Life imitating art...

OK, so I have been inspired recently by so-called "forbidden relationships". You know, the kind that happen but really shouldn't; affairs etc. Not because I agree with them at all, but because I am intrigued as to what may go through people's heads when they embark upon such life choices. To that end, here is a snippet more of my writing joy.

They used to meet in a park. Green, subtle, anonymous. Hide in plain sight, he always used to say. At first, there was no guilt, they were doing nothing wrong. Harmless strolls accompanied by soft breezes and ice creams, seats by the boating lake, a playful touch and an innocent smile. Two friends, close in bond if not in age, smiling at the unlikely discovery of a kindred spirit.

But innocence never lasts. The child unravels the legends and the myths, their rosy, misted veil is ripped from their eyes and the world degenerates into grey skies and bleak outlooks, dangerous bends and blind summits; reality taints their beauty and innocence dies.

She'd have sold her own mother to have truly believed the charm, the words, the lies, the supposition which tumbled from his lips; the lips she longed to kiss, despite the immoral connotations. As he spoke of love and longing, of snatched moments and promises of change, she saw the gold band glint in the light of their betrayal. A singular, circular symbol, binding him to another, foresaking all others. She was forsaken. Forbidden. Perhaps that was the excitement.

And yet, though the golden glint blinded her blue eyes, she closed them tight, ignoring it's persistent glow. Love is blind, they say.

What about lust?

It had enveloped her, a want and need for something she must not have. The cake before supper, the wine locked away in the drinking cabinet, the apple from the tree; all temptation stems from the forbidden, and she had disobeyed all of the rules, trampled all over the Garden of Eden and snatched the fruit from the serpent's jaw. Lust had drowned her supposedly steadfast morality and she had succumbed to its watery grave. Though, as is so often the case with such things, she was not aware that she was engulfed until the water had reached neck height and there was no way to escape the current.

The subterfuge could've continued for an eternity. No-one was hurting while it was just the two of them, a secret not to be shared by anybody else. No: not even she, with her career steeped in characterisation and pretence, could deliver such a line with conviction. The hurt was always there, pain building like a tidal wave, waiting for the moment to crash down, destroying civilisations and annihilating lives.

She'd drowned a family with her selfish desires.

He'd promised a life, a safety the adult her had never experienced. Protected in his arms, surrounded by his love. They just had to bide their time, he said. The girl was only 8, and the boy had exams, and we all know how important they are. Their plans would only make matters worse. They had to wait for "the right moment". And so she waited, a puppet of the Disney generation, clinging to her happy ending, her strings expertly manipulated by a collector looking for a mint-condition plaything to store away and toy with on a whim. She checked the backs of her hands, making absolutely sure that the strings had been severed. She was nobody's toy.

Not anymore.

It had taken her a long time to realise he was like all others. Charm hid his true colours for longer than it should have, but soon the black and the shade eroded the illusion of hope he'd created and she had to leave, take her eyes and ears far away from his silken patter and his puppy-dog expression, find somewhere as bleak and full of nothing as her own existence.

And so she was here. Salt winds flew at her, scalding her skin, corroding the halo languishing around her neck.

Daddy's little angel.

Now she felt the tears prick the back of her eyes. Her parents. She couldn't begin to imagine their horror when they were confronted with her behaviour. Their morals, spirit and love, bound in her, shattered by her self-centred delusion that no-one would ever know. She could not face them; she was too cowardly to be confronted with their despair. Soon, they would be free of her and the shame. They could put her to the back of their mind, reminiscing only on Christmasses and birthdays, when the flow of wine opens the floodgates for memories best left buried.

"Who will you marry when you're a grown up?" Her mother would ask her toddler self, all curls and marmalade stains.

"Daddy!!!" She'd squeal delightedly, her blue eyes wide, a toothy grin across her round face. Her mother would smile indulgently, the way a parent does at a precocious child.

Even then she'd tried to lay claim to someone else's husband.

She really should've seen this coming.

"Funniest" part of all of this? I was a silly, horrible girl last night and kissed someone who was not free to be kissed. Turns out such subjects are not intriguing, just rotten and awful and stomach churning and heart-wrenching. But still, at least I'll be able to write with a bit more conviction. Every cloud and all that.