-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.
"If you write down your address I'll come pick you up at eight, tomorrow?" Billie asked, this time in a more serious tone, while rummaging around in her medium sized black-leather handbag. After around thirty seconds of scouring through the bottomless thing, she finally pulled out a black ball-pointed pen and a piece of thick cardboard, the type one would expect a business man to hand you.
"Sure," Ashley said while gently brushing hands with Billie to grab hold of the pen and piece of cardboard. Billie watched over as the artist quickly scrawled down the address in a rough, almost artistic, style of handwriting.
"Thank you." Billie made sure, once more, to caress Ashley's hand as she took the pen and cardboard back. Ashley watched in wonder as their hands looked almost perfect next to one and another's.
-No, Ashley thought, pulling away from the tender moment and recomposing her self. --It's obviously just because I'm flattered by the attention from her, that I'm feeling like this. This is all it is. Right? Ashley began mulling over the answers for a couple of seconds while the pair sat in silence.
"I better be heading off," Ashley said before taking a large and final gulp of her, now cold, cup of coffee "it was nice to meet you, Billie."
Billie remained in the coffee shop for a little longer, pondering over how to approach the whole situation. Billie had known about Ashley long before they had met at the restaurant a few months back, she had, in fact, recognised her name from their early nursery school days. She could remember, almost as if it was yesterday, being in the sandpit at school with a young and loud Ashley and playing with two figurines. The one Billie held had been male, while the one Ashley played with was female. They would play at this sandpit throughout the entirety of their 'playtime' and often made up tales of love between the two figurines, but slowly the young Billie had fallen for the real Ashley and the stories they played along to soon became real to her heart. So, one day she told her, she had looked deep into the girls eyes and said with great intent 'I love you Ashley', but another child --who it was Billie could not remember that far back, had overheard and started shouting their head off about Billie being a lesbian. How they had even known what the word meant, as she did not even understand it fully for herself, she had no idea. However, Ashley had simply looked longingly back towards Billie, and smiled, rescuing the whole situation by telling everyone they were just playing stories.
'I love you too.' Ashley had replied while they had been putting their figurines back into the toy box; as the bell for end of playtime had rung. Shortly after the whole event Ashley's parents had decided to move to New York, leaving Billie with the niggling thought at the back of her mind which always asked 'what might have happened?' She had thought it too much of a coincidence to just let pass, thus marking the beginning of what she believed to be her destiny.
-3.
"What is it like, you know, being a free-lance artist?" A muscular, butch man was sat opposite the small dining table from Ashley. He wore a thin, probably two sizes too small for him, black t-shirt and a pair of baggy blue jeans with rips at the knees. This was obviously a man whom had no fashion sense, Ashley thought to herself while smiling falsely and distracting her self with the meal, nor any individuality.
"It's really good, I'm so..." Ashley trailed off, realising the butch man had not been interested in her response but more so with his own. He interrupted her briskly,
