“Hello, Lady Tina,” I said. Mervin’s voice was lower than my own. I sounded ridiculous. “My, you’re looking… alive today. The color of your dress really brings out the extraordinary paleness of your skin tone. Are you unwell? Dying, perhaps?”
She tittered. “No, dear heart. I am actually quite well. I would ask the same of you, because you seem to have some bruises on your face and are holding yourself rather stiffly. Did someone take offense to one of your ever-p
resent asinine meanderings? I should send them some flowers for doing what I’ve thought of for months.”
I laughed as I sat down at the opposite end of the table. “Ah, my sweet. Merely an accident of an inconsequential nature. Unlike, apparently, your makeup. Was it dark this morning when you applied it? Surely, that’s the only explanation, unless you’ve somehow obtained employment as a jester. But then, you’d actually need to have a sense of humor for that. Perhaps you’re applying to a brothel, then? I do hope your interview goes well. I’m sure you’ll do wonders on your back.”
The others (of which there were fourteen, ranging in ages from ten to fifty-two) looked back and forth between us with each verbal blow. They were used to it by now. This was, after all, the twenty-sixth meeting I had attended. It was almost mandatory that we cut each other to ribbons. If I was straight and Tina not the bitch from hell, one would assume we were almost flirting. But I was gay and Tina was the bitch from hell. We were not flirting.
She fluttered a silk folding fan across her face. “Oh, Mervin. The feelings I experience upon seeing your countenance is akin to what I understand dysentery to be like. Explosively so.”
I cocked my head at her. “I’m sorry. Were you just speaking to me? I apologize most profusely. I was distracted by the size of the sweat stains under your arms. Are you overly warm today? It seems unlikely given the cold, dead heart that surely beats in your chest.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re an asshole, Mervin.”
I snarled at her. “Bitch, I’ll cut you, bitch.”
We both smiled darkly at each other.
She fanned herself again.
I passed around the muffins. And fuck her. They weren’t dry.
She said, “And now that Mervin has finally stopped talking, the meeting of the Ryan Foxheart Fan Club Castle Lockes Chapter can commence. Deidre, if you could please read a summation of the last meeting. And be quick about it.”
A mousy girl of twelve years stood up and looked down at a piece of parchment paper in her hand. “Opening minutes,” she said. “President Tina noted that Mervin looked more flush than usual and wondered aloud if he’d just gotten fellated by a street whore in the back alley. Mervin responded that at least he would, and I quote, ‘be getting some’ unlike Tina who couldn’t even find a streetwalker to take her money. President Tina then stated she wouldn’t be surprised when Mervin came to the next meeting with mouth sores and an itching rash in the most private of places. Mervin replied that if that happened, he would just come to her for a solution since she obviously knew so much about itching rashes in private places. President Tina called him a ridiculous cockhound and Mervin said he had never hit a girl before, but that there was always a first time. Delores then handed out the blueberry muffins to which Mervin said he was allergic and President Tina tried to force-feed him three of them. The minutes of the previous meeting were read and then for the next four hours, there was a discussion on Ryan Foxheart’s biceps.”
Deidre sat back down.
“Obviously,” Tina said, “much has happened in the few weeks since we held the last meeting. First and foremost, our dearly beloved Knight Foxheart was promoted to Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart.”
We all sighed dreamily.
“And, of course, since my parents are in the King’s Court,” she continued, “I was in attendance, and ladies, let me tell you, he. Was. Glorious.”
I didn’t know she’d been there. I thought I would have been able to smell the stench of putrid death. My nose must have been getting weaker. And I was not a lady. Yes, everyone else was, but I obviously wasn’t.
“Was he as dashing and immaculate as the papers claimed?” an older lady named Wanda asked.
“More,” Tina said. “His armor shone like moonbeams and his hair was parted to the right. You know what that means.”
“He was feeling romantic,” a girl named Crissy said. “He always parts his hair on the right when he’s feeling romantic.”
“Actually,” I said, “his hair was slicked back for the ceremony.”
They all stared at me.
Well, except for Tina. She glared.
I shrugged. “What? You were wrong. I was just pointing that out. How wrong you were.”
“What does slicked-back hair mean?” a woman named Nicole asked tearfully. “We’ve never discussed what it means when it’s slicked back. What does it mean?”
Tina got a wicked gleam in her eye. “Obviously, it was his marriage hair,” she said, and I almost threw my muffin at her face. “He must have known Prince Justin had asked for his hand in marriage before the ceremony.”
“That wasn’t marriage hair,” I argued. “That was his ‘I’m in command now’ hair.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Please, Ryan was all about Prince Justin. Rystin forever. He couldn’t take his eyes off of him when the King made the announcement.”