Drag Queen Beauty Pageant

by Malachite Splinters

  My heart started to pound and I realized that I’d left my bedroom door unlocked like a fucking idiot. I started running toward it.

  “I’m not lying!” Marcus said on the other end. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  I ran into the door, banged into it in fact and I locked it—just as I heard a knock behind my head.

  Was that my imagination?

  I prayed it was.

  No. The knock came again, two knocks in rapid succession.

  “Because he’s—here—” I ground out.

  “Oh Tata,” Machyl’s voice came to me through the door. “You’re not talking to anyone in there, are you?”

  “Did you hear that?” I whispered into the phone, walking quickly into the bathroom and shutting the door behind me. Machyl definitely couldn’t hear me in here. “He just showed up and he’s, like, terrorizing me!”

  “Oh…fuck…” Marcus said on the other end. “I knew he wasn’t sick!”

  “I know,” I huffed.

  “He’s up to something, babes,” Marcus said. “This has something to do with the auditions, mark my words.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “If Damaris continues being ill, she’s not going to be able to audition. So…”

  “So you would take her place,” I said.

  “Woah, woah, babes, let’s not jump to any conclusions here, all right?” Marcus said hastily, sounding very uncomfortable. “You haven't said that to anyone, have you?”

  “What? No,” I said. “No, of course not.”

  “Please don’t, alright, Anthony?” Marcus sounded genuinely alarmed.

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  I frowned. “I promise,” I said.

  “I’m on, Anthony,” Marcus said. “I’ll call you as soon as I finish, okay—”

  “No!” I said urgently, because he sounded like he was about to hang up. “What am I supposed to do about Machyl?”

  “Anthony, sweetheart, I’ve got to go—bye, babes—bye, bye, bye—”

  He hung up.

  I crossed my arms. I didn’t see how anything Machyl had been doing could be connected to the auditions.

  Machyl had been targeting me, and I couldn’t even stand on a stage and lipsynch the words to a power ballad, so it couldn’t be about the auditions.

  Marcus had denied everything, but I still wasn’t sure if I believed him. And not only that, but he hadn’t exactly been sympathetic or concerned when I told him what Machyl was doing. Instead he immediately started talking about the auditions!

  Well, it just served to confirm what I had already thought. I was on my own.

  It was so unfair and it made me so angry that I suddenly felt able to face Machyl. All I needed to do was get through this dinner by saying whatever it took to placate Machyl and make him think he was getting his way.

  I put my phone in my pocket, straightened up, turned around and, after smoothing down my hair a bit, opened the door.

  Machyl was leaning against the opposite wall with his arms crossed.

  I forced my face into the biggest smile I could muster, looked Machyl in the eye and said, “Okay. Let’s go then!”

  And I marched right past him toward the front door.

  Ethiopian Dinner

  “Are you ready to order?” The server appeared so silently it startled me a little.

  I turned my head and found myself looking into a pair of enormous dark eyes. She smiled and her teeth seemed to glow white against her skin, which was a gorgeous deep shade similar to Damaris’. I felt my cheeks getting warm.

  “We’ll have this one,” Machyl said, turning the menu toward her.

  “That’s a sharing platter?” She said, turning to him with another dazzling smile.

  I couldn’t help glancing at her slim figure, dressed in a server’s plain black. Skinny jeans and a t-shirt. She had long braids trailing down her back.

  I looked down at the table while Machyl ordered. My composure was a little shaken. I had been doing so well, keeping calm and cool.

  Machyl and I had barely exchanged a word on the subway ride over here, which had taken almost half an hour. I couldn’t believe he wanted to go so far away.

  The farther we got from the block where I lived, I had started feeling anxious that we would run into someone from the drag world and that word would get back to Duane Tyrone that I had been out and about while I was supposed to be sick at home.

  “She was cute,” Machyl remarked casually, folding his menu and putting it to one side against the wall. We were at a table for two in the back of the restaurant, which was long and thin.

  Our table was partially obscured from the others by a bulky white cupboard which looked like it was used to hold the cutlery and menus and water glasses for the restaurant.

  It felt strangely private and I had the uncomfortable feeling that the wait staff might have thought we were on a date.

  “Uh-huh,” I said, wondering why he was commenting.

  She wasn’t wearing anything remarkable that Machyl might be interested in and I hadn’t noticed any accessories or jewelry or anything.

  I wrote it off as a Machyl’s World Judgement, in which he was responsible for ranking and rating everything and everyone in the world, or maybe the universe, and they had better know it and shape up, or he would downgrade them.

  I folded my own menu and leaned it against the wall as well, careful not to touch his with mine. I lined my cutlery up more precisely on my folded napkin.

  I almost jumped out of my seat in alarm when the server came back around the cupboard—which was blocking my view of the rest of the restaurant—and set a basket down on the table between us.

  “This is the injera bread,” the server said. “When your food arrives in a minute I’ll show you how to eat it.”

  “Thank you,” Machyl turned the languid smile on her this time. “But I’ve been here a ton of times. I can show him what to do.”

  She returned his smile, but I could tell hers was genuine. With a flip of her braids she disappeared behind the cupboard again and was gone.

  “So you agree,” Machyl said. “You thought she was cute.”

  “Sure,” I muttered, not sure what he meant. I shifted in my seat. The straight-backed chair was uncomfortable for some reason. I wished I had a cushion to sit on. My ass was too bony.

  He eyed me repositioning myself and raised his eyebrows.

  “Is it hurting you to sit down this evening, princess?” He enunciated the word more clearly.

  I breathed out hard through my nose.

  “Why do you keep calling me ‘princess’?” I asked boldly, opening my eyes a little wider to show I wasn’t intimidated.

  Machyl raised one eyebrow at me. He had torn off a piece of bread from the basket and was slowly chewing it.

  “Are you gay, Anthony?”

  I froze.

  The entire world seemed to come to a halt. The breath stopped in my lungs, my heart seemed to be waiting crested on the edge of a new beat, but afraid to make it.

  Blind panic had wiped everything clean, like a whiteboard after an over-enthusiastic janitorial maintenance session.

  My head felt like it had emptied out, like someone had pulled the plug and my brains had just slipped out, slipped down a hole into my spinal column, out my butt (clearly the two were connected by the coccyx, this was a new biological discovery), and from there to who knew where.

  “This—is—a really nice restaurant,” I said, forcing the words out because no other ones seemed to be available in my head.

  Machyl laughed softly, almost kindly. He reached his hand across the table and I retracted mine with lightning speed and put it under the table with its brother.

  They held each other like anxious orphans at the train station, waiting to find out where their new families lived.

  Machyl saw my hand retract and I saw a fleeting look of displeasure cross his face. He sat back.

  “
I thought you needed my help,” Machyl said, moving his cutlery off the napkin, the napkin off the table and draping it across his lap.

  I floundered. His question had rattled me so much that I had totally forgotten why I was even here.

  Why had I agreed to this? What was I hoping to achieve? This was a bad idea. I didn't have the upper hand. I didn’t even have a hand. Both of mine were hiding under the table, hoping the big bad Machyl would go away.

  “I don’t think,” Machyl smoothed the napkin, placed his elbows on the table, knitted his fingers together, put his chin on them, and looked at me over them, “that you’re in a position to refuse my help, Anthony.”

  “P-p-position?” I stuttered.

  I felt like a fish who had been swimming happily along in my underwater world, eating tasty morsels I found floating on the tides, when suddenly with a ripping pain and a jolt I had swallowed a hook, and was being pulled rapidly against my will to the surface to lie panting and gasping in the open air, while Machyl the fisherman looked down at me and smiled.

  At that moment, the server appeared again—it was impossible to see her coming with that big white cupboard in the way—with a huge round metal plate which she placed in the middle of the table between Machyl and I. “You have cutlery in case you need it,” she said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Machyl assured her.

  “Are you sure you don’t need any help?” She looked at me.

  Machyl’s eyes darted from me, to her and then back to me again.

  “I told you I’ve been here before,” he said quickly. I saw his hands go to the bread basket and tear off a large flap of off-white, spongy-looking substance which looked more like a crêpe than bread.

  “Here’s what you do,” he glanced at me, then at the server, who was still watching.

  “You take the injera,” he picked up the bread between his finger and thumb, “take some of the wat,” he used the bread to pick up some of the stew which had been ladled onto the bread—it looked like there were several kinds.

  “And now,” he said to me, with a glance at the server, who was nodding encouragingly, “you feed each other. Open up.”

  He stretched his hand toward me, his long fingers holding the neat package delicately, his long nails painted with tiny galaxies, holographic purple and dark blue swirled with fluorescent yellow as bright as a road worker’s high-visibility vest, and tiny pieces of silver leaf which gleamed like the retroreflective strips on the vest which lit up when touched by passing headlights of cars.

  I was like a small animal caught in those very headlights, as if I’d been dazzled by the glitter of the silver leaf and I looked at him in horror, then at the server, hoping she would save me.

  But she just smiled wider and nodded, encouraging me.

  To my own dismay, I felt my mouth open and Machyl popped the food parcel neatly in, as if feeding a baby bird or posting a letter. I closed my mouth.

  It was fragrant and smelled delicious, and as I started to taste and chew, it was clear it tasted as good as it smelled, but I felt weirdly violated.

  I watched Machyl tear off a piece of the bread and hand it to me.

  “Now you do it,” he said.

  I glanced at the server, but there was no-one there. She must have left while I was chewing my mouthful of shame.

  I wanted to say no, and Machyl could obviously read it in my face.

  “This is part of the meal,” Machyl said. “You have to feed each other. And don't touch it with your left hand! Right hand only. Now, take some of that one, the orange one. That one’s really spicy.”

  I obeyed him, wishing I wouldn’t, wishing I would rebel and throw it in his face.

  But I didn’t.

  Machyl had me on a line that was hooked in my gut, and the harder I struggled to extricate myself, the deeper the hook stuck in.

  I obediently pinched a bit of the orangey stew with the bread and, gulping a little, looked at Machyl. He was waiting with his mouth slightly open.

  As I brought the injera closer, a chunk of meat fell out and bounced on the white tablecloth.

  “Clumsy,” Machyl muttered.

  Talking made his mouth closed when I thought it would be open and lower when I thought it would be higher and I crashed into his upper lip with the food parcel.

  I retracted it, horrified, and he lunged like a pit bull and snarfed it right out of my fingers before I could get it away.

  I expected to feel teeth, but I didn’t. Just the soft interior of his lips.

  He sat there, chewing, with a slight, satisfied smile on his face.

  I tried to breathe, feeling as if I had just gone through a Halloween haunted house, one of those ones where the undead popped out and tried to claw your face off.

  “You’re not sick,” I said loudly.

  I had to do something. I had to take some action, something decisive, something that would break the spell he was putting me under.

  He looked back at me, still chewing, and the little smile on his face went nowhere. How someone could smile and chew at the same time was beyond me.

  “You’re supposed to be performing tonight,” I pointed out. “But you called in sick. You’re obviously not sick.”

  He continued chewing for several more seconds, as if he was just taking his time, not in any hurry to answer what I’d said. I saw him swallow, then take a sip of water.

  With every second that passed I felt the power of my words fade further and further from sight, like a flowering cactus shrinking into the horizon as a cargo train continued its journey through the wide arid desert.

  I felt thirsty all of a sudden and gulped down some water.

  “Is that supposed to scare me?” Machyl looked at me as if I as a grub he’d found in a lettuce from his organic weekly vegetable box.

  “Machyl,” I stuttered. Desperation was making me careless, irrational, and I couldn’t take it any more. “Why don’t you just come out and say it? Whatever it is you want to say to me?”

  “Come out?” Machyl regarded me coyly. “I’m already out, Tata. I don’t think I’m the one that needs to come out.”

  My mind was whirling with all of the insinuations he’d been making all evening, starting with the text messages we’d been exchanging earlier. I couldn’t get rid of the creeping feeling that he could read my mind.

  “I knew you weren’t sick, Tata,” he said, taking another piece of injera and expertly scooping up a different colored stew without ever getting any of it on his fingers or his galaxy nails.

  “How could you possibly you know that?” I demanded. “Were you there?” I scoffed.

  I was so angry, not even at him, at myself. I had fallen into his trap, despite myself. I had caught so many of his little ploys in the act, been able to navigate to avoid them, and I’d still fallen for this in the end.

  “This is all meaningless.” I crossed my arms.

  I was calling his bluff. There. The deer caught in the headlights was commandeering the vehicle and turning those headlights back on the driver.

  Machyl raised his eyebrows, wiggled in his seat as if getting comfortable, leaned his elbows on the table and raised himself toward me, looking directly into my eyes.

  I held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. He still had the uneaten package of injera in his hand and it started to drip stew onto the tablecloth.

  “You never answered my question,” he pointed out.

  I bit my lip. My left hand was gripping the tablecloth and I had an insane desire to pull hard on it and send the food and Machyl flying. I felt my heart start to race again and my face starting to burn.

  “Why would you think anything else?” I muttered, feeling the heat on my face spread across my head and neck.

  Machyl looked at me, then sat back slowly. He seemed to have forgotten about the food in his hand because when he saw it, he frowned at it, put it down on a side plate, and wiped his hands on his napkin. “How many men have you slept with in the past year, Ant
hony?”

  “None of your business,” I replied instantly.

  “How many men have you dated, then?” He was looking at me, his eyes unwavering.

  “It’s none,” I repeated, leaning toward him and glaring, “of your business.”

  He put his napkin down and rubbed his hands together. “That’s as may be, princess, but it doesn't answer any of the questions on the table before us.”

  “Why do you care, anyway?” I muttered. “What does it have to do with you?”

  Machyl just smiled.

  I realized that he was waiting for me to put it all together, everything he had been throwing at me all day. I had tried to write it off as posturing or meaningless provocation, but it wasn’t.

  I sat there, feeling like I was the Little Mermaid when she’s on that rock and the waves crash up against her from behind, but then the waves keep coming, from the left side, then the right. It’s not just a nice day in the surf any more. The waves are getting rougher, bigger, and she starts to realize she’s going to be drowned unless she can flip-flop herself up onto the shore.

  Fuck.

  “What is it,” Machyl said softly, leaning his head on his hand and looking at me, “that you really, really, really, don’t want anyone at House of Ellegrandé to know? Because you can only choose one, princess. Just one.”

  Sometimes when fishing, the hook sank so deep, and the force used to pull the fish up out of the water was so strong that by the time you got the fish out of the water, its guts had been pulled right out of its mouth along with the hook.

  That was what I felt like right now.

  I hadn’t spilled my guts.

  Machyl had spilled my guts for me.

  I was the Little Mermaid, gasping on the shore, choking on my intestines where they lay quivering on the sand next to my head.

  I gulped. He was going to force me to reveal it all, so I could choose between them, and I would never know if he actually knew them beforehand at all.

  “You still haven’t explained why you called in sick,” I pointed out.

  It was all I had and I clung to it like the Little Mermaid clung to the statue of her human boyfriend.