LITMIR.BIZ

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exactly what I meant. It wasn’t a ploy to get her to come here and have her take off her clothes.”

      “Yet you drew me,” Lucy gulped, “nude.”

      Desmond’s answer was to give her a too-lingering look from the top of her messy hair down to the tips of her sneakers. In between, he stared in her eyes, licked his lips as he looked at her mouth. He gaze was caressing as they lingered on her broad shoulders before continuing the rest of the way down. His gaze was almost like a physical touch, so close and intimate that she could almost feel it. Sudden;y she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

      “Let me paint you, Lucy,” he asked, his voice husky.

      “Alright. Enough. Look, Mister, I don’t care that you’re sort of connected to Arabella but you don’t ever come up to women you don’t know and asking to paint them! And now you have a nude drawing of her” Mariet shook her head. This time, her motions were frantic as she threw the rest of their supplies into the bag before grabbing Lucy by the wrist. “No need to pay us. But we can tell you for sure that this is the last time we’ll be here.”

      They let themselves out. As Lucy took a deep breath of the dry, summer air, the door suddenly flung open. Mariet shrieked and Lucy quickly threw an arm out to protect her. But Desmond moved no further from the door. His eyes searched her face.

      “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What did you mean when you said you know what you look like?”

      Lucy was so distraught over what happened that though she hated to lie, she went along with Mariet’s suggestion that she lie about getting sick so Adrian could immediately send a replacement. She hated to lose a day’s wages when she wasn’t physically ill but she had just about had her fill of men thinking they could take advantage simply because she was ugly.

      So she went home, barely paying attention and moving by rote and body memory. By the time she arrived at her apartment, she felt sticky and dirty from the day’s events and the city grime. She locked herself in the shower, shrugged off her clothes and cried. The water was barely warm and it mingled with her hot ears as they both ran down the shower drain. She tried to wash away everything she was feeling but that was not how feelings worked so she cried.

      And cried. Hard, heart-wrenching sobs. Sobs that wracked her entire body and left her hiccupping and breathless.

      Abuse was nothing new to Lucy. Her looks had made her a target for bullying from the first day of school. Children stuck gum in her hair, stuck their feet out so she would trip, or straight up called her an ugly freak to her face. The onset of puberty only worsened things. In less than two years, she shot up to nearly seven inches in height, towering the rest of her class and nearly the entire student body of the local high school at six feet tall when she was only fourteen. She stood six-foot-three come graduation, and this had been her height ever since. It was never easy being different in some way but being different in all the was that Lucy was, was agony, especially as a child and teen.

      Lucy’s solace was music. In the marching band, she really wasn’t ridiculed but the kids there kept to themselves. If there was a clique, she wasn’t part of it. Being part of it should have given her some protection from bullying but as with everything, just made things worse. She was the happiest when high school finally came to an end. But that only lasted a short while. She should have seen it coming. Life wasn’t going to let her escape that easily.

      Abram’s death had not only made her orphan. He took with him any semblance of security and safety Lucy had. Her father was a quiet man who kept to himself but his presence was a reassurance. She knew that no matter how mean kids got, at the end of school there was hot chocolate waiting for her, and her father waiting for when she would play the cello for him. He didn’t encourage her to play but when she discovered her Mom’s old cello when she was eight, she had been eager to share something that had been a part of a person she never knew. Abram never stopped her. He let her do as she wanted and was just there for her. It was the most love that Lucy had ever felt in her life and losing it was almost more painful than she could bear.

      Since his death, her world had been on a tailspin. The problem of money would never go away. After settling the hospital bills and outstanding debts and losing the house over missed mortgage, there was hardly anything left. It was just enough for the apartment she bought and several thousand dollars to keep her from starving for another six months. Lucy had been working like a dog ever since.

      Despite wanting to concentrate only on work, part of her still longed for companionship. Friendship. She was so used to being alone that she didn’t really have a good judge of character. One of her first jobs was a waitress in a diner. One of the chefs there, Lawrence Brown, had been friendly and she went to the movies with him. He was shorter and more plain-looking than handsome. He kissed sloppily and groped her breasts in the cinema but he didn’t call her a freak. Or any of the mean names she was used to. She thought she could care for the man.

      All that ended when Julie, one of the quieter waitresses, alerted her to a pool Lawrence had with the other chefs. Lucy had told him she was a virgin so she wasn’t ready. Never did she think that he would pretend to like her just so he could win the bet. Lucy quit, but not before confronting Lawrence in the kitchen and giving him a black eye. On her way out, one of the waitresses sneered, “What the hell’s her problem? Ugly broad like that should at least be grateful someone wants to fuck her.”

      Since then, she looked for jobs where there was minimal interaction with other employees, where she could pass unnoticed, ideally. But working at the docks just about killed her and left her too exhausted to practice the cello. Cleaning houses and garages, mowing lawns, paid but not a lot. To be a babysitter these days required all these certificates-money that she’d rather spend on something more sure. She had only a high school degree and a year of college in a music school. There was little to offer employers but she wasn’t completely zero either. She used her friendship with the Lowells to get her first cello teaching job. Other jobs followed soon after.

      Teaching music was seasonal, and cleaning for Clean Co. was only great during the summer. When she was lucky, there were summers she got work as a camp counselor so she was able to lease her tiny apartment for the season or at least rent it out. She had to be creative, to be greedy about work and really put herself out there but four years later, she not only had another shot at school, she could pay for it.

      But Royce Reid. And Desmond Gorman

      Lucy rinsed her body and toweled herself dry. In front of the mirror, she stared at her swollen eyes and tear-stained face. She knew she was ugly. But no matter how much she fought that it didn’t give people the right to abuse her, she was getting tired. She splashed cold water on her face to lessen the swelling of her eyes then threw on a ratty tank top and shorts. She took her cello and sat down, cradling the instrument gently on her thighs, bow positioned firmly yet in a relaxed way. With a deep breath, she started playing the Double Time Concerto.

      She lost herself in the soothing strains of the music. The cello was always a source of comfort and strength, promising that no matter how bad things got, everything will always be okay. As she played, she remembered a story of the composition’s probable origins. Double Time Concerto was a popular classical piece but also one of the most difficult. She picked it as her audition piece because she loved the story behind it, and the rigor demanded to play it well her second reason.

      She was still playing long after the sun had sunk down. She had gone through several versions of the piece, just for funsies. Now she collapsed on her chair, spine sinking deep while she hugged the cello to her chest. Her legs fell open.

      Lucy had no idea how long she sat like this, the cello held gently against her chest, half-sprawled in a chair. She would be content to pass the night here if not for the doorbell suddenly ringing. She frowned, turning her head slowly to stare at the source of the sound before getting up.

      “Did you forget the keys?” She asked, shuffling barefoot towards the door. Mariet should have been home earlier. It made Lucy feel guilty that her friend was probably coming home late to do her work. She should have at least made something nice as a gesture of thanks to Mariet.

      “Say,

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