Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana Read Online Free PDF Page B

unregulated country out there, so the clubs are crazy but they’ll guarantee enough money in the accounts and enough connections to get my mom to India. Most contracts aretwo years at a time, but we’ve been living underground in Vegas long enough that I’ve forgotten the concept of living under regular earth sunlight anyway.
    But before I can say anything, Val comes in. I can hear him talking to the other character players: the Filipino drag queens that he hired away from some top tier club to play Kaikeyi, Sumitra and Kausalya, who complain that they don’t havetheir own costuming area; then round-faced Kika, who plays Jatayu, complains to him that her feathers fall out and then the clients steal them. She wants security to help her take them back from the clients before they leave the club.
    When I catch sight of him through the garment racks overflowing with silicon suits, prosthetics and glittery synthetics, I am so angry I want to spit at him foreven engaging with Anita about giving away my job. I observe his thin, finely-shaped beard and his shaved head. It’s so obvious to me that Val’s just like me, an Indian left behind—meaning his family waited too long, like mine, or made some serious mistake. But Val could pass for anything: Mexican, Central American or even some Filipino mix and probably never had to deal with being Indian becauseof it. I never had it so lucky: my hair just curly enough, my ass not round enough, my skin a different enough shade ofbrown. And when my dad was killed, we were all over the news. Passing just wasn’t an option for me. It makes me a better player though, especially for Suparnaka, and Val knows that. I’m sure that’s why he hired me, but the knowledge between us makes things strained. He’s alwaysgiven me a hard time, not like the other girls who fuck their ways to bigger percentages.
    I scramble to get the settings on the skin lightening bed ready, but the machine takes a few minutes to warm up. Then suddenly he’s there, standing behind Tania, placing his hairy knuckles on her shoulders.
    “How are you feeling?” he asks. Tania smiles back at him full-force. I bite my lip, mad at myselffor falling for her flirting. She’s smart and knows how to get whatever she wants. This is Vegas after all. “You know, the Golden Deer look, it’s really all in the eyes.”
    Val grabs the laser eye liner and tilts her chin towards him. He punches a different color code into the controller. “Now, close for me.” He sweeps the glowing brush against her lid, drawing a tapering bronze streak towardsher hairline. Tania opens her eyes and it kind of takes my breath away.
    “Perfection,” Val says and Tania giggles, her damn crooked incisor like a little stab in my heart. The lightening chamber dings and Val and Tania look my way.
    “You’re not ready yet?” Val asks, his expression turning stern.
    “Don’t worry about it,” I say.
    “I want you here early so you don’t look all rushed.”
    “It doesn’t seem to be a problem for me or my clients.”
    “Look Sapna, you’re supposed to lure the clients in by looking like someone they want to fuck,” Val says loudly, making a big show of it just to embarrass me. “If you’re just all demonness, maybe I can cut your pay in half.”
    “I got it, Val,” I say sweetly. “Now, if you leave, maybe I can get ready.”
    He opens his mouth to say somethingelse, but then Anita comes into the room behind him and makes a big show of explaining why she’s late. Val ignores her and she rushes off to her area. I narrow my eyes at him and he hesitates at the door, but then turns and stomps off . Tania catches my eye again and gives me a sympathetic look, but I ignore her.
    I reach for my silicon suit that compresses my belly flat and concave. It eventurns my large full breasts into small perky ones. It works better when I have to transform into Surpanakha’s true form in the DFR, where the client gets to cut off my nose, ears and