Xuân’s statuesque speechlessness would have said enough. Her watering eyes tipped the scales entirely. I’d been lectured about the power of names for some time now without even considering the violence of carelessly wielding mispronounced monikers.
“Well,” she said, voice shaking a bit. “English combines vowels to make one new sound, but in Vietnamese, we pronounce both back-to-back. Um, I guess the best way to explain it is that the vowels have a short, fast sound.Oo, thenah, in quick succession. When you put them together, makes theuhsound. Swun.”
“Swun,” he repeated with a smile. “It’s an honor to meet you, and to dress you.Lookat this precious tiny waist. Oh, I want to squeeze you. Now, are we wanting to let the hair do the talking and keep the outfit in neutrals, or to go in loud and proud?”
She lifted her shoulders, quietly saying, “You’re the artist.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” He beamed.
Coffee, pins, needles, chai lattes with oat milk, honked horns just outside, vegan spring rolls, beachy EDM humming pleasurably through the speakers, measuring tapes, and fabric filled the morning. We switched to mimosas, white wine, and champagne as afternoon stretched on. Nia and Kirby looked fantastic, as if business suits and capes had mated to have fashion-forward, tasteful babies. When Adrien extended his hand for me, I looked at it and frowned. I’d had just enough champagne to speak my mind.
“Don’t put me in white,” I said, voice less confident than I’d hoped.
He relaxed into a hip and crossed his arms, propping an elbow on one hand as he held his chin. He examined me for a moment before clapping his hands for his assistant. They conferred briefly about the hair and makeup team before he returned his attention to me.
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked me.
My brows dug deep, furrowing trenches as they met in the middle. “To…impress Alessia.”
He relaxed from his pose, taking a few steps toward me as he demanded my hand once more. Bubbles continued to trace perfect lines from the base of my pale, dry liquid, popping at the surface of the glass in my hand as I took my place in front of the mirrors. He looked over my shoulder, staring me in the face as he said, “And from what do you know of Alessia Clovis, do you think she’ll give afuckif you’re some Bride of Hell? Would she want you to dress for a man?”
The smile was hesitant at first, barely tugging at one corner of my lips.
“Mmm, no, baby girl. We are not dressing you to define your relationship to some man. It’s giving blood. It’s giving power. It’s giving agency. We, my love, are putting you in red.”
***
I would have been radicalized to Alessia’s cause no matter what after walking through the throng of her protestors as we worked our way to the doors. The crowd was sticky, confusing, and smelled strongly of body odor. Azrames carved a way forward, parting the men like the Red Sea as he ran a finger along their spines and sent them tumbling out of our path. I hadn’t realized men could rally in such groups for such a disappointing cause. A handful of picket signs said things like “Men are Victims Too,” “Feminism is Misandry,” and “Stop the Hate!”
Meanwhile, they kept up a smattering of disorganized chanting, shouting, “Not all men,” slightly off-tempo.
The protestors were radicalizing me, all right, though not in the way they’d intended.
The moment we crested the threshold into her building was like undergoing a time change. I felt as though I’d boarded an international flight, departing from the land of male activists and landing amidst gorgeous, powerful Amazons. Strong, wealthy, florally perfumed women milled about in black dresses, in pantsuits, in structured outfits, in trench coats, in whatever they damn well pleased, eyes forward, chins raised high, not an apology in sight.
It was miraculous.
I raised my chin to match, casting my eyes down for no one, marveling at what little I knew of our guest speaker. I knew of her origin lore, of course. I’d been one of millions of American students who’d endured a fourth-grade teacher’s attempts to educate us on Greek mythology when we’d firstheard of the Gorgon woman who turned men to stone.
Perseus’s role was irrelevant. This was not his rally.
As for her modern personification, I knew of Alessia only peripherally before this morning.
I’d watched clips of her speeches, snatches of her best moments as she addressed Congress and international crowds, reposts of her tweets, and I even remembered filming a video to a songified version of one of her more famous feminist clapbacks. The seven of us had done a deep dive on the internet, supplemented with preternatural knowledge, all piled onto the king bed in the suite in the hours before our makeovers. We’d gone to Adrien Vail’s studio armed with as much as we might have hoped to know. We’d crossed the picket line of protesters—little more than raving lunatics who decorated the exteriors of abortion clinics and pride rallies—with the grace and gravitas of dignitaries who were meant to be there, rather than five nobodies who’d hacked into the system with the help of a demon who was particularly adept with technology.
We’d barely made it through the atrium, en route to our seats, when we were stopped.
It wasn’t me, but Azrames, who was grabbed.
Silas slipped his hand on my back as if ready to push me out of the line of fire and sprint me from the vicinity like the Secret Service amidst an assassination. The two of us, human and angel, remained frozen as we carefully watched the events play out.
I was horrified at the flashback of seeing a woman I shouldn’t have—spotting Anath in the corner of a fertility clinic in Bellfield. There were horrid pros and cons to peeking behind the veil. This exchange was not meant for me.
I rattled through what I could do, how I could help, how I could save my friend.
The woman who’d snared his attention was not in the congressional attire ready to sweep Milan’s runway, but a drapey, champagne silk dress that did nothing to conceal herlack of brassiere. Her long black hair had been slicked back and left down. She was more shapely than a Renaissance painting, from her pillowy breasts to her supple ass, her curvaceous hips to the soft apples of her cheeks.
She was sex personified.
