0 comments

Drama Romance

By all accounts, I shouldn’t love her. I shouldn’t even like her. Yet, I find myself thinking about her every single moment my mind isn’t occupied with something more pressing… Who am I trying to deceive – my mind is permanently taken by her.

Where she is colour, I am greyscale. Where she is music, I am silence. Where she is joy, I am apathy. Yet… she is the rainbow that cuts across the tempest brewing in my skies. She is the glittering lavalier against a plain black dress. The bouquet of roses in an otherwise empty room… I cannot, cannot stop thinking about her!

Her outlook on life is childish! Her clothes speak of studenthood rather than womanhood! Her shoes belong on the feet of a teenager! Her hair is wild and curly, left to its own devices, than tamed and neat! When she laughs, it is loud and obnoxious and… yet, I find myself smiling too at the unbridled, free joy she releases! My heart is not in tune with my head.

My work is suffering because she dances around my mind like sugarplums on Christmas evening. The very notion of Christmas was given to me by her. The very idea of snow being anything other than a nuisance is laughable, and yet… yet, she takes childlike joy from throwing herself upon piles of the stuff and spreading her arms and legs, or building snowmen…

I hear music, now, and I think of her.

I smell fresh toast in the morning, and she dances around my thoughts.

I close my eyes, and she is there… glaring at me from across the room… and my own fickleness creeps in. I want nothing more than to be upon my knees before her, at her disposal for whatever pleasure she chooses… and yet, I want her on her knees before me, begging me for attention, for release, for… well, the images often keep me up at night, frustrated with myself, with the betrayals of my body, with the ardent and ridiculous desires to –

No. No more. No more.

**

He is entirely an asshole. I couldn’t stand another second in his company, yet I had to. I had to be present, to smile, to listen to his droning monotone voice… he barely took a breath to allow anyone else to speak. His word was the most important word… and I couldn’t stand it. A veritable winter wonderland outside, and I was stuck inside.

Five days of meetings, planning, discussion… my input was fitness and mental health related. How the two can go together to create a healthier society. Encourage people to open up, to talk, to move. And I could tell he hated me for it, because I was beneath him. A double edged sword – a hot woman, and stupidly rich. And smart, to boot.

But none of that stopped me from wanting to speak to him. Deep down, there was a part of me that wanted him. That wanted him to speak to me, that wanted to go for dinner with him and command his entire attention, to wow him with my wit and charm. I wanted to show him what a good time could really be like. What a good time could feel like, if only he’d led those guards down! Because he was so guarded. So trapped in rules and regulations and boundaries he couldn’t cross. So steeped in principle. I wanted to be the one to take them down… even though everything about him repulsed me to the core.

The way he half-smiled, because smiling was to good for him. The way he didn’t laugh, but snorted softly through his nose in a kind of sharp exhale. The way he held himself so straight, trying to adopt what I assume was a power-pose, and just looking… eh. The way his ego clearly wrapped so tightly around him, so inflated he could barely move! And the way he appraised every single woman in the god-damned room, as though we’re cattle at a fucking market! No. No.

No.

I couldn’t listen to my traitor body. My traitor thoughts. The way my heart raced just a little when we made eye contact across the room. The way each night I found my fingers wandering at the thought of him putting a collar around my throat, his initial dangling… and again in the morning, when I found my mind occupied with thoughts of him on his knees in front of me, desperate to please me.

We’re polar opposites. He’s a joy-sucking dementor, and I don’t have a metal rod rammed straight up my arse.

**

I have to have her. Tonight. There is no other way. I cannot fathom living for the rest of my life not knowing what it is like to be hers just for one night.

NO!!!

No. I’m going to leave this place, and I’m not going to think about her again.

She’s nothing and no-one important.

**

Dinner. I’m going to sit beside him at dinner. It has to happen tonight. I need to know. I need to know what it feels like to be subjugated and to break him. I cannot leave this summit not knowing. It’ll drive me insane.

**

She’s a vision, once again. I spoke with my advisor this evening. What is it about her that is so ravishing? She is my exact opposite – and yet I am drawn to her. My advisor suggests that she is so addictive because she is the opposite. Magnetic. That is how it feels – magnetic. Magnets, pulling together. I am going to sit beside her at dinner and see where the conversation takes us. Perhaps hearing the pathetic drivel spilling like common trash from her mouth will stay my hand another night.

**

He… I understand now. I understand him.

He is a product of training. Of grooming. Of coaching to get to the point where he is. Groomed for diplomatic service from the age of eleven, entering into the façade of it all at the age of eighteen… mask on, it stayed on for years… and he’s never taken it off.

Until tonight.

**

She… is… breath-taking. With her, the world holds so much colour, I cannot keep track of it all. With her, the snow-filled gardens became a veritable playground. I ran with her, fell into the powder with her… threw rocks at the frozen lake with her… and then, beside a roaring fire in my quarters… she showed me what real, true love actually is.

**

I cannot describe how beautiful the feeling is to watch someone let go after years of holding on. It was like watching someone discover chocolate cake for the first time. A walk around the snowy gardens gave us a chance to relax, and I started a little snowball fight. It turned into something more. Something far more, far deeper… the heat from the fire was nothing on the heat from both of us. Reindeer fur beneath us…

I think I’m in love with that veritable iron-clad stone statue. 

February 03, 2023 22:36

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

0 comments

RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. 100% free.