SEVENTY-FIVE
Not Submitting
“So, if the whole world’s in the ballroom, if everyday life, everyday women, everyday men and everyday cycles are here, this weekend, in all of this, then what’s this passageway in the dark, then? What’s our conversation? Our sneaking away? Our forbidden exchange?” Catherine asks, after the minute that Vivian mentioned requiring to top off on the courage necessary for her to finally walk away, to finally escape, has come and gone. Catherine once again ignored the ex true’s question about joining her, about accompanying her away.
“It’s female wisdom, always shared in the dark, sometimes hitting its mark, and sometimes not, by such faint light. Two months away from thirty, and I probably won’t make it. My master hasn’t been kind for one second, all weekend. So, it should be easy, doing this, since there’s no other choice, but . . . God, what’s wrong with me?”
“If given the choice, why not have a real master who knows that he is? Who’s devoted to being your master?” Laura decides to direct to Catherine, since Vivian has not taken another step. The mouthpiece is most definitely of dual purpose at the moment. “They possess the power that completes them, so they don’t need to take more.”
“They hold these weekends, and Tristan has me tied up all the time, in every way, except literally,” Catherine replies, biting her bottom lip in order that she not add that he has allowed men to die, when he ordered that they not be taken to hospital, among other things. That kind of real power. “The buffer room . . . I mean, the buffet room, the bathroom there without privacy . . . No part of a woman is her own. All is collected. All is owned. It’s all wrong.”
“Four cycles of life, here and out there. And women do fall in love,” Laura repeats.
“How did you know about this passageway. Where are we?” Catherine so deeply wishes to know.
“Oli . . .” Vivian begins, before abruptly stopping. Catherine looks at her and realizes just how much the ex true has slipped within herself, to almost slip-up in such a huge way, which Catherine identifies as huge, by the wild look on Vivian’s face. “What’s worse for you, Catherine? Staying or running?” Vivian then asks, following a deep breath. “I turned back when I heard Laura, and then again when I heard you, but if you follow me now, if you help me now, then we might make it out and away,” she adds, reaching for one of Catherine’s hands as she speaks, and then holding it tightly.
“I . . .” Catherine begins, before Vivian gently pulls her along, down the tunnel.
“No,” Laura repeats, after the two. “You’ve both lost touch with reality. Stop.”
“I . . .” Catherine once more begins, as her feet follow Vivian’s.
A flash of another tunnel comes to her mind.
The letter Q. The headache.
Keeping her eyes opened. For that contest. For all of it.
YOU ARE READING
When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse
RomanceWhen Tristan and Catherine meet, he immediately possesses her body, soon wants her mind, but has no interest in her heart. Nor his. While he happily feeds a darkness within him, she nervously runs from a past that predates her birth. Love, nice and...
