Fiction logo

Addicted to love

a raging bull

By Monia KurtzPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
Like

Love. Feeling it is better when there’s a storm. The sky was remarkably angry with its melodramatic gray clouds. It dulled the place. The exquisite furniture seemed to take offense. As a sort of defiance— to rebel against Mother Earth; specifically, her mightiness— the sea-moss colored cushions sagged begrudgingly against anybody who found placement there. It was the most awkwardly beautiful color for a sofa. Even with the rain disrespectfully dragging its tongue over the entire surface of the window pane, snatching all the attention. Flow’s attentive eyes focused on the air-pocketed sacs that collected on the large bow window. There was a little hesitation with the rain. It would pour with fear-evoking vengeance when all the clouds aligned overwhelmingly. The hesitation was just a fool placing his bets amongst a variety of bulls. Loneliness hugged Flow tightly. She fought against it kicking her legs forward— her hooves landing hard on the floor. In many ways, she resembled a bull. Her knees followed soon after, hitting the cedar hardwood involuntarily. Trembling uncontrollably, her hands raised and covered her wide-doe eyes to catch the tears that were ready to fall. She would need those later.

The wave of emotion after seeing Níeve at the farmers' market exhausted Flow. It exhausted her even more than when she sulked about the number of years she spent thinking she was peeling off the mask she’d noticed threaded onto Níeve’s skeleton when they met. They had both appeared (though in different social groups) at GiGi’s bar the night a strawberry super-moon found itself nestled in the guard of Capricornus. It was a small town. The small where “privacy” and “personal” are American ideals the runaway teenagers, mid-life crisis victims, and those lucky few who every local already knew were “too big” for this town, escaped to in the bigger cities. Gossip festered through the streets that some went to New York. Others: Atlanta or Las Vegas. All those cities was an old-fashioned oxymoron in ration to Bluffton, South Carolina. Everyone knew Níeve had been in terrible tremor over her break-up with Autumn. Autumn’s town nickname was Fall. It was a community joke that embarrassed her into an awful, sunburn-colored blush each time someone yelled it and waved for her acknowledgement. The longest standing joke behind the name had been chanted relentlessly by the local kids ever since the public array between Autumn and Níeve:

“her love language in gifts

makes for an extraordinary cover

to catch her prey

once they fall blind

from the lover in front of them”.

Sometimes when Autumn walked by DuBois park, the grade-school kids, ditching whatever after school club meeting they were forcibly enrolled in by their status-driven parents, would chant the rhyme in a low, creepy voice as if they were actors on stage in a Broadway horror. Flow hadn’t been living in Bluffton for more than three weeks before her collision into Níeve. She had not heard the rhyme until afterwards. Her fall from their collision mandated itself-- first, establishing a domino effect; and for Flow to do anything seemed to come too late.

The cold plaster in the fitting room of the professionally designed consignment shop clung to the sweat glistening in the melanin cracks of Flow’s back. “I want to show you a place I think you would really enjoy,” Níeve ushered on the way to the destination. A grin that showed her four upper teeth foremost to the right side of her mouth stretched the exhaustion bags along her lower eyelids. Flow lifted her knees to rest her feet on the passenger side of the dashboard in Níeve’s metallic black Cadillac. She tilted her chin down towards the left, returning a fixed close-mouthed grin towards Níeve. “Where?” she smirked. Five minutes later, Níeve backed her Cadillac into one of the tiny parking spots in the small lot. They were both knowledgeable of Flow’s opposition to the unknown. Níeve called them “surprises”. “Do you like the shop?” Níeve whispered over labored breaths as she inserted her middle and index fingers impatiently inside of Flow’s tightly enclosed walls. “Fuck…” Níeve moaned, “you feel like a flower.” Before the end of their shopping, Flower would be the name credited to the woman who felt as such. The only woman that ever made Níeve think and feel deeply amidst each fuck. The name would trail them both into individual experiences. For Flow, it was an omen. After Níeve escaped with six-figures of Flow’s money, Flow’s cottage hidden between elaborately boisterous oak trees that had matured beautifully during the decade of Flow’s ownership of the property, and a substantial weight of Flow’s affection and care, Flow irately ripped the last two letters from the sentimental name her ex-lover had adorned on her. She was livid the afternoon all Níeve’s lies surfaced from their pandora’s box. Flow acquired the cottage property through inheritance. A couple of weeks before senior mid-terms, she would drive the customized, sports-edition Audi gifted to her by her father on her fifteenth birthday, up the horseshoe-shaped driveway aesthetically lined against the meticulously manicured lawn. The car was a present for her early acceptance into the seven Ivy League universities she submitted applications to in the summer of her junior year at the private school she’d attended since she was four. During her early years at Hilton Head Christian Academy, the intelligence that illuminated from her school-work raised her educators’ curiosities and advanced her two levels above the age-related peers she infrequently associated with by the time she started as a freshman. The age difference amongst her older peers suffocated Flow in the depths of loneliness. Stress from senior year amplified her disconnection from others. Flow felt as though the solitude drifted her towards personal sacredness; rooted in the cobblestoned walk-way of the luxurious cottage getaway that resisted all of her attempts to pluck it from its comfort. Wrapped in deceit, Níeve masterfully gained inheritance over the forty acres of sacredness that confounded Flow to its grounds. The beautiful oaks no longer listed as “the property of Lila Kate Pades”, never to be known by Flower— always Flow, had no effect on the significance of feelings it evoked. Turning thirty-two this year, (eight years since she last felt the sunflower petals tickling her neck from the rustles created by Níeve waving the green fuzzy stem back and forth) it is limitedly doubted that the tree-hidden cottage responsible for providing security in multifaceted aspects is still Flow’s favorite place. She sits on the veranda of her three-story colonial pondering whether the bull who trampled through her life to obtain her most-prized possession was a favorite still too.

Short Story
Like

About the Creator

Monia Kurtz

Poet. Writer. Blossoming bud.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.