Author Archives: randomwriter
Choose what you read…
For most of this blog, it’s open, because I like sharing what I write with my friends. They’re really the only ones who know this is here, but on the other side of that, if anyone happens to come across it, they’re welcome to read as well.
But, there are certain stories that are protected for a reason – because I don’t want to randomly submit someone to having to read that. For a number of reasons. Because it’s private. Or because it’s unfinished or unedited. Or because it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.
However, if you do happen to know the password, then you’re making a conscious decision to enter the realm of that story – if you don’t think you’re going to like it, the solution is simple. Don’t read it.
But, don’t be unfair and post it publicly, without the protection, all over Twitter. I didn’t give you permission to do that, and whilst I realise that the internet is public domain, if you know the password, then it means that you know me. If you don’t like it, that’s ok. Not everyone is going to like what I write.
However, you had to make an effort (and a decision) to read that protected post. So that was your choice, even though you didn’t agree with it. So I ask you this – given that you didn’t agree with it, why did you bother to make that effort to read it?
For you to then be negative about it on Twitter, and post it so that anyone could read it (because you removed the protection) is simply the behaviour of a bully with nothing better to do with their time. Get over yourself. I didn’t force you to read it. I didn’t force you to comment on it. I didn’t even make it so that you would accidentally stumble across it.
You read it because you wanted to read it. The result of that is your problem, not mine, so keep it to yourself.
Protected: installment 2
Chapter One, Draft One, Nulla Tempus
My phone was ringing. At least I thought it was. I had a thumping headache and all I could really hear was this loud buzzing sound. Of course, since I could see my phone vibrating its way across the bed, I kind of knew that it was ringing. Although, I was desperately hoping that if I ignored it long enough, it might either fall off the bed or stop.
It stopped.
Then it started again. Oh, cripes.
One thing that I’d come to appreciate about leaping was being able to go back to pre-mobile device times. In my time there was this constant background noise that was near impossible to escape. Just this constant buzzing in your ear; or the inconsequential chatter of people on their phones; or the unfortunate tapping and beeping of touchscreens as messages, tweets and facebook statuses were uploaded. That was the most annoying. Only because you were then bombarded with messages on your own device telling you that everyone you followed had just made an update.
Leaping into times that were mobile free were quieter, less stressful. The people were nicer, too. They were without anxiety and that was an interesting situation. There was this missing urgency to their daily lives that was a consistent pressure in my time and I enjoyed being able to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. I struggled without Google and Wikipedia and I still couldn’t figure out how anyone actually knew anything before the advent of the internet, but the past was a lovely place to visit for a bit of time out from my reality.
Of course, that was the intention of the Nulla Tempus project, which is what I was currently working on. The official story is that Nulla Tempus is a time travel project, being developed for general use as a holiday destination and presently in beta testing stage. I’m one of the guinea pigs.
However, the reality of the Nulla Tempus project is something entirely different. I wish I could tell you what, but I don’t really know. I just get the feeling that there’s more to the project than what they’re letting on. There’s gaps in the logic and far more questions about it than there are answers. But, I’m not really in a position to be doubting the project, especially since it’s about to offer me my freedom.
You see, I used to be your pretty ordinary, run of the mill type girl. I’ve got really long, straight chestnut brown hair. I used to keep it cut short and layered and dyed with red highlights, but after my incarceration it was a little difficult to be so precious about something as insignificant as your hair. And besides that, after it grew I kind of became attached to it – I liked the luxury of having long hair, of being able to plait it – something I’d never been able to do before – and Dean had once mentioned that he preferred short hair, so after that I kind of kept it long just to annoy him.
My eyes are probably considered hazel, although they’re mostly green around the outside with a concentration of amber around the iris. In my left eye there are two separate, large flecks of dark brown in the centre. You don’t really notice this unless you look really closely at my eyes, but it kind of freaks me out a bit. I spent a lot of my childhood obsessing over how that happened, why my eyes were so completely different and what it might mean for the future. It wasn’t until I was undergoing medicals for the Nulla Tempus project that I was told it was nothing but extra melanin in that eye, a chemical which absorbed more light. The doctor told me I should embrace it, as it made me “unique”, but I’m not sure whether or not to take that positively, especially in light of the Nulla Tempus project. It seems the ‘unique’ people can never escape it.
I’m short, about 5 foot 3 inches, and fairly petite. I’ve always played a lot of sport so I’m in fairly good shape physically, but I’d much rather go shoe shopping than visit a gym.
In my past life, I had a fairly cushy job as an IT systems manager with Price Waterhouse Cooper and a lovely little apartment in South Yarra where I lived with my cat, named most appropriately Kat. She was a bit tempestuous and slightly odd.
I really miss the cat.
But then, I kind of had a bad day. And I murdered Daniel.
Which is how I ended up on Nulla Tempus. In exchange for my body, they were willing to offer me a reduction in my sentence. However, at this stage of my involvement, I would probably give all I had to complete the original sentence if it meant never having to go near Nulla Tempus.
Somehow I’d managed to get caught up in the middle of a war between the people who were developing the technology for the project and the people who were financing it and now I was stuck trying to reverse the changes to history that were being made. One guess as to which group it was creating the havoc.
So, here I was in 1938, with a headache and instructions to find one Rachel Bergstrom.
And, unfortunately, I had to bring parts of my reality, which included my mobile, along with me when visiting the past. And said mobile was still ringing.
Closing my eyes tightly against the headache, I answered the phone, flicking it to speaker. Aiden’s voice, all honey and surf filled the room.
“Afternoon, Ash,” he said cheerfully.
“Maybe in your part of the world,” I grumbled out miserably.
“It’s four pm,” Aiden said, as though my comment were completely invalid.
“Like I said, maybe in your part of the world. I’m in Vienna, remember? It’s just after six am.”
Aiden was quiet for a moment. He’d forgotten about the time difference, obviously.
“Vienna?”
“Yes, Aiden. That’s where you sent me, remember?” I was quickly getting cranky. This was a crap conversation to be having.
Aiden was my mentor on Nulla Tempus, and as such should already know this information. In fact, it should have all been written down in front of him, in a neat yellow manilla folder. Every single detail of my leap should be at his fingertips. I know he was new at this, but seriously. The admin part of his job wasn’t that hard. I mean, if Dean could do it then surely Aiden, with his university education, could manage.
I could only hear static coming through the phone line though, and the faint rustle of papers. So, he did have the folder in front of him.
“Yeah, about that,” Aiden started. I opened my eyes abruptly.
“What about it, Aiden?” I asked, rather harshly.
“Well, it’s just that –“
I cut him off.
“Don’t beat around the bush, Aiden. I don’t have the patience and I haven’t had a coffee in a while.” I sneered to myself at that. I was hanging for a coffee.
“Geez, Ash, I’d heard you were snarky before coffee, but I honestly thought that was just a rumour….” Aiden put on his “attempt to calm Ash down” voice, but it wasn’t really cutting it with me this morning. Dean had often employed that particular tactic, however he usually failed too if I hadn’t had any caffeine. I couldn’t imagine Aiden, who had far less practice at dealing with me, would manage any better than Dean ever had.
“You know that’s why Dean resigned?” I retorted. I was already over this conversation. Aiden was silent for a while.
“Yeah, I’d heard that too,” he finally said quietly. I could practically hear the wheels clanking around in his head as he debated his next move.
Dean had been my mentor. But he’d suddenly resigned last week, leaving me without any support and one last assignment to finish off. Needless to say, I was fair pissed about that.
As far as I knew though, no one actually knew why Dean had resigned.
I’d heard that particular rumour, about my caffeine dependency, floating around the office and it seemed as good as any to perpetuate, so I’d held onto it. I didn’t really want to face the reality of why Dean may have resigned anyway, but since he’d also vanished without a trace upon his resignation, I had been afforded the luxury of being able to believe whatever I wanted to.
Dean and I had been working together on Nulla Tempus for the last eleven months. We’d had our moments, more than enough arguments and on the rare occasion shared an intimacy that was probably inappropriate for co-workers. Our last conversation had kind of breached the casualness of the relationship that we had both tried to keep hold of though. Awkward.
Nevertheless, I tried very hard to keep that conversation a distant memory so that I could believe he’d gone AWOL because of my coffee tantrums. The fact that he might have just walked away from me hurt that little bit too much.
However, since Dean was fairly instrumental in getting Nulla Tempus off the ground, it did seem likely that there was more to his vanishing act than my declaration of affection. Plus, no one else actually knew that my relationship with Dean extended to the bedroom. He’d been pretty adamant that we keep our work life and our private life completely separate, so there would have been little chance of anyone even guessing that there was hanky panky going on between us. Which is why the rumour about me yelling at him one too many times for screwing up my coffee order worked well. And since that had actually happened, it wasn’t difficult for anyone to believe.
“Just get on with it, Aiden,” I said abruptly. “I need to go and get some coffee and the longer you keep me from that task, the longer it’s going to take me to save the world.”
Aiden laughed, a rich hearty sound travelling through the phone and surrounding me. It was warm, honest and it was refreshing. Laughter hadn’t been a part of my life for so long. It kind of stopped me in my tracks for a moment.
Just one of many differences between Aiden and Dean, I suppose.
Aiden was one of the good guys. As much as I resented him replacing Dean as my mentor, it wasn’t really him that I was angry at. It wouldn’t have mattered who had taken on the torch, I still would have treated them with some level of contempt. Fortunately though, this was my last assignment so we wouldn’t really have the opportunity to get to know each other that well. Probably a more fortunate situation for Aiden than for me.
He was a fairly quiet guy, contemplative and overly cautious. Aiden liked to make sure all the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed before he did anything. Dean, on the other hand, usually went in guns blazing and had more of a shoot first, ask questions later philosophy. I was somewhere in the middle.
Aiden had been employed with Nulla Tempus as the lead art director, right from the beginning, so he’d been around as long as I had and was fairly familiar with the project. Although, we’d only met for the first time a couple of days ago.
He had this big fuzzy beard that covered nearly his entire face, with fairly unkempt, long blonde locks and these amazing blue eyes underneath all that hair. His eyes were the colour of steel, not bright or vibrant but overwhelming in their intensity and their openness. Aiden wore his heart on his sleeve. Dean, on the other hand, possibly didn’t actually have a heart. The jury was still out on that.
Aiden was super tall, and lean and angular to go with it. That, and his ass, which was usually the focal point of the office, made him one of those guys you just wanted to spit at, because unlike Dean, who spent more time in the gym than he did anywhere else, I’m not sure Aiden even knew what exercise looked like.
Unfortunately for Dean, he should have probably backed off on the gym at some point. As a result of his excessive exercise regime, he was actually a little disproportionate. Massive up top, with absolutely amazing muscular arms, all of which tapered down to his slightly less built waist and legs and produced a body reminiscent of Mr Strong, from the Mr Men series of characters. It wasn’t particularly appealing.
Dean was also kind of lacking in discernible neck – his shoulders were so huge that his head just sort of seemed to sit at the top of them. He had this brooding face as well, a perpetual crease between his eyebrows, like he didn’t trust anyone and he was always waiting for them to step out of line. He used to be a copper, part of the special operations group, so I guess that might have been learned behaviour, but I didn’t really think so. His total lack of trust towards anyone was what had made him so good at his job.
Also in complete contrast to Aiden, Dean shaved every day but he still always had a 5 o’clock shadow, which only accentuated the angles of his face. His nose was broad, his lips always closed together tightly. His light honey-coloured eyes were often angry and I don’t think I ever saw him smile. Not once. Not even a little bit.
When Aiden smiled, the entire room lit up, and everyone within a five mile radius caught a bit of his sunlight. If it weren’t for the beard, when Aiden smiled he might just have been a lady-killer.
In opposition to Aiden’s unruly mop of hair, Dean had short, dark brown hair that he wore immaculately styled; gelled up to a point and the front of it pushed back, kind of like a flat Mohawk. One other thing about Dean, and I’ll be damned if I know how he did it, but he was uncreasable. Dean went to bed and woke up the next morning looking exactly as he had when he’d slipped under the covers. Aiden, I imagine, woke up in the mornings with that rustic sex appeal, rugged and wild and yet totally aware.
Did I just say that about Aiden?
Anyway, moving along. Aiden was definitely not my type. And he’d started speaking again.
“I’m sorry,” Aiden started. “As you know, we’ve got a few issues with the databases, namely one particularly useful one that is now missing due to Morrison’s, shall we say, interruptions?”
“How about we just stick with ‘diabolical plan to take over the world’?” I suggested. Aiden went quiet again for a moment. I think he may have been struggling a bit to figure out my sense of humour and it showed every time I made comments like that. Dean used to just ignore them completely.
“That could work,” Aiden replied eventually. “Anyway, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Oh yes, Aiden. Please give me the option to choose and drag this conversation out even further.” I heard Aiden smile though the connection. Well, sometimes he got my jokes.
“Ok, so the good news is that you’re in the right time, a few days early even.”
“Yay,” I said. “I’ve got time to go and do some sightseeing.” The sarcasm was dripping from me. Even I was getting a little over it.
“Well, that’s where the bad news comes in. You actually need to be in Berlin, not Vienna.”
“Berlin?” I took a deep breath. “And how the hell am I supposed to get there?”
“Train?” Aiden proposed.
“Oh you’re hilarious, Aiden.”
He laughed again and the sound wrapped around me, comforting. The headache released it’s grasp just a little bit and I almost felt like smiling, just because Aiden was. That was a strange feeling.
“I’ve got a techie working on sending through some cash and paperwork for you – identification papers and a passport and the like – but once you’ve got those in the next hour or so you’ll need to book yourself passage to Berlin. We’ve got a pretty small window of opportunity with this assignment and I’d hate to see you miss you it,” Aiden had his “I’m in charge” voice on again, which was also surprisingly comforting because I’d begun to rethink his capability of being my mentor after the train comment. Last assignment, I kept telling myself.
“And when I get to Berlin?” I asked.
“Well, I would suggest your first port of call be coffee,” Aiden said. “Then, you go find Rachel.”
insecurities, inadequacies and a little bit of whoops…
It was cold. Really cold. I was freezing my ass off waiting for Rachel to finish work. I was bored. I’d clearly had too much coffee and I was obviously angry, as was evidenced by the constant notifications that kept popping up on facebook.
Dom had spent most of the morning with me, discussing the merits of re-branding once his sentence was up. I didn’t entirely agree. Sometimes people just had to accept that you made a mistake and move on. Regardless of what they think, people can change and they can’t just assume a particular reaction or behaviour based on past actions. At least, that’s what I thought anyway.
But, moving along throughout the morning, Dom had left on some secret business. Fortunately he’d left his iPad with me to keep me occupied, but now that I was re-reading some comments I’d made I thought that may have been an error in judgement. On whose part, I wasn’t entirely sure, but someone was at fault.
I had posted something along the lines of allowing people the space to be able to change instead of continually bringing them down by commenting on their faults, but Aiden had seen it.
I don’t know what he read into it, but it can’t have been good because the next thing I knew I was under attack both privately and publicly from him. I could barely keep up with responding to his comments and after about half an hour I just gave up and I’d been sitting there watching him continue to try and upset me for the last hour or so.
I changed my status to read having coffee again – with Dom Van Sandan and waited to see what he would say about that.
I had to admit I was a little tired of trying to figure out exactly what Aiden’s deal was. He was my mentor, and I respected his work related decisions for that. And so far, I couldn’t really fault him over anything. He’d managed to keep me out of trouble, and help Rachel and me out in pretty perfect fashion over the last day or so. But there was just something about the way Aiden was acting towards me in everything that was outside work. Like he had some kind of idea about what had happened between me and Dean (although if he did actually know that would put him one step in front of me, since I had no clue) and felt that he deserved the same treatment.
The thing was that while facebook stalking him in some of my downtime, I’d found photographic evidence of a partner. And not just a casual fling either, an entire album of engagement photos that were only a couple of months old.
So, because I had a bit of spare time, I’d hacked into the databases and run a background check on him. Now, I know you’re sitting there thinking that’s incredibly immoral, but come on. Wouldn’t you run a background check on all potential partners if you could?
Anyway, turns out Aiden and Eliza got engaged at the beginning of the year. But, tragedy struck in the form of a home robbery and Eliza unfortunately got in the way of the thief’s baseball bat and he beat her within an inch of her life. She’s been in intensive care for the last month and they’re at the point where they may have to pull the plug on her.
Knowing that kind of puts a lot of things about Aiden into perspective. Especially his crankiness levels. However, I didn’t really think it was fair of him to take that shit out on me, especially since he hadn’t shared any of the information with me. If he wanted to keep Eliza to himself, which I completely understood, then that was fine by me. It’s just that I wasn’t a mind reader… which incidentally would be a far more appropriate skill to have than being able to time travel. But, I digress.
The point was, I guess, was that Aiden was still engaged to Eliza and for the moment, she was still alive. So really, he needed to back off hitting on me. If that is what he was actually trying to do. I still wasn’t entirely sure since it was so backwards he may as well have clubbed me over the head and dragged me back to his mancave.
Plus, I was confused. I was suffering from an awful lot of guilt about Dean. About not doing more to look for him (not that I could actually do anything more than I had already done). About having feelings, any kind of emotional response, to either Dom or Aiden when I was supposed to be romantically linked to Dean. Not that I actually thought I was, but that apparently was the word on street at the moment and until Dean’s disappearance and my involvement in came to some kind of resolution it seemed like it was going to stay that way.
and so we chan[n]el a bit of jess… :)
“Oh,” I gasped. We were on our way to meet with Jared, when we passed the Chanel store. I pulled up, dragging Rachel back to look in the window – she’d kept walking.
“We don’t really have time to go shopping, Ash,” she said, matter of factly. There was, however, a tinge of envy in her voice. We couldn’t really afford it either.
“But look, Rachel,” I said, pointing out a pair of really cute little ballet flats. “Just look at those shoes!” Rachel just kind of gazed at me, like I was a bit mad and she wasn’t sure whether to indulge my fantasy or to tell me I was being silly.
“Yes, Ash, they’re shoes,” was all she ended up saying. I smiled.
“Ah, Rachel… wait for the days when shoes become something you buy just because you can,” I replied. As much I had been considering some of the benefits to living in 1938, I realised then that there was no hope of me ever wanting to stay here.
“Shoes are a necessity, Ash. You buy a pair, you wear them until they fall apart and then you buy another pair,” she tugged on my arm, pulling me away from the shoes, away from Chanel.
“Not where I come from, they’re not,” I sulked. “Before I was… Before I left home, I had nearly 200 pairs of shoes,” I told Rachel proudly. She stopped short, glancing at me sideways. I don’t think she believed me.
“Two hundred pairs? How on earth did you manage to ever wear that many?”
I smiled at her, pleased to have grabbed her attention.
“Oh, you know,” I shrugged, linking arms with her and continuing on our way, “I had a pair for every outfit I owned.”
“You had that many pieces of clothing, as well?” Rachel looked somewhat aghast at the idea that my wardrobe might possibly be bigger than her entire apartment, which it was, but I’d at least distracted her, for the moment, from our upcoming meeting with Jared. She’d been on edge all morning about it, and to be honest it was driving me somewhat insane. I couldn’t deal with all this nervous tension that was just floating around – it was a complete waste of energy, especially since we both knew that everything was going to turn out ok in the end. It, like the limitations on my caffeine intake, was frustrating the daylights out of me, and I’m ashamed to say that I was having difficulty keeping myself in check, even for Rachel’s sake.
“I used to be the ladies fashion buyer for David Jones,” I said, rather wistfully. “It afforded me a lot of freedom in what I was able to accumulate in the way of clothing and accessories.” I closed my eyes for a moment, guided by Rachel’s firm grip in mine, and allowed that memory some substance. It had been quite some time since I’d thought about my life prior to my incarceration – at first it had just hurt so much to remember it, then it had become irrelevant. I’d learned quickly that in jail no one cared who you had been, only what you had done that had gotten you behind bars. It was a very distant memory that I pulled up now, meetings with suppliers and designers, negotiations to get their lines in our stores by a certain date, the free clothes and shoes and hats and jewellery as they’d all fought to win us over. The stress of putting together advertising, of meeting budgets and planning inventory. The long meetings with the VM and operations teams to make sure everything was displayed correctly. No, I didn’t really miss it. Bits of it, yes. But for most of it, I was glad it was part of my history.
Even though Rachel kept us moving at a fairly rapid pace, her interest in my story had been piqued and I could feel her desire to know more. I was referencing something she had no possibility of ever knowing, and of perhaps even comprehending. From my history lessons, the 1930s were full of decadence, art deco, rebuilding and rediscovery. People like Chanel, Amelia Earhart… they were recreating the world in a positive light, allowing us the opportunities and freedoms we had in my time. If you’d asked me what I thought 1938 might have been like before I’d leaped, I would have told you that it was spectacular. But now, after having been here, after having seen it and spoken to the people that live here… well. Life just wasn’t as luxurious as the history books or Hollywood ever made it out to be.
I felt a bit sorry for Rachel – she probably deserved a bit more recognition for the things she was about to do than she ever received. And she would have fitted in well in my time. I almost wished I could bring her back with me. I looked over at her. She was so full of questions.
“Who’s David Jones?” she asked. I smiled, a little smile of amusement.
“It’s a department store – they sell nearly everything and it’s supposed to be rather exclusive,” I replied with a wink.
“In Australia?” I nodded. I loved that, for Rachel, Oz was so exotic. A far away land, full of potential and new beginnings. It seemed strange to think that at this very moment that I was in that my homeland was so completely different to the country I knew it as. That it had really only just started to come of age, gained independence, was beginning to grow. It was so young in comparison to the Australia that I knew. The stories I was passing on to Rachel about home would not be what she saw if she were to go there now.
Rachel was slowing down, thank Christ because my legs were beginning to burn, and I saw that we were nearly at our meeting point. Jared, for some strange reason, had chosen to meet us at the Place de la Concorde, and while I appreciated his attempts at an arbitrary meeting that was not going to look suspicious to anyone or that would be easily overheard, I did wonder about the significance of it. Meeting at a place that had previously been the site of the executions of those believed to be betraying the Republic didn’t really sit well with me, considering we were kind of planning a similar betrayal, albeit on a much lesser scale. Still.
As we paused to scan the crowds for Jared, I felt Rachel tense beside me. I turned to look where she was, thinking she’d spotted Jared and groaned inwardly. Her hand sought mine and she clasped it tightly.
“How?” she said quietly. “How did he know?”
“It’s Dom,” I replied evenly. “He knows everything.”
the man is a god
Ash sat back in her chair and watched Dom at work. The waitress was swaying slightly, her eyes sparkling as if electricity was running through her. Her cheeks were flushed, ever so slightly, and her breathing was shallow. Dom was smiling broadly at her, his eyes flicking from the menu to her face, back to the menu, his long dark lashes hiding his warm brown eyes seductively for a few seconds, long enough to increase the waitress’s body temperature.
She pushed a lock of hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. Ash lifted her own menu to her face, hiding her smile. The girl couldn’t be more than 17 and she was a pretty little thing, her light brown hair mostly tied away in a very long plait, her big brown eyes round and bright.
But Dom was a seasoned veteran at getting other people to do what he wanted them to do, and he simply just widened his smile at her.
“And how are the bacon and eggs here, beautiful? I like my bacon crispy,” Dom winked at her and reached towards the jug of water in the centre of the table. He flexed his biceps as he picked up the jug and poured first a glass for Ash then one for himself, all the while keeping his eyes on the waitress.
She blushed again and scribbled down Dom’s order. He handed her his menu.
“Miss?” She didn’t even turn to look at Ash, she wasn’t able to take her eyes off Dom. Ash sighed. This was beginning to get tiresome.
“Just a coffee, thankyou,” Ash handed the girl her menu and after a moment she reached out and took it from Ash. She took one last, wistful look at Dom, as though she were never going to see him again. Ash leaned forward to pick up her glass and as she sat back, her head connected with the corner of the menus the girl was holding.
“Ouch,” Ash rubbed the back of her head.
“Oh, I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t see you,” the waitress stopped and checked on Ash, but she brushed her away.
“No kidding. It’s fine. Just bring the coffee.”
The younger girl opened her mouth to say something, but out of the corner of her eye Ash saw Dom bring his finger to his lips, a sly smile taking form. The girl blushed again and hurried off towards the kitchen.
The entire café had been watching them, Dom’s appeal apparently too strong for anyone to resist this early in the morning, but now they returned to their own breakfasts, the spell broken for the moment by Ash’s demand for her coffee.
“Now, Ash, I know you get cranky before you’ve had your fix of caffeine but there was no need to take it out on the poor girl,” Dom said, a half smile playing across his lips. Under the floor, his foot sought Ash’s.
She kicked his foot away from hers and picked up the paper.
“It’s your fault, Dom, don’t even try and pretend its not.” Ash buried herself in the newspaper just as Dom turned on his smile again. Ash could feel the eyes of the women seated close to them turn to look. Dom was like a bloody lighthouse.
“How do you manage to actually get anything done?”
Dom looked confused for a moment but the waitress returned then and delivered Ash’s coffee, almost falling over herself to look at Dom again. Ash just raised her eyebrows.
Dom burst out laughing, a deep warm laugh that kind of rolled around him, lighting him up. And hard as Ash tried, she couldn’t help but smile with him.
“Oh babe, it’s all in the way you handle it,” he confided, winking at her. She rolled her eyes, poured some sugar and cream into her coffee and returned to the paper.
Dom waited patiently for the waitress to return with his breakfast, utilising the time to covertly check his emails on his iPad.
Ash dropped the corner of the paper and polished off her coffee. She nodded towards the iPad.
“The internet doesn’t exist for another 30 years, Dom. How do you get that thing to even work here?”
Dom shrugged, the movement pulling against his clothes and showing off the muscles in his shoulders.
“Magic,” he replied.
Ash lifted her paper up again.
“There’s no such thing as magic, Dom.”
“Then how do you explain what we’re doing, Ash?” Dom was suddenly sitting forward, his eyes serious and locked on Ash’s. Her paper lay in front of her on the table, although she barely remembered putting it down.
“Its science, Dom. Nothing more than some really clever guys back home who figured out the secrest of bending time.”
Ash attempted to flag down the waitress to order more coffee.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” asked Dom. “You can’t really think that we’re here just because of some experiment?”
“That’s exactly why we’re here, Dom. Right down to the experiment part.” The waitress looked over towards them and Ash waved at her. She turned back towards the kitchen. Ash sighed and slumped back in her chair.
“Dom, be a darl and get me another coffee.” Dom did his little half smile at Ash and then waved the waitress over. She appeared at Dom’s elbow as though she had leaped.
He passed her a 10 Reich mark note, making sure to clasp her hands in his for just a moment longer than necessary.
“Another coffee for cranky pants over there, thank you beautiful,” he drawled out, his voice like smooth vanilla frosting. He put his hand over his mouth and whispered conspiratorially to the waitress. “And keep them coming.” She hurried off and Dom turned back to Ash.
She watched him for a few moments, waiting for him to speak, but he just watched her. She shrugged.
“We are the science experiment, Dom. We were sentenced to imprisonment, they’ve offered us freedom in exchange for sorting the bus out of the machine and until that point we’ve got no choice but to follow orders. There’s nothing magical about that.” Ash’s voice had gained an edge, one that Dom had not expected.
“How much longer have you got?” he asked quietly.
“This is supposed to be my last assignment.” The waitress arrived with Ash’s coffee and Dom’s breakfast.
“Supposed to be?”
“Supposed to be,” replied Ash, as she sipped on her coffee. “Until I fucked up. They don’t take kindly to transgressions like that, Dom. At the end of the day I’m still a ‘dangerous criminal’ and anything I do wrong can be taken as direct defiance.”
“They might let it slide,” Dom said with a smile. Ash smiled back at him.
“Only if it’s a roomful of women and you’re my lawyer, Dom.”
________________________________________________________________
“So, I think if we talk to Aiden and to James we might just be able to get this sorted a bit more precisely. There’s gotta be a reason that we’re both in the same time – surely they could have just gotten one of us to cover both assignments? It just doesn’t make sense,” Dom was talking to me; I was watching his mouth move. Watching the way he sipped his coffee, flicking his tongue across his lips to collect all the taste.
He lifted the cup to his mouth again and I watched the muscles in his forearm ripple, his shirt pulling tightly against his bicep. As he swallowed, the muscles in his throat stood out, moving suggestively against the collar of his shirt, trying to escape. I followed them with my eyes, watching them disappear back into him.
“I just think there’s something going on with the records. It could be a result of having the Nulla Tempus project screwed with – I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
I was resting my chin on my hands, my elbows on the table and I was just watching Dom talk. I wasn’t really listening to him, just admiring the way his body moved when he drank his coffee, the way his clothing was fitted against his build, how it showed him off each time he shifted in his seat. He put his coffee cup down. He’d stopped talking and he was looking at me strangely, kind of sideways with a question plastered across his face. It was the first time I’d seen such open emotion from Dom and he looked utterly confused. I shook myself from my reverie.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing, I was just wondering if you were actually listening to me?”
“Oh,” I said. I smiled to myself and brought my coffee to my lips. He just raised his thick, luscious eyebrows at me.
“Spit it out, Ash. You were clearly thinking about something else,” he said, just a little bit of hurt showing through that I hadn’t been paying any attention to what he’d been saying.
“Sorry, Dom,” I tried very hard to suppress the smile threatening to split my face and I could feel the colour rising to my cheeks. “I was paying attention to you,”
“You were not, Ash. You have no idea what I was talking about,”
“You’re right, I don’t really,” I paused, “because I was too busy thinking about what it would be like to have sex with you,” I rushed out. I picked up the newspaper in a hurry, trying to cover my own embarrassment. Oh hell, had I actually just said that out loud?
I heard, rather than saw, Dom’s mouth drop open and then he laughed, a great rumbling laugh that was so provocative I had to hold onto my chair to prevent myself from jumping across the table and launching myself at him.
“Really, Ash? That’s what you were thinking about?” He was laughing at me, and I could feel my face growing warmer, spreading down my neck and across my chest. I lifted my hand to my open neckline and tried to cover it. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Oh, deal with it,” I said, huffily and embarrassed. Dom was still laughing. His foot found mine beneath the table, and I felt him slide it up the inside of my leg. He reached across the table and pulled the paper down from my face, grabbing hold of my hands between his. His chocolate eyes were focused on mine and I felt my breath catch in my throat. He started rubbing his thumb along the side of my hand and up to my wrist. He leaned forward, closer to me across the table and I could smell him clearly – the undertones of wood and musk coming from him, curling their way through the air to seduce me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t tear myself away, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even really think.
His thumb pushed its way up my forearm, my skin puckering beneath his administrations, electricity rising along my arms and neck, spreading across my belly and down. He released me and with one hand reached to touch my cheek, pushing an errant strand of hair behind my ear. I flinched, the heat in my face scorching. His eyes were still locked on mine, and I searched them, confused by his actions but wanting him none the less. His eyes were smooth, liquid chocolate watching me back carefully, judging my reaction, testing to see how far I would let him go.
At the table beside us, a knife clattered to the floor, breaking the silence between us and I pulled away from him. I felt a rush of cold air on my skin where his fingers had been only moments before and I had to prevent myself from covering my cheek with my own hand to dispel it. My breathing was heavier than normal and I didn’t really want him to see just how much having him touch me had turned me on.
He just grinned at me and returned to his coffee, but he didn’t move his foot away from mine. I took a deep breath, trying to even out my breathing and lifted my paper again.
meet Ash…
I’m sure there’s very few people who ever really like to describe themselves, and I’m sure that you should probably ask about me from the perspective of everyone else, but never the less, I can give you a history lesson in 1000 words.
I was what was referred to as a contemporary. I’d been with the Nulla Tempus project since it’s inception, nearly a year now. There was only a handful of us left that had been leaping that long – some had sadly met their ends, others had decided to finish serving their time rather than risk another leap. No one yet had actually worked off their freedom. I was the closest to doing that, but one slightly major fuck-up, thanks mostly to Dom, had pushed back my release a bit. Of course, I think there may have been some other factors involved in that, like Dean’s disappearance and my involvement with Aiden, but I’m still not really sure yet.
Anyway, you want to know what I’m like, right? Well, I’ve got really long, straight chestnut brown hair. I used to keep it cut short and layered and dyed with red highlights, but after my incarceration it was a little difficult to be so precious about something as insignificant as your hair. And besides that, after it grew I kind of became attached it – I liked the luxury of having long hair, of being able to plait it – something I’d never been able to do before – and Dean had once mentioned that he preferred short hair, so after that I kind of kept it long just to annoy him.
My eyes are probably considered hazel, although they’re mostly green around the outside with a concentration of amber around the iris. In my left eye there are two separate, large flecks of dark brown in the centre. You don’t really notice this unless you look really closely at my eyes, but it kind of freaks me out a bit. I spent a lot of my childhood obsessing over how that happened, why my eyes were so completely different and what it might mean for the future. It wasn’t until I was undergoing medicals for the Nulla Tempus project that I was told it was nothing but extra melanin in that eye, a chemical which absorbed more light. The doctor told me I should embrace it, as it made me “unique”, but I’m not sure whether or not to take that positively, especially in light of the Nulla Tempus project. It seems the ‘unique’ people can never escape it.
I’m short, about 5 foot 3 inches, and fairly petite. I’ve always played a lot of sport so I’m in fairly good shape physically, and once I was incarcerated I didn’t have a lot to do other than work out at the gym, so while I look like a bit of a princess (and quite often act like one), I can certainly hold my own in a fight (and have been known to, as well, but I’m not going to get into that here – you already know I’m a ‘bad person’…)
I guess the benefit of being put onto the Nulla Tempus project was the little bit of freedom it affords. I get my own apartment, even though it’s constantly monitored, but that also means that I have the luxury of a wardrobe and my own bathroom again. I’m allowed to go shopping, online at least, and I’ve finally been able to use moisturiser and a nail file again. My bathroom at home always slightly resembled a Priceline store, and I was a bit of a poster girl for Garnier products. It was the one thing that nearly killed me when I was facing jail time. But now I’ve got it back, and any spare cash I manage to pick up generally goes towards my cosmetics addiction. Lucky I’ve also picked up a few tricks about how to bring things back with me when I leap too, so a lot of what has accumulated in my apartment is actually, on a technicality, quite old. It’s amazing what people will pay as well, just for a little bit of history.
I’m 29 years old, and I’ve served nearly five years out of a ten year sentence. The deal with Nulla Tempus was that I would get out at 5 years, if I spent a year working with them to get it ready for public use. I guess they figured if they used people who were ‘no longer safe to the wider community’ it wouldn’t matter so much if something happened to us. Even though part of the agreement with the mentors, first with Dean and now with Aiden, is that they’re supposed to do their best to keep us alive, there aren’t really a lot of precautions taken in order to do that. Us leapers are just sent back and left to our own devices to try and complete the assignment to the best of our ability. Of course, we’re all implanted with GPS tracking devices, so they can bring us back whenever they want to, meaning there’s no point in not at least trying to complete the assignment, and the level of security placed on us when we’re back in time is often a bit over the top. But, I did kill a man, so I guess from their perspective it’s probably a bit justified.
I’d like to point out here that I’m not a bad person, not really. I mean, I get angry and frustrated and depressed and I’ll be the first person to admit that I’ve done some pretty stupid things as a result of those emotions taking control. But not any more so than anyone else. And I never set out to actually kill Daniel, it just kind of happened that way. As far as I’m concerned he deserved it and I’m not sorry it happened, just maybe a bit annoyed that no one was able to understand why it happened. But anyway, you can’t really change the past and there are some things you have to do in order to be able to learn and grow as a person. We’ve all got baggage. It’s how we carry it that defines us. And I refuse to be defined by Daniel…
introducing the boys – Dom, Aiden & Dean…
DOM:
Dom was a god. There was simply no other way to describe him. His broad shoulders and back, muscular arms, chiselled chest – all of him was perfect and looked exactly as though he had been carved from stone and put on earth to deliberately make women realise what they wanted and couldn’t have.
He was every man’s worst nightmare, as whenever he moved women would stop to watch him. He was perpetually coveted as women stopped mid-sentence, mid-action even to admire him, stare at him, drool over him.
Of course, there was no denying that Dom was gorgeous. And even though he wasn’t really my type, at least in the looks department, even I had to admit that he was beyond attractive.
He was tall, standing at around 6 foot 2 inches, and very solid. I imagine that running into him would be somewhat like being thrown against a brick wall, and he could easily bench press 120kg without even breaking a sweat.
His dark hair was cut short, shaved tightly against his head, although there was a slight sign of something resembling the beginnings of what can only be described as a Mohawk. Occasionally, and especially very early in the mornings, you would catch a scent of something that smelled suspiciously like hair gel, but his hair was really cropped too close to his head to warrant the use of it.
His eyes were what got me, and probably what every other woman fell for as well. Set deeply below a high forehead and underneath thick, dark, luscious eyebrows they were brown, the colour of melted chocolate. When you looked into them, you disappeared. They were a disk of smooth, even colour, just two little rounds of chocolate with his pupil at the centre. I often wondered if he wore contacts, because the spread of colour across his eyes was so smooth that it just didn’t look natural. And it was rather unnerving just how intense those eyes were. If you’ve ever seen those chocolate fountains, with dark chocolate in them, then you might have a slight understanding of what Dom’s eyes were like. They were, of course, ten times more intoxicating than that chocolate fountain.
His nose was thin and just a little crooked, the result of several breaks. It was, perhaps, the only thing about him that was slightly imperfect.
Beneath it his lips were full, the bottom lip just a smidge pouty, enough to remove any sense of arrogance that may be present. His lips were encased within a thin goatee which was immaculately styled and usually reflected whatever was in fashion at the time. I quite often thought that the scent of hair gel may have sometimes emanated from his goatee.
The colour of Dom’s skin, too, was dark, a deep mocha that was light on hair. On his chest you could find a patch of dark hair, just a loose covering which tapered down into a snail trail that disappeared into his pants, but over his arms there was even less. His arms were exceptionally well toned, every muscle visible regardless of whether he was flexing or not. A tribal tattoo curled it’s way around his left bicep, turning into text down the side of his chest that ran the whole length of his body to his foot. It wasn’t in English, and I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing the script in it’s entirety so I wasn’t sure what it said. Nor did I have the courage to ask Dom about it, mostly because I didn’t want him to actually know just how much time I’d spent looking at him, but also because underneath parts of the tattoo were scars that looked as though they were memories that were better left untouched.
Dom also smelled amazing. Like, unbelievably amazing. I have no idea what aftershave he wore, or what kind soap and shampoo he used, or even the type of laundry detergent, but by god it was amazing. If you could have bottled Dom’s scent and sold it, you would have made a fortune. I quite often got caught out breathing deeply every time Dom got close to me. At one point it was beginning to get embarrassing, but then I realised that Dom kind of expected it since everyone did it to him, and it just became one extra joke between us. However, I do remember one time when Dom offered me his jacket, because I was cold, and I swear to everything that is unholy that I nearly came, just from being enveloped by his scent.
The other part of Dom was that he was pretty genuine. I mean, besides the fact that he’d killed a guy with his bare hands, Dom was a pretty laid back, honest and selfless guy. He was loyal to a fault, which was probably his undoing in most things, but he stood up for what he believed in and he hated to see anyone get hurt. The amount of times I saw him stop to help little old ladies cross the road was ridiculous (although in all fairness, most of those ladies nearly had heart attacks from looking at Dom) but it was just who he was.
I think a lot of it had to do with army training, the discipline and hard work required to get him where he got to in the special forces meant that his personality had to be just as disciplined as well. Being a member of the Incident Response Regiment, part of the Australian Army’s Special Operations Command, Dom was a very highly trained (and dangerous, I guess), very intelligent and very unique individual. The guy he killed probably should have taken that into consideration before he started sleeping with Dom’s wife. Of course, I can’t figure out why any woman who had Dom would even fantasize about another man, let alone go there. For the rest of us mere mortals, Dom was the fantasy…
AIDEN:
Aiden was quiet, far more introverted than most people that worked at Nulla Tempus. I think that’s actually what made him attractive.
His blonde hair was fairly unkempt, but in that “I’ve spent at least an hour styling my hair to make it look like I just got out of bed” way, and I heard once that in his previous job he’d been given the “person who uses the most hair gel” award. When I first met Aiden, he had a big fuzzy beard that covered nearly his entire face. He actually looked a bit like a homeless person. But beneath that were these amazing blue eyes, always so full of emotion. They were the colour of blue steel, not bright or vibrant but overwhelming in their intensity, their completeness. Their openness. There wasn’t a single thing that Aiden thought that you couldn’t see reflected in his eyes if you were looking for it. I often joked with him that he would never be able to play poker against me, I would always be able to see his cards in his eyes.
Aiden was lean, angular, always a little on the too skinny side. He blamed excellent metabolism, but I think it was a bit of self-loathing that always prevented him from eating too much and not exercising enough. Whilst he never went anywhere near a gym (apparently they were dangerous), a lot of sport afforded Aiden a fairly well toned physique, and he was exceptionally fit. At some point in his history he’d been an Olympic snowboarder, and while he no longer competed he always made sure that he continued his training, to the point that often in downtime in the office you could invariably catch Aiden doing some kind of exercise.
Aiden was very tall, standing at 6 foot 5 inches, he towered over most people. But, unlike most tall people, Aiden carried himself at his full height. He didn’t slouch, he didn’t try to meet others at their level. He always drew himself up and stood tall, as though standing at attention and awaiting his next orders. Considering how reserved he was, this always struck me as a bit odd, because it made him very easy to spot in a crowd. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist and the most amazing, tight arse. He lived in a two storey house, and I think he deliberately walked up and down those stairs a few extra times a day, because his arse was just… well, I hate to sound clichéd but it was like a peach. A nice round, ripe peach. I know some of the girls in the office would deliberately drop things in front of him, just so he would bend over to pick them up and they could sneak a look.
Aiden spent most of his time inside, working or reading a book. Yes, that was another reason Aiden was so attractive. He was the nerdy bookish guy. But, his sports, other than snowboarding, were also indoor sports – basketball and inline hockey – and as a result Aiden was always a little on the pale side. He had a driving arm tan, but that was about it. When he wore black it was kind of like looking at a chessboard. I caught him once looking at fake tans, but fortunately he decided it wasn’t worth the effort and maintained his white skin.
The thing about Aiden was when he smiled. It was, no joke, like someone had turned a light on. I don’t think I ever saw him with half a smile, or a pretend smile, or something that just wasn’t 100% genuine. When Aiden smiled, he really smiled, and you kind of felt like everything was going to be ok. That he could fix it, or he could make you feel better, or just that life wasn’t all that bad.
Aiden snuck up on a person. At least he did on me, anyway. I wasn’t really all that sure about Aiden when I first met him, he was just another guy and I really didn’t think he was ever going to replace Dean in my life. But before I knew it, and I can’t actually tell you when the changing point happened, Aiden was firmly part of me, very important to me and someone that I couldn’t survive without. Aiden just kind of managed to insert himself into my life without me seeking that connection out, and I don’t really know how it happened. But then Aiden is kind of like that. He has a habit of showing up just when you need him…
DEAN:
I don’t think I ever realised that I loved Dean until he’d disappeared.
Dean was the quiet type, not because he was shy or introverted, but just because he lived by the motto “if you’ve nothing nice to say, then say nothing at all” and he kind of took it a bit to the extreme. Dean wasn’t really likeable, but I think that was part of his attraction. He didn’t really care what anyone thought, he certainly didn’t care if anyone liked him or not and he sort of made it his mission to make sure that no one did.
Dean had this brooding face, this perpetual crease between his eyebrows, like he didn’t trust anyone (which he didn’t, but that’s beside the point) and he was always waiting for someone to fuck up just so he could say “told you so”.
No matter how often he shaved, he always had a 5 o’clock shadow, which only accentuated the angles of his face. His nose was broad, his lips always closed together tightly. His light honey-coloured eyes were often angry and I don’t think I ever saw him smile. Not once. Not even a little bit.
Dean always seemed to be battling something internal, some inner demon that refused to let go. He was relentless in his pursuit of perfection – the whole Nulla Tempus project would have fallen over more than once if Dean hadn’t been promoted to project management early on in the piece, and he was the reason that many of the protocols that we lived by had been put into place. Of course, when it came to me, Dean seemed to have a great deal of trouble sticking to his own rules.
I still can’t figure out if that was because he thought it wasn’t worth the argument or if it was because he actually wanted to have the argument. Either way, as a partnership, Dean and I made every other team look like angels and saints. Together, we were nothing short of volatile, and I’m sure that more than once the directors had lengthy meetings about splitting us up.
Dean had short, dark brown hair that he styled (I swear the men in my life spent more time working on their hair than I ever did) and he wore it gelled up to a point, the front of it pushed back. It kind of had the appearance of a Mohawk from the side, but from the front looked a little flatter. Plus the sides of it were slightly longer, not shaved back entirely. Dean’s hair was the only thing that made him look like a person, rather than a robot – the rest of him was always so immaculate. I don’t know how he did it, but Dean was completely uncreasable. It didn’t matter what he was doing, or what he was wearing, but at the end of the day he looked as fresh as he had at the start of the day. Even first thing in the morning, Dean got out of bed looking exactly as he had when he’d gotten into it the night before. There was something completely unnatural about Dean.
I’m guessing Dean spent a lot of time at the gym when he wasn’t in the office, because he was kind of like a study in human muscular-skeleton. Name a muscle and you could have easily pointed it out on Dean. Dean didn’t have to take his shirt off to make women drool over his body and make men feel inadequate. He just had to stand there.
There was a lot of angst between Dean and the rest of the office. I’m sure that most of it was probably justified, but I never really spent enough time in the office to understand it. From rumours, emails and stories I heard from others, Dean was often a bit harsh. He didn’t forgive mistakes and he pushed his staff to their limits. Praise was not something that was easily earned from Dean (and I knew that from experience) and he didn’t publicly give credit for the hard work they put in.
But, once Dean left the office, that was it. He had two phones, one for work and one personal and never the twain should meet. No one in the office had Dean’s personal mobile number and after hours it was the only phone he would answer. It took 3 months before he gave it to me, and only then it was because I was running a job in a different time zone and I’d gotten myself into a rather deadly situation. Since Dean was charged with keeping me alive, he changed his mind about me being able to contact him out of hours.
Which was kind of the other thing that I think put people off about Dean. He was exceptionally private. There wasn’t a single person in the office, including myself, that knew anything about Dean’s life. No idea about his family, or his education, or his hobbies. I could tell you how he had his coffee but not what his favourite colour was. I could tell you that he got up in the morning at 5am, no matter what day of the week it was, but I couldn’t tell you what order he got ready in. He shared nothing, he asked nothing of you in return and he didn’t reveal a thing about his past.
As far as anyone knew, Dean actually was a robot and he didn’t have a past. But, I knew that there were secrets that Dean held onto that at some point he probably should have let go of, and they haunted him, that was obvious in everything he did, everything he didn’t say. I didn’t know what those secrets were and he had no intention of ever revealing them, so for most of our relationship, what happened was pretty “basic instinct”, but that worked for us. Conversation was limited to coffee and movies, with the occasional book thrown in and there were no expectations. We made time for each other when we had it and neither one of us ever overstayed in the morning.
However, Dean’s disappearance was a bit of a shock, especially to me, because I thought we had enough of a relationship – at least as mentor and ward – for him to have told me that he was walking away from the project. It could have been that I was finally getting under his skin, and that he was starting to form some kind of attachment to me, and perhaps he got scared and just ran away, but I’d like to think that, even though I knew very little about him, I knew enough of how he ticked to know that there was more to Dean’s vanishing act than just emotion. I can’t prove it yet, but there’s something else something going on…
the meaning of colour
The kettle boiled and I poured out a cup for Sienna, placing the spoon on the side of the plate carefully. She was still crying, curled into a ball on the couch tightly.
I touched her shoulder, careful to keep the cup of tea steady.
“Here,” I said and held the tea out for her. She looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot and ringed with black. Her mascara was clearly not waterproof.
“What’s this?” she asked quietly but taking the tea from me all the same.
“It’s tea,” I responded, my brows furrowed in slight confusion. “My last carer used to like tea when she was upset,” I explained.
“Oh,” she said under her breath, a little smile playing across her lips.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. She looked up at me then, saw me watching her intently and shook her head.
“Nah, thanks Adam but I’m good.” She winked at me as she stood up with her tea. A sigh of relief left me chest in a rush.
“Oh, thank god,” I said quickly. Her eyebrows raised in a question. “I had no idea what to do or say,” I replied. She laughed.
“So why ask?”
I paused, “because isn’t that what people do?”
“Only if they’re actually interested in talking or listening,” she turned towards her bedroom. “You know, Adam, you’re not like most people,”
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” I said, cutting her off. She just smiled.
“Hear me out first,” she put her tea down on the kitchen bench and turned to face me. She closed the distance between us in about three steps, stopping so close to me that I could see the scar on her forehead, usually covered by her fringe. I could smell her breath and her perfume and her shampoo and for one dizzying moment they all combined, an unbelievable stench that I was surprised she was able to tolerate. I cringed and went to take a step backwards but she was prepared for it and reached out to grab my wrist. Pulling me close to her I was again overwhelmed by her scent but she held me tightly and just as quickly the scents separated. I could smell the apples in her hair, fresh and green and enticing. I could feel the citrus in her perfume lift from her neck and wind itself towards me, intoxicating and complicated. I could smell her handcream when she lifted her hand towards my face, I could smell her rings, the faint whiff of cigarettes on her fingers.
She curled her fingers around my chin, pulling my face to hers so that I was looking directly into her eyes. They were green, a very deep green like a tree in shadow, dappled slightly when she turned towards the window but now, looking into my own blue eyes, hers were a colour I couldn’t describe. A Pantone 3415, perhaps a hunter green – that was the best I could come to describing it. For just a moment, I was lost in them, seeing that particular colour as I had never seen it, although I suppose I hadn’t really. I wanted suddenly to capture it, to hold onto it, to keep it and I broke away from her and headed towards the paints. I heard her sigh behind me but paid little attention to it, suddenly enraptured by the idea of recreating the colour of her eyes.
“Adam,” she spoke sternly to me – I had never actually heard anyone speak to me like that before and I wasn’t really sure how to react. I turned towards her again but she had turned away and walked over to her cup of tea. I thought that it might be cold by now, but she drank from it anyway.
“I was going to say that you should stop trying to act like everyone else, because you’re never going to be like the rest of the world,”
“But?” I was picking up paint as she considered a response, really only half listening to her, concentrating more on which pigments would make up the colour I wanted.
“But, when you do shit like that, I can understand why it’s important to your parents that you at least learn to pretend.”
Random Murmurs 