➺ Valentino

He was a repulsive man - through and through. Many knew of his mistreatments, his ploys; yet this very peculiar soul had decided to sell their essence to him. Why? Protection, perhaps a sort of eternal employment to keep a measly roof over their heads — what had to be done, must be done.

They knew that even their body was a token for some sort of comfort, despite the ache between their legs, they still tolerated it all.

He was a smooth-talker. Even with the smoke that curled around his canines, the magenta fumes seemed to shackle around your neck and drift you in closer.

A visit here and there, nightly exchanges beside the very outskirts of his office building. Your mind had grown to decay and his spores grew into the lobes of your mind. Very much like a sort of cordyceps, he had infected your nerves and made you seek his presence near that stupid tower.

The neon lights, the chromatic hues inside — they all whispered to you.

Soonly, his hand was extended before yours, the long tendrils unfolded and curling towards yours. And then that whiplash of your very essence being entrapped in heated pink chains. You loved it — yet he saw you as nothing more than something beneath his boot.

You listened to every beck; to every command. You endured the beatings, the aches between your legs as you would saunter offstage into the dimly lit walls of your changing-room. The lights would be strung up on thin wires in a sort of fairy light fashion, and they lit the oval of the mirror before you. In a way, that had been a simile of the dying spirit inside of you. He favored you though - is that not why he had been so warm to you from the very start? Or, at the very least, had been?

Once defiant, you had turned to mush underneath him. But, since his newfound star had his wholehearted attention, your adoration for the once charming man had faded into the most disgusting tar of abhorrence you could muster inside this once untouched body of yours.

You loathed him by the end of the week.

It seemed he, too, returned the sentiment with harsher punishments by the claps of each filming.

What had turned to light nudges onto the backdrop had become forceful shoves. The many thwacks to the ass had subsided, yes, but the indents of his nails would be left on the blade of your shoulder as he steered you away from prying eyes. Many nights ended in you between the thin sheets of the hotel bed you had resided in for gods know how long weeping. Pain — it had become your closest friend.

And, oh, those spiteful shoots. He told the actors to be thorough, rough, turn your insides out. The achings became unbearable, almost wounds of their own by the accord of your physical limit (which had been dwindling as of late due to undernourishment.) Your figure - too pudgy for his liking. Your attitude – too dulcet, you must be louder to earn his favor.

The intercostal of your ribcage began to appear as if your skin had been painted on you. Your waist had grown so thin, poor Velvet had to spin the garments of each shoot you were assigned since you had grown so spindly. You’d never be enough for him, you’d come to learn.

Too thin one day, too fat the next. Too quiet this day, too loud that day. Oh, you hated him! Your nails would burrow themselves in their scalp and the roots of your hair would be left vacant as you’d tear the stupid strands out. The color today was off — the length yesterday was too long. This, that, this, that.

You would tear out your own entrails and wrap the bloodied tissue around his neck, and choke his slender form with it. Hate – what a wynorrific paint to make a masterpiece from. To see that pristine fur all matted and red; yes, that would be a fantasy of yours that would forever remain as such a thing.

The scent of acid escaping the gash — no, you weren’t that much of a fool to use your own bodily organs for such schemes. Perhaps that star of his he’d grown to love - Angel Dust (the whore was not free from your spiteful look, either), would be the murder weapon. You had adored the man once, or what you thought he was, but hatred and love were the sides of the same coin - once toss of it and, if it had landed on the other side, it would be hell incarnate. They were paralleled by obsession, an obsession that had yet to vanquish.

And, when the cameras had stopped and the glare of the red light was free from your peripheral, you found that ire within yourself to pull up from the set. The man’s hand clenched itself around that bruised shoulder of yours, and he guided you to one of the more quiet halls of the function. You had bit your tongue as the shades from his nose dipped, his back angled at an elegant arch to level with you.

You couldn’t decide whether you hated or loved him. He treated you so horridly, and his gaze was upon someone else’s body. The urge to slit his neck with your nails tampered with the urge to devotedly take those beatings. Bile inched its way up your throat as he spoke down to you so routinely.

“You’ve been more brash than lately - ya makin’ me lose money, doll.” His fingers pinched the fat (no, the gaunt, you were too lithe in his eyes). “I don’t like it when my whores make me lose my hard-earned cash. Do you not like your Daddy anymore?”

Obsession - the only gap that bridged despise and adoration.