Page 74 of These Thin Lines

Chiara knew she was being absurd.A sighing building. God, she was losing her mind.

She ran her hand through her hair, tugging on the ends of the longer locks to center herself, to force her scattering thoughts to return to her. She needed all of them with her now. Because she was about to do something so fatuous, she was surprising even herself by how out of character it was. Still, the least she could do was be articulate as she did it.

Her hand shook as she knocked, and the sound came out somehow hollow, wrong. Standing still, her body taut, a bowstring ready for the shot, Chiara listened intently for any signs of life. Except there was no arrow and no target and no life. Just silence. She raised her hand again; her knuckles rapping once, twice on that lovely shade of blue wood with the same result as before. No sound answered her.

Chiara swallowed around the lump in her throat. It was after ten in the evening and Vi was out. Of course she was. Hadn’t Ricarda implied that she had the entirety of Manhattan’s lesbian population at her fingertips? Fingertips she’d had in Chiara just hours earlier. Her tired knees shook, and she lowered herself to the stairs next to the door.

She closed her eyes for what seemed like a second, the emotions of the day confounding her and ravaging what was left of her composure.

A hand on her shoulder made her start, but the quiet voice soothed even as the hand retreated.

“I had a feeling it wasn’t Renate who’d be my late night visitor.” Vi had her arms full of white roses of all things and looked remarkably like a prince from all the fairytales Chiara’s mother had read to her at bedtime. Tall, slender, a prerequisite tortured expression on those forlorn features.

She didn’t offer Chiara a hand to help her up, and they maintained the status quo for a moment longer. One looking up at the other with roses fragrant between them.

Then, just as quietly as she’d appeared, Vi twisted the key in the door and pushed it open. She didn’t look back, not even when Chiara followed her through, the door slowly closing behind her.

“I highly doubt Renate would make for a pleasant visitor. At this or any other hour.” Chiara moved through the apartment unseeing. What did she care what it all looked like, which paintings and photographs covered its colorful walls?

Vi stood in the center of the space, lit only by the city below filtering in languidly, with street lamps and billboards giving her an otherworldly glow. Reds and blues, a splash of bright yellow… Chiara’s fingers twitched, the desire for her pencil almost choking her.Desire…

“No, you Lilienfelds are rarely harbingers of good things, late hour or not.”

The words, cruel, deliberate, were like a bucket of cold water. What would her pencil draw now? The full lips in a sneer? The eyes blazing with something akin to hatred? Well, Chiara had done enough hating for both of them for five years, and it seemed that it wasn’t so potent of an emotion. After all, here she was, about to debase herself in front of the woman whom she had resented so much, and who seemed to despise her right back.

“Do you ever wish we’d never met, Vi?”

Her own voice was barely audible, and Chiara knew she had to push through, to speak, to be heard. But the plump lips, suddenly pale, opened slightly, and she could see her question had come as a surprise. And as a blow. Good, because she had more to say.

“I did, Vi.” And now the hurt in the wide eyes was so deep, so vivid, Chiara flinched, yet didn’t hurry her words. Some things needed to sink in. “I’ve had five years of wishing I'd never met you. Because if I never had, I wouldn’t have spent those five years wanting to hate you. You know how I detest failing, and in the end, I did anyway. At telling myself you never mattered. At resenting you. Since here we are, with whatever this is between us.”

Vi closed her eyes, hiding herself from Chiara’s gaze, and Chiara allowed both of them just a moment—to take a breath, to be still before all hell broke loose.

The tearing in her chest was painful, several more stitches coming undone. Chiara briefly wondered if this was her sanity finally giving out, stretched to the limit for years. But she took a step forward, followed by another, and then the pristine white roses were crushed between them as their mouths met again with the same painful intent as just hours ago.

Yes, they did want to hurt. Fuck each other too, but mostly hurt themselves, because Chiara felt the roses’ thorns sting her skin and reveled in the pain. Just as much as she reveled in Vi’s mouth taking its fill, nipping and biting at hers, no doubt leaving more bruises behind, bruises she’d need to cover for tomorrow’s photoshoot.

The roses dropped to the floor as Vi pushed Chiara into the nearest wall and ravaged her throat, sucking greedily on a pulse point, making Chiara forget her purpose, her reason for being here.

Even as she allowed herself to cradle those shadowed cheekbones, Vi was pulling Chiara’s hands away, lifting them above her head. She held them firmly against the wall, abrading her skin, already pricked by the roses, and Chiara wanted to allow the lust to wash over her. When Vi’s other hand moved under her skirt, sliding up her thigh and caressing her through the decidedly sodden thong, Chiara panted. Wanting and wanton, she felt wild and untethered. When she heard the satin rend yet again, she smiled and knew she looked feral.

“That’s two in one day.” She rasped. “Keeping the lingerie industry in business single-handedly, Cinderella?” Vi raised her eyes to hers, and Chiara saw something she hadn’t expected to find there. Not amidst what was happening here. She would have guessed Vi would look despondent, sullen, arrogant. After all, she was turning Chiara into a quivering mess yet again. But Vi looked… sad.

And Chiara, who could endure many things and had withstood quite a number of them, could not stand this. Her hands still up against the wall, she tugged them out of Vi's grasp and reached for that tormented face, holding it carefully between her palms, never taking her eyes off Vi’s.

Then she shifted, turning them around, Vi’s back now against the wall, and watched those eyes widen as she knelt. Her hands pulled on the leather belt slowly, allowing Vi to say ‘no’, to step to the side and away, except the tired eyes just looked on, still wide, still sad. Chiara didn’t avert hers as she lowered the zipper, the sound of the brass slider gliding over the metal teeth obscene in this room filled with their breathing.

As her mouth descended on Vi, the last thing she saw were those eyes losing focus and close, but Chiara was aware she hadn’t wiped the sadness away, and so when she brought Vi to a shattering climax, it felt like a hollow victory.

* * *

It wasthat lingering sadness that made her get up from her knees and instead of leaving, instead of walking away and not looking back, debts being settled now, she stepped up and into the arms that hung limply at Vi’s sides.

It was that slight tremble of the hands that lifted and settled on her shoulders and the tears dancing on the long auburn lashes that made her gather Vi in an embrace and hold her as night settled over Manhattan in earnest.

Against her shoulder, Vi’s breathing quieted, and the hands steadied as they dove into her hair.

“Feel better now?” Vi’s hoarse voice should have broken the reverie, the suspended state of this dreamlike moment that shouldn’t have anything to do with reality because Chiara shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t still be tasting Vi on her lips. And Vi shouldn’t look broken and bruised.

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