The Clichés

Chapter One

The shrill alarm wakes Vanessa. She reaches across her bed and hits it to silence. Reluctantly dragging herself out of bed, she walks to the window and pulls back the curtain. It was a warm toned folk patterned cloth that was pinned over the window with thumbtacks. The day was young, the sky was deep blue and cloudless, and the sun was a fury of heat. She peered down at the dewy grass painted an emerald green. The sidewalk was a warm gray, glittering with the minerals embedded into it. The sound of the birds chirping soothed a deep seated ache inside her soul and made a smile bloom across her face. It's gonna be a great day. 

Turning away from the window, she slipped out of her nightshirt and underwear and wrapped her towel around her body. She wraps her hair, worn in thick cascading curls, in a shower cap, and steps into the bathroom. 

The bathroom walls are a soft seafoam green, a color she had picked out herself back in middle school back when everyone was obsessed with that color. The floor was dark hardwood with a small rug in front of the shower that was a similar color to the walls. She reaches behind the blue and green shower curtain and turns the water up to scorching. Stripping down, she steps inside. 

Her amber skin glows like lotion whenever it comes in contact with water. The best part of bathing for her was always the self care: kneading her skin carefully, watching the silvery waterfall away like spangles, listening to her body wiggle from within and reacting to the sensual touch of the water. Today, the experience is different, almost epiphanous. She spends an hour here, in this cubicle of a bathroom, awash with neon lights, with exotic fragrances. After she's satisfied, she tucks her hair back into the cap, runs a straight palm down the small of her back, and pops her lotion open. She kneads her body like a ritual, murmuring the lyrics of a song like a mantra, worshiping her body until a feral sense of arousal grips her. 

 A rhythmic throbbing starts happening between her legs. At first, she ignores it, listening to the nasty voice inside her head screaming,'decent girls don't touch themselves!' But, the more she tried to ignore it, the more it attacked her temples, forced her mouth to salivate, and hardened her nipples until they wrinkled like a raisin. At this stage, she realized how helpless she was in the face of lust and her desires. Sighing with disappointment, she leaned against the porcelain wall and started to touch herself. At first, slowly, sensually, taking note of every nerve that stood stiff in her body.

Then, as the orgasm approached, her fingers began to move in a blur, her lips fell apart, and finally, a muffled moan escaped her mouth. After it was done, she sank down against the wall and curled up under the stream, letting her tears fall. She let her down. Her Mom, she let her down. Again. Vanessa sat there, praying that the shower would wash away her sins as well as it did everything else. 

She decided to go with a '70's inspired look for her outfit of the day. High-waisted bell bottom jeans, a red, pink, and tan striped top, a golden chain necklace with a wooden pendant, and white high-heeled go-go boots that she wore under her bell bottoms. She fluffed out her curls and put on a white headband. Reaching for her stained glass jewelry box, she grabbed out the pair of earrings that matched her necklace and put them on. After pulling her phone off the charger and walking out of her room, she bumps into her sister Helena. 

 "Bell bottoms, Van? Seriously?" Helena asks with an eyeroll. Vanessa chuckled and looked over at her sister, who was headed to her room instead of downstairs. 

    "Yes, Hel. Bell bottoms are the greatest jeans known to man next to boyfriend jeans. Don't hate just because you can't pull them off."

"Bold of you to assume that you can," Helena laughed. 

"Ooh, that one really hurt," Vanessa shouted back sarcastically from halfway down the stairs. Their older brother, Ethan, called up at them from downstairs.