storytime with beth
Lawless
Naomi Binder-Birmbaum nibbled her pen thoughtfully as she stared at the pulsating computer screen. “LIVE GIRLS!" screamed the pop-up ad, as two leather-corset-clad blondes writhed around an artificially-tanned male. “FUFILL YOUR FANTASIES!” the bold font cheered.
She X-ed out of the oh-so-graphic graphic while suppressing a smile; Naomi was thankful for a bit of excitement in her perfunctory night of studying, studying, studying. Her dreadfully black-and-white law books seemed to be never-ending, and hopelessly devoid of any... color, she chuckled, thinking back to the passionate image. Over the tops of her poindexter glasses, Naomi peered at the clock. 2 am. Yawning, she unzipped her jeans and crawled into the cramped bed of her grad-student apartment. Ah, this was the life.
The next afternoon after class, Naomi’s bubbly roommate Allyson, a drama grad-student at NYU, leapt through the apartment after retrieving the girls’ mail. “Oh dearest ’Omiii,” she sang, referring to the nickname she’d dubbed Naomi. “Yoooou have some maaaail!” She waved a pink envelope in the air and grinned.
Mail? Naomi didn’t get mail. She got e-mails from her mother, saying she should remember to change her bedsheets. She got spam from Viagra advertisers, recommending she enlarge her penis. But she didn’t get mail. She stared at square of paper curiously.
“You’re invited to Steph’s Bachelorette Party!!!” said the envelope’s contents, in what Naomi couldn’t help picturing to be the permanently-giddy voice of her younger sister. “When? Friday, March 18th!! Where? Hott 22’s Ladies Night!!! Why? To live it UP because STEPH’S GETTING MARRIED!!!!!” Naomi had never supported her sister’s copious use of exclamation points (!!!), but nonetheless decided wouldn’t mind attending a night of good, old-fashioned strip-clubbing. Besides, the club was near where she’d grown up, she could do a free load of laundry at her parent’s, she reasoned.
Friday, March 18th came more quickly than Naomi had expected. The days passed in a blur of gray New York skies, overpriced Starbucks coffee, and black, street-stained slush clogging the city’s sidewalks. When her last class ended, she hurried home to strip of her conservative, law-school apparel and shop for some truly outrageous outfits with Allyson. She’d begged her, though suffocatingly energetic, intelligent roommate to tag along to the bachelorette party to improve the group’s IQ and aid in her sanity. Her sister Steph’s friends were a hoard of sorority “sistahs,” the type of women whom Naomi had come in little contact with while at her liberal-arts college and even less with at law school. She simply did not have the sort of tolerance she had built up during high school against such bottle-blond beings. But now, she and Allyson had to look the part and blend in. They knew what they needed: pleather.
Pleather, Naomi decided while in their first store, has to be the trashiest product known to woman. First of all, the black plastic-leather hybrid has the benefit of actually resembling a trash-bag. Secondly, it clings to every follicle of one’s body, thus producing the most revealing effect possible. She slithered into a pair of skintight pants and zipped them up.
Continued here...
(it's a short story for a --gasp!-- writing class)
Naomi Binder-Birmbaum nibbled her pen thoughtfully as she stared at the pulsating computer screen. “LIVE GIRLS!" screamed the pop-up ad, as two leather-corset-clad blondes writhed around an artificially-tanned male. “FUFILL YOUR FANTASIES!” the bold font cheered.
She X-ed out of the oh-so-graphic graphic while suppressing a smile; Naomi was thankful for a bit of excitement in her perfunctory night of studying, studying, studying. Her dreadfully black-and-white law books seemed to be never-ending, and hopelessly devoid of any... color, she chuckled, thinking back to the passionate image. Over the tops of her poindexter glasses, Naomi peered at the clock. 2 am. Yawning, she unzipped her jeans and crawled into the cramped bed of her grad-student apartment. Ah, this was the life.
The next afternoon after class, Naomi’s bubbly roommate Allyson, a drama grad-student at NYU, leapt through the apartment after retrieving the girls’ mail. “Oh dearest ’Omiii,” she sang, referring to the nickname she’d dubbed Naomi. “Yoooou have some maaaail!” She waved a pink envelope in the air and grinned.
Mail? Naomi didn’t get mail. She got e-mails from her mother, saying she should remember to change her bedsheets. She got spam from Viagra advertisers, recommending she enlarge her penis. But she didn’t get mail. She stared at square of paper curiously.
“You’re invited to Steph’s Bachelorette Party!!!” said the envelope’s contents, in what Naomi couldn’t help picturing to be the permanently-giddy voice of her younger sister. “When? Friday, March 18th!! Where? Hott 22’s Ladies Night!!! Why? To live it UP because STEPH’S GETTING MARRIED!!!!!” Naomi had never supported her sister’s copious use of exclamation points (!!!), but nonetheless decided wouldn’t mind attending a night of good, old-fashioned strip-clubbing. Besides, the club was near where she’d grown up, she could do a free load of laundry at her parent’s, she reasoned.
Friday, March 18th came more quickly than Naomi had expected. The days passed in a blur of gray New York skies, overpriced Starbucks coffee, and black, street-stained slush clogging the city’s sidewalks. When her last class ended, she hurried home to strip of her conservative, law-school apparel and shop for some truly outrageous outfits with Allyson. She’d begged her, though suffocatingly energetic, intelligent roommate to tag along to the bachelorette party to improve the group’s IQ and aid in her sanity. Her sister Steph’s friends were a hoard of sorority “sistahs,” the type of women whom Naomi had come in little contact with while at her liberal-arts college and even less with at law school. She simply did not have the sort of tolerance she had built up during high school against such bottle-blond beings. But now, she and Allyson had to look the part and blend in. They knew what they needed: pleather.
Pleather, Naomi decided while in their first store, has to be the trashiest product known to woman. First of all, the black plastic-leather hybrid has the benefit of actually resembling a trash-bag. Secondly, it clings to every follicle of one’s body, thus producing the most revealing effect possible. She slithered into a pair of skintight pants and zipped them up.
Continued here...
(it's a short story for a --gasp!-- writing class)