Thirteen
All That Fairy Tale Crap
I was supposed to go to the ball, but I spent the night licking out my stepsister instead.
Bethesda moaned and rustled mulberry silk high up her thighs. “There, there, no, faster, come on, faster, please…”
The friendly mice put out their eyes and ran out in trios to join a different fairy tale.
Never marry a prince when you can eat a pussy.
Never ride a pumpkin when you can steal cab fare.
Never wear a ball gown when you can slink in snakeskin pants.
Never listen to a fairy godmother.
Bethesda and I went clubbing. Everyone gave her the oddball eye for wearing ruffled silk with fucking puffy sleeves. I laughed back at all of them.
I seduced some refugee from the eighties who had a rainbow mohawk. Bethesda glared at us and bought herself two shots of tequila, one of which she threw in my face.
Well, what do you expect from an ugly girl?
I danced until the eighties mohawk guy got tired and went home, and then I danced until the bartender tried to close everyone out, and then I danced more until it was sunrise, and the bartender still hadn’t managed to get away because I was dancing with him, our eyes locked across the room, him swaying like a hypnotized snake to the flute of my body.
Outside, it was pink and gray over endless city. I chose a street at random.
“Eat my body,” said a house that belonged to a witch.
“Look at me,” said a mirror with a voice.
“Do you want some boots?” asked a man exchanging new shoes for old.
I pulled off my heels and traded them in for knee–high go–gos.
“You look very intelligent,” said the man. “I bet you could scam an ogre.”
I grinned and gave him a dollar I’d stolen off the bartender.
The heroes of fairy tales are straight. And skinny, too, so they’re straight and narrow.
People think this is because of heterosexism and beauty standards. It isn’t. Snow White takes a cock in her scrawny cunt because she can’t imagine how to be twisty.
You start out with three tools. You’re pretty. You have small feet. And you can do housework.
Now become a princess.
Go on. Laugh. Shatter glass class ceilings? Yeah, right. There’s a reason they call it the American dream. It ain’t gonna happen while you’re awake.
I find a hotel all lit up neon even though it’s half past five a.m. Slip inside because why not? A place still partying through dawn’s likely to have someone in it who’ll try to pick you up by buying breakfast and staring at your tits.
Inside, it’s all tattered chiffon streamers and tumbled confetti glitzing up the rug. Martini glasses are scattered on ottomans, couches, in the pots of fake rubber tree plants, half of them smashed to shiny bits.
And there: the prince. What the hell? Thought he was throwing a ball not a prom. But you can tell he’s the prince on account of the epaulettes. He’s tongue–spelunking down some girl’s throat. Grope, slip, grope, they change angle, and shit — that girl’s face! Sharp and blunt in all the wrong angles. Hell if it’s not my other stepsister, Griselda.
Suddenly, the prince’s hangover pall goes from jaundice to chartreuse. His abdomen clenches. Then comes the retching. Griselda can’t jump back fast enough. He spews puce chunks of half–digested pâté all down her mint green frills.
She shoves him off — “Fuck! You got some in my mouth!”
But he can’t hear because he’s slammed on the floor, passed out like a pine board.
Griselda gives me the stink–eye when I go over to help which I can’t blame since I’m the one who just last night threw her over for her sister. But when I turn over His Blotto Majesty so I can rifle through his pockets, one of his epaulettes falls off, and underneath there’s a label for a costume shop on 44th.
“Fuck!” Griselda shouts. “A fucking fake!”
Her rant zooms off and I’d kiss her to shut her up except for the vomit.
“You’re uglier when you’re angry,” I say.
“Bitch. Where’s my sister?”
“Jealous snit. Stormed off.”
“You’re an entitled little slut, Cinderella.”
“You want this guy’s wallet or not?”
Griselda sets her mouth in an ugly snarl. Hard to describe the kind of ugly she and Bethesda’ve got. Everything in the right place, technically, but goes together nine kinds of wrong.
She stays all frozen grimace — can’t say no, won’t admit yes — till I take mercy and throw his billfold at her. He brought enough to play prince for another couple hours. Won’t set her up for life, but it’s not nothing. She glares at me as she rifles bills with her thumb.