The Turkey Wore Satin Read online

  The Turkey Wore Satin

  © 2015 by J.J. Brass

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design © 2015

  First Edition 2015

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  The Turkey Wore Satin

  A Thanksgiving Tale of Murder, Mystery,

  and Men in Women’s Clothing!

  By

  J.J. Brass

  Chapter One

  The first year Marty joined Kristin’s family for Thanksgiving dinner, he thought they were all a bunch of lunatics.

  Not much had changed since that day four years ago, except that Marty was no longer Kristin’s puppy-love boyfriend. After a big summer wedding, he was now officially her faithful husband. And, as an official member of the Mayfair family, this year Marty would take part in one of the illustrious family’s long-standing traditions: The Amazing Annual Mayfair Family Drag Show.

  Kristin’s elegantly coifed grandmother Iris, who had buried no fewer than four husbands, explained the family drag show with great fanfare the first time Marty dined at her impressive mansion. It started in the 1940s, not long before Iris’s brothers were killed storming the beaches of Normandy.

  One Thanksgiving, after a lean wartime dinner, young Iris played her favourite song for the family: Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree. The boys were not great fans of the Andrews Sisters—not that they would admit, at any rate—but in lieu of their normal teases, Iris’s brothers put on a show. They all got up and sang along, and Mayfair Family History was made.

  The impromptu lip-synch marked the beginning of an annual tradition to honour three fallen soldiers. Iris could imagine no better way to show gratitude for their sacrifice than to insist all men in the Mayfair family get gussied up in women’s clothing every year on Thanksgiving Day. Her late brothers had a fine sense of humour, she told Marty. They’d have loved it every bit as much as she did.

  From humble beginnings, the tradition grew year by year. Nowadays, every man chose a female celebrity to impersonate. It cost a pretty penny, too. In the weeks leading up to the great event, every man went out to buy flash and glam costumes, wigs, and the glitziest makeup on the shelf.

  Kristin wore makeup, sure, but barely more than a touch of rosy lipstick and a subdued shade of eye shadow. No use raiding her makeup cache. Tyrone was kind enough to take Marty under his wing, since this was his first performance. They went out together, to a theatrical supplies store, to pick up golden eye shadow and fake lashes with sparkles built right in! The price of it all blew Marty away—not that anyone in the Mayfair family seemed concerned about money.

  In fact, even when Grandma Iris had told him the story of the first wartime drag show, he couldn’t help wondering if the austerity measures she spoke of amounted to little more than enjoying five courses instead of seven. Maybe only three kinds of pie instead of eight.

  “Are you ready for this?” Tyrone asked as he strapped Marty into a vintage Madonna cone bra. “Competition can get pretty intense. The Mayfair men are cut-throat when it comes to winning Best in Show.”

  Tyrone was another Mayfair in-law, married to Grandma Iris’s son Jonnie. Every year, he performed as Tina Turner. He had the perfect complexion for it, not to mention the perfect legs. Marty didn’t usually notice other men’s legs, but by the time Tyrone suited up in a shimmering magenta dress, tossed on a wig, and perfected his make-up, you’d have thought he was Tina herself. Rumour had it he’d performed professionally in his younger days, which he absolutely denied, since it would have barred him from the family competition.

  And Marty was getting a real sense of how fierce this competition could be!

  As far as Marty was concerned, Tyrone could be called the best of the bunch. At first, he’d attributed the guy’s killer performance to the whole being gay thing. But if that were the case, Jonnie would have been a shoe-in for drag, too—and it turned out Jonnie was the biggest flop of them all. Anyway, according to Kristin, Tyrone had never won Best in Show. Imagine that! He was obviously cream of the crop.

  Maybe the game was fixed?

  Nah, couldn’t be. First off, who would go to all the trouble of rigging a family drag competition? And, secondly, it was the Mayfair women who voted on the best performance. They always picked the most bumbling, fumbling, silly performer: Uncle George, a Mayfair by marriage who always snagged the role of Bette Midler. They probably just picked him so he wouldn’t feel too humiliated.

  Marty wasn’t exactly in it to win it, but surely he could count on one woman’s vote.

  “My wife will definitely pick me,” Marty said as Tyrone helped him with his headpiece: a platinum blonde wig he and Kristen had braided and then wrapped around a Styrofoam cone. “That still sounds weird, to me: my wife. My wife is going to vote for me in the Amazing Annual Mayfair Family Drag Show.”

  Tyrone chuckled, but he was swiftly interrupted by gravelly laughter from Marty’s father-in-law.

  “Don’t count on it,” said Jack, who’d already slipped into on a slinky black dress. “Kristin always votes for her good old dad. Just because she’s got herself a first husband doesn’t mean she’s going to change her loyalties.”

  “Uhhh okay,” Marty replied, trying desperately not to stare at the man’s shiny bald head, not to mention the bulge down south. “I only figured, you know, since we just got married a couple months ago, Kristin might vote for me this year.”

  Jack laughed crassly. “Wait and see, buddy-boy.”

  “Leave the kid alone,” said Uncle George, who looked more like a walrus than Bette Midler. “It’s Marty’s first time in drag. Don’t you think he’s nervous enough without you being a total ass?”

  “It’s okay,” Marty said, because he didn’t want to instigate a battle to the death between the two brothers-in-law.

  Kristin’s father and uncle were already at each other’s throats about some business deal gone bad. Jack was some kind of corporate big-wig. Marty never had been exactly clear on what the people in this family did for a living. Even Kristin’s job mystified him. They all had corner offices and more vacation time than workdays. That’s all Marty knew.

  Tension weighed nearly as heavily on the air as the eyeliner Tyrone meticulously painted on his husband. Jonnie hadn’t found his niche yet. He was trying out Liza this year. Some guys, like Tyrone and Jack, were showmen—dressed as women, dressed as men, didn’t matter. Other guys were quiet, observant. That was Marty. He listened, he looked, and he could usually pull out the undercurrent of any situation. He and Jonnie had that much in common.

  “Can I borrow your blusher?” George asked Jack.

  Jack snapped, “No way. Get your own.”

  All at once, the tension burst and George hollered, “You think you know it all? Well, you don’t know squat. You lost half a million in that—”

  “It wasn’t half a million,” Jack cut in. “Nowhere near! And, hey, if you were a true drag queen instead of just a drama queen, maybe Tyrone wouldn’t be so jealous every time you win this goddamn thing.”

  Jonnie stepped up and said, “My husband has every right to be jealous. He’s got the looks, he’s got the moves, and he’s got legs. Why he hasn’t won yet, I’ll never understand.”

  George totally ignored Jonnie’s plea, and turned back t
o Jack. “I’m taking you to court over that deal. It wasn’t legit and you know it. You’ve pissed off a lot of investors, you self-righteous son of a bitch. First thing after the holiday, I’m getting the ball rolling on a class action.”

  Jack flipped on his long black Cher wig, then tossed his hair over both shoulders. Sucking in his cheeks, he said, “Go on and try, Georgie-Boy. You got nothing on me.”

  Marty couldn’t stand the aggression. In his full-on Vogue outfit, he snuck away from the guest suite they were using as a dressing room. He couldn’t see anyone in the hallway, thank goodness. All the women—Grandma Iris, Kristin and her mother Angela, George’s wife Cynthia, plus Kristin’s cousins Beth and Georgette—were downstairs munching on appetizers, waiting for the big show to begin.

  A streak of nerves shot through Marty’s belly, making his legs quiver. He thought about performing for Kristin’s family. Oh God! Performing was not his thing. He was the kind of guy who felt nervous just placing an order at a restaurant. All eyes on him? It was too much pressure!

  And dressed like this? Cone bra, cone hair, even a little cone codpiece to put over his white sequined bathing suit The cross-dressing didn’t bother him, not with every Mayfair man taking part, but he didn’t want Kristin’s entire family staring at his winky-dink.

  As Marty wandered down the hallowed halls of Mayfair Manor, he caught a whiff of something delicious. Turkey dinner was in the works, and Marty salivated as he imagined the delicious pies that would follow. Maybe they could skip the drag show and go straight to dessert?

  Mmm… he could smell apples and cranberries among the hearty aromas of potatoes and stuffing, and he followed his nose toward the epicentre of aroma: the kitchen. Grandma Iris’s cook, Brykia, went all out for the holidays. Marty couldn’t resist grabbing a bite.

  As he made his way toward the kitchen, Marty’s thick nylons rubbed together. The soft shushing made him self-conscious, not just because of the sound but because that sheer fabric felt surprisingly good against his thighs. Sure he’d thought this family was kind of nutty when he’d first met them, but maybe the men were on to something. The drag show was truly carnivalesque, especially for an upper class bunch like the Mayfairs.

  Marty slowed as he approached the kitchen. He felt a little weirded out by the prospect of Brykia seeing him dressed like Madonna, circa 1989.

  He listened at the swinging saloon doors, too nervous to step inside.

  He expected to hear pots clanging, but instead he heard the tippity-tap of high-heeled shoes. That was strange. Brykia always wore canvas runners. Must be someone else in the kitchen.

  Suddenly Marty’s fear of being seen and judged outweighed his hunger, and he rushed down the hall—well, as much as he could in heels. The guys had all put on pumps first thing, to get a feel for walking in them.

  Some of the men were old hands with heels. Marty, not so much.

  Chapter Two

  By the time Marty returned the dressing room, the argument between Jack and George had died down. The atmosphere was still seething, though. The clouds of tension didn’t break until Brykia knocked on the door a few minutes later.

  “Madame Iris says the men must be fed,” Brykia said as she wheeled a serving cart into the room. She laid out a cheese and fruit tray—standard fare at Mayfair family gatherings—and then handed George his own bowl of fruit, primarily red grapes. “Because of your lactose intolerance,” she explained. “These ones never touched any cheese.”

  George grunted something that might have been a thank you, then tore the plastic wrap from his dish. Marty couldn’t resist the brie with fig paste, and scarfed it down with enough bread to absorb the nerves boiling like acid in his belly.

  For a while, everyone ate quietly. It made for a nice change. The room stayed pretty much silent until George let out a loud hissing noise. Marty turned just in time to see him brushing his arm against his flowing satin dress.

  “You okay, Uncle George?”

  George stared at his wrist, saying nothing. Whatever happened, he’d reacted with enough vigour to attract everyone’s attention.

  “What’s wrong?” Jonnie asked.

  “Nothing,” George snapped, still staring at his arm. “Bug bite, maybe.”

  “I didn’t think the great Mayfairs attracted pests,” Tyrone teased.

  “Jonnie attracted you, didn’t he?” George shot back.

  The room fell again into silence, but Marty felt that barb just as sharply as Tyrone must have. Even in marriage, guys like Tyrone and Marty would never be on equal footing with the Mayfair bloodline.

  Jack and George fit in okay. They had that upper-class edge Marty would never understand, or even be able to copy. Kristin never made him feel like he was less worthy than the rich guys she’d dated before him, but her mother certainly did. So did Kristin’s Aunt Cynthia, although Grandma Iris was the absolute worst. All she had to do was look at Marty to make him feel inferior.

  It was a talent he hoped his wife would never develop.

  All the men were sweating as show time approached, but none more profusely than George. Even through cake makeup, his face glowed red. Holy Moly, the guy was dripping like a faucet! Marty had no idea whether this was business as usual, since he’d never been backstage before. None of the other men seemed quite as nervous.

  Downstairs, the women chanted: “On with the show! On with the show!”

  God, was it really that time? Marty’s stomach rumbled. Could he seriously lip-synch and strike a pose in front of his wife’s family?

  Ah, but he had to. No choice in the matter. It was a Mayfair family tradition.

  Like ducks in a row, the men walked that green mile toward the front staircase, which was as grand as the Mayfair matriarch herself.

  With the exceptions of George and Jonnie, the men seemed much more self-assured than Marty. Tyrone and Jack could walk in heels without stumbling, even when they started down the stairs.

  Tyrone, as acting MC, led the line down to the luxurious marble foyer. The Mayfair women all wore their holiday best, which meant the best of the best: fine fabrics stitched with glass beads and crystals. From the Great Room, they cheered and hollered and snapped photographs of the men in drag.

  The men’s dresses were by far more showy and flamboyant than the women’s, but they weren’t quality pieces. Marty would hate to be sweating all over a three-thousand dollar Donna Karan. Not that Marty’s perspiration held a candle to George’s. The poor guy looked like a pig in a satin blanket.

  “How you holding up?” Marty whispered as the other men paraded before their wives and family members.

  The women cheered and applauded so loudly it was a challenge to catch George’s answer. It sounded like, “A bit,” but he was struggling for breath, like every inhale was a painful chore.

  “Come on!” Tyrone hollered from the Great Room. “Hurry your sweet asses up!”

  In that outfit, Tyrone didn’t just look like Tina Turner, he sounded like Tina Turner, too! Ah, the power of suggestion!

  The other men were way up ahead, strutting their stuff while Marty hung back in the marble foyer with George. George’s illness was a happy excuse to delay entry into the Great Room, Marty had to admit. He hadn’t even stepped off the stairs yet and, in truth, he felt too nervous to let go of the stair rail. The second he stepped onto that marble floor, he’d surely collapse. He’d put on the Spanx Tyrone had given him, but he felt bloated with bread and brie.

  Why oh why had he eaten so much cheese?

  He should have followed George’s example and stuck to grapes!

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Mayfair Ladies!”

  Oh no, Tyrone was starting the show! Marty pressed his fake nails into the wooden railing so hard one of them flew right off, flipping in the air before click-clacking down on the marble.

  Tyrone asked, “Are you ready for your men to put on a show?”

  Hoots, hollers, applause!

  Everyone but Marty had made it to the Great Room
by now. Oh, except George. The poor old guy faced that direction, but wavered side to side like a buoy rocking on ocean waves.

  “Your boys are dressed to impress,” Tyrone went on. “Now, who’s ready to rock?”

  Laughter, wolf-whistles, cheers!

  The longer Marty stared at the back of George’s gleaming blonde wig, the more adamantly he felt that something must be wrong. That’s when George started shaking, like he was having a seizure or something. Yeah, this was more than just stage fright or shoe troubles. His satin skirt quivered and quaked. His feather boa trembled like a squatting dog.

  Tyrone clearly had no clue what was happening out in the hall. He announced, “Let me introduce them to you…”

  George slid one foot forward on the marble, and it just kept going.

  Marty had never seen such a large man do the splits. He belted with laughter, and clapped his hands to acknowledge the effort. “Way to go, man! That’s quite a feat!”

  When George made no response, Marty asked, “Hey, you okay, Uncle George? Need a hand?”

  George fell to one side

  In the next room, the Mayfair women cheered like crazy while Tyrone brought out the men in tights.

  Marty tuned out the frenzy. Kicking off his heels, he raced across the foyer, falling so hard at George’s side that he worried he’d put a hole in his nylons.

  “George?” Marty smacked the guy’s bloated face, but got no reaction. He shook George’s shoulders hard enough that one fake boob rolled out the top of the big man’s dress. “Quit fooling around, George!”

  This fallen-over-splits position would be impossible for any out-of-shape man to hold for so long, unless he’d been training in the off-season. And training to hold his breath indefinitely, too.

  “Guys!” Marty shouted. “Guys! I think you’d better come out here!”