Victoria Kennefick

We drink too much pineapple rum, straight from the bottle, bitch about the red-haired girl, the fetish model, a preacher’s daughter with a thing for unreasonable shoes. From her faded patchwork quilt, bleeding hearts, we watched her mutate into a PVC Alice Liddell. How did she manage in seven-inch patent heels? She was tall as wheat — or the ceiling was low. Cradling a mewing ginger-ball, she kissed the mirror where their confederate-blue eyes matched. Three scars began to scab on her arm, deep big-cat scrawls she told us she cut herself because it’s art and her clients like her that way. We followed her clip-clop down the rabbit hole; me, to hear tales of her running track in those shoes; you, to see her white skin even paler under lights. Back in your dorm room, I am static. You pay to watch her pixelated Snow White online; complain her constant chatter ruined it, or her, for you.

The Eiffel Tower erected itself in my head, we couldn’t find the lifts, climbed the stairs. Of course there were fireworks. We stared at each other, rare exhibits in the Louvre — you licked my Mona Lisa smile right off. Of course we were both in imaginary Chanel. We drank warm cider and ate pancakes, yours flambéed. I got drunk, my tights laddered on both legs. Of course we experienced tachycardia at the Moulin Rouge. Our hotel, a boxed macaron on a navy boulevard — we spun around in the dark outside, rain-dizzy. Of course we slept at the Ritz. Our little room tucked into the corner, a pink pocket you slipped into that night. Of course our fingers hunted for change. In the mirrored elevator I couldn’t meet your eye, I crushed you into the laminated sample menu and died. Of course it was only la petite mort.