They popped the bottle and I still stood there as they all took a glass and clinked, watching, an outsider. I was a pariah, publicly shamed and reviled. I knew that what happened on Friday night had gone viral, in drag circles at least. I had been avoiding social media ever since.
Jelly Sinclair, who had declined a glass, came over to me. “Hey,” I said. “Don’t worry about me,” I waved my hand casually at all the fuss. “I know it will be my turn soon.”
“Yeh, about that, Machyl,” she said, taking off her sunglasses, her slightly bulbous eyes looking directly into mine. “You broke your non-disclosure agreement.”
“I told my drag sisters,” I said. “My drag mother. Everyone tells them. Everyone.”
She pursed her thin lips. “Your contract is revoked.”
I heard a ringing in my ears. I thought I was going to faint.
“Who told you?” I asked. “Jelly, who told you?”
“That’s irrelevant,” she replied shortly. “Christ almighty, Machyl, you really fucked this one up didn’t you?”
She turned and walked away.
Anthony was looking at me, sipping from a champagne flute.
No.
No, Lord. Please.
His eyes were gold again today, and a tiny smirk graced his lips. I just stared at him and my mind started swirling.
I thought that Damaris just wanted to teach me a lesson last week. I thought she had forgiven me. When we laughed and talked last Sunday, I thought things were back to normal.
I had talked behind people’s backs, had secret meetings, made plots and executed them with stunning results. I knew how to manipulate, exploit weaknesses to my advantage.
I just never expected them to do it to me.
I felt a tug at my elbow.
“Machyl, you need to look at this,” Luka tugged hard on my arm and took me aside, turning our backs to the gathered group.
He was holding out his phone to me, a picture taking up the whole phone screen.
I knew that picture well. I knew every line of it, every curve. Someone had put a grinning cat head emoji with heart eyes to cover his erect penis.
But most of all I knew the expression in his eyes. Because now I had seen that look directed at me, and I knew how powerful it was.
“I was watching the live feed,” Luka whispered, turning his big blue eyes on me. “And this just appeared in the comments section. I—I took a screen shot. Just, um. As evidence.”
“Delete it,” I said instantly.
He shook his head, still whispering. “I already did. This image isn’t my screenshot. The comment was taken down, but other people must have done the same thing I did.”
I knew what he meant, what he was going to say, but I couldn’t say it.
“It’s going viral,” he whispered.
Like in a nightmare when you can’t move or scream, I watched the crowd around a smiling Anthony, saw him put his hand on Anthony’s shoulder and draw him to one side like Luka had done to me.
Harley had his phone in his hand and was showing it to Anthony. I saw Anthony’s bright and curious expression wither and die like a blighted flower.
I saw Anthony’s eyes dart to look at me, and I stared back at him. It felt like a bolt came down from the heavens, from the outer atmosphere, to strike me down where I stood.
He thought—he must think—that I still had a copy of the picture, even though he had tried to delete all of them. He must think I had done this to retaliate after Jelly Sinclair told me my contract had been revoked.
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t do it.
But I had.
I had uploaded the nude of Anthony to a private drag group the same night I received it, two weeks ago today. Marcus sent it to me as proof that he was sleeping with Anthony, which I had dared him to do.
I looked at the expression in Anthony’s eyes now, and I saw what I had done wrong. I saw every wrong choice I had made and I saw the one I should have made instead. I saw it all so clearly, now.
But it was too late.
The End
Epilogue
“Five nights a week,” Marcy cracked a peppermint swirl between her teeth. “Seven to nine.”
I nodded.
“And you’ll be cleaning the toilets for the next three months,” she added.
I looked up at her, hoping she was joking.
“Not joking, kid. After the shit you made me wade through, you can do the same for a while. See if you don’t enjoy the smell.”
She laughed and I could see the broken and ground-up white chunks of peppermint candy on her tongue.
“How come you have the extra time, anyway?” She asked as I stood up, sticking my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. It was a little chilly in her office. “Didn’t you say being a drag queen was taking up all your time?”
“I don’t do that any more,” I said, pausing at the door of her office.
“What, they kick you out? I saw it. One of the kids here showed me a video. Harrie Debby got you good!”
“No,” I said. “I left.”
She held up her hands. “You shafted me, but I got a free instructor out of it. What am I, lucky or something?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
I left Persimmon Dance Studios and walked down the New York City streets.
The sky was a strange color for night, deep dark blue, and a yellow half moon was rising above the streets. The vents were smoking again, and I stopped for a hot dog.
I couldn’t really taste it.
And the beauty of the city night didn’t seem to reach past my eyes either.
My expectations were back on street level again. I didn’t hope for anything, I didn’t dream.
I had a new purpose which was consuming my waking minutes, hours and days. I was looking for who did it. I was going to find out who posted that nude to the Vivesse app. And I was going to make them pay.
I had accepted that the way I felt about Anthony was never going to be returned.
I had accepted that I wasn’t worthy of the sweet gift of his love, which I had briefly glimpsed at one moment looking deep into his brown eyes.
But when I looked up at that sky between the tall walls of the buildings, I could almost see the silhouette of a kite flying high above this world toward another.
And two feminine figures clinging to it, looking at the city passing beneath them, then lifting their faces and looking out across the horizon.
Queens together, for always.
Fishy Queen (Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Book 2) Page 42