Re: By the pond, under the lights: wicked little town/gnosis
Loathe as Hedwig was to admit it, Tommy looked… well, good, damnit. He looked like the boy that Hedwig remembered, but also more. That quintessential air of rock god, mysterious worldly veneer scraped over the smooth surface of corn-fed middle America. Where once he’d been unsophisticated, now he was untouchable. But beneath the daubs of paint, milky skin flushed pink and Hedwig’s heart leapt in his throat. His chest, packed tight with wrath and sorrow. He felt a pang of mourning there.
“Sounds like they must have been a fool,” he said softly, the words acerbic on his tongue. In a shift of weight where the mud cushioned his stockinged knees, Hedwig climbed to his feet with one hand braced against a stone bench that decorated the side of the pond. The other clutched synthetic blonde glamour against cleavage made out of padding and prayer. “Most rock stars are, you know. Tortured, romantic fools.”
Hedwig pursed his glittering lips, gaze sinewing down Tommy’s body to his feet where the man shuffled closer. He lifted a proud, defiant chin. “I’m a solo act now,” he lied, because there were dozens of truckers with lipstick stains on their denim flies who would beg to differ. (A girl must eat, after all.) “Really starting to stir up some attention in the indie circuit.” (Yes, he did so appreciate the man buns and cigarette-legged jeans.)