They move in on a Friday.
Scattered showers and overcast skies herald their coming and the brunette unfolds herself from the driver's side of a blood red Honda and peers up at the impressive facade of an apartment building, shielding her eyes from the heroic attempts of afternoon sunshine to cut through the cloud with the aid of a rolled up newspaper.
The air is crisp with renewed expectation in the aftermath of rain, storm gutters gurgling with gratification and pedestrian traffic weaving track marks into the concrete like little muddy kisses, etched but briefly to mark their passage past.
"There it is," she, modestly tall, red lipped, a vibration of hour long repression in a carseat, pronounces with some degree of satisfaction and slams the door, keys jangling, hair artistically messy, piled atop her head. The roof of said car is burdened with tied down objects, covered with worn tarp against the elements and the interior strewn with boxes and miscellaneous items, including what dangerously resembled a lamp in the shape of a naked woman, hands reaching up to frame and clasp the bulb.
There's a brief measure of the scene. The brunette breathes it in [new adventure, new discovery] and wings a single eyebrow up at her companion with considerable anticipation.
"How gauchely cosmopolitan of us."
--
"You can't be serious."
She pauses, sliding her jeans back on, cants a look over her bare shoulder at the incredulous tone in his voice and pushes the heavy fall of dark hair from her eyes.
"Why can't I be?"
Rain is sluicing down the windows, New York winking back at her as she approaches, threading earrings in and sifting through a pile of discarded clothing to find a shirt. The apartment was minimalistic, white carpet, white sheets, black granite benchtops and not a curtain in sight so far above the streets, a voyeur's wet dream, she thinks with idle certainty as she slides on a shirt, the whisper of cotton against her skin as it falls to her knees and watches his reflection in the window.
He's leaning on an elbow, sheet cutting away at his hips, a tangle of bronze skin and bedcovers. She feels a fresh frisson of desire lance up her spine and wonders if its possible to lust for what you despise.
"Because it's idiotic. Kiara," she stiffens at the [pitying, practiced] tone, "they'd laugh you out of the clinic if you proposed -"
"What," she asks aloud, staring with unabashed hunger as his agitation overwhelms that [fucking surgically precise] calm. "That treating the body can be more than physical? That the world isn't flat?"
"-something that out there. You're talking science fiction! Healing hands and channelling energy? It's the work of con artists and street corner fortune tellers."
She meets his eyes in the glass. Traces the reflection of his body with a fingertip. "You forget I live out there."
--
"Our neighbor across the hall hates us already," this, several hours later, juggling keys, take out boxes, a bundle of printed flyers and a bottle of red promptly uncorked the moment her arms are unburdened atop a moving box.
She fills two unearthed wine glasses generously, swills the liquid and lets it savor the air before taking a liberal sip and palming the second glass away. "I only commented this time," here a pointed look, a pregnant pause that drifts, "that she seemed a tense person and maybe she'd benefit from, oh, I don't know, relaxing the fuck out."
They have no chairs but a makeshift picnic of cushions strewn in the living room; she liberally drapes herself across several and lounging, toys with the strands of hair at her nape; curling them around fingers and finishing, relenting with a laugh; eyes gleaming in the building shadows.
"Only I said it with less spoken fuck yous and merely an affected air." She raises her glass. "To new ventures."
--
Shards of glass crunch underfoot. There's the arid pungency of old smoke, lingering like an afterthought to the scene. Furniture overturned, shattered windows, a curtain snaps and flutters in reminder there's more beyond the devastation eyes can glimpse from here.
She bends, lowers herself to her haunches, sweeps a hand over sightless eyes and tenders aside a drift of hair, touches cool lips with the pad of a thumb.
"Let's bury her outside. She loved that garden."
--
Click. You've reached the Woolfe residence. We're unable to take your call at the moment so please leave a message and we'll get back to you. Another click, tape rolls.
"It's me." The connection is faint, riddled with static. "Kiara. Listen, I'm headed out of New York for a while. Don't worry, I'm fine. Things are just a little ... up in the air. Don't try and reach me. I'll call when I know - "
The voice fades out, then: "I'll call."
Click. End of Recorded Message.
Scattered showers and overcast skies herald their coming and the brunette unfolds herself from the driver's side of a blood red Honda and peers up at the impressive facade of an apartment building, shielding her eyes from the heroic attempts of afternoon sunshine to cut through the cloud with the aid of a rolled up newspaper.
The air is crisp with renewed expectation in the aftermath of rain, storm gutters gurgling with gratification and pedestrian traffic weaving track marks into the concrete like little muddy kisses, etched but briefly to mark their passage past.
"There it is," she, modestly tall, red lipped, a vibration of hour long repression in a carseat, pronounces with some degree of satisfaction and slams the door, keys jangling, hair artistically messy, piled atop her head. The roof of said car is burdened with tied down objects, covered with worn tarp against the elements and the interior strewn with boxes and miscellaneous items, including what dangerously resembled a lamp in the shape of a naked woman, hands reaching up to frame and clasp the bulb.
There's a brief measure of the scene. The brunette breathes it in [new adventure, new discovery] and wings a single eyebrow up at her companion with considerable anticipation.
"How gauchely cosmopolitan of us."
--
"You can't be serious."
She pauses, sliding her jeans back on, cants a look over her bare shoulder at the incredulous tone in his voice and pushes the heavy fall of dark hair from her eyes.
"Why can't I be?"
Rain is sluicing down the windows, New York winking back at her as she approaches, threading earrings in and sifting through a pile of discarded clothing to find a shirt. The apartment was minimalistic, white carpet, white sheets, black granite benchtops and not a curtain in sight so far above the streets, a voyeur's wet dream, she thinks with idle certainty as she slides on a shirt, the whisper of cotton against her skin as it falls to her knees and watches his reflection in the window.
He's leaning on an elbow, sheet cutting away at his hips, a tangle of bronze skin and bedcovers. She feels a fresh frisson of desire lance up her spine and wonders if its possible to lust for what you despise.
"Because it's idiotic. Kiara," she stiffens at the [pitying, practiced] tone, "they'd laugh you out of the clinic if you proposed -"
"What," she asks aloud, staring with unabashed hunger as his agitation overwhelms that [fucking surgically precise] calm. "That treating the body can be more than physical? That the world isn't flat?"
"-something that out there. You're talking science fiction! Healing hands and channelling energy? It's the work of con artists and street corner fortune tellers."
She meets his eyes in the glass. Traces the reflection of his body with a fingertip. "You forget I live out there."
--
"Our neighbor across the hall hates us already," this, several hours later, juggling keys, take out boxes, a bundle of printed flyers and a bottle of red promptly uncorked the moment her arms are unburdened atop a moving box.
She fills two unearthed wine glasses generously, swills the liquid and lets it savor the air before taking a liberal sip and palming the second glass away. "I only commented this time," here a pointed look, a pregnant pause that drifts, "that she seemed a tense person and maybe she'd benefit from, oh, I don't know, relaxing the fuck out."
They have no chairs but a makeshift picnic of cushions strewn in the living room; she liberally drapes herself across several and lounging, toys with the strands of hair at her nape; curling them around fingers and finishing, relenting with a laugh; eyes gleaming in the building shadows.
"Only I said it with less spoken fuck yous and merely an affected air." She raises her glass. "To new ventures."
--
Shards of glass crunch underfoot. There's the arid pungency of old smoke, lingering like an afterthought to the scene. Furniture overturned, shattered windows, a curtain snaps and flutters in reminder there's more beyond the devastation eyes can glimpse from here.
She bends, lowers herself to her haunches, sweeps a hand over sightless eyes and tenders aside a drift of hair, touches cool lips with the pad of a thumb.
"Let's bury her outside. She loved that garden."
--
Click. You've reached the Woolfe residence. We're unable to take your call at the moment so please leave a message and we'll get back to you. Another click, tape rolls.
"It's me." The connection is faint, riddled with static. "Kiara. Listen, I'm headed out of New York for a while. Don't worry, I'm fine. Things are just a little ... up in the air. Don't try and reach me. I'll call when I know - "
The voice fades out, then: "I'll call."
Click. End of Recorded Message.