Vulnerable [Frollie]

Chapter 3

Frankie toed off her shoes at the front door and hung up her jacket. She made her way into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Pushing open the French doors to their vast kitchen, she spotted a large leather sketchbook on the dark table against the wall, where they keep their car keys on a small silver dish.

Pausing, she picked it up off the table and examined it. Mollie leaves her sketchbooks lying around all the time, but this one Frankie didn’t recognize. This one was made of light brown worn leather, beaten down by months of use and wear. It was soft, like butter, high quality leather. It had a thin leather tie wrapped around it, holding it together.

Frankie turned it over in her hands, fingertips caressing the soft surface. She began to untie the string but paused, her fingers halting their gentle movements.

She knew this book belonged to Mollie; it would be nobody else’s. Frankie wasn’t an art student, and none of their friends that were art students had sketchbooks this high quality. Mollie always bought the best, the finest paper with the softest leather, but she always bought black, not brown.

There were only two people allowed in Mollie’s books, herself and Frankie. Frankie knew that inside the confines of the bindings, lay Mollie’s secrets, her most personal thoughts and feelings put into delicately drawn pictures with intricate lines and shading.

Mollie was a beautiful artist; she could do things with her hands Frankie could only dream about. Her only medium wasn’t pencil, though she loved the smooth graphite and the ease with shading it allowed. She could paint, using a variety of kinds; acrylic, oil, watercolour, gouache, casein, tempera, encaustic, on and on. She could sculpt; she favoured oil based clay, but didn’t use it as her main medium, just something she did for fun sometimes. She was beautiful with pastel, oil pastels, soft pastel, hard, etc. She could even make the most stunning art using children’s coloured pencils and crayons, or use her own high quality ones that she paid so much for.

Mollie’s art was not a hidden talent, she went to school for it. But it wasn’t something she broadcast. Mollie’s has her paintings and sketches hung up around the flat, and whenever Frankie’s eyes would land on one, they would light up and her curious smile would beg Mollie to tell her the stories behind them.

Mollie’s favourite room in their flat was her studio; it was large and airy, with massive windows facing the green courtyard in front of their complex. It let in the most perfect light at all hours of the day, and Frankie could often find her in there, sitting on the large window seat, paintbrush caught between her teeth, watching the people below. They were her inspiration, Mollie loved to paint people, she loved to bring out the light in their eyes and the brightness in their smiles, and she loved to be able to put their complex emotions on canvas or paper.

Mollie was fantastic, but she didn’t show off. Her art was hers and hers alone. Frankie knew this, embraced it, and never touched her art stuff; save for cleaning her brushes the way Mollie’s gentle hands taught her. She never fiddled around in her studio, purely out of respect. Though Mollie had never told her she wasn’t allowed to touch her stuff, of course not, she would never bar her from the room that made her happiest, Frankie didn’t mess with it.

On the contrary, Mollie often invited Frankie to sit at the window seat in her studio while she worked. They shared a comfortable silence, words not needed. Frankie would study, read, sing, or just sit as Mollie worked her magic, content. For Frankie, being in the room with Mollie as she painted, or sketched, or did whatever it was she was doing was a way for her to be close to her lover, and to be close to her lover’s passion, without getting too close.