Venus poked her fork at the boiled goose on her plate, grossed out by the repetitive meals at the country club. She'd never so much as had less than a five-star meal, but, God, did she crave a hotdog from one of those sidewalk stands.
She side-glanced at the old, uppity Caucasian couple to her left — elbows off the table, linen napkins in their laps, settling for complacency and routine — in complete disbelief that that was what her life was going to be in thirty years. Needless to say, she wasn't looking forward to it.
The string quartet playing in the corner of the room brought her some sort of relief and escape. She would get lost in their music, imagining that she was at a concert. Though she was only exposed to the philharmonic means of a violin, viola, cello, and bass, she wished she could thrash around a mosh pit without judging eyes watching her every move.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when a strange guy walked in with a boombox, blasting a modern tune, rapping huskily along with the synthesizers and drum pad beat. Her eyes lit up, her smile stretching into a stifled laugh as the patrons of the club gaped in disgust at the alternative sound.
A handsome man with sunglasses and a studded leather jacket trailed in after the rapper, bursting into a chorus. Venus' eyes twinkled at the man's singing voice. It was unlike anything she'd ever heard before. It was as smooth as her morning cappuccino and just as exciting as the caffeine it provided.
Those at their tables suddenly stood up, flailing their aged arms into the air and bobbing their bob haircuts to the beat. Venus clasped her hands over her mouth in complete awe, muffling her chuckles with her palms. Mrs. Vaughn was attempting to grind against her dabbing husband, and the Coffers were attempting to twerk. It was definitely a way to wake up in the morning.
As soon as the chorus ended, she watched the two musicians scuttle out of the dining room. Ripping her hands away from her agape mouth, the man with the tussled black hair and leather jacket lifted his sunglasses and gave her a small wink as he rushed out. Her brow cocked, watching him disappear out the doorway as everyone picked up just where they'd left off on their plates of boiled goose, the string quartet continuing their symphony.
Venus found that she, too, was mindlessly going back to her meal but then abruptly set down her fork and removed the napkin from her lap, placing it on the table as she got up to follow the two, but the hall was empty save for another waiter heading towards the room with a pitcher of water.
Shaking her head, unsure if what had happened at breakfast was nothing but a manifestation of her own desperate thoughts at rebellion, she trudged down the sidewalk towards her job at the nursing home, making sure she'd given herself enough time to stop by the hotdog stand, wanting to finally give into her own craving. She shuddered at the sight of a food truck selling boiled goose on the street.
As she stood there, relishing in the taste of the cheap, sloppy dog, the two men from this morning's breakfast suddenly appeared. The one with the boombox held it up proudly in the middle of the sidewalk as the one with the leather jacket began singing. Everyone around her stopped what they were doing and immediately broke out into a dance.
Venus froze, her eyes darting around at everyone on the sidewalk. Those who were rushing towards their corporate jobs suddenly paused their everyday routine to groove to the music. The cops who were about to arrest a man against the side of a nearby building released the perp as their faces turned to grins, beginning a dance battle. She stared in disbelief.
"Everyone was wearing fingerless gloves," the man's voice boomed through the air.
Venus' eyebrows furrowed before she looked cross-eyed at her own hands holding her hotdog to her mouth to find that she suddenly had on black, fingerless gloves. She momentarily freaked out, tossing the last half of her hotdog into a nearby bin, unsure of what was going on.
She wanted to continue down the sidewalk, but she only found her body being pulled towards the man singing. He opened a welcoming arm towards Venus, wrapping it around her waist and pulling her closer as she swayed her hips, subtly brushing her front against his side. Just as he finished the chorus, she snapped out of her trance.
The singer couldn't hide the smirk on his face as he lowered his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to expose his piercing eyes towards the oblivious girl. But, Venus quickly shrugged herself out of his hold, blinking profusely as she scurried down the sidewalk towards her work.
Walking into the nursing home, she quickly took off the fingerless gloves, discarding them into her pants pocket, still wondering where the gloves had come from. After checking one of her patient's blood pressures at work, she looked over to find Jerry pocketing a credit card he'd slid out of his patient's purse which was draped on the back of her wheelchair.
"Damn it, Jerry," she said flatly, "Put it back." Jerry shot up with a look of defeat, his mouth dropping at the fact that Venus had called him out again for stealing from his patients. She tucked the blood pressure cuff into her shirt pocket and draped her stethoscope around her neck, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows sternly at her coworker. Jerry rolled his eyes and slid the card back into the purse.
"How's your boiled goose, Mr. Calvin?" Venus asked the elderly man who was sitting by his lonesome. She asked him this everyday because he ate the same thing everyday.
Mr. Calvin was her favorite patient. He wasn't fussy like the other senile patients she had, and he used to go to the same country club that she resided in before his children were old enough to ditch him at the old folks' home. She took sympathy in that, almost feeling bad for not appreciating the freshly-prepared meal she was nearly forced to eat every morning. He only hummed an answer, not opposed to the repetition and not wanting anything more. Venus smiled and crouched down to check on the oxygen tank at his right, dialing it to 3L when she noticed his fading eyesight had only set it to 2L.
Suddenly, the sound of a turbo bass drum nearly rattled the walls. Venus and Jerry both stood upright, looking over at each other in confusion and wondering if one of their patients had maybe broken another record player. But, Venus' face fell when she noticed the man with the boombox at the back of the room.
"Everybody started having sex. The music was way too powerful," the man in black, opposite the room, sang. Her head whipped between the two musicians in disbelief.
"Oh, no," Venus' eyes went wide as robes started falling to the floor and brittle bones were being lifted onto tables. Venus clenched an eye closed, cringing, in hopes of skewing her sight away from the scene as she made her way towards the man who was singing, glancing over her shoulder to see widower Ms. Derrick was lowering herself to her knees in front of Mr. Calvin.
"It was disgusting to say the least," the man sang his narration. Venus wanted to ask why they were doing this. She was internally begging for an answer, but she couldn't find her voice as the words dissipated from her mind.
Though shielded with sunglasses, the singer's gaze locked with Venus as she was close enough to wrap his arms around her waist before continuing, staring straight into her eyes which held a mixture of terror and seductiveness that she tried to fight as she unraveled the stethoscope from her neck, dropping it to the floor, "A boombox can change the world..."
Venus looked down, her breathing becoming frigid as her hands grasped the bottom hem of her scrub shirt. But, something about his hypnotizing voice urged her to give into her animalistic instincts.
"You gotta know your limits with a boombox," he smirked at Venus as she lifted the shirt from her body, tossing it aside as it flew towards an elderly couple on the couch, landing on the cushion next to them. She looked up at him through her brow, her eyes narrowing playfully.
"This is a cautionary tale..." his focus was completely on Venus as her hands found their way around the band of her bra, slowly unhooking the clasp on the back. The singer's nails nearly dug into her lower back with anticipation.
"A boombox is not a toy," he finished, his breaths becoming shallow, now completely hypnotized by Venus whose bare breasts bounced as her bra fell to the floor.
