Page 149 of Forced Vows

Well, one of them.

She gasps. "This is what you paint? How would anyone looking at this think painting weakens you?"

I look at the burned-out hull of a car with the skeletons of long dead occupants still inside it on a torn up stretch of pavement. The crumbling skyscrapers in the background are set against a darkening sky.

"What did you expect me to paint?" I ask.

"Not this scene of destruction. It looks like the end of the world."

Her words please me. "That's what it's supposed to look like."

Róise looks more closely at the painting and then at me, her eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"The covers on the books of one of my favorite series have pictures like this. I bought the first one because of the cover."

I didn't expect to reveal another secret so soon. "I didn't figure you for a reader of post-apocalyptic fiction."

"What do you think I read?"

"Romance? Books on acting?"

She laughs. "I read those too. The books on acting mostly for class."

"That series seems a little depressing for you." I point to the painting with the thumb I drew blood from while we were fucking.

Not that there's any significance in that. It's just the easiest hand to use.

"Not really. It reminds me that no matter how bad the world seems sometimes, it's not that. We're not post-apocalyptic. We haven't completely destroyed ourselves and I don't believe we will."

"Philosophical thought for twenty-one-year-old." I don't comment on her youthful naivete because I'm not sure her hopeful outlook is about her age.

I think at her core, Róise harbors hope in a way I never did.

Tugging at the hem of my t-shirt she's wearing, she wanders to the next easel. "Isn't college when you're supposed to be your most philosophical?"

Her modesty after screaming for me to fuck her in the ass is as much of a turn on as her sexual daring. I ignore the pulse of blood in my semi-erect cock.

I'm always aroused when I'm with her. I'm not about to act on it again. Her body needs rest.

"What's this one?" Róise starts to lift the edge of the cloth covering the largest canvas in the room.

My hand jerks out of its own volition to stop her, but then I let it drop. This painting is a secret she already shares with me.

"Not a post-apocalyptic scene."

"Is it another book cover?" she asks, pausing with her hand on the cloth.

"Look and find out."

She flips the cover over the back of the painting and then makes a choked sound of surprise.

A platinum blonde lies in the center of a hotel bed. Her body flushed with pleasure her thighs spread obscenely, her pretty pink, perfect pussy on display. It's my memory of the woman I thought I would never have again.

The one I am going to marry.

"It's me." Her voice comes out in an awed whisper.

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