The cell was cold, reeking of piss and desperation. How the hell did I end up in jail? Me, a promising future beauty queen! It was all because of Ellen Stanton, or The Crooked Queen, as they dubbed her in the news. I was laying down on my bunk bed mentally cursing Ellen when I heard a buzzing sound. The door opened, and there it was, the most intimidating person I’ve ever seen. It looked like the result of a cross breed experiment between a mammoth and a human. The shit-shaped human looked at me, grinning creepily:

-Bow down to your new cellmate, bitch! What are you in for, sugar tits, stealing a lipstick at Sephora?

I was so afraid of her that even my voice was shaking:

-Well…Harassment…Impersonation…Blackmail…And…murder.

-MURDER! Tell me EVERYTHING or I’m going to hold your head down in the toilet until you drown, threatened the mammoth.

I was frightened, but I had no other choice than to tell her how I became a killer. I wanted to die, but I didn't want it to happen with my head in a prison toilet. Here's the full story.

The beginning of the end

I was born in the smallest town of the United States, Monowi, Nebraska, and I spent most of my life hanging outside in the woods. I learned to shoot a gun and skin a rabbit at five years old, and I perfected the art for the most part of my life. At eighteen, I became the youngest and highest-paid taxidermist in the state of Nebraska. Due to an unfortunate series of events, I moved to Florida a year ago and that’s when I met Ellen Stanton, beauty pageant agent extraordinaire and glamorous hardcore criminal. 

I met Ellen when she caught me stealing tips from the jar at a food truck. As I was walking away from the crime scene, this strikingly beautiful woman stopped me in my tracks. I was expecting her to call the cops, but something entirely different happened. She made me an offer that I couldn't refuse: She wanted to make me a beauty pageant winner. She promised me that she was going to make me rich and famous. At first glance, Ellen was all I ever wanted to be: She was an ex-Miss America, she was blonde, tanned, tall and thin, she was poised, and she seemed wickedly smart. And she was rotten to the core in an infectious way, which I later learned to my own demise.

The birth of a winner

At first, beauty pageant training was a fun experience. Ellen made me follow a strict workout and diet. She paid me an amazing makeover. She was harsh and pushy, but she told me it was how winners were made. Soon enough, I became obsessed with winning the pageant. I was working out three hours a day, counted calories even in chewing gum, and I watched Ellen’s old pageant shows at least a million times. It was about more than just winning a prize money. It was about being number one. Being better than everyone else. And most of all, I wanted to make Ellen proud. She was more than just a mentor and a role model, she was the mom I always wanted. A fashionable, glamorous, career-driven dream mom.

Shady ideas

After about a month of beauty pageant training, things started to get a little weird. Ellen made me read the book 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green, and it was sketchy as hell. Here are some examples, just to give you an idea:

Rule #1: Court Attention at All Costs: Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Make yourself and your actions conspicuous and memorable to attract attention and gain power.

Rule #2: Assume Formlessness: By taking on different forms and adapting to circumstances, you can avoid being predictable and easily countered. Flexibility and unpredictability can enhance your power and influence.

Rule #3: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit: Use others' efforts to advance your own position, while ensuring you receive recognition and credit for their work.

Without even me realizing, Ellen implemented the idea in my head that it was ok to cheat a little in order to win. She convinced me that every other girl was cheating, which gave me the right to do so myself. Or so I thought.

The first beauty pageant

A couple of months later, I was finally ready for my first beauty pageant. As I walked into the dressing room, I catched a glimpse of the other girls. They were all gorgeous, but we most likely all looked the same. Each one of us was fitting into the American ideal beauty standard, but being pretty was not enough to win. The winner had to be someone special, someone unique that stood out from the rest. And how does one achieve that? By performing a talent act. Mine was being ‘The Woodland Girl’. It was Ellen’s idea and it was genius. It was unique, because no other girl dared to assume their boyish side so far. Just like King Midas, everything that Ellen touched was turning to gold.

I was standing behind the curtain, waiting for my big moment. I was next. My outfit was a deconstructed overall that turned into a massive poofy skirt topped with a bedazzled cowboy hat. I finally heard my name. It was my time to shine. In a dramatic gesture, I pulled the curtains open and made a big entrance. Facing me were four judges in a half-empty school gymnasium, and being under the spotlight gave me a totally new feeling. I walked the stage from the left to the right, one hand on the hip, twirling and taking a pose. I was a natural. Then it was time for the talent portion.

I went backstage to get my accessories: a wooden target and a long rifle. Once the target was set on the stage, I looked at the judges and gave them a wink. I pulled up my gun, aligned it with the target, and fired a perfect shot. The judges applauded, and I put my hand on my heart while nodding my head humbly. But it was not over yet! I went backstage again and came back with the biggest, most realistic stuffed fox that could ever be. I started to recite the monologue Ellen carefully crafted for me:

-I present you Foxy, the first animal I hunted, skinned, and stuffed. Foxy was the building block that made me who I am today, which is the youngest and highest-paid taxidermist in Nebraska. I love my family, I love Jesus, and I’m just a simple girl with good Christian values that can also survive in the wild. I am the ultimate American package!

I bowed, and the few members in the audience started clapping. The other girls’ talents were really boring. Signing, playing guitar, acting, there was nothing new or original about them. Excepted one: Claire St-Clair, another country girl with an aptitude for shooting things as well. The judges finally deliberated, and it was almost a tie between Claire St-Clair and me.

I ended up winning by only one point.

Nothing is too dirty for pageantry

I had just won my first beauty pageant and I was elated like never before. I had won a hundred dollars and a good dose of self-esteem. For the first time in my loser life, I was a winner. I was the best. I was number one. Ellen was so proud of me that she took me out on a girl’s day, all expenses paid. Followed by dinner at Nobu, an exclusive fancy restaurant for celebrities and rich people.

Ellen, arms crossed on the table, was sporting a mysterious look on her face. I asked her what she was thinking about, and she gave it to me straight:

-You passed the test today. I introduced many girls to the pageant world, but only a few of them made it. You have that star quality. Being a beauty queen requires strategy, and that's what I'm here for.

-I thought the strategy was to be pretty and charming? I asked naively.

-Yes, sure, but listen to me. I’m the best beauty pageant agent in the whole country. You know why? Because I play by my own rules. And I always win. And to win, we need to undermine Claire St-Clair until she breaks.

Operation sabotaging Claire St-Clair

Ellen was an evil genius. She dedicated all her time to learn everything there was to know about the enemy. She did a better job than a private investigator. Soon enough, we knew Claire St-Clair as if she’d always been part of our lives. She was pretty boring, and she was addicted to sugarfree Red Bull. Concretely, Ellen’s ultimate goal was to worry Claire enough so that she would lack some sleep. She would end up constantly tired, unfocused, and bonus points for dark circles and bags under her eyes. 

There was nothing we didn’t try in order to make Claire descend into madness. First, we set up a fake dating profile, luring Claire into a fake mess of a relationship. When she catched real feelings, we broke up with her, hoping that it would be enough to make her quit pageantry. She didn’t. Instead, she lost weight from the breakup and ended up looking even better. We even threatened to leak her nudes, but she beat us up at our own twisted game. She was indeed very proud of her body, and leaking her nudes would in fact only be doing her a favor. We also stalked her, harassed her and threatened her, but it only amused her. She won us over once again by explaining that she was actually flattered by all the negative attention. Ironically, it was boosting her self-esteem. At some point, Ellen started to lose all common sense. She suggested that we threw a Molotov cocktail through Claire's bedroom window at night to scare her, Italian mafia style. We ended up throwing a Molotov cocktail through her window for real, but nothing happened. No fire, no screams, no nothing. Ellen was boiling from the deepest part of her corrupted soul, and she was about to unleash a side of her she didn’t knew existed. And so was I.

The deadliest plan

My second pageant was coming soon, but in light of all our failed shenanigans, Claire St-Claire still remained unbreakable. Ellen heard that she even came up with a new talent, gutting fishes. I’ve never wanted something that bad than being a beauty queen, and I was starting to have disturbing thoughts. Ellen and I were constantly joking about killing Claire St-Clair, but somewhere deep down, it felt like we weren’t joking at all. The morning of the pageant, Ellen came to my apartment, crazy eyed. She ordered me to listen to her very carefully, and said out loud a sentence that still sends chills down my spine: 

-Killing one person is not a high price to pay to become a beauty queen.

I looked at her, puzzled at first, but quickly realizing that it made a lot of sense also. I have to admit, I had more and more frequent fantasies of making Claire St-Clair disappear from the face of the Earth permanently. With her gone, I would surely be crowned Miss America. I was totally on board.

Ellen already thought of a simple yet effective murdering plan. The easiest way was to make the murder look like an accidental overdose. On top of eliminating her, we would make her pass for a junkie and tarnish her reputation forever, which was a very satisfying collateral damage. Ellen was a very mysterious person with questionable acquaintances, and just one phone call later, we were all set with our deadly weapon: liquid heroin.

The last pageant

On the day of the pageant, I was so excited that I was borderline psychotic. I was visualizing myself winning in front of a large audience, twirling under the camera flashes as confetti would rain down on me while I was being crowned. I was so close to my dream, and I was more than willing to kill another girl if that would make me rich and famous in the end. I had lost all humanity and my morals were soiled, but I was dead set to reach the American dream, no matter what.

Backstage, it was a frenzy. Girls were running everywhere, adjusting their clothes, retouching their hair and makeup, and Claire St-Clair was sipping a diet Red Bull, as usual. Ellen was observing Claire with the sharpness of a hungry hawk until she gave me the signal to bounce on her drink to poison it. In a matter of seconds, it was done. Her diet Red Bull was now deadly, and she would drop dead soon. Ideally on stage for a more dramatic effect. Claire finally guzzled the whole drink down. A few minutes later, she fell on the floor and was declared officially dead. Soon enough, there were a bunch of policemen interviewing the contestants and investigating the crime scene.

People were being cleared one by one until there was just Ellen and me. There was something sinister in the atmosphere. The policemen told us that Claire’s little sister had been videotaping her behind the scenes, and I was appearing in the background picking up Claire’s Red Bull, putting something in it, and putting it back. I had been caught red-handed poisoning my nemesis, no possible doubt about it. There was a thorough investigation for the next few days, and the police discovered multiple incriminating emails between Ellen and me plotting the murder of pageant beauty Claire St-Clair. They dug even more crazy dirt on Ellen. She got sentenced to twenty-five years in jail, while I got a lifetime because I was the one who poisoned her with my bare hands. I had to accept my new reality: I was a murderer, and I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail.

Who’s the next queen

The mammoth-like woman that is now my cellmate had her mouth open in utter disbelief. I didn’t know what else to say. After a moment that seemed an eternity, she started talking, her mind completely blown:

-I thought I was a crazy bitch, but you’re way worse! I’m a criminal myself, but you’re the real danger, bitch!

I may have lost my physical freedom for the rest of my life, but my desire to be number one was still very much alive. I may have failed to achieve my dream of being a beauty queen, but there was a new way of being number one: Becoming the prison's new kingpin. And I wasn’t afraid to take down lives in the process. After all, I will be here until the day I die.