Invisible Parties — 18 of 31

Book - Beautiful People

beautiful people is a party in tangle. beautiful people is west of office party. The printed name of beautiful people is "Granite and Glass". Understand "granite" or "glass" or "granite and glass" as beautiful people.

The description of beautiful people is "This is a home, you think, but a home out of a spy movie or a photoshoot, not intended to be lived in by humans. Ceiling and floor are vast oceans of polished black granite; the walls on two sides are sheer glass, so the overall effect is of being between two crushing plates. There is no clutter at all, each item of furniture spaced out from the others like a piece in a gallery. The guests are beautiful in a marble-and-porcelain, expensive-tailor manner; they aren't so much mingling as posing in groups.[p]There'll be a garage somewhere, and a ridiculous prestige car, and the road out."

the way to the garage is a waymouth in beautiful people. Understand "car" or "prestige car" or "prestige" as the way to the garage. The description of garage is "You can feel that outwards from here is the Night Road: it gives you a feeling of burger-grease and petrol fumes, high-beam glare, the squeeze of a brake pedal."

[The specific image I was thinking of here was a vague recollection of the cover of the Skunk Anansie album _Post Orgasmic Chill_, which now that I actually reference it looks almost nothing like the image I had in mind - it's a scabby hotel room with ceiling tile, gross furniture and an aging carpet. The only commonalities are the leggy-model pose and dress Skin is assuming, and the blocky French-windows shape of the room. Probably it got merged with something more Frank Lloyd Wright-ish in memory.]

the black granite floor is an unimplement in beautiful people. The description of black granite floor is "It's as though the whole room is an expensive kitchen countertop."

the sheer glass windows are an unimplement in beautiful people. The description of sheer glass windows is "Seamless, frameless, without blemish. There's a good-sized drop on the other side, and it's easy for your fear-brain to forget the glass is there."

the expensive minimalist furniture is an unimplement in beautiful people. Understand "chaise" or "longue" as expensive minimalist furniture. The description of minimalist furniture is "Simple, clean shapes and dark tones matching the black granite; meant to draw the eye towards their occupants. Probably about as comfortable as a cinderblock."

The tsadesc of beautiful people is "You're perhaps a shade more slightly built and a couple of inches taller. Six inches taller, counting these awful strappy shoes. Even so, you're still at about cleavage height for most of the women around here. There's a sort of airbrushed quality to your skin, and your hair's gelled back against your scalp."

bellas are a crowd in beautiful people. The description of bellas is "Tall, graceful men and women, all slightly androgynous in an elfin, decorative manner. Crisply and expensively dressed. Everyone in carefully-chosen greys and blues, and you in scarlet. You can tell that, in other settings, each would be alarmingly beeautiful; taken together, they feel like a school of predatory fish." The printed name of bellas is "beautiful people." Understand "elves" or "elf" or "tall" or "graceful" as people.

The listendesc of beautiful people is "A nightingale-voiced woman sings flowing glossolalia over an electronic soundscape that's all spangles, chimes and glitter. Nightingale-voiced in the way you'd interpret it if you'd never actually heard one." [I'm thinking of Cocteau Twins here.]

The boozedesc of beautiful people is "You see no bottles, bar or anything else that could be used to procure alcohol, but a number of the guests hold cocktail glasses, their contents either icewater-clear or a gleaming mahogany. You venture a sniff at the latter: it's cold tea."

Instead of drinking the drinks in beautiful people when beautiful people is not doomed: say "It's not for actually drinking. It's for posing with."

The singdesc of beautiful people is "The music here is so floaty and ethereal that you can't really imagine that the voice is produced by the same set of organs that you use for talking."

The dancedesc of beautiful people is "The posed stillness of the room is getting on your nerves. You fail to work up the courage to disrupt it with some crumping or something equally fast and angry."

The desolation of beautiful people is "There's something wrong about the man next to you. His perfect face is... yeah, that's a blemish. No, a full-on rash. The woman next to him has it, too, a patch of cracked, flaking skin spreading across one shoulderblade. The woman next to her - shit, they've all got it.[p]Lesions blossom on flesh, suppurate into craters. Skin sags, spines hunch, eyes yellow. Beside you, a woman coughs and splutters, then spits out a mouthful of teeth and blood-streaked mucus. There's a splattering sound as someone's bowels void. One by one, the guests crumple to the ground, crawl awkwardly into corners. You don't seem to be affected, yet, but your skin itches furiously, phantom spikes of pain crawling around your body. Go. Go."

The demise of beautiful people is "Your face itches. Your eyes itch, watering uncontrollably. You're unable to resist scratching, and when you do something rips, bursts wetly down your face. The nausea hits all at once, dizzying, so you vomit as you're falling over, which would probably look really impressive from some other perspective. You don't have the energy to fall properly, and something in your forearm snaps as you hit the floor.[p]It's largely downhill from there; if you picture every disgusting thing your body has ever done and then compile them into a twenty-minute clip-show, it's pretty close to that."

The rivdesc of beautiful people is "Rivka Strossi is immediately obvious, being the only other person in the room under six feet tall. She's leaning in a corner, head cocked to gaze out of the window."

The rivcostume of beautiful people is "She's wearing an cream suit, collar and tie aggressively immaculate. Her dark hair is magazine-cover perfect. It takes you a moment to notice the brass knuckles."

The rivweapon of beautiful people is "a telescoping baton".

The closeclue of beautiful people is "Beside the mantelpiece of a wholly decorative fireplace, someone - evidently as bored with this place as you are - has scratched a series of graffiti into the slate walls."

the graffiti is an unreachable clue. the javeclue of beautiful people is graffiti. The description of graffiti is "A little South African flag, the word 'shit' in various fonts, several rather inexpert faces, a recognisable Blackhawk helicopter, and some stick-figures fucking." Understand "flag" or "faces" or "helicopter" or "blackhawk" or "stick figures" or "figures" or "stick-figures" as graffiti.

The javeinit of beautiful people is "Jave is standing by the arm of a chaise longue, flanked by a pair of perfect, bored-looking drones[one of]. Is the idea here to make you jealous? Someone didn't do their research[or][stopping]."

The javedesc of beautiful people is "Jave is normally a good head taller than you. In heels, and elongated to scale, she towers[one of]. [p]You haven't ever seen her in heels before. And with her skin airbrushed by context, she fits in with the aesthetic here a whole lot better than you do: she has the fine bones, the long graceful limbs, the ability to contendedly sit still for more than twenty seconds... but, ah, that's too obvious a trick. They'll have to do a whole lot better than body-image wank to get to you[or][stopping]."

The javecostume of beautiful people is "Jave has kicked off her heels and seems closer to her regular height, but she's still wearing a scoop-back dress, shimmery and deep aubergine."

The Night Ride is outside from beautiful people. Night Ride is an egress. The description of Night Ride is "A dangerous way, but a swift one. There are branches of the Night Ride that are unlit mud tracks that you go down a-horse, post to post, watching the woods; there are gun-barrels through desert or taiga, mountain dragonbacks, or - as here - an inhuman world of neon signs, snaking lines of tail-lights, a grimy trash-strewn darkness. They're all the same way, and you're one of those who endorse its other name, the Hell Road.[p]You're behind the wheel of a vehicle: fuck knows what make or model, but it seems low-slung and expensive. Something rhythmic and poncy with a lot of synthesizers is playing on the stereo." Understand "hell" and "road" as Night Ride. Understand "car" or "garage" as Night Ride.

The javeapp of Night Ride is "Jave is in the passenger seat".

The listendesc of Night Ride is "Consciously-electronic music. Soft, sterile emotions, heartbeat rhythms. Lyrics that repeat until they assume deep meaning. A feeling of... celestial attenuation."

The roadahead of Night Ride is "The road glares with red eyes, and the radio murmurs love-hymns to software."

The rebadesc of Night Ride is "Reba al-Nasri is in the darkness of the back seat, face contoured by streetlight shadow."

The rebalook of Night Ride is "You can make out no more of her than her neck, half an arm, one side of her face with the eye reflecting traffic-light amber. She is very still"

The singdesc of Night Ride is "You sing along with the stereo, which mostly involves subvocalising the harmonies."

The dancedesc of Night Ride is "You chair-dance a little in your seat, until you make the car swerve and return to your senses."

Night Ride is rebaseated.

The reba-act-1 of Night Ride is "She leans over the back of your seat, her breath on your ear."

The reba-act-2 of Night Ride is "You do your best not to draw her in to your neck."

The reba-act-3 of Night Ride is "Reba leans forwards in her seat and squeezes your shoulder."

The reba-act-4 of Night Ride is "She settles herself, arranging her hands neatly in her lap."

The tsadesc of Night Ride is "In the Night Ride, one is little more than an extension of one's vehicle. You fit into the driver's seat like a hand in a glove, and you're only aware of your flesh as connections to steering-wheel and pedals, the flickering rotation of head and eyes between road, mirrors, instruments."