Xx: Chapter 10

Xx: Chapter 10

As the day wore on, things brightened significantly. The Sunday shows were all completed, with only minor injuries and minimal property damage, caused mostly when Calamity fell through a second-story awning onto a pretzel cart. A mind-wipe prevented potential lawsuits, but the cart attendant needed to be taken to hospital and the awning needed replacing. Nevertheless, it was considered to be a very successful day of work.

“Well, that was not so difficult, was it?” Evangeline chirped, as they waited for the elevator in the lobby. “You did surprisingly well. Why, I believe that you did not accidentally shoot anyone today!”

Roxanne grumbled a bit, but said nothing; Evangeline made it a point not to listen in on her angry thoughts. She couldn’t have chosen a worse time to suddenly become cheery and talkative—Roxanne’s head had been pounding like a Berlin rave at midnight, and having shattered three planes of plate glass with her face hadn’t much helped.

“Oh, stop sulking,” Evangeline snapped, “I took you to the hospital, did I not? They were kind enough to repair the wounds you sustained to your face without too much protesting. ”
“I had them at—fuck—gunpoint!” She replied, wincing and clutching her cheek, which had been recently decorated by an elegant line of stitches, from ear to chin. This contributed nicely to her collection, which also encompassed yesterday’s stabbed-arm incident. “Plus it’s a public hospital.”

The elevator began its slow ascent upward, serenading the pair with a Frank Sinatra re-re-remix.
“They gave you some painkillers, did they not?”
“Can’t have ‘em in daytime.”
“Why, might they make you drowsy or belligerent? That would certainly make for a big change.”
Given that it was now Sunday afternoon, Evangeline was in a perishingly good mood. There would be no invitations out to fatuous parties full of stupid people, no sudden meetings, no moronic shows, no fans, and best of all, no need for social interaction. She could spend some quality time alone with her Tetris, maybe even get some work on done on the—

The door opened on the sixth floor with a self-satisfied 'ping', and instead of being greeted by beige walls and multi-coloured industrial carpet, they only saw blinding white light. It covered every surface, and left no shadows. The only visible thing in the room was a woman, hovering ominously around the ceiling, with dark skin and large, large eyes.
“Eloise? Eloise? What the hell are you doing here?”
“Eloise, it is only us.” Evangeline shielded her eyes. “We would appreciate it if you would stop that.”
“Oh, sorry,” She replied, alighting to earth. “I just got bored waiting for you, that’s all.”

As soon as she touched the ground, the blinding light disappeared. The florescent bulbs that lined the corridor shone on feebly in comparison—if lightbulbs there had the capacity for jealousy, like the conscious experimental ones down on the fourth floor, then they sure as hell would have been.

“So,” Evangeline began cautiously, “Did you find your course of treatment to be effective?”
“Always business will you, isn’t it?” Eloise laughed, and began floating a few inches off the ground. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t had a craving for anything in at least a few weeks. Well, except for one thing.”
She fluttered her extravagant eyelashes. Roxanne swallowed heavily, but it might have just been the fact that face was still swelling up.

“It is not uncommon for people to replace one addiction with another,” Evangeline continued, striding down the hallway to her own room slash office. “Guard against that. You are far more valuable sober than otherwise, you see.” It was her idea of a compliment, in all honesty.
“I make no guarantees, Miss Lee. We aren’t all as determined as you are. Are we, Roxy?”
“No, I guess we, uh, aren’t.”

She fumbled with her key in irritation for a moment before unlocking the door to her sanctuary, away from the noisy thoughts and noisy people. To be alone was to be comfortable and pleasant. Just before she went inside, Evangeline turned around to relay her last gem of wisdom for the day:
“For goodness’ sake, if you intend to think exclusively in technicolour lesbian pornography about present company, can you please do it when I am out of, shall we say, earshot?”

She shut the door.

“I missed you.” Eloise said, running delicate fingers up Roxanne’s shoulders. “I really missed you.”
“Yeah, I missed you too, babe.” She smiled. “You want to go to get something to eat, or something?”
“I’d like that.”
“Great, I’ll go and grab Lloyd, that crazy motherfucker. Plus there’s Susan, you’ll want to meet her—“
“I was thinking of eating something else, actually.”

The double entendre was not lost on her.

It is here, however, that I must pan my narratorial eye away from the furious, homosexual lovemaking that was to occur in the near future. I do this not out of shame, or some bizarre sense of righteousness, but due to the fact that I would, eventually, like for this to be sold in America. It’s really just a financial censorship. You guys still hate gays, right?

Social conservatism aside, there’s also the off-chance that some spry young child has picked up this novel, laughed despite not understanding the references, and would have recommended it to their peers were it not “for all the sex scenes,” followed by an awkward laugh and a quick change of subject. Frankly, I don’t want to inspire any first boners, if at all possible.

They are lesbians and that’s all that needs to be said about that. If you have any questions on the topic, please make use of the internet. It’s a wonderful resource for these sorts of things. Pan back in.

“That was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Eloise said, arm draped over Roxanne’s chest, and by chest I mean tits. They were fairly large.
“Fuckin’ A,” she lackadaisically replied. “Especially how explicit everything was.”
“Definitely. I don’t think I’ve done anything so potentially arousing to outward onlookers in all my life.”
“You’re so goddamn hot when you’re theoretical.”
“Let’s shut up and enjoy the post-coital bliss for a second.”

So they did, ignoring the fact that ‘coital’ actually means ‘relations involving vaginal penetration by penis’ which neither of them happened to organically possess. Nevertheless, neither of them had the knowledge of this, given that Eloise spoke English not a second language but as a fourth (and extremely well, regardless) and that Roxanne spoke Southern and not English.

They cuddled up next to each other, stark naked, staring pensively up at the ceiling fan. It turned lazily, out of a misplaced sense of duty rather than any sort of actual purpose, as it merely displaced the existing air, which didn’t need cooling to begin with. New York was cold in a basement apartment on your own, but with someone else, it was warm.

“Let’s play a game,” Eloise said, tracing the stitches on Roxanne’s face with her finger. “Two truths and one lie about the last week. You go first.”
“I don’t think I’m a good enough liar to fool you.”
“Just try it.”
“All right, then,” she said, snuggling in a little further, so that their faces nearly touched each other. “In the week, I’ve been abroad, I’ve killed thirty-two people in an afternoon, and I’ve given up drinking altogether like I promised.”

Eloise looked more disappointed than shocked.
“Oh, Roxanne, you didn’t. I’m so ashamed of you.”
“I know, and, like, I’m really fuckin’ sorry, but this guy called me fat in a stupid accent during a pub brawl and it had been rainin’ cats and fuckin’ dogs the whole time we were there and Evangeline was bein’ mean to me because she always is, she’s just a bitch like that, I think she’s maybe autistic or somethin’, and it just sort of happened.” She stopped, just to take a breath, but she decided to stay stopped.

“What do I care if you offed some losers in a foreign country?” She furrowed her brow in exasperation. This was at least a semi-frequent occurrence. She had managed not to wrinkle, so far. “I mean, who hasn’t done that in an airport or on the beach in Ibiza? I meant that I was pissed about your drinking.”
“Oh, that.” She seemed a little off-guard, with good reason. Most people are more bothered by murder than the consumption of alcohol, except for Jihadists. They don’t go to many parties. “Well, you know, there were, like, special circumstances? What’s the word for that? Starts with ‘e’.”
“Extenuating circumstances, dipshit.” Eloise meant emancipating, but neither of them knew that.
“Your turn, then, if you’re going to be a bitch about it.”

The trouble with the game ‘Two Truths, One Lie,’ if you can go as far as to call it a game, is that it takes a very long time for the average person to come up with two true things about himself—about fifteen seconds of silence longer than is comfortable, generally. The lie is comparatively easy, because all you need to do is take an existing truth and alter the tiniest detail, and then it becomes untrue. The truth is unbelievably fragile like that.

“In the past week, I hung an overweight soccer-mom off the Chrysler Building for calling me a series of rude things, I stabbed you in the arm with a shard of glass from a window I broke at the party after I saw you blind drunk and puking yourself over some ginger minx, and I bought a peasant-style top in bone.”

Roxanne looked ponderously at her girlfriend, and contemplated the evening previous, which remained and would remain perennially hazy, partially due to vast quantities of alcohol and partially due to a blackout caused by the searing pain of being stabbed. She considered the wounds which now adorned her face and arm. Moreover, she wondered how she could go as far as to forget a stone-cold fox, particularly one worth throwing up over. That was commitment, there, pure and simple.

“She was so young-looking, too,” Eloise mused, “I didn’t think you were one to go after new recruits like that, Roxy. Is that a habit that you picked up while I was away?”

The gears in Roxanne’s brain, clogged by painkillers, alcoholism, and too many falls through glass overhangs and unfortunate awnings though they were, began turning.
Ginger. New recruit. Ginger. Minx. New recruit.
Vomit. Shards of glass. Vomit. New recruit. Ginger?
And suddenly, it occurred to her.

“Holy shit, you mean you were at the party last night?”
It was a good, coherent thought. It pieced together pieces, even if they weren’t necessarily the ones that she was supposed to be assembling—the fact that she was looking at completely the wrong fucking puzzle made no difference whatsoever. In all actuality, Roxanne was rather pleased with herself. Eloise was less than impressed by this revelation.

“God, it’s like talking to a fucking brick wall!” Post-coital bliss had come to an end. “You’re so thick!”
“In all the right places, though.” Or maybe not.
“Don’t try and be cute, you.” Eloise gritted her teeth. “I’m insinuating that you underwent sexual relations with Susan, the new recruit from the United Kingdom, due to her obvious level of innocent girl-next-door ginger child foxiness.”

In response to these allegations, Roxanne kissed her for a not insubstantial amount of time.
“I’m not entirely sure I understand everything you just said,” she whispered, “But I’ll do that again if you keep talking like Evangeline. It’s scaring the shit out of me, ‘kay?”

She finished, picture perfect, with that dazzling white smile. She could have told you that half your community was mysteriously shot dead, and that the other half seemed to have no recollection of the event, but with that smile, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Coincidentally enough, someone half a world away was desperately in need of one of those smiles.

END






...OF PART ONE