Текст книги "The body painter"
Автор книги: Pepper winters
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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 28 страниц)
He gave me nowhere to run, no space to wriggle away from the oversaturation of his possession, no way of easing into his violence.
His brow came down, casting shadows. His entire body vibrated with everything I wasn’t allowed to know. Terror shone in his gaze, ravenous longing coloured his lips, and a bone-deep depression painted him better than all the other colours I’d marked him with.
Gil had sad eyes.
He always had.
But with him driving into me, my arms slung over his shoulders, and our gazes stitched together, I understood something I hadn’t before.
Gil had lost his way.
While life had dragged me along, stealing my dancing dreams and gracing me with scars, he’d endured his own hardship. And it wasn’t physical. It was emotional.
He couldn’t tattoo over the wounds on his heart. He couldn’t pretty up the defects and craters left by whatever nightmares he’d walked through.
My pulse pounded as his body ravaged mine and tears prickled for him. I would’ve been there for him if he’d let me. I would’ve held his hand in the dark and raised a sword in his defence if only he’d kept me by his side and not tossed me away.
I hated him for that.
Hated him as much as I wanted him, blending two opposite emotions into a treacherous one.
I was vulnerable in that moment.
I was angry in that moment.
Nuzzling his nose with mine, I kissed him.
Kissed him sweet and soft to combat the harsh, hard way he took me.
Kissed him gentle and loving to combat the violent unhappiness within his soul.
He stiffened.
Our skin slipped together, spreading silver, pink, and black. The yellow crowning him dappled his shoulders, dressing him in a sunshine cape.
Halcyon.
The word swept into my mind from an English lesson at school. Gil had sat behind me, whispering the new word as Ms Tallup showed how to spell it on the board.
Halcyon.
It meant peaceful, tranquil, harmonious.
A serene, balmy day that had no worries, stress, or strife.
That was what Gil needed.
What a shame the yellow in his unruly hair couldn’t grant such things.
I kissed him harder, cupping his cheeks as he thrust into me particularly deep, almost in punishment, almost as if he sensed my pity for whatever pain he’d lived through.
He growled as his pace increased. My breasts bounced, shining in quicksilver.
His head tilted as his hands swooped up my back and into my hair, kissing me viciously, switching the softness into savagery once again. I gave myself over to it, catching his tongue with mine in a swirly, ancient dance.
Unsheathing my teeth, I bit his bottom lip.
And that was the end of whatever gentleness existed between us.
Our eyes snapped closed as our kiss grew wet and hot and fierce. Our bodies matched the thrusting, hunting tempo of our tongues. Our hips rocked and rolled, never satisfied, even as the sharp sizzle of a release made his fingers bruise my skin and a plea hiss through my teeth.
“You should never have found me,” he grunted, driving upward.
My body rejected his length, squeezing tight around him.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do now, huh?” he groaned with another consuming thrust. “How am I supposed to survive this?”
I had no answers, so I gave him none. I just let him take what he needed.
Falling backward, he pulled me with him.
We tumbled to the stage where he’d stood and painted a hundred different women. Paint bottles rolled around us as Gil twisted and placed me on my back.
We lay on his place of employment, naked and vibrant, and connected in the basest of ways.
He reared up on his hands, his hips pistoning into mine as the paint on our skin smeared the floor where other droplets had dried. Where other art had been created and destroyed. Where he’d painted me the first time and almost ruined me.
His hand slicked down my body, pressing between my legs while he drove deep. His fingers found my clit, swirling in time to the rhythm he set. Consuming, possessing, heart-stealing.
My back bowed as he conjured every heated, hungry nerve ending to focus on his touch. The way his cock spread me wide. The way his fingers soared me high. It stole every ability to think and I belonged entirely to him.
My pussy clenched around him, demanding the release he teased me with.
His lips slammed on mine again, pinning my head to the stage. His tongue speared into my mouth, tasting me, making me drunk on the fiery desire he poured down my throat.
My back slid against the smooth podium as we fought against each other. With each thrust, I grew heavier, hotter, drowning in the delicious thrill of a steadily building orgasm.
“Gil—” I clawed at his lower back, pulling him deeper into me. “Now, please...I want—”
“Not yet.” His fingers ripped from my body, reaching for a bottle tangled in my hair. My orgasm faltered. My lips pressed together with impatience.
Ripping the cap open with his teeth, he smiled grimly as he upended the brightest, deadliest red into the hollow of my throat.
I flinched as the cool fingers of liquid puddled over and cascaded on either side of my neck, feeling as if he’d slit me from ear to ear.
Instead of attacking me with more feral urgency, Gil froze.
His cock pulsed inside me. Horror filled his eyes.
I didn’t know how the paint looked blending with silver, pink, and blue but the whiteness beneath the black on his cheeks spoke of death and decay.
My death.
“Fuck.” A tormented groan fell from his lips as he swiped away the pool of crimson. Again and again, he smeared my skin, turning my individual colours into a muddy, metallic gleam.
His hand dove into my hair, painting the strands while his forehead crashed on mine.
The weight of his body increased, the rattle of his breathing quickened, and I stroked his back with shaking fingers. “It’s okay—”
“It’s not fucking okay,” he snarled, rearing up onto his elbows and thrusting into me so viciously, I scooted away from him.
But he followed; his knees locked between my legs, driving his cock into me with single-minded determination—a rutting, debasing need to finish, because whatever lived between us had shown far too many flaws to be allowed.
“Jesus Christ,” he groaned, buckling over me as his anger added a new element to the lust between us. His cock throbbed and thickened inside me, dragging my unrequited orgasm from the depths of my belly and into my pussy.
My body rippled, milking his length, testing permission to explode.
His eyes narrowed to wicked weapons as he dropped his head and kissed me.
The moment his tongue entered my mouth, I couldn’t stop it.
My release wrapped tight spindles around my spine and legs, crippling me with intensity as it ricocheted outward.
Gil grabbed my breast mid-pulse, making me groan and shudder. His fingers pinched my nipple as his teeth bit my lip, and my mouth went slack beneath his, totally obsessed with the quaking, toe-curling pleasure he smothered me with.
He kissed me deeper, trying to crawl inside me. I opened wider, submitting to his crude commands.
His hips never stopped pumping, pounding into me as he wrung every ripple of release from my blood. Only once I was floppy and swimming in ecstasy did his body stiffen and his cock pulse inside me.
Hot jets of his pleasure filled me as his head crashed to my shoulder, mixing his yellow and black with my red and silver. He jolted in my arms, again and again as he fed me every drop.
And I was allowed to stroke him.
Allowed to show tenderness after such a fiendish display.
Slowly, his head rose, his face a wash of colour but his eyes dull and exhausted as if he’d given me his last remaining heartbeats.
We stared at each, trying to see each other’s secrets but only finding roadblocks and confusion.
Gil gave me a bitter smile, looking like some god born to a demon.
Two personalities.
Two tragedies.
Two men.
And I didn’t know either of them.
He withdrew and stood, towering over me, painted and sated but still totally tormented.
With a gruff whisper, he bent over and offered me his hand. “Come on.”
Placing my fingers in his, I marvelled at the swirls and shades of our multihued skin. “Where are we going?”
He hauled me to my feet, granting balance as I stepped from the stage. “To wash.”
I padded naked and barefoot beside him as we left his studio and entered his apartment.
To wash away our lovemaking.
To wash away our art.
To wash away...us.
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Chapter Twenty-One
______________________________
Olin
-The Present-
STEPPING INTO GIL’S personal bathroom for the second time was no stranger than the first.
Then I’d been searching for painkillers for his unretaliated punch-up. Now, I stood awkward and naked as Gil turned on the shower and waited until steam curled behind the grey and white shower curtain.
His back held streaks of paint, his ass toned and muscular with my handprint on his left cheek. His cock still hung hard and heavy as if his orgasm hadn’t given him the same level of release mine had.
Hugging my colourful breasts, I backed up as he stepped into the shower and held his head under the stream. The thick yellow in his hair instantly diluted to water colours, flooding his chest and face in liquid lemon.
Rubbing his eyes clear of the sluice, he looked past the steam to where I stood by the vanity. I waited my turn, very aware of my nudity and the remnants of sex between my legs.
I wanted to be by myself. To piece myself back together and harden my heart after being shattered all over again.
I need to be alone.
A by-product of being lonely for so many years.
But he held out his dripping hand, his skin slick and delicious. “Get in.”
I shook my head. “I’ll wait.”
Not wasting words, he climbed from the shower and marched toward me. His footprints left colour-swirls dancing on droplets as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the warm embrace of the spray.
The moment the water hit my face, I sighed, rubbing at the stickiness of pigment, running hands down my body to remove any trace.
Gil stood behind me, his looming presence growing ever more intense the longer I stayed under the heat.
I jerked as his heavy hands landed on my shoulders, kneading me, slowly cascading down my spine. His fingers traced the lines and shadows of my tattoo, following the bumps of scar tissue and valleys of torn muscles.
My body locked in place as he took his time, touching and learning.
I wished I could see his face. I wanted to spin in his embrace and study whatever emotion he felt.
But I didn’t.
I stayed bound beneath the comforting water, goosebumps contradicting the heat as he continued to inspect the most personal part of me. The part that was almost a shrine to our childhood.
He cleared his throat as if heavy painful things lodged there, making it impossible to swallow. “There’s even an ocelot in here.” His finger worshipped me as he followed an owl’s feather and found the tiny wild cat.
I squeezed my eyes against the memory, slipping back into the past.
He’d slowly started running out of things to call me starting with O. One day, in the library during lunch, while we hid from other students, he’d claimed a dictionary and sat beside me while I’d nibbled my ham and mustard sandwiches. He hadn’t taken a sandwich, saying I fed him too much already.
As I swallowed a mouthful, he’d smirked and stabbed the pages with a finger. “Ocelot. You’re an ocelot.”
“I’m a what now?”
“A feral spotted cat.”
I took another bite. “I suppose that’s better than a fruit or a monkey.”
He leaned closer, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Does this mean you have claws, my fuzzy little ocelot?”
I grinned, pretending to swipe at him like a cat. “The sharpest.”
“I’ll remember that.” He captured my hand, kissed my knuckles, and continued reading the dictionary as if nothing had happened. All the while, my heart soared, fluttered, and plummeted deeper into love.
Gil’s touch dragged me back, making me shiver.
He stole the air right out of my lungs, and I couldn’t do this anymore.
“Stop.” Twisting in his hold, I faced him with water plastering my hair to my shoulders and paint still staining us. I said what he’d said to me, begging him for space. “Please, don’t.”
Our eyes caught.
I sucked in a breath.
How could I admit that he was the soul-mate who got away?
I can’t.
Pure and simple.
The boy I was in love with wasn’t the same as the man, and my heart sank. It sank to the shower floor and slithered down the drain because I didn’t have the courage to tell him to either commit to us or leave me alone.
He didn’t utter a sound.
Utmost silence apart from the hissing shower as his hands cupped my hipbones, his fingers bruising me.
He stopped breathing as heat and history flared between us. So many things lurked beneath the surface. So many things trapped us from truth and stopped us from being honest, and it hurt.
It hurt way, way too much.
It hurt him too.
Pain glimmered in his eyes the longer he stared.
Standing in the cramped shower with the faint hint of strawberry on the steam, we washed in vulnerability and fragility. Two very breakable things because we were two very breakable people.
We did our best to seem unconquerable and brave, but in that moment, that heart-stopping, life-ceasing moment, we were the same.
Doomed.
His features shadowed with confliction and a heavy dose of self-loathing. With aching tenderness, he slipped his touch up my waist, caressed the sides of my breasts, and cupped my throat. His thumbs stroked me with irreparable reverence.
I didn’t want to.
I fought against the pull.
But I tripped a little.
I fell into him.
Literally and figuratively.
My body into his body; my heart into his heart.
I fell out of sanity and into lunacy because I had no right to feel this way. He had no right to make me feel this way.
His lips captured mine in the sweetest, softest kiss. His fingers braided through my hair, cupping the back of my neck. With our mouths touching, he paused as if giving me the chance to pull away.
I tried to.
I tried to stop loving him.
But my lips parted and the tip of my tongue requested more. A butterfly-inducing more.
His fingers tightened, holding me firm. He deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to mine, tasting me, dancing with me, slowly, gently, lovingly.
The shower disappeared.
The past and present blended, and I kissed him back.
I kissed him like he kissed me...with devotion, idolization, and a cold gust of fear.
This was truth.
This was authentic and legitimately real.
We kissed forever.
Our heads choreographed in their seduction, our mouths a perfect fit, our tongues meant for each other.
My hands swooped up his naked chest.
He flinched and kissed me harder as my palms felt his thundering heartbeat beneath the mixture of paint and flesh.
We couldn’t stop.
We couldn’t end whatever spell cast around us, dragging us deeper, confusing us, ruining us. I’d slept with Gil twice. I’d loved him for years. Yet there was something singular about this kiss.
Something unique and special and absolutely terrifying.
This wasn’t about sex.
It wasn’t about power or passion.
This was deeper and darker and dangerously raw.
His soft groan made my heart bloom like a rose, its petals straining for whatever sustenance he could offer. All while the tangle of thorns in my stomach warned me not to fall. Not to put myself through the pain of Gilbert Clark again.
His body tensed as he tried to pull away. His tongue retreated and his lips thinned, and I prepared to withdraw from the most spectacular kiss of my life.
Only...as space encroached on our togetherness, he pulled me back. He jerked me into his arms as if he couldn’t bear to let me go, and I moaned in agony.
Couldn’t he see neither of us were equipped for whatever fallout would follow?
Locking our lips together, he kissed me with a desperation that burned. Our sex had been explosive and almost angry. Both times. But this...this was totally different. It wasn’t playing games with our lust but with our hearts.
And I was unbelievably scared.
A snarl built in his throat as his tongue lashed mine. Then, with a haggard groan, he forcibly pulled away.
Keeping his eyes downcast, he scrambled from the shower and ripped a black towel off the rail on the wall. Wrapping it around his waist, he stalked from the bathroom without a word.
* * * * *
“You can wear these,” Gil muttered as I stepped from the bathroom in a matching black towel. “Seeing as your clothes are, eh...”
“Torn and painted?”
He nodded sharply. “Yeah.”
“Thanks.” My voice was soft and quiet as I took the offered clothes while we stood in his living room. Licks of colour still baptised us from our lack of cleaning and too much kissing in the shower.
His eyes met mine.
Any sign of an emotional connection was gone. Snow and ice decorated his features, placed there by self-preservation. “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.” Turning on his heel, his white T-shirt and grey sweatpants looked delectable with his bare feet and damp hair.
I clutched the clothes and towel and followed him as he opened the door to the right in the graffiti artwork of jungles and wildlife. My eyes strayed to the left door. The door I’d caught him exiting the night vodka and lapsed decisions ensured a memorable event on my hands and knees.
What’s in there?
My curiosity clawed to find out as I stepped over the threshold into Gil’s bedroom. I paused, studying the dark slate-grey walls and the simple king mattress on the floor. No bedframe. No side tables. No lamps or art or sign of habitation.
An impersonal box with no hint of the complex man standing beside me.
I frowned, sensing a pattern with his belongings. Either he didn’t have time for the typical stuff an ordinary person did or he lived frugally.
Peering deeper into the shadows, I noticed indents in the beige carpet where a tallboy would’ve stood. There were signs of a rug at the bottom of the bed. Hints that this room wasn’t always so sparse.
“Did you always live this simply, or is it a new lifestyle choice?” I asked, feeling as if I’d once again trespassed and wasn’t welcome.
Gil raked a hand through his yellow-streaked hair. Polite decorum camouflaged barely leashed sorrow. “Over the past year, I’ve sold some stuff.”
“Why?”
He winced as a tidal wave of pain washed through his eyes. “Doesn’t matter.”
My stomach twisted.
That response was getting old.
I wanted to ask if it was related to his regular bruises, beatings, and mysterious secrets, but I bit my lip and stayed silent.
What was the point when I already knew?
Heading toward the small wardrobe in the corner, he pulled out fresh sheets and blankets. Tossing them onto the mattress, he stood and shrugged as if he was as lost as I was about all of this. “I’ll, um, leave you to rest.”
“We haven’t even had dinner.”
He grimaced as if I’d announced he had to fight a hundred wolverines and battle for his life instead of eating a meal with me.
His reaction bruised me. His tension made me fake a yawn. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry.”
He gave me a grateful nod. “Good.”
“Okay, then...” I moved toward the bed, uncomfortable and desperate for my own space.
I wanted to go home.
I wanted to be alone...so I could come back when I was calmer and tell Gil once and for all that he had to choose.
Choose me.
Choose help.
But Gil gave me a tight smile and bowed his head. “Goodnight, Olin.”
Olin.
No more nicknames. No more thawing.
Hugging the clothes he’d given me, I nodded as he stepped from the room. “Goodnight, Gil.”
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Chapter Twenty-Two
______________________________
Gil
-The Past-
I’D BEEN PAINTING a lot.
Ever since Ms Tallup hinted at what she wanted from me, I couldn’t outrun the terrible sensation of sickness. Each class we had with her, I was repulsed. Each look she gave me, I was petrified Olin would guess something was wrong.
I despised Ms Tallup for taking the one place where I found sanctuary and turning it into yet another cesspit. I was no longer safe there. I was as hunted in those corridors as I was at home, and the stress steadily increased my sleepless nights, giving me a temper toward Olin when she didn’t deserve it.
The only thing that helped was when I lost myself in a drawing. Sketching had been the Band-Aid I needed, but when I stole some spray paint and decorated the side of an industrial building one night while everyone slept, I found a drug I needed to eradicate the symptoms of my life.
If only temporarily.
I hadn’t told Olin I’d been breaking the law.
I hid the overspray on my fingers and didn’t show her my sketchbook again in case the images I drew scared her—images of violence and gore and people being tormented by circumstances outside their control.
But tonight, Olin’s parents had been particularly cruel to her. She’d shown me a text her mother had sent during school. Some short sentence about going to a gala and for her to fend for herself. It wasn’t anything unusual apart from the gala was for the children of the employees who worked for their telecom company.
Her parents were hanging out all night with their employees and their children and didn’t even want to take their own.
Arseholes.
The second the class ended, I’d stolen her hand while throwing a loathsome look at Ms Tallup, and yanked Olin from school grounds. We used the small amount of money her parents gave her for dinner and shared a burger and fries, then blew the rest on some game parlour in downtown Birmingham, playing air hockey and racing car games, earning a few tokens to win a silly stuffed ostrich which became Olin’s new nickname for the evening.
Afterward, licking sugar from our fingers and wandering empty streets, I pulled a can of spray paint from my dirty backpack and shook it. The mixer inside clicked against the metal. “Fancy doing something not exactly legal, little ostrich?”
I waited for her to shake her head in shock, but instead, a dainty smirk twisted her lips. “With you? I’d do anything.”
And I fell head over heels.
No one else could compare.
No one else meant this much to me.
Of course, I’d known for a while now that I was in love with her.
I knew it each time my heart flipped when she wriggled in her seat in front of me in class. I tasted it every time she touched me, smiled at me, cooked for me, and studied with me.
But right there, I knew I loved her to my very core while standing beneath a streetlamp on a dreary English night.
I loved her.
I wanted to keep her.
My life would be infinitely better the moment it was just the two of us.
No matter how much time passed. No matter what shit I put her through, I would always love this girl because she owned me heart and soul.
“So...you’re a secret rebel?” I chuckled under my breath. “Who knew.”
“I’m a rebel if you’re a rebel.” She plucked the can from my fingers and shook it. The rattle made my heart pick up speed. “You’ve done this before?”
“Done what?” I crossed my arms, feigning innocence.
“Graffitied some innocent building.”
I laughed cynically. “No building is innocent. Most of them house monsters. I’m just making them pretty.”
“So you have done this before.”
“Maybe.”
“Show me?” Her sneakers scuffed the pavement as she came closer. So close the gold in her hair glittered beneath the streetlamp and her eyes were more green and stars than hazel and reality.
Without a word, I grabbed her hand, looped my fingers in hers, and together, we jogged to the last place I’d ‘decorated’.
It didn’t take long to get there, but excitement coursed through me to show her how my art was improving. Always improving. And improving fast with the amount of time I dedicated to it these days.
I barely slept. I hardly went home.
I focused on a talent that’d been hidden from me but I never wanted to lose again.
“Oh, wow. Gil...” Olin broke away from my touch, running toward the wall where the trio of colours I’d been able to steal blended together to form a monochromatic landscape of flamingos.
Pink, red, and black were the only colours in snatchable distance when I’d gone to the warehouse that housed art supplies.
I didn’t like stealing, but I had no cash to my name.
I’d pay them back...when I started earning.
Olin’s fingers traced the feathers of the largest flamingo. “This is so good, Gil.” She spun in place, her face alight and eyes full of pride.
I smiled, enjoying her response. “Glad you like it.”
“Like it? I love it.”
“Next time, I’ll try to get browns and fawny colours.”
She nodded in excitement. “To do woodland creatures?”
I shook my head, crowding her against the pink splashed wall. With a hand on either side of her, I trapped her.
I didn’t mean to. It just happened.
But with her imprisoned, my system drenched with hunger that I’d been ignoring for way, way too long.
“Not woodland creatures.” My eyes locked on her lips as she licked them.
Her chest rose and fell, brushing mine with her rapid inhales. The silence of the evening thickened until it hummed with energy. Energy that electrocuted me.
The chemistry that constantly burned between us scorched my veins.
She moaned a little. Her eyelids fell to half-mast, becoming as drunk as I was. “What then?”
Fuck, I needed her.
I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. The self-imposed celibacy when all I wanted was her mouth on mine and my hands all over her.
Bending closer, my brain fogged with lust. My body clawed for more. I leaned against her, her frame flush with mine. I shivered with how goddamn good she felt. “Owls. Lots and lots of owls.”
“Oh.” Her voice was just breath.
“Owls for O. For you. I’ll do an entire portrait with every animal starting with O.”
She melted into my touch as I cupped her cheek and held her still. We stared at each other. Our senses turned primitive...only taste and touch remained.
Her hands landed on my chest, bunching fistfuls of my T-shirt as her head fell back against my graffiti. “Gil...”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think...would you...I mean—”
“You want me to kiss you?”
She shuddered; her eyes closed.
She nodded weakly.
I closed the final distance, her breath so delicate and sugary on my lips. Her skin so soft and her body so intoxicating.
I’d waited so fucking long for this. I’d reached the end of my control.
“O...” I brushed my lips on hers.
Just once.
A simple graze.
But it was enough to punch through my ribs and drag a gasping, bleeding heart out of me.
I groaned.
She moaned.
I struggled to stay the gentleman she knew and not the bastard she didn’t.
Her chin tilted upward, seeking my mouth.
I went to kiss her.
To give in to her.
But then, her phone rang.
Shrill and demanding, it sliced through the thick intimacy that’d bubbled around us, kicking us back into the world like a bucket of ice water.
I cleared my throat, stepping away and adjusting the constant agony in my jeans.
Olin stomped her foot, her face wild and eyes annoyed as she jerked the offending device from her pocket. She paused. “That’s strange. It’s my dad.”
“Answer him.”
It would give me time to get myself together.
What the hell had I been thinking?
Kissing her in a dark alley, alone in the middle of the city? Anything could’ve happened. What if I couldn’t stop? What if I’d done something as horrendous as all the johns who visited my father’s whore house?
I hadn’t even told her I was in love with her.
She hadn’t told me.
I’d promised not to touch her until I was sure she was mine in every way.
“Hey, Dad.” Olin answered the call on the fourth ring. “Yep, I’m good. Uh-huh. Nope. Oh, really. Ah, okay. Yeah, I guess.”
I couldn’t make out what her father said, but by the time she hung up, the strained pressure in my jeans had faded enough for me to be semi-coherent. “Everything okay?”
She shook her head, shock and trepidation on her face. “They want me to join them at the gala.”
“What? Now?” My eyebrows rose. “It’s late. And...you’re not exactly dressed.”
She smoothed down her grey hoodie and jeans. “I know, but he said they feel awkward not having me there. They’ve probably been asked a lot why I’m not there, seeing as it’s kids related, you know?”
“I understand.” I raked a hand through my hair, forcing a bright smile for her. “See? They’re finally realising the benefits of having a daughter.”
She laughed sadly. “Yeah, right.”
Scooping up the forgotten spray can from the ground, I held out my hand for her to take. “Come on. Let’s get you to that gala, little ostrich.”
I held her hand while we waited for a taxi.
I kissed her knuckles as she stepped from the vehicle and climbed the stairs of the large convention hall.
I paid the fare with money she’d given me and made my way back home.
But I didn’t enter the house of horrors.
Instead, I crept through my neighbourhood with a half-empty can of spray paint and partook in my new form of medicine.
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