Dungeons & Drag Queens

“Hey, look! A dungeons and dragons ride!” Dora yelled, running towards the imposing fairground ride.
“Wow! Neat!” Dinah exclaimed and took off after her.
The rest of The Coven and ‘Petra followed the girls, barged past the queue (after all, it is my birthday), then jumped in to the lead car with Dora and Dinah. The ride started slowly then began to pick up speed, passing plastic skeletons brandishing plastic swords, papier-mâché demons gurning and snarling at the trackside, and a huge fibreglass dragon spewing terrifying orange and yellow silk streamers in an approximation of fire.
“Gimme a break” ‘Petra groaned, rolling his eyes.
“My arse is scarier than this” Dora sneered.
“I’ll say” T-Bird agreed a little too enthusiastically.
“Hey!”
“That last dragon reminded me of Audrey” I said. “Oh, that reminds me, I never finished telling you about the palaver it was getting all of Audrey’s stuff over to SP’s.”
Tim slumped in his seat, his head lolling to one side hilariously (yeah, right), as I ignored him and continued.
“There were her medications and the list of how much and when; we had to pick up her shower chair; there’s the batteries for her hearing aid; magnifying glass for reading-" My monologue was rudely interrupted by our car shaking on the rails.
The tunnel blurred, its painted images fading into one another before streaking out to nothing as we shot past. I’d be damned (again) if I was going to let a little thing like that stop me though, so I took a deep breath to continue. And then the light vanished, plunging us into darkness. All momentum appeared to have ceased and silence reigned. Until…“What happened?!” I exclaimed.
“Your mouth used up all the power” Tim snarled.
“Don’t worry IDV, we can still find the bar” ‘Petra quipped.
“Where’s my flashlight?” T-Bird asked. “In fact, where’s my bag? Peecat's in it!”
“I think it’s here next to me” Tim answered. “I’ll get the torch out” he continued, rifling around in the bag. “Where is it? In a pocket?” There were more sounds of rummaging, followed by a brief silence, then: “Where’s the switch?”
“Bring it here” T-Bird said.
“Oh, here it is.”

* bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *

“What is this?”
And then there was light.
“Oh!” T-Bird screamed in mortified horror as everyone saw what Tim was holding.
Tim looked at the massive dildo in his hands and guffawed. He continued laughing as he took the mighty tool out of the rest of The Coven’s sight.“What was that?” Dinah asked innocently.
“It was an… Uhhh…” I struggled for an explanation “electric ear cleaner.”
“It was kinda big.”
“It sure was!” ‘Petra intoned as Dora looked on smugly.

- - -

After the hubbub had died down, we followed Tim towards the source of light with T-Bird bringing up the rear, blushing furiously.“Where are we?”
Looking around, we discovered we’d just left a black leather-lined dark room and come out into a cavernous staging area. Chains and leather straps hung from the lofty ceiling almost to the black rubber floor. Occasional swathes of padded red leather grew from the floor, forming couches and screens, some of which were adorned with full length, smoked glass mirrors. A liberal amount of dubious looking moist patches could be seen on most surfaces and everything had a disturbing sheen to it. To top it off, the whole environment smelled of poppers, sweat and spunk.*
Then, from behind a bestrapped and padlocked chair-like contraption, a ginger dwarf** appeared.
“What the fuck do you lot want?” it demanded in an effeminate Scottish/Yorkshire hybrid accent.
“We just want to go home” Dinah piped up after the initial shock of the sight of the dwarf had worn off.
“Home?” the stunted poof sneered. “You’ll have to work to pay your way home. Although, you’ll have to be kitted out in uniforms” and he pointed his stubby index finger at each of us in turn, a flash of light emanating from the nicotine stained digit to envelope us.
“Stalker” he declared, pointing at me first. My clothes became replaced by a dull black coverall complete with hood, dark glasses and what appeared to be a tranquiliser gun that, on closer inspection, fired rohypnol-tipped darts.

"Well! How very dare you" I declared. "I don't know where you'd get the idea I might be a little more attentive than etiquette deems polite?" I was very careful not to meet Tim's eyes as I said that.

"Pole dancer" he said next, sneering at me and pointing at Dinah, who was suddenly wearing little more than a couple of tassles and a handkerchief. In her hands she held a shiny eight foot metal pole, the end of which appeared to dispense lube.
"Hoody." T-Bird was transformed into a purple hoody-wearing malcontent, who, when she pulled up the hood, blended in with the shadows until she was practically invisible.
"Warlock." 'Petra became adorned with a green velvet cloak and pointy hat with enough dark eye make-up to plaster a wall.
"Cavalier." Dora groaned under the weight of battered and rusty armour made out of an old Vauxhall. She dropped the shield that was formed out of the car's bonnet*** with a dull clang.
"And" the dwarf sniggered, "Page 3 Stunna!" The last of our party's clothes disappeared and were replaced with- Well, they were barely replaced.

* Gasp * Dinah covered her mouth.

"Oh..." 'Petra exclaimed.

"My..." T-Bird continued.

"Gods!" I finished.

The four of us stood gaping and drooling at Tim in his barely-there 'three belts' costume. Dora looked on in mild interest, filing her nails on the rusty wheel arch that covered her hip.
Tim opened his mouth to protest at his attire, but became distracted at his reflection in a nearby mirror.

"Rawr!" he growled, he and his reflection admiring himself before remembering that he had an enrapt audience. "Ahem... I mean, I'm not wearing this outrageous outfit! It's clearly meant for a female physique." He glanced in T-Bird's direction then frowned in concentration as he attempted to 'rearrange' himself without spilling out of the blatantly cramped lower belt.

T-Bird eyed him suspiciously before pulling at her hoody. "While I like the comfort of this, it's hardly very fetching. That's not to say I'm gonna swap, Tim."

"Well, I'm not wearing this, either!" Dinah snapped.

Then Dora cut in. "At least you look female. I look like an ancient Transformer."

'Petra sighed in frustration. "Can't you magic up some different clothes, IDV? This green makes me look washed out."

"Oh, no" I replied. "You're the warlock - You do it. I quite like my 'Milk Tray Man' gear, thankyouverymuch!"

"Well, what do I do?"

"Oh, I don't know. Pull something out of your hat?" I said somewhat exasperated.

Sighing even more heavily, 'Petra removed his hat and pondered for a short while as everyone else resumed arguing about who should wear what, and where that nasty little ginger dwarf had gone.

"Ooh, I know!" he suddenly said. He waved his hand over the open end of the upside-down hat and chanted as he pulled out a spell:
"Magic hat, end this strop. Make everyone's costumes swap!"

* poof *

After the puff of pink smoke and the small shower of glitter had cleared, we regarded each other with almost as much astonishment as the first time we had an unplanned costume change.

Dora was now the 'Page 3 Stunna' - "Oh, great" she remarked sarcastically.

Dinah looked a lot happier in the hoody. Somewhat unsurprisingly, I was the warlock, sans hat, which 'Petra was still holding as he bore the weight of the cavalier armour and shield. And Tim, in a role-reversal, was now the stalker. But instead of paying attention to me, was lasciviously eyeing up a pole-holding and betassled T-Bird.

"Aaaaaiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

A piercing shriek rent the air, freezing us in place and chilling us to the bone. It was 'Petra.

"It's not a hat" he wailed, holding it betwixt finger and thumb. "It's not a hat!"
"What?"

"Look!" he hissed, holding it up for all to see. "It... It's... The 'Shorts!"

He was right. It wasn't a hat he was holding. It was The Freakin' Green Elf Shorts, stiff after multitudes of blogger excretions had soaked in then dried over the years.
Tim sneered in disgust as 'Petra flung them away, not noticing a door opening right where he'd thrown them.

"What's all this shouting?" A strident voice bellowed. "This is a local dungeon for local people. There's nothing for you here-" Whoever it was that had come through the door complaining, was abruptly cut off as The 'Shorts landed squarely in her face.

"Oops!" 'Petra said.

A taloned hand reached up and pulled The 'Shorts from its face, exposing a murderous expression beneath a severe fringe.

"Look out!" T-Bird yelled as a vicious tongue lashed out from the demon-woman.

'Petra instinctively raised his shield-baring arm, inexpertly but effectively preventing the tongue from making contact with us.
As the demon-woman screeched with rage, another door opened, unnoticed. Five over made-up faces peered around it.

"Cooeee!" they cried in unison just as the tongue lashed out once more.

This time 'Petra accidently deflected the tongue towards the newly opened door, where it slapped across the five faces, rasping great clods of trowelled on make-up from them. Their friendly demeanour changed instantly.

Five burly and befrocked bodies burst through the door heading straight for the source of the evil tongue. All but one opened their mouths, the other lifted its skirts and turned to face its arse at the demon-woman, then a stream of varying particles spewed forth from all five.
The first projected a jet of ice; the second brought forth a blast of molten metal; the third**** burped up a cloud of noxious gases; the fourth projectile vomitted a suspicious looking thick, sticky white liquid; and the fifth did an enormous duvet-raising fart from underneath his voluminous skirts.

"I'll get you my pretties" the demon-woman screamed. "And your little-" she stopped to regard the hissing Peecat who'd emerged from the depths of T-Bird's handbag, "cat, too!" And with that, she ran off to escape the five drag queens who set off after her, faster than six inch stilettos should allow.

"Who were they?!" T-Bird gasped.

"That" the small ginger poof answered, reappearing from a hidden trapdoor looking decidedly moist and dishevelled, "was M'jer, a force of evil. The monstrous drag queens are TiaMaria, a failed all-drag girl group. And I am Dungeon Slav- I mean, Master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons and Drag Queens!"





* The British definition, not the Australian or American.
** Piggy, obviously, but I couldn't access his blog to link to him when I transcribed this.
*** Or hood, to you Americans.
**** Tazzy. See explanation after **Piggy.





Snaps to all of you who can state which films and TV shows we blundered through to create this disaster.