Director H. patted her head once. “Let that sit for a bit, dearest.” He moved to the stairs and made himself comfortable. The water entrenched him half-way to the knee. He crossed one over the other prettily. “Now, about your partner. He’s a prig, Alice, of the first order. He’s going to look down his well-bred nose and declare you inferior.”
The pictures in Lily’s mind singed. Never the same. Always damaged. Always incomplete. A falsity to being an honest representation of the past.
That’s what being next to Julian Douglas did to a person like Lily.
Anger, familiar, beautiful anger, boiled beneath her skin. Lily hated their game. Hated the way things had degraded between them. Honesty used to be their language. Now it was a thing difficult to find amidst all the pretty words and hissed curses.
Sensation halted. Sound caved inwards. Director H. felt his body freeze for a moment too tiny to be classified as miniscule. Time resumed, unnoticed and forgotten by the naked girl named Alice.
Paint by Numbers is a story about love but it is not a love story. Not in the traditional sense. The adoration is circular, familiar patterns repeated in unfamiliar ways. I don’t know how it will end but maybe that’s the point.
Rachel swallowed her initial reactions. She sat quiet until composure softened the hard glint in her stare and pinched set of her mouth. She shut Lily out; not sparing her a sliver of sight even though her child strained at the chains of courtesy.
Now as she walked next to Mikhail, ever conscious of his closeness, Katherine wondered if perhaps she had been too hasty with everything.
Ever since I met him I’ve lost all control. And the thing is…I don’t even care. I like it. I like not having to calculate everything. I like feeling free. I like being able to touch him and not feel like I’m doing something evil. I just like the way I feel when I’m with him.
And that’s just so wrong.
WORD COUNT: 1830+
Pained laughter crept forth from his taut mouth. “I don’t do anything to endear myself to you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Even so I mean what I said, Katharina. I really wish I didn’t love you. Remember that.”
“Sure.” The flippant word couldn’t disguise her pain but Mikhail didn’t attempt to ease it for Katherine.
WORD COUNT: 4,323
He’s so nervous. Because of me?
Curiosity stretched forth an insistent claw and pierced Katherine’s neutral state. Her mind suddenly hungered for a connection. Prodded by desires she couldn’t control, Katherine found herself unable to dismiss this boy named Mikhail DeMontier.
I want to know him. Just a little. I won’t go that far. I just want to see what he feels. Anyways, I haven’t done it to anyone for over a year. But it isn’t right to just do this…is it?
WORD COUNT: 6,643
“Why do you think I could forgive you for being a whore, Katharina?” Mikhail choked back a sob. “It’s because I know all about whoring yourself for comfort, safety, and greed.”
“That’s not why I did it.” The words fell hard with reproach. “I never did it for gain.”
“I know. You did it to escape life. I did it to cling to it. That’s why I’m a far more disgusting creature than you can ever think to be.”
WORD COUNT: 7,389
Since this isn’t what you imagined, I advise you to flush the images right out...