Petit monstre

I'm slowly gathering my thoughts behind closed blinds and sheer curtains. They help me keep my bedroom cool so I can sleep through these melting summer nights. I wear too much clothes in bed and drink too many bottles of wine in the mornings, but it's the only way I have of staying sane (or something close to it).

I'm replaying dinner with the neighbors in my mind, how they looked at me when I came in, wondering if I wore that pink underwear set underneath my bone white halter neck dress like they asked me to. "He wants to fuck you" she said, "and I will let him as long as I can watch".

I have to go back home soon but the thought of LA and Silver Lake scares me more than the dark woods between the sea and the mountains along this innocent coastline. I haven't seen mother in years now, she calls me sometimes but I ignore her and the voicemails she records. I have a feeling she just wants me to tell her that everything will be just fine.

Homework

The young couple next door. Teasing him is too easy but I don't do it for him. It teases her too but this is strictly for myself, so I'll remember what holding back when I want something really felt like. I've done it before but not as of lately, so I definitely need the practice.

They pass by my patio in the afternoon and every time I feel them glancing at me in the corners of their eyes, laying flat on my back on a bath sheet. How they both pretend like they're not watching. Her: not with envy but to make sure I don't follow him for too long. Him: with a subtle hint of desperation ever since he noticed that my bikini isn't a bikini but matching powder pink underwear from Marlies Dekkers.

I know by the way she squeezes his hand as they pass that she's seen it too, it's the finest part of my day since I cut the 3 o'clock glass of Champagne. My frustration afterwards would be easily cured but instead I wait for them to return an hour later, hands still firmly gripped around my thighs. It's painless torture for all of us but I need it, if I ever want to learn.

 

18 - "Are those Victoria's Secret?"

I can't stress this enough: I hate Abercrombie & Fitch. They are to fashion what Coldplay are to British rock music - a violation and an insult.

I spent last New Year's with mother and her friends in their house in the outskirts of Los Angeles, they have a dorky son (the bad sort of dorky) who's always had a crush on me. Just as I thought we were going home mother told me we were spending the night, me in the son's room of course. I wore a fantastic YSL dress and decided not to ruin it by sleeping in it. "You can borrow something from me" the son said, when I came back out in a much too short A&F T-shirt the first thing he asked me was "are those Victoria's Secret?"

As if the notion of spending the night in his room wearing the enemy's clothes wasn't enough, he thought it would be a good idea to start a discussion about my panties. I've never felt more embarrassed in my life (and no, they were Marlies Dekkers).