they were probably going to call the cops.

  In the end, just one Latino family had come up with their three young children, and the parents had covered the children’s eyes and whispered urgently, hurrying away up the stairs, and I hadn't heard the sirens or seen any flashing lights.

  So I guessed I got lucky.

  I stood up stiffly and staggered inside, and DT would kill me for the way I was manhandling this wig.

  I had to pee and for the last half hour I had been genuinely worried that I was going to rupture my bladder. Trying to find a bathroom was out of the question, on top of which, I was, of course, still tucked, which was becoming increasingly uncomfortable until I was clenching my thighs with my acrylic nails, holding in the groans of pain.

  I took my phone out of my bag and checked it, because I couldn’t stand to wait any longer to find out if I was being sued, even if I had to have surgery for a burst bladder.

  There was just one message waiting for me.

  Duane Tyrone: Drag mothers want to see you tomorrow

  Were they going to expel me for this?

  Could you be expelled for—for what I had done tonight?

  I dropped the phone and practically nosedived into the bathroom, the urge to relieve myself suddenly unstoppable.

  The pantyhose stuck to my sweaty skin, and the shape wear was so tight, it was so hard to get off, I struggled as if in a nightmare, and when they were on the floor, I still had to peel off the tape securing my penis between my legs, and it really did feel like a nightmare, where anything you did just made you more powerless, as I writhed in agony.

  You deserve this.

  That thought floated across my mind and even though I screamed against the unfairness, I also couldn’t disagree with it.

  When I came out of the bathroom after a long, hot shower, in clean new PJs which smelled so good from the laundry, I was tired. I was so tired, I could use some toothpicks to prop my eyes open.

  But I couldn't face going into my bedroom with its lonely bed and all the recent memories that haunted me when I lay down there at night, trailing ghostly fingers across my skin and whispering in
my ear.

  There was just one light on in the main room, next to the couch. I got a pillow from my bed and put it on the couch, and on second thought, got the comforter as well, and arranged everything so I could sleep here.

  Then I sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, navigating to the Vivesse box set and choosing my favorite season. I grabbed the pillow and hugged it over my stomach, then paused the episode at the opening credits.

  I got up, went to the kitchen and made myself hot chocolate. With marshmallows on top. Because that was how much I needed comfort right now.

  “What are you making?”

  I spun around.

  There was Anthony, standing a few feet away.

  “Hot chocolate,” I replied, my voice unsteady.

  “Can you make one for me?” He asked. “I’m going to shower.”

  I nodded, speechless as he turned away.

  I put his in a travel mug so it would stay hot and I drank mine and watched an entire Vivesse episode, half an hour, and started a second before he came out again.

  He was wearing another pair of the satin pajamas, white satin this time with mint green accents. He took the travel mug I offered and sat down on the couch.

  We watched the episode while he drank his hot chocolate. There was a slight chill in the air which made my draw my legs up, crossing them. I was still hugging the pillow and it was keeping me warm.

  If he thought I was being pathetic, then he could think that. The state I had been in, waiting outside the door for him to get home, must have been more pathetic than this.

  He set the travel mug down on the floor and pulled the comforter onto his lap, as if he was chilly, too.

  The episode ended and the next started to count down to autoplay.

  “Another one?” I asked, not trusting my voice.

  “No,” he said.

  I had held it together during the trauma of tonight’s—I hesitated to use the word performance. I had held it together, kind of, during the seemingly eternal purgatory of waiting in the dark on the stair landing for him to get back with the key.

  But now that I was clean, and warm, and had hot chocolate inside me, and the lights were low and the couch was soft and I had had some comfort food for my soul, Vivesse, I couldn’t hold it together any more.

  “I’m sorry, Anthony.”

  He raised his eyes to mine and he seemed to see straight through me, straight inside. My chest grew tight like a giant elastic band was being stretched to breaking point.

  “I’m sorry,” I hung my head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  He sighed. “Machyl…”

  My name was just a breath on his lips, but it touched me inside, touched the tender spot behind my ribcage. I remembered the dream when he had touched my hand to his chest said, Now do that again. In here.

  I crawled toward him and got down on my elbows and he seemed to see what I was doing, because his hands touched my head and shoulders as I laid my head on the comforter on his lap.

  He stroked my forehead.

  I closed my eyes, curled up and inward, into his warmth, the tender give of him under my head, and he stroked my forehead again and touched my hair gently.

  I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut tighter and turned my face into the comforter and reached my arm around him and he stroked that, too, as if to confirm that was okay.

  He kept running his hand over my forehead and I started to relax, and breathe in his scent, the familiar sweetness underpinned by smoke and spice, almost like incense.

  I could smell the dampness from his shower, lingering traces of soap, and the rich fragrance of his skin, thick like butter, intoxicating.

  I felt his heartbeat, pulsing through every part of him I could feel, my arm around his lower back and his thighs through the comforter.

  “Come on,” he said, his hand closing briefly on my upper arm. “Let’s go.”

  I got up slowly. I didn’t want to leave him, but I couldn’t say that. With every inch of distance between us I felt more bereft.

  He stood up off the couch and took my forearm and pulled me up, pulling me with him. He walked to his bedroom door and I walked slowly, knowing I had to go into my bedroom, but not wanting to.

  “Come,” he said, reaching his arm out to me. I met his eyes, which was probably a mistake. He backed into his bedroom as if coaxing a reluctant animal. “Come here.”

  When I got inside, he steered me to the bed.

  “That’s my side,” he said, pointing, and closed the door.

  There was just one low light on, a clip-on reading light on the bedhead. He came over, pushed back the sheet, which was covered in one of my grandmother’s hand-crocheted blankets, and got under the covers, plumping the pillow and lying down.

  I stood there, still not sure what he wanted me to do.

  He didn’t want me to get in, did he?

  “Get in,” Anthony said.

  I did what he told me to do. I got into the bed, under the covers, and put my head down on the pillow next to his.

  He moved over, closer to me, and closer again. He put his head on my chest and his arm around my waist, and one of his legs over mine.

  “Is that okay?” He whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, although I didn’t know how I could speak.

  “Turn out the light,” he whispered.

  I reached up and did so.

  In the darkness, I gathered him to me, feeling the angles of his slight frame underneath the slippery satin garments.

  I kissed his forehead and twisted our legs together.

  His warmth, his breathing, his sweet mercy rocked me to the bottom of my soul.

  He raised himself up and found my face, gave me a hot chocolate kiss on the lips, so chaste it was sacred, and settled back on my chest.

  With my arms around him, I sank down, and down, and down, so heavy.

  So heavy, and yet so light.

  I dreamed that we lived in the castle now, ruling side by side on twin thrones. And life was as beautiful and magical as the landscape around the castle, because she was there by my side.

  My sister.

  My queen.

  Saturday

  When I woke up, I was spooning him. We were tightly nested and my dick was hard and snug in the softness between his legs.

  It was getting light, there were still shadows in the corners of the room. There was a cool breeze creeping in through the cracked window from the street and I could smell fall, the faintest scent of woodsmoke.

  He moaned and moved, and that meant that he ground on my erection. I didn’t know if he was awake or asleep but I tried not to do anything.

  I didn’t want to move away, lying like this felt so good, but I knew I had to now that I was awake and conscious of how I was lying. It wasn't right to poke your boner between someone’s legs without asking.

  “Anthony,” I whispered. “Anthony,” I said, using my voice.

  He moaned and moved again, and I felt him push back on me and his legs part a little more, as if he was trying to slip my erection between them to nudge his balls.

  He could be asleep. It didn't seem right for this to happen without knowing either way. He was so warm and he felt so delicious but I backed away, cold air filling the space between us.

  “Hmmm,” he half-moaned, half-gasped, and he reached down and back, and caught my hand, tugging on it and drawing me back toward him. When my body was lined up with his again, he touched my thigh, grabbed it, and pulled me tightly against him.

  What was he doing?

  Did he want me?

  Why?

  I had been repressing desire for him, a terrible raging desire, for the last four days. How I felt before we had sex was nothing compared to afterward.

  There was a deep itch inside me which only he could reach to scratch it.

  And it had been growing every day and night I stayed at the office. I went back to the cold showers, I ran on the treadmill until my legs turned to jelly.

 
; It didn’t work.

  I started having nocturnal emissions instead.

  And I didn’t even have the satisfaction of the wet dream to go with them.

  Nope.

  Nothing happened in the dark space between tumbling into one of the narrow napping cots and blinking my eyes open to start another day.

  So I just slept less.

  Anthony was rocking against me steadily now, small gentle movements that fit with the quiet and peaceful morning. The covers were still drawn up to our shoulders, the mattress cushioning and holding us in a warm cocoon.

  It felt so good in every part of me. It was like he was stroking the tender place inside me, behind my ribcage, making it more and more sensitive with every touch, until it throbbed with every reminder of his proximity.

  The backs of his knees which mine were nestled into, his bare feet which touched mine, a little rough, the soft skin of his neck which I reached forward and nuzzled now, and the gorgeous heat of him rubbing against the most sensitive part of me.

  He was scratching my deep itch now, but scratching it didn’t relieve it. It made the itch stronger, requiring more scratching, more and and more, the itch would never be satisfied, it was insatiable.

  I flexed my hips against him. The movement sent arousal and pleasure washing over me, hardening my erection even more. I was sure I had just nudged his balls though his pajama pants.

  I wanted to pull them down and make damn sure.

  “Anthony,” I said, and it came out as a low groan. “Anthony.” We moved together, and arousal flooded me again and I gave into it.

  “Anthony,” I said into his ear, moving my hand from his hip up inside his pajama jacket. “Anthony,” I wanted to say his name, I wanted to cry it out loud.

  He groaned and turned in my arms, and our lips found each other. He moaned when they touched, his mouth open, and he rubbed his lips against mine, pecked, never fully kissing, never fully committing, as my hands roamed over his chest and stomach.

  “Take it off, Machyl,” he moaned, offering the buttons of his pajama jacket.