Vi’s lifestyle bread and butter looked like a perpetually rebounding between bed, laundry hampers, street corners, and entertainment venues. A sinkhole of seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks that pooled into an overflowing cup. Oil and water. Sometimes dredges would remain whole and discernable, emotions like desire and dread stuck first, with the rest compartmentalized into an emulsified garnish alongside her brain's salad. Or perhaps Vi was just hungry. Restlessly spinning back and forth on a bar stool, embracing what limited movement the sticky hinges permitted, Vi could physically feel the limited contents within her stomach slosh in protest. Hefty servings of sodium and carbonation, having a possibly noxious chemical reaction which occasionally caused her to hiccup: the aftermath of overzealous drinking on a near-empty stomach, lined by stale salty bar peanuts. Each glass was downed as proudly as the last, as if devoid of alcohol. Free always tasted better.
Why or who or how Vi came to be fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of several on-the-house beverages for the better part of the night was not a gift horse she dared receive a kick from. So long as the stream persisted, she would saddle up. “No quitter am I, babyyy.” She’d at one point declared to the bartender, who had made the mistake of reaching for her latest unfinished beer bottle. It was Vi's first time receiving above average treatment from a dive bar, by happenstance, rather than yielded by a pretty tourist or two in an expensive hotel lobby, manipulated for freebies (as per usual). Of course, she still purchased her own, in-between complimentary bouts, feeling guilty for stealing a seat without genuine patronage.
Not long after, Vi sought to reorient herself with the repreive of cold air and uncramped legs. Deep breaths. Overheated skin. Feeling invincible. It would be a while before her bones felt the sense to shiver. Got a light? Half-distracted, half-drunk, at first Vi automatically pointed up at the neon red Dead Man's Finger sign suspended nearby. A moment later, at the mention of sharing, her gaze lowered sidelong to observe the blunt offered by her surprise guest. “Oh!” New context slowly comprehended, she giggled through realisation. “Sorry, my bad. Yes, of course! You gotcha'self a deal.” One of her hands was already feeling for the pocket of the bomber jacket tied around her waist, unzipping and retrieving a silver flip top lighter. “Voilà! It’s your lucky day,” she decreed with a grin. An incongruous statement, given the late hour, yet spoken with full confidence which had the effect of inventing certainty where it did not exist. What time was it? Vi methodically shook the lighter twice, then flicked her wrist to fling it open, thumb pad pressed to flint wheel. It took a few seconds of futile pressure before a successful flame was coaxed to life, her other hand raising to cup protectively around the source. “Not totally running on full cylinders, you see, but she gets the job done.”
A pleased smile resided proudly on Vi's lips at the accompanying question. Being approached by a company had been an exciting prospect enough. Even the faintest suggestion it was not purely a transactional and transient encounter filled her with an airy delight, stirring her stomach with something other than vague nausea. It also might have implied Vi could pass for a local: the cherry on top of a blissful evening. “Sure, you could say that. Downtown’s practically at my door step. Twelve years and counting. You?” Not unlike a faulty flammable device herself, the other woman’s features sparked no recognition – but that hardly counted as fact. Tipsy-tongued, Vi couldn't tolerate patiently wracking her mind for confirmation. “I'm shit with names. Tell me yours and I'll give you mine...?"
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
areudirty
theartofmadeline
