NOTE: This story is not for people who want a quick wank. I'm trying to write with a little more flavor this time, and all feedback is welcome. The sex is here, but so is everything else.
*****
Jillian woke up on a Monday morning feeling lost in a haze of insomnia and uncertainty. The walls around her oozed fetid dreams of routine. The greying, dirty carpet underneath her toes felt caked in neglect and loneliness. Hers was a small apartment, and it had never met anyone but Jillian.
Behind the counter, she was the florist recommending last-minute selections and clippings to inattentive husbands and boyfriends, all of them stuck in the cycle of romantic expectation. Always they defaulted to the classic bouquet of roses, a tired and predictable arrangement that any decent florist would balk at in their heads at the least, if not out loud in the customer's face. But day after day, the lilies and tulips wilted, the carnations shriveled and died. Jillian, as she locked the doors at the end of the day, wondered if even an orchid could go unloved in an existence like hers.
Jillian went to bed on a Monday night feeling no different than when she rose. Now the off-white sheets faded to a decaying grey and the pillows groaned and shifted under her head, trying to find comfort with an uncomfortable being. The sun had barely dipped below the horizon, yet she was as weary as any traveler, burdened with a drowning sensation even as she breathed.
But that night, in a dream, someone came to her bearing the orchid of her heart, carefully cultivated and maintained, curling in golden sunlight and laughing the way a young couple does in the dawn of their romance. "This is you," said the figure, offering the orchid in cupped hands. "This has always been you. And if you do not take this now, it will wither. Do you give yourself away?"
Jillian woke up on a Tuesday morning to a blinding light. When she opened her eyes, it was gone, just a flash of existence beaming its way into a windowless bedroom. Instead, what she saw was life. There, next to her in bed, was a young woman, clothed neck to ankle in pink pajamas Jillian wore as a teenager. This person could not have been any older than her own twenty-four years, though she was much smaller. Her lips were parted ever so slightly under a small, up-turned nose. Her skin was patched with acne scars, though most of them had faded well enough, and her short brown hair was sticking to her face with the slightest layer of sweat.
Jillian did not know how she got there, but said, "Good morning," as though she did.
"It can't be morning," she replied. "I just laid down."
"It's eight o'clock."
"I guess we were talking all night," she said, and opened her eyes to reveal a pale green iris. "I really can't thank you enough."
"I didn't really do much, did I?" Jillian was too embarrassed having forgotten, and tried to play it off as well as she could. Perhaps she had gotten drunk in a fit of depression and met this woman somewhere.
"No, I just... I guess I trusted you. That probably sounds stupid. But I'll be okay, I know I will. Can you take me home?"
"Of course."
Her name was Valerie, Jillian learned. Whatever had happened, they never truly introduced themselves, and they quickly corrected that as they sat down in Jillian's car. The drive was short - surprisingly short, and Valerie hesitated to leave the car. It wasn't until a much older woman came running out from her house that Val opened the door and said goodbye.
"Go inside," the woman said to Val. "I made breakfast." And when she did, the woman bent down to the window and spoke to Jillian. "Where did you find her? The clocktower? Never mind, I just -"
"She was going to jump," Jillian said. She was not sure why, but somehow she knew it was true. "I talked her down. She seems much better today, even happy."
"We'll be sure to get her counseling. Thank you, um..."
