AUTHOR: Missy
EMAIL: lasfic@yahoo.com
PART: 1 of 1
RATING: PG (Adult
Thematic Material)
PAIRING(s): Not Revealed Intentionally
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CATEGORY: Drama
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE:
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Claret and high school never mix well
NOTES: Maybe it's a fever dream, I don't know...
***
It began in a gym all
decked out like her high school reunion had been. There were balloons and streamers and smiling
faces all around her. She felt the swish
of her crepe chine dress the color of scarlet about her ankles as she poured a
plastic cup of claret from a plastic punchbowl emblazoned with grapes. There were a thousand bodies dancing on the
floor to some cheap-sounding oldies band.
Hands were offered, but she pushed them away - they wanted to dance, she
wanted to drink. She could see from the
smiles on their faces it didn't matter - here she was queen of the place, belle
of the ball...
The voice cut through
her happy frame of mind.
"You mean you're
still single after all?"
They puzzled her - the
tone was squeaky and high-pitched, like poor Lenny's had been during his long
journey through puberty. But Lenny had
born perfect, porcelain skin throughout his adolescence; when she turned
around, it was Gloria Lubitz facing her down. But not the Gloria she remembered; this one
was short, pock-marked with acne and showing off a mouth filled with
metal. Had Gloria been to this school?
Laverne took a long,
fortifying swallow from her cup of punch and looked down her nose at this
Gloria impersonator, vowing to make her pay for interrupting the queen. "Yeah."
Her rival's face
tilted toward the soundproofed roof of the gym.
"I always knew it would be that way. You and Shirley, old maids right up to the
end."
A snarl warped her
already-imperfect face. "Shirley's
got Carmine."
"For now,"
Gloria said easily. "But if someone came along who was more
willing..."
She could feel the
plastic glass in her hand begin to buckle.
"Carmine's a good guy. He
and Shirl have been real steady the past month..."
"You know how
good Carmine is, Laverne..."
The silky tone of
Gloria's voice made Laverne's stomach tremble.
She knew - how could she know?
Gloria's smile turned wolfish - her incisors sharpening in the sudden
half light of the gym.
"We have choices,
Laverne," Gloria said.
"It was a
mistake. We'll work it out," she
said pitifully.
"It's hard to
work things out with a tramp like you."
She felt cornered,
like a rat in an ill-sized cage.
"She'll never find out..."
"Don't you think
she's going to smell it on you?" Gloria hissed, her tongue divining heat
like a snake's, forked at the tip.
"She'll never
know," Laverne said, but it came out like the hiss of a cobra.
"Even if she
never does, he'll never marry you," Gloria said, and Laverne shrunk away
as her skin peeled, the fairness dissapearing and
turning pasty - the blue accusing eyes of Shirley looking down at her. It was Shirley now, staring at her with dead,
blue eyes.
She looked down at her
hands and they had become scaly and green, a cartoon serpent. She tried to scream as her legs melted away
beneath the pile of a green-spotted anaconda as the cup fell, dousing her in
claret red as the blood of a murder victim...
***
The world was black as she jerked awake wrapped in the arms
of a man she no longer understood. She
opened her eyes and the weight of her sins was equal to the weight of his arms
around her waist.