Post by Roxy Cotton on Jan 15, 2019 14:42:23 GMT -5
Malibu, California; Friday, February 16th
WELCOME TO ROXY COTTON'S LIVE CAM
Roxy appears as the webcam focuses. She sits on the edge of her bed as usual, dressed in a for fitting minidress that hugs her every curve. Her hair is exquisite, not a single hair out of place. Her makeup is impeccable. Her skin glows in sunkissed perfection as she smiles a hello into the cam.
"Hey everyone!"
She lifts her left arm in a wave, revealing a large gauze bandage wrapped around it.
"Oh, right. This? Nothing. Just a little boo boo, it isn't anything to worry about. It would take a lot more than a little flesh wound to sideline your reigning Chaos Champion, that's for sure."
Roxy reaches forward, somewhere behind the laptop, and comes back with a wine glass in her hand, filled halfway with a rich California red. The imprint of lipstick on its rim belies where the other half has already disappeared to.
"I just wanted to spend a few minutes with my little RoxStars before heading out on the town. Tonight is Vinnie's birthday. We're going on a little tour of LA so that all the paparazzi can get a look at the loving couple together and happy. Lately we haven't spent a lot of time together in the same place at the same time... he's always so busy running his company, and me, well, you know. The schedule of a multisport superstar such as moi is never dull, that's for sure. Even though the LFL season has ended, we still have a lot of time dedicated to practice and learning new plays. Plus there's the new girls, and adjusting to the ones who left. I also recently signed up for Katalina's Foxy Boxing, which you can rest assured is very soon going to be known as ROXY boxing. And, of course, my duties as LAW Chaos Champion are extremely time consuming. Not just with training for matches, even when I'm sick as a dog like last time. No, I'm also a brand ambassador for the company, so I have to make a lot of personal appearances, media days, unveilings, so on and so forth. There's more to being a champion than just winning matches, you know."
Roxy takes a sip of wine, holding up an index finger as if to say 'hold on' to her audience.
"I think that's what a lot of people don't get. People like Liz Blackwell, who don't seem to really put a lot of energy into this as a career, you know? I mean... Vikings jerseys? Truck stops? That's how she dresses in public? That's where she spends her time? Do any of you really think a girl like that is fit to hold a championship in one of the biggest brands on the market of women's wrestling? Do you want to see the LAW name sparkling on marquees and shining in spotlights, or do you want it scribbled across the bathroom wall of some trucker's bathroom? Do you want front page, above the fold headlines, or do you want the LAW Chaos Champion to just be a silhouette on a dirty set of mud flaps? It's a simple choice, isn't it? Ten times out of ten, gentlemen choose class. No one wants the prestige of this championship, something I've worked for months to drag up out of the bowels of this company, to be sullied by some unrefined, unpolished, undesirable cornpone BASIC like Liz Blackwell. As. If."
Roxy's voice on her final words are muddled inside of the wine glass, which she's brought back to her mouth, leaving a fresh set of lipstick on the rim.
"And you know... a lot of people out there are going to say that's just me being a hater. That I'm just running my mouth the way I would with anyone. They'll tell you I just don't like her or that I get off on putting other people down. They might even say I'm just putting her down because I'm SCARED of her, because when we got into the ring down in Florida, I didn't win. And you know what? That's a good point! I did not beat Elizabeth Blackwell one on one at LAW #77. Now, I could make a federal case of how I wasn't feeling well, how I'd gone to LAW management and told them I was sick and they forced me to compete anyway, but I'm not going to do that. I'm not, because the truth is actually really simple. I didn't think Liz was as good as she actually is. I thought Liz was going to be an easy win, sick or not. I was wrong. Maybe I should have already known she was a fierce competitor, since she'd beaten Maki. I honestly saw that as a little bit of a fluke, TBH. Maki is a sweetheart but the girl's got... problems. You know? She has some off days, for sure. She isn't some unbeatable fighting machine, so when Blackwell overcame that challenge I chalked it up to her having good luck and Maki having her own personal problems. Maybe I should have seen it because she works so closely with another champion, Annie Fugate. Annie is no joke, that's for sure, but just because someone good is training you doesn't mean you're going to be just as good. I mean, Vinnie trains me all the time. He's been my primary trainer for my entire career. But just because he's a multiple time top champion and a hall of fame talent doesn't mean he passed that on to me. It's not osmosis, after all. It isn't sexually transmitted. I wouldn't beat Vinnie in the ring, and I don't think Liz would beat Annie Fugate... but I think I could. Why? Not because of my trainer, but because of my hard work and because of what I've already managed to accomplish in a pretty short span of time. Look no further than the Rising Stars main event, and you'll see the challenger to the LAW Title, Sam Tolson. A woman I choked nearly to death when I took this Chaos Title away from her. And teaming with the former LAW Champion? None other than Kate Steele, a surefire hall of famer, the very first ever LAW Champion, and a woman I put down to reclaim my gold. I think my accomplishments should speak for themselves, but no matter what my record says, no matter how many main event stars I put in my win column, somebody always comes along and thinks I won't be ready for them. And heading into LAW #77? Liz might have been right. I might not have been ready. I might not have given her the consideration she should have gotten. I saw a green wrestler with two matches under her belt and I thought I saw someone I'd put away the same way I did with Steele and Tolson. Like Abby. Like all the rest. And I made that mistake on that night, and it cost me another W. But... BUT... the people who would say that, the people who would throw that in my face and use it as a reason to bet against me forget something important, don't they? They forget that me, with a hundred degree fever and nothing to lose, nor anything to gain by winning, someone who clearly underestimated her opponent and someone who by all rights DESERVED to lose... didn't. They forget that, although I didn't beat Liz Blackwell, Liz Blackwell didn't beat me either."
Roxy takes a final sip of her glass, draining the glass of all but a few stray drops that criss cross in burgundy lines across the bottom of the crystal chalice.
"Liz Blackwell showed up to LAW #77 having never entered a LAW ring without leaving as a winner. She came into my ring in Florida looking to make a name. Looking to prove herself. SHE, unlike me, had a lot to gain in our match. But she didn't. No, all she proved was that I was actually right the entire time... she proved that Liz Blackwell can't beat Roxy Cotton. Not even when everything is in her favor. Not even when I can barely breathe. Not even when I couldn't care less about the match. Not even when I, the Chaos Champion, am being forced to abide by standard rules. So she gets her second chance. But she gets that second chance with every advantage stripped away. She loses the element of surprise, because now I know exactly who she is and exactly what she can do. She loses the physical edge, because I am one hundred percent ready and willing this time around. She loses the psychological advantage because nothing brings my mind into focus more than defending this LAW Chaos Title. Because I've been under the bright lights of a pay per view match and walked out with my hand raised. Because I've fought under chaos rules and found them to be perfectly suited for someone like me. She lost every advantage she had, and like a pendulum on a grandfather clock, everything has swung back over into my time. So tell me... if Liz Blackwell had all of those things in her favor, and she couldn't beat me then... what makes anyone think she can beat me when things are slanted in my direction? The answer is simple. The answer is... nothing. The smart money is on Roxy Cotton to walk out of Rising Stars the same way I walk into it, with the LAW Chaos Championship wrapped around my waist."
Reaching behind the laptop once again, Roxy produces a half empty bottle of wine, tilting it over her glass and filling it two thirds of the way to the top before setting the bottle back down out of sight.
"But Lizzie... don't feel like you walked away with nothing. Don't think that just because you'll be leaving Nashville without my title and without the bragging rights that would come along with taking it from me, that you didn't prove something to someone. Because you did, sweetie. Last time, I thought you were nothing more than two dimensional. A cartoon. I thought you were nothing more than a pretty picture with no weight behind her punches. But baby, you proved me wrong. You? You're Liz Blackwell. You're a perfectly capable fighter and a threat to anyone who underestimates you inside those ropes. You, sweetheart, are absolutely no cartoon."
Roxy takes a sip and then licks her lips. When she smiles, bloody traces of wine stain her bright white teeth.
"But you're no champion either. And you're sure as hell no Roxy Cotton. And now it's your turn to learn something, baby. I hope you're looking forward to Nashville as much as I am, Liz. It's going to be a blast.
Can't wait.
XOXO."
Roxy blows a kiss into the webcam and then shuts the lid to the laptop, sending everything into black.
DOLL PARTS
Earlier the same day...
"Ugh!"
Roxy Cotton slams her cell phone down on the tabletop beside her. The level of her half full wine glass bobs up and down as the shockwaves from the impact ripple through, causing the empty bottle next to it to shift half an inch or so. Roxy's eyes widen in frustration as she leans forward over the small vanity tabletop, looking closely at her reflection in the mirror at its back. She sits at the small table clad in only a purple towel, her hair in a damp top knot, clearly just having showered and come to find herself at her makeup station to touch up anything that may have been blurred or smudged in the water.
"She doesn’t know what she's talking about. She doesn't know what she's fucking talking about!"
Roxy mutters to herself over and over, each repetition gaining a little volume. With her fingers, she moves her errant blonde hairs away, lifting and moving her eyebrows and cheeks around as she carefully inspects herself in the mirror's glass. She looks over every inch of her perfectly maintained face, seeking out any potential flaws or shortcomings. For long, silent minutes she investigates herself, over and over, revisiting the same corners of her visage several times before starting up all over again.
"Ridiculous. I'm perfect. I told her I was perfect, and I'm perfect, just like always."
She tells herself with a sort of shaky gusto, but her eyes still don't leave the reflection in the mirror as she turns her head back and forth, catching different angles and different lighting.
"No!"
Her breath catches in her throat and she freezes in place, her head bowed forward with the mirror's head lamps illuminating the area just between her sculpted eyebrows. Delicately, she runs the curve of her golden polished fingernail across the skin just over the bridge of her nose, as if tracing over a line.
"No, no, no, that's impossible! That's impossible!"
She leans forward even more, the purple terry cloth of her bathroom towel slipping as her chest lies across the vanity table. Her face nearly touching the glass, Roxy stares intently at the spot between her eyes.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK!"
Finally she sits back down heavily in her chair, grabbing up her call phone once again and swiping through the lock screen, pulling up a number from her contacts and then pressing the phone icon to make a call. She holds the phone against her head and taps both feet nervously in anticipation.
"C'mon c'mon c'mon... pick up already..."
Finally a look of relief comes over her as she hears the call connected on the other end. She rushes through a quick introduction, nearly blurting everything out without a single breath.
"Hi! Yes, it's me, Roxy Cotton. I need an appointment with Doctor Furrow right away please. Today. Mmhmm, yes, botox please. No, no, no, it has to be today. Listen to me. It HAS to be today. I have appearances to make tomorrow, and I don't have time to... NO! I can't wait until Tuesday, what are you fucking stupid? Are you listening to me? NOnonononono, don't hang up! Don't hang up, please... look, I'm sorry baby. Okay? Are we okay now? I'm sorry for saying you're fucking stupid. I'm just, like, really busy and I need this ASAP. I've barely had time to breathe today, like, I'm just so busy all the time, you know?"
Roxy readjusts the towel, tucking the top in between her swelling breasts and finishing the last sip of her wine.
"Can I just talk to Doctor Furrow? Please? Can you put him on? Yeah, yeah, sure I can hold, but just for a second."
Roxy lets out a long exhale and sets her phone on the table, pressing the speaker button and letting the room fill with canned hold music while she goes back to manipulating the skin between her eyebrows, stretching and pressing and running her fingers along the curves of her face. Finally, the music cuts off and a male voice with a slight, indeterminate accent comes onto the line.
"Yes, Miss Cotton?"
"Doctor Furrow! How are you, baby?"
She hightens the pitch in her voice and scrunches her nose in the mirror coquettishly, even though no one is there to see her flirtatious displays.
"Busy. Very busy. All booked up for today I afraid, as Amy says she informed you."
"She did, she did, but, um, baby this is ME, you know? You know I live a really public life, I have cameras in my face every day, and people wait in lines for hours just to meet me, get my autograph, whatever. This is, like, a cosmetic emergency!"
"Yes of course, you must be the only woman in all of Los Angeles with an ounce of fame. What is the emergency?"
"Okay, well, the other day? On Twitter? Keira Fisher said I had a wrinkle."
"A wrinkle?"
"Yes."
"And she said that to you on Twitter? In a tweet?"
"Yes! It was so bitchy of her! I mean I know she's just a rude old granny trying to make herself feel better by taking a shot at someone ten times hotter than she is, but still! Can you believe it?"
"But if she was on Twitter she couldn't even see you. Why is this even a concern? You were just in for a fill a week ago, your skin is perfect."
"That's what I said! But now I think I kind of see something? Like right between my eyes, between my eyebrows, you know? There's definitely a little bit of a line there."
"Miss Cotton..."
The doctor sighs audibly through the phone's speaker.
"Miss Cotton, those are just normal creases in your face. When you move, the skin moves. You have to have some flexibility in your face otherwise the skin will just rip when you smile."
"Then I don't have to smile!"
"Listen. Miss Cotton. Roxy. You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Your skin is flawless. You look like a magazine cover come to life. There's no need for you to come in today, or even Monday or next week at all! You're getting obsessed. It isn't healthy."
"But Doctor Furrow!"
"I'm sorry, I can't help you. And before you even consider it, no other parlors are going to rearrange their schedules for you. Not on such short notice on a week with a day like Valentine's Day in it. Everyone in So Cal is probably booked to the max as it is. You need to just wait until our next appointment. You'll be fine. Now if you'll excuse me."
"Doctor Furrow wait!"
"I have to go. Goodbye Miss Cotton."
"Doctor Furrow? Doctor Furrow!"
Roxy shouts into the phone, grabbing it up and holding it close to her mouth as she continues to repeatedly call the doctor's name. Eventually the screen shows that the call has ended, and Roxy drops the phone onto the tabletop once again with a groan.
"This is fucking BULLSHIT."
With another groan, sounding almost like a wounded animal, Roxy leans into the mirror again. She stares at the spot between her eyebrows, opening her eye wide and then bringing them together in an angry frown. The slightest of creases forms in a vertical line in her forehead. She gasps loudly and falls backward, her torso hitting the chair back and nearly knocking herself over.
Roxy sits and breathes, staring at herself in the mirror in a full panic. Her chest heaves in nearly hyperventilative rates, and then she grabs wildly for her makeup brushes strewn about the table. Angrily, she grinds a wide spanning brush into a plastic container of concealer, then dusts it in spirals across her forehead, darkening her complexion and vanishing away any signs of the light reflecting from her skin. The frantic application brings her mind back to her visit to Los Angles, years before, when she first discovered herself beneath the cocoon of her old face. In the mirror, Roxy's face becomes a matte painting of uniform tan. She drops the brush and looks again into the mirror, turning her head back and forth slowly. Then she drops her eyebrows into a frown once more.
A tiny divot appears between the bombshell's eyebrows, just the slightest pitting of skin, barely caught by the light.
"NO!"
Roxy wails in furor and anguish, throwing the makeup kit and the brush onto the floor and dropping her head into her hands, sobbing. She pounds her fists on the table top and cries out, screaming in unintelligible non-words. Then, steeling herself a bit, she pauses to catch her breath after the tantrum. She flexes and unflexes her balled fists on the table. Hey eyes come to rest on the inside of her left forearm, watching the muscles beneath her skin moving with each squeeze of her hand. A barely visible line of white scar runs down the inside of her arm, bisecting it into two halves of otherwise unblemished, perfectly tan skin. Roxy seems nearly hypnotized by the sight of it, as if she'd forgotten it was even there and that the sudden reminder took her someplace else in her own mind.
Then, somewhere behind her emerald green eyes, something beaks.
"FUUUUUUUUCKKK!!!"
She leaps to her feet, grabbing a hairbrush in her right hand and taking a step back, then flinging it into the center of the mirror. Thee glass shatters in an explosion of sound and glinting lights. The cacophony of glass shards raining down onto the tile floor around Roxy's bare feet begins as a deluge and weakens and slows down to a sun shower as the tiniest fragments float more slowly down to the floor.
Roxy stands stone still, breathing deeply and staring at the place where the mirror once was, still seemingly seeing her own face where the reflection should be. In a flash of movement, she grabs at a larger piece of broken glass and grips it firmly in her right hand, drawing a small trickle of blood from her palm. Shaking, he angles the point of the glass toward the scar on her left forearm, pressing its sharp tip into it. Pressing it firmly, the skin dimples inward, the area around it whitening under the stress, and then finally reddening as the skin gives way. Roxy moves like a machine, emotionless, as if working on an assembly line. She pulls the glass down from her wrist, toward the inside of her elbow, and the skin opens up like a blossoming flower. It peels back and unfurls, her arm opening like a zipper to reveal the parts inside.
In her head, Roxy watches the vinyl skin separate. The sheath slides away, and within her arm she sees plastic. Plastic tendons, plastic ligaments, plastic muscle, plastic bone. "Made in China" is stamped in capital letters down the length of her radius as she continues to drag the broken glass down. With a tug, the flesh of her hand falls away like a discarded single use rubber glove. Bright white plastic gleams as she bends the fingers, the joints all identical.
Roxy drops the glass, and its breaks into pieces around her painted toes. Stepping onto the glass and shredding the soles of her bare feet, Roxy walks closer to the vanity, staring vacantly into the space where the mirror had been. She leans forward slowly, reaching into her hairline, parting the flaxen locks as if pulling back a curtain. She sees the perfect symmetrical rows where her hair sprouts from its vinyl scalp, reflected back to her eyes as if the glass wasn't shattered around her. In quick succession she yanks free four or five different croppings of hair, leaving a bald section dotted just with the holes where the hair had been. Opening her hand, the hair falls in solid clumps. She stands straight again and loosens the towel, not flinching as it falls into a purple pool of cloth around her ankles. She stands nude, looking at her reflection in a non-existent mirror. Her hand slides down from her shoulder, over her jutting chest, completely exposed as one solid hunk of plastic molded into a rising bosom. No nipples disrupt the landscape of her monochromatic breast, just a stripe of light glowing off of the seam at her side. Moving further down the front of her body her fingers find her navel, now poking from her midsection like a tiny plastic flower. Her fingers rub over its surface finding meticulously carved letters which she touches gently, as if reading Braille. MATTEL, it says. Without as much as a blink, Roxy turns her plastic belly button clockwise for a full rotation and watches as new hair grows from the holes left exposed by her harvest. After three more turns, it is as if she hadn't ever pulled the strands free at all.
She moves her hand lower.
Roxy's palm finds the space between her thighs. Smooth and sexless. An ambiguous lump of plastic with no folds or openings. Cold. Useless.
Looking back at the mirror that isn't there, she sees a new face. A face that is made of stickers and dye. A smile that cannot falter and eyes that cannot look away.
Roxy screams.
She screams in endless shrieks until every ounce of air has been coughed out of her. Her throat is bloodied by the sheer force of her cries, and as she draws in another breath it feels like her esophagus is being raked over hot coals. She screams again. Louder. More desperate. She swears she feels tears rolling down her cheeks, but the image she sees as her reflection is still smiling. Still happy. Still completely blank.
Maxine arrives like a storm surge, wrapping a blanket around Roxy and bending her left arm at the elbow, stemming the flow of blood that had been pouring from the long cut Roxy'd made on herself. Why her employer was standing naked in front of a broken mirror and screaming, bleeding all over herself, was anyone's guess, but Maxine's job was to guard Roxy's body, and guard it she was going to do.
Roxy's screams weaken into harmonic bleats as she turns her face into Maxine's strong chest. The bodyguard lifts Roxy off of her feet, seeing the soles tattered by pieces of broken glass. She carries Roxy like a sleeping child toward the staircase and carries her upstairs, leaving a trail of dotted red across the floor. Roxy dangles limply in Maxine's arms, quietly sobbing, until Maxine deposits her onto her own bed, sitting her up and leaving her there momentarily while she rushes into a bathroom and returns with first aid supplies.
Maxine slowly cleans and dresses the cuts on Roxy's feet and arm, wrapping a large cotton pad on her forearm with gauze and medical tape. Seeing the vacant look in Roxy's eyes remain unaffected, Maxine waves a hand in front of her boss's face, to no avail. Seeming unsure of what to do, the bodyguard then heads to a bedside table, where Roxy's gleaming LAW Chaos Championship sits. She grabs it and carries it around the bed again to where Roxy sits at its foot, and places it in the bombshell's begging arms. Roxy blinks. She sniffs away the tears dripping down her nose, then looks at the faceplate of the title belt, seeing her name and the title it represents decreed across the golden façade. Slowly, she comes back to herself. Like waking from a long dream.
"Did you see? In the mirror? The doll? Did you see the doll? Was it me?"
Maxine just kneels calmly in front of Roxy and takes her hand, gripping it reassuringly while Roxy continues to regain her wits.
Then, downstairs, the sound of a door loudly closing.
"Babe? I'm home babe! The birthday boy is here!"
Roxy snaps back to reality in an instant. Her eyes widening as footfalls echo off of the stairwell.
"Maxine! Please... don't tell him. Okay?"
The large woman stands up and retreats, stoically folding her arms over her chest, and then nods in assent after a pregnant pause. Maxine waits a beat and then walks toward the bedroom door, satisfied that she'd done her job.
"And... Maxine?"
The woman stops in her tracks but doesn’t turn to face Roxy, instead watching as Vinnie Lane climbs up the final steps.
"Thank you."
Maxine nods again, then walks out of the door, shifting her body sideways to allow Vinnie to enter the bedroom as she leaves. Vinnie is all smiles as he opens his arms wide.
"Hey Maxine, sup? HEY! Babe! How have you been? I missed you!"
In reply, Roxy jumps up from the bed and collapses against Vinnie in an embrace, burying her face into his neck. The two stand silently in a loving hug, swaying back and forth, as the scene fades to black.
~TO BE CONTINUED~
