A Wicked Walk

Safety starts to feel like a myth when you’re selling your body like it’s a hanger for a clothing rack. This is me, am I good enough for you? Are my legs thin enough, or do they rub together too much when I walk? Do you like my eyes, my chin? Should I swing my hips or not? Do I have a boring face, an average body? I’ve even been told I was too pretty before. A pat on the hand, the way a child gets a bandage for a wound that nobody can see. Sorry, we’re looking for uglier girls; you understand. 

No, I don’t.

The music is pumping in my ears so loudly I can’t even hear my own footsteps or see the runway when I step onto it. I can feel it under my stilettos, that’s all I have to go off of. I can feel the back of my dress is completely unzipped until about three seconds before I’m out there, bathed in neon purple light. Everything is distorted. I keep my gaze forward and focus on my hips, on my hands, on my steps. One foot in front of the other. A camera flashes somewhere, and everything is white for a fraction of a second. I blink, but my face doesn’t move. The shoes are too small for me, I can already feel a blister forming. The music is so loud I can feel the base rumble through my feet, vibrating through my body as I watch the model in front of me almost roll her ankle as she poses at the end. In my head I’m laughing, but on the outside I am poised, though admittedly I’m looking forward to hearing her get chewed out.

Better her than me.

I pose at the end, feeling every vein in my body shooting blood toward my heart, toward my brain, in time with whatever effervescent K-pop track this happens to be. It’s in those three seconds that I stand there in front of everyone that I feel myself breathe, exhale. And then I’m holding my breath again all the way until I’m behind the curtain. 

Backstage everyone is running around. Girls cluster with stylists and makeup artists, their tits out, wearing nothing but a nude thong. You get used to this after a while. I, too, am out of my dress in a matter of seconds, disembodied hands moving over my form so quickly I don’t even see who they belong to. Could be anyone. I realize as I’m looking around, I don’t see the girl who almost tripped. She’s nowhere to be found. That’s impossible. She’d been right in front of me.

“Hairspray!” Someone beside me yells and then I’m bathed in that vaguely fruity aerosol scent, my ponytail getting re-slicked while someone else is barking at me for my name. Nobody ever knows anybody’s name around here. We’re all just bodies. Sabrina, I’m saying, and even as it comes out of my own mouth it sounds unfamiliar. Foreign. I don’t remember the last time I said it. They usually just give you a number, throw you in a line. Sardines stuffed into a tin, wet and glittering and completely indistinguishable from one another.

The man who was yelling for my name is now sifting through a rack of clothing, all covered with black garment bags. They’re marked with our names. Someone beside the first man is picking off multiple hangers, his lips pursed. They all say Amber. I wonder idly if Amber is the one who tripped back there. The man carries off what would have been Amber’s looks and tosses them into a garbage can. I furrow my brows gently. This was a more low-grade show, underground you might say. But I’d never seen anyone throw away a designer’s pieces over a shitty runway walk. 

I don’t have any more time to think about this before they’re shoving me up onto the runway again, a new pair of ill-fitting shoes on me. I hadn’t even realized someone had changed them. I walk, now in a pair of shorts and a crop top. All the designs are white, pristine looking. In the club lights they have going, we all sparkle like mirages of snow in a desert. Somehow, we all look fresh, clean, cool. Our hair is slicked, our makeup is bright and colorful. My eyeshadow is bright orange, my lips dressed in a plum sort of shade.

The eyes that look on take us in with lips pressed flat, hands folded in laps. They watch us waiting for a mistake, waiting for another Amber. It was never about the clothes. You can always feel it, the way they’re watching each step you take, as you pass by among the string of girls. One after the other, they clench their hands together tighter like they’re praying we fall. But there’s no God here, that I know. We hold ourselves up, or we drop.

As I’m walking the music changes, to a song with more guitar, even louder and more suffocating than the last. Another noisy tune that I’d never heard before, something club-esque and punchy. My steps stay uniform, elegant and strong. I have tunnel vision for the model’s head in front of me, so much so that I almost trip on the body. 

Amber. She’s laid over the runway with a slice in her neck so deep the smell of thick, hot, metallic blood fills my nose as I step over her. I only glance at her for a moment. I keep walking, I keep walking as I’m thinking is that fake blood? It can’t be… the smell. And then the model behind me screams, a shriek that’s barely audible over the sound of the music. Nobody in the audience shifts, they all just sit there, eyes forward, like mannequins. I dare to look down slightly again and our heels are leaving behind trails of Amber’s blood, the fluid glowing in the neon lights, contrasting the white we’re all draped in.

When I arrive backstage the model who was screaming is being snatched from behind me, howling like an animal as multiple people keep her from running, caging her in. My heart is hammering in my chest, as another pair of hands is undressing me again. I hear someone in my ear telling me how perfect I look out there, how I’m doing a flawless job. I don’t say anything, I just flinch when I feel them running something wet all over me. 

I look down and my bare chest is covered in red. It’s still warm. Is it Amber’s? I look over my shoulder and the girl with the curly brown hair is being punched repeatedly in the stomach, crying out for help, reaching into the air toward where I’m standing. Nobody looks toward her but me. 

I just look at her. 

I’m soaked in blood, the penny smell invading my nose so aggressively my stomach is curling in on itself. They don’t even give me shoes, and then I’m up again, being shoved out of the curtain with nothing but my nude thong on, and whoever’s blood smeared all over my sand-colored skin. Probably Amber’s. 

For no reason at all, I walk. 

The music isn’t even music anymore, it’s just high-pitched buzzing. Nobody in the audience moves, but I do, I walk. I am the pillar holding all of this up. I am walking sex. I am red and beige and blonde. This is me. 

Am I hot enough yet? (The blood is so hot).

Do I look strong enough? Are my hips swaying properly? How are my eyes, my lips, my neck? Tell me I’m perfect.

Nobody in the audience looks at Amber’s body. Neither do I. 

Am I ugly enough yet? (Yes).

I walk, displaying her sacrifice on my skin, showing everyone what her sweat and tears couldn’t keep inside her body. My steps get more and more confident as I step into the puddle again, the balls of my feet sticking to the runway as I leave new prints of red behind me. It doesn’t hit me until I get to the end that I’m the only model out there, blood drying crusty onto my nipples, blood seeping into my underwear. When I pause at the end of the runway there’s another fluttering of camera flashes, much more explosive than before. White fills my vision, and then I’m turned around again, heading once more for that black curtain. The ringing in my ears is so loud. 

This is what they were waiting for.

When I step behind the fabric everyone backstage is facing me, as if they were waiting for me to finish. And then they clap, smiling superficially at me as I stand there, blood dripping down my thighs. The girl with the curly brown hair lays there against the wall with her ribs bashed in, her skull spilling out a red and grey mush that looks like discarded Jello salad. The other girls… who knows where the hell they went… 

Better them than me.