manic pixie dream girl
“‘Manic pixie dream girl’ is really offensive,” the girl was saying. Shrieking, really, to be heard over the Rusty Heather’s thumping base.
Jared bobbed his head to the music as he ground on her, and she seemed to take that for agreement, rocking against him, small tits pressed soft against his chest.
“It’s fucking reductive,” she yelled, right in his ear. “Like, saying being who you are is actually about being someone else’s fantasy? How egotistical is that? Maybe I really do like indie music and getting rained on, who the fuck else gets to judge?”
She wasn’t dressed as Jared’s fantasy, even though she’d been throwing herself at him ever since his set ended, dancing right up against the DJ booth as he’d spun. She was cute, sure, in a small-chinned, big-eyed wannabe anime kinda way, but the cotton candy pink hair piled on top of her head and glitter streaking her cheekbones were way too much. Dayglo knee-high socks, a the tutu and cellophane wings; she was young enough that they only looked a little bit tryhard, but old enough her ID might not’ve been fake.
It was fake, as she gleefully pointed out when he lead her over to the bar, but she wouldn’t tell him how old she really was. She wouldn’t let him buy her a drink, either. “I don’t let guys pay for me. It feels all ooky and obligationey. I hate feeling obliged to do things, you know? That’s why I left home. Too many rules.”
“Where’d you say you lived?” Somewhere Baptist or Mormon or some shit, he guessed.
“I didn’t. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure.” Jared wasn’t like those assholes who got their dicks all caught up in their money clips and wouldn’t let chicks pay for shit. All he cared about was getting her drunk enough he could fuck her in the bathroom. “What’ll I owe you?”
“A song for the first,” she said, all coy, but her eyes were hungry and she was leaning in close again, so her small breasts pressed against his arm. “And for the rest, we’ll see.” Yeah, she was into him. Even freaky bitches loved a DJ, got wet when he dedicated a track.
They did shots - Jack straight up for him, B-52s and Screaming Orgasms for her, sticky, sickly drinks she downed like they were candy. She watched him drink, eyes on the movement of his throat, lips moist, parted. The dark blanked out her features, except where the blacklights caught highlighter green eyeliner and neon pink lipstick, just a mouth and eyes, and the glow sticks looped around one narrow wrist.
“You’re so good,” she was saying. “So damn good. Anyone can spin a disc, any asshole can make a mixtape, but to do it well - you have to be less a man than a conduit. A thing that music flows through, but you don’t let it rule you. Echo and reverb in the right places, emphasizing the right moment, and you change an ode to love into a satire. I think it’s beautiful.”
It was funny, usually Jared was the one spouting the pretentious bullshit about feeling the beat down in his bones to get a girl’s panties on the floor. Not like his set hadn’t been dope, not like stepping up to the booth and laying his hands down on turntable didn’t give him a rush better than an 8 ball, not like making a floor full of people writhe and scream for him at the twist of a dial wasn’t the best power he could imagine, but he didn’t need a bitch in fairy wings to tell him that.
“Thanks,” he said flatly, and let her top him off; she’d smuggled in a flask, god knew how, and he hesitated a second before taking a gulp. But it was good shit she had, smooth and smokey, warm like someone had lit a fire under his tongue. He wasn't a connoisseur, but he knew good shit when he tasted it and grinned at her, the most pleased with her he’d been all night. She grinned back and topped him off again.
“There were bards, once,” she said as he downed that one too. “But they were second to the Filí, who kept the lore for their people, handing it down through the generations.” The cellophane wings on her back twitched as she spoke, in time with the beat, a shower of rainbow dust swirling with the movement of the dancers. “They did the same, you know. The same songs, but each filí sang new life into them.”
“Who doesn’t love the classics?” Jared said, like she was talking about Tupac and not whatever weird shit she was off on. “You a history major?”
“No.” Her eyes had gone all distant, looking through the dancers like they weren’t sweat and heartbeats and twisting, writhing limbs, as solid as could be. “My friends have a place, you know. A club, and we’re always looking for new acts.”
“Oh yeah? Anywhere I’d’ve heard of?”
“It’s kind of an underground thing,” she said, still distant.
“What’s this gig pay?”
“Gold and pearls and a songbird that gives prophecy. A deck fashioned from the purest, sweetest silver. Our love, and we will love you, as you have never been loved.” She smiled, all self-conscious, like she knew what she was saying was embarrassing as all fuck and had said it anyway. “Only play for us.”
Never stick your dick in crazy, everybody said, but this wasn’t even crazy. This was affected bullshit, but even so he was getting sick of her bullshit, of her wide-eyed stare and mouth full of bullshit.
‘Yeah, pass,’ was on his lips, but so was the lingering, burning taste of the girl’s whiskey. She was beautiful, like orchids and starlight and insects that wore warnings of their venom on their skin. “When?” he found himself asking instead.
“Tonight,” said the girl, thin fingers ghosting over his pulse point, neon nails tapping like the scuttling legs of an insect. “Come with me.” She smelt of the sticky, spilt drinks that drew in wasps in summer, and the cool, crawling spaces under hollow logs.
“I’m hooking up with friends,” he lied. He didn’t know why after he said it, and she smiled her knowing smile, like she knew, and didn’t blame him, and he wanted, he wanted -
Not her, not now, but everything she promised. The dark space under the earth that smelt like her perfume, where his music would shake shake the glowworms from their perches in the ceiling, where her friends would dance, feeling the music like he felt it - like it wasn’t something to do drugs to, like it was the drug - and who would love it, would love him for what he gave them.
The night would never end, the dance would never stop.
“Yes. You are.” Her wings fluttered and furled against her back. “They’re good guys, you know? Kind. Come on!” She slid down off her stool with a hop and another shower of glitter. She had Jared’s wrist still in her grip and her drink still in her belly and so he came with her.