He looked so ridiculous standing there with that expression on his face and boner in his jeans that I broke down laughing and doubled over, unable to speak. He headed for the door.
“Thank god I have all this shit with me,” he said, opening the door, revealing a large duffle bag. “I totally forgot about this, I was so happy to see you.” He picked it up, slung it across his shoulder and positioned the bag across his crotch.
He stood back proudly and I took one look and broke down in hysterical giggles. He guffawed, once, then got control of himself.
“Au revoir, mon cher,” he said, and took a theatrical bow. I was on the floor. He blew me a kiss, and made to go—then clapped a hand to his forehead.
“Ugh, before I forget, babes— I’ll be back pretty late Sunday and I have to work on Monday. What’s your work schedule next week, anyway?” He shook his head at me. “I just realized I don’t even know what you do,” he laughed, waved it off. “I’ll text you, okay, babes? Fuck, I’m late—”
I realized he was waiting for something, and it was for me to go and say good-bye to him. I was still kneeling on the floor where I had collapsed in laughter. I got up, walked just out of the front door of the apartment into the hallway.
He looked into my eyes, and I wanted to look away when I saw how open and unguarded they were. He put his hands on my cheeks gently, and leaned down and kissed me.
“Goodbye, princess,” he breathed, and then kissed me one more time for good measure.
“Bye,” I said, and gave him a little wave as he backed away and finally turned away from me and went to the elevator.
He disappeared into the elevator and I turned and went back inside.
When I got back into the silence and the door closed behind me, I leaned against it and a giddy smile spread across my face. I put my hand over my heart and felt it beating frantically in my chest.
I hadn’t felt so happy in I couldn’t remember how long. I went to my bedroom and got my phone in case he texted me on the way to the club.
Then I walked over to the pit and skipped the three steps to the bottom, and spread myself out on one of the white leather sofas, doing a few poses as if Marcus was watching.
My phone pinged and I took it out of my pocket. It must be Marcus. I smiled.
I couldn’t believe Marcus liked me. The high-and-mighty Bone China wasn’t so high up there and more.
I couldn’t believe he wasn’t angry at me for not having sex with him already.
Not that I am going to have sex with him. Of course I wasn’t.
I couldn’t have sex with Marcus.
I didn’t love him.
A grin broke over my face again. That didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy his company, though. Being around him made me feel good about myself, whereas being around Damaris always reminded me of what a failure I was, how undesirable and unlikable.
I lay there, aware of my arousal and wondering if I should do something about it.
Are you going to masturbate again, Anthony? The voice in my head asked.
I frowned.
Poor Anthony, the voice crooned. He’s too scared to have sex, so he’ll have to whack off again.
I turned onto my side, trying to ignore how much I wanted to touch myself right now, and stared at the black blank screen of the tv mounted on the wall.
I saw Marcus in my mind’s eye. Saw his bright brown eyes with their black lashes, saw the high contrast of his pale skin against his dark hair, saw his tall and thin figure, how his skinny knees always poked out of his ripped black jeans.
I felt the gap inside me open up again, dark and lonely.
The TV was turned off now, and even the little green light in the bottom right-hand corner wasn’t on.
The longer I stared at it, the more it looked like a black void in the middle of the room, just staring at me.
Marcus had just said would be away for the whole of Sunday, and I wouldn’t see him on Monday because he had to work during the day.
I felt so uncomfortable right now, it didn’t seem possible that I could survive until Monday night without him.
I felt like the TV was going to expand across the room as swallow me up.
What was it they said about the abyss?
That quote, the kind of thing you saw people post on social media at 3am and then wondered about their mental health.
It was something about if you stared into the abyss, the abyss would stare back into you.
What did it mean?
Did it mean I really liked Marcus after all?
I felt so terrible again, and I didn’t know what I was going to do to fix it.
Why don’t you send Marcus a picture of yourself? The voice in the back of my head suggested archly.
“No!” I said aloud, to the voice. “Fuck off!”
My phone pinged again. I picked it up. Maybe it was from Marcus.
I looked at the notification.
It was from Machyl.
Oh.
A worm of fear squirmed through my stomach.
It’s okay. It’s probably nothing.
It was probably some dance video or something. Machyl was always sending me choreography he wanted me to practice. Usually so he could then remind me at the club that I couldn’t dance worth a damn.
I opened it.
Machyl: Hi princess
Machyl: [Brown hand nail-painting emoji]
What?
I stood up off the couch so fast, I practically fell over. My heart was hammering.
Machyl usually called me by my drag name, shortened to just Tata.
It suits you, he would say. It’s short and boring, like you.
Then he would laugh and mime his opera glasses, to show it was just a read and not to be taken seriously.
Machyl had never called me princess.
There was only one person who had ever called me princess.
I slumped back onto the couch. Marcus had lied to me just now in the kitchen. He had told Machyl after all.
I can’t believe you trusted him! The voice in my head scoffed.
I didn’t trust him, though. I didn’t! I always suspected.
Then why were you making out with him? The voice asked. You kissed and carried on with someone you didn’t even trust? The voice sneered. You really have no self-respect, do you?
I shrank away from the voice, wishing I could get out of my own head and escape it.
The nice feeling which had suffused my body while Marcus was here was fading away, being replaced by ickiness.
I rubbed my stomach, hoping it was just indigestion, even though I hadn’t eaten much since yesterday. Being nervous always took away my appetite.
I’m not surprised you feel nauseous, the voice said. You were fooling around with him like a complete idiot.
I glanced at Machyl’s message again, trying to take in the implications.
So Marcus had told Machyl, and Machyl hadn’t immediately told everyone else. Instead, Machyl had waited until now to let me know that he knew.
That seemed sinister somehow.
I bit my lip. The best thing to do was to just deny everything. I would just stick to my story and pretend complete ignorance.
And I had better reply now, before Machyl got suspicious.
Anthony: What?
Machyl: Come get soul food with me
I frowned. What was he talking about? I replied quickly.
Anthony: I’m sick.
Machyl: West Indian? I’m feeling for some roti and doubles
Anthony: Are you ordering to the club?
We often ordered take out to eat before the night’s performances began. Machyl, Brooklyn and Marcus often came straight from work.
Machyl: No bish, I want you to come and eat with me
More squiggles of nervousness, like my stomach had turned into a maggot-ridden cheese.
It sounded like Machyl was questioning whether I was sick or not.
What had Marcus told him? Had Marcus told h
im we kissed yesterday? Because I had gotten sick afterward and why would Machyl question that?
Had Marcus told Machyl about the date in Gay Town today? Was Machyl questioning me going on a date while I was supposed to be sick?
How much was Marcus telling him?
I thought uncomfortably of Sue Ellen on the phone this morning, how she had made me promise to tell her everything that happened between me and Marcus.
I went back to the chat. I decided to keep playing dumb and just pretend that I didn’t know that Damaris and Machyl had both called in sick as well.
After all, I had told Marcus my phone wasn’t working properly.
Anthony: But don’t you have to perform?
Machyl: Breaded shrimp emoji
I made a face in frustration. What did he mean by that? Was it some drag reference I wasn’t familiar with yet?
Shrimp was seafood, so it might refer to fish. Did he mean something about serving fish?
Machyl had a running joke in which he called me a fishmonger because I was so feminine that I didn’t just serve fish, I sold it by the metric ton.
He thought he was so fucking clever.
Anthony: You want Japanese food?
Machyl: I want to eat out.
Machyl: [rainbow lollipop emoji]
I scratched my head. I had an inkling that we had strayed into sexual innuendo territory, but I couldn’t get my head around what he was trying to say.
He had mentioned shrimp… or fish… and eating out… that would suggest oral sex with women.
Machyl talking about oral sex with women? Ha! That was about as likely as Machyl sprouting wings and a magical horn and flying away to a land over the rainbow.
But the lollipop emoji? How could that be referring to anything other than oral sex?
I felt like I was standing in the middle of a forest composed of the exact same type of tree repeated over and over and over, stretching endlessly away.
Impossible to navigate because the identical trees would always confuse you, prevent you from knowing if you had been to that spot before.
That was what it was like talking to Machyl. I felt like flinging the phone across the room.
It was pointless trying to figure out what he meant, and it was besides the point anyway.
The point was that Marcus had lied to me, outright lied to me—and I had kissed him and draped myself all over him!
That’s all pointless if Machyl is going to tell DT you fraternized with Marcus, the voice in my head pointed out logically.
I pounded the glass screen of the phone.
Anthony: I can’t. I’m sick!
This conversation was over. I wasn’t engaging with Machyl any more, and in a minute I was going to pick up the phone to Marcus and give him a piece of my mind about what he had done.
Machyl: I’m “sick” too princess [gold and pink crown emoji]
Machyl: So stop lying and come meet me
Machyl: Ok shut up some people are ridiculous
Machyl: Right???
I went cold.
It started in my stomach and spread to the tips of my toes and the top of my head. Then a prickling sensation broke out all over my head like needles breaking through the surface of the skin and travelled all the way down my spine.
“St Sebastian…” I breathed.
The feeling in my body was so strange, I glanced around, trying to reassure myself that this was real. I touched the fine grained leather upholstery. I touched the cool glass top of the coffee table. I reached my fingers down and felt the scratchy carpet pile.
I didn’t think I was hallucinating, but how could this be reality?
Marcus had seemed surprised when Machyl called in sick. Not just surprised, he seemed angry. As if he thought that Machyl was up to something suspicious.
He had said, Forgive me if my bullshit detectors are firing.
I thought it was strange, too, but I couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would pull such a seemingly self-defeating move as flaking out on a big event like this, where Duane Tyrone was counting on Machyl.
But surely it was even more self-defeating to admit to me that he wasn’t really sick?
I realized I had started to shake a little bit as I typed out a reply.
Anthony: Who’s being ridiculous?
I watched the typing icon indicating Machyl was in the process of replying.
Machyl: Who do you think?
Machyl: Drag queens are always creating all this drama
Machyl: I’m so tired of it
Oh St Sebastian preserve me.
That sounded like a threat. It was a threat.
But a threat of what?
If Machyl knew that I had hooked up with Marcus, he could just go straight to Duane Tyrone and have me kicked out of the club, easy as snapping his fingers while he vogued his body in elegant contortions around the floor.
But Machyl hadn’t done that.
He was doing something else, instead.
And Marcus might know nothing, or he might be in on it. I couldn’t trust Marcus, that was for sure.
Damaris—what about Damaris? Would she help me?
Damaris! The voice cackled in the back of my mind. Damaris isn’t your friend! You barely know Damaris!
I swallowed, hard. Damaris had encouraged me to hook up with Marcus yesterday. Could she be in on this, too—
No. No. That was out of the question. I must be going crazy to suspect something like that.
But whose side would Damaris take if I told her what was going on?
She’s best friends with Machyl—remember?? The voice crowed victoriously in my mind.
Oh God… please help me.
Brooklyn and I weren’t really friends, and anyway, there was no way Brooklyn would stand up to Machyl. No way!
And Duane Tyrone? Duane Tyrone hated me! He always had, ever since the beginning.
There was no way to avoid the conclusion: I was alone.
I was completely alone.
My phone pinged loudly, startling me practically out of my skin. With trembling fingers, I reached over and picked it up.
More messages from Machyl.
Machyl: I always wanted to see inside one of these posh places
Machyl: You’ve got a doorman and everything
I stood up so fast I practically hit the ceiling. My heart rate seemed to double. My fingers were shaking as they typed.
Anthony: What?
Machyl: Don’t play innocent with me, princess.
The doorbell rang.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, and for a second I stood there looking from my phone to the door to the phone to the door.
There was a knock at the door.
“Hi, princess,” It was Machyl’s voice. “Or should I be asking for the butler?”
Marcus.
His name came crashing in like it was moulded out of solid concrete and had just been dropped on the glass-topped coffee table from a height of fifteen feet, sending shards of broken glass hurtling across the room.
And I was the one standing there in the aftermath, having borne the full force of the explosion, with my clothes shredded away to nothing by the glass and my bare skin punctured by thousands of shards, some large, some small, now slowly starting to drip blood.
Marcus hadn’t just told Machyl that we had kissed. Marcus had also given Machyl my address.
I really did feel physically nauseous now. Maybe my divine punishment for lying about being sick would be to actually get sick, right now.
I tried to take a deep breath, but it wasn’t easy. Something seemed to be sitting on my chest, a white elephant, or maybe it was a winged and horned magical Machyl.
Marcus had been acting as if he wanted to have a relationship with me.
Hadn’t he?
He had said he didn’t usually get involved with people he worked with, and I was the exception. He had told me he would leave Ellegrandé for me. He even gone so far as to say he wanted me to go t
o London with him.
Had that all just been a lie?
Was he just looking for sex, and he would say whatever it took to get it? Would Marcus lie through his teeth in order to get me to have sex with him?
The thing about casual sex that I didn't like was how degrading it was. It was the pursuit of personal gratification for your own libido, your own ego, your bragging rights to your friends.
It was using people, and that disgusted me.
Turning someone into a sex object and deleting their personality, ignoring the fact that they were a person, too.
That was what I hated about it.
That was what turned my stomach whenever someone at Ellegrandé called me over to show me a headless image of washboard abs and boxer briefs pulled down to reveal the veiny base of someone’s peen.
And yes, Marcus had done that before.
And that was what Marcus had done to me now.
I felt sick. I felt sick at him and felt sick at myself, that I had gotten into it. That I had started going down that path.
It was wrong, wrong for me, and now I was starting to feel the shame sprinkle down on me.
There was the voice in the back of my head again, shrieking in victory as it pointed to what I had done wrong, pointing out the mistakes I’d made.
And what was my reward for breaking my own boundaries with a sledgehammer?
Machyl Mostroso Lyons knowing every detail, and here at my door now to shove it in my face.
I stared at the front door. That had to be it.
I was being irrationally paranoid about Machyl, crediting him with elaborate Machiavellian schemes.
It was nothing like that.
No, it was far simpler, and far sicker.
Machyl just wanted first dibs on humiliating me. He wanted to look me in the eye and see the shame flooding through me when he pointed out that I was just like everyone else.
Just another young male so horny he couldn’t stop his dick from making incredibly stupid decisions on his pathetic behalf.
The doorbell rang again.
I had two options: I could hide, or I could open the door.
Like I’m going to open the fucking door! Are you crazy??
I could just lie here.
In fact, I could do what I had been tempted to do earlier when Marcus was here and I could go and hide under the bed until Machyl went away.
Drag Queen Beauty Pageant Page 14