Drag Queen Beauty Pageant

by Malachite Splinters

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know it was that early.”

  To be honest, I had lost all track of time. There had been no time in our private world, time wasn’t something that anyone needed to worry about there, so I hadn’t given it a thought.

  Even though it was daytime now, it hadn’t disappeared totally, had it? Our private world?

  I wanted to feel it. I wanted to touch her now, I wanted to kiss her, not over the top, not leading to sex, just affectionately.

  You don’t want to kiss her leading to sex?

  No, okay.

  I did want that.

  I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

  If she told me to strip right now, I would do it without a second thought. I was only just realizing now that the brief taste I’d had of her was not even scratching the surface of the ocean of my want.

  I shivered and told myself sternly, Not now.

  And besides, I had just kissed her affectionately. Just now. When I came back into the room.

  So… what was I complaining about?

  “Should we go and eat breakfast?” I asked, as my stomach rumbled. I had eaten barely anything at the dinner with Machyl last night, and barely anything ever since Friday, to be honest.

  She pursed her lips. “I haven’t worked for three months,” she muttered.

  “Are you better now?” I asked, not sure why she was changing the subject, but I was interested in what she had to say about it.

  She didn’t reply to my question. She just muttered, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and she left the room.

  I sat there and looked at the space where she had been, the vanity and the matching wardrobe next to it. Both had seen better days.

  In style looked like they came straight out of an early 80s high school cheerleader’s bedroom.

  It seemed like the original color scheme had been white, but over the years the white had taken on a yellow tinge.

  The baby blue trim and little blue flowers in the borders still looked okay, except where some of the flower decals had peeled off, but one of the gold doorknobs was missing.

  The poster of Color Queen tacked up on the left door looked as if it had been there for many years, bleached slightly in a fade from the right-hand side which faced closer to the window.

  The poster showed Color Queen as the triumphant winner of Vivesse, onstage under lights, wearing the tiara, sash and holding an enormous bouquet of tropical flowers.

  What drew my attention about the wardrobe was the fact that the door was half open and it looked, from where I was sitting, empty.

  I squinted at it. It must be just the way the doors and clothes were arranged.

  But the fact that Damaris had re-worn the same outfit three days in a row somehow connected with the wardrobe in my mind and I got up and went over to it, curious.

  Damaris was very well-dressed and careful about her appearance and it just seemed so out of character for her.

  I pulled the wardrobe door open and found myself looking at bare white wooden walls and a long row of empty wire hangers.

  Where are all her clothes?

  I felt a quaver in my midriff.

  That was strange, wasn’t it?

  Could there be some reason why all her clothes were out being laundered at the same time?

  You want to play games with a girl who was suicidal a month ago?

  Machyl’s words came to me and I felt fear rise in me. Suddenly I thought of health class, and one of the warning signs of suicide, that the suicidal person gave away their possessions.

  I shut the wardrobe door quickly, trying to get it back in the same position it had been in before, and went back to the bed where I sat down and linked my fingers together and stuck them between my knees and bit my lip.

  I felt panicky.

  Where were her clothes, her shoes? There was something wrong, there had to be.

  I couldn’t fathom what could have happened to all of her clothes.

  I had only been invited into this bedroom once before, but I clearly remembered that the wardrobe had been literally full to bursting with clothes on hangers, shoes underneath, boxes stacked on top to the ceiling filled with winter gear, scarves, and goodness knew what.

  For all those months, just Machyl and Duane Tyrone, had seen Damaris. I had suspected they hadn’t been taking care of her, and this seemed like confirmation.

  I glanced over at the empty wardrobe again. I didn’t know what was going on with Damaris, but I knew two things: first off, she wanted me here with her. She needed me.

  Please stay?

  A warm feeling grew within me just thinking of it. Would you—just be sweet to me?

  And second, I was here for her. I would do whatever she needed me to do. I would treat her better than Machyl.

  I would never use her in some psychotic power play over a fucking drag queen beauty pageant.

  She’ll be fine.

  When she got depressed three months ago, all she had was the House of Ellegrandé.

  Marcus didn’t love her, he couldn’t give her what she needed. And I shuddered at the thought of having to count on Machyl or Duane Tyrone in a crisis.

  But even if DT was really generous and had taken her in and given her a place to live and everything, that still wasn’t the same as having someone who loved you.

  It wasn’t the same as having someone who would do anything for you, go to the ends of the Earth for you.

  It wasn’t the same as… as having a boyfriend.

  “Anthony?” Damaris’ voice came to me like a song on the wind. I turned and smiled to see her peeking in through the door. “Let’s go.”

  I stood up and followed her out through the apartment and down the stairs to the street door, through it and out into the crisp air of the fall morning. With every step I took, my heart seemed to grow bigger and bigger, and I seemed to float higher and higher, like someone was pumping up a helium balloon until it was at risk of bursting.

  I fell into step beside her and we walked together down the street.

  Maybe my heart was at risk of bursting, exploding into a million tiny shards and splattering all over the surrounding area.

  I wouldn’t even care.

  “Where do you want to eat?” I asked her again, since she hadn’t answered last time.

  “I told you,” she said, not looking at me. “I’m broke. I just wanted to go for a walk.”

  Oh… I felt terrible guilt flood through me, followed swiftly by embarrassment.

  I had thoughtlessly invited her to go and eat, not even thinking that her comment about not working for three months meant that money might be an issue for her.

  And I thought she was referring to her illness, and I had asked her if she was better.

  Fuck.

  My stomach fell away in horror as I realized my faux-pas. How insensitive of me to bring the subject up so casually. So flippantly.

  She hadn’t even replied to my question. She had just left the room. I hadn’t even registered it properly because I had gotten distracted by the empty wardrobe.

  Oh, no… what have I done?

  I had reminded her she was depressed, and this was someone who had mysteriously emptied their wardrobe to the point she only had one outfit left.

  This was someone who had spent three months incapacitated in her room.

  And I had the nerve to ask her if she was ‘better’?

  I felt a wave of self-hatred so vitriolic, so corrosive, that it was all I could do to keep walking next to her down the street.

  Ever since I first saw her that first night at Ellegrandé, I hadn’t been able to get my sexual obsession with her out of my head.

  The idea of her dual nature, the idea that she blended female and male with a faultless art and unparalleled grace, had taken me, shaken me, and it gripped me still.

  I hadn't lied to her last night. I knew her as a woman and I loved her as a woman.

  But some part of me was always on alert for signs of masculinity
in her and when it found them, it thrilled with a dark passion and was enamored of her, that aspect of her.

  The physical stuff is not important, Sue Ellen said sternly in my mind. It should not be the focus of how other people and society perceive trans people.

  Damaris was in trouble, she maybe was contemplating taking her own life, and I had been blind to it.

  All I had been able to see was my own desire, selfish, twisted and perverted.

  Am I a girl?

  You know you are.

  No. Am I a girl to you?

  She wanted, she needed, me to see her as a woman. And I did. I did.

  But… the little voice in my head whispered. You liked it when she lost control last night, didn’t you?

  I shuddered, tried to push the voice out of my head. Tried to silence it. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Didn’t want to hear what it had to say.

  You liked it when she lost control of her voice when she was under you, rubbing her tits against your chest, and when you made her come, she couldn’t maintain her voice, could she?

  I felt so ashamed of myself, I thought I was going to break down in tears right there in the street.

  I had woken up early, early in the morning, just before five, and I had found her lying against my chest just as she had fallen asleep.

  I needed the bathroom and I got up and went, but after I emptied my bladder I had been seized with a terrible, raging desire.

  It had come upon me, blown through me like a hurricane, while I was washing my hands.

  I couldn’t even turn the tap off, I just took hold of myself and stroked myself to orgasm gasping and shuddering, one hand bracing against the wall, as her voice echoed through my mind, throbbed through my balls and made me come like a river bursting its banks, my thighs trembling, into the sink.

  I had stayed there, frozen, for several long seconds, trying to figure out what I should do.

  Should I leave?

  The full weight of what had happened crashed in on me like a vintage Cadillac through the glass roof of a poorly constructed sunroom.

  I had had sex with Damaris, randomly, out of nowhere, for no reason and with no prelude, no warning.

  Everything was ruined, and I had to leave the House of Ellegrandé immediately, and never, ever come back.

  And I needed to do it now, before Damaris woke up.

  The longer I stood there, trying to make myself go and put my clothes on, the more I started to think that there was another possibility.

  That was when I realized that it wasn’t random, hadn’t come out of nowhere, had happened for a reason, and there had been a prelude and there had been warnings—I just hadn’t seen them.

  Damaris did like me, too, after all.

  When she texted me last night, saying Machyl told me. Could you come over please.

  She did that not because she was mad at me. Not because she was disgusted. Not because she wanted to confront me.

  She did it because she wanted me.

  And that was why she was asking me all those questions about who I liked, about Marcus, about my virginity.

  Because she liked me and she was jealous of Marcus. And as soon as she found out I was involved with Marcus, she wanted to stake her claim. Stake her territory.

  I know you Anthony. And I know you want… love.

  And in that bathroom at five in the morning, I had wiped tears of joy from my face and I had gone back to her bed, curled up with her, closed my eyes once more and gone back to sleep and happy dreams of her.

  The cold air whipped my hair across my face and I tucked it behind my ear, squinting at the bright sun which had just come out from behind a block of buildings as we turned the corner and hit me right in the eye. I closed my eyes against the glare from the sidewalk and buildings.

  So Damaris had put her trust in me, and I had betrayed it.

  That was what was staring me in the face right now, as I squinted into the sun and walked next to her.

  And the worst part of it was that I had known I wasn’t capable of loving her.

  I had known that I wasn’t capable of giving her the respect she was due.

  Sue Ellen had told me that on Friday night. Sue Ellen had pointed out how I was objectifying Damaris. How I was demeaning her.

  And I… I knew it was true. But it didn’t stop me.

  It didn’t stop me from going to Damaris. It didn’t stop me from telling her I would stay with her, even though there had been a tiny voice—a tiny, tiny voice, in the back of my mind, whispering that there might be a reason Damaris wanted me to sleep in the same bed with her.

  It didn’t stop me when Damaris kissed me and touched me and pulled me into her.

  Even though I should have stopped then. Because I thought I loved her.

  But I didn’t.

  You think that’s love? Machyl smirked triumphantly in my head. What you want from her, that’s not love.

  I was scum.

  I could see that now.

  And the arrogance of me sitting there on her bed, looking at that empty wardrobe and thinking I could be her savior.

  Thinking I could be the one to fix her. When, probably, what would fix her would be to go as far, far away from me, and all the other men like me, as possible.

  Maybe I should just leave now. Just go home.

  If I went home now, I knew what I would do.

  I would take off my clothes, get two sleeping pills from my mother’s bathroom cabinet, get into bed, and sleep for as long as I could.

  And then when I woke up I would take my new credit card and take a cab to Krumpdorf’s, and max the damn thing out in one go.

  “Is that the place you were talking about?” Damaris’ voice broke in on my thoughts, and I looked at her, startled.

  I had become so lost in my own misery that I had almost forgotten I was still walking down the street with her on a chilly New York morning at the end of September.

  She was pointing at a little café which looked cosy and inviting, and was giving off the scent of coffee, calling to passersby like a lighthouse was a beacon for passing ships.

  “Um,” I said, too embarrassed to even look at her. It wasn’t the place I meant. But it looked nice, and the sandwich board outside was advertising breakfast bagel specials.

  Should I ask her if she wanted me to buy her breakfast?

  I felt so awful, so small and shitty, that for me to offer anything to her seemed like an insult. As if anyone as mighty as she could be reduced to taking charity from a worm like me.

  But then, what if I was being horribly rude by not offering—by not inviting her already, when I was in her bedroom, making it clear it was my treat?

  Maybe she was already furious at my insensitivity. I felt trapped between the two hideous possibilities, unable to choose one or the other.

  I was strongly tempted to just run away, right now. Maybe that would save us both further humiliation.

  But no. I had been terribly rude already and at least I had a chance to do this small thing to somewhat make up for—for… who was I kidding? Breakfast couldn't make up for what I had done. For what I was.

  Tranny chaser.

  I wanted to cry again. I deserved the shame of crying in front of her. But my eyes remained dry.

  “Can I buy you breakfast?” I said in a semi-normal voice.

  “Sure,” she said, and she sounded pleased.

  We went inside. The warmth of the place enveloped me, and made me feel a little better.

  We sat down at a table against the wall, she in the vinyl bench against the wall, me in the hard chair opposite.

  She picked up the menu and studied it. The place wasn’t too trendy, but it also wasn’t a traditional diner. The food looked hearty and non-fancy. The smell of barista coffee was so thick in the air that breathing was like drinking it.

  When the server appeared by our table, Damaris pointed at her open menu.

  “I’m a do the lox bagel,” she said, “with the roast onion sc
hmear. And can you give me extra capers, please? And a orange juice,” she said. “Large.”

  I ordered as well, and the server took the big menus away.

  Damaris smiled faintly at me. “I love New York,” she said.

  I tried to smile back, but I could barely meet her eyes.

  “Me too,” I muttered, looking down at the table and playing with a stray thread from the vinyl-covered gingham placemat.

  Damaris put her elbows on the table and leaned her forehead on her palms.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Are you okay, Damaris?” I asked. I had been so selfish. The only thing that mattered was making sure she was okay, getting her the help she needed.

  I would be the one to do that.

  Machyl could play his power games and obsess over auditions all he liked. I didn’t care. My only concern was Damaris.

  She glanced at me. “Why d’you ask?”

  I frowned. “B—because I’m worried about you,” I said. “I told you that, um. I told you that last night.”

  My cheeks grew hot when I said last night.

  Did what we did help Damaris?

  Did it make her feel better?

  Did she want to do it again?

  When?

  After breakfast?

  I felt my guilty heart start to beat faster and I tried to dampen down the thoughts of her smooth skin under my hands, her small firm breast under my lips, the exquisite puckering of her nipple on my tongue. I swallowed, hard.

  She sighed, sat back, crossed one leg over the other.

  The server brought the food then, set down Damaris’ orange juice and bagel and my eggs Benedict and tea.

  She unfolded her napkin and spread it on her lap like a lady and then picked up the bagel and started to spread the cream cheese on it, stud it with capers, and lay the smoked salmon on top.

  She took a bite, then breathed out, eyes closed, and made a sound of appreciation.

  “Are you worried you won’t be able to audition?” I asked.

  She chewed silently, swallowed, and then sat there poking her bagel with her knife, slowly pushing each fold of salmon deeper into the cream cheese.

  Uh-oh. What did I say?

  “Audition?” Damaris echoed.

  She was offended I would suggest Duane Tyrone wouldn’t let her audition.