#royce and mapplethorpe tbt

[princetorn]

✮ @coastercrushed liked for a short starter.

In life, Royce’s world had been a palette of earthy, metallic and pastel tones.  Even those shades that tipped closer to bold and bright – like the siren-red interior of his beloved Little Sweetheart, or the brilliant teal of his father’s Chevy – could not have prepared him for the burning acid-pop of the arcade.  Floors were covered in a garishly patterned and cola-stained carpet, while a hundred machines trilled their electronic songs, sounds as synthetic as their own hulking bodies of plastic artificiality.

Here, in the middle of musty, migraine-inducing mayhem, Royce was getting destroyed at Dance Dance Revolution.  For every ‘Good’ or ‘Great’ he was awarded, Mapplethorpe smashed him with a ‘Perfect’ or a ‘Marvellous’, delivering footwork with flair and boundless energy.  It was almost a relief when the song came to an end – a jazzed up remix of an Elvis number that post-dated the hot-rodder’s death by some thirteen years – and their final scores were totalled on screen.

“Damn, Mapplethorpe, I ain’t never seen anyone dance to the king like that…!”  The words escaped Royce in a jagged and amused exhale, a plume of breathless laughter. “Just know if there was an option for the jitterbug, I’d have you on your back.”