~oOo~
A metal pin was secured in its clasp, fastening zirconia to the thick waves of his blonde hair. Hair the same platinum as the vapor-like images after progression on screen.
Frank glanced over his face, his unmade lips, the tears captured in the lower bows of dark lashes against his cheek.
Eddie was asleep above the covers. His back glistened with sweat, and in a drugged haze he did not flinch. Not when something hit the other side of the wall beside the bed. Something from another room.
From an empty corner Frank's gaze returned to himself, white powder to his forehead, his neck. A cloud around him, and in it he was beautiful. Beautiful in the glow from the mirrors.
Music was outside the room. Columbia's high shrieks and steps could be heard with it, from one side to the other.
He twisted the lid from a metal tube of dark red lip rouge, pressing its edge to the pulses of his mouth, blending the color to his flesh. To wound.
Raising, he smoothed his white silk evening gown, delicately brushing his hands over the areas where the aged fabric gaped. He removed a cigarette from a case on the dresser, lit it, and left the room, taking the lipstick with him.
As a specter he entered the room Columbia and Magenta inhabited. His eyes, without emotion, moved to Columbia, who had halted mid-step from her dance, her hands in the air, her face reading confusion. She was wearing a white lacy slip; a mink stole, bright orange ankle-high socks and scuffed, black taps. Her short hair had two lone bobbie pins to the left of her temple.
The hand holding lipstick went steadily to her mouth, to her lips, and to them Frank pressed the same ruby color he had moments ago used, covering aperture. He ran a stained thumb over her cheek, leaving behind a streak of blood-like means.
Columbia didn't know if she should look into his eyes, look into or away. But she captured the way a tooth caught on his lower lip as he concentrated, the diamonds at his ears shining, his lined eyes defined by sadness.
Her thoughts went to Eddie.
Frank didn't bother to meet her gaze when he finished, moving to Magenta, who was sitting on Columbia's metal bed thumbing through a box of costume jewelry. Her bare legs were hanging over the side, her black negligee falling from a shoulder. Wordlessly he cupped her chin and with applied the red to her lips.
She leaned her head back and laughed as he continued tracing her mouth, smudging the tint. He moved to erase the color with the tip of a finger, but she moved before him, placing the back of her wrist to the lipstick and pulling it across to her cheek, so that there was a muted line fading from her gouged lips to the side of her face. A strike.
She laughed again, a laugh behind her closed teeth, but Frank said nothing. His straightened itself from the bed, a noise from his throat escaping but not understood, and he swept from the room. His heels heard in the distance.
~oOo~