Status: Re-uploaded 1/12/2012
Salt
Sink
‘Have you seen the bathroom, yet? You’ll love it.’
Christian came striding in, his face plastered with that permanent grin, and wrapped his arms around her waist. They were always in orbit around each other, like two planets that needed one another’s gravity just for something to hold onto.
Victoria shook her head. She wasn’t one for words, and the realisation that this was their first holiday alone scared her. They were getting older, whether they wanted to or not.
Although she wouldn’t admit it to Christian, she also felt a bit weird without Darcy around. Being without a third person you normally took on trips was a bit like sitting on a two legged stool. You were always on edge.
Rubbish, she thought. This is supposed to be romantic.
The bathroom did indeed turn out to be everything she could have hoped for. Even in the cool, green-tiled room full of brass fittings, she thought she would melt. It was the kind of place she imagined Alice from Wonderland might take baths. The floor, freshly cleaned and polished, was a chessboard, and there were little lion’s feet underneath the bathtub. The shower looked like a tall gentleman’s cane that just happened to spout water incidentally.
Above all, though, it was Victorian. Even the taps were flaking with rust, and some of the wallpaper was peeling in gangrenous shades. This wasn’t tacky. It was charming. To someone as young as she was, true age was a novelty, and these details only served to make the setting a better stage for her persona.
‘I want to take a bath right now!’ she announced, as she often did around her boyfriend without thinking. It was becoming a bad habit.
Christian smirked. Some of Victoria and Darcy’s mannerisms had rubbed off on him, just as some of his cockiness had rubbed off on Victoria, in the way that those things only can between close friends and couples. Victoria supposed that if three people were left alone indefinitely, they would eventually become interchangeable.
But Darcy isn’t here now, she had to remind herself. It’s just us.
Bubbles began to fill the spacious tub, and the white clouds of steam that erupted masked the presence of anything more than a few feet away. They might as well have been in a rainforest, the only two people in a misty world of vines and jewel-bright birds...
just us.
The sound of the water thundering into the bath drove Victoria deaf. The hot, soapy solution would soon diffuse her worries as effectively as an iron smoothing creases from one of her several dozen favourite dresses. The strawberry scent carried the rest of her away on a rising current, while her numbing body clung to Christian’s for support.
They were sinking.
Christian came striding in, his face plastered with that permanent grin, and wrapped his arms around her waist. They were always in orbit around each other, like two planets that needed one another’s gravity just for something to hold onto.
Victoria shook her head. She wasn’t one for words, and the realisation that this was their first holiday alone scared her. They were getting older, whether they wanted to or not.
Although she wouldn’t admit it to Christian, she also felt a bit weird without Darcy around. Being without a third person you normally took on trips was a bit like sitting on a two legged stool. You were always on edge.
Rubbish, she thought. This is supposed to be romantic.
The bathroom did indeed turn out to be everything she could have hoped for. Even in the cool, green-tiled room full of brass fittings, she thought she would melt. It was the kind of place she imagined Alice from Wonderland might take baths. The floor, freshly cleaned and polished, was a chessboard, and there were little lion’s feet underneath the bathtub. The shower looked like a tall gentleman’s cane that just happened to spout water incidentally.
Above all, though, it was Victorian. Even the taps were flaking with rust, and some of the wallpaper was peeling in gangrenous shades. This wasn’t tacky. It was charming. To someone as young as she was, true age was a novelty, and these details only served to make the setting a better stage for her persona.
‘I want to take a bath right now!’ she announced, as she often did around her boyfriend without thinking. It was becoming a bad habit.
Christian smirked. Some of Victoria and Darcy’s mannerisms had rubbed off on him, just as some of his cockiness had rubbed off on Victoria, in the way that those things only can between close friends and couples. Victoria supposed that if three people were left alone indefinitely, they would eventually become interchangeable.
But Darcy isn’t here now, she had to remind herself. It’s just us.
Bubbles began to fill the spacious tub, and the white clouds of steam that erupted masked the presence of anything more than a few feet away. They might as well have been in a rainforest, the only two people in a misty world of vines and jewel-bright birds...
just us.
The sound of the water thundering into the bath drove Victoria deaf. The hot, soapy solution would soon diffuse her worries as effectively as an iron smoothing creases from one of her several dozen favourite dresses. The strawberry scent carried the rest of her away on a rising current, while her numbing body clung to Christian’s for support.
They were sinking.