SKETCH ONE
The street lamps reflect on the snow that
whispers in the night and strobe-lighting the patrons lining the walk.
They await entrance into what is sure to be a wonderland of the most
recent hot spot in the city. Only the hottest, hippest, most 'it' have a
chance of gaining entrance when the creatures are out to play in force.
Critically they are eyed by a pair of doormen for the necessary
qualities. One is built like a linebacker and naturally imposing. The
other is very slight and hardly seems a candidate for the position.
Likely he is the more deadly of the two, part of his arsenal being his
automatic dismissal by the waiting flock.
The barbie clad in attire that
under other circumstances would mark her as a hooker. Her apparent leap
from the pages of a Vogue ad doesn’t manage to translate into the
development a third dimension of personality. As she stomps her
strappy, gold stilettos she whines, "We're never getting in. I thought
you said you had connections, Markus."
"Yeah, well. Apparently so do
others, Elizabeth," replies her companion, Markus, in a voice both
bored and unconcerned. Another patron arrives, or perhaps appears is a
more appropriate descriptor.
"Perhaps, I can help," comes Jex’s silky
voice and she smiles. It is a look familiar to those who know her. Then
again, perhaps no one truly fits into that vaguely defined category. If
there were, the smile would be known as the one that precedes Jex
getting something she wants. She steps to the side of the line and
catches the eye of the secretly deadly bouncer, holds up three fingers
and winks. As she expect, he waves her, Markus and Elizabeth in. Royalty
passing the plebeian masses; they stride past the line. A whisper from
Jex gives the doorman the key to get something he wants and his card
with a message is slipped into Markus' pocket without his notice. That
is, until Jex makes it known to him.
Jex simply accepts she knows Markus
and Elizabeth are siblings related by tenuous blood ties, just as she
accepts her awareness that his proclivities will lead him to thank Jex
for the introduction to the doorman as much as entrance to the gateway
of their playground. She knows already that a month will be spent in the
luxury of their curiously unhappy, but “perfect” lives rather than her
usual need to scramble to find somewhere to crash.
One downside to being
a career street rat is the uncertainty that there will be a comfortable
bed to land in at the end of the night. Those dreams and skips in this
time/place/existence (whatever) that she experiences randomly make
working at regular jobs impossible. It matters not to Jex, the scams that
allow her to treat everyone she encounters like a cat with a mouse
within it’s grasp appeal to her nature. The dreams (is that what they
are?) that jump her to different places and times also give her insight
and that smile returns as she debates the best way to enjoy sucking
misery from these plastic people she will soon be living with.
