-1.
Ashley P. Parks, a petite girl with hardly any length to her legs, stirred gently from her light sleep. She had come to the conclusion, before even looking at the lime-green dial of her electric alarm clock, that it was morning and she had better get up for a days work. Work, she laughed in self loathing; as if anyone in their right mind is going to purchase any of my shit. She, of course, was referring to a pair of almost identical portraits she had recently immersed herself in. Both of the canvases depicted a woman whom seemed in pain; the canvas to the right had been sketched using charcoals while the other, to the left, had been abstractly pieced together using an unusual array of surreal hued inks. Ashley, however, hated both of the pictures and saw them as being boring and unoriginal; much alike the opinions she possessed against all of her works.
Ashley had, for some reason, the look one would expect of an artist and possessed a sense individuality and natural beauty about her. It was in the way that her hair fell naturally as soon as she got out of bed, it was in the way she walked because her old shoes rubbed against the backs of her feet, and it was in the way she spoke with a fake American accent, when in actual fact she had been born in Nottinghamshire in England. It was in the small things, the things people often dismissed as being average, which made Ashley P. Parks the beautiful woman she was.
The artist had long brown hair, so long, in fact, when straightened the tips of her hair could reach to the top of her perky ass. She, however, seldom did anything specific to her hair other than tie it up in a loose ponytail so that it hung cutely across one of her shoulders and slightly concealed the adjacent breast. More often than not, Ashley's hair would simply hang beside her tiny shoulders in lax curls, in the way mother-nature intended for her to look.
Ashley thrust herself forwards and out of her bed; she had worn a white linen nightgown to bed. She had only bought it because the fabric had seemed particularly stiff and thick; and Ashley had seldom received any encounters of the sexual kind of late --well, apart from with her self, of course. When Ashley had originally moved back home to Nottingham, from New York in America, she had begun masturbating almost every night. Eventually, like sex with the men she had previously been with, it had begun to bore her. That's why she had a date later that evening with a man she had never met, a kind of blind date you could say. Her university friend, Claire, had set them up, however, so she was not going into it completely blind. She had planned to visit her local shopping centre, just a short drive away from where her apartment building resided, and browse for a nice outfit for the date that night. This, of course, was instead of painting like she needed to. Money was tight, especially when she depended upon an unstable market to provide her with security. Fashions in art were as unpredictable as any; and at the moment the style in which Ashley painted did not seem particularly popular.
-I'll stop off at a coffee shop first, the artist thought to herself while opening her large wardrobe doors. On the inside of the door was a mirror which reflected a small, earthy-green eyed, deliciously pink and plump lipped woman whose nose seemed long and pointed, although was not really that long nor pointed. Ashley shrugged the image of her self away and grabbed a long and black woollen cardigan from the front of her vast clothes collection, smiled, and then wrapped it around her cold and pale body.
-2.
"Oh my god, it's you!" A croaky voiced woman shouted from across the row of tables in the coffee shop. Ashley had looked up curious to what was happening, not expecting to find herself the one in question. Noticing how the woman, with her thick black nail varnish, had been pointing towards the artist, she raised an eyebrow in confused embarrassment. The woman, whom was seemingly a stranger to Ashley, now made her way slowly towards the table she was sat at. She was an Asian woman with beautiful olive skin and dark brown eyes. As she neared closer Ashley could smell the fragrance of her sweet perfume, and she became intoxicated by a strange curiosity towards her.
"You got me fired from my job." The woman croaked once more, this time, however, she had spoken at a normal pitch instead of screeching across the room like some kind of Reptile.
"I'm sorry, what?" Ashley had replied. She had originally been sat at her table quietly gazing into her warm mug of coffee, watching a thick muscular Stallion march gallantly away in the small amounts of froth which had appeared.
"You don't even remember," The woman had said, sitting herself down in the spare chair unannounced, "at the Corner-house restaurant."
Now Ashley remembered, she had been a low ranked chef who had under cooked her chicken breast to the point where if she had eaten it she could have got salmonella poisoning.
"Oh yes, I remember now," Ashley said, "you nearly killed me." The woman, tall and slender, smiled; she did not seem bitter about the fact that her career had been temporarily destroyed.
"Yeah, I'm glad I did though. That job was terrible and the guys there treated me like shit." The woman said, after this she had begun to prattle on about how bad the working conditions were; but all Ashley could concentrate on was the slow and glorious motions her lips made as she spoke. The room had appeared to fall silent as she stared, watching the woman's tongue coasting back and forth within her mouth, gathering small deposits of moisture in the corners of her plump lips as she continued to talk. --"my name's Billie by the way." Ashley widened her eyes and slid her back fully upright once more, returning to a conscious state.
"I'm Ashley." She said, introducing herself, but as soon as she had spoken her voice had appeared to break momentarily. There was something in Billie's cheeky smile that told Ashley she knew what she was thinking; and liked it.
"You should let me take you out for a meal, to apologise for nearly poisoning you and all." Billie suggested. She had now begun to slowly move her legs closer to the artist's underneath the round coffee shop's table.
"Okay." Ashley replied in haste, the answer had seemed to fly out of her mouth without even allowing her to think it through fully. Her heart had begun to pound furiously somewhere amongst her ribcage now, and the mixture of intoxicating odours from the coffee and Billie's perfume were not helping the situation.
"Do you like sushi?" Billie asked while intensifying the advances underneath the table, it had seemed like a question used in order to divert attention away from the fact that she had moved her leg right up against to Ashley's hips.
"I've never eaten it before." Ashley replied.
"Well, I guess there's a first time for everything." As Billie had spoken she had bit her bottom lip with one of her front teeth. Ashley stared as she loosened the clasp upon it and let her lip fall gently back into its original shape. The whole room had fallen silent once again and all Ashley could hear was the deep and heavy panting of a woman in her ear. She could no longer taste the bitter coffee in her mouth but instead the sweet and sticky taste of Billie and the elation she felt in the back of her throat.
