II

Someone was shouting. From backstage she could hear the metal clashing, hissing loud curses muzzled with rage. They were at each other’s throats. It was all for show. She felt like her life was, somehow, all for show. The world is a stage, wasn’t it in the script, where each man played his role? She had to wipe Shakespeare from her mind. 

They were sitting in the wait room counting cards and fake chips. Moving their eyebrows as if they had real money on the desk. Yuen, a boy of sixteen, but more likely nineteen, was being extraordinarily gentle with his hair. He was a hot one, a high nose and wavy brown hair, hovering over his eyes, the dark blue- green of endless treasure. His lips were smooth and inviting, and when one looked at him it was better to look at his lips because his eyes - were too sharp that it felt dangerous. Like a blade. Almost as if they would see you looking at them, and mock you for it. It was impossible not to notice him. When he laughed you laughed with him. When he spoke you listened.

Yuen turned around with a puff of smoke in his face. She averted her gaze. Yuen knew everything. Somehow he could make all the accents and count all the presidents, win at poker and make the girls giggle uneasily in their seats; his mom is an actress, he said, but he wanted to be a human rights lawyer. “My mom didn’t make s**t”, he shrugged, “all she had was parents money and husband money”. That made everyone laugh. His honesty alarmed you. His brazen thoughts, coming from somewhere deeper than youth, charmed. 

She admired him. She wondered what it was like, knowing so much, cultured as such. She used to know someone like that. Someone who made her heart ache so much she had to leave China. 

No. Now is not the time to think on him. She waved it away, 

“Laura, you’re called- ”

Missing footsteps, door flung open, she stumbled out the wait room, down the stairs, into the dark: curtains lifting, she was blinded by light.

She wondered what it is like - " what it is like to be a real actress. She would be watched, kept under the spotlight, day and night, with makeup on, with a smile on, with or without clothes on. Her arms instinctively went to her chest, where the costume had a deep V that sank too low into her bones; for she was a girl with no bosom. 

Gemstones shone at the edge of the V- neck, hugging what was created out of her nonexistent form, a womanly imagination carved out of a plain marble. But she found her confidence, walking in the dress, elegantly touching her partner’s brow, feeling the stickiness of his hair, realizing that he - though strong, slouched slightly under her gaze. Music played, and she contented herself with being held, swaying in his arms, looking at him but not at him, touching his hands without blushing, being intimate whilst knowing it otherwise… 

He lifted her up, she was careful not to be alarmed that the skirt may go up. She was silently digging into his neck. The curtains swayed, the ground, back into darkness. Another music ensued, this time more jolly, more full of conversation: next scene. And she blended in the curtains, disappeared backstage. 

Reviews

[Agyani]

Jane
Um, again, it's quite vague, this chapter, more so than the last one, to be honest!
Well, I'll wait for you to respond to know more about your thoughts and what exactly it is that you're writing about. I suppose the abstract nature of the plot as well as the text makes up for most of the vagueness.