'You mean that crazy bitch has convinced someone to play the role of Diva Demona for her so she can pretend I never left?'
'It must be, although this was no bullshit dress-up. I mean, we've known each other since high school and I'm here to tell you, this chick even smelled like you. Or at least like you used to smell. If I hadn'ta known better'
Mona's nausea began to curdle into slow anger in the acidic cocoon of her belly.
'I believe it,' she said. 'I really do.'
She paused, chewing her lip. She remembered the first time she saw Victorine. Back then she was plain old Vicky, just a mousy girl with a camera at one of the shows, looking like it took all her courage to walk in the door. She was like a blank slate, an empty vessel looking for an identity. She met Diva Demona and she thought she found it.
In the beginning, it was really flattering, the way she paid such careful attention to the things Mona liked and the things she hated. She was so subtle, the way she changed herself to fit Mona's ideals.
Mona shook her head.
'She didn't know who she was before she met me,' she said, half angry, half sick. 'She worked so hard to become everything I thought I wanted, the perfect slave, wanting nothing but to make me happy. She cooked and cleaned and let me torture her in every way I could imagine. She was a pretty little vampire housewife and I was queen of her world. As long as I never changed.'
Minerva nodded sympathetically.
'Christ, you don't have to tell me,' she said. 'She was like your own version of Frankenstein's monster. You created her out of nothing, took a bland, blonde suburban chick and turned her into a Gothic vampire fan-girl from hell, and when you got bored with the game, it was too late for her because the game was all she had. It's like she used up all her energy trying to be everything you ever wanted and there's nothing left for anyone else.'
Mona laid her head in her hands, guilt and anger warring inside her.
'It's not my fault,' she said, hating the weak sound of her voice.
'Hey, of course not.'
Minerva slid her chair around the little table and put her arm around her friend.
'Listen, I really didn't want to upset you with all this bullshit. I just thought you might want to know that someone is out there imitating you, that's all. Hey, look on the bright side. Maybe you can sue her for copyright infringement.'
Mona smiled against Minerva's shoulder.
'Yeah, or go drive a stake through her heart!' Mona straightened up, fingers combing nervously through her silver-streaked hair. 'Man, I thought I killed Diva Demona but that psycho bitch went and dug her up. Now my dead past is out there walking around and I feel like I oughta go shoot it in the head or something.'
'Don't sweat it, kiddo. I'm sorry I brought it up.' Minerva put her hand on her heart like a boy scout. 'I swear it'll never happen again.'
She leaned in and squeezed Mona's thigh.
'So, honey,' she said, wiggling her eyebrows in preposterous imitation of some smooth-talking pick-up artist. 'You wanna go back to my place and fool around?'
Mona laughed.
'Why, I thought you'd never ask!' she said.
Minerva had a session that night and so Mona struck out on her own, needing to move, to walk, to drink down the essence of the city, her long-lost lover. Some primal gravity drew her back to her old stomping grounds and she found herself walking the avenues of her misspent youth with a strange and clinging sense of unreality. It seemed the neighbourhood had changed as much as she had. So many of the old familiar bars and clubs that had nurtured Diva Demona were gone, scabbed over with rusted metal shutters or mysteriously replaced by trendy cafes full of immaculate counter-culture acolytes. The streets all seemed fake, like a low-budget movie set of themselves.
She stood on the corner of First Avenue and Ninth Street, letting the warm ache of nostalgia wash over her. There was the Korean fruit stand where she always bought oranges and cookies and cool white roses. There was the news-stand where the old Indian man used to scowl at her choice of fetish-oriented periodicals.
In a sudden rush, she was assailed by ghosts, flickering memories of all those old endless nights sparkling with dreamy, drunken glitter and arrogant passion as she stalked these streets like a high-heeled predator, marking territory, immortal in that moment like only the young and stupid can ever really be. She remembered tumbling like a kitten through the most extreme fantasies with the utter conviction that there would never be a tomorrow.
She took a deep breath. The rich smell of hot salted dough and spiced tomatoes wafting from the steamy interior of the corner pizzeria competed with the dark thundercloud of patchouli and jasmine surrounding a vendor of essential oils and the toxic-sweet exhalations of passing buses. So many memories.
Mona shook her head. It was easy to be seduced by the past, the good times. Easy to forget the way that lifestyle had nearly swallowed her with its unrelenting embrace and narcotic bite. The armour-plated image of the Vampire Goddess, the mistress of men's fear and desire, the Queen of Pain, that exotic persona that she had worked so hard to craft had become a prison, a mask fused to the soul, with no escape, no way out. With Victorine, she had to be on stage 24-7, always performing until she began to forget who she really was. Victorine could never accept her longing for simplicity, for humanity. Everything had to be like those damn photos she always took. Gorgeous and exotic and frozen in time, immune to the entropy and inanity of everyday life.
It was Mona who had crated Diva Demona, but it was Victorine who would not let her die.
Mona bit down on the soft flesh inside her cheek. No matter what Victorine decided to do with her irretrievable leftovers, Mona had already escaped, years ago. That crazy life was for ever past tense and she had grown up into a strong and unapologetic woman. A passionate writer who had mulched under the nightmares and ecstasies of the past to create fertile ground for unflinching fictions. She knew who she was.
She had missed three lights, lost in reverie. She wanted to laugh at herself, but her old apartment was less
