Written at a time I was at a Myer store figuring out whether Lady Gaga’s black liquid Fame was poison. I’ve always wanted to be Mithridates.
Scene: Black tie, event of the century, electric
1st P.O.V (fem)
I wanted to vomit it out. All of it. That suffering swallow of black mollusk tartare, sweetened and honeyed, a spoon of toxic substance. But everyone was looking at me with their epicurean eyes, so, I swallowed. Enough to make me angry at myself, and enough to fill my glass with wine so red, so enticing, it’s blood on my lips. And I saw his smug look, not too far away, and I straightened. Perhaps I could gouge his eyes out instead.
3rd P.O.V.
It was as black as the polish on her feet. She had left them all black while her fingernails wore a French. Was that vile cuisine French? Please no, she beseeched whomever could hear the dying grumble of her insides. Looking around her, feeling the criticism through their sequinned dresses and black formals, she straightened up. She made sure to do it in an effortless flourish, like calligraphy on parchment. But those eyes. The French one, this one she was sure of. So smug, so conceited, so attractive that it was, in all accounts, heinous. She left a smudge of lipstick on the rim of her glass. Her liquid saviour. She’s going to have to poison him with it.
3rd P.O.V. (male)
It’s her pride, he concluded finally, noticing the discreet glares of those who milled in close proximity of her dying insides. She reigned it in quite effortlessly, really, and he was half impressed. Well, more than really, if he was being generous. He thought perhaps she would run from the establishment in a flurry of red silk hugging every delectable curve… she had done that once. She didn’t though, he guessed that too. Even better, she’s walking towards him and so he set his glass down. Finally, we begin.