Tacky by Rax King
Author:Rax King [King, Rax]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-11-02T00:00:00+00:00
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Despite all the secretive rutting in dark corners, Travis assured me that he was always on the lookout for ways that we could spend ârealâ time together. Even I wasnât naive enough to believe that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but I was naive enough to believe that I could pull off a liberated adult womanâs sexual detachment with a boy that I was fully in love with, and I believed that his stated desire to spend real time together was itself realâI didnât recognize it as a ploy to keep spending as much, shall we say, âunrealâ time with me as Iâd allow. After all, I told myself, if all he wanted was to fuck me, I would have let him just fuck me. He had no reason to lie! I look back on that logic and long to beat some sense into my kid self, especially because I see the ghost of that self-delusion in so many romantic self-delusions that have plagued me since thenâthat tragic mix of overconfidence and self-hatred.
We did spend ârealâ time together twice, and the first time was when he came over to watch Josie and the Pussycats. I was excited, not because I thought he would like the movieâI didnâtâbut because I thought heâd recognize me in it. Iâd cut and dyed my hair Manic Panic red to resemble Rachael Leigh Cookâs. I wore the same low-riding pants that are hallmarks of the movieâs wardrobe to my assignations with Travis. I felt as if I were sharing porn with him, showing him what turned me on. I thought itâd be effective. I didnât yet realize the perils of sharing a cherished artwork with another person: the other person may not feel the feelings you do about it.
My favorite scene in Josie and the Pussycats is set to one of the titular bandâs songs, written for the movieânot âThree Small Words,â but âPretend to Be Nice,â which is almost as good. Itâs a vividly colored montage that hops between frames from the bandâs debut music video and shots of them accelerating towards stardom, buying better clothes, being recognized on the street, wearing knee-length lapis-toned leopard-print cardigans, etc. (Thatâs the way all the clothes in this movie have to be described, by the way. No article of clothing is just one thing. If pants are snakeskin, they are also neon green and metallic-hued. As a writer, Iâm stuck with these clunky constructions that read like garbage and fail to capture any of the magic of the movieâs aesthetics.)
Anyway, we were watching, Travis and I, and during the montage he just turned the TV off. I looked at him. He was toothache-faced, obviously miserable.
âWhatâs wrong?â I asked, horrified. I hadnât expected that heâd like the movie all that much, but neither did I expect it to traumatize him.
âThis is the worst movie Iâve ever seen,â he said.
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