Category Archives: meme

Eliza made her way up the winding path,nto the literally white picket fence that led to Sandrine’s house. She always teased her friend about it, because behind the fence literally was the cliché.
Her friendship with Sandrine was not immediate, but it did come after she had been with Rafe for awhile and Sandrine met Marcus who would end up being her husband. At that point, it was possible and they were able to be very good friends.
“Bienvenue,” Sandrine hugged her in the beautiful way that she did, when she opened the door. She walked slowly away in her colorful kimono, two children had done nothing but enhance her curves. The way Marcus leered at her whenever they were in public, showed that he saw his wife as a very gorgeous and desirable woman. Even when Rafe was around her, it was clear that there had been a deep connection.
But Eliza was not that concerned about that, she just really needed to see her friend. Looking at her on the sofa, semi-sprawled looking like she was a model for a Matisse, she noticed how much she looked like Severine. Not exactly the same, but similar and not just because both of them were French. Eliza watched the blooming bud in her teacup turn into a little flower, and took a small sip to savor as the petals tickled her lips.
“So this is what you want now, after all?” Sandrine raised her eyebrow at her friend. “I mean I was even surprised about Oscar when you told me. Not so much about the other woman, I was never sure that Rafe was going to be able to be a one-woman man. When I told you that when we were broken up, it was not to be mean. I knew him, I knew what he was like.
“I think I knew deep down too, but I wanted to believe he could. When we had the accident, we were both so angry at each other. Ever since, every time I try to imagine life without him…I can’t.”
“You love him.”
Nodding into her cup, Eliza agreed silently. She had never stopped loving Rafe, she was not sure she would ever stop loving him. But at the same time, she knew she was not ever going to be able to forget Oscar or let him go. She had been in touch with him constantly since he had left New York. He was in Shanghai again, and that always made her feel wistful since that was where she realized that she loved him.
“So what do you want me to tell you?” Sandrine put her cup of tea down, and searched her face. “More about Rafe and me? How it works with Marcus and I? How can I help?”
“Using my name in vain again sweet wifey?”
Marcus walked into the living room, and Eliza drank her tea like shots.
Sandrine had particularly good taste in men, and her started-out-waiter-cum-actor husband was magnetic. Especially when he looked at Eliza the way he did, with the focus that he gave to everything. Eliza looked away from him, before licking her lips and smiling at him. When he swooped down to kiss her, she was afraid she was going to have an accident on their couch.
But now, now that she was opening up her relationship, was it so terrible that she had always been super attracted to her friend’s husband? Studying the two of them together, Eliza sipped at her empty teacup hoping for some moisture from the cool teabag…

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white picket fence via wikipedia

Eliza stared at her ring. She remembered how she felt putting it on her finger for the first time. It looked alien, but everything it meant, meant everything to her.
Looking at her hand that covered Rafe’s, she never would have expected that… that after she saw him at the hotel with Oscar’s girl that they would ever talk again. That they would have a civilized conversation. That she would touch him again. But the lines of communication opened, and she realized oddly enough that she, they had come full circle.
When she first got together with Rafe, he was in an open relationship. He had agreed to be closed for their relationship, but clearly neither of them really wanted that. She had never expected that she would step outside of the relationship, but she had.
“Sandrine knew about you,” he said quietly, looking up from their hands to search her eyes. “Where I was most wrong, was not telling you what I was doing. That lack of communication was what caused everything I think.”
Eliza continued to look at her hand on top of his. At her ring, all the glints of light catching her eye.
“It was that I resented. I felt like you felt I had to compromise, and be everything you want because I made you be closed with me. I never thought I would want the same thing ever. To be with someone besides you.”
Rafe put his hand on top of hers.
“But I cannot imagine not being married to you Eliza, I cannot see a life before me that you are not part of.”
Eliza looked up at him, her eyes blurry from tears that wanted to fall down her face.
“I imagined you before you were mine,” she sniffled.
He rubbed her hand in pointed circles like he was zooming in on a target. His index finger caressed the diamond engagement ring he placed on her hand, making everything in her life involve him. It joined them without words. Because marriage was in the end only words, if you say the words and you are not committed it is just fraud.
She was never a fraud. If she had agreed to opening their relationship years ago she would have been, but now she was not. She was different, at least in a different place as a woman.
“The only thing is that if we open it up, we have to communicate. Communication is the main thing. That nothing is a secret. Because secrets close things up.” Rafe added as if he were giving a lecture in a hall.
Eliza nodded. Things had been closed around them for a long time. They were going to open everything up. Finally, and she believed they would be better on the other side of it all.
He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed the top of it, her knuckles and her ring.

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attraction ring by harry winston via harrywinston.com

Severine sat on the plane moments before passengers were allowed on. There was a small meeting, as there was a new flight attendant, Barbara. Eleanora, her former nemesis cum co-worker had given her pause to stop thinking about her own life events. Apparently, Eleanora had been conducting an affair with one of the married pilots. Severine had noticed they seemed especially close, but figured it was because Eleanora was an exceptional flirt. But she had sexted him and sent the picture accidentally to his wife–his wife’s mobile was one number different than his. His wife was close with his bosses, and Eleanora was immeadiately terminated.
Severine could not say she was unhappy to see her go, as she got up to walk over to Barbara and start welcoming passengers onboard. As each passenger went by, she was reminded that Oscar was not going to be on the flight. It made her sad. She had not been on an airplane without him since they met.
New York had been everything she expected it to be. Seeing their previous lovers was a good thing, it made them not think heavily about what they were together. They could just be, and not hurt each other. He had dinner with her the night after she had spent the night with Rafe, asked her how she was.
As much as she had tried to resist Rafe, she broke down as soon as she saw him in the bathroom while she was out to dinner with Oscar. She fell apart and even as she broke down, she tried to have a semblance of togetherness.
But it was not there.
The first time they had sex, she tried to be blasé…but the next time when Rafe tugged at her hair and choked her the way she liked, she could no longer resist him. She kissed everything of him her lips could touch. Her lips went everywhere on him, but love she would not declare. She no longer believed in love, everything she knew of it was so easily broken. Love was a myth like unicorns, or maybe it had existed once like dodo birds. But for her it was nonexistent. Sex was another thing, sex was very much alive and well.
Ubiquitous.
When every passenger was accounted for, she closed the door of the aircraft bound for Paris. She was very happy to be working the flight, and going home. New York was lovely. Her English was lovelier too, though heavily accented. But Paris was home. There was no place like home, sitting in her favorite café and lingering forever over a coffee.
Though she knew that if she closed her eyes, she would remember Oscar sitting beside her…or if she looked down in her cup, a tear might escape for Rafe.

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photo by f dot leonora

Silence was what she wanted. Polly looked out of the car window, she did not want to talk to Oscar.
Probably she had already said too much.
When Oscar told her that she was mean to him, she was afraid that he would connect two and two quickly. They had both started working at the same time, and she thought he was beautiful. But she was determined not to get involved in the messy business of seeing a co-worker. It was perfect because neither did Oscar, which she had to admit she liked. She had no idea who he was involved with, and there were no messy rumors about him.
She was married to her job for the most part, having amassed enough to start buying the art that she normally sold. It made her very happy. The De Lempicka on her lap was actually something she could afford, but now her eyes were on something else that she was saving toward. The photographer that had taken the photograph of Oscar in the morning’s newspaper was an up and coming her eyes were on as well. She had captured a side of him she had never seen, she never got close to him.
She remained silent, turned away from Oscar to avoid any more slips. When she did turn for a second, she saw he looked out of the window as well. Traffic prevented them from really having any view, Polly feigned sleep so that she would not have to talk to him. She closed her eyes, thought about her upcomong trip to Shanghai where she and Oscar would be going soon again. They had been in so many countries together since they had started working together. So many things, that if they were friendly it would have been nice to share. But they were not anything.
Her last trip to Shanghai was followed by returning to her penthouse, and the man she was seeing telling her her job took up too much of her time. He needed to be with someone who would have more time for him.
It pissed her off that in the twenty-first century, she would have a breakup over something like that. Women did not even need men anymore, the problem was she wanted one. She loved the feeling of a man touching her, being close to her. The hardness of his body versus the softness of hers, the feeling of being full and conquered when he was inside her.
Her thoughts drifted to the last time a man made her feel like that. The next thing she knew the scent of roses was replaced by clean linen, she started roughly. She half covered Oscar, her hair in her mouth damp from drool. She was almost hysterical as she pushed at his hard chest.
“I’m sorry!”
The silence was broken. He smiled, as he shrugged. Polly stared at him, as he looked out of the window again. She realized that this self-inflicted war she was having was trite. There was no reason why she was this way with him, when he really was never any particular way with her.
“You fell asleep but you had a death grip on the De Lempicka. I was never afraid that you would drop it!”
“This De Lempicka, I could buy if I wanted. But, well, I am not going to. This is a small one, but still lovely.”
“You know I really meant it Polly that you are amazing at what you do. I was wrong to insinuate anything else…”
Polly wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth. She was less embarassed about it than she would have been, since he was so blase about it. She saw the moisture in his suit, trailing where she had been lying against him.
“My entire life has been very competitive. But after you drool on someone, you kind of lose your edge, don’t you?”
Polly laughed at her own joke, and Oscar laughed too.
Polly held the De Lempicka and her principles tightly. She could be friendly with Oscar, male and female colleagues could be cordial.
When they arrived at their destination, Polly walked out of the car in her impossibly high stilettos. She herself was a little less impossible to access as she followed Oscar.

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detail of a tamara de lempicka by f dot leonora

Rafe settled across from Eliza, it was the first time in a really long time that he felt like they were together.
It was certainly the first time they had gone out in a long time since the accident.
He gazed at her hand wearing the ring he was always proud he had chosen without her. His tastes were far grander than hers. It was not obnoxious of him to say he was the architect of the woman before him, of the woman he was going to marry.
Eliza was more bohemian, and honestly seemed more like someone his sister would date. She recently confessed that she sometimes felt confined by the role of wife to be, so he tried to be more open.
He ran his hand through her hair, absently twisted a strand over and over again as he looked at the hair of the woman at the next table. Her hair was like Severine’s. Severine could be in New York, but she normally told him when she was coming to the city. Or when she was coming underneath him.
His heart still raced when he thought about her. The look on her face when he last saw her on Skype, let him know that he should leave her alone. She was in love with him, and he was not sure what he would be if he continued to contact her.
Eliza looked beautiful in the candlelight, in the dress he had bought her when he was away years ago. The color went well with her hair and eyes. He looked at her hands, and then up at the choker about her neck. There was no doubt that he loved her.
But he could not stop looking at the woman at the other table, her lovely form from behind leaning toward the man she was with. It was wrong, but if it was Severine, he wanted to hurt that man. The rage he felt that the man was sitting with her was irrational, but he felt it.
He felt a lot of things.
Severine, or her look-alike would not turn around for the love of God and he had to be careful with Eliza. She would know if his attention was divided. He reengaged with her, and then he paused. Pretended he was looking for the waiter.
It was Severine, not a look-alike. She noticed him instantly. The look on her face was wildly animalistic. Her walk to the bathroom was steady and self-assured to anyone who was looking, but Rafe knew she was not. He excused himself to go to the bathroom.
The path she took brimmed with her scent of tuberose. The bathroom was was dim, but the frosted glass door revealed which stall she had walked into in the unisex bathroom. Rafe put out his hand to prevent her from closing the door. Severine leaned against the wall, her foot on the toilet seat because there was barely enough room in the stall for the two of them.
“Severine,”
“S’il te plait…” she said, her French rampant when she was vulnerable.
“I knew it was you even from behind.” He cornered her.
“I’m with someone.” She pasted herself to the wall.
“I’m with Eliza,” he said, caressing her face and touching the long dark hair that he had been eyeing with memories. He brought a fistful of it to his nose to take in the scent. “I just wanted to say hi.”
“Touch me.”
Rafe wanted to touch her with every fiber of his being, but he could not have her scent on him. She hitched up her skirt. Closed her eyes,
“I hate myself for wanting you to touch me, but please…please.”
He caressed her face, the smoothness of her cheek, her full red mouth…he needed to touch her other mouth.
She was wet like she always was when he touched her. He caressed just her satiny labia, she almost slipped she was at such a precarious angle.
“Where are you staying?”
Severine dug deep in her clutch, and pulled out a card from the hotel where she was staying.

Eliza gasped.
When she looked up in the mirror and saw Oscar, she gasped.
When Rafe returned, she weakly excused herself to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom mirror, Oscar was behind her.
She was glad it was a unisex bathroom.
“You’re beautiful.”
He’d told her that when she was in the hospital, now when he was telling her it might have been true to him.
“Oscar.”
She wrapped her arms about him, her desire like fire ignited on the side of a matchbox. Restraining herself, she moved back from him.
“I am so happy to see you. I could not wait for tomorrow, but now is like bonus time.”
Oscar smiled at her.
“Yes.”
“Is that the woman you have been seeing in Paris?”
He nodded.
“She’s beautiful.”
“So are you.”
Eliza held the bathroom sink for support.
“I have to go, but tomorrow?” he questioned her.
She swallowed hard and gasped.
“Yes, have no doubt.”
They hovered over each other, the fire ignited again, then sputtered when he kissed her cheek.
Left her for now.
When she saw her face in the mirror, she was filled with doubts.
Her walk back to Rafe was unsteady, but his smile comforted her. Calmed her for the moment. Her emotions were as crooked as the books stacked by the fireplace in the restaurant beside Rafe.

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photo by f dot leonora