Maudlin

There’s a lightness to her hair, as she sways with light curls of a new cut. It’s still with her blackish-brown air, but it’s been chopped down without any layers. Her mother used to do it all the time, but she’s still a few hours back in her home county, never one to leave even if it’s for work. She thinks- knows, actually, that she wouldn’t either, that she wouldn’t dare get on one of those metal birds in the sky or venture through a trek of water or even drive more than a few hours if she didn’t have such a reliable reason. She’s wearing that reliable reason’s shirt, letting it drape like a dress over the chill of her being. It’s a chilly forty-degrees out, and even in her dreams she can feel it. Even in her dreams it’s winter.

She stirs the honey into her tea, letting the gold clump as it rests in one of her favorite mugs, a navy blue without any designs. It’s a part of a set, and it matches her counter of brown, her accents of blue and grey, even some white or gold if her wife couldn’t let go of it at the thrift markets she’s sworn by since Ginger opened that door. Speaking of doors, she’s not startled by the light creak of the door, the struggle of a key as it’s freed from the rustic handle. She needs to put some grease on the hinges, replace the knobs like her mother’s taught her, like her friend showed her how to pick.

That’s for a later date though, as she picks up one of the two mugs of the set. There’s only two, but the warmer takes priority as she heads over to the woman- her woman shedding of her layers: trench coat, pleather gloves, suit jacket, and shoes with her fuzzy socks over top her cowboy-esc get up. Something about architecture, she does something with architecture. She looks beautiful, reckless still bitten into her skin, and face still strong and maybe even a bit fatter after Ginger’s been cooking her mother’s winter-favorites. “My love,” she breathes, loosening her bolo tie- something Ginger’s mom got her when her husband started running for presidency. Just when he announced it because of course her mother knew before her.

“Honey in your chai just as you prefer.” Ginger’s voice is far too chipper, but she doesn’t care, she doesn’t care because Malory is here. Malory is here with her, sipping tea she made and bringing home money for the family they want to start- with a cat named Ad because of her friend that taught her to pick locks- that’ll be here today because the day is planned out. It’s only eleven. It’s only eleven.

Her lips leave a red ring Ginger is industrially tempted to lick onto her tongue, tattoo it on her being or even carve it into her because she is devoured internally; the whole world should know what the first lady has captured her young heart and is keeping her finger on the wound she evoked. She hums at the heat, letting her tongue lick at her top teeth before she compliments, “Better than before, honey.” Honey, my love, darlin’ it’s all here, it’s all here and she’s all warm. “Why don’t you go and tell him?” Her voice is dipping into something, something so hostile and hushed, but her touch is still so warm- so, so warm as it reaches her cheek. Ginger has to lean in, has to lean in because she asks, “What?” Her brows dip as she yells, “Tell him I’m in France while he’s resting his ass on the white-house sofa all day long!”

Ginger wakes up with a shock to her system, eyes blinking to the lamp and old lattice windows shut with the filmy white curtains flutter against it. She’s on her front, arms underneath her before she groans from a dry throat, moving to sit up with the blanket leaving her chest to the attention of the cold. “Sorry to wake you,” Malory offers, buttoning up her top nominally matching her pencil skirt. “My husband is worried about when I’m comin’ home. I’ve only been gone for a week,” she huffs at the last part, moving to sit beside Ginger as she’s finally up-right, moving the silk sheets up her bare form. “It’s, um-” She shuts her eyes, shaking her head to find some consciousness within her. “It’s fine, Lory, really but is there any water?” She takes a moment, searching with her eyes before she finds a pitcher with a grey tray and clear glasses on a dresser beside the window. She moves to take it, pouring a few glugs before walking back over as if it’s an offering to a Goddess.

Ginger feels less than that, which is more than plausible as she grazes the bites of her thighs under the covers, the bruises knocking into one another because Malory likes it rough, and Ginger likes to feel wanted, to feel how much love she can have if she just- “One glass for the Madame with the bed-hair.” She takes the glass from Malory, her golden blonde hair cut into a bob, something that was a last decision given the media’s attention to her fashion choices.

Ginger remembers the day, how she was hoarding articles, digital and textile, about her fashion senses, about her pants and shirts and her upbringing, and how she looked at the scissors and said the blade would make them take her seriously. She lets a smile lift her chapped bitten-lips, and words coat them before the water, “How kind of you, Ms. President.” Malory’s hand fingers her knee, massaging the fat around it, bent to her attention while the other lies underneath against the covers. “How kind of you to accept my offer, Darlin’” She lets her chest expand with a breath after she’s done, the air somehow fresher even if she could smell ninety smokers outside when she arrived two nights ago. That’s why her husband was really panicking, it had to be because why, in the last two- three days of her stay in France would she want an extrahand in promoting the white house image. Especially someone without much of a degree- a drop out who didn’t really help in the campaign. She’d say otherwise though, Malory would scold Ginger if she even thought of breathing a word of this to the light of the sun, not the moon. Ginger doesn’t say it, but Malory still knows, she still gets it as she lets her grip float to her tempered cheeks, letting her knuckles nudge against the heat. She wonders how red she looks even if she’s only sat up. Fucking low iron.

“You should get some food before we depart. We could stop back at that small business. I remembered how much you liked it.” Ginger huffs a laugh. “We went there last night, they’re probably already bustling as we speak-” Her eyes turn to the alarm on Malory’s side of the bed, already enlarging at the time. “Eight? It’s eight?” Ginger is tickled, every inch of her being from her fingers to especially her knees, her heart as it pounds with anxiety, like the freckles on Malory that don't quite capture in the light of the- it is the moon. And the streetlights. “It’s two there- two in the afternoon! And we’re not even on the plane-” Her hands are taken in soft ones, ones with freckles and so much attention from the sun. “Shh, shh, darlin’ it’s fine, we’re fine-” “But the pilot-” “Is at my beck and call.” She’s put back onto her knees, already succumbing to the quiet lull of her- Malory, of Malory. “That doesn’t-Lory it’s not okay to just have people at your beck and call how are you okay with people being your servants?”

She doesn’t answer; Ginger can’t remember the last time she answered a question as such, and it shouldn’t really matter, it hasn’t caught up to her, that mattering when she speaks in that way, “Let me have you here with me, please.” Both her hands are still caught- no, cradled with the heat of her own palms, the heat that edges into supple softness as she rubs her prints against her knuckles, lets the prints evanesce for the print of her lips, not yet with lip stick but still wet from her tongue. Was she desperate- is she desperate here, in this place they’ll leave far too soon?

Her lips trail far too much for Ginger to announce her thought, to announce how she feels as her hands are turned, her lips trail up her pulse point, Malory’s lids fluttering as her tongue swipes to taste her after their night of fun. She continues until she can get her grip on her waist, dipping into the flesh and disregarding the sheets. Then she speaks against her lips, whispers confessions of how much she- she wants her, would take her in the oval office, would touch her delicately in that room, in every bedroom, in the kitchen, the cabinet, the cars they have. Anywhere and everywhere, she’d touch her, let her get her skirt wet as she lays beneath her- as Ginger lays beneath her and loses all resolve, her fingers moving down her flesh, down her clavicle with her lips, her fingers delving into the flesh of her hips- the stretchmarks and odd bites from odd occasions as a kid.

She’s an adult now though, an adult as Malory moves her chopped nails, her clean-cut fingers into her pubes of mused thick hair, delving past the black waves to the heat that burns her, to the heat of her darker core that’s tickled by her cool fingers. She makes out with her skin, moving from each side of her chest to below, letting her teeth suckle lightly, leave marks and push into her just to release for the marks.

She claws out her name with more whispers- whispers of wishes. They’re not as sexual, not as sexual as she tickles around her insides, pets down her clit, tampers it and swirls around it with gloss coating her digits before she moves up and down sideways with her fingers, sideways to collect everything before she pushes in- pushes into her skin the confessions. How she wishes to live in a house, ow she wishes to live in power with Ginger, how she wishes to confess her feelings to the world, forget the world and just move here between her thighs- no, move into her skin, feel the schlick schlick for her slumber, feel her heat against her, feel her arms and the coo of her nickname, the way Ginger says Ms. President, and means it. The way she means a life, the way she means everything could happen here, and brings her to a climax, brings her, builds a bridge for her, a hot one as she finally- finally relents and shoves deep into her, shoves deep into her and scrambles to taste her, the pulse of her clit, the slick of her walls, everything with her tongue under she cannot move it anymore, cannot move it because the heat is too much. Ginger wouldn’t want to move because it’s too much, it’s too much to acknowledge that she’s never her woman.

She’s with her friend by the time she comes to, opening her eyes to the sound of the door creaking open, and her stomach gnawing at her from the inside. She fell asleep again, fell asleep with her phone under her pillow, her hand clasped around the remote, close to her chest as if the news would relay all of her fears.

Her mother was on news, and she’s waiting for it, waiting for that droning voice that she puts on when talking to anyone except her, for her it’s more lax- no, exhausted, like she’s still a child in her eyes. She still is, even if she’s not in her home anymore, even if she’s bunked with her roommate from college, more than a few years after dropping out. “Howdy,” she offers, setting down her backpack beside the recliner. It’s an expansive living room, rooms set side by side and a kitchen nestled in the corner. It’s a big living room, with a couch comfortable enough to sleep on. She knows because she likes it; Adya chose it for that exact reason. Ginger hums in return, gravely and stuck in a slumber that’s clasped its hands around her throat, her mind as another pressure presses against her abdomen.

Adya, ever her savior, offers a cup of tea to her, something from a new shop in their city. Ginger is a glutton as she grasps it, maybe a beggar of some kind as she reaches and grasps it from Adya’s supple brown hands. She makes no note of her greed as Gin sloppily slurps the hot beverage, letting it burn her mouth and throat to reach her cramps, her hunger for something, anything. Maybe she’s been bored for too long, macerated in monotony. “Don’t burn yourself, or you won’t be able to talk to your ma when it comes on- in one.” She stops, struggling to as her roommate’s words hit her. “One minute,” She exclaims in apprehension before Adya hums, moving to sit before where her legs have folded in on one another. She plops down and takes the tea from Ginger for a moment as she struggles to collect herself, waiting as the television zaps up and open. Once she’s gotten the cable to work, a bit of a stutter, she finds her mother right before her on a split screen.

She’s grateful, which she hopes to mention after this moment, that Adya has taken her drink so her hands can come together in a mock praise of a prayer. “She looks pretty,” Adya says, sipping on her jug of tea, and Ginger says nothing, does nothing but watch her mother with her buoyant blackish grey hair, her lids dusted in snow and her lashes and brows touched with Venus. She glows on the camera, and her words rock the ground like an Earthquake.

She doesn’t really care for what they hold, but she does care for the way the wind entreats her, the way the flash of the camera holds her- her coat hugging her to protect her. She is beautiful there, on the camera. She’s sixty-something this year, sixty something and she’s finally gotten what she’s always wanted: her job. There’s a hand on her back as she watches like a child, deep in her late-twenties yet glowing bright in front of the TV like it’s the first her mother let her have. Forced herself to work with because she wanted to work. She needed work.

The heat of her tears doesn’t rival the heat of her friend’s hand, instead she takes back her tea with a pause to look at her blackish-browns. She mushes a smile and leans back into the couch, offering covers to Adya as they cuddle back and watch her mother. Her mother finally has it all, and she’s okay with that so long as she doesn’t realize how she has nothing herself.