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The White Room

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Pia

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I’m lying on his bed. On his smooth white sheets. I’m staring at the ceiling, which is painted white, as are the walls and the shutters over the window which cast parallel lines of shadow over the walls and the white-painted floorboards.

I listen to my breathing. There is no other sound in the room. I don’t think that I have ever felt so calm. I remember myself paddling in the sea when I was a child. Sand between my toes and green strands wrapping around my ankles as water drifted over my skin. Maybe it was then. Perhaps it was. By the sea when I was young and when I went with my family on holiday. With my brother and sister. I think maybe that was the time I am thinking of. But that was a long time ago, or perhaps not so very long ago. That depends how time is counted and recalled I suppose.
 
The cool morning air flows around my toes and along my legs and over my body, stroking me. I’m stretching out my arms towards the corners of the bed. Opening my fingers, looking at slenderness of my wrists. I can feel the side of my face on the pillow. My tongue slides from my mouth, stroking my lips as it circles.

I can tell where he was lying, his imprint a reminder of the night we passed together. Or was it her? I close my eyes and she returns, moving slowly and silently beside me. Her red hair and my black on the white cotton as we touch, just touch, and sense the breeze on our breasts.
 
It was two months ago that I met him. Two or maybe three. He was with her and he was looking at me as I stood by the water and I looked back at him and that was how it started. I suppose that I knew all along that I would meet him, ever since that day at the beach.

The glass next to his bed is half-full and although I am thirsty I decide not to drink from it. I part my legs and close them and think of the idea of water on my lips, but it is his water and I decide not to drink from the glass. My eyes close and she is with me again and she dips her fingers into the water and lets the droplets fall into my mouth and I think we kiss. He will return to the room soon I imagine.
 
pkindenhaag said:
It was two months ago that I met him. Two or maybe three. He was with her and he was looking at me as I stood by the water and I looked back at him and that was how it started. I suppose that I knew all along that I would meet him, ever since that day at the beach.

The glass next to his bed is half-full and although I am thirsty I decide not to drink from it. I part my legs and close them and think of the idea of water on my lips, but it is his water and I decide not to drink from the glass. My eyes close and she is with me again and she dips her fingers into the water and lets the droplets fall into my mouth and I think we kiss. He will return to the room soon I imagine.
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No, wait. Let's not leave this room yet. I want to learn more. OK, so I am impatient, but you have my curiosity up and my imagination running. These short story installments are so teasing:p:D
 
I imagine that she is with him now, in the downstairs room with the big windows that open onto the walled garden. I imagine that they are together and that he is lifting the straps of her nightdress from her shoulders and pushing her red hair from her face. I imagine she is lying on the white sofa, perhaps with her lips open as he slides his hands over her. I close my eyes and feel the sea lapping my calves and the sand between my toes and I am touching her as we stand in the water.

I look towards the foot of the bed and the sun sends lines of white and black through the shutters that are closed over the window that overlooks the walled garden below. I look at my ankles and at my wrists and at the marks on my skin and my black hair curls over the white cotton.
 
pkindenhaag said:
I imagine that she is with him now, in the downstairs room with the big windows that open onto the walled garden. I imagine that they are together and that he is lifting the straps of her nightdress from her shoulders and pushing her red hair from her face. I imagine she is lying on the white sofa, perhaps with her lips open as he slides his hands over her. I close my eyes and feel the sea lapping my calves and the sand between my toes and I am touching her as we stand in the water.

I look towards the foot of the bed and the sun sends lines of white and black through the shutters that are closed over the window that overlooks the walled garden below. I look at my ankles and at my wrists and at the marks on my skin and my black hair curls over the white cotton.
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Colors! whites, reds and blacks ... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... so dreamy and breathtaking all at once!
 
Downstairs they are together and his mouth will be touching her and his fingers will be opening her and her head will be falling back and her red hair will drop from the arm of the white sofa to the painted boards of the floor, which are also white. I listen intently for the sound I expect but I hear nothing. The shadows from the shutters move slowly across my body and I think again about the first time I met him and how he looked at me as he stood on the beach with her. I remember thinking that she was beautiful and I knew that if he came to me I would look to the ground and without speaking would agree to what he asked. I think of the night before and the marks that I can see on my wrists and ankles. I think her nightdress and of her red hair and how she stroked me as he spoke softly as I knew he would.

It has been almost three months since I went with him and the girl with red hair that afternoon. I climbed into the car, one of those old ones with white-walled tires and a gear-shift on the steering column and deep leather bench seats that were a faded red. I was wearing a thin sun-dress over my swim-suit and I had my things in a bag with a draw-string that was patterned with butterflies. I remember brushing the sand off my legs with my toes and looking back at my footprints that led from the water across the shore. She sat with me and I recall her touching my hair as we headed from the beach to the long road that winds around the headland. He never asked my name and I never asked him. I don’t think we talked on that drive up to the interstate past the motels and the gas-stations and the rows of cheap shops. I remember that the sun was setting over the ocean as we turned through the gate and pulled-up next to the house. I knew that nothing that I had left behind would matter anymore.

She slept with me the first night in the house. Not in the room I am in now but in a small room with a high window and a rattling airconditioner at the back. She put her finger to her lips and lay next to me and we touched and slept and the next morning when I woke she was gone, but the door was open. The corridor led to the room with the big windows that opened into the walled garden where she was sitting by the pool that was a brilliant blue. She smiled and beckoned to me and I sat next to her on the sun lounger and she passed a glass of orange juice that was so bitter-sweet I knew it had been squeezed freshly. There was a plate of fruit on the table and a coffee jug and some pastries. Her hair was slicked back and damp and her skin shone with droplets of water.

I think it was on the third day that he asked me if I would come with him to the basement room. It was lit by half-windows that had bars over them that opened onto the garden. We were sitting in the room with the big windows when he asked me and I was leafing through a magazine about fashion and movies or something like that. I remember his voice. I remember that she looked up from the book she was reading and smiled.

That night he took me to the upstairs room and laid me onto the bed with the smooth white sheets. He lifted the hair that had matted onto my face and kissed me and then he left and I was alone.
 
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The second time he took me to the basement room was probably a week later. By then the marks had faded and I think they hardly showed when I swam with her in the pool or lay on the lounger under the sun-shade. And then I suppose I went with him every five days or so; sometimes it was a little longer, depending on things. Because sometimes he went away, although that wasn’t the reason, really. I think we were both a little sad when he was away. It brought back memories of the beach and when my...but that’s another thing. We were pleased, I think, when he returned from his trips and he usually brought us something. Perhaps some perfume or maybe a Hermès scarf from one of the boutiques in the city he went to. He never told us where he went and we never asked, because really it didn’t matter at all.

Once, when he was away on one of his trips, we stayed up late into the night, sitting outside in the warm evening air. I asked her why she was here and she told me. I understood, because I knew I was here for the same reasons. That is what we shared in common. I suppose sometimes when he took her to the basement room and I was alone I became a little envious, but it didn’t last long, because he was very fair to us both. I think we knew that he would treat us fairly and so we could be relaxed with each other, and he didn’t mind that. He was happy that we were together when he was away.
 
The parallel lines of shadow from the shutters over the window have moved across his bed and are beginning to climb the white-painted walls. My mouth is dry and I long to take a sip from his glass but I know I cannot. I know he will come soon, but I know he will not come until he is ready and perhaps he will come with her or perhaps he will come alone. I am looking at my wrists and my ankles and my hands and my feet and I think about the basement room. I think about last night and I wonder when he will take me there again.

I’m staring at the ceiling and imagining my back lying on the smooth, warm sand and the water slowly covering my ankles and filling the space between my legs and rising over my body. I raise myself up and look at the water and stand and it comes to my knees now. But I can’t move and I’m staring at the ceiling and my hands and my feet reach out to the corners of the bed and I look at the marks on my wrists and on my ankles and my eyes are closing.
 
"The parallel lines of shadow from the shutters over the window have moved across his bed and are beginning to climb the white-painted walls."

Nice image ... so dynamic and captivating all in one. :)
 
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