The Hollow Diamond

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy three

The Hollow Diamond

It starts, as all things do, with Flaming Pride.

An ounce of courage in a crystal cup. Give me a Sex on the Street. A Dirty Debbie. Hit me with a Twisted Integrity, light me up a Neverland. That's a shot of Goldschlager with a line of Angel Dust. That's the dangerous one. That's my favourite.

The second one kicked back better than the first, and the third one even sweeter than that.

I was flying with gossamer wings that trailed a powdery galaxy with each beat. Your breathe was the cool of the ocean breeze on my neck, and carried a smell like crushed honeysuckle. Already I leaned closer, the tug of your essence a gravity of unfathomable depths. 

You filled the stool to my right. Tinkerbell hovered above my left shoulder, her slippered feet brushed my skin and she whispered terrible truths while I accused you with a glare. How dare you come and intrude on my flight? Net me like a butterfly mid-air.

Helpless, without stakes or silver to ward off the wolverine, I tried what I could to keep up my guard.

"Look!" Tink shouted, "Look what he orders!"

It was a Moulin Rouge. Absinthe with a tab of Ecstasy. Another of the dangerous ones. Another of my favourites. 

They served snacks here too. 'The Wonderland'; a mushroom cap with a bowl from the hookah. 'The Wardrobe' was a cocaine-covered cube of Turkish Delight. The only rule here was no needles. Stingers down the street was the joint for the junkies. Patrons at Grimm's had class.

"You were toxic tonight." The words left your mouth like ice rolling out of a tumbler. Cool and quick, with no evidence of ever being shaken up.

"Hey! Idiot! He's talking to you!" Tink's tiny tongue tore into my attention.

I ignored her. It was true, you had spoken to me. And a compliment at that. 

The last four nights of the week, Grimm's put on a show. Dancers and babes with lengthy legs and bold breasts pushed to impossible heights. The girls glittered and shimmered and made long-fed fantasies come true. 

The show opened with Red Riding Hood, hiding a bodice of crimson and thigh high boots that grandmother would not approve of beneath her velvet cape. Next, Thumbelina, a petite crowd pleaser with big eyes, small hips, and the flexibility of a twelve year old gymnast. Then out bounced Goldilocks, in all her big bosomed blonde babe splender. She performed every move three times. Once really fast, once really slow, and once just right. 

And then it was Alice. She danced under dilating disks of neon, her world a spinning, swirling show of sexuality. Her bright colours and trance music emptied pockets every night. 

Rapunzel reigned with her rope of hair, tying herself in knots and twisting her way down a braided pole. 

Odette was the serene show. She rocked and writhed her way from swan to starlette. Fellows with fetishes for feathers followed her features every friday. She soared across the stage in swoops of white and swishes of pearly ribbons that echoed the curves of her body.

Dorothy skipped out and made her way down the yellow-brick stage on hands and knees. Her six inch ruby slippers clicked together around the back of a man's neck, as he swore to her there was no place like his home. She would simply smile and state how upset Toto would be if she left. Toto being her 240 pound personal body guard.

Once the Little Mermaid was done splashing herself with suds, and after Little Bo Peep found some sheep with friendly wallets, it was time for the grand finale. Just after midnight, when Cinderella had to be home, I took over the stage.

Clad in a dress that was emerald green and glittering, the bottom cut into jagged teeth, and sitting at a height that didn't allow for decency. Bottle-blonde and bodacious like Bettie Page, I danced in a display of dreams come true. Tinkerbell, my public persona. 

Eyes green like Anti-freeze, and lips redder than raw steak. Pom-Poms on my eight inch pumps, wings that pulsed with my wild gyrations. 

I didn't do it for the money. I did it for the art. For the feeling of making someone's dream come true. When I was on stage I was the center of the world, and if I could take someone's mind off of the sad reality of the place outside of Grimm's, then I did my job properly. I was a living form of escapism. I danced to heal people, I performed to help. And tonight, according to you, I was toxic.

I had nothing to say. Usually gracious when given gratitude, I was unusually unnerved by your magnetism. And even though Tink was screaming in my ear about how good your hands would look wrapped around my neck, I ignored her and ordered a Hansel and Gretel. A shot of Fireball served with a gumdrop and a bump of MDMA.

Before I could pay, your slim, strong, and defined hand swept out a bill, and came back holding the candy. I was locked into your looks like a rabbit in a snare. You offered up the sweet, and we both took our neat little piles of pleasure with open eyes. My lips pushed apart by the probe of your fingers, feeding the sugary drop onto my tongue. Cherry. I chewed, every moment looking at you, every second edging closer to oblivion. We knocked back the cinnamon shooters.

It was terrible, your trickery.

Beautiful, perfect, poison.

Bliss in a bottle with death at the bottom.

Slipping and slurping and sucking 'til drunk.

I'll take a double cyanide on the rocks.

Triple arsenic, neat.

Serve me up a shot of mercury, with my heart as the garnish.

You are the exact man I need to avoid. With sorcery and spells and words slick with sin, it's easy to slip underneath your skin.

"I want to know you like no one ever has." Your voice, like honey over thunder.

It makes claims of love and passion, I see through the fancy phrases.

"I want to understand you. I want to be where you've been and feel all your bruises.

"Let me take your beatings.

"Let me take the stains of your sins and keep your silken soul clear."

Wild lies.

"I want to save you, I want to take you to paradise and dissolve your pain in the acid of my affection."

"He wants to save you!" Tink piped up, her wings beating a warm breeze on my neck.

Firstly, my fairy friend, he's lying, putting up a fiendish facade. And secondly, my slutty sprite, I don't need saving. I'm here because I want to be, this is my paradise, I perform in my own Utopia. 

I speak finally. "This 'silken soul' is not eligible for redemption."

I order a double Enchanted Forest. Gin and Vermouth with a drop of honey.

"Do you ever let anyone close?"

Not anymore. Using your black magic to read my thoughts, you say, "Who hurt you so bad?"

I sip on my drink. I will not just give in.

"Hey!" Tink, the naughty nuisance, whispered in my ear. "Just look! Look at his lips. Look at his mouth as he speaks. Oh if those aren't the most breathtaking lips I've ever seen. Isn't he wickedly handsome?"

Yes, he's beautiful. You have the ashen hair of a wolf, the sculpted mess of a man who attempts not to try. And those lips. Sultry and sinful, carrying the secret smirk of smugness.

"What happened to tear the hope from an angel? What cruelty was wrought upon you, to make you so solidly push aways all offers of devotion?" You spoke so sweetly of subjects you could not possibly know.

I watched your mouth move and wondered why we so easily get drawn to it. The sex and tricky devices of the lips are more tempting than the unforgiving facts so brazenly displayed in the eyes. While the eyes are the truth, the mouth is the liar. The thing that shapes the words of denial and utters the falsities of fibs. The sexual splender of the lips is a decoy to distract us. The way the soft pink lips of the speaker part ever so slightly to allow for a small slip of the tongue to wet the beds of desires. Lips that while they spew declarations of dishonesty, people imagine pressed to the base of their necks, or wrapped around their cock.

It's easy to believe the words of the devil when you're being showed the face of an angel.

And that's when I realized, you spoke pretty promises, and looked like a god among men, but you were nothing more than a hollow diamond, and I hadn't even checked for the wasteland in your eyes.