the birdwatchers by Vetroff Louise

Author:Vetroff, Louise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Louise Vetroff
Publisher: Lura Press
Published: 2023-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

12 Rose

Birds and crocodiles

We've been on the road for three days and three nights. The hardest nights of my life. Nights without sleep. Not because of anxiety or fear but because of desire. A desire that excited my mind and almost burned my body to a cinder with its flame. I don't know what it is with me. When Emma approaches me, I get washed out with such a wave of desire that I feel like I will never swim out of it. And when she is with me in our bed, and she breathes into my shoulder or neck, this ocean of desire becomes lava. I'm burning. I'm burning in it, and nothing can stop this fire.

Emma is timid when she is alone with me. If not to say constrained. When I touch her, she blushes, and her body tenses when I hug her. She's afraid of something.

I don't want to scare her even more, so I'm not going to do anything further. We need time. She needs it to relax, and I need time to get rid of my thoughts about the past and my fear for the future. I am overwhelmed by guilt and the fear that they'll finally catch me and force me to be responsible for my actions. At least because I disappeared, leaving my husband dead by the stairs in his house.

For three nights, I fell asleep only for an hour or two. Fatigue has accumulated in me so much that it is difficult for me to stand still for a long time or even sit. I feel sleepy, and I have pain all over my body, like somebody has beaten me with sticks.

Emma told me they had chosen her to be a watcher and, for my interest in sewing, they asked me to join the sewing girls. I know how to sew and embroider. I learned that before my mother married me off to John. It's good that my knowledge has finally come in handy. The seamstresses, Trudy, and Dottie, are best friends. They are of the same age, twenty-something, and they're both very chatty and giggly. They talk day and night, letting nobody insert a single word, and they are not interested in anything except clothes and young men in the wagon train. Ever since I talked to Dottie, they haven’t asked me anything about my life, so I don't have to worry about their curiosity. They both are skinny, uninteresting, and pale as toadstools; therefore, they always blush their cheeks with lipstick, but with their cheerful temper and an evident willingness to indulge men's desires, these girls attract the men's attention, too.

Here come the Cooper brothers. Approaching, they disperse as if trying to fence us on both sides from the rest.

"So?" says the younger, coming up to me. "How's your work goin'?" The elder, meanwhile, talks to the sewers.

"Good," I reply briefly.

"Good. We need three new tablecloths. Dottie will give you everything to make them. Will ya?"

"Yes. Please step back a bit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.