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Estranged I
The most Vincent had done in the ten hours since Blue had told him to leave was pour himself a drink, pour it straight down the drain, sit on the couch in near darkness and wish he had done more to protest.
By the time the front door finally opened, he found himself struggling against fatigue as he was torn so carelessly from a surface level dream of Blue asleep on the couch next to him; curled in a ball between the corner of the sofa and himself—knees in his lap, head on his shoulder, arms tucked into his chest
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Blue’s toes curled as the man’s breath shot out along her thigh and the absence as he drew away forced a shiver. With furrowed brows, her eyes met his, met with a twisted smile, narrowed eyes and fingers flexing on her knees. “What are you doing?”“What do you want me to do?” the murmur alone kindled her longing to the point she was sure she could beg, watching restlessly, goosebumps rising from the cold.
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Untangling his arm with the woman asleep beside him, Vincent sat up slowly. Breathed the greyed midday sun wafting through tumbling curtains. Followed their lilt and roll, caught steadily on the breeze. Rain filling the silence where her deep breaths paused, the man had one simple thought. They’d slept in. Far too long. But somehow, the sight of the woman eased any stress. He was rather unsure of the last time he had done nothing so late in the day. She lay with an arm stretched above her head; hand twisted in her own hair. Bare breasts peering from beneath the sheets. Nipples large and swollen. Duvet tangled at her stomach. Other hand tucked in a fist beneath her cheek. And as she stirred, he could see a shyly pink handprint where it had been. In the same way he had and more frequently by the day, he wondered what would rebuff the woman quicker; the truth, or another lie? Though she lay bare faced with golden hair in tangles and skin unclothed, he couldn’t
Shady Blue Dirty Laundry II
It was barely four in the evening. The floorboards were weathered and the table somewhat tacky. Relying on the light coming through western-facing windows, Blue couldn’t comment on the ceiling lamps—only two of which were functional. Sun slipping behind the dense hedging that was the central business district, she worried that she was keeping the café open; and as such, lack of natural lighting was not usually an issue. She didn’t have it in her to critique Anya’s timing. After all, she had asked the impossible. Dinner preparations usually began promptly at three-thirty, serving at five. She made a pretty safe bet that there was plenty of laundry to keep her occupied in the meantime. If not, there was certainly no shortage of windows to clean. With each hour, it seemed more and more uncertain she’d see the woman she had come to miss. Regardless, she couldn’t help but hope. A fool’s errand. With each hour it seemed more and more uncertain. Perhaps she should h
Shady Blue Dirty Laundry III
The duvet laid rolled at their feet, top sheet masking their tangled legs and cutting short of the girl’s pantless hips. Despite the heat and the fear of a light sweat sticking their stomachs together, there was nothing Blue wanted less than to break herself from her perch on the man’s stomach to roll over. Similarly, Vincent had taken quite a liking to the brush of her exhale on the bare skin of his chest and the tangle of her fingers through his hair.Never had he been so focused on something so inconsequential. National Geographic filled the void of silence where conversation fell short, but his eyes remained fixed to the fluttering of her own and the tangles of her hair as her cheek turned to the opened window and she stared into the void of the city, almost overwhelmed by her own insignificance.“What were your parents like?” Blue paused in running her fingers through the hair that had grown wild and begun to form a veil over the base of hi
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Perched on the windowsill, Blue wasn’t nearly as consumed by thoughts of marriage and murder as she had been the first time. And unlike the last, she was on speaking terms with her husband. It had been half a week without any kind of verbal altercation—if Blue’s silent evasion was to be counted. Thankfully, Vincent hadn’t pressed the issue in much the same way Blue had skirted around Vincent’s being in her father’s office. She had been thankful to be kept awake by him rather than another argument; something she wasn’t all too eager to risk. Instead, she was rather focused on the sound of the rain pelting against the glass and the smell of bacon that aroused both hunger and nausea so conflicting. She knew too well if she looked to the man who stood over the stove with little more in the way of clothes than a pair of joggers a size or two too small, she’d be bent over the counter if she had her way. Her stomach couldn’t fare an extra half-hour without a decent
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Feeling her spine press the skin of her back and stretch against it with each inhale, she had never felt more naked than she did by the hand of the rippling bathwater fallen to her hips. With the gentle rake of Vincent’s hands and a coarse washcloth, she couldn’t help but accept the gentle reminder that she was more hopeless than she had hoped to be by eighteen; she still woke suddenly gripped by worry. She still soaked through the sheets in her sleep with sweat. She still ate a warm breakfast cooked for her. And still cowered from a gentle embrace.But there had been quiet victories.She had showered once a day for weeks she’d lost count of. She had eaten three square meals and washed and folded her own clothes. Stripped the bed on her own and took the linen to the dry cleaner. All the things her parents had hoped she’d never know—less from love than it was grooming her for subservience.And she felt happiness. At least more than s
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The irony wasn’t lost on Blue that the only restaurant accepting a reservation for six happened to be one so awkwardly nestled between the division of upper-and-lower-class Manhattan. At least the only one accepting reservations for such a large table only three hours earlier on a Friday night. Which also happened to be the very same she had met her now-husband for their first official date.Almost two months later, she felt extremely overdressed—so as not to avoid confrontation from her mother. Her stockings stuck to her legs from the rain, the skirt of her dress whose empire waist already wasn’t doing her any favors had creased in her Uber and her hair had broken from its bun. The one she had redone four or five times out of pure terror.Of what?How many glasses of wine she could turn down before she caved? How much groping she could ignore from her beloved fiancé? Or how much terror her mother could unleash in a one-hour win
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While Blue was so sure that Sandra’s coy smile would elicit some confrontational response from her mother, the woman simply returned a rather friendly smile. For that brief moment, it was almost as though she was proud of her daughter. Or at least she was pretending to be.It seemed that Marian had chosen to be rather civil, let it be because it was the first time seeing her daughter since she fled shoeless in the night or because she had to make a good impression on the family she’d hope would absorb her own. After all, she knew better than to bite the hand that fed her.They had survived entrees and mains without incident. Marian had even gracelessly complimented the outdated charm of Blue’s dress and told her she looked much less washed out with her cooler highlights. She had even survived the whole meal without Richard laying a hand on her, though she assumed it had less to do with her luck and more to do with the stern gaze of his father. Some sm
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