Completely fake and extremely flammable

Beyond the acrylic full set, beneath the lace front, behind the superglue, untie the stays and a hundred swallows take flight, a white throat twists and arches as she bites back a cry only dogs can hear, the moist ruby slash forming an O - oh, who doesn't love a red lip? (Fire Down Below by NARS, a modern semi matte lipstick, velvety colour in a highly pigmented, non drying formula). A low moan, a shudder, a thrust, a sigh...absentmindedly, she dips a varnished fingertip between the swell of her breasts, fluffy meringues topped by fragoline di bosco - tiny, perfect wild berries best eaten warm, off the vine. She tastes herself, the slick of salty sweet sweat reminding her she hadn't eaten since last night's fish supper at The Bethany on the Newtownards Road in East Belfast. The batter had been light and crispy, the tea milky and steaming. She hadn't been able to resist assembling two chip butties from the stack of thickly buttered white bread, daggers of deep-fried golden Roosters bubbling with hot fat, which might explain how tight that damned corset felt during tonight's gig, especially by the end of the night, when she mouthed the words to the National Anthem. She hated singing that song, but the punters expected it, and they'd catch her out every so often if she just stood there in her thigh-high Gianmarco Lorenzi boots, shifting from foot to aching foot. Those boots è costato molto caro in Rome, from Re Mishelle near Piazza del Popolo, even during the sales. They were a size too big, but she'd bought them anyway, stuffed them with newspaper and just looked at them in her studio apartment near the Vatican, until she moved to Northern Ireland to be with him. Now they reeked of stale beer and kebab slop.