KELLY, RAYA LEE

[birdie]

Raya Lee Kelly
twenty-one ,, carson city,, photographer,, heterosexual,, fanciful,,alecia moore
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"photographer for RADIO BYE BYE."


"Men love girls like this, with daring eyes and willing mouth and skinny fuck-me hips cocked like a gun waiting to go off.

bright and spunky, but mechanical.

Raya has a form of innocence—or maybe it’s just denial. She repeats her mistakes and asks, “One more chance, please!” She’s come to expect one more chance. But Raya has never learned her lesson. She repeats her mistakes and expects different results.

When sex becomes your job, it gets harder to let it be about love. Taking off her clothes isn’t a passionate act any more than cramping in the middle of a second round is. The art of sex is mechanical, it’s business, it’s money.

On those days, Raya goes down to the thrift store and buy up piles and piles of used romances. She skims them all for the dirty parts, and they make her sick but she can't stop. Because she know it's fake but she wants it to be real. She wants it so bad. Raya’s just like all of them, everyone else trying to make something real out of everything that's fake when it's impossible. That’s how she justifies her fantasies— everybody has them, right? The difference between Raya and the rest of the world is that Raya doesn't even know anymore how to tell the difference between cheesy romance novels and what’s true. The difference between a good thing and a good time.

Raya desperately clings to the hope that maybe Harlequin isn’t full of shit, after all--maybe all it really takes was one little sacrifice of confession. Maybe all it takes is hope and belief and then love would conquer all things, all obstacles.

Raya doesn't want to be an early-morning booty call. She doesn't want to be a hobby, or a fuck-buddy or anyone's right hand. She sleeps around because she's looking, because Raya wants to believe that someday, somewhere, she'll find someone worth quitting for; she wants to believe that someday she'll find someone worth keeping around. It’s justifiable…right?

Okay, so her methods are a bit fucked. Sue her.

Raya doesn't care. She knows what she's doing.

Mostly.

What Raya did when she was younger was an act of survival. That’s how she justifies that (get the pattern yet?). Raya never got out of that survival mode. She can take care of herself without whining about the conditions she’s in.

Beneath this, she was raised as that sheltered girl who sits with her ankles crossed and her hair tied back in a bow. Perhaps the most tragic thing about Raya is that even after all she’s been though, she still has her fanciful illusions about the world and how someday, it will all be rainbows and sunshine. Raya wants a happy ending.

a girl from a good family and neighborhood who was pulled into the underworld.

It hadn't always been this complicated. At one point there had been a college education, had been an academic scholarship. Raya had a dream— she wanted to be a nurse, a proper straight-edge candy striper.

Smoking pot was frowned upon in Raya’s northeastern town. At least, it was frowned upon in her neighborhood’s loving, Bible-bashing, prudish circle. Smoke pot, and next you'll be shooting heroin. Smoke pot and you'll end up dead in a ditch. After four years of being a bottle-blonde, turtleneck-wearing pre-teen, Raya didn't think dead in a ditch sounded so bad. It was for this reason that pot wasn't a "gateway drug" for Raya’s ultimately downward spiral; it was just an excuse, a friendly face as she gave the finger to whatever future she'd been headed toward.

When she was 14, Raya shoved a few pairs of clothes in her backpack. $78.32 of saved money stolen from the homeless center’s till box (where she volunteered after church), a box of Ritz, her bible, and Raya was out the door; her father vegetating in front of FOX News, her mother out at bible study. Swallowing her fear down with the night air, brushing aside her crybaby tears, Raya let the road take him up, up, and away. She had illusions about what the streets would hold for her—small for her age, sweet in the face, and sheltered as she was. The movies made it look easy enough. She wondered that night, burning her Bible in a trashcan lid for warmth, if this was the circle of hell her mother had been talking about.

When the new girls Raya met at the youth center (at the corner of 5th and South) flashed her a roll of bills, letting someone see her developing body for ten minutes didn’t seem so bad. On the contrary, it seemed like a great idea, and they promised it was going to be great, just great. People hadn't been mean to Raya, but after two whole years on the street with nothing more than a sideways glance, she thought it was pretty nice to have friends again.

Even if most of them only stopped by for a tasteless coffee and a peep show once a week. Sex sells, right?

Raya got a job at a topless coffee shop. It didn’t make much, and it was desensitizing, to say the least. Sure, Raya could work the higher end of prostitution, and sure— she got a few offers. But Raya wasn’t stupid. After two years of living on the streets, now at the age of 16, she’d heard enough stories to be smart and steer clear. She was making enough in tips and wages to get through. Not really living, but getting through. Raya just couldn’t afford any more— even with the knowledge that by letting herself go just a little more, she could make 10 times what she was making by serving coffee without a bra.

For her 17th birthday (she’d been too poor to celebrate her 16th with anything more than a rented porno and the day off), Raya left town. She used all of her saved money (this time, stolen from the tip jar. Much of it was all in change) and bused herself to Las Vegas.

By then, after 3 years on the street, Raya had toughened up. Taking her top off, displaying her body— it had all lost its thrill, its feeling. There was no hesitation left any more. It was now as routine as going to a doctor’s appointment, mildly uncomfortable, but not offensive. Seeing as she had no form of education past junior high, Raya returned to the very ruling she’d tried to run away from— SEX SELLS.

But remember, this is Vegas. Once again, Raya found it harder to get along in such a secretive, sensual city. She eventually found her niche, in the form of a shady photography business. Raya worked for the next two years on building her portfolio full of pinups, calendar-style shots, and “personals”. But nothings last forever.

When everything changed again, Raya was ready. The studio went out of business, leaving its clients and models abruptly. Raya had no income, and there was no way she was serving coffee again. But this time, Raya didn’t run. She had a new set of skills she hadn’t had before— knowledge of the world of modeling and photography. Raya bought a camera and makeshift equipment. Gradually, after 3 months of silence and keeping their heads down, Raya began to contact her model acquaintances. It would take Raya the next 2 years to pull together a fully operational studio. It was rough touch-and-go at times, but hey. Sex sells, and all of the clients from the old show returned for more.

Now, as the one behind the camera, Raya had no need to expose herself, instead exploiting others for business. She’s tried to forget about “those” 8 years of her life. Now moving into a more honest business, it’s her job to photograph grubby, sexy images of band members at gigs, promo shots of smoking them too many cigarettes, and to keep out of the press all shots of them drinking copious amounts of alcohol on tour.”




^{hey, so i'm birdie . i've been roleplaying for just about five years now. as well as this character, i also play no other character . you can reach me by PM if you need me for anything. i found made up stories by the add on pantheon academy and i'm pretty glad i did. here's an example of mah skillz. (:}

Raya hadn't heard from or seen any trace of Josh until that day. And honestly? He looked ashamed to be there, getting coffee. She didn't miss it-- that look-- and she didn't imagine it. Josh didn't acknowledge her and she didn't acknowledge him and there was something just so fucked up-- just so wrong about that that neither of them could put words to it. And neither of them ever did. He just got a little pink in the face, a little at loss for words. But then he was all up, all standing, and all over towards Pamela, another newer cashier (like Raya), with that grin that now had a wire retainer. That hadn't been there the last time she'd seen him.

Raya rejoined the conversation between some of the other waitresses. They were wondering what had happened to Daphne. Had she triumphantly rolled into Hollywood like she'd planned? Raya couldn't imagine it was anything good. None of them could imagine much of anything at all.

"Maybe that's the worst, really," sighed Gracie, a barista. The rest of the group of girls, all on their smoke break, nodded scornfully. It was the worst. Not being beat down, but being ignored completely and fully, just like the worthless little piece of shit you always knew you were.

"So you're on the one-way train to hell with the rest of us, huh? Big deal," Gracie was saying to Raya. "We all get fucked over sooner or later, so if you come in knowing it'll happen, it doesn't smart so bad when it does." She looked kind of like she'd been born to work in a diner, Raya thought, with her high ponytail. All Gracie needed were the roller skates.

But Gracie, who had been working in the coffee shop longer than any of them and had the clientele to prove it, had this way of coming right up behind you and stabbing you in the back with something that sounded really deep, even if it was nothing more that his random... babble. So Raya played nice.

"Who exactly am I replacing?" Raya asked her.

"Jamie," she said.

"...What happened to her?"

One girl with dark eye makeup flicked her cigarette to the ground and for about half a second Raya thought she was going to hit her or something. Really, that thought had no basis to back it up. But come on. Ella hit everybody back then. Nobody touched her. The point is, she didn't do it that day. No, she just waggled her ringed fingers like it was something creepy when she said it. "Little innocent sweet sixteen--" Ella went, "--cutest little girl you never saw. Until somebody stole her heart and ate it."

"--swallowed it whole," Gracie confirmed, penciled eyebrows raised as if to say see? I know what I'm talking about. Her coffee-crack fingers were tapping against the wall like a real addict, and that effectively ended the conversation.

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