Forever

This story tells the tale of a girl battling between society's expectation that she should settle down, get a stable job and husband, and her desire to travel and be independent.

Stella slept naked, her wild red curls hanging over her collar bones, lifting and falling gently with each breath, her feet moving in gentle heel-toe patterns trying to escape the bottom of the duvet.  She lived alone, and had no one to worry about seeing her.  That’s the way she liked it.  The house was hers and she walked its lengths barefoot not even slipping on shoes to smoke her first cigarette of the morning.  The soles of her feet were permanently dyed a subtle grass green.

On September 1^st, the rain dimmed the whole room to a dull grey, its clouds casting huge shadows over all of Hayle.  Stella woke up smiling.  The duvet rustled gently as she rocked her hips to the song she had heard a thousand times before, blasting out of her Bush radio. And I’ll be yours forever… She hated it, but the knowledge that this was the last time she’d ever have to listen to it was enough to make her dance.

She had just one day to get through, which in the grand scheme of things was nothing, but she knew that it would be the longest day imaginable.  Ashborne and Sons Insurance, how may I help you?  She slipped into her most appropriate dress.  Something lady-like, full circle, halter neck.  She straightened the seams of her stockings.  She knew they’d throw her a party for her last day.  Please hold.  They were possibly the most predictable group of people she had ever met.  She could already see their exaggerated bottom lips protruding as they toddler talked ‘We’re going to miss you so much!’

At work she tapped her pen against the desk in time with the second hand’s tick.  On the phone she sold six lots of house insurance and two lots of life insurance, even managing to push their ‘pay for twenty years and insure yourself for your whole life’ deal, to a middle aged man from Redruth.  She hated pushing deals on the phone, but she knew she was good at it.  I know it seems a lot of money Sir, but you can pay it in manageable chunks, plus we offer a very reasonable interest rate.  It disgusted her that she was so good at sounding like she gave a f**k.  Just twenty short year’s payment to put worries aside for forever.  She thought about what it would be like to think that far ahead, to your last day.  Further.  It made her think of her mother’s gravestone.  She remembered going to visit it for the first time with Jeremy, a man she had called her boyfriend for nearly two years.  A loving and dedicated daughter, mother and wife her whole life.  Will be missed forever.  Jeremy pulled her in so close to him, his fingers fitting in the spaces between her ribs, whilst she sobbed into her own hands, ‘I know darling, it’s a beautiful epitaph’.  She thought it was ugly.  The ugliest thing she had ever seen.  That night they had sex for the last time and in the silence that followed, tucked neatly beneath his newly ironed sheets, she broke his heart.  Forever was something beautiful to him and that scared her.  She waited for him to fall asleep and took flight.             

At the end of the day she found an old cardboard box in a storage cupboard and started to pack away her things.  She didn’t have a lot on her desk.  Mostly pens, folders, half empty notepads.  There were a few things that people might consider sentimental.  A postcard from Alice, an old friend from grammar school who had hopped on an airplane to Australia the day she turned eighteen, much to her family’s disapproval.  The corsage Billy Pond had given her when he came to pick her up for their spring formal.  It still made her feel strangely proud to think of her mother’s smug smile, snapping pictures in the back yard.  Little did she know that they’d skip the ball and head down to Sandy Acres to drink rum and skinny-dip.  Looking around the office she realised that the things she considered sentimental were very different to the treasures other people kept on their desks.  She had no pictures of children or boyfriends and husbands like the others.  She hated the way their photo frames lined the edges of their desks like walls, trapping between them the girls and their typewriters.  She threw the box into the boot of her Corvette, alongside her rucksack and headed to the Penventon hotel where she had been invited for ‘a farewell drink’ with a couple of the girls.      

                              ***

The party was dull.  She planted herself in one place and let people visit her.  She sat at the bar, her back straight trying to look engaged.  She’d occasionally tap her foot or nod her head to the sound of the music.  She reminded herself of her mother at the family dinner table, her father telling some hour long story about his day, interrupted only by his own commands and requests.  Nod.  Back straight.  Nod.  Yes sir.  No sir.  Her boss was the first one to visit her.  Same black suit trousers, same pinstripe shirt, his tie loosened slightly.  ‘I’ll be sorry to see you leave Stella.  Thought we might have the pleasure of keeping you forever.’  He half laughed.  Nobody was sure if he was joking.  Forever.  Her whole life.  Stella took a large gulp of her wine, emptying the glass.  Her boss gave her shoulder a tight squeeze and wandered off to a group gathering near the dance floor.   

She met a lot of new people, which was a strange experience considering she’d probably never see them again.  It relieved some of the pressure though.  The pressure of having to make a good first impression, or to learn names, or to really look like she cared that much.  She met Lucy’s husband Dick, or David or something, a tall man with a nervous twitch who spoke to her cleavage.  She met Barbara’s lover, Jack, a man she had been seeing for nearly a year now.  Stella noticed the wedding band cutting into his finger.  She wondered if Barbara thought that that made it exciting, an adventure.  She wondered if Barbara thought anything at all sometimes.  Then she met Rose’s son Kit.  Rose was one of the older girls in the office, an Irish lady with freckled cheeks that bloomed poppy red as she introduced her son.  ‘It’s nice to finally meet you’ Stella said.  ‘I’ve heard so much.’  

‘Well?’ Rose said, blushing more, ‘Aren’t you going to buy the lady a drink?’

‘She already has one, wouldn’t want to get her drunk now would we?’  He smirked at his mother’s burning cheeks.

‘I’m so sorry, he can be so rude sometimes’.  There was a silence that Stella thought she was probably supposed to fill.  She didn’t.  ‘Right, excuse me whilst I powder my nose’ Rose mumbled before dashing off to the little girls’ room.   

Kit stayed after his mother left, which surprised Stella.  He sat on a bar stool, ordered a whisky and rested his chin on his cupped hand.  She sipped her drink whilst trying to think of things to say, ways normal people start conversations, fill silences.  ‘So, your mother says you work in marketing.  I hear you’re doing quite well for yourself.’  He swirled his glass, the brown liquid storming the sides like sepia waves. ‘Yeah, but I’m gonna pack it in soon.’  She looked out across the room, watched Michael, head of security, doing a rather sloppy impression of Elvis Pressley.  He broke into explosive snorts of laughter.  She rolled her eyes, sipped her drink.  ‘Oh yeah? Why’s that?’  She didn’t care.  ‘Well, it’s just’, he kind of sighed into his whisky like he’d tried to explain this dozens of times to rooms of blank faces, ‘it’s just, I become my boss’s boss, then I become my manager’s manager, then another boss’s boss, another manager’s manager and…’his words fell into another gentle sigh, he looked at her, almost pleading with her, ‘when does it end? Where does it end?’  She thought of how everything she owned was packed into a rucksack in the boot of her car and smiled.  She thought of asking him what he was planning to do when he quit his job but somehow thought hearing ‘music’ or ‘poetry’ put into words would ruin it.  She liked the feeling of leaving it hanging in the air.  Instead they sat there, tapping their feet together.  When her glass was empty, he filled it, slid it across the bar to her, asked her why she was leaving.  She told him she wanted to see the world, cut loose and do what people always say they’ll do and never ‘get around to’.  He said he liked her.  She was different.  Off beat.  Stella scoffed.  ‘My mother used to call me a freak.  I guess that’s the same thing.’  He didn’t laugh like she had hoped, instead he just looked sad.  On the dance floor they watched people pair up as slow piano chords chimed through the room.  Stella rolled her eyes.  I’ll love you forever, we’ll be here together…  People rocked like lame animals.  Stella looked to Kit, praying he wouldn’t ask her to dance to this stupid song.  A vibratory groan rolled off of his tongue.  ‘I hate this song.’ 

That was it.  Without even thinking Stella threw herself forward, pressed her lips to his, wrapped her tongue around a moan trying to escape his mouth.     

They made their escape through the little door on the opposite side of the room to the grand double doors that most people were using.  It creaked like bed springs.  They booked up a room at reception.  They were working against the clock both knowing that at any minute someone would leave the party and ask what they were doing.  The receptionist smiled like she’d seen this before.  Enjoy your stay. 

Upstairs she slipped out of her heels as he kissed her neck and the carpet beneath her feet felt like sand.  She curled her toes and undid his shirt.

She was drunk and the bed was a boat swaying through the room, him rocking rhythmically above her.  The music from downstairs resonated through the ceiling and found a place in her chest, beating in the offbeat of her breaths.  She freed herself of her dress, stretched her arms out like wings across the bed.  She could feel the feathers of the pillow throbbing beneath her shoulders.  He kissed her neck, the weight of his body pressing against her chest. 

She couldn’t breathe.  He held her hard by the wrists.  She stretched out her fingers but he pushed them into the pillow.  The feathers spiked and stabbed into her skin.  His face twisted and distorted above her.  She suddenly felt as though she could burst into tears.  He lay next to her.  He slept. 

She’d remember his name tomorrow.  She’d remember his name as she missed her flight, as her womb stretched and pulled away from her, as she built walls of photo frames around her desk.  She’d remember his name forever.  Forever.  Her whole life. 

Author's Note

I'm going to use this for my coursework assignment and any criticism would be appreciated