Hunting the Fairy Tale

Chapter 30 - On Haunted Hill

I was kind of disappointed to hear that. I really tried to break the bastard's arm when he grabbed me and tried to restrain me to do hell knows what to me.

"They're all so very friggin' sorry now. He said he thought I'd be into it, and he forgot about my glitter allergy." I laugh, though none of this is funny at all. "I have a glitter allergy. Yeah, let's call it that..."

I laugh again, I might be higher than I thought. Am I sounding a little slurred? I think I'm sounding a little slurred.

"I have another shoot Monday night. I'm almost done. I just have to hold out until my birthday. Only about three more bookings left. Then I'm gonna kick that bastard's arse so hard; his butt is going to protrude from his nose. He's going to have to sit on his face for the rest of his life."

Galen is blinking at me, struggling to focus on my face. Three beers and a couple of joints in, he is not all that sober anymore, either.

"He thinks ye're gay? He set ye up with some gay guys? To do what exactly?"

I shrug, taking a drag of the joint he hands me. I watch the smoke as I blow it out, trying to make it form rings. It somehow seems to be very important that the smoke forms perfect rings. It doesn't; the rings are all lopsided, and I'm very disappointed.

"I don't know what he's thinking. I've told him like a million times that I'm not doing anything pornographic and no posters for adult shops or strip clubs or whatever. I'm not going down that road. I don't want stuff I do now to come back and bite me in the arse later! But he keeps on trying to lure me into it.

"A couple of weeks ago, I had a shoot with some older women that started to turn uncomfortable. Reeeeeeeeally hot ones. Another time there were two college students, a guy and a girl. Today it was two gay strippers. It always starts out as a photo shoot for whatever project it is he has lined up, and then, under his step-by-step instructions, it just grows weirder and weirder, until I just bail.

"He is apparently trying to find the right bait to get me on board. He keeps on talking about how much money we could make if I would just play ball. I was already not okay when we were stripped down to our jeans, and these two guys suddenly started to throw glitter paint at me.

"Friggin' glitter, Gan! I could hardly breathe. I was battling to fight a massive panic attack. I didn't realise just how bad I still..." I gasp for breath, fighting against a wave of nausea.

"Mason was happy with the pictures because apparently, the bewildered, I'm-gonna-frigging-die look was what he was going for. I couldn't speak, I was freaking out. It was too m-much... Next thing, the two dudes get rid of their jeans, and they're putting their hands all over me. And they were... getting really... well, you know... I didn't kill anybody..."

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck," Galen says eloquently, and he almost looks sober again. "Mate!"

"Yeah. Turns out, the project was posters and crap that will be plastered life-size all over the interior of a gay strip club. I mean. A strip club, McKenna! I wanted to scrap the pictures and destroy his camera, but I couldn't breathe. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

"There was glitter everywhere. I'm probably not that recognizable in the pictures because of that glitter... Saved by the bloody glitter, huh? Isn't that ironic?" I laugh, sounding a little hysterical in my own ears. It's not such a good idea to talk about this. Talking about it makes it seem more real, somehow. This is why I usually just shut the hell up when bad things happen.

Bloody weed. I hate the stuff.

My skin still crawls when I think about all that glitter. If it wasn't for Willow and her cleanser, I don't know what I would've done. Probably used a potato peeler on my skin. I take another deep drag of the joint to drive the rising panic back again.