Drag Queen Beauty Pageant

by Malachite Splinters

  We paused, panting, and she looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes and smoothed the hair out of my face. I could feel her warm, moist breath on my lips and I breathed it in.

  “How do you feel about me?” She asked.

  I’m in love with you.

  I dropped my eyes. I just wanted to keep kissing. I didn’t want to talk about this.

  She frowned and took my chin, tilted it up to look at her. “You don’t have an answer to that?”

  I looked away, squirming inside. How could she force me to tell her I loved her? I couldn’t do it.

  “So is this okay with you?” She asked. “I don’t want to be in a relationship with you. I mean, not a romantic relationship.”

  I winced, I couldn't help it. I felt like she had just sunk a knife into my navel and twisted it. I could feel myself retracting in upon myself under her gaze.

  “Sure,” I muttered after a moment.

  I felt her arms tighten around me. “You’re—you’re pulling away,” she said.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, forcing myself to meet her eyes and my lips to smile tightly.

  “I—I don’t want you to think—” she interrupted herself.

  “So is this like Marcus?” I said, not wanting to say his name but unable to help myself. I felt the bitter crackle of jealousy in me, like breaking glass. The sharp edges cut me inside and it started to bleed. “Casual—casual sex?”

  She took several breaths before she answered. Then she shook her head.

  “I’ve changed. I’ve changed a lot.” She blinked rapidly as if she was trying to keep back tears. “Marcus doesn’t like women,” she said quietly. “And I knew that full well when I started sleeping with him.”

  I could feel my jaw starting to grind. The mental images were coming thick and fast.

  She wanted my dick.

  My jealousy must have been plain to see on my face because Damaris quickly continued talking.

  “I used to think I had no choice but to stay at Ellegrandé. I thought it was the best place for me and I was lucky to be there but I also thought I had no way to leave. So I tried to make myself fit in there. And I was scared of trying to date straight guys.” She cleared her throat. “I still am, to tell you the truth.

  I sat there and all I could think of was Marcus and the Coney Island guy and the bondage bear and every other man Damaris liked and felt as if I was going to explode with jealousy.

  “So don’t you see,” she said. “You’re the first—the first woman-lover who I’ve been with.”

  I raised my face to hers. Her eyes were searching mine.

  “And you have no idea what it feels like to me to be wanted as a woman. That was the best sex of my life.”

  I pulled her toward me and we were kissing again, her hands in my hair, and the decadence of her plump lips and searching tongue.

  When she pulled away, we were both breathing hard. Her eyes looked into mine.

  “Did you like it?” She asked.

  I nodded, unable to understand how she didn’t already know the answer to that question a million times over.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me how it was for you. I know you didn’t get off this afternoon.”

  I played with her fingers, unable to look at her.

  “You—you wanted me as a woman, didn’t you?” She said, and I heard the tiniest fracture in her voice, the smallest hint of uncertainty.

  Don’t be a fucking liar, Anthony. It was the voice again. Are you going to lie to her and deny the truth?

  I hated that voice. I hated it more than life itself.

  I didn’t answer her with words. I reached over the side of the recliner and pulled the big lever and let the seat down into flatbed mode, which made her lose her balance and fall backward a bit.

  She propped herself up on her elbow, looking at me as I knelt there. I held her gaze and went toward her slowly. When she saw me coming, her eyes darkened and she lay down on her back, one hand above her head.

  I crawled right in between the V of her legs and propped myself over her with one hand next to her head. I looked down at her and she looked up at me. I leaned down and kissed her neck once, twice, up to her ear.

  “You’re a goddess,” I breathed into her ear. I felt thrilled by my own boldness, I felt powerful. She made a small sound in her throat and arched toward me. With a surge of my heart I lowered myself halfway onto her, so our hips met.

  She gave a little moan, shifted her hips to accommodate me.

  I was hard and my erection pressed into her inner thigh.

  She raised her eyes to mine and then we were kissing again. She pulled me down on top of her and arched up against me, her hands running over my shoulder blades and down my back.

  Kissing her was still new to me and this kiss was unlike the other ones, it was hungry and I felt none of the hesitancy she’d displayed before.

  To be on top of her with my full weight and feel her underneath me, pouring myself into this kiss, it felt so good, it felt so right.

  We were safe here at my place. My bedroom wasn’t far away. And I knew that she would be the first one I took there.

  She’s the one.

  I love you, Damaris.

  When we both surfaced for air, I felt even bolder than before. I felt as if I had gotten back power which had been lost at some point in the past.

  She had given it back to me. My hips rolled into her and she moaned. I did it again, propping myself up to look at her.

  She had tilted her head back as I ground against her and she ran her hand down past her clavicle to squeeze her breast.

  “Damaris,” I groaned. Her hips tightened around me, sending a burst of pleasure through my erection. “Oh Damaris,” I gasped.

  She couldn’t have meant what she said before. She had doubts, that was what it was. I wasn’t really good enough for her, that was why she was hesitant to go out with me.

  I gathered her to me, kissed her, kissed her neck. She was moving underneath me, rocking me.

  Her breathing was labored and she moaned with every breath. She pulled up the t-shirt and she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

  She put my hand over her breast, hissing and letting out a louder moan when I wrapped my hand around it.

  “Damaris,” I said into her ear. “Damaris, I can be good to you.”

  “Mm,” she gasped. “You are good to me. Right now. Ah—”

  I couldn’t take much more of this dry humping. I sucked on her earlobe and let my hand travel down her chest to the waistband of her leggings.

  “I want you,” I gasped in her ear. She moaned in response. “I want you so much,” I kissed her ear. “Damaris—”

  “Oh, god—” she gasped, and her voice deepened.

  I felt my balls draw up against my body at the sound and I groaned into her ear, I couldn’t help myself. “Damaris, I’ll do anything,” I said into her ear, beside myself.

  I turned my face and kissed her mouth. The kiss was sloppy and unfocused in the midst of our rocking.

  “I’d do anything for you Damaris,” I said to her lips, then buried my face in her neck again.

  She slipped her hands under my shirt and felt my spine, the base of my back, and then I felt her hand creep underneath the waistband of my jeans and underwear and take hold of one of my buttocks and squeeze firmly.

  I almost fainted from the lust which surged through the core of my being and slashed through the thin covering over a bottomless pit of need, waiting, trembling and hot.

  “Oh St Sebastian,” I gasped in grateful prayer. “I love you, Damaris. I love you so much.”

  Her hand stilled. Withdrew.

  I felt the life draining from me as I realized what I had done.

  Slowly I floated out of the fog of desire not with a sharp bump back to Earth, nor an ice-bucket-like shock, but the gradual deadening of every nerve in my body, as if my flesh was turning to that of a corpse.

  I crawled backward.

  We must have
shifted too far up the lowered back of the recliner because when I moved the balance shifted and the chair tipped backward and I fell off and Damaris slipped back half onto the floor.

  She scrambled up.

  She stood there, breathing heavily, looking down at me and pulling her t-shirt down.

  I stood up, my heart hammering.

  I could say this, or I could watch Damaris with another man for the rest of my life.

  I was standing on a razor edge of horror, moving left or right would cut me with unbearable pain. Because exposing myself to her was as bad as seeing her with someone else.

  “I can give you whatever you want,” I said, meeting her eyes in terror. “I can give you whatever you need.”

  I didn’t have the height those other men did, I didn’t have the masculinity, I didn’t have the big muscles and the fat cock. But I wasn’t totally worthless. I still had something to offer.

  “Today was just a taste of what I can give you. Your medical bills. I can help. You can live here, you don’t need to pay rent.”

  My mind was racing. I could talk to Abuela. Explain it all to her. It wouldn’t be easy, but if I did it the right way, Abuela could help.

  “You want to go to college? I—I can make it happen.”

  Damaris stared at me for a few long seconds. “I’m not for sale,” she half-whispered.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I—I want,” I stuttered. “I want to be your boyfriend.”

  She blinked. “Is that what love is to you? A business transaction?”

  “No!” I said desperately. She had misunderstood me completely. “That’s not what I meant!”

  “So what did you mean?” She spat. “I’m not a whore, Anthony! I never have been and I never will be. I don’t even take tips at the club, why do you think that is?”

  She advanced on me and I backed up, my hands raised with open palms.

  “I would rather die. I would rather die than sell my body to a parade of pricks who get off on a chick with a dick. And if I end up on the street tomorrow or next week, I will kill myself before I let them lay a fucking finger to violate my transsexual black ass, do you understand me?”

  I realized that my back had hit the wall but I hadn’t noticed. I stared at her, barely breathing, my fingers gripping the sound-insulated walls looking for purchase and finding none.

  “Do you?” She said again. “Do you?”

  “Y-yes—” I croaked. “I mean, n-no, I don’t know.” I could see that she was shaking and I didn’t trust myself to say anything else.

  “Can I still stay here tonight? I have nowhere else to go.”

  “O-of course you can.”

  I didn’t understand. I felt as if I had just been transferred unexpectedly into a different dimension where the human body couldn’t function as it did in our own.

  It was quite possibly one where there was no oxygen, because I couldn’t seem to get my breath.

  “I don’t think we should have sex again,” she said, staring directly at me with a hard edge in her voice. “It’s not a good idea if you can’t understand what I said about being friends.”

  The knife she had plunged into my belly button when she told me she didn’t want to be my girlfriend wrenched into me with an agonizing pain.

  “Fine,” I said, my face heating up steadily until the point where it was on fire.. “I knew I wasn’t good enough for you anyway.”

  She kept staring at me, but her eyes just looked sad now. “I was up front with you,” she said. “I should have said it last night before the first time, but I’m being up front with you now.”

  “There’s no need to rub it in any more,” I said hotly, crossing my arms and looking away from her glare.

  She had said to me in the bedroom, she had said I know you Anthony. And I know you want… love. What did she mean by that if she didn't love me?

  “Anthony…” she trailed off. Then, “I’m going to bed and just read for a while.”

  I didn’t say anything. I felt as if the knife wound in my stomach was bleeding and the blood was going to soak through my layers of clothing and I didn’t want her to see the growing stain.

  She left the den and I heard the sound of a door closing. I sank down onto the floor slowly and sat there for a few moments, staring at the upturned recliner.

  I didn’t get up and put it back in the correct position.

  I got up and unplugged my phone from the charger and started it up and walked toward my bedroom.

  The phone only had twenty percent battery but I had a power pack in my room somewhere.

  I went into my bedroom, shut the door and started taking off my clothes. I stripped off my top, the jeans, the underwear until I was totally nude.

  And then I rested the phone on the ledge made by the padded headboard behind my bed, switched on the camera and set the timer to ten seconds.

  I crawled into the center of the bed and knelt with my legs tucked underneath me.

  Just seeing myself naked in the camera screen was enough to bring my erection back to fullness.

  I stuck my butt out and arched my back and raised my arms behind my head and when I looked into the camera, I imagined it was Damaris looking at me.

  The phone made the shutter sound and I stopped posing and checked the photo. I was startled by how provocative my direct gaze into the camera was, by the insouciance of my pose, how sexy it was.

  My heart started to pound even harder as I navigated to the chat app and the conversation with Marcus.

  I clicked on it and was about to select the add photo function when I realized something was wrong.

  Don’t play innocent with me, princess

  I frowned and looked at the heading of the chat. Oh fuck.

  I had gone into Machyl’s chat by accident. I had almost sent this picture to Machyl. The thought of Machyl seeing this picture was enough to make my boner wilt like a flower in the hot sun.

  St Sebastian, protect me.

  Machyl’s voice resounded in my ears as if he was there in the room with me.

  A hand job? You’re kidding me, right? You think you lost your virginity from a hand job? I winced, trying to block out the mental image of his eyes staring at me. You came in your pants so you think you’re a big man now?

  I navigated to the chat with Marcus and bit my lip. The shock of almost sending the nude to Machyl was enough to break through the red wall of rage which had driven me out of the den and out of my clothes.

  I scrolled back through the unread messages from Marcus. I had been avoiding this, avoiding my phone, since last night.

  Now I started looking at them and the hollow void inside me where the blood had drained away from Damaris’ knife started to fill with pure, unadulterated panic.

  Marcus: Fuck that was close

  Marcus: Thank god for Damaris. I think we would have been strung up if she hadn’t come in just then

  Missed call

  Marcus: Babes, are you busy?

  Marcus: This coach ride is fucking boring

  Missed call

  I bit my lip. There weren’t any more messages from last night.

  The next one was from nine this morning. He had sent three photos. Dumplings against red tablecloth, dumplings held between chopsticks, a small china cup of tea being raised in a toast.

  Marcus: Breakfast with my auntie and cousins

  Marcus: I guess you’re not awake yet baby

  Marcus: I’m back tonight, should be home by 8:30

  I got up and went to the wardrobe and started getting dressed again. It looked like I was going out again.

  Clean underwear. Ripped denim. A tight skin-fitting top with long sleeves.

  I liked wearing tight tops so people could see I didn’t have boobs. It was easier for me to be mistaken for a girl if I wore looser clothing.

  I picked up my jacket again and my phone to finish reading the messages. The next one hadn’t arrived until after 1pm.

  Marcus: I guess you’r
e mad at me for landing you in the shit with Duane Tyrone

  I looked at it before moving on to the next one, sent forty minutes later.

  Marcus: Can’t think of any other reason for the silent treatment.

  Marcus: Don’t tell me you slept in til 2 if you weren't working last night

  Missed call

  Missed call

  Missed call

  Marcus: I don’t recall you putting up much of a fight

  I kept reading, aware of my heart rate increasing again as the time got closer to supper. I licked my lips nervously. The time signature on the next message was, indeed, just after 6pm.

  Fuck.

  Marcus: Has Machyl taken your side because I haven't heard from anyone all day.

  I read it several times, looked at the time signature again. I didn’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or feel even more concerned.

  It seemed like no-one had told Marcus what happened at supper. No-one including Machyl.

  The next message was sent just after six-thirty.

  Marcus: Well I’m very fucking sorry. Alright? I’m sorry I’m a horny bastard. I’m sorry I’m a big, bad man who pulls innocent little femmes into closets to ravish them

  Marcus: I’m sorry you make me so hot I’ve been in a constant state of blue balls since Friday

  Marcus: I’m sorry I want you like a hot dog wants a bun

  Marcus: I’m sorry I want to spread you like mustard and fill you. Filthy little hot dog bun.

  I didn’t read any more. I was putting my jacket on and I sent the picture to Marcus as I was on my way out the door.

  The Void

  I could feel the rough brick wall on my back through my jacket. I hoped it wasn’t going to scratch the leather, then stopped caring. I stood there with my arms crossed and one foot against the wall, waiting.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  My head snapped up at the sound of Marcus’ angry shout. He was walking up the street from the direction of the subway, dragging a small rolling suitcase behind him. Anger radiated from every angle of his body.

  I didn’t say anything, just met his gaze and held it.

  “Eh?” He said forcefully. Now that he was closer I could see how red his face was and the veins standing out on his neck. “What’s wrong with you?” He came to a stop in front of me and got right up into my face, so his nose almost touched mine. “What are you playing at?”