Her hands move like silkworms over the blouses, slim and pale, creeping, caressing, devouring the jewel tones: heliotrope, aquamarine, sapphire, ruby. Silk blouses for a starving girl-child…

She selects the mulberry: Mother always says garnet’s a richer red than ruby.

Torn and tearing, silk makes a most curious sound, like the thunder of an approaching storm. He doesn’t care for silk, and the shreds he tosses aside. They flutter like broken, bloodied butterflies to the ground; but silk moths are the least of her concerns.

Smiling, fantasizing; but there is much left for her to decide. Another world, same hues: skirts, three-dimensional rainbows, but the only concern for color is what will make her beautiful for him.

Black bolero, she decides, thinking of Spanish swirls and the rose at the end of tango.

Riding up; the skirt’s nothing at all. Can’t he hear her?—She makes sounds, terror and fear.

Riding up; she didn’t even get to dance. He’s not there, that must be why, he’s not there, that’s someone else, he’d never do this to her, he’s always been so kind, so careful, so courtly, he’s not there,  this isn’t him…

Riding up; now bunched around the waist, exposing flailing, paling legs. She screams, and she refuses to understand—

Jewels, the real sort—Mother says so.

A hand moves across a field of stars. Long chains swirl beneath her fingers, stars glitter fiercely for her attention. When she finds Mother’s favorite necklace she slips it on; a garnet glistens at her throat.

He tears at it: she watches it fall, falling stars, flying stars, dying stars—

When they crash, they shatter: broken stars. They glitter cold and colorless.

She joins them soon after.

Face, visage, façade: masquerade! He knows her face, he knows it well—as long as she wears the mask.

Pale it, dust it softly. She glows in the mirror, sweetly so. Look, but do not touch, lest the mask crumbles beneath the fingers.

Rouge. She’ll need none on the cheeks: her flush of mixed excitement and anxiety is inconsistent, but passion-pink.

Lips: painted dark red, in the hope he’ll notice more than the words they speak. It’s the wrong color for a girl-child but all she really wants is a richer shade of ruby for her life, is that so wrong, is that so very wrong to not understand the question you ask?

Lastly, she darkens her eyes: Mother always says men like a little mystery.

Scream. He hates the sound of a girl screaming: his fist comes away from her face with red paint and white dust. She does not silence, still she whimpers like a creature in some hunter’s snare, and so he does it again, and again, and again and again and again and again until—

—silence.

Dark eyes close.

Before departing, she looks into the mirror: all clad in that richer red than ruby, she does not recognize herself.

Satisfied, she steps outside. Above, stars glitter, sweetly, brilliantly. A night for—propositions.

She smiles: he’s waiting in the car.

She is left alone, at the end of it all: she does not move. Fearless, expressionless eyes gaze upwards at a fiercely, coldly starry sky as blood a richer red than ruby eases from her lips.

i:

This is… a conglomeration, of sorts, of a lot of things. Some pieces are drawn from experience, some are drawn from feelings; some from fantasy, some from fears. But I’d rather not get into the more personal aspects here. :P Anyway, the idea I wanted to get across is something of the naïve, young female who doesn’t understand what she’s doing in a world of sexuality, and for that gets taken advantage of. I don’t generally write about sexuality, and this was at times awkward to edit since I don’t know how write about sex etc. really. Someone remarked once that I should go read erotica to figure out how to write sex, or at least some of Anne Rice's racier works, but I’m not too keen on that prospect since that’s a completely different intent there, I’m not trying to get people off I’m trying to get an idea across. And, imagine what the parents would do if they caught me. :P The other suggestion was to get myself laid, but I’m really not keen on that. Hoping for concrit from you all, especially in regards to the consistency of the characterization of the female, and the punch of the story. I want something that turns the stomach, you know? And the opening. The opening bothers me and I'm not sure why. Using for 100_original, ‘red’, table. Word count 565.