by M. Reed

Created on: September 20, 2008   Last Updated: September 22, 2008

PRESSED FROM ROSES

"It was a dream," she murmured. "That's all."

Laura sat on the weathered bench, watched her fingers twist the tattered tassels of her mother's woolen shawl, a wrap she'd chosen mindful of the humid cold. She twirled the faded fabric, recalling short autumn days decades before. "Innocent, really," she added. Then she sighed.

"That's all? A dream?"

"That's all." Laura rose, moved toward him and turned her gaze to the graying sky, wondering if she should go on. "But I'm a slut if I share it."

"So share it," Sam winked.

She glanced his way, amused eyes sparkling, and exhaled, "I dreamt you were, um" She weighed the wisdom of further disclosure, then finally surrendered, "bathing me."

"Good dream," he nodded.

Laura shrugged, turned away and leaned into the wind.

"But how is it slutty?"

"I was on some sort of black rock thing." She gulped the musty air. "Naked as a side of beef for the carving."

"I see."

"We weren't even indoors; we were in a forest, or something. It was humiliating, I think."

"You don't know? If it was humiliating, I mean? You just think it was?"

"No, it wasn't, really. It was so, just, so very practical, I guess. And impersonal. There was this, this drain beneath me." Laura opened her arms wide. "So I didn't even have a tub to sink into. It just seeped away, the water. Such bright red water."

"Red?"

"As if pressed from scarlet rose petals."

Sam frowned, began to speak, then said nothing.

"And there you were, fully clothed, I might add, with a garden hose that had one of those" she clinched her fist. "nozzles you squeeze on and off. She grimaced. "I had this soapy lather all over me. I didn't know if I should feel like a sports car or a dog." Laura's eyes returned to the bronze horizon as she drew a deeper breath.

"Or a slut in need of a scrubbing, I suppose," he chuckled.

"A what?" Laura seemed unamused.

He ignored her.

"A chilly one with goose bumps everywhere," she finally conceded, her gaze returning to distant leaves littering the ashen sky. "But the real truth is that I felt nothing. Nothing."

Sam followed her eyes, feeling the chill deepen as the leaves rode the swirling wind, like a careening flight of exhausted birds spiraling wildly to the ground. The images mingled, then blended to afterthought as he imagined her stippled and glistening skin, strangely white.

"I just didn't care," she erupted. "I guess that's what seems so cheap. I just didn't care. And it wasn't innocent, like I didn't know I should care. I just

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>