Wicked Game
FLASHBACK Location: OMFG Date: May 30th, 2017 Availability: @gabviel
Fucking Tuesdays. By now, she really only came in on Tuesdays as a favour for Raziel. There was shit for money on Tuesdays and only when too many other girls had bailed, would Magda deign to show up on a fucking Tuesday. She hated Tuesday shifts almost as much as she hated Satan. She wondered which girl had done it, which dancer had been the straw to break the camel’s back: which one had the family emergency, the busted car, the hangover from the seventh circle of Hell, the one who couldn’t be arsed. Which girl had made Raziel pick up the phone and dial with his business-casual voice, asking Magda to fill in. That girl was owed a few choice words and french fries thrown at her. Magda had the right to say no… but she wouldn’t. Raziel was Raziel—and now God—and money was money.
To make it up to herself, Magda had slipped the DJ a $20 to play a few specific songs so she could at least use the time to practice some of her sets for better nights, when OMFG was less dead. Coeur de Pirate’s seductive cover of Wicked Games filtered on loud through the speakers and Magda went to the stage, not overly dolled up for the night. Her hair was on point, as always, but she wore a less complicated, two-piece outfit, her comfy Bordello heels, and less makeup than usual. She was focused on her art, not the club around her, as she stood with her back to the majority view and began with some basic movement and floor work. Swayed her hips, worked through her stretches, and then took off from the ground. The lift, the inversion, the spin, and it felt like weight was lifted from her shoulders when she did it.
There was something about dancing that always did, and would always, release Magda into herself. Both separated her from the world as well as grounded her in it. It was the closest she ever felt to holy.
When she finished, she was finally in tune with the club around her, better prepared to read the energy, more honed and less pissed off than she had been when she entered. Stepping off the stage, she closed her eyes and sensed, the way she did when she wanted to find some money in a sea of no-chancers. What she felt wasn’t green, the way she felt when she tried to sense this way—no, instead there was a catch in her throat and a knot in her stomach that only came up a few times before in her life. Narrowing her eyes, Magda looked around, wondering who said the name, or if it mattered. Trying to shake it off, she paused her hunt to get a drink at the bar, sidled up and said, “St. Germaine and champagne,” only to raise her eyes and feel that same feeling, confusion crossing her features. Gabriel. Gabriel stayed after the Ascension. And she was working in her bar.
