Suzie’s House 314 : The Ego of a Dominatrix

Something happened to Emma as soon as she put on the mask. It was as if the lacy black thing had a spirit of it’s own. It flooded into Emma and took control. Suddenly she wasn’t nervous anymore. She felt daring, masterful, and… mean?

Dominatrix. She felt like a dominatrix.

“Time.” A teacher leaned out of the gym and called them to the stage for the talent show.

Full of the spirit of the mask, Emma strutted right past Bruce and Tracy. She was the first into the room and up on the little plywood stage. She boldly took the stage while the rest of the band got their instruments out.

Uh-oh. This was bad. She hadn’t thought at all about what she would do once she got to the microphone except to sing. She forgot that the act before them did tap dance. So now everything from two sets of drums to the amplifiers had to be set up.

It was all right there, behind the stage, but what good did that do when she was already holding the microphone.

“Stall for us,” Tracy said as she walked past to her bass guitar case.

“What do I say?” Emma whispered at her while holding the microphone against her stomach.

“Announce us.” Gene didn’t bother to whisper or anything. He walked past like the fact they were on stage didn’t mean a thing. How could he be so cool?

And it wasn’t like everyone here already knew who those two were. But maybe they didn’t know what name they’d given the band or anything.

The teacher came up like she was going to take the microphone. No way. After all Emma had been through to get here, no way she was going to give up the microphone. So she put it to her mouth and made the announcement. She could do it any old way she wanted because no one knew who she was behind the mask, right?

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Please allow me to introduce the band, Malaprop.”

Some people actually clapped, and the teacher went away. So cool! She’d done it kind of wrong because it was afternoon, not evening, but no one seemed to notice. And she hadn’t stuttered at all.

Tracy strummed her bass, and a loud cord rang through the room. She looked up and Emma and made a rolling gesture with her hand.

“On the bass, Tracy.” Emma made a sweeping gesture toward Tracy, and nobody laughed at her. In fact, they clapped. Of course, they were just clapping for Tracy, but so what? “And over there on the guitar, you all know Gene.” More applause. “On synthesizer, Bruce.”

Bruce finished plugging the synthesizer in. He played a cord, smiled, and waved like he’d been doing it for years. Apparently he had some kind of fan club Emma had never heard anything about before, because there were clumps of people in the audience that suddenly started shouting and screaming. But most of the students just kind of applauded like they thought they were supposed to.

“On the drums… oh wait.”

One of the drums fell with a loud thump. Tracy put her bass down and ran to help Kate. It was her kit giving them the most trouble. Justin had his congas set up and was just messing with a microphone. He stopped and went to help. Bruce and Gene went over too. Emma thought about it, but it didn’t seem right to her, so she stayed where she was.

“On the conga drums will the Justin, and if we can get the other drums set up without too much damage, it will be Kate on the kit drums.”

Some people laughed, but that was ok, because Emma kind of wanted them too.

Then she didn’t know what to do, because they obviously weren’t ready and she was supposed to stall, but she was done with her announcement. A lot of the kids were talking. A couple of girls on the front row leaned together and whispered and giggled behind their hands.

“And this is the final performance in the O’Keeffe Middle School Talent Show. I hope you enjoy.”

Nobody stopped talking. No, it was worse. More people were talking. Like it didn’t matter what Emma said or did.

They should be listening to her, shouldn’t they? They should all be looking at her.

“I bet they don’t really know how to play those instruments anyway,” a girl near the stage said to her friend.

“Hey!” Emma shouted, not bothering to use the microphone. “We are a legitimate band.”

She’d already stepped off the little stage without thinking and walked halfway to the first row in the audience when she realized what she was doing. Mostly because she hit the end of the microphone cord and got pulled back like a dog on a leash.

Some of the people in the first few rows laughed. Probably the people in the back couldn’t see or they might have laughed, too. Emma’s mask slipped. She was starting to feel panicky. Maybe this whole thing was a real bad idea after all.

Bruce came running out, like he’d actually been watching. How embarrassing. He ran up and took the school’s microphone from her.

“Try this.” He handed her a microphone. This one didn’t have a cord attached to it. Then he straightened her mask, gave her shoulder a pat, and ran back to help with the drums.

And there she was like a talk show host with a microphone she could take into the audience and nothing better to do. Better yet, she knew a lot about the kids out there, but none of them knew her.

Just like that the dominatrix was back. With a grin and a strut, Emma went forth to do some damage.

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