Page 71 of Semblance

There was a moment of awkward, lingering silence as we both stabbed each other with dagger looks. Despite the soundlessness, I was pretty sure that we were both telepathically screaming the same word at each other.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch...

“Well, are you going to stand there like a dumb mute, or are you going to fix me a drink?” she asked.

Actually, a drink didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. I needed some liquid Prozac to dull my senses in order to deal with my unwelcomed company.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I’ll take vodka and orange, but not the cheap kind of vodka that a gold digging slag like you probably drinks,” she said, not even bothering to look at me. “If it’s not at least Grey Goose, I don’t want it.”

“Don’t stress out and give yourself an ulcer,” I called out, though secretly I wish she did. “I have Grey Goose.”

“Good,” I heard her holler from the living room as I made my way into the kitchen and grabbed two glasses along with the orange juice and the vodka out of the freezer. “Make mine a double.”

“One double vodka spit-driver coming up,” I muttered to myself. Typically I wasn’t this cruel of a person, but I was still jet lagged, and along with the anxiety of waiting for Shadow’s return from Cambodia, I had little patience over the past few days.

I should have just poured this bitch the drink she wanted, but instead I decided to muster up as much spit as I could from within my mouth. I even added a bit of hoark for good measure. Her screwdriver was going to be swimming in a sea of my saliva.

After pouring in the vodka, I lifted her glass to my chest level and was just about to spit into it, when I suddenly noticed that Barbie Girl was standing at the doorway to my kitchen.

I felt like a deer caught in headlights, my eyes wide.

She scowled at me, no doubt reading the guilt on my face like a textbook.

I swallowed it all back down, and immediately shuddered.

“What are you doing?”

“Sorry, got the chills,” I lied.

“Is that mine?” she asked, gesturing towards the glass I held in my hand.

I nodded.

She snatched it away from me and reached for the orange juice. “I can handle the rest,” she said.

After the drinks were made, we both sat back down in the living room, opposite to one another, and sipped our alcohol while staring at each other like two combatants in a squared circle. Neither of us took our eyes offthe other, both understanding that the first to break our hateful gaze with the other was the weaker of the two.

After what seemed like hours of me maintaining my death stare, there was a knock on my door, which immediately filled me with a sense of relief.

“I’ll get it,” I said as I polished off the rest of the drink and lifted my ass off the couch.

It was Calisto, along with a graceful looking middle-aged woman with lemon-colored curly hair.

“Aria!” Calisto said as she embraced me with a warm hug. “How was Cambodia?”

“It was amazing,” I said. “I didn’t want to come back.”

Calisto smiled. “Alas, here you are,” she said. “But don’t worry, as long as you’re inmysocial circle, I guarantee there will be plenty more adventures.” She then turned to the woman she brought with her. “This is Kara, my makeup artist. She usually does work for movies and such. I tell you, she can completely transform a person into someone else entirely.”

“We’re going to be in a movie?” I asked, perplexed.

“You’re cute,” Calisto said. “Kara’s here to do our make up so we look sexed up and ready to conquer the club. After all, there’s no point showing our faces somewhere if we aren’t the absolutebestlooking girls in the entire establishment.”

Kara extended her hand to me. “Aria,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I have to say, your skin is absolutely divine. You’re an absolute natural beauty.”

I loved this woman.

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