It's Always Snowy in Manehattan

“This suit itches.”

Octavia sighed, casting an estimating glance over her friend. “Vinyl, stop making up stuff. And it isn’t a suit; it’s a tuxedo.” The two women slapped slished sloshed through the winter puddles towards the building, towards the building building building they sloshed.

Where did they slosh towards?

The building, they sloshed towards the building.

What was the building?

Oh, the building, rattle-dattle, the building was the old concert hall.

The concert hall?

Yeah, baby, the old, tatta-ta, the old concert hall it was, the old concert hall of Manehattan.

“It still itches.” Vinyl, disgruntledly, tugged at her bow tie beneath the scarf. “Should I wear this tie? My neck feels like it’s getting strangled by a bajilion nightmare puppies.”

“Nightmare puppies?”

“Don’t cling to words, Octavia.”

“Listen, do you want to attend my concert or not?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then calm down your nightmare puppies, you’re gonna stay in those clothes for a few more hours.”

“Then you’ll undress me real slow and gentle?”

“Vinyl, don’t press it. I’ll hit your lesbian face with my fist with a straight hook.”

“Haha. ‘Straight’ hook.”

To the building they went, two fair maidens, to the golden gates of the holy church of Roam, before the golden gates they knelt, and the guarding angel speaketh unto them:

“Who’s this one?”

“She’s with me,” quoth the godly maid Octavia, and lo and behold!, pass the maidens into the holy abode of the gods of Music, and greeted by all, and on to the storage room Octavia goes, and Vinyl behind her, taking in the majesty of this mysterious church.

“Do you classy musicians keep all your instruments here?” Vinyl asked and remarked to herself that, if she were to play in the concert hall, which was unlikely, she would not leave her turntables, just as her whole set-up, in the storage room.

“Uhuh,” Octavia mumbled, picking up a cello case. Here, they undressed, the hot, stuffy atmosphere of the concert hall getting to them. “Okay, Vinyl. I have to rehearse. Go to the chamber room, here’s your ticket. Wait for the show.”

Vinyl grabbed the piece of paper eagerly. “I thought you’d be soloing an orchestra tonight…” she drawled, much like a kid whose dream-bike didn’t turn out exactly the way it was pictured in dreams.

“Some other time,” Octavia assured her. “Now go. Mingle with the audience. Make small talk. Be polite and pleasant.” The two women left the room, and Octavia took a sharp left, disappearing behind a door.

“Polite and pleasant,” Vinyl repeated to herself. She smirked. Now that the Gaze wasn’t present, she felt more like herself. If being bawdy and bold was herself. Recently, she’d been considering whether her new self, calm and servient, was really her inner self that had been sleeping within her, barely dormant, when Octavia’s eyes awoke it. “Oh, you don’t know how pleasant I can be, Octavia…”

“Good evening!” Vinyl greeted an especially fat, ugly-looking black woman in an equally black dress that held her folds barely, the woman who was sitting next to an especially lean, muscular black man, bald and handsome, the man who held the woman by the hand, and, judging by the rings on their fingers, the couple was happily married, even though how such an A-grade man would marry such a woman escaped Vinyl completely.

“Why, good evening!” the woman said with a posh show of hand that was clearly meant to symbolise something but was utterly lost on the DJ. “A lovely show this is going to be!” She snorted approvingly. “I hear the cellist is a great professional.”

“Oh, I know her,” Vinyl blurted out, checking her ridiculous bow tie.

“Oh, really?” the woman questioned in polite disbelief.

“Yeah,” Vinyl relaxed, a grin tugging at her lips, “in fact, she’s my girlfriend. A real beast, I gotta tell you. Wears me out every night,” she lied, seeing with pleasure the look on the woman’s face. Her man was pleasantly talking to another gentleman next to him. “Oh, and after the concert, she likes to take her bow and put it-”

“I-I think my husband is calling me!”

Vinyl smiled. Even though she could not have Octavia in reality, she was content to have her like that in public’s eye. Though, she felt something new tugging at her insides. She felt that, maybe, it wasn’t a good idea to set Octavia up like that. She felt that, maybe, there was a reason why Octavia hated lesbians so much… She felt that, maybe…

Octavia entered the stage, along with two men, one of whom was carrying a double bass, while another paced towards the grand piano. Whispers pierced the chamber hall: Horshopin. Frederic Horshopin. Maestro!

Vinyl didn’t give a damn about Maestro or Horshopin or anyone but Octavia Philarmonica, the beautiful Octavia Philarmonica, who took her sit and eyed the audience, meeting Vinyl’s eyes for a moment. She smiled at the humbled DJ, and that smile nearly drove the ecstatic woman to an orgasm.

The little ensemble played some classical tune, but Vinyl could only look at Her. She could only take in the scent of the black woman’s perfume and sweat and replace it in her mind with Octavia’s faint natural smell. She could only see the prim cellist in her classical shell and see her naked, in bed, waiting for her to c… not to claim her, but to… to love her? She realised why she didn’t want Octavia to fall anymore; she realised why she wanted her all the best in life; she realised why she wanted to be with her, every day, even without hope of reciprocation. It was simple, really.

Vinyl Scratch realised that she was in love.