Chapter 10

Really quick: Blaze’s new haircut was incredible. It had all the fantastic elements of a classic lesbian haircut: it was short, had a small curl in the bangs, draped over one eye perfectly, and looked good gelled up/slicked back/tucked in a beanie. Louis had arrange beforehand to have the devil send a demon to possess a hairdresser to make the cut otherworldly. It worked. Mainly because the demon chosen was Ashtaroth, the same demon that possessed Vidal Sassoon. Blaze then continued on Tegan and Sara’s tour route with her infallible hair, and earned herself more disciples. Word spread fast, and by the end of the month Blaze, with her modest team of Louis and the six Smith girls, had captured the bleeding little hearts almost all of America’s lesbians.

Her fanbase was already Jonas Brothers size and reaching Taylor Swift size. Her twitter had 978,586 followers, and almost all the tweets she was tagged in were pictures of her lyrics newly tattooed on girls’ skin. Her album was number thirteen on iTunes and she had already performed on Conan and was scheduled to play on Kimmel. Buzzfeed had already made “17 reasons Why Blaze is Your Dream Girl”, but then had to revise it because they thought of more reasons. The article is currently “48 Reasons Why Blaze is Your Dream Girl”, but will most likely be revised again. Her fandom on Tumblr was staggering — the number of URL’s that included the word “Blaze” had increased ten-fold, but were unfortunately confusing the Blaze fandom with marijuana blogs. And occasionally arson blogs. Blaze was experiencing all the expected symptoms of becoming an object of obsession.

As she and Louis stepped out of the limo onto the red carpet, the crowds pushing each other over the railings on either side of them began to scream. The screams were more than the typical fan screams; the screams were the high pitched sound people let out when they’re lives are being cut short in a brutal way. Louis and the six Smith girls (who were acting as handlers) crouched and covered their ears, terrified of the sound. Blaze stood between them, amidst the screams, and raised her finger to lips. The crowd went quiet so quickly it was like a mute button was hit and no sound was left but the natural sounds of the earth. The lesbians remained dutifully quiet as the other people lining the red carpet began to buzz again. They called Blaze for photos and she posed while Louis strategized and the Smith girls sneered at the crowd.

“Blaze, look,” Louis pointed to an eager looking girl a few feet ahead of them holding a microphone. “Go take that interview and remember—”

“I know — smile, and don’t say much except my name,” Blaze finished. Louis smiled.

Blaze walked up to the excited reporter. As Blaze approached, the reporter’s pupils dilated. Blaze was used to it by now; all the freaky things that happen to people when when the person in the world they want be near the most actually is near them. Once a girl started speaking in tongues; it was alright though because Louis could translate it.

“Hi Blaze! My name is Sarah, I’m here with Logo. Can you tell us who you’re wearing tonight?” Sarah asked, as beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.

“No, but I can tell you who I am. I’m Blaze.” Blaze smiled at Sarah, then into the camera. Sarah sweat some more.

“Ha-ha! Oh my god Blaze! Hilarious! So Blaze we had some fans submit questions would you mind answering them?”

“Not at all.” Blaze kept smiling and Sarah kept sweating.

“Ha-ha! Cool! Our first question comes from Lucy in Tennessee.” Sarah wiped her brow with the back of her arm leaving it dewy. “She asks: ‘Blaze, when did you start playing guitar?'”

“Seven,” said Blaze.

“Oh when you were seven? Or like seven years ago?” Sarah asked. Blaze just smiled at her, then into the camera. This made Sarah sweat even harder. Her cheeks were turning red.

“Ha-ha! Okay! Cool! This question is from Tara in DC. ‘Blaze, do you like spaghetti?'” under her breath Sarah added, “What the fuck, Tara.”

“Yeah. Spaghetti is cool,” replied Blaze. She smiled at Sarah. Then she scratched her nose. But then she smiled at the camera.

“Alright! Let’s hope this next one is not a question kindergartners would ask each other on a first date. Lee from Texas writes ‘Blaze, what’s your bra size?'” Sarah jaw tightened. Her whole face as so red and wet it was hard to tell if she crying or not. The roots of her hair were very damp.

“I’m a B-cup. B for Blaze,” Blaze smiled everywhere. Sarah began hyperventilating.

“Smiths! Take care of this!” Louis shouted and he grabbed Blaze by the arm.

“We’re going backstage. Meet us there.”

Blaze smiled one more time at the camera. The Smith girls all shouted “Bye Blaze! Bye! See you soon! Bye!” then called an EMT for Sarah. It wasn’t until Blaze was out of sight that the lesbians in the crowd, no longer held to be quiet, began to weep tears of disbelief.

“The interview is all over the internet already,” said Louis to Blaze as Emily and K fixed Blaze’s hair and applied makeup.

“Nice.”

Blaze was admiring herself in the mirror, she couldn’t believe how far she had come in so little time. Only a month ago she was Katie, a girl on her bed wondering if taking up skateboarding would make ladies like her. And now, she had nearly one million confirmed fans, a near-devil best friend, six girls who were perpetually crying because they could not believe how lucky they were to be around her, and on top of it all, a music career. Blaze was running all this and her set list through her head when she felt arms tighten around her neck. Snapping into focus, Blaze realized it was just Emily crying and hugging her.

Illustration by Rory Midhani

“Blaze you’re just so amazing I love you so much,” she sobbed, kissing Blaze’s neck repeatedly. In the mirror, Blaze saw K mentally strategizing a way to get in on the action. Louis across the room looked up from his computer, annoyed. He took off his shoes and threw them at Emily and K.

“No! No!” he shouted at them, “That’s enough! In the hallway!”

Emily and K slowly removed themselves from Blaze and skulked into the hallway, keeping their eyes on Blaze the whole time. As they closed the door, they whispered through the crack, “bye Blaze, we love you, forever, even after the sun explodes and destroys the earth-”

Louis pushed the door shut.

“Alright, you go on in a half hour. You know how it goes?” Louis asked.

“Yes. I play the song, go backstage, then I give an award, then I do it,” Blaze responded. Louis smiled and nodded.

“Do you want me to get someone to fix that hair for you?”

“Yes, please!” said Blaze emphatically. “Those girls are not good at hair. They are however, great at writing a women’s and gender studies paper on anything.”

“What? How do you know that?” Louis was confused.

“Whenever they get clingy I ask them each to write a 30-page paper relating gender or feminism to something. They can just crank them out, so in order to keep them really occupied, I have to think of really obscure topics. Look, it’s intense.” Blaze reached into her bag and pulled out a thick stack of papers stapled together. She handed it to Louis. The title read “Jumping Over Six School Buses And Landing On A Woman: How Monster Truck Culture Is Destroying Women.”

“WOW,” Louis said, thoroughly impressed. Blaze nodded. “How did they even find sources for this?”

“Smith’s a good school,” Blaze shrugged. There was a knock on the door. A roadie with long gray hair in a tight braid down his back poked his head in.

“Blaze, you’re needed backstage,” he said with a too many cigarettes voice.

“Thank you! We’ll be right there,” she said. Louis pulled the door shut before the Smithies could come whisper in it again.

“Shit. Do you have enough time to do your hair?”

“Yeah, I’ll just do it like all the lesbians do it.” Blaze squinted in the mirror and pushed her hair left, then right, then left, then right, then left, then right, then righter, then really left, then up a little, then all the way down, then laughed at how that looked, then pushed it up, left, right, left, down, up a little more, right, left, teased it, smiled and winked in the mirror, laughed and was done.

“Okay I’m done.” Louis blinked a bunch, then opened the door and they went down the hallway to the backstage holding area. The roadie told them to tune up. They were going on.

The stage was gaudy like most award shows are. It had thousands of lights lining the whole area, as well as all kinds of runways and catwalks. Blaze entered from center stage through a thick cloud of fog with her guitar raised above her head. Higher up, a giant screen flashed “BLAZE” in a seizure-inducing fashion. Blaze was not in the business of hamming it up for the camera, she was in the business of looking hot by playing it cool. She went right into her song. The crowd was feeling it, but certain sections were getting lit. Those sections were the ones with a higher concentration of lesbians. They were going so crazy, in fact, that a few had EMTs called to them because surrounding straight folk thought the screen HAD induced epilepsy. When Blaze was done she bowed and went back stage thusly thrusting the aforementioned bits of the audience into crushing despair. They had the EMTs called to them again. The EMTs were getting really sick of this shit.

When Blaze jogged backstage Louis was grinning ear to ear. He clapped her on the back and flashed her some impressive ratings.

“We had 400,000 people tune in just for you!”

“What?” Blaze asked. “That’s incredible!”

“Yeah, we know it wasn’t a fluke because they all tuned out right afterwards. I feel bad for whoever is going up next.”

Louis and Blaze turned and saw Pitbull had been listening to their conversation. He sighed and looked down.

“It’s okay. I’m used to it,” Pitbull said. Then he trudged on stage.

“Anyway,” Louis continued, “The BuzzFeed list is now up to 89 reasons.”

“Yes!” Blaze pumped her fist. “Do you think I’ll break 100?”

“Oh yeah,” said Louis. “Now lets get you changed for the award.”

Blaze was presenting the Pointless Award for Fewest Movies Made This Year alongside Channing Tatum. After Pitbull flopped, the two went onstage with their little envelope and delivered some corny banter. Channing began the announcement.

“And the award for fewest movies made this year goes to…”

Blaze opened the envelope and smiled.

“Kristen Stewart,” she read excitedly.

In the audience Kristen smiled (by typical human standards it was a grimace) and made her way to the stage. Louis stood backstage biting his lip. Blaze locked eyes with Kristen as she walked up the stage steps. Kristen’s pupils dilated. Channing Tatum stood to the side, just filling the space with muscle mass. Blaze handed Kristen the award (which was a statuette of a vest; a very pointless item of clothing) she and Kristen stood staring at each other. Blaze leaned in. Louis’ eyes bugged, Channing Tatum’s muscles bulged, and the audience cheered as Blaze and Kristen Stewart made out. The lesbians in the audience, stricken with intense lightheadedness, began dropping like flies. The EMTs were so pissed.

When they finished kissing Kristen wiped her mouth and flashed a big smile (by typical human standards it was a modest grin) and went back to her seat. Blaze smiled politely, playing it totally cool then she and Channing went back stage. Louis was all smiles.

“You did it! The most ‘adamant agnostic’!” he shouted as he ran to embrace Blaze. “We’re totally going to destroy the world! I’m going to get the biggest fucking commission of my life.”

Blaze and Louis laughed and began heading back to the green room. Suddenly, the Smith girls turned the corner all running full speed and tripping over each other. They were shouting.

“YOU DID IT! YOU CRASHED TUMBLR!” they cried.

“What?” asked Blaze.

“Too many people tried to live-blog your kiss — which we’re very jealous of — and the site just went down! It just keeps saying that weird ‘aw snap’ thing.”

Blaze looked up at Louis who was smiling so hard he looked like he was in pain.

“Lets go back to the hotel and celebrate!” he shouted. “Oh but first…” Louis pulled a gun out of his belt and handed it to Blaze. “We need to take care of any unwanted guests.”

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