Coming Together: With Pride by Alessia Brio Read Free Book Online Page B

a rumpled white gown, curled into various positions on the ground as horses reared nearby, bewildered and panicky as domesticated animals tend to be when their routine is disrupted.
    Paulette had spent her whole adult life trying to understand the motives of dead people, including Emily Wilding Davison, devout worker for the Women's Social and Political Union, which eventually won English women the right to vote. Emily had been carrying the purple, green, and white flag of the WSPU when she threw herself—or tripped and fell—in front of the King's racehorse at Epsom racetrack in 1913.
    A thought jumped into Paulette's mind: What if Margaret gets killed in the same place? What would the photographers capture if she were attacked by the force of bullets or the rage of a man?
      "Smile, honey." Margaret nudged Paulette, who immediately remembered where she was. She reached up to hold her hat in place for the cameras as she reached down to make sure her blue geometric-print silk dress covered her knees. She felt too fleshy to look dignified on TV, but she thought it better to show cleavage than a flash of bulging knees, given the choice. Paulette had chosen her ensemble to compliment the ivory raw-silk pantsuit that skimmed Margaret's elegantly tall, slim body and her matching three-cornered hat.
    Paulette thought Margaret's look was too suggestive of the reign of mad King George and the rebellious American colonies, but all the fashion magazines were touting three-cornered hats as the latest in retro-chic, and Margaret did not want to seem out of the loop.
    Paulette hoped that her own look wouldn't attract sarcasm from the British tabloid press. Margaret loved to see Paulette's curves spilling out of her black satin merry widow or lacy red set of bra, thong and garter belt, and Paulette loved to wear the slutty lingerie that Margaret liked. Who else, thought Paulette , would grin at me like that, instead of laughing?
    Paulette believed that she had to keep all her sheer, shiny, or lacy underthings well covered-up in public. There were no role-models for her to follow as first lesbian Consort, so she made up her own style, intended to fend off ridicule. She wondered whether any self-respecting member of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party could play that role well.
    Margaret smiled blandly at Prime Minister Reginald Peek, leader of the British Conservative Party, the female friend who usually appeared with him in public, King Charles and Queen Camilla. Margaret almost ignored the stiff man in a suit who gripped her hand to help her rise out of the limousine. Paulette was trying to emerge as gracefully as Venus from the waves when the whirr of a helicopter distracted the audience.
      Shouts rose as eggs fell like messy little bombs from the helicopter, followed by dozens of flyers which instantly dampened in the humid air. "Wildings!" yelled several onlookers, sounding more impressed than alarmed. Paulette was grateful that no one in a uniform opened fire.
    Margaret snatched a whirling flyer while dropping a brief curtsy to the King and Queen. She had spent her youth playing basketball, and it showed. "Men have rights too," she read aloud then smiled into the nearest television camera.
    "Of course!" laughed Margaret. "The government of Canada supports the rights of all people. We follow the tradition of British Common Law." She implied that egg slime on her clothes was a small price to pay for universal rights.
    Clever all around , thought Paulette. No one here could take offense at that little speech. But the Wildings want to be known as the voice of martyred men, while reminding the public that they can strike anyone, anywhere, at any time . She knew that their choice of Emily Davison's middle name was not a coincidence.
    Paulette was familiar with their philosophy. It was no different from that of the Free Men who were wildly popular on university campuses in Canada and the U.S. "Why can't men be men?" male