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Trust I
Feeling her spine press the skin of her back and stretch against it with each inhale, she had never felt more naked than she did by the hand of the rippling bathwater fallen to her hips. With the gentle rake of Vincent’s hands and a coarse washcloth, she couldn’t help but accept the gentle reminder that she was more hopeless than she had hoped to be by eighteen; she still woke suddenly gripped by worry. She still soaked through the sheets in her sleep with sweat. She still ate a warm breakfast cooked for her. And still cowered from a gentle embrace.
But there had been quiet victories.
She had showered once a day for weeks she’d lost count of. She had eaten three square meals and washed and folded her own clothes. Stripped the bed on her own and took the linen to the dry cleaner. All the things her parents had hoped she’d never know—less from love than it was grooming her for subservience.
And she felt happiness. At least more than s
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Shady Blue Trust II
The irony wasn’t lost on Blue that the only restaurant accepting a reservation for six happened to be one so awkwardly nestled between the division of upper-and-lower-class Manhattan. At least the only one accepting reservations for such a large table only three hours earlier on a Friday night. Which also happened to be the very same she had met her now-husband for their first official date.Almost two months later, she felt extremely overdressed—so as not to avoid confrontation from her mother. Her stockings stuck to her legs from the rain, the skirt of her dress whose empire waist already wasn’t doing her any favors had creased in her Uber and her hair had broken from its bun. The one she had redone four or five times out of pure terror.Of what?How many glasses of wine she could turn down before she caved? How much groping she could ignore from her beloved fiancé? Or how much terror her mother could unleash in a one-hour win
Shady Blue Trust III
While Blue was so sure that Sandra’s coy smile would elicit some confrontational response from her mother, the woman simply returned a rather friendly smile. For that brief moment, it was almost as though she was proud of her daughter. Or at least she was pretending to be.It seemed that Marian had chosen to be rather civil, let it be because it was the first time seeing her daughter since she fled shoeless in the night or because she had to make a good impression on the family she’d hope would absorb her own. After all, she knew better than to bite the hand that fed her.They had survived entrees and mains without incident. Marian had even gracelessly complimented the outdated charm of Blue’s dress and told her she looked much less washed out with her cooler highlights. She had even survived the whole meal without Richard laying a hand on her, though she assumed it had less to do with her luck and more to do with the stern gaze of his father. Some sm
Shady Blue Trust IV
“Blue… Off already?” releasing his grip on the woman, she took a cursory few steps back, almost tripping on the heels of her shoes. With dark hair and deep-set eyes, it seemed the only difference between Christopher and his son was the markings where time and age had taken its toll. They wore the same sneer as though it had been burned into their face and squared their shoulders in much the same way. As she returned the man’s firm smile and crossed her arms to brace the cold, Blue fought against the creeping notion that her destiny was to follow in Sandra’s footsteps as the blonde trophy wife. The only difference between them, of course, would be the fact Blue’s firstborn wouldn’t have Richard’s hair or eyes—they would be Vincent’s. “I was hoping we’d get the chance to talk,”“Yeah, I have to get home,” Meeting the man’s firm gaze and studying the eyes that bore such resemblance w
Shady Blue Trust V
By the time Blue had made it home, she’d soaked half through the dress she hadn’t the energy to take to the dry cleaners and would much rather ruin in the washing machine. The awning of the restaurant had done little to protect her from the eastern-slanted rain that slipped beneath the roofing just to drench her. Her car had taken five minutes too long to arrive, time enough for her hair to stick to her face and goosebumps to set in. Yet meeting the gaze of the man who sat on the couch in a pair of enviously dry slacks and a sweater she’d kill for, she couldn’t help but mirror the grin he instantly offered. “I told you to let me buy you a car,” As he spoke, his arms opened almost instinctively, chest aching as she kicked her shoes to the side and made a careful approach. Aching with longing and lust and the deepest affection he had yet felt. Things he failed to vocalize. Things yet so constant. “I’m soaking, I’ll ruin your clothes,” Though she offered some refusal,
Shady Blue Chapter Seventeen I
The pair had kept one another up far too long the night before to muster any energy for cooking. Sat at the kitchen island, knees touching like a pair of high school sweethearts after their first sweet yet somewhat disappointing quickie and breaths smelling rather suspiciously stale and of sex, Blue found it rather hard to concentrate on her breakfast cereal. With that, Vincent was in agreeance.He wasn’t as disappointed in himself for such a late start to the day as he would have been two months prior, sans Blue. Instead, he found the time to relish in the charm of Special K at one in the afternoon. Rather, the sight of his wife with tangled hair and his own tee-shirt hanging loose on her shoulders inside-out. Milk dripping from the corner of her mouth in a way that made him think of something else entirely. Suddenly, he wanted no less than to bend her over the kitchen counter and rail her as he had time and time again. “Can I ask you something?”
Shady Blue Chapter Seventeen II
Blue, for once in her life, hadn’t been ridiculously overdressed. Stood beside the petite blonde woman almost half a foot shorter and certainly far smaller, she was sure she could wear her wedding gown and still feel underdressed. Dressed in a brown floral two-piece with a top that hardly covered her swelling breasts and skirt that hung from her ribs to her ankles, she was certain she could look the part of wealthy heiress she had been so well prepared to play. But looking at Sandra’s suit and luxury camisole peeking out from beneath, Blue couldn’t help but wish she’d traded her colossal canvas wedge heels for a pair of sneakers… she’d certainly feel all the same; plain, unextraordinary.Staring at the third blouse Sandra had pointed out with the same forced smile she could barely muster, Blue wondered how much more pretending she could take for the sake of making the woman like her. Or even why she was trying to win her
Shady Blue Chapter Seventeen III
Breaching the doorway, Vincent took in the sight he dreaded; Blue asleep.Back turned to him, light from the bathroom streaming steadily onto her back and carving out the spine peering from beneath her lifted camisole, he hadn’t the heart to eyefuck the ass on full display to him. Instead, he made a slow approach and drew the comforter that had ridden down to her feet over her hips—and sigh with relief as the woman grunted and turned to face him.Squinting into the light, she smiled softly—an expression quickly stolen by disappointment and a firmed frown. “You were meant to be home by eight—we were going to have dinner,”Sinking to a crouch bedside his wife, Vincent began to coax the knotted hair from the woman’s eyes. “I know, Richard had to travel so I had to pick up his slack,” The man spoke bitterly, as though his hatred for the man couldn’t grow further. Yet it had.“‘Travel
Shady Blue Chapter Seventeen IV
Staring at the whites of the ocean she could hardly see through the veil of night, Blue felt father cheated that the wait at the drive-through for dinner had stolen the sunset view Vincent promised so eagerly. Yet, despite that, she did find refuge in the city lights that twinkled from the peninsula’s bend as though peering coyly over New York’s very shoulder. Blinking rapidly with each twinkle. The smoke plume and fiery wick of a distant factory its exhale. And somehow, however slightly, the sight of the moon breaking through the clouds as though it was lone gnocchi surfacing from its murky, boiling water soothed the pretentious aesthete that had roused after Vincent had played David Attenborough instead of Mayday that afternoon. Turning to glance at her husband who sat quietly, his burger little more than a crumpled wrapper in the cupholder between them, she decided that co-existing with someone else wasn’t quite as awful as she had always thought it to
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