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Deception and duct tape

The title is Miss Mardi Gras, but take a closer look at those contestants in Dunedin. For them, it's not easy being beautiful.

DUNEDIN - Hand me my wig, please.

Where's the duct tape?

A few minutes before show time on a recent Sunday, and tensions backstage are running high.

Deception, dressing at the far end of the room, listens to the banter of other contestants. She places a feathered headpiece over her blond hair, then pulls on the matching gloves. The rest of her costume includes, of course, duct tape. Duct tape, universally used for repairing torn suitcases, leaking pipes and the like, is also a handy tool for hiding certain body parts.

She studies her showgirl reflection in the mirror one last time. She's ready. And so is the audience of 400 on the patio of Kelly's restaurant in Dunedin. It's the annual Miss Mardi Gras Pageant. But when a contestant goes by the name Deception, better pay close attention. Drag queen shows are one of the world's oldest gags, but in Dunedin, once known as a place to hear good bagpiping, it still feels novel once a year.

Most of the audience knows. But not everyone. For Deception, life couldn't be better.

By day most people know Deception as Brett Renner, 24, of Jacksonville. By night she performs all over the state in knock-down, gouge-their-eyes-out drag queen competitions. Tonight, she is going, er, nose-to-nose with several other competitors. They all are beautiful and talented, too. But who is fairest in the land of Dunedin is the question.

Okay. The Miss Mardi Gras Pageant is not the Super Bowl. But it's drama, football season is over and arm wrestling is so boring. Out on the sidewalk, two nurses pay the $7 admission and amble in. Then they have to slither to get through the pack, a pack that includes city commissioners.

Brandi Purdy and Kristi Ramos, the nurses, remark at how pretty the women onstage are. They are hardly surprised to see men in the audience present the contestants with dollar bills to stuff into their bras. Nurses get to see a lot of everything in their chosen careers, but even they are fooled. Later they will admit they didn't know that Deception and her sisters onstage play games with gender.

Deception says she is comfortable being a girl. She says she has always looked like a girl. She is 5 feet 6 and weighs 115 pounds. She has had her breasts augmented and let surgeons work on other parts of her body, too. Not all the parts. Does duct tape come in handy? None of your business.

Deception knows how to please a crowd. She chooses a costume to go along not only with the Mardi Gras theme, but also with spring training. Soon the Blue Jays will be swinging for the fences here.

An R-rated version of a Blue Jay, she is wearing a short, feathered miniskirt and diamond-studded bikini top that show off her sexy stomach and belly ring.

When the emcee, a transgendered person named Natasha Richardson, calls her name, Deception emerges from behind a rainbow curtain.

"I don't know a thing about baseball," she coos in a female voice. "I do know how to spot a winning team, and that team is the Blue Jays."

Sure, it's banal. But so is the chatter at the Miss America pageant. Good sports in the audience clap wildly anyway. Pivoting, Deception sashays around the stage and disappears behind the curtain.

She has only minutes to change for the second part of the competition, the "talent" part. She slips on her leather pants, her black halter top, her blond wig. Her long hair is now braided into thick sections. She pulls on her knee-high black boots. Deception has become Christina Aguilera.

She says she isn't nervous. Why should she be? She has been dressing up as a woman for years. She performs all over the country as a woman. "Man" is just a word to her. She considers herself a woman.

As Deception prances onto the stage, Aguilera's song Dirty is cued. When it comes to doing a lip-synch, Deception is an old pro.

There are no bagpipes piping, but the music is plenty loud anyway.

The last category in Dunedin's Miss Mardi Gras Pageant measures how a contestant looks in an evening gown. Deception knows she's up against stiff competition. Who will it come from? The Tina Turner look-alike? Or the tall, blond dancer, Gay-lo - not J-Lo - who earlier was complaining about being uncomfortable? Underneath Gay-Lo's pretty dress are four pairs of pantyhose and three pairs of panties. Don't ask.

Deception has chosen a long, black, simple yet elegant evening gown. The open back reveals smooth, sexy skin. Rhinestones on the straps add an air of sophistication to the curtainlike fabric. Of course, she is wearing Frederico Leone shoes.

The audience catcalls as she sashays to the front of the stage. The judges make notes. Deception doesn't smirk, but she knows she has aced the final category. When the judges are ready, the girls return to the stage, tense but smiling, just like they do in the Miss America pageant. Ah, Deception! When the judge calls her name, she beams like a schoolgirl, or as close to beaming like a schoolgirl as she can. Cradling red roses, she bows deeply as last year's Miss Mardi Gras crowns the new queen.

The audience explodes into applause - even those nurses who were fooled.

On her drive home, she'll have the $600 cash prize securely in her purse.

What will she spend her booty on? A new outfit? Another roll of duct tape?

"I'm using the money to help pay my way into a bigger competition," she says. "I'm doing the Miss Continental pageant in Chicago - a really prestigious, national pageant."

The Downtown Merchants Association and the city of Dunedin will host the 13th annual Mardi Gras downtown from 5:30 to 11:30 p.m. today. The parade begins at 7 p.m. at Douglas Avenue south of Main Street. There will be live music in Pioneer Park and on the east and west ends of Main Street. Admission is free.