[open] march prompts - will match prose OR brackets

[itsconceptual]

i. a nightclub

Nights with live music are better for dancing. People come up with any number of reasons why -- the feel of the bass beating in your heart, the energy from the band mixing with the energy of the crowd. It's all bullshit, really. Esoteric crap that people come up with when the night's mostly over and they're too high to think they sound pretentious. It's all because of the noise. Because when the amps are pumped up to max, when the singers are screaming into their mics, it's too loud to worry about thinking. The couple in the corner making out, two friends having a row...it doesn't matter. You mute it and just fucking dance.

Which she does, as much as possible. Moving. Aggressively ignoring all of the other shit. Beat after beat, partner after partner, staying only long enough to make them want her and then vanishing into the crowd again. Later, you'll find her at the bar, ordering a round of shots --vodka, from the look of it-- and then immediately downing one of them.


ii. outside a tube station

"Listen, Ms. Stonem," Effy, she silently corrects, watching them. "You're a lovely young lady, but I'm just not sure you...mesh...with our vision." She wasn't really listening for the rest. There were some half-hearted platitudes --"we really do wish you all the best," "we're really very sorry," "you've been so valuable," things like that-- and she probably muttered a quick "thanks" before going to pack her things, but it didn't matter. Not really. Temping in a finance office was never really her dream job, of course, but it just sort of...seemed like something you were meant to do. "Get out into the real world" and everything. Well, so much for that. She doesn't realize until she's off the train that one of the briefs she'd been putting together is still in her bag.

As soon as she's off the train, she pulls out a cigarette, flicks open her lighter -- it doesn't work. Nice.

She can be found outside of the station, unlit cigarette still in her mouth, tearing pages out of the brief, folding them into abstract shapes and then tossing them into a pile on the ground.


iii. late night wandering

It's always the same dream that wakes her, so late into the night that it borders on early. A door, appearing in an empty wall of her flat, opening into blackness, calling her forward. Beckoning. Sometimes, she thinks she can see herself, staring back at her from the other side of it, a faint silhouette in the darkness.

"You don't know me," she hears, her own voice coming from that other self's mouth, "and you never will."

She takes a step toward it, and then another, and then--

Awake, gasping, she shoots up and stares at the wall. No door. She reaches for a lighter, remembers the stern words of the landlady --no smoking at all times, god, why had she picked this place, again?-- and slips outside. It's raining -- something she doesn't seem to notice until she realizes she's forgot her keys. In her flat. With a door that automatically locks behind her.

"...Fuck."

And that's the story of how Effy is now wandering around alone, soaked and smoking, aimlessly waiting until someone happens to open the door -- or the management office opens. One or the other.


iv. wildcard
(any time during the month. choose your own starter, or talk to me on plurk [posolutely] and i'll set up another prompt!)

Comments

i

[akillersmile]

"Buy a guy a drink?" Kyle asks from beside her at the bar, only because she's just ordered a round. He flashes her an easy smile before shaking his head and holding up his hands in a mock gesture of surrender. Between the accent and the loud gestures, it's obvious that he's an American. Yelling above the music, "Kidding. But you should dance with me before you go, if you want to actually dance instead of dealing with the line of assholes trying to get as much action as they can before you leave 'em behind."

Another smile. He's not judging. It's fun to watch some of the tools of the club get what they deserve.

[itsconceptual]

The accent is the first thing she notices. Despite that, though, he seems more...normal than some of the people she's met so far. She eyes him for a moment, eyebrows lifted curiously, a slightly wry, buzzed smile coming over her face. So he's been watching.

"If you want something," she begins, pausing to slide one of the shot glasses his way, "...you should take it."

She downs the last shot, leaving the glass on the bar, and gives him a look over her shoulder as she goes back to the dance floor.

[akillersmile]

It's hard not to notice her, between the line of guys at the bar bemoaning their inability to score and, well, the way she looks in those clothes. He accepts the shot when offered, downing it as she does. His eyes follower her back to the dance floor before he rises from his stool for his body to follow as well. She knows she has this effect, he knows it's a trap, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying it while it lasts.

"Isn't that stealing?" He asks, humor in his tone, as he edges his way in front of the guy already trying to cozy up to her. "Taking what you want."

[itsconceptual]

It could very well be a trap, the way she coyly tips her head, like she's daring him to do something. At the very least, it's a less harmful one than some of the other traps you might find in a place like this -- the inhuman-ness is all around, strange and almost suffocating.

"Oh, no. Stealing. How scary." Her eyes are wide in mock surprise, but there's a teasing half-smile on her face, too.

[akillersmile]

Kyle dances casually, enough to blend in yet not really pushing things. Not yet, at least. For now, he keeps his hands to himself and watches her, wondering if she's one of those too cool for school types he never gets on too well with in the long-term.

"Oh, right, I forgot," he replies above the pounding of the music. "Having morals is so last century."

[itsconceptual]

Kyle, you have no idea.

"Morals," she repeats, amusement in her tone as she moves to the music -- much less casually than Kyle does. He sounds like a regular boy scout. "Haven't you ever wanted something so bad you've just got to take it?"

[akillersmile]

He thinks about it for a minute, before giving a shrug that's too intentionally nonchalant. The idea of wanting something so badly he's willing to risk any consequence for it is almost foreign, but he does remember a time when he was that guy. Jock, popular kid, plenty of dates. He owned the world then.

"Not for a long time."

[itsconceptual]

"You really are a boy scout." Her expression has changed a little, though -- a little less come hither and a bit more forced. He sounds like someone trying to be good, and that's something she can relate to, but...not in a way she wants to. One of them is doing much better at this good thing. Or rather, one of them has stopped trying.

"What do you do when you want something, then? Wait for it to ask you to dance?"

[akillersmile]

"I'm not," he replies with a shake of his head. Kyle's done too much sketchy and bad shit to be thought of as a boy scout and his moral compass doesn't exactly point due north, even if his intentions are generally good. While she might see a parallel in him, he's beginning to wonder if she's only a distraction for him, the kind of girl he shares nothing in common with whatsoever.

"Or I ask myself if I really want it that bad, because the answer's usually no." A few years in South Africa helped with that.