Post by Roxy Cotton on Dec 10, 2018 14:39:55 GMT -5
Fingernails dance over a keyboard, echoing rhythmic notes… and then she lets there be light.
A laptop computer screen brightens and we see the effervescent face of the Bubblegum Bombshell in her natural habitat, reclining on a bed in a lacy, purple camisole with a glass of wine in her hand.
With a wave and a wrinkling of her nose that could almost pass for a polite smile, Roxy Cotton giggles and leans forward into the view of the webcam, batting her artificially extended eyelashes as she greets the object of her attention.
“Hey again Sam.”
She waves once more.
“It’s, like, obviously me, Roxy. Did you forget about me? You’ve been awful quiet.
L-O-L, let’s be honest for a second and just admit you couldn’t forget about me if you tried. I bet you stay up at night shitting your pants as the clock ticks closer and closer to when we have to get in the ring together. I bet you wish something drastic would happen, like if I’d have gotten injured in one of the LFL games instead of being the star of them, or if the bookers at LAW just suddenly changed their mind and decided they wanted to go on protecting their little golden child, Sammy Tolson, the chick the wrestling industry just can’t seem to bear admitting is a waste of space.
Well, I’ve got good news and bad news for you, Sammy. A little from column A, and a little from column B, if you will. Which do you want first? Should I go for the good news first and give you a little glimmer of happiness?
No, fuck you forever, the bad news is first. And that bad news, for you anyway Sam, is that the match is still happening and you still have no chance. Obviously all your talk a few weeks back about you wanted me in some sort of no holds barred, extreme rules, whatever whatever whatever match was just bullshit though, since we’re just having a regular match… but that’s fine, babe, I don’t need to get hardcore to beat you. I get it though, babe, having some rules in the way is a good way for you to try and keep your title with some basic bullshit like getting yourself disqualified or counted out. It’s not happening, sweetie. And don’t think you’ll pull off a win the same way you did last time you ‘defended’ the Chaos Title, either. I’m not going to cheat and get my big moment ruined by some corporate red tape garbage. LAW #70 is ending with a pin or submission right in the middle of the ring, and a brand new champion holding up the Chaos Title – FINALLY!”
Roxy tilts her win glass up to her mouth and finishes off the red wine within. Her tongue briefly appears to lick away an errant droplet on her lip, and then she continues.
“Can you believe that, Sam? I mean, this will only be my fourth match in LAW after all. Were you main eventing in your fourth match? Had you earned a title shot by your fourth match? Third singles match, really? And no, I don’t mean being tossed in the middle of some pay per view with three other girls over a title, I mean having a company like LAW looking at you and knowing that you could carry the main event of a show without being hidden with two or three or more other competitors to disguise your weaknesses. You know, like LAW #69. Oh, no, I guess you weren’t seen as a big enough of a star in LAW to carry a main event in a one on one, were you, darling? Like… now that I think about it… have you ever? I tried to find one for a few minutes earlier today while my toes were drying, but I didn’t see any. Can you? Maybe it ended up in the same DVD collection as your ‘big win’ over Kenzi last year? Hmmm…
Honestly, Samantha… how do you keep ending up as Chaos Champion anyway? Like… why were you just ‘awarded’ this title back in 2016? Why have you seemingly defined yourself by being the Chaos Champion over the course of the last two years of your career? Is it that you recognized it as your glass ceiling and clung to it like a baby squeezing her binky to get to sleep at night? Three times! Three times you’ve managed to manipulate your way into holding this title belt, even though as far as I can see you’ve only ever actually managed to WIN it once. But hey, not many people can say they’ve lost a title before actually winning it, so I guess that’s something to be proud of? Maybe? I guess it is when it’s literally all you’ve got, huh? I mean, sure, you tried to become Queen of the Ring, but lost… you tried to become the Breakout Champion, but lost… so you kept finding ways to get your precious back in your hands, didn’t you? How many Chaos Title matches did you lose before finally winning one against Anxo? Four? Five? MORE? It’s got to really, REALLY sting that I’m showing up and snatching it off of you like a cheap set of extensions in my first ever attempt, in my first ever singles main event, when you’ve still never managed to even get one.
Oh, wait… there was one, once, wasn’t there? YES! How could I forget? You DID main event a LAW show about a year ago didn’t you? When you lost the Chaos Title to Kenzi, which is totally archived and available for anyone to see… oh, poor baby, you LOST your only main event! How sad! I’m glad I won’t be doing that, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be?
Oh, I guess you don’t have to imagine. Oops.
Sammy… here’s the deal. You and I both know you aren’t winning this match. We both know you can’t. I’ve been pointing out over and over again for the past two months that your entire championship reign has been a charade. From the imaginary way you won it, to the embarrassing ways you’ve ‘defended’ it… you’re a joke. Honestly, every time you cash a check from LAW you should be indicted for theft, because you haven’t earned a fucking dime. All you’ve done is stolen money from Dupree and the office, and the fans of course, by being the most underwhelming champion LAW has on the books… and with Amy Jo getting fat off of squash match title defenses month after month, that’s really saying something, babe.
So with that in mind, here’s an offer. I’ll leave you alone. I won’t gloat over it, I won’t bury you on Twitter, I won’t ever even mention your name. All you have to do is stay home for LAW #70. Just don’t even book a flight to Minnesota. Forfeit. FedEx me the title belt and spend the night crying into a quart of rocky road all by your lonesome, looking at the one title belt you get to borrow for a few more days that used to have a pair of sisters to go with it. You can lose your title without getting permanently injured and embarrassed in front of thousands of fans. You can walk out of LAW, forever, the same way you spent your entire time on the roster – without a single person noticing or caring.
Just stay home, Samantha. Try and work on yourself for a while. Put your crumbling, shitty life back together and let the real stars shine for once instead of dulling everyone’s glow with your greasy fingerprints. Chapter one of LAW’s Coup de Cool Kids is written in stone anyway – the first title we take is yours. Next we’ll come for the Breakout and the Marquee, and of course, eventually, one of us will be the LAW Champion as well. That’s how revolutions happen, Sam. They don’t happen without casualties, and you get the honor of being the first one. The big example for the LAW status quo that shit is about to change, sooner rather than later. That’s what happens when you hold people hostage baby… they start to rattle the cage harder and harder until it’s all you can hear, and eventually you look down and realize it’s you who is the prisoner. Held for ransom by your own hubris and narcissism, and when the angry mob comes for you it’s too late. Your only hope left is that the queen just gets her crown removed and not her entire head… but the guillotine is looking more and more likely for you, isn’t it honey? So like I said… stay home. Stay in bed. Close your eyes. You’ll still hear the blade whistling down towards the back of your neck, but they say you don’t feel it.”
Roxy leans off to the side of her bed and folds her legs beneath her, Indian style. She brings a one-third full bottle of wine into view and pours its contents into her crystal glass, swirling it beneath her nose and inhaling as she gathers her thoughts.
“You know… you know what I think, Sam?”
She takes a deep sip from her wine, finishing off nearly half of it in one massive gulp.
“I think… after the dust settles and I’m raising the standards for champions in LAW, putting the first one of you bourgeois bitches out to pasture like the trendsetter I am… I think you’ll thank me.
Scratch that, you’d never actually admit it.
You won’t thank me, not publicly anyway, but you’ll appreciate me. You’ll appreciate what I did for you in the long run, Sam. Like I said a few minutes ago, you already know how this ends. You know it’s as inevitable as the sun rising in the East tomorrow morning, or Amy Jo taking estrogen supplements to counteract the effects of menopause. There’s no other ending to our story. You knew it as soon as you opened your mouth and tried to white knight for the poor widdle snowfwakes on Twitter when big mean Roxy started being MEAN to them. I smelled the fear on you when I attacked you at Queen of the Ring. I smelled the unmistakable scent of capitulation from a queen whose neck isn’t strong enough to support her crown. I also smelled halitosis, so, like, I don’t know when the last time you cleaned out that nasty tongue stud of yours was, but you might want to consider it.
Anyway…
So yeah. You’ll finally be free of the burden of this web of lies and deceit you’ve woven around yourself like some delusion cocoon. A lot of people think you’ve just been caught off guard, that you didn’t know what you were getting into when you tried to pick a fight with me all those weeks ago… but I think it’s something more. I think you knew exactly what you were doing, like someone at the end of his rope who walks into a policeman’s gunfire because he’s got nowhere left to go with his life… you saw your natural superior headed in your direction and you decided I was time to bite that bullet, didn’t you? You found the one person you KNEW you’d never be able to beat, no matter what you tried, and you smiled on the inside, glad that it was finally going to be over. You’d be free to walk off into your own personal sunset, into whatever the next chapter of Samantha Tolson is going to be after she’s finished dragging down LAW with her cumbersome mediocrity. Maybe you’ll go into acting? You’ve already been acting like you’re a deserving champion for nearly a year, so you’ve got the experience for it.
You know what they call that, Sammy? When the disenfranchised and the psychologically fractured finally walk into that hail of gunfire, pretending they maybe have a weapon behind their back or something like that? Have you ever heard it before? They call it suicide by cop. When someone is essentially harmless, and they want to end it all, but they don’t have the nerve to pull a trigger themselves… they trick the police into doing it for them, and thy trick everyone else into remembering them for it. It’s so obvious now, so plain to see, that I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it until just now. You’re done, aren’t you, Sam? You’ve already cashed in your chips here in LAW and you just need someone willing to put that bullet in your head and send you home once and for all. It’s the best decision you’ve ever made, Tolson… I can see it now:
Suicide by Bombshell.
Click, click, as the hammer goes back… then… BOOM… right between your eyes.
I’m looking forward to the pleasure of putting you out of your misery, Sam. I’ll see you in Minneapolis in a couple of days, and I’ll be ready to get the Cool Kids dynasty started.
Can’t wait.
XOXO.
Roxy blows a kiss into the webcam and then waves one final time, reaching forward and closing the top of the laptop and sending everything into black.
BIRTH OF A BOMBSHELL - PART TWO
Los Angeles, California – 2007
Racquel stepped out of LAX and into the bright California sunshine for the first time, and she smiled. For once, with nearly 1,500 miles between her and her everyday life, she felt unencumbered. The light breeze lifted her brown hair and gave it life, a glow, previously unseen at any time in her mirror back home in Kamloops.
With the wooden heels of her Mary Janes clicking on the sidewalk in rhythmic timing with the wheels of her luggage rolling along beside her, Racquel finds her way to the taxi line. She takes a moment to pull out the folded piece of paper from her flannel shirt’s breast pocket, reading off the address of the hotel her uncle had booked for her. At the taxi kiosk, she shows the attendant the paperwork and he mutters something into his walkie-talkie, then points Racquel towards a curb. As she makes her way to the area, though, where a cab has just pulled up for her, she’s jostled roughly by two leggy blondes who strut right through her and head for the taxi themselves.
“Out of the way little girl.”
The first girl says without even turning her head. Her partner in crime, a nearly identical version of the first girl just in a different color outfit, takes half a second to look out over her oversized sunglasses as she stomps past her impatiently in six inch high stiletto heels.
“Looks like you need another taxi, bitch!”
The two blondes laugh and prance away into Racquel’s taxi, leaving the young Canadian to just stand on the sidewalk gaping at the audacity of it all. The two even roll down their window and continue taunting her as they start to pull off, blowing kisses and waving sarcastically as Racquel dejectedly walks back to the taxi attendant.
“Uh… I need a cab for the Peninsula Beverly Hills?”
“Again? I just called you one.”
“I know, but…”
Racquel turns slightly toward where the original taxi cab is pulling into traffic. The two blondes are still somewhat visible in the back seat.
“Ah, I see. Ran across a couple of mean girls, huh? That happens here, but don’t worry about it.”
“Mean girls? But why? Why be mean to total strangers?”
The man in the kiosk talks into his walkie again, calling for a new cab to come for the naïve youngster. When he’s done, he looks down at the girl and seems to have a moment of sympathy for the newcomer.
“Look… these girls… they come here to Los Angeles chasing dreams. But nobody chases dreams unless they’ve got something to run away from in the first place. Who knows what it is, but it’s always something. So they come here and they try to become a different person.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Well… put it this way, okay? When you get into movies or magazines or whatever it is, it’s acting, right?”
“Right.”
“So, it’s more than just hair and makeup and wardrobe… you have to become someone else, you know? You have to BE a different person in order to be successful. And for a lot of these people, thy take that to heart in their real lives as well. It’s an easy escape. When the lights are shining and the camera’s rolling, whatever it is in your personal life that’s hurting your heart or making you miserable, it goes away because you aren’t YOU anymore. You’re the character, the persona, and nothing can get through to the real you. It’s self-defense. Those women hurt you because they don’t want you to hurt them, and the easiest way they can think of to prevent it is to attack. And if you fight back? It won’t matter, because you won’t be hurting the real them, just the façade.”
“That’s… terrible. How sad!”
“It can be, that’s for sure. Hey, your cab’s here. Good luck, kid. Don’t forget who you are.”
“Yeah… thanks.”
Racquel smiles and turns away from the kiosk, heading back toward the curb where a new taxi is idling and waiting for her. She places her case into the trunk of the cab and gets into the back seat, and the car slides into the busy lanes of the Los Angeles streets.
As the taxi moves north up the 405 in stop and go traffic, Racquel thinks of what the man told her back at LAX. Those two girls weren’t real… they were peroxide and perfume, silk and silicone. Their faces were behind masks. As much as Racquel found the idea frightening, she also found it fascinating. A girl who doesn’t really exist can’t ever really be damaged. After all, she’s an idea. It’s like drawing a picture of a person and making a mistake… you just erase over it and draw it again. You fix it, and there’s no trace of the damage.
Racquel went on with her day. She got checked into the most luxurious hotel she’d ever seen, thanks to her uncle funding what was supposed to be a dream come true vacation. A birthday present, though a little early. When she thought of what he may have considered himself to be buying, though, Racquel shivered and had to force the thought away, focusing instead on the gorgeous new reality in front of her rather than the shadows of what inevitably waited for her when she eventually had to return home.
Unless, of course, she actually made it big. If she hit that one in a million jackpot and found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that so many young girls had come to Hollywood for. If she could do that, she might never have to go home again, after all.
The dream, though, began seeming more and more to be just that and nothing more as the day wore on. Every walk-in audition was filled with cookie cutter bleached blondes with saline chests and loose morals. She stood out by not standing out at all. She may as well have been a potted plant.
Eventually, Racquel found her way back to the Peninsula just as the sun was lowering over the Pacific Ocean, a sight that, even in her depressed state, Racquel couldn’t help but be in awe of. Here she was, still in High School, but standing in the presence of magic. Golden sunlight lapping at the ocean just outside of a five star luxury hotel, where she got to stay for the night.
She was still in a trance when she heard a familiar voice.
“Ew! It’s that girl from the airport!”
“O-M-G, Kiki, you’re totes right! It’s her!”
The two blondes were coming out of the Peninsula as Racquel was walking towards the doors. They looked prepared for a night on the town, dressed to kill. Tight, form-hugging mini dresses, the highest of high heels, hair and nails and makeup done to perfection. Their skin matched the hue of the sun of the ocean.
“What the fuck are you doing here, little girl? You can’t afford to stay here.”
“Yeah! This isn’t a place for YOU. This is a place for US.”
This time the two women didn’t just walk past her, but seemed to swarm around her. Racquel could smell heavy perfume as they each made their way up close to her, standing on either side.
“Answer me, you little nobody. Who told you you could come to my hotel?”
“This is yours?”
Racquel answered in an incredulous whisper, unwilling to even meet the eyes of the vivacious sexpot glaring down at her. The two women laughed in unison like shrill hyenas, looking at each other like they were witnessing a circus sideshow.
“I don’t mean I own the hotel, little retard girl. I mean this place is MINE. For IT girls like Chardonnay and me. Where are you from? Iowa? It looks like Iowa.”
“I’m from Canada.”
She replies again, sheepishly. The women have tightened around her, backing her against an elaborate planter. There’s nowhere for her to go but through them.
“Canada! Oh my god, I should have known with your ugly little lumberjack shirt and your frumpy jeans! Did your mommy buy you your jeans, baby?”
“Yes…”
“OMG! She said yes! Her mommy bought her jeans for her! Isn’t that SO SPECIAL?”
“I think it’s FUCKING DISGUSTING.”
The second girl, Chardonnay, may as well have spit when she said it. Racquel winced like she’d been slapped, and she felt her eyes start to well.
“Oh! Oh little baby are you gonna CRY? Is widdle ugwy duckwing fwom Canada gonna CWY for me?”
The woman leaned down so their faces were nearly touching. The strawberry smell of bubblegum breathed into Racquel’s face.
“Hey baby… how about this? How about me and my IT girl partner in crime here give you some A-List advice? Would you like that? Would you like to learn how to be more like us?”
This very suggestion made Racquel’s heart jump into her throat. The idea of being as beautiful and strong as these women was all she’d ever wanted in life.
“Yes! Yes, please, I would love anything you have to tell me! Thank you so much!”
The two girls looked at each other again and Kiki, the more vocal one, pulled her bubblegum from her mouth and twirled it around her index finger. The second, Chardonnay, laughed and looked down at Racquel, then reached out and shoved her into the planter. Dirt and leaves covered her while the two blondes cackled like hyenas again, and then Kiki leaned forward once more.
“Here’s your free advice, little bitch… GO HOME. You’re never, ever, EVER going to be like us.”
“As IF.”
“As if for sure. Bye bye little baby. We’re off to be fabulous. Don’t be here when we get back.”
And with that, Kiki pushed her finger into Racquel’s hair, twisting the chewing gum into it down to the root.
Racquel sat and choked back tears as the two women walked off into the night, howling in laughter with one another. After a few seconds to compose herself, she pulled herself from the planter and made her way into the lobby. The concierge took a look at her and pointed her in the direction of the commissary, where she found a myriad of beauty supplies and even a small clothing boutique to try and clean herself up using.
She looked around at the nice smelling soaps and the lotions… and eventually saw a variety of hair products. Dyes and bleach. Next to them were self tanners and other cosmetics.
When she walked to the counter with an armload of products, the cashier smiled sweetly, pretending not to notice her disheveled state.
“Should I charge these to your room?”
“You can do that?”
“Of course! Everything can be added to your bill. Room service as well as any other inside purchases. So… shall I?”
“Yes please! Thank you!”
And with that, Racquel made her way to her room on the third floor. She went inside and headed straight for the bathroom, where she allowed herself exactly five minutes to cry in privacy. When she was done, she looked in the mirror and saw her frowning, puffy face. She saw her ruined, dishwater-colored hair. Her dirty clothes.
Racquel reached for her bag from the commissary and pulled out her purchases, laying them out on the countertop in a row. Hair bleach. Tanner. Eye and lip makeup much fancier than the big box brands she’d carried with her.
With some effort and patience, she managed to free the chewing gum from her hair and threw it in the trash bin, then spent the rest of her evening performing a metamorphosis. She dropped her clothes onto the floor and covered herself in cosmetics, feeling the bleach cook into her scalp like it was changing her from within.
Three hours later, after a shower and further experimentation, the girl standing in front of the mirror was unrecognizable from the one who’d been bullied in front of the Peninsula earlier in the evening. She was ageless. Not a timid 14 year old girl, but a bombshell who could be anywhere from 18 to 25. Now she stood with platinum blonde hair and golden skin, her eyes painted into mystifying cat-like shapes. She stood staring at herself and thinking of those two girls as well as all the disinterested talent agents she’d met that day, and wondered if she was going too far in becoming someone new.
“As if.”
Then, she tightened the small towel around her body and looked at her meager cleavage. She adjusted it so that it pushed what little she had of a chest together and upward, giving an illusion of something much more. Again, it was like a magic trick. Like a butterfly ripping from a chrysalis. Just by tightening the towel around herself she could move from an A to a C cup, and then back again.
The doorbell rang. Her room service, no doubt. She glanced at a bulky robe hanging on the hook behind the bathroom door, but decided instead to simply walk over and open the door to her hotel room in jut the tiny towel. Tightened, of course. The jaw of the young man standing behind her food cart practically fell off of his face.
“Uh…. R-r-r-room service, miss? You ordered dinner?”
“Oh! Thank you! Can you bring it in here?”
He gulped and the lump in his throat visibly jumped up and down. Racquel smiled. She had power over him. She was in charge and had completely taken away this complete stranger’s ability to control his own body, the same way her Uncle James had taken it away from her for years.
Now she had it back.
“Thank you baby. You’ll charge it to the room?”
“I, uh… yeah, yeah… of course… um… but you know…”
He stammered and stumbled over himself, unable to look into her emerald green eyes.
“I could… I could comp it, if you gave me your number maybe?”
Racquel smiled wider. She was flattered, but couldn’t let him know she’d never had this kind of an offer before.
“You’d give it to me for free just to spend time talking with me?”
“Oh yeah. For sure.”
“Hmm… well. That sound like a deal, baby. Here…”
Racquel then took a small napkin from the cart and scribbled her cell phone number across it, then handed it to the young man, who eagerly stuck it into his pocket and then headed for the door.
“I’m gonna call you when I get off my shift. The meal’s on the house, they let us comp stuff if we need to make the big wigs happy… don’t worry. Oh! But… what’s your name?”
Racquel smiled again and squeezed her towel tighter, catching a glimpse of the brand new her in a tall mirror on the closet door. She hesitated for a second when a memory from the nice man at the taxi kiosk came back to her, about not changing… but it was fleeting. She turned back to the man waiting outside her door.
“Roxy. My name’s Roxy.”
~END~
