Cruel Muse Chapter Eight
- Ro Salarian
- 2 days ago
- 12 min read
Dorothea’s house had become a refuge from everything Val wanted to escape. She helped Ernesto with small tasks, but he wouldn’t let her follow him to some of the more dangerous parts of the house. Often, when Val was alone, Dorothea would come up with a bon bon and a little glass of port for a toast. “Drink with me,” she would tell Val. “Take a little break.” At first, Val would turn her down, thinking of her father saying that accepting too much too often would seem greedy. But she could never obtain these things if Dorothea didn’t offer them, and she was tired and wanted a break. After all, the client was the one paying them, so if she wanted to pay for Val to have a break, it was her choice. The customer was always right.
By the end of October, the air had gone from brisk to officially cold, light jackets put away, wool coats excavated from storage smelling of mothballs. It rained more, the kind of rain that could find its way inside your clothes no matter what you wore, burrowing towards your skin to bite it. The red and gold leaves went from curtains to carpet, slippery beneath car tires and shoes. The wind blew with increasing ferocity, and shutters were closed tight against the threat of a hurricane.
Val had been pulling away from her father ever since her drawing session with Dorothea. She wanted to ask him why he hadn’t let Val’s mother have any friends, if he even realized he was working for the woman that he had forbidden his wife to see. She decided to keep it to herself, worried he would likewise keep her away from Dorothea.
