Singe’s boyfriend was handsome once she’d done him up. She gave him a scar, because she’d always thought scars were handsome and rugged and made charming new creases in a face, if it was a lucky face. And she made him darker: she’d start with a wash, a gentle wash, of a slate-y blue that would offset the proclivity toward orange in almost every foundation. She would layer some bases, starting with the darkest one which she would brush upward from his neck with a Kabuki brush that she used for damp work. Then she would sponge a light base, on top of the brow ridges and cheek bones and chin, in tiny splots; finally a layer of medium base would be smoothed down with her fingers. It was an unorthodox approach- most artists would insist that it was not possible to get that kind of depth for any up-close screen time, but Singe let her boyfriend’s face speak for itself.
She talked him into eyelashes. Brian was reasonable about all of it- he was indulgent and calm when she’d first tried the scar, for example- but he’d balked at false eyelashes. “I’m sorry, I just think it will make me look like a girl” he said.
“You should try looking like a girl. I could make you into a very pretty one- you already have good eyes for that, which is why I want to put these little things around them.” She held up a few single false lashes. “But not like a girl. I’m thinking of Sean Connery lashes, Ricardo Montalban lashes. Carey Grant lashes, honey. He was beautiful but not a girl, get it?” Singe twirled a bit around the canvas chair that Bri was on, in front of her work station at TATT Studios, her regular gig that required she make young actors look older and old actors look infantile. In the past year she’d started to make her young people look older and her older people look interesting. It had been subtle, just minute changes involving highlighter in pinpricks around a few lash lines, so that there was a naturalesque brightness; at the same time and on the same person she would add a drop of solution that made some capillaries pop up in the whites of those eyes. It made her people look like they were right at the peak of a smoky and fascinating party.
The mention of a Bond Man had worked its dependable magic. Brian looked at the lashes on her fingertip. “I always thought false lashes were- y’know- all in a line, like they were attached to a string. I keep thinking of that. Those are like the legs of some bug.” Trevor took one of the lashes from her fingertip by licking his own and pressing it to hers, like she’d mimed it.
“Yeah, they come like that and you cut them up. I just want to put these few on those peepers of yours.”
Brian sighed and decided to be charmed. “You can do it if you promise to always call them peepers.” So Singe got her wish, and put the almost unmanageably small, elegant false lashes on her boyfriend, and it was just as she’d promised: he was an exotic, a rapscallion; he was certainly a criminal and devastatingly good in bed. He was trouble, once the makeup was on. He liked it. They went out for the dinner that he’d been waiting to take her to. He pulled out Singe’s chair, which was new.
“You’re acting different.” Singe settled in and watched his behavior- sweet but distractable by day, the same by night- slide into a different gear, or plane, or something (she wasn’t willing to commit to which kind of change she thought it was by describing it too meticulously.)
“I don’t think so.” He said, relaxed and beckoning the server with a lowered brow and even gaze. Singe had never seen him lower his brow with any seriousness before. Once the server- a funny woman that needed a good concealer and concealer brush and a blue-red lip stain instead of an orange-red lipstick- came over, Brian ordered for the both of them.
“You just ordered for us.”
He smiled. He took her hand. "I thought- it just suits the mood-" he told her, and blushed, which she could discern because she knew what to look for.
She thought about blushing- her own blushing. She knew what kind of skin she had, and where she would blush (around the neck, seeping upward past her jaw to make two Medium Tuber Rose III saucers on both of her cheeks, low.) She hadn't felt the spark in the nerves under her collarbones that signified a coming blush yet. Then Brian kissed the palm of the hand he was holding. There was blushing from her, in discreet and indiscreet places on her body. When the food came, she ate it from the fork he offered- he refused to let her feed herself, and he smiled while he did it, and his fringed eyes shone in the glare of the poorly chosen three-bulb chandelier that was over their table, loitering just at forehead level. Then she ordered them both dessert and they took turns feeding each other, which resulted in dripped-upon shirts. They both thought of going back to TATT Studio to ostensibly wash their shirts in Costume/Wigs washers. The machines were part of any good TV studio's equipment, as were the union cots. There were three of those. They were kept in a supply closet, folded and expectant.
Singe and Brian put their dirty tops in the washer and Singe ran it. "It'll be a half-hour. We got them in early enough so I don't think they'll need any more than that- any soaking time and all that." She was looking at Brian's chest as she said it, watching the line at his neck where the foundation ended and half-thinking about what she needed to add (some Ochre, Some Nutmeg Series L mixed with it,) and half not-thinking. Brian watched her eyes.
"Does it need something? I see you planning more of this-" He indicated his own neckline in a strong, fiery way. She put her hand on his chest, between the pectorals and their tell-tale nipples.
"Yes," she said, and instead of her leading him to the cots, he took her forearm and led her. They got to the supply closet (someone on the set who had a sly and patient sense of humor had put spotless hand towels and spray cleaner on the shelf directly behind the cots- just at eye level- where there were normally broken printer parts and black computer screens,) and pulled out a cot and unfolded it in the hallway. There was a dressing room not fifteen feet away, but rolling it there, bent over in an unsexy way for pushing, was too much to ask them; they took off their respective pants and lay down and kissed and petted and nipped (Bri had never nipped before, but he was somehow a sensate and knew just when to widen his jaws again, preventing a biting bruise that was not easy to render unrecognisable, no matter how much putty and Siren Pink One was used.) Singe was gratified by her success: he had changed, under her hands, into someone who was less considerate of her feelings and more considerate of her needs. She was absorbed, too: her mind layered colors like waves, washing up and down and back and forth, thinking about textures and false hairs or moles or contact lenses (not contacts, she decided during a change in position.) She thought, or half-dreamed, and then came hard.
The next week she was listless from too much imagining. Her job was the same, it paid the bills; it was a way to pass time, which made it unfulfilling. Brian was somewhere warm for business- he was gone for six days. She'd told him to bronze himself in sunlight, not visit a tanning booth of any kind, and to put a washcloth on his face when he was laying out. "So cover my face? Is anything OK, do I have to use the washcloth or is it just anything, keep it covered?" He knew there were distinctions. He was beginning to name some materials, like latex and talc and eyebrow templates.
"It has to be a washcloth. It covers, but not entirely, so some UV gets under the edges and through the weave. The tan is more natural. You don't have the farmer's arm pattern, the hard line." He accepted this, and smiled, and they'd kissed and he told her she was crazy just like he would have said something romantic, like I'll Miss You or some such. She felt his leaving as a small deflatement. She'd spent two days mooning and mixing up palettes like the eternal walnut-shell guessing game, which was something she did regularly to see what might pair itself and make its' suggestion for a new shadowing taupe or reverse-cat-eye liner color. Nothing took her fancy. On the third day she picked up a brush for eyes ( a brush for creases, large, used for base vanillas and yellows to build bruises upon,) dabbed it in A Rose This Way Comes, and began rounding her cheeks, in efficient quarter-circles. Singe had phenomenal, almost childish, skin and so could afford to leave off the foundation. Still she picked up a liquid base brush, one of the tiny ones, and did pointelle over her jawbone with something luminescent and colorless. Her long, angled cheekbones widened with these effects and it made her look Slavic, or like one with some Slavic in the family thrown in with her natural light Jamaican. It was strange, and she liked it, so she continued: She was Slavic-ish and an insomniac with Deep Taupe gel under too-light concealer. The next day she played with scars until she'd created the old fused damage of a motorcycle crash survivor, with barely perceptible white hash marks to connote the 54 stitches she'd gotten on her face and neck. The next day there were the markings of 77 stitches, and poorly done so that the split cheek hadn't healed well and puckered deeply. After that she gave herself the bone-deep pallor of one who'd barely escaped drowning.
Her workmates were amused until the drowning one, so she made the next day a happy face, opening her eyes with liner and lash and over-glossing her mouth so that she looked giddy and coked up, which everyone found almost as bad. On Friday she made her masterpiece: she aged herself thirty four years. Age makeup is the most artful of all cosmetic devices, though there were some that disagreed with that assessment ( like Farrah at LTX, who had made her own periodic chart of bases and blushes and shadows and pigments, so that she could treat each of her people like they were science experiments; her people left her chair looking like changeable dolls, exact and lifeless. They each had a healthy respect for the other. ) But Singe approached ageing like a professional dowser, looking at the subject for an hour before starting, making unconscious notes about pores and dullness and blood patterns. Singe looked at herself for two hours before she started.
She layered all kinds of things, building her old skin with the usual Bone and Mint pre-bases and the liquid latex and the carefully chosen blend of foundations that were lighter than her present skin. She lavished her cheeks with the wrinkler and patted it into her brow lines and chin creases, which was the opposite of the standard application. Her face became striated with fine vertical lines on her cheeks and curving around the eyes. The crow's feet she made with moulded latex were so thin they were transparent, and she used a putty mixed with a toner to glue them on. The foundation was layered like veils or kerchiefs, covering some areas and not others, leaving skin open to a different interpretation with a different color. The whole round was five hours in her canvas chair, including the preliminary staring and the clean-up. A co-worker walked in.
"Have you seen Singe?" the co-worker said.
"I'm right here" she responded, in her natural voice. The co-worker looked around the room once and then left. Singe looked in her friendly behemoth of a mirror and smiled. The makeup moved with her as her skin would move with her in thirty-four years. Give or take, she thought.
Brian was due to come home that night, late, and he wasn't expecting her; she paid to park and waited for him at the baggage carousel. She hadn't changed: She had her work shirt- an old white men's button-down- and a skirt that was non-descript. Her hair was the same as she'd worn it to work, with the addition of a few tiny rhinestoned snaps. She waited for Bri- she was excited to see him.
Brian came down the escalator leading to the baggage area. He didn't see her. He went to the carousel and waited for his case. Singe wanted to say something, to jump up to him and smile, but she held herself back. He found his suitcase, leaned, grabbed, and picked it up and turned around. She was right in front of him.
He was tanner, but not too tan- he'd taken her advice and shielded his face. She looked directly at him, and he looked directly at her.
"You," Brian said.
He smiled. He took her hand. "I thought- it just suits the mood-" he told her, and blushed, which she could discern because she knew what to look for.
She thought about blushing- her own blushing. She knew what kind of skin she had, and where she would blush (around the neck, seeping upward past her jaw to make two Medium Tuber Rose III saucers on both of her cheeks, low.) She hadn't felt the spark in the nerves under her collarbones that signified a coming blush yet. Then Brian kissed the palm of the hand he was holding. There was blushing from her, in discreet and indiscreet places on her body. When the food came, she ate it from the fork he offered- he refused to let her feed herself, and he smiled while he did it, and his fringed eyes shone in the glare of the poorly chosen three-bulb chandelier that was over their table, loitering just at forehead level. Then she ordered them both dessert and they took turns feeding each other, which resulted in dripped-upon shirts. They both thought of going back to TATT Studio to ostensibly wash their shirts in Costume/Wigs washers. The machines were part of any good TV studio's equipment, as were the union cots. There were three of those. They were kept in a supply closet, folded and expectant.
Singe and Brian put their dirty tops in the washer and Singe ran it. "It'll be a half-hour. We got them in early enough so I don't think they'll need any more than that- any soaking time and all that." She was looking at Brian's chest as she said it, watching the line at his neck where the foundation ended and half-thinking about what she needed to add (some Ochre, Some Nutmeg Series L mixed with it,) and half not-thinking. Brian watched her eyes.
"Does it need something? I see you planning more of this-" He indicated his own neckline in a strong, fiery way. She put her hand on his chest, between the pectorals and their tell-tale nipples.
"Yes," she said, and instead of her leading him to the cots, he took her forearm and led her. They got to the supply closet (someone on the set who had a sly and patient sense of humor had put spotless hand towels and spray cleaner on the shelf directly behind the cots- just at eye level- where there were normally broken printer parts and black computer screens,) and pulled out a cot and unfolded it in the hallway. There was a dressing room not fifteen feet away, but rolling it there, bent over in an unsexy way for pushing, was too much to ask them; they took off their respective pants and lay down and kissed and petted and nipped (Bri had never nipped before, but he was somehow a sensate and knew just when to widen his jaws again, preventing a biting bruise that was not easy to render unrecognisable, no matter how much putty and Siren Pink One was used.) Singe was gratified by her success: he had changed, under her hands, into someone who was less considerate of her feelings and more considerate of her needs. She was absorbed, too: her mind layered colors like waves, washing up and down and back and forth, thinking about textures and false hairs or moles or contact lenses (not contacts, she decided during a change in position.) She thought, or half-dreamed, and then came hard.
The next week she was listless from too much imagining. Her job was the same, it paid the bills; it was a way to pass time, which made it unfulfilling. Brian was somewhere warm for business- he was gone for six days. She'd told him to bronze himself in sunlight, not visit a tanning booth of any kind, and to put a washcloth on his face when he was laying out. "So cover my face? Is anything OK, do I have to use the washcloth or is it just anything, keep it covered?" He knew there were distinctions. He was beginning to name some materials, like latex and talc and eyebrow templates.
"It has to be a washcloth. It covers, but not entirely, so some UV gets under the edges and through the weave. The tan is more natural. You don't have the farmer's arm pattern, the hard line." He accepted this, and smiled, and they'd kissed and he told her she was crazy just like he would have said something romantic, like I'll Miss You or some such. She felt his leaving as a small deflatement. She'd spent two days mooning and mixing up palettes like the eternal walnut-shell guessing game, which was something she did regularly to see what might pair itself and make its' suggestion for a new shadowing taupe or reverse-cat-eye liner color. Nothing took her fancy. On the third day she picked up a brush for eyes ( a brush for creases, large, used for base vanillas and yellows to build bruises upon,) dabbed it in A Rose This Way Comes, and began rounding her cheeks, in efficient quarter-circles. Singe had phenomenal, almost childish, skin and so could afford to leave off the foundation. Still she picked up a liquid base brush, one of the tiny ones, and did pointelle over her jawbone with something luminescent and colorless. Her long, angled cheekbones widened with these effects and it made her look Slavic, or like one with some Slavic in the family thrown in with her natural light Jamaican. It was strange, and she liked it, so she continued: She was Slavic-ish and an insomniac with Deep Taupe gel under too-light concealer. The next day she played with scars until she'd created the old fused damage of a motorcycle crash survivor, with barely perceptible white hash marks to connote the 54 stitches she'd gotten on her face and neck. The next day there were the markings of 77 stitches, and poorly done so that the split cheek hadn't healed well and puckered deeply. After that she gave herself the bone-deep pallor of one who'd barely escaped drowning.
Her workmates were amused until the drowning one, so she made the next day a happy face, opening her eyes with liner and lash and over-glossing her mouth so that she looked giddy and coked up, which everyone found almost as bad. On Friday she made her masterpiece: she aged herself thirty four years. Age makeup is the most artful of all cosmetic devices, though there were some that disagreed with that assessment ( like Farrah at LTX, who had made her own periodic chart of bases and blushes and shadows and pigments, so that she could treat each of her people like they were science experiments; her people left her chair looking like changeable dolls, exact and lifeless. They each had a healthy respect for the other. ) But Singe approached ageing like a professional dowser, looking at the subject for an hour before starting, making unconscious notes about pores and dullness and blood patterns. Singe looked at herself for two hours before she started.
She layered all kinds of things, building her old skin with the usual Bone and Mint pre-bases and the liquid latex and the carefully chosen blend of foundations that were lighter than her present skin. She lavished her cheeks with the wrinkler and patted it into her brow lines and chin creases, which was the opposite of the standard application. Her face became striated with fine vertical lines on her cheeks and curving around the eyes. The crow's feet she made with moulded latex were so thin they were transparent, and she used a putty mixed with a toner to glue them on. The foundation was layered like veils or kerchiefs, covering some areas and not others, leaving skin open to a different interpretation with a different color. The whole round was five hours in her canvas chair, including the preliminary staring and the clean-up. A co-worker walked in.
"Have you seen Singe?" the co-worker said.
"I'm right here" she responded, in her natural voice. The co-worker looked around the room once and then left. Singe looked in her friendly behemoth of a mirror and smiled. The makeup moved with her as her skin would move with her in thirty-four years. Give or take, she thought.
Brian was due to come home that night, late, and he wasn't expecting her; she paid to park and waited for him at the baggage carousel. She hadn't changed: She had her work shirt- an old white men's button-down- and a skirt that was non-descript. Her hair was the same as she'd worn it to work, with the addition of a few tiny rhinestoned snaps. She waited for Bri- she was excited to see him.
Brian came down the escalator leading to the baggage area. He didn't see her. He went to the carousel and waited for his case. Singe wanted to say something, to jump up to him and smile, but she held herself back. He found his suitcase, leaned, grabbed, and picked it up and turned around. She was right in front of him.
He was tanner, but not too tan- he'd taken her advice and shielded his face. She looked directly at him, and he looked directly at her.
"You," Brian said.
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