Hold it in. Perfect your act.
I pick my head up, facing his coarse gray mustache through watery ripples and strings of my hair. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it,” I murmur.
“WHAT?!” His hot breath pelts my face.
“I’ll fix it,” I speak up, and start twirling my fingers around the silk on either side of me.
Realizing my hands are the reason for his explosion, my palms slip down the smooth fabric to hide them, and I break eye contact, looking over at the black plastic resting next to my water bottle on the wooden stool.
Spinning on his heel, his coat fans to the side as he dramatically shoves his hand in his pocket for another cigarette. “Expected better from you,” he clips under his breath, lunging off my stage and stalking down the center aisle in his heavy boots.
I’m trying.
Waiting for the red velvet curtains to close me in my tent, I watch his back disappear in the white sun from the corner of my eye.
Then, I’m alone again.
At this point, I’d be able to perform my routine in my sleep. But I’m held to a high standard and cannot mess up, so I haven’t had much time to manage the upkeep of my appearance.
Bringing my hands out in front of me, I sweep over my bitten nails, instinctively raising a bent middle finger to my mouth to chew off the chipped black polish.
While peeling a chunk up with my teeth, I move out from my silks and grab my water and mask from the stool, vacantly heading down the steps to the small dressing room in the back. My feet ache with every step,until I’m closing the curtains and taking a seat on the leather stool in front of my vanity.
Setting my water and mask near the bulbous, amber lights, the relief of not having to carry my weight molds a moan deep in my chest.
I don’t know my name.
My actual name.
It doesn’t matter how long I stare at my reflection and root around in my blurry memories—I cannot remember who I really am.
The feeling of sinking through the earth, using all my strength to claw through soil up toward the light, and never progressing no matter how hard I try—overwhelms me sometimes.
“Sometimes,” I mock myself quietly.
A sardonic laugh huffs through my nose, opening the top drawer and plucking out my bottle of black nail polish. Cracking it open, the velvet curtains on my left part, letting in a cloud that smells like blue raspberry.
“Are you talking to yourself again?” Ora asks, her words thick with smoke.
“No…”
She travels through the center of what we call Ora’s Aura. She’s never seen without the disposable vapes the guys snag for her. She’s always puffing out clouds of blue raspberry or menthol watermelon.
I’ve personally witnessed her taking a hit while drawing her forefinger along some man’s palm and telling him he was going to die in thirteen days.
Hopping onto my vanity next to the open polish, she leans back on an arm, her vape locked in a vise-grip, and she rakes her red nails through her bangs that fall right along her monolids. “I’m gonna beat his ass,” she sighs, studying the handprint left on my face.
“What good would that do?” I question, wiping the excess polish off on the inside of the bottle neck, and quickly get to work on painting over the patches of the previous layer.
She sighs again, her vape crackling with the heavy drag filling her lungs. “You’re right. I need to kill him.”
I laugh, bending over my splayed hand and avoiding my skin with the brush. “Well, let me know when you do. I want his right hand so I can run it through my sweaty butt crack.”
“With or without the rings?”
“Definitely with. Why?” I look up at her, hovering the polish over the next nail waiting to be smothered. “Do you already have plans for them?”
Her chin tenses with a grin, but the aggravation rooting in her brown eyes contradicts the amusement she’s pretending to have. “He doesn’t hit anyone else, Bun. Those are all yours.”
