PASSING FOR NORMAL

La Pedrera

It was his smell. She had no doubt in her mind.

It was the smell of the man who drew her face and drew her destiny once again. The man who painted the veins of her face with the tip of a brush and painted the life in her body with the tip of his fingers. The man who flushed blood in her skin with a look and a smile. This letter. She knew this letter very well. How ruthless he was. How could she go on living after he touched her? The first time he touched her. The first time her urges did not daunt her and her heart not deter her as she succumbed and let her hair down flaring. She summons the first time he reached for the tip of her dress, how her shoulders shivered and how she let down of her guards. He made her lips tremble as she waited for his breath to pour his soul into hers. She remembered how her lashes curled wet, how her limbs ached as he draped her with his caress. How he wrapped her senseless and ravaged her essence with the flood of his manhood. He was the man who made her pray for life and pray for the day to purge her body. He was her curse, her doom, her fleeting hours, her culled memories and her turmoil. He was once the reason for her rising sun.

A knock on the door. She awaked from her daydreams, reached for her thick velvet robe as if to hide his traces on her body.

- Your mail madam.
- Thank you Frederic
- And Angelica?

She suspected the two were having a little affair. The boy looked very young and she felt Angelique was using him during her sejour a Barcelona. She could see it in his delicate yet startled looks and his diluted faded posture. She had seen them once by the stairwell as she climbed the stairs up to her home carrying flowers. They were both startled by the sight of the mistress and the girl ran to her help carrying the red tulips on her arms. As they went in the door that day, she remembered being revolted by the sight of those flowers in the girl’s arms. The red in her arms was too insolent it was almost mocking her.

- At my aunt’s house
- She left you alone?
- Certainly not. The mister is in him room, resting!

He looked uncertain but then he excused himself and left.

Those stairs where the girl leaned against the wall gazing at him. Where she stood inviting, defying his uncertainty with her explosive womanhood and her explosive laughter. Where she stroked the plaits of his young hair with gleaming confidence. Where she invaded his tucked in unappealing looks with her sure eyes and the fake purity on her cheeks. Why did that girl bother her? Is it because she was everything she could not be? Is it the recklessness of her young age or is it the fact that she didn’t live that bliss? Was she envious of her behavior?

All will be taken care of.

Once she becomes again the mistress of her own destiny.

She could not but hate her mother at that moment. She could almost see her judging looks. She could almost hear the strike of her cane against the floor as she repeated,

“What will become of you now my child? Who will take you in now?”

She imagined telling her about him, explaining to her that she once was worshiped, that she once had a worth and that she is a woman too. The thought of her mother’s horrified face amused her. She would go even further. She would tell her how she hated it all and how when she was in his arms, she forgot about being a mother and she forgot about being the decent wife she should be. She would tell her how she crawled into his bed and how he worked his fingers through her corset with care giving her, with every flip of lace, a new letter to her name.

She suddenly remembered the letters again. That smell. She was now shaking.

There was something else in those letters. She ran to her room again and to the letters again. The ribbon. The pale brown ribbon had seen other hands than hers. Other hands than his.

Could it be? …