Violet Ch. 01

"Mamá, esto es—"

"Ariana, entrar en la casa."

"Mamá—"

"Ahora!"

Violet was visibly trembling as she rose to her feet. Ariana swept past them, dutifully heading into the kitchen, and Valentina slid the glass door shut behind her. The internal war between her instincts played out over Valentina's features and posture. Her body language, constantly shifting. Violet took a step closer to her, and her mother braced herself. She was taller than Violet flat footed, and her four-inch heels widened the gap. "Vi—"

Violet's right hand swept across, connecting solidly with an open palm. Her mother's head spun with the blow, and she drew herself up to her full height as she turned back. Her tongue probed the inside of her cheek. Stray hairs clung to the tip of her nose

"Ten miles." Her voice was a haggard ghost of itself. Valentina opened her mouth to respond, but Violet rushed over her. "Ten miles!This whole time, you were ten miles away?" Her whole body was shaking. Through the glass, Ariana's eyes pleaded with her, begged her, but the panic had completely taken over. Violet turned and staggered away from them, toward the side of the house.

"Violet!" her mother called, as Violet hit the grass. "Violet!"

The car door bounced loudly off the seat belt buckle, and Violet shouted furiously as she grabbed it and yanked it shut again. Her Saab groaned as she slammed it into reverse, and the aging hatchback screamed backwards out of the driveway. Distantly, she could feel the car shuddering as it ground against a parked car, its bumper and corner panel digging into her passenger side. The shuddering got worse as she slammed on the gas, powering through the ridiculous collision. Something metal bounced off the asphalt, but she couldn't tell whose car it was from. She didn't care whose car it was from.

The road was blurry as she exploded down the street. There was no air. She rolled down the window, but it didn't help. She swerved into a convenience store parking lot and practically fell out onto the asphalt on her hands and knees. A few customers peered at her sideways, torn between wanting to come over and their everyday apathy. The heaving was the worst of it. There was nothing to bring up but bile. Lots and lots of bile.

After some time, she crawled back into her car and drove away aimlessly. She could barely see the road, functioning on peripheral vision and muscle memory to get around turns. All she could see was her mother. She'd never wanted to hit someone so badly. Never wanted so much to unload. She'd spent her life pushing down that anger and frustration, and now it was exploding out of her. It's pulsed in her ears, and floated in her eyes. She could taste it on the back of her tongue. She swung into the parking lot of the kosher market across the street, not fully sure when it happened that she was heading back that way but ready for it nevertheless. Dusk had since settled as she stalked toward the third house on the left. Ariana's Corolla still sat in the driveway, although a different car was parked behind it now.

She wanted to be stamping her feet, but all the rage was in her head. On her lips, and not on the hand that opened the door. The living room had a different vibe, with all the lights on and the curtains drawn. The stereo played in the corner, flooding the seemingly empty house with a symphony. Violet walked through the kitchen, but there was no one on the porch either. She stared down at her hand in disgust as she shut the sliding porch door.This isher door, she thought.This isher house. The strings swept into the piece, joining a diving horn section and building toward a crescendo, and just above that, Violet heard a sharp yelp upstairs.

She had a moment as her foot landed on the first step toward the upstairs; it was the first moment where the anxiety even registered, but it grew a little with each step. She was in someone else's house. She was going, uninvited, up to the second floor. That was personal space. Ordinarily, that would be where Violet would turn around and leave.

Her fury vastly outweighed the anxiety.

She had a moment as her foot landed on the fourth step. Another yelp. Ariana's voice. The sixth step. Her sister was whimpering. The eighth step, and Violet's eyes rose above the level of the carpeted floor. Straight ahead, down a short hallway, the master bedroom. Another whimper. Louder. Her head tilted to the side, trying to resolve the partially-obscured tangle of flesh on the bed.

"Por favor!"

"No." The response came firm and strong. A black mass became the back of her mother's head, buried against her sister's neck. Ariana was on her back with her legs hovering in the air. Her feet and toes, pointed. Valentina's two middle fingers were buried inside her daughter's pussy, and the undulation of her forearm spoke volumes. Violet's eyes froze watching the muscles twist in her mother's arm.

Ariana's back arched up off the bed, and her toes clenched tightly. "Por favor, Mamá!"

"No!" Her mother's face was hard, severe, as she gazed down at her daughter's full breast. Ariana cried again, her teeth revealed by lips drawn back tightly. A pitiful whine.

The seventh step. "Sí, sí por favor!" The sixth. "Necesito ventirse!"

The third. "Escúchame, Ariana! Usted solamente ventirse cuando yo la diga!"

Back across the street.

Her purse jostled as she tossed it down on her bed some time later. The blue light on her phone blinked insistently, but all she could do was stare at it in horror.

***

"You ok?"

It was the only line of the only email Ariana sent. Violet didn't respond. She had no idea where to begin.

***

The last two weeks of the semester were torturous. Every time Violet rounded a corner, she expected her there. Every door opening was sure to reveal Ariana on the other side, waiting. Sharp pain in her chest every time she stepped into open space. Thatshe might see Violet before Violet could seeher kept Violet in an almost-continuous cold sweat.She was there somewhere. Lurking.

Every time she was out of her dorm room, it was constant panic. Somehow, though, it was worse when she was just in her dorm room alone. She couldn't focus on anything exceptthat, and every time she did, it was like being suffocated by white noise. She couldn't eat, and barely slept. Her one safe place was lost to her.

Professor Stahl was very accommodating about letting her finish her work remotely while recovering from a 'cold', but she couldn't get out of the final. Ariana was sitting in her usual spot, right next to her own usual seat, eyes wide, as Violet slipped in at the last minute. She looked hurt when Violet sat down in the front. Violet raced through the test as fast as she could, aided by the caffeine pills she'd taken beforehand, but it wasn't fast enough. Ariana turned her blue book in just as Violet was getting ready to start her conclusion, and she knew her sister would be waiting outside.

"Violet," she cried, as Violet exited the room. Violet immediately spun on her heel, heading for a back staircase with grim determination. "Violet,wait!"

"No," Violet growled. The door was too far away.

Ariana's flip flops slipped loudly across the hallway floor behind her. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have sprung that on you. It was a mistake."

Violet stopped hard and spun around, scanning her sister's face.Too innocent. She has no idea what I saw. Her jaw lowered, lips parted. Her lungs stood ready to give voice to the vile anger that had been coursing through her for sixteen days. Catharsis was a breath away.

"I'm sorry," Ariana repeated softly. Violet narrowed her eyes... but her sister's face was so sincere, so honest. Her pain was tremendous, written all over it.

Violet seethed coldly. The words lurked just behind her tongue.I'll show you pain, she thought.I'llexpose you. I'll tell them all.Violet's finger hovered menacingly, quivering, in the air between them. Vitriol oozed from every pore.

"I'll tell you when I'm ready," Violet heard herself say.Why did I saythat?!Inwardly, she erupted in a multifaceted war of self-hatred, guilt, disgust, and desperation.

Ariana nodded quietly, frantic relief washing over her.

"Don't follow me."

Ariana nodded again, more quickly, sobbing as she put her hands together over her mouth.

Violet drifted through the door and down the stairs, looking back over her shoulder every few steps. She couldn't fathom what she'd just done. Her head felt distant, detached from the rest of her body, as she floated across campus, barely noticing anything going on around her as she settled in at her bench. Maybe more 'flopped down onto' than 'settled in at', but Violet was able to take a few breaths. She had ten minutes before her Life Drawing final to clear her head and find some calm. She was going to need the full amount, she thought, judging by the way her hands were shaking.

She pulled out her sketch pad and went through a few breathing exercises she'd learned over the years for stress management. She licked her finger and ran the tip over a sketch she'd done early in the semester, smudging the sharp lines and adding a bit of shading she'd always meant to go back and fix.

Art had always been an escape for her. Equal parts fantasy, imagination, creativity, and safety. Everything was perfect when she was done, everything just the way she wanted it. A place where she had lots of friends. A place where everyone left her alone. In her drawings, Mom had never left, and Dad smiled a lot. In her pictures, she'd gone to the prom. In her world, she was beautiful.

She finally looked up just as the Professor shut the door. The model was already seated on the stool in the middle of the class, facing away from her. Violet let out a long, slow breath as she settled into the moment, and the rest of the classroom fell away. Faded into darkness.

The girl sat demurely, one leg crossed over the other and angled just off center from the direction of her shoulders. One foot was planted on the rung in the middle of the stool while the other hovered in the air. Her brown hair was pulled forward over her shoulder, leaving Violet an unobstructed view of her body from behind. Her curved form would have been of interest to Violet on any day, but this girl was of particular interest to her because of the large tattoo across her back. A sprawling tree in late October, asymmetrically placed and shaped. The roots started just above her right hip, while the trunk grew at a slant leaning toward the left shoulder. Bright red dominated among the leaves, with hints of orange. A pile of leaves was gathered just left of the small of her back with more leaves falling, and still others blown astray by an errant gust. She poured over the details in the bark.

When the model breathed, she could see the tree swaying in the wind.

Violet immediately lost herself in the sketching, as she often did. Retreating to a quiet place where her eyes saw but little else registered. Her fingers were a blur; mindless automatons executing her vision. The model's form required no embellishment, no artistic adjustment. Her hips and waist, beautifully broad. Her bottom well-formed, despite no favors from the meager stool padding. Her toes curled around the rung, betraying the tiniest bit of nervousness. The curve of her calf, extending out beside her, leading smoothly down to a steady foot.

"Ilove what you're doing with negative space," Professor Boylan remarked in her thick accent.

Violet blinked, coming forward into herself unexpectedly. A lot of time had passed; she was nearly done.

The elderly Bohemian ran her finger around the left side of the figure on the pad with a throaty coo, and Violet smiled. "May I interrupt your process with question?"

"Sure."

"This is just model and stool. You do more than this usually."

Violet paused for a beat. "That's not a question."

"Always, I'm telling you to restrain.Restrain yourself, dziecko! No landscape!No table and chairs! No grand piano!"

Violet smirked, remembering the sketch she'd done with a male model laying on his side.

"I had given up trying to teach you this... and now, restraint?"

"I... listened?"

The older woman laughed musically. "I am glad to hear, but I think not for that reason. This space here," she said, pointing to the left side. "This is curious to me. It looks.. intentional."

Violet focused, leaning back slightly.

"If you had more time, you would have put other body here, yes? Someone behind her?"

Violet's eyes popped. She'd done some light shading around the edges of the scene and there was, just as Professor Boylan pointed out, an empty space. She'd left room for a second body. It didn't take much to come to the conclusion of who she'd put there; herself. She could already see it. She would be approaching from behind, from closer to the point of view. Nude. Not just approaching, mid-stride. The edges of her cheek drawn up in the hint of a smile. Something in her hand... a dildo? No, but something. Something to give the movement, and the moment, purpose. Something long and hanging. Like a blindfold, maybe. A length of cloth for an indistinct purpose...yes.

"This is not so rare." The older woman waved a bejeweled hand dismissively. "Others are sometimes more direct when they come across their muse for the first time, but often it is reflected in the work first. In a new level of depth."

Violet nodded, hearing her teacher without listening. Already she was seeing more. She would turn the girls head slightly toward herself, so that she'd be looking back over her shoulder.

"I will approach her for you. Ask if she consider doing more private work with you." The Professor nodded to herself. "This one will say yes, I think."

Violet looked up at her too, thinking this might be just the distraction she needed. Her shape was delicious.

"She is shy. This is not problem for you, no?"

"No, I..." Violet blinked, staring at the models brown hair. Not just brown but chestnut. At the bare foot swaying in open space. Her blood ran cold. "I..."

"Beautiful name, too. Spanish. Ariana," she said, rolling the r and dragging out the n.

"I..." Violet stared at her sketch, seeing the new level of depth her Professor had seen. The attraction was plain and pure. "I'm... I've... I'll."

"She isvery beautiful," Professor Boylan said, with a knowing nod and a hand on Violet's shoulder. "You two will drop jaws."

Oh God, Violet thought.