Drag Queen Beauty Pageant

by Malachite Splinters

  She didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look at her.

  “You even asked me if I was a virgin,” I said. The pain in my throat had dissipated. No tears were coming. “How could you do that?” The soundproofing panels were covered in a porous-looking light grey material.

  Silence.

  “I know you and Machyl haven’t been talking,” I said in a dead, flat voice. “Because Machyl doesn’t understand why you cancelled your performances this weekend and he was trying to find out if I knew anything.” I looked over at her and said matter-of-factly, “So don’t try to make out as if what happened between us is nothing to do with Machyl. The two of you have been using me this entire time. You may not think much of me, but I’m not that stupid.”

  I saw a muscle start to twitch in her lower eyelid as she looked back at me. Then she stood up. “You don’t have to take it that way,” she said. “Just like you could have told me that night, how you felt about me, before going ahead with it. But I get that you can’t really help it.” She smoothed her hair down. “I was hoping you would be different. But I don’t blame you. I’m not in a place where I can be dishing out blame. I blew up at Marcus the other day for the wrong reasons. I was pissed off with myself, that I had set my own bar so low. I took it out on him, and then I took it out on you. I’m sorry about that.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry for blowing up at you last night. I know you didn’t mean— I took offense and I didn’t need to.”

  She picked up her phone from the side table and looked at it, then put it back. “They’ll be here soon. I’ve been angry at myself because I know what I need to do, and I’ve been too scared to do it. And I keep falling back into toxic ways. Until I actually do this, I’m not going to be able to leave them behind.”

  There was a strange feeling in my gut. I didn’t understand a word she was saying, but I had a nagging feeling that she was about to do something—drastic— It all coalesced in my mind suddenly, the cancelled shows, the fights with Marcus, with Machyl, with Duane Tyrone, the empty wardrobe… See, this is why I can’t go on doing this… I’ve changed a lot…

  I felt Machyl’s beady eyes boring into me. You want to play games with a girl who was suicidal a month ago?

  “Damaris—” I stood up. “D-don’t do this—”

  She shook her head. “I have to.”

  I went to her, seized hold of her arms. “Damaris, I have to tell you something,” I realized I was shaking. “I — I feel really bad about something. I feel so—so terrible about this and I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry—”

  She blinked at me. “What?”

  My legs gave out and I found myself on the floor. “Machyl was right about me,” my voice seemed to have disappeared.

  “What? I can’t hear you, boo,” she kneeled on the floor next to me.

  “I’m a tranny chaser.”

  “What?” The shock in her voice resounded through me.

  “I like your dick,” I whispered.

  “What did you say now?”

  I looked at her and nodded. I wanted to cry, but nothing was coming. I hated myself, and now I hated her, too.

  “I fantasize about you. Fucking me. With your dick.”

  She backed away, across the floor, on hands and feet, like a crab, and then she got up, looking down at me crouching on the carpet. Her face was a mask of horror.

  “I tried not to want you that way, I tried so hard, but I do. I like your voice—your other voice. I like all the little things about you that make you just a little bit—that remind me—”

  Her face was contorted in disgust as she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “And—” I said, putting my face on my knees and wrapping my arms around them. “You’re— you’re going to kill yourself and it will be my fault. All I did was make you feel bad about yourself. Just like Machyl said I would. I made you feel like a prostitute.”

  She stared down at me and when she spoke again, her words were flat, like she had ironed all the emotion out of them.

  “Do you mean you want me to have an erection?”

  My face was on fire as I looked at her. “I’m sorry,” I choked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I thought you knew more about this topic,” she said in the same robotic tone. “I shouldn’t have assumed. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me hit you with the facts. Because I’m on hormone therapy, my genitals have changed and erections are not really part of my sexuality any more.” She cleared her throat and continued. “I can’t say pegging is really my thing, but if you had treated me with respect, I would have considered it, to please you.”

  I had a strap-on sitting in a drawer in my bathroom right now. And now I knew those ten inches of silicone were going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  “I don’t have a problem,” she said after a silence, and I heard her sniff. “With my parts. They don’t give me a lot of dysphoria.” I looked up and saw the tears streaming down her face. “It’s how other people react that’s the problem,” she said, wiping her cheeks hastily. “That’s always the problem. I’m not going to kill myself,” she said. “I’m leaving the House of Ellegrandé.”

  Leaving.

  I couldn’t find a single word to say. Her word had stuck in my throat and prevented any of my own from coming out.

  “The worst part is I don’t even believe what I said last night. I know I wouldn’t kill myself instead of going to prostitution. My will to live is too strong. There was a time, when I was at rock bottom, when I thought I should die instead of trying to keep living.” She pursed her lips. “But no. I’ll keep on.” She turned and started walking out of the room.

  I got up, my legs unsteady, my heart beating weakly in my chest, and followed her. “What do you mean?” I said. “Why are you always talking about prostitution?”

  She paused in the hallway outside the guest bedroom and turned around to look at me. “I have a criminal record, Anthony.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. You have a place to live, you get paid—”

  She turned away. “I don’t have a need to explain myself to you.” She disappeared into the guest room.

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s them,” she said, coming back out with nothing but a small shopping bag in one hand, and walked down the hall toward the front door.

  I followed her, helplessly, like a confused puppy trailing behind its mother, as she walked up to the front door, undid all the deadbolts and opened it to reveal Teagan and Tommy.

  “Hi gorgeous,” Teagan smiled at Damaris. “You ready to rock and roll?”

  Damaris stood there with her back to me, one hand on the door, wearing the designer athleisure gear we’d bought yesterday, her voluminous hair falling down her back in a waterfall of curls and all I could think was, I’m never going to see her again.

  “I’m ready something serious,” Damaris laughed, and then she turned around to me. “Thanks for letting me stay here,” she said, holding out her arms and enfolding me in a hug.

  I stared at the two white women and yet again, I couldn’t help noticing how much better looking Damaris was than either of them.

  And then I thought what Damaris would think of me if she knew how I was judging Teagan and Tommy based on appearance, and felt ashamed of myself.

  “Where are you going?” I asked as she stepped away from me.

  “Teagan and Tommy are letting me crash at their place for a couple of weeks,” she said. “We’re waiting for a place to open up for me in a shelter for LGBT youth.”

  “A shelter?” I practically spat. In my mind’s eye, I saw Damaris wandering down the street in a string vest with her hair in dreadlocks, singing to herself, as if she had been transformed into that homeless lady I saw from the cab. Jem, that was her name. “A homeless shelter?”

  She gazed back at me calmly. “I hope it won’t come to that,” she said. “But I’m prepared for it to. Well,” she said, and then raised her hand in a little wave. “Take care,
okay?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. She walked out the door and closed it behind her, and then I was standing there by myself in the empty apartment.

  I walked back to my bedroom and found my phone, flipping through until I found my chat with Sue Ellen and called her. It rang and rang, and I thought it wasn’t going to pick up. But then it did.

  “Anthony?”

  “Sue Ellen,” I breathed. “Did you tell Machyl I’m bi?”

  Silence.

  I put her on loud speaker and stared at the phone, my heart beating faster and faster. “Sue Ellen,” I repeated. I was about to lose control over my voice. “Well did you?” I barked.

  “I thought you were out,” she replied, and I could hear the tension in her voice.

  “When did this happen?” I shouted, the alarm in my chest projecting through my voice and out into the world. Sue Ellen hadn’t come to the club in many, many months.

  “It was a long time ago,” Sue Ellen said. Her voice was more controlled now and I could hear that she was trying to sound reasonable.

  “Don’t try to make excuses!”

  “It was right before I left for college,” she said hastily, in a tone of forced calm.

  “In August? Two months ago?”

  “No!” She said hastily. “It was before I left for freshman year. Over a year ago.”

  “Last August?” Except for the Holiday Revue last December, that was the last time Sue Ellen had come to the club.

  “Yes!” She said insistently. “And I—I was drunk, okay, and I’m sorr—”

  “Well that’s no surprise is it,” I said sarcastically. “You drink way too much, Sue Ellen.”

  She went silent. “You know, this isn’t about what I said—”

  “Yes it is!” I spat. “Yes it is. You outed me! Without my permission!”

  If Machyl hadn’t known, hadn’t gotten involved and started manipulating the situation, maybe things might have unfolded differently between Damaris and I.

  Maybe it could have happened slower, and maybe she would have fallen in love with me, too. I could feel her kiss on my lips, the full and organic kiss she had returned to me on the recliner.

  I can’t say pegging is really my thing.

  But I would have considered it, to please you.

  A mental image flashed through my mind of me, on my hands and knees on my bed, crying out in lust with the strap-on dildo up my ass and her on the other end, behind me, with her hands holding my hips tightly.

  “And I’m sorry I did that, Anthony, I—I’ve felt really bad about it for a long time and I wanted to apologize—”

  “Apologies won’t undo what you did!” I retorted, my chest contracting so hard and so painfully it felt as if it might spontaneously combust.

  “I know that and I’m sorry,” she said. “But we need to talk about—about our friendship.”

  “What are you talking about?” I stared at the phone in outrage. “Don’t try to change the subject!”

  “Let me explain,” she said, sounding as if she was begging. “I wanted to talk to Machyl about you because I was worried—”

  “I can’t believe you talked to Machyl about me!” I cried. I had never felt so betrayed in my entire life.

  “I was worried, Anthony!”

  “Why?” I said contemptuously, raising my eyebrows and nose.

  “Because you dropped out of school two months before graduation? Because you suddenly refused to go to college?”

  “You with the college again,” I spat. “Just stop trying, Sue Ellen! I’m not going to go to college!”

  “I was watching my best friend throw away his future and I’m not supposed to be worried?” She had raised her voice now.

  “I didn’t throw away my future, this is my—” I trailed off. I was about to say, This is my career, until Damaris’ voice echoed in my mind.

  This is not a career

  “It’s not just that, Anthony,” she said, quieter. “For the last—the last year, I feel as if I’m losing my best friend.”

  I frowned at the phone. “What do you mean?”

  She was silent. Then, “You—you haven’t noticed any changes in our relationship?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “No,” I said. “No, I haven’t. You’re my best friend.”

  “We barely saw each other when I was home this summer,” she said.

  “Well, Sue Ellen, I do have a job,” I said. “I need to be at the club almost every day of the week.”

  “I know you have a job,” she said. “But you didn’t make any time for me.”

  “It’s not all about you,” I couldn’t believe she was being so self-centered. “I was very busy this summer. Brooklyn needed a lot of help making the costumes for the Vivesse auditions.”

  “Okay,” she said. Then she said, “You know. After a while, I started to feel like you didn’t want me there.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “At the club,” she said. “Like it was your thing and having me there just ruined it for you somehow.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s so not true.”

  “Really?” She said. “Because I don’t think you’re telling the truth.”

  “You’re accusing me of lying now?” I said, feeling disgusted at her. “First you out me, now you’re saying I’m a liar?”

  “It was like you were embarrassed by me,” she said. “Like I didn’t live up to your standards.”

  I pursed my lips. Sue Ellen didn’t exactly have a great sense of style. She didn’t take pretty much any care over her appearance. She had always been a little overweight and she didn’t do anything with her hair. And she had this same messenger bag on a too-long strap that she always carried day and night.

  “You know,” Sue Ellen continued. “I did some research on the forums and there is one main criticism of House of Ellegrandé.”

  A bitter taste seemed to be spreading over my tongue, making me scrunch up my face. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say, but I was so offended, I also couldn’t wait to hear what would come out of her mouth next.

  “Duane Tyrone Johnson selects artists based on looks,” she said. “His goal is to have the fishiest queens in New York, but fishiness doesn’t make a drag performer. You have to have something more than looks. You have to have talent.”

  Tata.

  Mingle duty.

  I blinked slowly at the phone. I thought the events of the past few days would have made me immune to shock, to attack, to betrayal.

  No. I had never known betrayal before this moment.

  “You have to admit, at least, that the drag queens there all look like models,” she said. “And I just didn’t fit in with the beautiful people,” she said finally. “Did I?”

  Did the Ellegrandé queens look like models? Well, Damaris did. Marcus did. Brooklyn… yes, Brooklyn had a pretty face.

  “Machyl?” I said sarcastically. “There’s a flaw in your argument. Jeez, Sue Ellen. You always have to act like such an intellectual. You’re not a professor, okay?”

  Sue Ellen laughed, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “You don’t think he’s good-looking?”

  “No,” I said. “I think he’s terrifying.”

  She laughed again.

  “Stop laughing,” I said. “You’re being such a bitch.”

  “Don’t speak to me like that.”

  “Well, that’s what you are,” I said harshly. “I’m sorry if it hurts to hear that, but it’s tough love.”

  Silence. Then she said, quietly, in a brittle voice, “Did you even read those messages I sent you the other night? It was something important.”

  I rolled my eyes. Those fucking messages. I was so sick of her right now.

  “You didn’t, did you?” She said. “And your phone isn’t broken. You’re on it right now. You don’t care about me, do you? You don’t give a crap. It makes me sad. It makes me very sad.”

  “Oh, you and your sad can go and—” I
couldn’t find the words. I just threw the phone against the marble floor with all the strength I had.

  Angry

  The buzzer went, loud and discordant in the gentle golden light of the fall afternoon.

  I didn’t have a jacket on and I shivered in the cold wind that whipped up the street, stirring the dead red leaves under the trees planted in the sidewalk and whirling the dog hair, gravel and chewing gum wrappers on the ground into miniature eddies.

  I walked up the two steps and pushed the door open to reveal the entry hall with its steep stairs leading up to the first floor. Standing there in the open door of his apartment was Marcus Fong.

  I stood there, staring up at him.

  His face was motionless, his eyes expressionless as he put out a finger and motioned me upward. I let the door fall closed behind me and started trudging up the stairs toward him. There was a faint scent of mold in the air and my sneakers sounded very loud on the scuffed wooden treads of the staircase.

  “Well, well, well,” Marcus breathed when I reached the top. He hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time. Now he turned away from me and walked away down the narrow space in his apartment between the wall and the bookcase.

  I followed him straight into the bedroom where he was standing on the rug where we had had sex the night before. He was rolling up his sleeves, his mouth twisted, a tendon twitching in his jaw. I stared at him. I could feel the downcast turn of my own mouth, the pounding of my heart, as the atmosphere thickened between us.

  I hadn’t checked my phone since I left last night. After the argument with Sue Ellen, I had taken it into the kitchen and hacked it into pieces with the biggest cleaver I could find.

  I toed my shoes off and kicked them to one side. “Take your shirt off,” I said.

  “No,” he breathed, his lip curling into a snarl.

  “Do it,” I commanded, breathing deeply as I saw him do the same.

  “Fucking make me,” he hissed.

  So I did.

  I went at him hard. Pushed him against the wall. He stumbled. I grabbed his button-down shirt by the lapels and pulled as hard as I could. It split with a tearing sound and buttons popped off and flew across the room. I backed off, my chest heaving, and he stayed leaning against the wall, glaring at me.