Silken Chains

Silhouettes of the female form were given flesh and bone. Silken skin glistened under the spotlight. Dry ice rose around our Icons as they danced atop their podiums in the Square. Heralded for their beauty, their movements were slight, powerful, and sensual.

Our world was transfixed.

As a young girl, their world was all I dreamed of - to be one of those who were thought to be the most desirable, whose performances were watched with awe and eagerness. 

The first time I longed to become one of the Icons of Virtue, my mother had taken me and my siblings to see a performance in the flesh. Entranced by their slight bodies as they swayed to the constantly shifting soundtrack of dark electro and fervent cheers, the sensory overload shook me to my very core, a core that ached with a dull, insistent longing to be accepted and looked upon as rare.

My breath caught, and I struggled to breathe as their sexually seductive shimmies drew me in. While each possessed individual qualities, their movements mirrored one another, merging into a razor-sharp synchronicity that made them seem almost uniform, almost machine-like.

While we stood, eyes glazed, open-mouthed, it was my mother who encouraged me to pursue the dream. "If you could but attain a position as vaunted as theirs, standing high above the masses, I know your life would be good."

They were trailblazers who were worshipped as goddesses - aspirational examples of femininity, empowerment, and authenticity. 

As the intoxicating rhythm of the bass-heavy backing soundtracked each scintillating performance, their figures were granted forms of blush pink, dark ebony, and golden-yellow with elegant long limbs, toned and muscular, products of years spent training, designed to represent not brute strength, but delicate decadence. 

They danced around the clock, though I never knew how they could - I reasoned they just could, as they were the chosen.

Earlier in the day, the shows were far more subdued and reverential with a quiet subtlety. After dark, I came to realise in my late teens, as I blossomed into a woman, that their shows took on a more decidedly daring and provocative feel.

The lace and floral flourishes of their attire by daylight were stripped back to reveal deep purples and fiery red fabrics that clung to the skin as if their life depended upon it. Virtually nothing was left to the imagination as they pirouetted and elongated their siren-like womanly forms in spectacular, lithe displays that engrossed the lust-drunk crowd with their pliable, supple shapes and poses. 

Pyrotechnics punctuated the pervasive promiscuity they offered the baying, paying crowd. It was a spectacle to behold, and in the earliest days of my training, I learned to love the labour-intensive work ethic of our serene feminine vessels, the waif-like wonders of curves and wantonness.

I practiced to perfection the poses and movements of my favourite Icon, Lady Dark Ebony, and I hoped to one day be deemed worthy to stand close to her, maybe even perform for her... with her. 

Then one night, my dreams and the many years of corrective procedures, enhancements, specialised controlled diets, and "vitamin supplements" came to fruition. Though tragedy hung in the air, the night Lady Dark Ebony broke, and was taken care of by the unseen controllers, it was my chance to shine.

Sadness pierced me, as the narcotics they plied me with pierced through my nervous system. As I took my spot on the podium and the world's new Lady Dark Ebony emerged, I hoped that my mother, my dear mother, was proud of what I had become. 

Even as that thumping beat and pulsating bassline vibrates through my body, I transcend into the sensual, seductive tool my masters sculpted me into from my flesh and bone, I don't have long to wonder before my body thrusts into positions I only dreamed of, high above the masses, who appear as a sea of hungry wolves preying on their meal. But, wonder I do, if my fate will be the same as that of my predecessor. 

Voices of the controllers in my head and the promise of "luxuries" for a polished performance and a "loathsome existence" for anything less than perfection, shattered my world to its core. The core that no longer ached with that insistent dull longing to be accepted and looked upon as rare.

I wanted the world to swallow me whole, but knew I had no choice but to elongate my limber form and to provide the scintillating and tantalising show the world expected. 

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: My first entry for the "Everything Looks Better From Far Away" - perhaps my most sombre, cutting entry that is painfully close to the reality for a lot of people that it's scarcely fiction. I was angry after writing this.

Appreciate everyone's reads, comments, insights, and support - just wanted to say that.

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