“The guillotine,” Allicia says to me, one ring-encrusted hand on her drink, “is the most ridiculous contraption.”
It’s late on a Sunday night, and we’re sitting at a table in the back corner of Nicky’s Unisex. All around us, cliques of queers swan around.
“Like, imagine,” she continues. “It’s the 1700s. Everyone is dying of plague.”
I watch as the white curls of her afro bounce around her face. She’s excited, almost twitching.
“We could have invented something to keep people alive.”
Allicia has just been cast in A Tale of Two Cities, a stage production of Charles Dickens’ novel that is essentially Les Mis-lite. The guillotine plays a starring role.
“But no. We devise the guillotine. The most insane device.”
“Completely unhinged,” I agree, nodding emphatically.
“So that everyone who hasn’t already died of plague,” she continues, taking a sip of her drink, “gets their fucking head chopped off.”
“Who’s getting their head chopped off?”
We both jump.
Standing above us, holding a clear beverage in a tall, thin glass, is Witch Tulips. My mouth opens, stupid. Until this moment, I’ve only ever seen them on stage.
Allicia, unintimidated, bursts out laughing.
“Oh,” she says. “Just like, everyone in 18th century France.”
Witch is a burlesque dancer, and they are a millennial dyke’s teenaged wet dream. On stage, they strip off layers of black and pink latex to the tune of old emo songs. Offstage, I’m learning right now, they don’t wear a bra, and they style their short blonde hair with a nostalgically early-aughts side part. I’m entranced.
“Are we nerding out about the French Revolution?” Witch asks, conspiratorial, game for our antics.
Allicia leans in.
“No,” she says, beaming. “I just got cast in this show.”
“Omigod!” Witch squeals, pulling up a chair. “Tell me more.”
Allicia fills them in while I sit back, quiet. I am not a performer; I have nothing to add. But I’m not bored—this is my chance to observe Witch.
“Are there a lot of lines?” they ask.
“Ugh,” Allicia sighs. “Too many. I’m more of a singer.”
“Me too!”
Witch is dressed, I notice, in an outfit that feels vaguely like a costume. They’re wearing a printed, collared dress with a plunging wrap neckline—the look is very seventies, it’s giving off-duty flight attendant.
Their mouth is painted red, and it’s round, no Cupid’s bow, with a puckered tension that begs for a cigarette. And their eyes—they’re huge, wide and bright like an actress playing the ingenue, trained unflinchingly on Allicia. But their focus isn’t quite there. It seems to be in their peripheral vision, watching everything, everywhere, all at once, thinking a million racing thoughts that I can’t know.
“What are you femmes talking about?”
Magda, Witch’s girlfriend, arrives from the bar, pulls up a chair beside them. She’s tall and stoic, her jaw like a cinderblock.
“Look at this drink I got!”
Tanaya, Allicia’s partner, pirouettes to the head of the table.
“It’s called a Berry Gay!”
Indeed—it’s pink and frozen, topped with whipped cream and a cherry.
Allicia chuckles, reaching over me to touch T’s fingertips.
“We were talking about Allicia’s show,” Witch says, one hand in Magda’s lap.
“Oh, yeah?”
She takes a big swig of her drink.
“Actually,” Allicia says. “We were talking about guillotines.”
“Guillotines??”
Tanaya slaps the table.
“Guillotines.”
Allicia says it with her whole chest.
“You know,” Magda says, thoughtful. “France actually used the guillotine until 1981.”
“What?!” all of us, in unison.
“Yeah,” she says, smiling now, excited to show us what she knows. “It was considered, like, humane.”
“Humane?”
Allicia’s entire face crumples around the word; she cannot believe this.
“Yeah!”
Magda’s butt leaves her seat ever so slightly, just for a moment, like a tail-wagging dog who’s brought us a really good stick.
“That can’t be true.”
Tanaya looks genuinely concerned.
Later, I looked this up—it is, in fact, true.
“Guillotines are so dramatic,” Witch says, almost disparagingly. “Like, of course the French would be into them.”
I consider that. The height of the device, the gleam of the blade. The bouncing of the severed head into a basket.
“They are,” I say, slow, sensing a thread. “Aren’t they?”
For the first time, Witch and I make eye contact.
“Like, they’re comically tall,” I begin, visualizing it.
“So tall,” Nicole agrees.
Their gaze is now trained on me.
“And their base looks… weirdly like a child’s rocking horse?”
“Oh my god.”
Allicia starts laughing, low and quiet, deep in her belly, her realest kind of laugh.
“Does it??” Tanaya squints. “I need to see this.”
Magda whips out her phone, ready to provide a visual aid. They put their heads together to study the screen.
“Oh, shit,” Magda says.
T’s eyebrows shoot up.
“It does.”
“And the blade,” I continue, on a roll now. “It strikes such an angle. Like a dress cut on the bias.”
“Do you sew?” Witch says, their lips curling into a smile. “Me too.”
But I ignore them, still following the thread, not quite satisfied with my first analogy.
“Or like… like a dancer, beveling her leg.”
Allicia is wheezing into her hands.
“Not the bevel,” she croaks, her whole body shaking with laughter.
Witch, on the other hand, is perfectly composed.
“She’s flashy,” they agree.
“Right?”
Witch leans forward, resting their chin in one hand. Their nails—pointed, acrylic, dotted with a constellation of tiny pearls—climb up the sides of their face like a spider.
“What’s your rising sign?” they ask.
I feel like I’ve passed some kind of test.
“Gemini. Rising and moon.”
“Pa-hah!” they scoff. “And you’re a Pisces sun?”
Magda must have told them that. I nod.
“Oh my god.”
They seem bemused, like this explains everything. But tragically, before Witch can tell me about myself, before I can ask them questions in return, Tanaya interrupts.
“Hey,” they say, reaching one long, ethereal finger towards Allicia.
T’s nails are rectangular, all natural, painted the color of menstrual blood.
“What if I chopped your head off?”
This line is delivered so sensually, so provocatively. It contains not a single note of menace.
Allicia takes T’s single finger in one of her own bejeweled hands, swallowing it whole. They lock eyes.
“With a guillotine?” she asks.
Tanaya considers.
“Nah,” they say, shaking their head. “I’d rather do it myself.”
Allicia dips her chin, giving T a look that is 80-percent eyelashes.
“You better put it on a spike, baby.”