2019-05-24 - Mirrors

Lana is echoing around the small bathroom in the loft apartment, a shadowed figure behind the crow-print curtain as the water runs and the mirror fogs. The curtain is wound around a restored antique clawfoot tub that's old world gorgeous even though the loft apartment itself isn't overdone. And a feminine voice is singing along with feeling that echoes back with the music.

"... when you talk it's like a movie and you're making me crazy... 'cause life imitates art. If I get a little prettier can I be your baby...?"

Lilith always showered before work, with music, whether she needed one or not. It gave her time to run through to-do lists, time to plan and devise, time to piece out the related math of financials, and... in some sense, it let her wash away one person when it was time to be another. Getting ready for work isn't the same in this place, by any stretch, she doesn't really have to be anyone but Lilith. But the shower rules still apply and the softer pieces of her get washed away in preparation. Because here, when she goes down to the shop floor to work, she becomes a crook on another man's behalf.

In Miami, before her return to Gray Harbor just last month, she became whatever name she needed to be to get the job done and the urges out. In Miami, Lilith Winslow had a lot of names, but the one she heard the most at work was Mistress. She had clients, very rich clients with very particular desires to fulfill. Sometimes it was their mansion or penthouse, but mostly, she visited high end hotels to meet appointments. It was professional and discrete and no pay-clocked consultation was ever the same.

Her phone is ringing. It's a Miami number, which is unexpected, because she changed her number when it was time to move.

Lilith turns the water off and grabs a towel to dry her hands before holding it in bundle against herself while standing on the mat dripping. She then picks up her phone and hesitates while hitting the speaker button because the call already feels wrong in a way she can't explain to herself. And in that space where she hesitates with reach to turn down the music, a man's deep voice picks up on the other end to echo around the bathroom. It makes her blood run hot and cold at the same time.

"... your name is Lilith Rose Winslow. It's pretty. Do people call you Lily at home?"

Lilith knows the voice, she thinks, but her own voice stays off the cuff. She puts the phone down and wraps the towel around her wet body like she's suddenly trying to shield herself from this personal intrusion. She'd taken all the precautions. She'd been warned how attached some of them get.

"Who is this?"

"Don't do that. I need to see you. I'll fly you out, I'll fly you back."

"You're going to have to find someone else. Don't call this number again."

There's an inordinate amount of distance between the dripping brunette standing and looking at that phone on the sink edge, but her voice lashes into firm command and she steps forward with her instruction as if to end the call. Her hand hovers in wait, though, as the voice speaks again.

"Something inside you is dark. I need it. I'll give you the world. You know I can."

"If you contact me again in any way..."

"... you'll what?"

The voice on the other end seems to anticipate violent response. Two words, one question, it's rife with tense excitement in a very dark way. Lilith knows it's bait, she knows her words will only sate. But she doesn't care. She's not anyone else right now. And she's not going to play this game. She answers and immediately ends the call the second the words are out with venom and promise.

"I will fucking ruin you."

When her hand pulls away, Lilith stands very still for a moment and looks at the phone. When it doesn't ring again, she looks into the mirror clouded by residual steam and rolling with condensation streaks to wetly distort her image. She has a sudden urge to see herself clearly, inexplicable, feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. Reaching for a nearby hand towel, she wipes the mirror to dry and looks at herself more solidly, wet hair in tangles around the face of a beauty queen, eyes wide and blue as an angel.

She thinks mirrors tell lies. She's no angel. She's no beauty queen. She's deadly nightshade. She sees Belladonna. She has to remind herself she's Lilith. She tries to purge the toxicity inside distorting her image. She can feel the urge to hurt. She tastes bile. Her shadow on the wall behind seems too long.

Her phone buzzes with text notification. It reads: "You're so beautifully broken. Break me. I'll give you the world."

In Miami, she played dangerous games with men of power and means. Lilith Winslow was a private dominatrix.

After throwing her phone out of the bathroom, she leans and throws up. Lilith tries to purge all the bile and wrong, all of the urges, she tries to heave Belladonna out of her. She ran from the urges once upon a time and it wasn't enough. The mind filled the gaps, the memories shifted, the brain whispered new lies. But the gouges were all still there. And so were the urges to destroy, to take something apart piece by piece on a level the eye can't see.

How could Byron possibly think she's anything she once was? How can she explain this kind of rot and expect him to look at her the same?

She told Geoff because she knew he'd understand the urge to wreck. Tobin would readily empathize when it came time. Byron?

He's her rock. She has to tell him. But she's terrified to lose him again, lose the way he still looks at her, and she's shaking as she rises to dry off, finished expelling bitter poison. She was never a whore. But she feels like one right now. And there's a very fine line, because she's been bought all the same. Over and over and over. She never wanted the money. She wanted the destruction and control. But when the darkness inside clients was sated, her own never was.

No one can give her the world. And she doesn't want it. She just wants to find herself.

Eventually, the darkness passes. She feels like Lilith again. And she's scared.