Marcus glared, but with what looked like a huge effort he folded his arms and looked down at the floor.
“Thank you, mama,” Machyl cooed to DT, stroking his shoulder. “Damaris?” He said, looking up at her.
“We have a real shot this year,” DT moaned, pawing at Damaris’ hand. “I can feel it, honey.”
Damaris sighed again, patting DT’s shoulder.
“Baby,” DT said, more insistently. “You’ve been with me four years. You’ve been getting better and more beautiful all this time. You’re ready, child. I know you are.” He reached out a hand to Machyl. “Giltie Conshens, you too.”
“Thanks, mama,” Machyl whispered.
“There hasn’t been a New York Contessa in over five years now,” DT continued. “And don’t you recall how many up votes your audition tapes got the past two years?” He was getting more insistent. “If anyone’s come by in the last year they would have seen our best shows ever—”
“You know the scouts are a myth,” Damaris said. “They don’t send people to clubs in person. It’s just done through the audition videos.”
“So you’ll shine even brighter in your video this year,” Duane said quickly. “I already put down the deposit for the studio, booked Sonny,” he gestured at Brooklyn. “He’s been sewing your gown for months now, I can’t think how many hours he put in on that beading.”
Damaris’ eyes were downcast. Something moved in the corner of my eye and I noticed Teagan had moved into the frame of the open door and was standing there. Duane Tyrone noticed as well and gave Teagan a dirty look.
“These two,” DT said to Damaris, indicating Marcus and myself, “are leaving me. Did you know that?”
Damaris’ head shot up and I saw a look of alarm on her face, which quickly faded to the same resigned expression she’d had before. “What can I say, Duane?” She said quietly.
“You can say,” DT’s voice started to show signs of getting ragged. “That you’re going to stay!” On the word stay, his voice rose to a high, out of control almost-scream, the same sound I had heard the other day when I eavesdropped after coming back to get Damaris’ things.
“I’m leaving drag, Duane,” Damaris said in the same quiet tone. She stood up and stepped awkwardly over DT’s bulk which was taking up most of the staircase. To my relief, he didn’t try to stop her physically.
Now the tears were starting to slip down Duane Tyrone’s face. He wiped them away with his chubby fingers. “It was good enough for Calleen,” he said. “It was good enough for ColorQueen for thirty years.”
“I’m not Calleen,” Damaris said.
“And now, just like her, you’re leaving me, too,” DT hiccoughed, the tears streaming. “And all because we don’t have the designer interior like House of Cosmosis. We don’t have that shiny chrome bar like House of Revêtte.”
“That’s not the reason and you know it,” Damaris said.
“You can’t even walk down the street,” DT said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Damaris raised her eyes to Duane Tyrone’s. “As you know… my biggest fear is that I’ll get arrested again—”
“That’s what I said,” DT said insistently. “It could happen any time. They take one look at you, they’ll take you in for soliciting.”
I saw Damaris’ face harden. “I’m ready to take my chances on that,” Damaris replied coldly.
“What are all those—” DT bellowed suddenly, his hand shooting out in a shooing motion to point at the women outside the door. “What are they all there for?” He stared at Damaris, his chin jutting out pugnaciously. “They think I’m going to chain you up? No! You want to go, you go! But never forget what you were when you showed up on my doorstep all those years ago.”
Damaris stared back at DT. “I know what I was. It took me three days to hitch hike here from Miami when I was released from prison. All I ever wanted was to be a Vivesse Contessa.” She dropped her eyes to the ground. “The only person I knew in New York was the mod on this Vivesse fan group,” she gestured at Machyl. “I had no money. The night before I met you, I walked from 13th street to 103rd and back again because I had nowhere to sleep and I was too scared to stop moving.”
Duane Tyrone sniffed, tucking his finger behind his ear as if adjusting an imaginary wig. “I didn't want you to end up on the street.”
“Thank you,” Damaris said. “From—” Her voice broke. “From my heart.” She turned away, toward Teagan, who wrapped her arms around her. Damaris wiped her face and turned back to DT, not entirely letting go of Teagan. “I need to take the next step in my life.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” DT said contemptuously. “I know the moment you got back from Vivesse you would leave anyway. You’d be off to House Revêtte or Cosmosis.”
“How can you have so little faith in me,” she whispered, and then she turned away and walked out of the door.
The women who had come with her enveloped her into the center of their group and they walked away and were soon out of sight.
Duane Tyrone slumped forward, put his face in his hands, and started sobbing. Machyl had his arm around him and patted his shoulder, talking to him softly. The sobbing got louder and more broken-hearted, and Marcus and I and Brooklyn stood there like idiots.
Marcus touched my arm and pointed at the open door. “Let’s go,” he said.
It only took me two steps to reach the threshold and turn away from the sight of DT huddled on the stairs. When I got down the steps, Marcus put his arm around my shoulder. I put my arm around his waist and we started walking in the same direction I had taken with Damaris on Saturday, toward the subway. A block ahead, I could still see the group of trans women and Damaris’ head of curly black hair. The day was bright and sunny, a stiff breeze blowing that made me zip up my jacket.
Relief poured through me gradually, then stronger, until I felt weak-kneed with gratitude that the worst had not come to pass.
“Hey, wait up,” Machyl called.
We stopped and untangled our arms to turn around and look at him.
Machyl was standing there with his phone in his hand. “So this is it, huh? The big farewell?”
Marcus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Machyl. Everything turned out just as you planned it. Congratulations. Oh, except karma has a way of throwing a spanner into twisted little schemes like the ones you dream up.”
I frowned up at him. What did he mean?
Marcus looked down at me and drew his arm around my shoulder again, pulling me close. “You’re too innocent to have any idea of what evil like him could do.”
“Innocent Tata,” Machyl giggled. “That’s a new one.”
Marcus turned to me. “Have you ever heard of a New York Drag Divorce?”
I frowned and shook my head.
Marcus looked at Machyl. “In New York drag, it’s when irreconcilable differences arise between a drag queen and her house. In extreme cases, the drag mothers will consider if a divorce should be granted.”
“How is that different from leaving?” I asked, feeling the word fall heavily from my lips.
Marcus was still staring at Machyl. “Oh, it’s different. If the drag divorce is granted, the mothers will come to an agreement. To allow the queen to leave and another to take her place.”
I gaped. “A swap?” I couldn’t believe it. “Who would allow that?”
Marcus shrugged. “Losing a valuable artist is a loss to the entire drag community. It’s better to keep talent in, rather than out of, the circle—if all else fails. That’s what you were trying to do, isn’t it?”
Machyl stared back at Machyl impassively, his face giving nothing away.
“Well, this queen is fucking off back across the pond. So good luck getting one of the mothers to give up an artist to replace me. Not to mention the loss of your headliner, plus my gorgeous little La Tata, who you so badly undervalued.”
I watched as a smirk grew broad on Marcus’ face.
“Congratulations, Giltie Conshen
s. You get to be the androgynous majesty of a sinking ship.”
Machyl didn’t seem to be listening. He was on his phone, thumbs tapping away. Then he looked up, slid the phone into his back pocket. He looked at Marcus with one quirked eyebrow.
Marcus’ phone pinged. Notification.
A sick feeling overwhelmed me as if I had just been clouted around the head with a four by four.
Marcus rolled his eyes, taking the phone out and unlocking it. “Now what?”
“No—” I said, knowing I was having the worst possible reaction. “Marcus, don’t—don’t—” I tried to wrestle his phone away from him, but when Machyl started laughing hysterically, a look of alarm came into Marcus’ eye and he got the phone back easily and I couldn’t look.
Marcus stood there staring at his phone and I heard the sounds and I knew what the flash was I had seen yesterday. It was Machyl’s phone which he was stowing in his pocket before he stormed out.
I watched Marcus’ face as he listened to the sounds of Damaris calling out and crying in pleasure while I ate her out yesterday, the thumping and thudding of the bed against the wall, the creaking of the bedsprings, and then silence.
Marcus brought the phone up to his face, squinting at it. I thought I could hear the faint sounds of steps coming down the stairs into the dressing room where Machyl, Brooklyn, Consuela and DT were waiting at the table heaving with food.
And then Marcus drew the phone back, staring at the screen, his eyes bugging out. I knew what he was seeing. He was seeing Damaris walk into the dressing room, the clear source of the noise, and me following on her heels.
I stood there as Marcus’ arm dropped uselessly to his side and his eyes fell on me. I stood there, not looking at him. And all the while, Machyl looked on.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t even look at him.
His hands found my upper arms and he turned me to look up at him. “It was a fake.” He licked his lips, his eyes searching my face. “Something Machyl made. Not real.”
I wanted to lie. I did. I would have given anything to be able to find a convincing lie.
I would have given back all the heaving ecstasy of the past three days, become a brand new virgin again so Marcus could burn me through with his fire and turn me to ashes, purify me.
But that would mean I would have to give back Damaris and I couldn’t do that.
So no lie came to me, nothing came down from St Sebastian, the patron saint of queer men, or so I prayed and believed.
Marcus’ hands unclenched from my arms. He backed away, taking two steps, then three. He looked from me to Machyl and back again. His face was as white as paper, as white as salt.
“You lied to me,” he said. “In the cab. Just now. You said you got tested last month. Was that a lie, too?”
I nodded.
Marcus’ hands flew to his mouth, his eyes wide. And then, to my horror, I saw his light brown eyes fill with tears.
Machyl clapped his hands together. “Ain’t life strange?”
“Bugger off,” Marcus snarled, turning on him.
Machyl trilled in delight. “I have so much love for that word!”
Marcus lunged at him and Machyl sprang away as nimbly as an antelope.
“You’ve always been threatened by me,” he said. “The Shanghai Calendar Girls routine with Brooklyn has been too much of a success. I’m good, and you can’t take it.”
Machyl laughed. “Tata never looked at your ass. I told you she did, but she never did, Bone China.”
Marcus frowned at him, then at me. “We… we’ve been flirting for weeks.”
I pursed my lips. I hadn’t been flirting.
“There was a bet,” I said. I raised my hand and pointed at Machyl. I could see my index finger trembling. “He had a bet going—Damaris told me!” I whirled on Machyl, just waiting to see him deny it. But he didn’t.
Machyl cackled. “I knew it would work. I knew it!”
Marcus’ face hardened into white marble. “That was just a joke. Machyl knew I had feelings for you, because I told him.” he jerked his chin to indicate Machyl. “I just didn’t think you would stoop so low as to use that against me. For some reason I thought you had a shred of human decency. I stand corrected.”
Machyl eyed Marcus insolently, his arms crossed over his chest.
“And you,” Marcus turned on me, anger blazing in his eyes. “You, who were supposed to be so sweet and innocent. Machyl told me you stayed over on Saturday night, and like a fool I thought you were just being a good friend. And did you go crawling back to her on Sunday night after I fucked you?” His lip curled in disdain. “Were you even careful? Who knows what you caught from her, and now I have it, too?”
“Oh no she didn’t,” Machyl hissed, suddenly up in Marcus’ face. “You’re the only man she’s been with here and she told me you wouldn’t even blow her without a condom like she was some—”
“It’s called safe sex,” Marcus snapped at the same moment I said, “Don’t say blow—”
They both turned to look at me with twin expressions of disgust, as if I was the only thing they could agree on.
“Marcus,” I said, and again his name tasted bitter and strange in my mouth, unwieldy like a foreign object.
“Is that it?” Marcus stared at me with his bright brown eyes.
I wanted to beg. Wanted to plead. Wanted to get down on my knees and wrap my arms around him and refuse to let go.
“That’s it, eh,” Marcus said slowly, “that’s all you’ve got? No apology? Nothing?”
But I found that I couldn’t do it.
“I should hate you,” Marcus said. “But you already hate yourself more than I ever could. Until you stop trying to fudge it and just accept that you’re gay, no-one is going to be able to help you.”
I felt like he had just punched me in the gut.
Marcus threw his hands up, backing away from me and Machyl. “It’s been real fun, kids, but it’s time for a much needed visit to the STI clinic. Good day to you, gentlemen. And god help you.”
He turned and marched away up the block, his movements jerky and angry.
“Oh, Miss Tata,” Machyl drawled, his lip curling in a sneer.
“Shut the fuck up,” I muttered. It was the first time I had ever stood up to Machyl, but it was too late.
Far too late.
“Hey, Machyl, Anthony,” a friendly voice called from behind me.
I turned around to see Ravind walking down the sidewalk toward us, looking a little sweaty in work out gear with a gym bag slung across his shoulder.
“Hi, Rav,” Machyl said in the coquettish voice he reserved for particularly tall, muscular men.
“Brooklyn messaged me to come pick him up,” Ravind said, pausing to thumb his phone before putting it back in his pocket. “Said he was scared. Everything all right?”
“Of course,” Machyl rolled his eyes and grinned, then winked at me before falling into step with Ravind as they started to walk back toward the House of Ellegrandé, leaving me standing there alone on the cracked sidewalk.
“It’s, you know,” Machyl said, his voice fading into the distance. “The usual drag queen drama.”
The End
Epilogue
The phone was ringing.
I listened to it for what seemed like an eternity.
My eyes had cracked open some time before, but I had just been lying there on my stomach in bed, too out of it to get up or move. I was thirsty but the nightstand seemed a million miles away. I was cold but my limbs felt like marble and I didn’t have the energy to move and pull the mohair blanket over the sheets.
I killed my phone though.
It was the other phone. The landline, the one on the wall.
It rang. And it rang. And it rang.
Eventually I pulled myself up on my hands and knees and backed out of the bed, climbing down from it feet-first like a two year old.
I staggered toward the kitchen in a lace thong picked up the handset and put
it to my ear before I looked down at myself in confusion.
I had never seen these clothes before. What the hell?
Then I remembered what I had done after the debacle at Ellegrandé. I had gone home, packed up all Damaris’ clothes and taken a cab to Krumpdorf’s, and gone on a lingerie binge with the refunded credit.
I had never dared to buy lingerie in a real life store before.
“Good afternoon, princess,” Machyl purred in my ear.
I rubbed my face. I might have taken five of Mamá’s pills last night. “What do you want?”
Machyl let out a high-pitched fake laugh. “You didn’t want my help at that time, sweetie. What about now?”
“No,” I said, my voice sucked dry by the medication. My soul sucked dry by heartbreak. “Now you need my help.”
“Bish, we wouldn’t call your ass if you were the last femme on Earth and we needed an egg donor.”
“You just called me,” I pointed out.
“You’re in the auditions, baby girl, so just—hush your mouth already, please.”
“Say that again,” I said slowly.
“You are in the auditions for Vivesse, Tata,” Machyl’s voice rasped through the line.
“I know,” I said, and even though my mouth felt as thick as cotton, I felt my lips lift into a smile. I had heard him the first time. I just wanted to hear him say it again.
“Rehearsals start Saturday morning at eight am,” Machyl said. “Until five pm. Every day, weekdays as well. Until auditions. If you are late, I will flay you and wear you as a cloak. Got that?”
I laughed and hung up the phone. As if he had a choice. I pulled a bottle out of a plastic bag on the counter where I had left it the night before when I got home and took it with me.
I sauntered over to the den and lay down in one of the recliners, still feeling woozy. I used the remote to turn the TV on and call up the Vivesse box set on the screen.
I never thought I had a chance to compete in the Vivesse Fashion and Beauty Parade. I just didn’t think I was good enough.
I uncapped the bottle and took my first full-mouthed sip of mango schnapps. Mmm. It was just as good as Damaris had said. Sickly sweet, and it made my head fuzzy. Just like Damaris herself. Sharp and strong and it burned my insides. Just like Marcus.
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