Negative Reinforcement

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Audrey is a sexual outlaw, slave to a Latin rhythm, a C-section child of the seventies. She's a rabid panther trapped in the fetid, jungle heat of the Number 14, Bonnedale bus.

And she's sitting right behind you for the third time this month.

This can't be chance. She's there for a reason. She smells your fear like a dog would.

She's not just another white girl with damaged hair. She's a python sweating off the dead skin of a black spandex tube dress. Her headset is full of Bob Marley reggae, and she has a crude, deliberate way of letting her hem roll up her legs. Audrey makes her own way in this world, without women's rights or affirmative action or a breath deodorant. She is high and free and has all her own teeth, which is a warning.

You can't see her because you don't have the guts to turn around and look. You know she's sitting with her back against the warm steel wall of the bus, and her feet drawn up on the seat beside her. She's not a big fan of daylight. She should never be seen in color. By day, she's a grainy black and white image: a discarded blow-up doll of a back-up singer from a heavy-metal music video. At night she's a fourth-generation photocopy of a Margaret Bourke-White photo luridly animated to Euro-pop dance music. She'll never live long enough to become sepia-toned.

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