The Miss Fighting America pageant! Combining beauty & brutalityThe cast and contenders… Miss Montana –
Coleen ZieglerMiss Illinois –
Lisa StarrMiss New York –
Marie BMiss Massachusetts –
Gemma RoxMiss Ohio –
Lindsay CampbellMiss South Dakota –
Laurie BreezeMiss Louisiana –
Jonica B. BadMiss California –
Callista QuinnMiss Nevada –
Leslie WenMiss Alabama –
Megan MitchellMiss Kansas –
Karyn TateMiss Colorado –
Stephanie GibbMiss New Jersey –
Marti ClovisMiss Nebraska –
Chloe BaileyMiss Arkansas–
JustineMiss Utah –
Ashley BlondePart 1...“My name is Gemma Rox and I'm here to promote world peace...”
No... too dull...
“MY name is Gemma and I ROX!!! Tehehe! And I'm here to promote world peace!”
No... too fucking preppy...
“My name is Gemma Rox and truthfully I'd beat you all to death with a lead pipe if someone gave me a million dollars...”
No... Too honest...
As I run through my line all I can think is
'ugh... what the fuck am I doing here?' 31 years old and entering this shower of glitter and bile inducing patriotism with a bunch of inbred fuck-knuckles. I'm not even bloody American! Damn you Grandpa! Why did you have to be from Boston? I mean would Sweden or Norway or somewhere remotely normal have been too much to ask?
My nerves are all aflutter as I stand here in this ridiculous bathing suit... Even though the world has changed a hell of a lot these last few years some things never change and America's obsession with tradition and glamour was one of those things. There are 15 girls standing on the stage with me and we're all forced to watch Jimmy Newton give his pageant speech, the same one he's given every time we've been paraded in front of these gawking idiots, a speech full of pomposity and ostentatiousness that makes my skin crawl.
Ugh... just look at him. A short, fat, balding little warthog in an ill fitting dark blue suit and a comb-over hairdo that's fooling nobody but himself. I always get the creeps when he lechers over us. He's not really a bad person I suppose, just a victim of natures cruel judgement. If he was 6' tall and built like a brick shit house I'd probably be creaming this god awful bright yellow floral bathing suit but alas... he's 5'5” and has a body that looks like a 20lb sack stuffed with 30lbs of shit.
“Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the 5th Annual Miss Fight America Pageant!!!” He smiles out. That smile is pretty much permanently etched across his face whenever a member of the public is in sight. Another hark back to the old days where this competition was filled with air heads who wandered the world on spindly legs with a look of perpetual bliss on their coked up faces.
This competition right here? It's not the same. You see... 5 years ago the world got bored with the inane spectacle of it all so to curb the growing drop in viewers the Miss World pageant decided to re-brand. They wanted women who could boast achievements and not just a parade of empty headed grins on a match stick body. So they introduced Miss Fighting World. Combining the glamour and sexiness of the female form with the study and strong will of professional fighters. It was a leap but they were desperate and the thought of watching the most beautiful women in the world ripping each others clothes off certainly drove the viewership through the god damn roof.
America, like most countries, thought this to mean the girls would get a little catty, have a little wrestle and so on and so sent their busty, pretty airhead to the competition but not all countries read the brief as such... China sent a world class kick boxer and MMA fighter while Russia sent one of the toughest Krav Maga fighters the world has ever seen. What happened was a blood bath. Miss UK got concussed by Miss China after getting the shit kicked out of her in the corner for 3 minutes, Miss Italy had her shoulder dislocated by Miss Russia... and Miss America? Gawd... you don't want to know what they did to her.
It was a chance you see. A chance to give the good ole folk from 'Murica a bloody nose live on television. She was drawn against Russia and for 15 minutes strait was humiliated, beaten stripped and destroyed.
The world LOVED it.
A new competition was born, not one for idle beauties who's only marketable skill was having a symmetrical face while not being able to spell symmetrical but instead for women with something to prove. It became an achievement, a prize worth having and now? Now you get the toughest fighters in the planet all wanting to take that big money jackpot.
Of course this is just the Miss Fighting America pageant but still the prize is $5,000,000 and a yacht that'll make an oil baron green with envy. You see since that first beat down (which was eventually won by Miss Russia after one HELL of a war between her and Miss China in the final) no country wanted to be humiliated again so now? Their yearly pageants are a chance to train the best of the best, to filter out the weak and to idolise the greatest. It's the chance of a lifetime.
“So thank you all at home for watching! Cheer your girls and cheer your state! Because this year? It's coming BACK to AMERICA!!!” Oh thank god I've missed most of his speech talking to you... Really, I owe you one. As he finishes The pyrotechnics explode and the balloons are released, all in red white and blue of course and we give out little wave and saunter off the stage.
As we get behind the curtain my smile drops and my shoulders slouch, picking at this bathing suit that seems determined to get into places not even my doctor has seen before I feel a shove on my back that sends me stumbling a few feet forward. I turn, eyes glaring with a bloody intent and I see... a chest. Fuck.
Glancing up higher than where a normal girls head would be, there in the air I see the smirking face of that lanky bitch Callista Quinn. Just seeing her makes me shiver. That bitch has a cold streak in her that chills me to the bone... the first time I saw her she was up on the stage giving her introduction speech and I was mesmerised. Well spoken, intelligent, flamboyant. Then walking back she fixed me with this gaze and I've not looked at her the same since. Her body resplendent in a red gown, her 6,1” frame toned, athletic yet feminine I could have fucked her brains out but those eyes? Those eyes tore me down like a master butcher skilfully hacking away at a carcass. That girl hides some mighty bad daemons...
She greets my gaze by poking out a playful tongue at me. I groan as Miss California greets me with her usual mix of mild humour designed to mask the cold, vicious heart of a psychopath. She's like me in this pageant, English by birth but sworn to America now and so here we both are finding ourselves on opposite sides of a stare down, not unlike we find ourselves representing opposite sides of the states... her the West Coast darling and me the East Coast gutter trash. "Calli..." I greet back unenthusiastically.
"You know the best thing about Miss Fight World?" she said, ignoring all pretence at having conversation with me and clearly about to launch into some diatribe. "It's not about pleasing some panel of doddering nobodies, z-list celebrities, and gay male fashionistas. I don't have to go up there, smile brightly and say, 'I'm Calli! From California! Tee-hee!'" her usual smoky alto climbing into the soprano range for the effort. "I can walk out there and say my full bloody name. Callista Xanthippe Quinn."
I roll my eyes as I prepare to endure her ramblings.
“The name alone should make my point to them all. Even if you don't know me yet” She pauses to look me in the eye “and if you don't, you will...” That was a threat if ever I heard one. And I've heard lots. “The name should warn you. I transcend boundaries. I am, in the context of this competition, representing the State of California, but like me, California transcends. Native culture, both traditional and casino, still survives, but amidst a tumultuous melange of social and cultural mores. California was the ultimate endpoint of man's migrations. Waves of colonists from every part of the globe came here to seek fortune, and made California into the cultural epicentre of the modern world.”
“How very informative” I sigh but she ignores me. This isn't a conversation after all, she's talking at me. She'd never lower herself to talk to me, that much has become apparent.
“Like California, I transcend. British by birth, with Greek heritage, I came to America, transcending borders of states and nations and even oceans. My light will shine to all corners of this Earth. In honest truth, 'Miss America' is really far too limiting a title for me, but it makes a decent start." She stares down at me again only this time packing disdain and contempt into her gaze by the bucket load. "So, Gems, kindly don't call me 'Calli'," she growls, picking at the white Miss Massachusetts sash as if questioning its place across my chest. "You haven't the right."
My eyes narrow in response and my fists clench. My trimmed nails digging into the flesh of my palms as my knuckles whiten...
“UGGHH!!” she gasps and staggers to her right and my eyes widen a bit, looking down at my hands that are still by my side... “huh?” I splutter quizzically. Normally when a girl stumbles near me it’s because I hit her… but then I see the 5'3” form of Miss Alabama – Megan Mitchell glaring at Calli and things start to make sense again.
“How about you give it a rest and leave Gemma alone, huh?” She growls defensively
“How 'bout ya give all of us a rest 'n' shut your yappin' trap!” The second voice was different, the little spitfire Laurie Breeze, or Miss South Dakota to her followers. Those two were thick as thieves and twice as mischievous but I must admit it was a relief to have somebody on my side here.
Instantly Calli turns, facing off against the three of us, me in the middle, Megan to my right and Laurie to my left. The fact that Megan dared touch her clearly unbalanced the megalomaniac in her as she sets her feet and I groan, really not in the mood to scrap right now, then? She stands up strait, casually dusts herself of and smiles...
“That can't be good” Megan whispers. And sure enough a split second later I hear “YYYAAAAAOOOUUUCH!!!” From Megan! The little brunette hopping on her feet with her head tilted to the side. I turn around shocked. My first thought is 'No way can Calli move that fast!' but then I see Jenn… Jenn Peccavi… The big bullying bitch herself.
She’s not a competitor here. Oh no. She’s the woman who keeps us little brats in line. I can already remember her welcoming speech as we arrived in the large compound provided for us in Vegas….
5 weeks ago…“OK You bunch of stuck up Princesses! I want you to listen up and listen hard! For too long has Miss America been about useless, thoughtless stick insects parading their jutting ribs in god awful gowns. Now? Now we live in a different time. A BETTER time. Now Miss America is something to be PROUD of! And I’m the woman who’s tasked with keeping that pride intact. If any one of you thinks they can gain an edge outside the competition? I’m the woman who’s going to prove you wrong… If any one of you acts up or does anything to sully this competition? It is my personal privilege to bounce your washed up asses out of this place and back into the gutter you crawled out of. Despite what the media and your home states have been blowing up your overused assholes you are NOT special and you are NOT unique. There’re a thousand girls in each and every state who would happily jump at the chance to take your place! So please, PLEASE try and test me! I mean it… I’d take so much satisfaction in crushing your dream right in front of you…”
back to the present…“S…Sorry Miss Peccavi! I… I was just trying to protect Gemma from that bully Calli” Megan whines, her ear turning a shade of purple as Jenn twists it. Megan is so high on her tip toes it almost looks like Jenn’s carrying her by that ear!
“Oh? Did I ask for your help Alabama?” Jenn growls back. She never calls us by our names, only our states. As if we’re Pageant property now.
“n… OUCH!... No Miss Peccavi. I’m sorry” Megan replies, admonished and crest fallen.
Jenn drops Megan who clutches her ear, rubbing it and nursing it as she steps back and turns her attention to Calli
“California… How surprised I am to find you in the middle of all this” She growls, the powerful, shorter woman looking up at her slender target. Calli just stands there smiling, not an ounce of fear in her
“Well I am sorry if your herd of sluts aren’t able to act with the civility and grace required for this occasion but I hardly feel that is my fault. And even if I were to be at fault here… Should I really be taking advice from a convict?”
Jenn’s eyes narrow viciously…
“Oh I am sorry… I meant Australian” Calli giggles then wanders off leaving Jenn there to stew. We all look agasp for a moment, somewhat shocked at Calli’s casual disregard of such an imposing woman but when Jenn’s eye scan the room we all scramble, fearful of her attention…
As first days go, this tournament got off to a bad one….
x G x
