|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|"Were you just smiling?" Iris' teasing voice made me look up from the jotter I was scribbling on. Our gazes locked and the fascination etched in her taunting brownish-green eyes threw my cheeks into action. They flat-out betrayed me by growing red beneath her gaze."What? No!" I denied it immediately, unable to get my cheeks back to its normal colour. I was biting down on my lips to hold back a smile."Yes, you were!" she wagged her finger at me from where she stood beside Mama Marie who was checking the sauce on the gas cooker.The older woman chuckled."Iris, leave the girl alone." Mama Marie chided her playfully."And why would I do that?" the taller girl cocker a brow, tossing the napkin in her hands somewhere before she began making her way towards me where I was seated in front of the kitchen island."Is there anything you are not telling me?" her teasing smile still played on her lips as she sunk her fingers into her curls that were let down in their natur

|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I stared at the red thong in my hands, a naughty smirk creeping up to my lips. I shoved it into the drawer, deciding not to wear it. I looked up to behold my reflection in the mirror.I looked different. The good kind of different. I was more of a jeans and sweaters kind of girl but staring at myself in the mirror, it felt like another personality of mine had just been unlocked. The cup of the padded red maxi dress cupped my boobs, showing the swells of my breasts and cleavage so small, yet enticing. It had straps in the form of ropes running from its neck to my back in loops that formed intersections on my bare back. The silk material pooled at my feet but it had a dangerous slit running up to my thigh, exposing a great deal of my thigh.André struck me as an aristocratic of some sort, but I didn't know his taste was this impeccable. The man had a good eye. However, looking at it now, it appeared to me like he bought his doom with his money because I looked lik

|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|"Don't worry. I'll wrap everything up, Des. You look tired. So, you go home and rest." Charlotte smiled at me, jabbing her index finger at my chest to tip me backwards so that I could leave."Are you sure?" I asked hesitantly."Yes, now shoo." She grabbed my bag off the countertop and stashed it against my chest."Goodnight, Char." I bid her farewell, throwing my backpack across my shoulder."Goodnight, Des!" she hollered back at me as I began walking out of the Café and that grabbed Tania's attention where she was seated, typing away on her system. She looked up, her unwelcoming gaze darting to me, and her scowl deepened.I swallowed and looked away immediately.I don't think Tania and I are ever going to be on the same page. To be honest, that was very fine with me. I didn't even want to be cool with someone who deducts my pay at any slightest mistake. It was as though the older woman had some kind of beef with me.The glass doors swung open and I let myself ou

|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I knew that Sonia Gray was the devil's incarnate, and the bane of my existence. It was a fact that had been long established but what I didn't understand was why she had her eyes pinned on me intently, from across the lecture theatre, disregarding the professor who was by the projector, whose voice was beginning to reduce to a distant noise, by the way.I had seen her condescendingly stare at me so many times that I had already brought myself to get accustomed to it. But the raw hatred brimming in her eyes right now, alongside other negative and sinister emotions that dimmed those green eyes was a little strange. It was as though she harboured some personal vendetta against me for reasons known to her. The ire that flamed in those green orbs aligned with the constant twitching of her lips in a sneer that reeked of nothing short of disgust. If it were any other day, I'd have looked away already, uncomfortable to hold her gaze but I couldn't shake off the apathy I

|•| ANDRÉ BAUDELAIRE |•|The recession of the moon into its dark shell in the clouds, mirrored the incessant chip at my soul for the past few days. It seemed as if something inside me was getting chopped off as each day went by and I recoiled from the one girl who made me feel so alive.I shoved my left hand into my pocket, twirling my tumbler absentmindedly in my right hand while I stared into the cold, dark, lonely night as though miraculously, all my problems would fade away the same way the moon was retracting into the dark clouds. But jokes on me because the more I stared at the waning celestial body, the more I became brusquely aware of the void that was perched at the core of my soul.I chugged my whiskey down my throat all at once, allowing myself to embrace the harsh burn that lodged in my throat. It felt like a punishment for the kind of wedge I had willingly driven between us since that afternoon at the Park. I was so in control. I had control over everything and I had alre