I turned the radio on and listened to a religious discussion for a while before Christine rolled over, groaned and told me to switch it off. So I lay there, listening instead to her snoring and feeling clammy. I hated being hungover, much less than Christine, who'd had far more practice at it than me. When I remembered my lunch date I wondered how easy it would be to get her drunk again before it was time for me to leave. Probably not very.

 

Though Stevie and I had agreed that I would come to her house, I had decided to drop in at the church early, just to surprise her. There was not much I knew about church services but I did remember that there would be a collection, a bowl or something passed around for people to drop cash into. I checked my purse for change and found I had none.

 

"Do you have change, Christine?" I asked her when she had creaked herself into a sitting position. "I thought I might go to the shop for a paper and some chocolate. Do you want anything?"

 

"Honey," she said, slowly standing, "you know I go to the supermarket on Sundays. I can get all that then." She shuffled off to the bathroom, calling back, "My purse is in the kitchen draw!"

 

"Thanks!"

 

I pulled on my jeans and went through to the kitchen to make coffee. I pulled out a number of drawers before I found her red, leather purse. I opened it and found a few coins along with a cheque. It slipped out onto the working surface along with the coins. It was from her account and it read 'Pay Stephanie Bell', then beneath, 'Two thousand pounds'. I stared at it for a long time and then I heard Christine's voice from the bathroom. With the piece of paper hanging loosely from my fingers I wandered down the hall to the bathroom door. Her words were easy to discern as her voice was raised.

 

"So you managed it, finally?" she was saying. "You did? Four times? Excellent. Let's hope it worked. Well, that's it, then. Job done, as they say. If it hasn't happened, well, that's just one of those things. I'm not going through this again." There was a long pause, then, "Listen, girl," and there was an ironic tone to this last word, "we had an agreement. You do this, then you're gone. It's a job, nothing more. You stay away from her now. I don't want you bothering her again, do you understand me?" Another pause. "Good. Thank you very much for all that you've done, but unless you accept the money, we have nothing more to say." Then I heard her moving around. Maybe I should have dashed away from the door at that point, but my legs didn't want to. I heard her say, "Fuck!" then suddenly she burst through the door. She froze when she saw me, then her eyes looked down and saw the cheque. I examined it again. It was dated two weeks ago. Standing naked before me and shaking her head, she sighed, then walked passed me, back to the bedroom.

 

"What the hell is this?" I demanded, following her, my heart thudding. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her? Did you sell her some of my paintings?" but I knew I was already deluding myself. "Why didn't you tell me?"

 

She drew on her bath robe and sat on the bed, running her hands through her messy hair. I stood over her, afraid that she might not tell me, but more afraid that she would.

 

"I didn't sell her any paintings," she said, then gestured to the chair by the dresser. "Sit down, honey. There are some things I think I'd better tell you."

 

I fell into the chair and looked at her, hating how the hangover made her look so old, hating how she always seemed to treat me as a daughter more than an equal, and hating her for holding things back from me.

 

"I have known Stephanie for two months," she said, after drawing a long breath. "She is a patient registered at the practice, but I guess she'd never needed a reason to come in before. She came in complaining about a cyst in the genital region. When I saw her I was struck, before I knew anything about her, by her femininity. She carried herself so well and spoke in a soft, lilting way. So I can't say I wasn't surprised when she removed her underwear, but I think I managed to stay professional and keep poker face." She looked over at me, then away again. "The cyst was harmless and ever so tiny, smaller than a pea, but she wanted it removing anyway and I was able to do that myself later. It was only then that I realised, realised what a godsend this person could be." She crossed her legs on the bed before her and leaned back against the pillows. By now I was trembling. Somehow I knew now what was coming. Perhaps I had already known it, but had been too blinded to understand.

 

"Honey, I have been so patient with you. You are so much like a child. Sometimes I wonder if it's right for us to be together, with me being so much older. I wonder if someone your own age would be too old for you. I love you, but sometimes you drive me utterly crazy. I know you told me early on that you wanted a child, but I just didn't want to hear it. Love deafens you to the things you don't want to hear. Somehow I didn't want to believe it, and I just put your continually harping on about it down to your immaturity. But I do remember telling you clearly how I felt about having a child. So I guess you didn't want to listen either.

 

"I've tried to interest you in adoption, IVF, having a surrogate, whatever, not 'cause I wanted a child but because I could see how much the desire for a child was eating you up. It was only over time I could see how much of an obsession it was with you, how you stared at children, and even made friends with them, as if they saw you as a child. Let's face it, this bedroom sometimes feels like a child's bedroom," and she gestured around us, not just at the dolls, but also at the little collection of toys in the corner, at little stack of picture books beside them. "I really must have been blind not to see how much it meant to you right from the start. So I'm saying this to you so that you won't, I hope, judge me harshly.

 

"After performing the little op on her I couldn't get her out of my head. I wasn't attracted to her myself, she's so much not my type," and she gave a humorless laugh, "but I still found her fascinating. There really is nothing about her to suggest that she was born male. I checked her medical records for anything, some disorder, but no. So it's almost a miracle that she looks the way she does. I don't need to tell you about that, of course. I know what an inspiration she's been to you. I've noticed how you've been so caught up in your work this week, and that makes me happy. I know you don't think I'm that interested but I always look at your work, even when you don't know I do. I knew you two would get on as you're similar, I think, in your ways. She has a disarming sincerity, much like you do.

 

"So I did what someone in my profession shouldn't really do. I called her for no reason other than to see her for coffee. I didn't tell her why, but she sounded concerned and obviously thought I had some bad news for her. I couldn't say anything over the phone other than to arrange to meet her. We met in town and for a couple of hours we chatted and I got to know her. She is a genuine and very sweet, sweet person as, of course, you know now. She had a very hard time with her parents. With her being the way she is she's cautious about relationships and she's not promiscuous. I had a hell of a job convincing her. I told her all about you. I'm sorry, but I had to, to make her understand the situation. I showed her a picture of you, the one I carry around with me, y'know, the one of you sitting pretty in your shorts by the lake, and I could see she liked it.

 

"When I mentioned the money she told me what she thought of me, in no uncertain terms, and got up and left. It was a touching reaction and completely justified. But there wasn't a flat refusal. I could see I had piqued her interest. I thought it was the money, but she has refused it every time. I had written her a cheque and she had torn it up immediately. I offered her more and I had to run out of the shop and follow her onto the street to continue the conversation. She didn't even think it was funny. She was really outraged. She made a bit of a scene on the street and I had to drag her into a pub and buy her a glass of wine to calm her down. She can be really quite foul-mouthed when she wants to be. The testosterone's there alright, it's just not immediately apparent.

 

"So I want you to understand why I did this, honey. It was to help you and make you happy. And I don't want to carry on living like there's a massive hole in our lives, like there's a ghost in this house, the ghost of someone who never lived. I did it for me too."

There was a long silence while I gave her a hard stare and she attempted and failed to return it. I was still trembling as tears streamed down my cheeks and my stomach churned. Finally I got up and strode from the room, flinging her grabbing hand away as I passed the bed.

 

"Honey, don't be like this," she pleaded.

 

In the studio I picked up my sketchbook and flung it into the middle of the floor. Then I retrieved all of the portraits I had made in the past week, the ones painted at the lake, on the veranda and in this room. I threw those on the floor too. Then I found the fantastical pictures I had made, the ones of angels all bearing the same features, and I chucked those onto the pile. All my work since Monday, including the ones Bernie had admired so much, made for quite a significant heap of paper. I don't think I had ever been so prolific since I had begun to paint seriously in my early teens. I picked up one, a depiction of Cupid and Psyche, both with the same face. Objectively, it was a strange painting, possessed of the artist's desire for its subject and executed with an evidently raw energy. I rent the canvas from top to bottom until the two figures were divided, never to meet again. The tearing noise tore at me, but the pain was insignificant compare to the pain I was already suffering. The next picture was one of her as a seraph, sitting back on her snowy swan wings, enthroned like a nude pagan queen on her seat of long feathers. I ripped this into shreds, scrunched them up into a ball and trod it under my foot. I proceeded to set about all of the other canvases in a similar manner until Christine dived to their rescue, her unfastened robe billowing out behind her, the flesh of her chest and belly jiggling with each stride.

 

"Don't, Linda!" she said, panic-stricken, bending down and throwing her arms around the remaining pictures and the sketchbook. "This is the best work you've ever done!" She looked up at me, her eyes wide with concern. "Some of these pictures are absolutely stunning. I knew you could paint like this and now you've discovered how."

 

"Let go of them!" I screamed at her, reaching down to tear them from her grasp. "I don't want to see that slut's face any more!" And I managed to grab an armful before she started pushing me away roughly.

 

I fought her, pushing hard so that she rolled onto her back. I grabbed the whole pile, stood, and was about to make for the door when I was felled by a hand that had grasped my ankle. I tripped headlong and sent the papers flying into the wall while I struck my head on the wooden boards.

 

"Linda!" she cried with concern, leaping up and crouching beside me, but I couldn't bear her touching me and I thrust her away from me.

 

I began retrieving the pictures that were now scattered all around the room, but she clearly had the same idea and we both raced to pick up as many as we could, trying to grab more than the other. When I had an armful of them I turned my attention to the collection she now had under her arms and began pulling. I yanked her around the room like this until I tripped over a heavy box of paints I had used in a while. Christine fell on top of me and we rolled across the room while I tore at the papers she clutched to her chest. My hair tangled in various brushes and assorted discarded items, stamps and ink pads. Finally I proved myself stronger than her. I rose to a kneeling position, pinned her arms down and wrenched the collection from her hands. I ran from the room and out of the house, around to the rubbish bin, where I resumed my shredding. She followed me out and I saw her approach, glowering at me, tying her robe, then folding her arms.

 

When she was next to me, just standing at a little distance to avoid being struck by the violence I was doing to my work, she said my name and I stopped. We looked at each for a long moment which concluded with the impact of her palm across my face. My hand when to my wet cheek and I watched in shock as she, with a little smug look of self-satisfaction on her heart-shaped face, strode back inside with her arms folded once more. Devastated, I nevertheless continued and soon the bags of rubbish in the bin were buried under a thick layer of confetti. I felt purged, clean, ready to face the day with a clear conscience. Then I sat on the steps to the veranda and wept.

 

I don't know how long I had been sitting there, it must have been hours, when I heard the familiar nerve-jangling clatter of my phone's Donna Summer ring tone rising in volume, accompanied by footsteps. I turned and saw the phone with its flashing display being held out to me. I took it from Christine, who was standing over me, tapping her foot.

 

"Hello?" I said, falteringly, then cleared my throat.

 

"Hi, it's me," came a gentle voice. "You coming over? We need to be there by one. I usually get the bus but I thought you could give me a ride," and there was a giggle. I said nothing, could say nothing, muted as I was by impotent fury. "Linda, darling? Are you there?"

 

"Christine told me everything," I managed finally, and I heard her breath catch. I looked up and glared at Christine who, with her arms folded, slowly went back inside.

 

"Linda," Stevie said, and her tone was sad.

 

"I don't want to see you again." She said my name again more urgently. "I know she told you to stay away and I'm telling you the same. I don't want you coming here again, ever!" I bellowed down the phone.

 

"Look, baby," she said, and I heard her swallow hard. I cut her off.

 

"Don't 'baby' me you, prostitute! You freak! You," I spluttered with rage, "you man!" and I rang off, thumbing the key hard, then threw the phone across the drive. It landed next to the front wheel of the BMW, nestling comfortably between the tire and the gravel.

 

I heard Christine call from inside, "I'm going to confiscate your phone!"

 

I went back in, just to pull a T-shirt and a pair of shoes on, scowled at her as she stood in the hall with her hand out, presumably for me to hand the phone over, then left, and headed down the footpath to the lake. I hoped that my angry gait and mien would be enough to keep people at a distance. I had no wish to stop and talk to anyone, but I didn't care if I should encounter the young men. Then I heard panting behind me and looked around to see Leo, Kenny's German Shepherd, trotting up behind me, followed by his well-built owner.

 

"Everything OK?" he asked, smiling. "You look like you're on a mission."

 

I waited for him to catch up and felt my mood mellow a little. I could hardly take out my frustrations on him. We continued walking together while I made an excuse about not feeling very well that day. He nodded and kept quiet for a while.

 

"I saw them two again," he said when we arrived at the lake. The day was hazy and humid, with the sun only just managing to penetrate an opaque layer of cloud. "Them two yobs you told me about. I think we managed to scare them off pretty good, me and Leo." He patted the dog affectionately. "I told them I knew what they'd been up to." I looked up at him as we walked slowly along the path beside the water, liking him for his readiness to be protective. "I didn't say anything about that incident with you and your friend. I made it clear to them they're not welcome here. I think they got scared. They made some nasty comment about your friend though," he said, rubbing his chin.

 

I bet they did, I thought to myself ruefully.

 

"Actually they said something really disgusting about her," he looked embarrassed. "You sure you don't want to report them to the police?"

 

"No," I said, sighing. "I think you're probably right they're scared."

 

"All mouth, that type," he said gruffly, and we lapsed back into silence as we walked.

 

We encountered other dog walkers and young families with capering children. I exchanged smiles with them, then watched wistfully as the little ones vanished behind trees and bends in the path. When we arrived back at the house I offered Kenny coffee and perhaps lunch, seeing as it was that time already.

 

"I've got something waiting I made myself," he said, smiling, "but I'll come in a for coffee, if that's alright."

 

I smiled warmly, thankful that his company might help dispel my gloom and the inevitable atmosphere of doom that I had been fearing would preside over lunch.

 

"Oh hi, Ken," said Christine from the kitchen. "Would you like lunch?" she asked hopefully.

 

"No, no," he smiled, pausing at the kitchen doorway. "I'll just have a coffee if you're making one."

 

"Sure," she said, sending a dark look past him at me. She had evidently taken it upon herself to cook our Sunday lunch, though this was something she rarely did, not really having the necessary skills in that direction. I came in and took over, returning her dark look and she left with Kenny. I heard them in the living room chatting while I made the coffee.

 

Before I could take it to them she came back into the kitchen and said, slightly breathlessly, "Why didn't you tell me you'd been attacked?" I shrank away from her, expecting another blow, but her look softened. "Oh, Linda," she said, reaching out to me, "why do you hide so much from me?"

 

"Because of how you've been!" I blurted out and edged around her with the tray. "Every time I've wanted to talk to you you've been drunk!" When I entered the living room I found Kenny standing with Leo at this side, apparently ready to leave already. I motioned for him to stay and I set the tray down on the coffee table. Christine sat in an armchair while I sat at the opposite end of the couch to Kenny. Despite his presence the atmosphere was still awkward and I was glad when Christine left for the supermarket and didn't ask me to tag along, as I normally would.

 

"What about lunch?" I called after her.

 

"You go ahead without me," she said without looking back. "We're out of most things anyway."

 

"No, we're not. You just don't look properly!"

 

"I'll eat when I get back!" she shouted and slammed the door behind her.

 

"You two OK?" said Kenny, still finishing his coffee.

 

I felt on the verge of tears and even felt some already welling up.

 

"Not really," I admitted, and I told him a little about how much she had been drinking and how little she'd been talking to me.

 

He listened for a while and seemed sympathetic but, being a man, I wondered how much of what I was saying made much sense to him, especially as he was a bachelor with no apparent interest in women at all. We sat for a while, finishing our coffee in silence. Then I fetched one of Christine's bottles of red and offered him some of that.

 

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said eventually, as if I had only just finished telling my woes. I nodded, but by then I'd given up the attempt to explain my feelings and had switched on the TV. Leo was sprawled on the floor, feigning sleep but twitching his ears every so often.

 

I didn't need to look up to tell that Kenny was edging closer to me, very slowly, until his arm was extended across the back of the couch behind me. Although his masculine smell and physical bulk repelled me I did nothing to deter him when his arm fell onto my shoulders. Before I knew what was happening I was resting my head on his chest. We said nothing, pretending to watch an old film on the TV while I our hands wandered aimlessly over each other's bodies. I felt the bulge in his jeans, rubbed it, then unbuttoned him, slipped my hand inside under the underpants and into the warm valley between his thigh and his genitals. I heard him let out a sigh, then a gasp as I pulled it until it was standing free before my face, poking up from the hole in his jeans. I found it utterly repulsive but the fact that it was my actions that had made it hard, that my merely touching him had aroused him, also aroused me. I touched it gingerly at the tip and the whole thing twitched down to the base. I rubbed it and the meatus started to glisten. The liquid dribbled down the side and I used this lubricant to move faster on him, gripping him firmly as Stevie had told me to on her.

 

I wondered at how different Stevie's was to Kenny's. Hers was shorter and slightly thinner, and it was a delicate pink which reddened the more it became aroused. This one was a huge lump of brown meat with an ugly, bulbous, purple head. I was glad that, as I was laid across his chest with his face behind me, he could not see the disgust that must have been apparent on my face. Unlike Stevie's straight, smooth organ, Kenny's cock was ribbed with a multitude of thick veins crossing hither and thither all down the sides. It curled upwards so that it was pointed at me and when he eventually came, fondling my hair roughly and emitting groans as if he was experiencing more pain than pleasure, the white hot liquid shot straight into my face, making me screw my eyes and clamp my mouth tight shut.

 

Neither of us had heard the door go nor heard footsteps in the hall but both of us now saw Christine standing in the doorway, her arms sagging with shopping bags, her mouth set grimly. I tried to wipe the sperm from my face onto my hands, but it was so viscous. The smell and the feel of it made me sick. Tears leaked down my cheeks as I watched Christine turn her back, close her eyes and shake her head. I ran after her but, feeling so disgusted with the sticky substance all over me, I headed first for the bathroom where I washed my face and hands thoroughly, rubbing soap hard into my skin, then taking an age to rinse. When I emerged, Kenny was already in the hall with Leo, edging around a fuming Christine.

 

"Go," was all she said to him, quietly.

 

Kenny and Leo did so with Leo's tail between his legs literally and Kenny's metaphorically. Christine and I exchanged defiant stares, then she returned to the kitchen to unpack the shopping.

 

Suddenly she stopped, grabbed a sharp knife and said, "I'm gonna kill him, the fucker."

 

"What?" I said, incredulous.

 

"I'm gonna cut that bastard's balls off!" she shouted. She came over to the door but I stood my ground and folded my arms.

 

"It was my fault, Christine, don't blame him."

 

We glared at other and for a moment I thought she was really going to do it. Her knuckles around the knife handle were marble white. Then she let out a long sigh and dropped her hand. She narrowed her eyes at me, then returned to where she had left the shopping bags.

 

Emboldened by this I said, "Actually, it's your fault."

 

Again she stopped pulling jars from a bag, dropped her jaw and breathed, "My fault?" then repeated it, blaring this time. She took a step towards me, but again relented, her eyes and the set of her muscles betraying exhaustion. I watched her cook a meal, just enough for herself, then saunter into the living room, place her stockinged feet on the couch beside her and eat the meal with her fingers. The sight was revolting to me, so unattractive, that any pangs of hunger I had been experiencing were instantly banished. Kenny and I had finished the bottle of wine between us so I went to find another. Sure enough she had bought another four so, with a bottle, an opener and a glass, I made for the bedroom and sat there for the afternoon, becoming increasingly tired and emotional while cuddling each of my dolls in turn. In the evening I made myself something to eat, just a couple of sandwiches and had them in the bedroom along with another bottle.

 

Later, she entered and began to undress. I could see she had been crying.

 

"I want you on the couch tonight," she said, unfastening her jeans.

 

"But I don't want you on the couch tonight," I mumbled back, and giggled stupidly into the pillow I had my face pressed into.

 

"Fuck you, Linda!" she blared at me, pointing to the door.

 

"I don't think you're capable," I told her, heaving myself up and dragging myself out.

 

It was warm so I just stripped off and lay there in my underwear with no sheet and watched the TV for a bit. I had not drunk anything for a couple of hours and now my head was beginning to thump badly. With this came the guilty feeling that I had not done any work, not even a sketch for two whole days. In the early hours of the morning, after having failed to catch any sleep, I got up, made myself some coffee and went to the studio to see if I could manage anything at all.

 

In my hungover state there was one image that spired out of the haze, penetrating all others and rising above them like a triumphant skyscraper. With pinks, reds and deep violets I drew diagonal delineations depicting moist flesh hardened merely by the pumping of blood through veins that ran through layers and folds of muscle like subway tunnels. I remembered life drawings at college and the man that had often been there and his hard, muscular form. I had never enjoyed painting him. I remembered his prodigious cock. His entire body had never inspired me. I'd look at the Michaelangelos and Da Vincis and wonder what on earth they had seen in the male physique. It was all square, rectangular and lumpy. But I had to admit, there was something about an erect cock, just in itself, removed from the rest of the anatomy, that I could perhaps come to enjoy depicting in paintings, though maybe not a really ugly one like Kenny's.

 

I tried a different approach, working on black with chalk, a medium I was unused to. The white was excellent for the sperm which I drew spurting from it, like a flock of doves. I tried a few more, then was suddenly overcome with nausea. I ran to the bathroom just in time to empty what little food there had been in my stomach. I coughed and belched violently, then collapsed on the tiles. I showered, felt a little better and returned to the couch, wondering what the hell had come over me.

 

I had breakfast early, a hearty one, accompanied by a confident dose of paracetamol. I felt terrible. I made sure I was out of the kitchen before Christine came in to use it, though I made a fresh pot of coffee for her. She thanked me tightly and, without another word, left for work.

 

I took a walk outside and found a little pile of broken plastic in the drive, the remains of my phone. She did that deliberately, I thought bitterly, then changed my mind and decided the death of my phone was probably a good thing, considering. As if to accompany my mood, it decided to rain and I felt disinclined to go outside anyway, so I stayed in and worked.

 

I had recently been commissioned to paint some illustrations for a quarterly woman's magazine, just to accompany a romantic story, but the deadline had been so far off that I had so far not even bothered to give it any thought. I read the story about a straight, ageing couple, finding it stupid and insipid, but by lunchtime I had achieved a few sketches which I thought could be developed. Maybe it was the adrenaline my body was producing to cope with the hangover, but I was able to successfully drive many negative thoughts from my mind until lunchtime when something in me clicked and I began to sob uncontrollably. The tears poured from me freely and my whole body shook. Again and again I saw her face, the face that had been my muse, smiling at me, first through a cloudy haze, then through fields of corn, speckled with the haemal drops of poppies, and then up from a sea of wrinkled, white sheets.

 

My lunch consisted of wine and little else and, before I could help myself, I was collapsed in front the TV again.

A knock at the door started me from my drunken sleep a few hours later. It was gentle at first, then more forceful when repeated a minute later. I muted the TV, hoping whoever it was might think I was out, but then heard, through the open window, footsteps on the gravel. Somehow I could tell it was her. If I saw her it'd only throw my emotions into further confusion, so I stood in the hall and heard more knocking at the window, then a voice, a beautiful, musical, pleading voice calling my name. From the shadows in the hall I could just see her, but she could not see me, apparently. She was in a raincoat with the hood pulled up, peering through the window, her face pressed up against it and her hand shading her eyes. She stood there for a while, her mouth open, her face looking incredibly sad.

 

"Linda, you're breaking my heart," I heard her say.

 

She knew I was here. She went to the other windows, telling Bailey on the way to stop whatever he was doing and behave. She peered in at every window, then returned to the front door and, after a minute, I heard the clatter of the letterbox and saw something drop through it, a cream envelope with my name on it. I heard her crying accompanied by her footsteps which slowly faded, then the faint crunch of her bicycle on the stones.

 

I regarded the envelope for a long time with my arms folded, then went over to it and picked it up. The lettering, in a fine, curly and elegant script, just said 'Linda' with a heart next to it. It was fragrant with the scent of roses. I went to the kitchen, dropped the intruder in the bin along with banana and potato peels and returned to the studio where I managed a little more work before Christine returned.

 

We exchanged a few tight but polite words and I cooked a good meal for us both, partly as a peace offering and partly as I had realised, only minutes before, how ravenous I was. Afterwards, perhaps as her own peace offering, Christine cleared up. Then I heard the rustling of a rubbish bag and the clang of an empty bin shutting. I sprang up from the chair and ran through to the kitchen to find her about to tie up the bag. She froze as soon as she saw me, and I was able to reach in and grab the item I wanted. It was covered in slops of rotten vegetables, fat and ketchup so I had to rinse it under the tap.

 

"What's that?" I heard her voice from behind me and its underlying menace.

 

She reached around me to grab it, but I held it aloft as high as I could. Being taller, it was easy for me to keep the envelope from her, but she still pursued me from the room and out onto the drive. Then I saw her look past me and I followed her gaze. Kenny was passing on the road but, unusually, did not wave and kept his head down, his eyes fixed on the side of the road. Christine pulled herself up, straightened her skirt and went back inside.

 

"If that's from who I think it is," she called without looking back, "you've not gone long to read it. I want it shredded before bedtime."

 

"Stop talking to me like I'm a child!" I screamed at her, realising I sounded like a child.

 

It had stopped raining and I decided to go down to the lake to read. To hell with anyone who might be there, including Kenny. The envelope was thick and when I carefully opened it, having found a quiet place to sit, I pulled from it more than a dozen small, pink, handwritten sheets, some of them dry, all covered front and back with the same, beautiful script, smudged here and there, in a deep red ink, the color of blood.

 

And the scent of roses still lingered.

 

Copyright © Irma Cerrutti 2015