Have you ever tried a lip scrub? The ones from Jeffree Star are delicious and they really make your lips feel nice.
I do not doubt you, but my lips are as harsh and unforgiving as the bitter wind that blows through these streets… the rattling breath of a corrupted city.
Just mix sugar and coconut oil and stop being an edgy bitch.
The detective watched the thin ring of hot orange ash creep along the cigarette towards his fingers. If he did nothing, if he did not move, it might eventually reach his hand and burn the rough skin between his middle and index fingers. What did he care? It’d be just another scar from a world that handed out pain and suffering with the feverish enthusiasm of a sidewalk church pamphleteer.
Or perhaps it would give up and burn itself out before then.
A threat cleared on the other side of the desk, stirring him from his thoughts. “Aren’t you going to inhale that?” asked his new client. “You’re wasting a good smoke.”
The detective ground the cigarette into the ashtray, finally reuniting it with its fallen kin. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t smoke. Just like to watch ‘em burn.”
“Oh.” His client shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched the back of his neck. It was a nervous, artificial gesture, as fake the hair at the crown of his head. “I see.”
“That’s the history of humankind, isn’t it?” The last tendrils of smoke curled towards the ceiling. “Sitting by and watching the world burn, waiting to see if it’ll hurt you. Wouldn’t you agree, ah…?”
“Marshall. Stephan Marshall.” Marshall glanced at the sign on the detectives desk. “Is that… is that your real name…?”
“Damn shame, isn’t it?” The detective sighed. “Saved me from the prospect of marriage, though. There isn’t a girl in the world who’d want to be Mrs. Edgy Bitch.”
Marshall’s lips half-quirked into an uncertain smile. “Why don’t you change it? My offices deal with name-change requests all the time, it’s easy enough if you have the right form.”
Detective Edgy Bitch snorted at that and gestured at the door and the window behind him. “Bit late for that,” he said. “I already had all the frosted glass signage made up. Pain in the ass to have changed now.”