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CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: INTOXICATION
Music echoed in Violet's head.
Not the classical music she was accustomed to, the faint notes that played while her mother was getting ready. Not the soft melodies that escaped Katherine Green's lips as she sung Violet to sleep.
This was different. This was electric.
The notes spun and whirled and the room was enclosing on her. People, of all sorts. Everywhere. The only word that came to Violet's mind was vibrant.
So much colour was omnipresent. Ridiculously pink dresses that trailed from men's bodies, woman toasting to each other with bright green glasses, purple gossamer light focused on two women kissing in a corner, close and intimate. Their lips slid onto each other and their hands explored their bodies tenaciously.
This bar was an uncertain environment, to Violet. But she was beginning to understand. That everything that she was taught was wrong.
How can something so beautiful be antagonised?
She approached a barstool with caution, her treads were slow and unfamiliar. The bartender was a woman with ashy blonde hair and a pixie cut. Her lips were stained blood red.
She raised an eyebrow, smirking. "What's a posh girl like you doing here?"
The woman's eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"Experimenting. Exploring." Violet answered with gleaming eyes. The woman's eyes scanned Violet from head to toe.
The brunette's heartbeat quickened.
"Let's see: lovely lace dress, conventionally attractive, face that simply looks rich." She analysed, not unkindly. "You probably have a man waiting at home for you, wondering where you are. Don't you?"
Violet's eyes hardened. She placed her hands on the countertop. "A shot of vodka, please. I know they don't pay you to psychoanalyse every customer you get."
She chuckled, raising her hands up in defeat. "I'm no Sigmund Freud, love. Just curious."
The woman traced Violet's arm with a fingertip in soft strokes. "I'm Sylvie. Sylvie Evans."
"Violet Green." She replied swiftly, drawing her arm away. Her skin broke out in goosebumps.
Another bartender walked over and slung her arm over Sylvie's shoulders. "We don't pay you to flirt, sweetheart. Get back to work."
