writing_shadows

There was a splintering sound from the back bedroom. Venice suspected that meant that Gehenna had some kind of unresolved moral tension to work through. She had no idea what it might be, and decided she wouldn't ask. It would either have something to do with magic, or a woman. The latter was none of her business and the former would not become her business if she had to put Gehenna into a chemically induced coma to ensure it.

Another crash reverberated through the house, and a long, eerie echoing scream. It seemed, Venice pondered, almost a waste that all that destructive energy was being put into Aunt Theresa's Laura Ashley furnishings. She was sure they had done nothing to deserve that much emotion. She dabbed at the ceiling with the paintbrush in her hand and considered going through to check up on the situation.

Above Venice, the ceiling was beginning to look like the roof of some kind of ornate Victorian glasshouse. Painted tendrils of ivy wound their way through painted wrought iron. Behind it all, you could see the sky. It was, Venice thought, really quite good. She was undecided if she'd keep it - murals seemed somewhat nouveau riche, somehow - but it was good.

And soon this house would look...right. Which wasn't to say that Venice liked this place - the rural nature unnerved her - but at least she could make it look beautiful. Beauty, to Venice, was important. Everyone had always told her that beauty wasn't real; was just an illusion. Venice had never been convinced by that. Beauty, to her, was more real than anything else. Beauty couldn't lie. Beauty couldn't be motivated by selfishness or greed. Beauty just was. Something either was lovely to look at or it wasn't.

All the things that half the world claimed to value, on the other hand - kindness, generosity, affection, righteousness - could always turn to rot in an instant. Plus, people lied about these things.

Beauty didn't have to lie.

That thought stayed with Venice later that evening, when Gehenna had calmed down and she had cooked dinner, which she’d fallen into the habit of doing, despite continuing to maintain she had no idea what the inside of the kitchen looked like. She'd made borsht - Gehenna had thankfully not commented - and afterwards they had drunk ice cold vodka. She'd told an outrageous story about the ghastly behaviour of the stallion in the back field (who she actually suspected was trying to murder her) and Gehenna had listened with dark eyed solemnity.

Afterwards, unusually, they hadn't gone to bed. Instead, they had listened to music, tangled up on the sofa. They had drunk some more and talked nonsense and Venice wondered how they had come to this.

She didn't pretend to be in love with Gehenna. In his arms, she never felt as if she was losing herself. When she woke in the morning, she was satisfied to have her bed to herself and she looked at the certainty of a future without him with calm equilibrium. He did not, she knew, love her, which is to say he did not love her in the way Venice would understand love. Perhaps, if she was acknowledging any truth in the ghastly faith of the escaped fairy love slave, it was because he belonged to Spring and she belonged to the South. Spring spread its desire around, and found a little bit of love for everything. South saw no redeeming features in the word 'little'.

Still, for all that, she felt an odd warmth in Gehenna's arms. Being around him, she thought, felt rather like standing on solid rock, or earth. Or perhaps it was like holding a candle, and looking into the flame.

It would not, of course, last forever. Venice was quite aware of that. She didn't need Gehenna quite enough, and he liked to be needed. More than that, she was too sharp, too stained, too close to the strange intangible crossing point at which women stopped being stained doves to be rescued and simply became bad people Gehenna would wish to avoid. In turn, she thought, she did not think she could give away that odd essential part of herself that she had given to Rex. She suspected Rex had never given it back, which was, she thought, remarkably greedy of him.

And so, in that respect, this oddly comfortable evening - of food, affection and shared home improvement - was far less real than the sunset outside, or the perfect line of the meadow as it ran down to the edges of the lake where the horses went to drink. This space - this warmth in each other's arms - was what was only skin deep, and barely that at times. But still, it felt good, in that moment, and maybe that would be enough, right now.

So Venice lifted her head to kiss Gehenna, and shivered a little with delight at how rough he was when he twisted her hair around his hand. She could still count the bruises from the night before, and they ached delightfully when he pushed her up against the bannister, en route to the bedroom. His moral dilemmas seemed to vanish inside her, and afterwards she felt that same strange trickle of warmth and comfort running through her as they lay.

All an illusion, of course, she thought, and smiled a sleepy smile. Not everything, of course, could be quite as real as pure aesthetics.