unconventional materials challenge
by Joelle Killian
The drag queens squeal as the bespectacled reality TV host saunters into the neon-pink workroom.
“Hello-hello-hello!” The host flashes a Chicklet-white smile at the final three contestants. “This week, we have a delicious design challenge for you.”
Blair—whose previous sewing efforts were shameful flops—moans. “Don’t worry, honey,” says Pan, patting her arm. “We all know you’re a hot-glue queen.”
The workroom doors swing open. Male models, clad in blood-spattered briefs, wheel in three wooden crates. A barefoot hunk pries the lid off one to reveal its contents: slabs of meat and bleached bones, jars of teeth and bleeding hearts.
A photo montage of cackling plutocrats plays on a screen behind the host. “You’ll be making high fashion looks from the remains of these billionaires.”
On cue, the contestants frantically scramble to grab premium cuts. Blair burrows, elbow-deep, into a bin of misshapen organs. Pan and Pox play tug-of-war with squelching intestines, then slap each other’s asses with femurs. “Remember,” says the departing host, “we want haute couture, not hot mess.”
A race against the clock ensues as the queens construct their looks. Pox gracefully drapes entrails over her mannequin; Pan cusses at the busted sewing machine. Blair struggles to sculpt a corset out of a rib cage, yelping every time she burns herself with the glue gun.
They slather makeup onto their faces, simultaneously dishing tear-jerking backstories for the camera. Blair, face striped with beige contour, cries into the mirror while recounting how CorpWars years derailed her transition.
“Those [bleep]ing fascists burned down our gender care clinics and closed the state lines.” Tears streak through her foundation. “Which forced me to find black-market E.”
She describes her back-alley orchiectomy through stifled sobs; the other two swaddle her in an embrace, powder smearing all over their robes. “It’s OK, boo,” says Pox. “We showed them in the end, didn’t we?”
They finish transforming into their drag personas as the show goes to commercial break. Backstage, the crew hovers around the Craft Services table, scooping steaming Putin-Trump stew into ceramic bowls.
Lights up. Theme music. The host glides onto the stage, now in glamazon mode with a mile-high wig and shimmering sequins.
“Tonight on the runway,” she declares, waving one arm, “category is: EAT THE RICH!”
Hypoxia vogues down the catwalk in Bezos’ viscera, her minidress made from elaborate intestinal loops. A close-up shot reveals wax plugs in her nostrils that block the chemical stench of embalming fluid.
“She can’t stomach his labor practices,” quips one of the judges. The others groan.
Panopticunt serves Executive Realness in her power suit sewn from the leathery hides of the Koch brothers. The fashionista judge yells, “She owns 51% of this meat-packing company!”
But then Blair Bitch Project snatches the spotlight: bloody Marie Antoinette wig, rib cage corset, tiara made from Elon’s fingers and toes. His smug face stretches across her flouncy bustle. As she reaches the edge of the stage, she cries, “Let them eat…Musk!”
The three contestants stand trembling during the judges’ critiques, awaiting their fate.
“Girl, we all know you have a banging body,” the meanest judge says to Hypoxia, “but I think you could have pushed this look much, much further.”
“Yes, we’re greedy bottoms,” cackles Fashionista. “We want more, give us more!”
Music rises to a crescendo. The queens clutch each other’s hands, hyperventilating, as Glamazon Host makes her final decision.
“The winner is….” Dramatic pause. “Blair Bitch Project!”
She crumples, weeping, to the floor; her sisters congratulate her with rigid smiles. Confetti explodes from the ceiling, littering everyone’s wigs with pink glitter.
Blair tears into Elon’s liver with sharpened teeth, blood dribbling down her chin as they crown her.
*Originally published in Maudlin House, September 2024.
Image for Joelle Killian
BIO: Joelle Killian is a queer Canadian living in San Francisco whose fiction has appeared in publications such as Fusion Fragment, Maudlin House, and Cold Signal. One of her doppelgängers is a psychologist writing about psychedelic therapy. Another was once in an undead dance troupe.