prompt: dolly, title: negotiating for the final cut in misc. flash fiction

“I’ve done your hair and makeup for a decade,” her tone wavered between bemusement and fear, “I would’ve noticed by now if you were a vampire.” “Because of the mirrors thing?” the rail-thin pallid beauty sitting in the chair replied. “Well, yeah,” said the woman still curling her hair even as they spoke, “unless that’s not a thing.” “Silver’s the real problem for us, Deb,” she tapped her image in the glass, “not reflections. The steel or spray aluminum backed mirrors in cheap trailers like these reflects us just fine. Why did you think I only worked in television until most directors went full-digital? Silver nitrate in the film stock.” “Oh…” She didn’t like the sense her employer was beginning to make. “I say I won’t work with Tarantino as I’m disgusted by Quentin’s… foot thing but really he’s just one of the last still working in thirty-five millimeters!” The star laughed a throatier laugh than she’d ever heard before.

“I’ve seen you in daylight hundreds of times,” she said, tweezing stray eyebrows, as much trying to convince herself as argue, “once they’re done laying track for a dolly shot, you’re walking out into Anaheim’s baking afternoon sunshine.” “It’s not light itself,” she slid through a sharp smile, “it’s the UV rays. Prescription UV-blocking injections for ‘acne treatment sunlight-sensitivities’. It’d be inconvenient to prepare for outdoor nude scenes, yes… but that’s why internet weirdoes can hoard only indoor screen-shots of my tits!” That horrible laugh.

“We could go all day. Requesting no-garlic meals because of ‘allergy’ is no more eccentric than a diva requiring lukewarm Perrier or a band demanding only green candy in their dressing room. The presumption all entertainers are mercurial crackpots covers nearly every vampire trait you’d possibly imagine, let alone for the fact it’s true regardless.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” “I mean,” she turned her chair to look directly into her eyes, “you’re still young, Deborah, but in a decade, I haven’t aged a day and though your skill hides it admirably, I do see a crow’s foot here, a laugh-line there. You’re quite talented. I think I’d rather have you in my permanent service than watch you rot away like a serf in some lordship’s muck.”

“Why are you asking? Can’t you hypnotize or overpower me if you are what you say you are?” “Baby-doll, you must be willing. If you’re not willing, the best we get is idiot zombies, we call them ‘Renfields’ after that hackjob by Bram. I do not require your modest beauty eternally, no offense, I desire your mastery of brushes and blades.”

Hollywood’s already metaphorically about trying to live forever, by using up the young people who go there to chase their dreams, after all. How would it be any worse to take that metaphor literally? She cleaned off the side of her neck. “What the hell,” she enounced while presenting her carotid artery to the gorgeous abomination before her, “I think I’m ready for my close-up.”