(no subject)
Here is a first draft of something that might be in my book. Please please please comment, this is not finished and I would love input. Do not be afraid to constructively criticize! I will not get better without help, and I want to do this book justice. You can e-mail me as well: alexisdeisanti @ yahoo.com
(Just for the sake of clarity, Gabriel in this story is a middle-aged man who operates a costume/vintage shop out of his second-floor apartment. He specializes in transvestite gear and sequined dresses. He is the only person in the book that is entirely based on someone I know.)
I dreamed last night that I was in Gabriel's apartment, sitting on the scuffed hardwood floors with Leticia in an aisle of clothes, our legs tucked by our sides and our heads just grazing the amended hems of the old dresses. We drank Cabernet Sauvignon and each wore one of Gabriel's old sequined dresses, her in an off the shoulder carnation pink and me in a form-fitting red. We spoke and laughed though about what I couldn't remember. When conversation lulled, she smiled and leaned over and plucked a single red sequin off the feeble age-bleached thread that had rooted its brilliance to the basic cotton underneath. Leticia held the red circle between her long fingernails and nodded gently as she dropped it into her wine. After a moment, I leaned over and stole a solitary, glimmering carnation from her dress and dropped it into my own wine glass. We grinned, our teeth and cheeks rouged, and turned on our own dresses carefully paring bald-spots onto the hips of our dresses, onto the legs, onto the cropped sleeves. Composing a fine and sizable collection of flower-colored disks, we tipped our palms toward our glasses and watched as something as smooth as water and as gorgeous as broken glass slipped into our wine and disappeared under the maroon surface.
We dared one another wordlessly to go first, and drank deeply, the dry wine augmented by metallic dregs. We smiled and I believe Leticia picked a sequin from one of her back teeth and we began to talk again, I am not sure for how long, but soon we both began to feel drowsy and ill. I pulled down a 1970's ladies suit in a putrid brown off the rack and converted each piece into a pillow. I felt my stomach lurch and hiss, attempting to negotiate with the sequins. My insides felt tight and gilt, like wrapping paper. Leticia turned her face toward me, which was no longer ruddy and boisterous, but rather pale and wet with nausea. Hazily she muttered "Tonight will always be the night we got drunk off something more potent than wine".
(Just for the sake of clarity, Gabriel in this story is a middle-aged man who operates a costume/vintage shop out of his second-floor apartment. He specializes in transvestite gear and sequined dresses. He is the only person in the book that is entirely based on someone I know.)
I dreamed last night that I was in Gabriel's apartment, sitting on the scuffed hardwood floors with Leticia in an aisle of clothes, our legs tucked by our sides and our heads just grazing the amended hems of the old dresses. We drank Cabernet Sauvignon and each wore one of Gabriel's old sequined dresses, her in an off the shoulder carnation pink and me in a form-fitting red. We spoke and laughed though about what I couldn't remember. When conversation lulled, she smiled and leaned over and plucked a single red sequin off the feeble age-bleached thread that had rooted its brilliance to the basic cotton underneath. Leticia held the red circle between her long fingernails and nodded gently as she dropped it into her wine. After a moment, I leaned over and stole a solitary, glimmering carnation from her dress and dropped it into my own wine glass. We grinned, our teeth and cheeks rouged, and turned on our own dresses carefully paring bald-spots onto the hips of our dresses, onto the legs, onto the cropped sleeves. Composing a fine and sizable collection of flower-colored disks, we tipped our palms toward our glasses and watched as something as smooth as water and as gorgeous as broken glass slipped into our wine and disappeared under the maroon surface.
We dared one another wordlessly to go first, and drank deeply, the dry wine augmented by metallic dregs. We smiled and I believe Leticia picked a sequin from one of her back teeth and we began to talk again, I am not sure for how long, but soon we both began to feel drowsy and ill. I pulled down a 1970's ladies suit in a putrid brown off the rack and converted each piece into a pillow. I felt my stomach lurch and hiss, attempting to negotiate with the sequins. My insides felt tight and gilt, like wrapping paper. Leticia turned her face toward me, which was no longer ruddy and boisterous, but rather pale and wet with nausea. Hazily she muttered "Tonight will always be the night we got drunk off something more potent than wine".