Sera and Rose want to (stregare) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-03 11:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | rose red |
Who: Sera
What: Narrative (life-changing event, alter change, yadda)
Where: Summerlin, mostly
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Sexual themes
The chapter began with a then.
(Then, the girl picked herself up, pebbles taking up residence beneath the skin of her knees, rivulets of blood playing hopscotch against her leg and into her white, folded-over-twice sock.)
And Sera was yellow pajamas that called to mind sunflowers. She rose from her writing desk, sleep still in her eyes and her hair standing in tousled spikes. Tug and tug, as she worked feverishly through the night on the papers that littered the floor around her wooden chair. Chase away the bad desires, but the white paper wasn't strong enough. Rock, paper, scissors, and needs like the edge of sharp steel that no sheet of lined white could defeat.
She had met with the man from the Meet Up twice. Old enough to be her father, and he smelled of sandalwood and toffee. Married, three children in college, and she'd seen the perverse glint in his eyes before darkness took the world away with the fingers around her throat. She stayed home days after, only the servants who asked no questions for company.
(Then, silence, and shouldn't death be loud and messy? Shouldn't fingers upon the ivory column of her throat make her thrash and scream? Fight or flight, nowhere to be found, a myth. A gasp a shudder. Quiet. Quiet, and the world crashed over her with no one to hear.)
She wondered about things, as she stepped beneath the water's hot spray, sunflowers left upon the bathroom floor for a maid to collect. Sebastian, and whether he ever thought of her, and whether he ever regretted. Daniel, and whether he thought of contacting her, and whether she'd dredged up the dead. And she thought the answer to both was no, and she wondered that she'd allowed herself such fanciful beliefs about the world. Hadn't she learned her lesson young? She had never been a good student.
She used too much shampoo. Her eyes watered.
(Then, love, and the selfishness was overwhelming. Mine, and no one else, and she understood why people killed for this. Possession, overwhelming, and the taint of someone else's fingers like acid on an exposed wound. Injury over injury, and nothing to chase it away. How do you strike out a match once it's burnt out and the flame has become smoke?)
She dressed cheap. A shiny shirt purchased for the occasion, and a skirt that was too short. Corners were easy to find, and it wasn't the heiress that leaned against the lamppost like she'd watched Pretty Woman one too many times as a child. Her lips were blood, and she knew why the car stopped for her. Up and down and barely curves, she was a woman-child, innocent wide eyes and promises of depravity. She climbed into the car with an eager shame that tasted like bile on her tongue.
She forgot to negotiate a price. She didn't need the money.
(Then, the princess climbed into her bed, change falling from her pockets. Shamed, because she felt no shame. Hollow, and who could fill the kind of hollowness that had no bottom? The princes and knights were all in the dungeons, locked in their cells and playing cards to while away the hours, while the princess slept.)