She looked around at the celebration unfurling around her and told herself it had been worth it.
Every ounce of self -degradation she’d been willing to subject herself to even when it’d not been initially requested, every viciously insipid thing she’d pushed subordinates through to prove to the top brass she was self- groomed to be the penultimate mvp savior they hadn’t even realized they’d all been waiting for drained out of the Louboutin heels she’d saved for this particular debut as they click-clacked across the marble.
Her feet pulled ahead of her so fast she’d unconsciously bent her arms back to counterbalance the torque. The slightest impact from any excuse me would have sent her flying off in the wrong direction, like an eight-ball spun off target right before it’d gone into a corner pocket.
She horse stomped across the polished marble like an imposing, upside down J, ready to rule the world she’d fought into fearlessly. Smatterings of pat conversations sucked up as she passed by were added to her stash of subjects to buzz and whirl with when given the chance.
She’d practiced for this night for the better part of the tail end of her life and was ready, game ready. She breezily ordered the serious drink she’d been instructed to get to show dominance in a room that ran on the fumes of those who bent to such things. She crumpled up the napkin the bartender had placed down for her incoming rocks glass to mop the sheen of sweat that had broken out across her palms, tossed it off to the side and grabbed another as she turned and scanned the room.
They cavorted around the elegant expanses she’d had to claw and climb her way up into in search of her heaven in ways that made her hands ache. In remembrance of bruises along the way.
But to them, this here and now she’d craved to such an extent that she’d held back tears just from the rush of being present was no heaven at all. She did her best not to allow the envious outrage burst across her expertly landscaped face as she sniffed it in the air, clear as day.
Though she’d never been able to understand it on the way, well-meaning folks she’d discarded after use had tried to warn her, step by now wincing step.
This was no heaven to them at all. They were here, alright. All of them. The best of the best.
But they were slumming. She could smell it.
Light from chandeliers, candles and crystal clashed with one another in the otherwise subdued stately rooms that status drenched sylphs and their stables of suitors milled about with one another, nonchalantly at rest.
She absolutely coveted every calm breath they took that made perfect sense in light of the relaxed lives they lived, even as the same atmospheric pressure egged her onto the outskirts of the equivalent of what it must have felt like to be psychologically asthmatic.
She hated them all. Pulsed with it as she watched them in person. As much as she’d hated them in the pages of the glossy magazines she’d done despicable things trying to show up in alongside them.
Kaleidoscopic fractals of amber gold and shadow stabbed at her eyes as her stilettos cut into her feet, threatening to topple her in a place she knew no one would lunge to catch her if she’d fall. Her decimation beyond the pearly gates of what she’d surely believed was her xanadu would spiral her into being that fete’s floorshow, and she knew it.
Nowhere to go but up was off the table here. This was her highest high. Even seeing the hints of the higher mountains ringing the one she’d traversed up the side of to get there she knew as she watched them that there was no way to go from this pinnacle that was a backwater juke joint to them, but down.
“Ma’am,” the bartender murmured behind her, bringing her back into some semblance of herself. She shook off her musings, set her face and haughtily looked back over her shoulder at him as if he was the help that surely he would hierarchically be on a plateau like this, for having had the audacity to refer to her in all of her glory as ma’am.
“Would you like another shaft of ice, madam, or would you prefer I remake your-”he course-corrected, feeling the offense her vanity was nervously ready to lean into due to him having mis-spoke.
She startled a bit in recognition of having let the drink go to sod where he’d sat it for her as she’d gotten lost staring out into the crush of it.
“I would’ve tapped you,” he began deferentially, “but it felt improper to do so, here…” he whispered, throwing her a lifesaver he could tell by looking at her she’d needed-
That her vulnerability was that apparent incensed her. She snatched the watered down liquor and tried not to wince as even watered down it burned her to the quick.
“A more properly made one would be greatly appreciated,” she said pointedly as she sat the empty glass back down on the beautiful bar she felt rooted to.
“But of course, madam~” he whispered.
She looked around and tilted her head back so that the tears from the cocktail would slide back down into her without her having to go through the gauntlet of trying to find a bathroom in this god forsaken place.
“Your drink, Miss~”he whispered, almost apologetically, weighed down by his ability to sense the churning she was obviously going through. She took the drink, nodded at him, drained it and, full of courage it provided,cased the place and finally spotted her mark. The bartender’s eyes instinctually followed her gaze and clarification came to him. He smiled
“Have a good night, Mademoiselle~” the bartender murmured as she charged towards her mark with as much verve as her self-imposed composure would allow her to, not even hearing him.
She clicked her Louboutins on the marble for good luck and made her way towards him across the seeming ever-growing expanse of marble sprung up between the two of them. The lights flickered as she came to a stop ten feet from him sprawled on a low couch near windows, disinterested in everything around him.
She took a step and then froze as her right foot sank into the decadently plush carpet she hadn’t noticed his receiving couch floated upon, a veritable sea of insanity for some stilettos . She panicked. Her mind raced frantically as she tried to gain her footing in the split second available to her.
She screamed inside as her target shifted on his perch as if he were about to escape, berating herself for the utter irony of all the work she’d done crumbling under heels that could give her no help in relaxing into the weight distribution necessary to survive the quicksand within which she felt lopsidedly mired.
The lights flickered again, sending slashes of gold and amber light straight into her eyes again, throwing her all the more off balance. The cage of light strewn between her mark and herself flashed aggressively, marooning her. She looked back at the safety of the bar she’d left and saw the bartender watching her turn into a pillar of salt due to it-
“Excuse me,”
A woman murmured and absently pushed passed her, spinning her body back onto the safety of the marble and into the sudden crush of the crowd at the last moment like she was trapped in a pinball machine.
Another Sylph shoved past her as she rounded a corner and sent her onto brighter paths, away from the road to perdition she’d placed herself upon. She groped through the gauntlet of elegant limbs now in her way in search of a bathroom of some sort within which to come to her senses.
Hunched over the sink, she splashed her face with cool water to rinse away the brunt of berating she was up to inside of herself.
She had planned for everything except the roadkill of many a finely heeled woman on their way to glory: the rough, unpracticed, choppy seas of silky, high pile, plush carpeting and rugs.
© AngelBrynner 2025
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