Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Felicia In The Mix ❯ Part 1: Pages 1 - 2 ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"Felicia In The Mix"
A story by Jacob C.

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Dedicated to A.S., who's been there and who knows a fair slice of the territory.

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From INTHEMIX MAGAZINE, June 2005:

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The InTheMix InDepth Profile

Our own Rick van de Mijne spends a weekend in Vegas with FELICIA
and winds up more InDepth than he (or we) bargained for:
He gets an up-close and personal glimpse into her past and her philosophy,
takes the best seat in the house for three truly epic performances,
and goes drinking after-hours with the popstar pussycat and her band.

Slice Of Life / 1 On 1 / Live Show Review / Gonzo Journalism
Pop / Bubblegum Rock / Indie

Photos by Richard van de Mijne

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[Pages 1-2]
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I suppose that, in dealing with the subject I have at hand, I'm going to need to rehash yet again the musings about "paranaturals" (as the current lingo has it) that have appeared at the beginning of so many other books and articles, and in other places, over the past fifteen years. So here goes: The revelation of the existence of paranaturals has been the single most transformative moment of the past millennium. Never has the human race been permitted to collectively peek beyond the veils of what, for our entire history, we called reality; never before have we been absolutely certain in the knowledge that we were not alone on the planet, that ours was not the only story worth telling, that some of our most cherished myths, legends, and even horror stories were based on truth. Some would argue that we might not have been ready for this knowledge, but, ready or not, we discovered them, and the frontiers of science and philosophy have all been expanded. The paranaturals have been found to operate in areas of physics, chemistry, and even geometry that we had yet to discover (that, in fact, we could hardly have imagined), in ways that would once have been huffily dismissed as mere superstitions about "magic"... Ah, but enough of that; as I said, we've heard it all before. The pages of InTheMix don't need to be wasted on that twaddle. And besides, there's only one specific paranatural in this story.

On this fine clear Thursday afternoon in April, we're in Paradise, Nevada -- not too far from the Las Vegas Strip. The location is a dressing room backstage at The Joint, the premium concert venue of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino; The Joint has a standing-room capacity of four thousand, and I have been informed that tickets have sold out entirely. No surprise, considering whose dressing room, precisely, I'm sitting in.

And she's sitting right across from me, perched cross-legged on top of a chair, hands (forepaws?) clasping her ankles, rocking back and forth almost childishly as she talks Vegas. "I've been all around the world, and loved every corner of it," she is saying. "But this is still the place I love the best. It's my home, and I wouldn't trade it for -- for anything, really." She laughs.

I've noticed, I say, that you laugh very easily. Everything comes with a smile or a grin or a giggle...

"Myahh," she says. It's an amusing little verbal tic, an all-purpose affirmative she frequently deploys -- and the closest she ever comes to actually meowing. "I'm told I have a naturally sunny disposition, whatever that's supposed to mean. If that means I'm happy most of the time, they're right. Not always, though, 'cuz that'd be a little weird..." She looks sly for a moment, cocking an eyebrow. "Tell you one thing. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." And she giggles again, swaying in her seat, her blue hair and white tail swaying behind her.

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Anyone who's actually spoken to the artist known only as Felicia for more than two minutes will have stories to tell about her charm, her charisma, her incredible -- some might say 'supernatural' -- ability to win people over, to gain their confidence. Here, at roughly the midpoint of a good three hours of one-on-one conversation, I'm just about ready to concede the supernatural explanation; having the full force of this creature's personal magnetism turned upon you is like having a spotlight shined directly in your face. I don't know where it comes from. Or rather, I couldn't pinpoint it. It's in everything -- the twinkle in her emerald eyes, the angle of her ears, the sway of her tail, the girlish voice, the un-self-conscious body language, the infectious enthusiasm, the complete lack of any trace of shyness or dissimulation. It seems to thwart any attempt at tying her down to a specific age. You know rationally that she's thirty-five years old, as she claims, but she doesn't look a day over twenty-one, nor act it. She seems, despite all the world can do (and has done) to her, never to have truly lost her innocence; "girl" is a better word to describe her than "woman", and one suspects it always will be. A kitten, not a cat. Or a kitten's heart inside the sleek, enchanting form of a full-grown cat.

She sets you at ease with astonishing speed, and it isn't long before you've discovered some kind of mutual affinity -- inside of fifteen minutes, it's as if you've been best friends with Felicia all your life. You begin to feel that you could trust her implicitly, as she already seems to trust you, and that it would be crude and repugnant to repay her trust with betrayal... I've been a journalist for God knows how long, and spoken to hundreds of people; I've only ever met three other people who were capable of establishing this instant rapport with everyone they encountered. And none of them were in the music business.

Ah, it's a terribly cruel world, the Recording Industry. It preys on people, eats them alive. It hardly has a non-seamy side. We all know how its victims end up -- faded, tarnished stars; bitter, cynical old money-grubbing producers and execs. We've heard the horror stories. We've seen the meteoric rise, and ignominious fall, of too many ephemeral pop superstars to count. This kitten, though, must bear a charmed life; after seven years in the public eye, none of the usual pop-star scandals have rocked her career. The standard temptations -- intoxicants, easy money, the lusts of the flesh, the obsession with getting good press -- have all utterly failed to attract, let alone unseat her. When I bring up the subject with her, Felicia just shrugs. "I'm not interested," she says. "There's just nothing there for me."

Not even the sex thing? One of mankind's oldest temptations, y'know.

"Nope. Not even that, baby," she says. "I've already given my heart, and that's all there is to it." Her eyes drift away for a few seconds, and I realize she's thinking of her mysterious boyfriend. (I've spoken to Jon -- as in Jonathan, or is it John-with-an-H?; he never said -- once or twice today: a tall, strongly-built British gent with long spikes of gray hair, gifted with a stern but youthful face from which a rascally, almost wolfish grin occasionally flashes. He has been Felicia's road manager and assistant live-sound man since the beginning of her career, but insists on his own privacy and, much to her disappointment, has refused to be credited in the liner notes of her albums except by his initials, "JGT". While we're talking in the dressing room, he's busy supervising the unloading of the tour bus. The words "runs a tight ship" come to mind, but by all accounts he's earned his crew's loyalty.)

But there was that time, I remind her, when you disappeared from sight for about eight straight months. Tongues started wagging, people started talking--

"Yeah, 'cuz talking is what those people do best," she interrupts me. "Like the way they talked about my clothes when I first started out."

Or your lack of them, I say. Politeness dictates I look elsewhere as I say it, but my eye can't help gliding downward for half a moment to the thick white patches of fur that cover (just barely) her toned and sculpted body.

Noticing, she smirks. "Yeah, that part does get frustrating, but I'm not changing the way I live for anyone else but me... I mean, seriously, Richie. Do I really look like the person who'd be doing what they say I do?" And dammit, she doesn't.

So what were you doing for those eight months? I ask.

"Hmm. I'd prefer not to talk about it... Nothing illegal, though, I can promise you that. Not the kind of thing the tabloids can jump on."

You've had a hell of a run of luck in this business, too, I say. No dishonest record deals, no unfair treatment by the press, no backstabbing agents or producers... it hasn't exactly been a bumpy ride for you.

"Myahh, I know. Like you said, luck..."

And sheer charisma, I say.

"Maybe." She smiles her even, white, fifteen-kilowatt-arclight smile again, and I notice the sharp, slightly protruding points of her upper canine teeth. Even these don't make her any less cute. In fact, they have almost the opposite effect, endearing little things that they are...

I pause to reflect. Dear God, this girl. Even her teeth are cute.

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Of course, Felicia sells herself a little short here; it's not merely her luck or her natural charm that's made her invulnerable to temptation. She seems to have a paladin's instinct for right and wrong, a trait she credits to her late, beloved foster mother. When the name "Sister Cecilia Rose" comes up, there's a brief glimpse of loss in those green eyes, a brief droop of the furry ears.

"Mom," she says. "Myahh, I miss her... I think about her every day. But damn, am I ever glad she's the one that raised me." The smile returns; the eye twinkles again. "She'd prob'ly go into conniptions to hear me talking like that now. I used to do it just to get on her nerves: 'Dammit dammit God dammit to hell.' Dude, she'd get so pissed... But she absolutely loved me, and not a day goes by I'm not grateful for it. Like, if it wasn't for Mom, I wouldn't be who I am." (Her gratitude, incidentally, is a matter of public record. Over the last five years, she's donated something around 850 grand a year to the convent outside Vegas where she was raised. Her contributions have been enough to singlehandedly keep her old K-12 parish school running.)

"I'm not exactly, like, the brightest bulb in the box or anything, but Mom never treated me like I was slow. The way she put it was, there's good and bad in the world -- good things and bad things, good people and bad people, good ideas and bad ideas -- and you don't exactly gotta be Einstein to figure out which is which. You just think it over real carefully... and deep down inside, you'll know." She taps the side of her head with the pad of one oversized finger. "So far, she's always been right. Every time I've gotta make a big decision, I sit right down and ask myself, what would my Mom have done?"

So your mother's the voice of your conscience, then.

"Yep. Y'know something? I've heard people talking about how conscience is overrated, that it's a throwback -- whatever the crap that's supposed to mean -- that it's not natural to people, that's it's just something we get drilled into us by our parents... but seriously, Rich: I'm glad my Mom drilled it into me. It's kept me safe and sane so far. Or mostly sane." Laugh. "Mom did say we're all a little bit crazy."

Talking with Felicia is a fascinating experience. She bounds with infinite energy from subject to subject, talking almost as much with her forepaws, ears, and tail as she does with her mouth. One minute she's laughing and gesticulating wildly; the next she's quiet, soft and serious, digging up another little gem of philosophy from some intellectual reserve that I keep forgetting she has. The little-girl voice and the aura of naivete are belied by the lifetime of experience she has to draw upon. She's not callow or gullible, I begin to understand; it's not childlike foolishness I sense, but openness -- a guileless, absolute candor. It seems to be her preferred method of allaying the unease of others.

I think it's your honesty that does it, I suggest to her at one point. People can get comfortable around you because you don't hide anything.

"Nothin' to hide," she says, confidently but without excess pride. "Nobody's more free than a girl with nothing to hide. Guilt and shame can't weigh you down if you haven't done anything to be ashamed or guilty about."

So that's all there is to it -- being a goody-two-shoes? keeping a clean slate?

"Well, when you put it like that, yeah, of course it sounds totally square," she protests. "And it's not easy either, walkin' the straight-and-narrow... but it's great. It's like the song says: 'A heart that's light and a mind that's free' -- I mean, that's what makes all the effort worth it." She's quoting her third single (and first gold record), "Out Of Your Shell", the song that officially made her a star. "No weight on my shoulders, Rich. Not now, not ever." I think I've told her I prefer to go by Rick, but Rich and Richie sound more natural on her lips.

We suddenly realize we're digressing from the point, and we move back to talking about her past. I'm not surprised to hear that she was bullied a little as a kid; children can be brutal to anyone among them who stands out too much. I am mildly surprised to learn that she has never had a singing lesson in her life, and that she used to play around on the convent's piano when her fingers were still small enough to fit the keys. "That's how I found out I was a born songwriter," she says. "I didn't really understand what 'gifted' meant, or what 'talent' was. All I knew was: dude, this is what I was born for. I've found the meaning of my life."

The end of the great masquerade happened while she was still in fourth grade -- just as her classmates' parents were realizing that there was something bizarre about their kids still coming home, after all these years, with weird stories about some blue-haired imaginary friend with cat ears. (What blue hair, honey? Your father and I have been in your classroom a dozen times and we've never seen a girl with blue hair...) Suddenly, the truth was out. Paranaturals could no longer hide, no longer pass themselves off as figments of someone's imagination -- they were real. True, the reception might have been slightly smoother if the first to break the silence had not been the infamous Aensland sisters, over in Europe; the centuries of relaxed corruption and leisurely depravity to which they cheerfully admitted have put every paranatural since then under a cloud of suspicion, if not outright prejudice.

So naturally, all through her school years, the teasing got worse; parents kept insisting that their kids not be placed in the same class as the weird creature that the nuns were trying to pass off as a normal kid (goodness knows what she's got under that uniform); and none of the teachers would step up to defend poor Felicia from her classmates. Hell, they probably couldn't look her in the eye without thinking of Lillith Aensland and hearing "Don't Stand So Close To Me" playing in their heads.

It was rough, but it taught a young catgirl a valuable lesson: "People's minds aren't set in stone like you think they'd be. Seriously, Richie -- a mind can be changed so easily. It's so easy to make other people hate or fear. Not so easy to make 'em love... but it's way more rewarding."

She clasps one forepaw in the other. "Mom said we all have a choice; you can be a child of the dark, or a child of the light. So I made my choice. And y'know, it doesn't make a difference that I'm a night person -- what's that term Morrigan used?"

For the paranaturals, you mean? She called you 'darkstalkers'.

Felicia grins. "Well, darkstalker I may be, but wherever I go I bring the light with me. My nights are bright nights. Full of starlight and moonlight and neon light..." She laughs yet again. "Damn, dude, listen to me! All moons and stars and light and love. It sounds so naive and sappy, laying it out like that. Good grief, no wonder people call me childish."

But it's not naive, is it? Not when you get right down to the bottom of it.

"No, it's not." Her voice is simultaneously solemn and cheerful. "Light and love are the most valuable things we have. When it's our time to go, they're the only things we can take along."

So Light and Love are your message, eh? Your mission statement, as it were.

Felicia tosses her head, her blue locks waving behind her. "It'll do... We darkstalkers, we're not all creatures of darkness. That's what I set out to prove."

Which, again, is an understatement. The little-catgirl-who-could has done more than anyone else, arguably, to destroy the bias against paranaturals and dispel the stigma associated with the label of darkstalker -- and all just by being her own sweet, shining self.

And suddenly there's a change of subject. With a shrug of her elegant shoulders, Felicia the amateur philosopher disappears for the time being, and Felicia the party girl is back. "So how often do you get to come here, Richie?"

To Vegas? Not too much. This is my first time back in about five years, to tell you the truth.

"Myahh, really? Well, I'm in town all weekend. We're playing three shows here, tonight through Saturday." She reclines comfortably in her seat. "Me 'n Jon could show you around. Nobody knows this town better than I do."

Hmm. I appreciate the offer... But I saw your tour schedule about six months ago; I thought you were doing four shows in Vegas. Change of plans?

"Yeah, we talked it over and decided it wasn't a good idea. All our fans coming in to work tired and hungover on a Monday, not good. Besides--" she flicks her tail-- "Sunday night's a full moon. I need Jonny around, but he won't work on a full moon. He's a great guy; I love him to death... but he's, um, a little funny about some things. Guess you'd call him superstitious."