HUNTER-REDD, Beatrix Leila

[beatrix leila hunter-redd]

BEATRIX LEILA HUNTER-REDD

FULL NAME: Beatrix Leila Hunter-Redd.
NICKNAMES: BB, Baby Bea.
AGE: Thirty
GENDER: Female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Youth Worker.

HAIR: Naturally she’s a light brunette, but she’s currently wearing it mid-length straight and dyed blonde, usually just worn down. Even when she styles her hair for a night out it’s still down and just a little bit more effort than normal.
EYES: Hazel.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: None.
TATTOOS: None.
PIERCINGS: Just her ears the once.
PLAY-BY: Emily Wickersham!

LIKES: Tennis, drag shows, Elvira, travel books, 90s grunge, avocados, breakfast, cycling, working with youth, activism, equality, vodka, summer, comedy clubs, Pilates, yoga, make-up, chocolate fudge cake, spicy food, fruit infused water, dogs (but she’s allergic), party tricks, hula hoops, confidence, surfing, her family, insult humour, chocolate lattes.
DISLIKES: Ignorance, bullies, inequality, feeling lethargic, sleeping with socks on, gold jewellery, eating in bed, uncomfortable clothes, clowns, paisley pattern, falling asleep in her make-up, sitting still for too long, driving long distance, misplacing her glasses, red wine, closed minded people, bad take out, having nothing to do, trying to speak another language.
FEARS: Clowns, car crashes, giving up.
SECRETS: She knows the words to far more musicals than she cares to admit to.
PERSONALITY: Beatrix is as feisty and as opinionated as they come. She’s strong and willing to fight for those who need her on their side. She’s kind, and patient with the people who need her to be, but at the same time she’ll push and shove to get what she wants, and isn’t the type who can be trampled on. She’s athletic, and a little more rough than her dads dreamt their little girl would be, but she’s still got a penchant for make-up from them. BB is always honest – sometimes brutally so – and subtly is not a quality she embraces well. However, it takes a while for her to personally open up to people and trust them with her own secrets and stories, thanks to experiences in her past. She is, though, a trustworthy friend who will take a secret to the grave if she must. While she might not be a stranger to trouble, BB doesn’t set out looking for it, but she also doesn’t shy away from it either. BB isn’t hotheaded, but she’s quick to engage in a fight if she feels like she needs to stand up for herself or those around her. Earn her loyalty and you tend to have it for life. It takes a great deal to lose it and so far only one person has. She’s big on family, and her dads mean the world to her. Her unconventional upbringing is something she will fight to defend and encourage others to have the right to have, also. She’s passionate and driven, but her one regret might be that she’s given herself little time for romance. There’s never been anyone special in her life, and while friends have gone on to find diamonds and true love, BB is the one working late and ordering dinner for one. Love is the one area of her life where she doesn’t know what she wants other than to say she wants the kind of love that her dads have; cuddles one minute and insulting each other the next.

MOTHER: Kiara Mary Redd, 55.
FATHER: Bradley Lincoln Redd, 57
Terry Augustus Hunter, 59.
SIBLINGS: None.
OTHERS: N/A.
PETS: Cocoa, Burmese kitten of six months.
HOMETOWN: San Francisco, California.
HISTORY: Bradley and Terry were in a relationship during a time when many people still frowned upon such a thing. It didn’t matter that they had been together since they were teenagers, or that they both had impressive jobs in science and engineering, many people still shunned their lifestyle and their love for each other. Another hobby they shared was their love for drag, and once a week they put on a show together in a downtown club, donning dresses and wigs and so much make-up that Bradley’s sister was convinced it must take them all night to remove it. She loved the pair of them to bits, and lived with them for a while after the death of her and Bradley’s parents. She supported them completely and went to every show they did, even fixed up their costumes when they broke or straps snapped since she ran a dress shop in the city. In a time when it was still rough to be gay, they were forward thinkers, and that was how over a few bottles of wine Kiara agreed to carry a child for them.

It was all done rather cleverly, and they were proud of it. Kiara was biological mother, and they found a clinic and a doctor to help with the rest. Terry was the father, officially, but Bradley said with Kiara as the mom then the baby would already have enough of him to make him happy. It was all phrased in the early stages as her baby, and after Beatrix was born, she was merely staying with uncles whenever anyone in authority raised concerns. Kiara was more than happy to come and play appalled mother when it was required of her, and her name was on the birth certificate anyway, so people soon had to hold their tongues and keep their nasty whispers out of earshot of the happy family.

For Beatrix she didn’t see anything wrong with having two dads. They were great, and everything was amazing. She loved that her dads liked to play dress up with her (she was too young to really understand drag back then, but she loved it all), but she hated it and didn’t understand when they had to keep secrets or play pretend around certain people or when they visited the offices. She was so innocent and when that nativity was eventually broken when Terry was attacked after a drag show, BB changed – some might argue for the better.

She had been ten at the time, and times had changed a lot in the ten years since she was born. A lot was accepted now that hadn’t once been, but Terry and Bradley still hid a lot from the great wide world – they were a couple, but often they weren’t openly BB’s dads, for example. Knowing Terry had been hurt because he loved a man upset BB, and they decided she was old enough to know the truth, and their story. Kiara sat in, too, just for support and to lend her voice to the tale. By the end, BB was angry and vocal about how unfair it was. If she loved her dads then why couldn’t everyone else? It was the start of her becoming the woman she ended up being.

She stood up for the underdog, and quickly turned away from anyone who mocked or bullied the different. She was strong enough to be confident in herself, and to be proud of where she came from. She knew she couldn’t scream it from the rooftops that her dads were her dads and that they were also proud drag queens to boot, but she was still happy to stand with them. She knew people suspected it, but she openly dared them to challenge her about it, or speak up. She wouldn’t be bullied or let them bully her family. Teenage angst BB was Terry’s favourite because she embraced the world for all its ugliness and was emboldened by it. He told her as much at every chance he had, whereas Bradley feared something might happen to her. It never did because BB was nothing people could hate from a cultural point of view. She dated a boy who ran cross country and biked with her on the weekends for most of high school, and she made decent enough grades to have a good pick of colleges. She stayed in California for school, majoring in social care and becoming a vocal activist. Her run ins with the police over equality and during a few other protests didn’t quite land her a rap sheet, but she became a familiar face for campus police and a few local officers. Mostly BB was outspoken and loud, and the type to interfere when something went on that she didn’t agree with.

Her eventual move to New York didn’t change that. She went with a group of college friends; one a drag queen who was ‘spreading her angel wings’ according to Bradley, and an artist who fell in love twice a week and was heartbroken by the weekend. Their apartment was a horror show, but it was their first real place and they loved it. BB completed her masters in New York in Youth Care, and then took on a job at a local Youth Centre in a not so nice neighbourhood. She worked mostly with troubled teens, mentoring them and guiding them away from trouble. A few were familiar stories she knew from growing up, because their stories happened everywhere. She fought for them, stood up for them when cops came knocking, and BB believed in them enough to put herself on the line for them. She’s open with those kids usually more than she is with new friends, and there’s been many a night when she’s crashed at the centre because they’ve needed her support more than she’s needed her own bed.

She’s thirty now, her dads visit often, now proud to call her daughter in front of the world because – in their own words – they’re too old to give a damn. Plus, they always add that this is a different world now. Although she’s moved out of the shared apartment into a place of her own, BB still sees and speaks to her college buddies almost daily, and the weekends are for drinking and bitching until the sun comes up.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: UNDER MY SKIN.
SAMPLE:

I do not think so, good sir!

[kim]