Pawns
Like all people of high intelligence, she had realised fast that there was something very wrong with the world, and even faster that there was nothing she could do about it. From a fire of angst and action, came the smoking ashes of apathy and she withdrew from the world. She was clever, so clever, but lazy, and discovered fast the quickest way to make money without having to work very hard or very long. She learned to manipulate people young, play the game of chess that was life, and make sure she was queen. Even though her memories of her former years, her forming years, were hazy, even in the comfort of her own recollection, she forgot what was real emotion, and what was her ensuring she got what she wanted.
She had progressed from lazily stealing other girls boyfriends and seducing people for the sake of it to selling her body with such speed and ease it seemed almost natural, and at the same time not real. Everytime she was with a client, she almost forgot it immediately afterwards, switching on and off. Perhaps, she thought, she had always been selling herself for something? Perhaps all people are always selling themselves for something? People said, behind her back, that she would regret living so carefree when she was too old to continue this lifestyle and she always wondered vaguely whether it was genuine concern or jealously from all those over worked, boring people. She also noted that this seemed to come mainly from the mouths of people who she was bored of, and discarded, or those who she had wronged, or those who moved on from her, which did happen from time to time.
She liked to be beautiful, and spent much time on ensuring she was, she indulged in lipsticks and products, and spent time preening herself to perfection. A master of disguise, she dressed up, playing the the stoic rook, the sweet pawn in lifes cruel game, or the naive bishop, hiding herself in outfits and make up Nothing disarmed her more than someone not either loving her or loathing her. To not acknowledge her existence, or be immune to it, was much worse than loathing, loathing was quite fun, and she played the victim well.
Few understood the key to being good at her job, her allure was the heady mixture of innocence and technique. She almost instinctually knew that men do not, by and large, want some porn star experience, but the subtle experience of a girl who is shy and virtuous, who can also rock your world in under half an hour. Each time, she let herself be corrupted by them into the sexual darkness, or so they thought. At 25 she rarely saw new clients, but had the ones who chose her, all of whom she told she was ‘now just seeing them, for old times sake’, she had switched from the innocent girl to this when the threads on that guise started came loose. Never be a bore.
No one knew what she did of course, although the rumours circulated, but she loved more to live in faux poverty than the lavish life of someone who earned substantial amounts, everyone played that game in the world she lived. Poor with a vintage bag and Dior lipstick, poor me, poor me, pour me another drink.
Life is so dull, but it seems to slip timelessly by, all echos and shadows, all show and social media, if there is one thing she loved best, it was showing her life to the world. Life is best lived live, and what was the point if people didn’t look at it. How do people spend all their lives working? It seemed very droll. She had watched her parents work every day of her life and it had looked tiring, work, house, sleep, work. Find a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. Or find a job that pays you £200 for an hours work, and live your life.
Dinner out, drinks, there is no food in the house, there never is. Of course she can cook, but it is droll to cook for no one, and so much more fun to go out. Food was one of the few pleasures she would pay for, not in the monetary sense, in the sense of the fact she loved to indulge, but being fat was something she despised, so dinner was often the only meal of the day. Paired with whatever exercise was currently in trend, she stayed thin. In lieu of food coffee sufficed, and nicotine tabs, she loved to smoke, but felt the smell was foul and not at all alluring, so it would not do anymore.
Tonight was somewhere amazing and new, somewhere fabulous and cool, she looked chic in dark red lipstick with no other make up, and casual clothes. Feminine, with hard lines and angles. She drank red wine, ever the classic, she refused to be fashion focused with drinks, it was tacky, she stuck to the bloodiest of red wine, dry and bitter sweet with the latest food.
The girl opposite her was starting to bore her, her decent from the crown of close friend had begun when she had met John, boring, stable dependable John. She tended to be friends with queer, feminists to limit the times that she had to be bored with this, but there she was, listening to her previously doting friend talk about John. It was rude, there was so little concern for her entertainment. She would have to think of a reason for her to be ditched out of the social circle. Her mind swirled around gossip and rumours, slights and problems she could plant and watch them grow.
No, she didn’t want pudding, eating pudding and not caring was out, nor was coffee at this time, think of your skin. She rolled her eyes slightly, but of course you can have whatever you want, no rush. She left, hailing a taxi and not offering her dinner companion a lift, but kissing and hugging her goodbye, waving from the cab as she weaved her way through the wet streets to the tube. What a disappointing night.
Inhaling the sweet vapour of weed at her window, drinking wine and tweeting about her amazing night out, she wondered what she should do with the rest of the night. She read until her eyes fell, and she slept until noon, as always. She always said she was an earlier riser, in no need of sleep, really, in reality she loved it, lived for naps and her amazing bed. The great thing about a job like hers is the benefits, no tax, no insurance, no rent, housing benefit babes, courtesy of a clever move when she was 18. No reason to wake, she had no job to worry about. It was easy convincing them that she was mentally unwell, tears, the big eyed girl, damp face, defensive. Poor little poor kid. Too messed up to work, don’t make her try.
It has occurred to her what she would leave behind, if she died right now, as she drifted into sleep, what if she just kept falling until she never woke. A crying wake of amazing friends? Or do they all care as little as her, merely playing the game in order to win? Just trying to decrease the monotony of everyday existence, what if they are all aware of the chess game she played? Somehow she doubted this, people weren’t very good at it.
One of the things she couldn’t remember well now, she had said it so many times, to so many stoic faces, as they melted a little before her, so brave, that she wondered if it was true. She remembered when she had almost got found out when she had stupidly fallen in love, and she told the girl ‘it was a game I used to play, I would pretend I didn’t really have a mental illness, but I had to convince someone I did, it was easier to talk about it that way.’ and the girl seemed to guess it might be the other way round, and left. That was not something to repeat in a hurry. Sometimes she wondered which was true. Not that it mattered. What kind of crazy are you was not a game she cared for, unless it bought her sympathy.
Obviously she dated, but it was hard, people were so dull, she kept people at bay, blissfully unattached whilst they were utterly in love. Love made her so unlike herself, it was like taking a step out of the game, and her eye off the ball, and it was tiring. Dating was just an extension of her job, and she played different rolls, depending on what she perceived they liked. Tonight she was in jeans and a vintage band t-shirt, soft auburn curls and large eyes, glasses and no lipstick.
Curled in a large chair with a small glass of red wine, laughing breathily at his anecdotes and letting her soft Scottish accent slip through her usual clean accented English, she admitted cutely that she grew up in poverty, although she did no such thing, unfortunately she had a lovely, boring, normal middle class family who cared for her all too dearly. The night was fair enough, and the restaurant classically lovely, she lightly protested she would like to pay for half, gently beating him down to let her buy him a drink, although she would have been annoyed if he would have given in and let her pay, but she knew he wouldn’t. She slipped her arm through his on their walk to the next bar, looking up into his face, exuding sweet, innocent lust and charm. She pointedly insisted on buying him the same whiskey he was drinking in the restaurant, even though he had asked for a cheap one, giving him a pointed look and a little half smile.
She would of course not sleep with him on the first date, not that she had anything against that it, but he would prefer to wait, he loved the chase, she could tell. She blushed when he kissed her, said a fumbled shy goodbye and turned into the road. She didn’t see the car, too busy playing the role of embarrassed and innocence, she was surprised by the lack of pain. What would she leave behind? Would people weep? Would she be an enigma and a saint in death? Or would the world blink and turn its back, indifferent to mere pawns death on its board.
