Extravagant

Extravagant

from the ongoing project "Pride Disguised as Shame: Queer Stories of the Western World"

Yesterday, I looked in the mirror, and I saw myself as a drag queen. I was standing tall and proud, admiring my fine jaw line and how it combined with my strong cheekbones. My eyes, heavy with black eyeliner smiled, as if they had life on their own, and I had the femininity of Catherine Z Jones trapped in a torso of wide shoulders and  long and strong neck muscles. I was as good as a model, just taller, a little more built: more fabulous! There I stood, queer and extravagant. I turned around and the reflection of my whole body shined in the mirror. I put my hands in my waist and leaned over to wink to my own reflection. My legs, shaved: What a wonderful length to be covered in sequins and feathers and improved with sparkly shoes!  All of the sudden, I saw myself with the posture and the dress of the Spanish “Maja,” tapping firmly with the shiny red high-heel shoes. My dress was red, like the color of passion, of sin, and lipstick. I could feel the fiery taffeta wrapping my best curves with zeal, and I feel the embroidery at the end of the skirt like a divine aura.  I allowed my imagination to keep on beautifying my inner queen, and then before I knew, this woman in the mirror was not only dancing for herself but   moving, flowing under a spotlight in the middle of a stage.

People praised her – praised me! What a show I was putting. First, I could tap my feet gracefully and harmoniously with the music of guitars. After a transformation, I had curly and abundant blonde hair, and I could lip-synch perfectly to the sound of Cher and Kylie.  My performance put to shame the regent drag queen in the back of the bar. She grabs the microphone and mocks my leather leggings in return for her humiliation. She calls me a cheap slut. I grab the microphone and reply that I wish I knew the brand of the strap she uses to hide her penis since I’ll try to avoid it at all costs. “And guuuurl, I hope the bar has a regent psychologist because what a trauma we all have from seeing that thing sticking out. Ew.”  I’ve burned her deeply since the audience is uniformly mocking the slight protuberance she shows in her groin. I’ve won. The night and the crowd are mine. I am a queen and I have become extravagant. 

The daydream takes me to an unwanted place. It takes me behind curtains, once the show is over. I am getting rid of the wigs and the makeup, just that nothing really comes out. I had to stay as a woman. I do not really care, and I take all the glam of the scene into the streets. I notice people giving me dirty looks. I’m not deaf, and I can hear the slur on the streets. Oh, lucky me! The sound of the high heels pounding the floor with a regal rhythm makes the music of the march of an empress. Commoner’s opinion are to be dismissed; oh honey! They wish their woman walked like this, with the stride of a Victoria’s Secret Model and the swagger of a siren.

When the time comes to go back to the scene, I see how many people greet me with a smile, but butcher me with their eyes once they think I’ve stopped looking. Some others show their contempt for my shape right on my face, which I at least appreciate. “Bitch, you wish you were this fabulous.” I know these things happen. You would expect the scene to be all rainbows and smiles, but here I’ve been hurt even stronger than outside. Some gay guys like us when we make really mean jokes. Some others only approach when we show up with free shots or when I’m on the stage giving free dinners in a fancy restaurant to whoever loses the most clothes – it should concern the sponsors, not me. It’s yet another shift as a courtesan in straps and glitter, as the one who lights up the carnival at the cost of a bit of her own spirit every time.

This woman comes to a life of her own, and I am just witness of her doings.  After every show, she doesn’t loose her wig or remove her make up. She’s gone home now and she’s got someone waiting for him. She opens the door for a man shorter than she is. She allows him to get out of her life during daylight, while she goes back to be a male but only in the outside, as she looks herself in the mirror as woman most of the times. And she dreams of love, she dreams of her lover in pictures bright with sunlight and the invisible aura of happiness in them. She dreams of something she does not want to pursue, however. She dreams of waking up with him every day but in reality, she dismisses him every night just with a wave under the light rain that gives golden sparkles to a tingly road in a pale blue alley. She belongs to the stage. She belongs to the scene. She belongs to her newly found womanhood which allows her to be the queen of the night: the most extravagant.

She has made up memories to cover the bullying and the scorn of the first years of life. She remembers a school girl in its tiny flowing dress and high socks wanting to prance around instead of walking, the waist reduced some sizes and the hands gesticulating and spreading fairy dust. And the street was inclined and the girl grew up to become as regal as Beyonce, wearing a very tight sleeved golden dress; and I am, again, her, running down the runway.  This woman I see is extravagant, and it is me, and it lives not on the spotlight but in the cage I have built for her.

Now, again, it is me, stoned in front of the mirror, playing with some eyeliner some female guest might have left behind.

-What a bunch of crap! – I protest.

I removed quickly the eyeliner. Without looking again at the mirror, I got out of my restroom and rejoined my friends in the living room. We picked up the conversation where we left it: guy’s stuff.