Chapter 8: Red Carpet Domination
The champagne at the after-party tasted like cold, bitter metal. Sydney sipped it only to have something to do with her hands, her left thumb endlessly stroking the colossal emerald on her finger as if it were a talisman. The ballroom was a cathedral of noise—clinking crystal, shrieks of performative laughter, the relentless thrum of a bass line meant to signify celebration. She stood with a cluster of people from her last film, their faces blurred by a haze of her own disconnection.
Her skin still hummed from the red carpet. The memory of Vanja’s voice, a hot, private counterpoint to the flashbulbs, was a brand on her psyche. “You look like a used-up little starlet, but this dress is hiding my favorite cunt. Everyone out here wants to fuck you, and they have no idea I already own the hole.” Sydney had smiled, a brittle reflex for the cameras, her knees threatening to buckle as Vanja’s hand rested possessively on the small of her back, right where the zipper ended.
Worse was during the ceremony itself. Seated in the plush dark, the orchestra swelling for some Lifetime Achievement award, Vanja’s hand had drifted casually under the folds of Sydney’s gown. Her fingers, cool and precise, had found her through the silk of her underwear. Sydney had frozen, her breath catching in her throat as Vanja rubbed slow, insistent circles. “Clench for me,” Vanja had whispered, her own face a mask of polite attention turned toward the stage. Sydney had obeyed, a hot flush of shame and arousal washing over her as she tightened around the invasive touch right as the audience erupted in applause. Vanja’s fingers had pushed the silk aside, slipping inside her with terrifying ease, curling in that knowing way. Sydney had bitten her lip raw to stay silent, her body trembling with the effort of stillness, her vision swimming as Vanja fingered her in the dark amidst three thousand of her peers. She’d come, silent and violent, tears pricking her eyes as the award winner droned on about gratitude. Vanja had withdrawn her wet fingers and brought them to her own mouth, tasting them without breaking her gaze from the stage.
Now, in the glaring light of the party, Sydney felt hollowed out and over-sensitive. She watched Vanja across the room. Vanja was holding court near a massive ice sculpture, a half-empty glass of whisky dangling from her fingers. A tall, willowy figure was leaning into her space—the model, Elara. Sydney recognized her. Sharp cheekbones, a bored mouth, eyes that catalogued value. She’d been the face of a perfume campaign Vanja’s family had briefly invested in. Rumor was the investment had been very, very hands-on.
Elara said something, her hand touching Vanja’s forearm. Vanja laughed, a real, throaty sound Sydney rarely heard. She didn’t shake off the touch. She leaned in closer to respond, her lips nearly brushing Elara’s ear. Sydney’s stomach turned, the champagne threatening to come back up.
One of her co-stars, a guy with a dazzling smile and zero perceptiveness, nudged her. “Your fiancée is a magnet, huh? She and Elara look pretty cozy.”
Sydney forced a smile. “Old friends.” The words tasted like ash.
She couldn’t look away. Vanja’s hand was now on Elara’s waist, guiding her subtly through the crowd toward a curtained alcove leading to a terrace. Vanja glanced back, once, her golden-green eyes slicing across the distance to find Sydney’s. She didn’t smile. She held the gaze for a fraction of a second, then let the curtain fall behind her and Elara.
The silence inside Sydney’s head was deafening. The party noise receded to a dull roar. She set her champagne flute on a passing tray. “Bathroom,” she mumbled to no one, and walked, her legs moving on autopilot, away from the crowd, down a corridor lined with gold-framed portraits of Hollywood ghosts.
She found a single-occupancy restroom, a luxurious cube of marble and soft lighting. She locked the door and leaned against it, closing her eyes. The image of Vanja’s hand on that narrow waist burned. The memory of Vanja’s fingers inside her just hours ago twisted into something ugly. She was shivering.
The door handle rattled. Then a knock, firm and definitive.
“Open it, Sydney.” Vanja’s voice, cool and clear through the solid wood.
Sydney’s heart lurched. She turned and fumbled with the lock. Vanja slipped inside, relocking the door in one fluid motion. The space, which had felt cavernous a moment before, shrank to the size of a coffin. Vanja smelled of whisky, expensive perfume, and the cold night air from the terrace.
“Left your little fan club?” Sydney heard herself say, the bitterness a thin, pathetic crack in her voice.
Vanja’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of amusement in their depths. She stepped closer, forcing Sydney back against the vanity. “Elara? She was congratulating me. On my engagement. On the pregnancy.” Her hands came to rest on the cold marble on either side of Sydney’s hips, caging her. “She wanted to know if marriage had… domesticated me. If I missed the taste of a real model and not just some actress playing dress-up.”
The cruelty was so precise it stole Sydney’s breath. “What did you tell her?” she whispered.
“I told her,” Vanja said, leaning in until their lips were almost touching, “that I’ve developed a preference for used goods. That there’s nothing quite like fucking a pregnant cunt. It’s warmer. Tighter. More… compliant.” She brought a hand up, gripping Sydney’s chin. “She was jealous. You could see it. She knows she’s just a collection of bones and angles. You… you’re a fucking ecosystem. My ecosystem.”
Vanja’s mouth crashed down on hers, not a kiss but an assault. It was whiskey and possession, a branding. Sydney kissed back, a desperate, furious clash of teeth and tongue. Her hands pulled at the immaculate jacket of Vanja’s tuxedo, ripping it off her shoulders. Vanja broke the kiss, her breathing ragged, and tore at the delicate straps of Sydney’s gown, yanking them down until the bodice collapsed around Sydney’s waist, her breasts spilling out. Vanja’s mouth was on them immediately, biting and sucking, her hands rough on Sydney’s hips.
“Turn around,” Vanja snarled. “Bend over the sink. I want to see that cheap dye job in the mirror while I fuck you.”
Sydney obeyed, her body thrumming with a terrible want. The cold marble of the vanity pressed against her bare stomach. She saw their reflection—her own face, flushed and streaked with leftover mascara, her weird eyes wide with a kind of terrorized need. Vanja behind her, impossibly beautiful, her tuxedo shirt open, her expression a feral mix of anger and lust.
She heard the low, visceral hum, the sound that now lived in her marrow. Vanja pushed her own trousers and underwear down just enough. Her manifested cock, fully erect and slick already at the tip, pressed against Sydney’s entrance. There was no gentle pressure, no asking.
Vanja drove into her with a single, brutal thrust, burying herself to the hilt. Sydney screamed, the sound echoing off the marble walls, her hands scrambling for purchase on the slick basin. Vanja set a relentless, punishing pace, each slam jolting Sydney’s body, making her breasts sway violently in the mirror’s view.
“This is what you are,” Vanja grunted, her eyes locked on Sydney’s reflection. “Not an actress. Not a star. You’re a hole. My fucking hole. I’ll fuck you on red carpets, I’ll fuck you in awards bathrooms, I’ll fuck you while you’re nursing my child.” She leaned over Sydney’s back, her teeth grazing Sydney’s ear. “You saw her touch me and you got wet, didn’t you? You liked it. You wanted to watch me fuck her to prove you’re still the one I come back to ruin.”
“Yes,” Sydney sobbed, the admission torn from her. “God, yes.”
“You’re pathetic.” Vanja’s hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. “And you’re mine.” Her thrusts became erratic, deeper, harder. The vanity shook. Sydney’s orgasm ripped through her, a wave of blinding, degrading pleasure that made her legs buckle. Vanja held her up, slamming into her through the contractions, before shuddering with her own release, a guttural groan hot against Sydney’s neck as she pulsed deep inside.
They stayed like that for a long moment, panting, connected, the only sound their ragged breath and the distant party bass. Slowly, Vanja pulled out. Sydney winced at the sudden emptiness, the familiar trickle down her thigh. Vanja turned her around, her gaze assessing. She wet a cloth from the tap and cleaned herself with methodical indifference. Then she did the same for Sydney, the coarse fabric rough between her legs.
Vanja pulled up her trousers, fastened them. She righted her shirt, tucked it in. She looked almost untouched, save for the wildness in her hair. Sydney’s gown was ruined, straps broken, bodice gaping. She stood shivering, exposed.
Vanja reached into her pocket and pulled out a small tube of lipstick. Not Sydney’s shade. A deeper, bloody red. She uncapped it and, using her own finger, smoothed it over Sydney’s bruised lips. It was a violent, intimate act. “There,” Vanja said, her voice quiet now, almost conversational. “Now you look fucked. Properly.” She took Sydney’s hand, her grip firm. “Let’s go home. The architect’s plans for the nursery are being delivered at eight. You need to be rested to approve them.”
She unlocked the door and led Sydney out into the corridor, back toward the noise and the light. Sydney walked beside her, the taste of blood-red lipstick and shame on her mouth, the physical ache between her legs a roadmap of her surrender. The glances they received now were different. Whispers followed them. Sydney realized, with a final, hollow clarity, that she didn’t look like a victim. She looked like exactly what she was: a claimed possession, marked and reeking of her owner’s particular brand of passion. Vanja’s grip on her hand was the only solid thing in the spinning world. It felt less like a tether and more like the only proof she still existed.
The penthouse elevator’s ascent was a silent, gravity-less purgatory. Sydney stared at their reflection in the bronze doors, a distorted portrait of dishevelment. Vanja’s hand was still clamped around hers, a bone-white bracelet. The gown’s torn straps slid down her shoulders with every shuddering breath. When the doors opened, Vanja pulled her across the threshold into the cool, dark silence of the entryway. The only light came from the city below, painting long, geometric shadows across the floor.
“The designer came and went,” Vanja said, her voice startlingly matter-of-fact as she shrugged off her tuxedo jacket. She tossed it over the back of a chair. “He left the fabric swatches and the revised floor plans on the dining table. The soundproofing specs are with them.” She walked towards the kitchen, her shoes clicking on the stone. “You should look at them before the contractor arrives at eight.”
Sydney didn’t move. She stood rooted in the center of the room, the party’s noise still ringing in her ears, the phantom sensation of Vanja inside her warring with the sharp, clean image of Elara’s hand on Vanja’s arm. The architect’s portfolio lay on the table, a neat, stark rectangle. It represented a future—a child’s room, a family, normalcy. It felt like a prop in a play she’d forgotten the lines to.
A hot pressure built behind her eyes. It started as a tightness in her throat, then a silent tremble in her jaw. The first tear was a betrayal, a hot track through the perfect, fucked-up lipstick. Then came a sob, a ragged, ugly sound that tore itself from her chest. She brought her hands to her face, the emerald ring cold against her cheekbone, and crumpled.
Vanja reappeared from the kitchen doorway, a glass of water in her hand. She stopped. Her poised, analytical expression fractured for a microsecond before reforming into something harder. She set the glass down on a side table with a sharp click.
“What happened?” Vanja asked. Her voice was low, stripped of its earlier theatrical cruelty.
Sydney couldn’t form words. She shook her head, her face still buried, the tears now coming in a silent, relentless flood. She gestured weakly, a useless flap of her hand towards the empty air, towards the memory of the party.
Vanja crossed the room in quick strides. She stood over Sydney, her shadow swallowing her. “Sydney. What. Happened.”
“You,” Sydney choked out, the word wet and broken. “And that… that model.”
Vanja was utterly still. Then she let out a sharp, exasperated breath through her nose. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“I saw you,” Sydney wept, dropping her hands. Her face was a ruined map of black mascara and red lipstick. “You went to the terrace with her. You were… you let her touch you. After everything tonight, after what you did to me in that bathroom, you just…”
“I did not,” Vanja stated, each word a chip of ice, “and will not, cheat on you.” She crouched down, forcing Sydney to meet her gaze. Her golden-green eyes were fierce, unwavering. “Listen to me. If anyone else ever joins our bed, it will be because you watch me with them and your cunt gets wet. It will be because you ask for it. It will be for us. Not for her. Not for anyone else. Do you understand the difference?”
Sydney cried harder, a fresh wave of confusion and relief so potent it was agony. She didn’t understand anything, only the vertigo of her own need.
“Now stop crying,” Vanja ordered, but her voice had lost its edge. It was almost soft. She leaned forward and kissed Sydney. It wasn’t the possessive bite from the bathroom. This kiss was different. It was a seal. A promise. A gentleness so foreign it shattered Sydney completely.
Vanja broke the kiss, her lips lingering near Sydney’s damp cheek. “Come,” she murmured.
Sydney’s body was limp, all resistance spent. Vanja slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her effortlessly from the floor. Sydney’s head lolled against Vanja’s shoulder, her torn gown spilling like a broken wing. Vanja carried her past the dining table with its blueprints for a future, past the kitchen where the water glass stood sweating, down the hall to their bedroom.
She laid Sydney on the disheveled silk of the bed, the same sheets from that morning. The city’s glow outlined Vanja as she stood above her. Slowly, deliberately, Vanja began to undress. The untucked shirt, the trousers, the underwear. Each item fell silently to the floor. Her body was a pale cutout against the night.
Then she approached the bed. She didn’t manifest anything. Her hands were just hands, her touch just skin. She peeled the ruined gown from Sydney’s body, the fabric slithering away. She looked at her—the slight swell of her stomach, the natural, sagging curve of her breasts, the faint stretch marks on her hips. Sydney felt exposed, more than naked.
Vanja lay down beside her and gathered her into the curve of her body. She held her. Not possessively, but protectively. One hand spread over Sydney’s belly, the other stroked her tangled, fake-blonde hair.
“You are it,” Vanja whispered into the dark. “This is it. There is no exit strategy. There is no upgrade. You are the conclusion of every thought I have.”
Sydney cried into the hollow of Vanja’s throat, the sobs finally quieting into hiccups. Vanja’s hand drifted from her hair, down her spine, over the curve of her ass. It was a soothing motion, at first. Then her fingertips traced the wetness still gathered between Sydney’s thighs from their earlier coupling.
Vanja’s breath hitched, a soft, internal click. The soothing touch changed. Her fingers pushed inside, not with brutality, but with a deep, probing certainty. She found Sydney still slick, still loose from being fucked. She moved them slowly, a gentle re-claiming.
“This is mine,” Vanja murmured, her lips against Sydney’s temple. “Only mine. You can be jealous of the air it breathes when I’m not inside it, but you never have to be jealous of another person. Ever.”
She rolled Sydney onto her back and moved over her. Vanja kissed her way down her body—her collarbone, the slope of a breast, taking a nipple into her mouth and sucking with a gentle, persistent rhythm that made Sydney arch. She kissed the faint rise of her stomach, her tongue tracing the skin. Then she moved lower, pushing Sydney’s thighs apart with her shoulders.
Vanja’s mouth on her cunt was not the ruthless instrument from the bathroom. This was slow. Devotional. She licked every fold, tasted every trace of herself and Sydney’s tears, her tongue circling Sydney’s clit with a patience that felt like torture. She feasted. Sydney’s hands fisted in the sheets, a low, continuous moan pulled from her chest. The orgasm built slowly, a deep, rising tide, before it broke over her in a series of soft, pulsing waves. Vanja drank every shudder, not stopping until Sydney was twitching and oversensitive.
Only then did Vanja move up her body. The low hum filled the space between them. Vanja guided her own slick cock, nudging at Sydney’s sensitive entrance. She pushed in with an excruciating slowness, filling her inch by trembling inch. Sydney gasped, the full, stretching sensation a sweet, familiar ache.
Vanja began to move, a deep, rolling rhythm that connected their cores. She braced her weight on her forearms, her face inches from Sydney’s. Her eyes were dark pools, all pretense of control gone, replaced by a raw, vulnerable hunger.
“You see?” Vanja breathed, her voice trembling with the force of her thrusts. “This is the only truth. My cock in your cunt. My child in your womb. My name on your life. Everything else is noise.”
Sydney wrapped her legs around Vanja’s waist, pulling her deeper, meeting each thrust. This wasn’t a fuck of punishment or possession. It was a confirmation. A vow written in sweat and friction. They moved together, the pace escalating, a frantic, perfect synchronization. Sydney came again, a silent, breathless unraveling that clenched around Vanja, pulling her over the edge.
Vanja cried out, a sharp, unguarded sound, as she emptied herself deep inside, her body shuddering. She collapsed, her weight a blessed anchor, her face buried in Sydney’s neck. They lay tangled, spent, the only sound their synced, slowing heartbeats.
A long time later, Vanja stirred. She pulled out but immediately gathered Sydney back against her, spooning her from behind. She kissed the nape of her neck.
“The contractor,” Vanja murmured, her voice thick with sleep, “is coming at eight. We need to choose a paint that won’t show fingerprints.”
Outside, the first grey light of dawn began to bleed into the edges of the skyline. The blueprints waited on the table. The world, with all its cameras and models and noise, was still there. But here, in the warm, spent dark, Sydney finally believed her. She closed her eyes. For the first time, the ring on her finger felt less like a shackle, and more like a key. It fit only one lock.
It fit only one lock.
Two months later, the city surrendered to a thick, humid August. The nursery was a half-constructed reality of drywall dust and the tinny whine of a table saw, the soundproofing layers a strange, fuzzy skin inside the walls. Sydney’s body had changed, the swell of her stomach now a firm, undeniable curve beneath her clothes. Vanja monitored these changes with a clinical fascination that made Sydney feel like a prized, pregnant specimen.
“Go to the spa,” Vanja said that morning, not looking up from a textbook on prenatal psychology. Her thumb traced a diagram of fetal development. “The one on Madison. I’ve booked the hydrotherapy circuit and a lymphatic massage. Your ankles are retaining water.”
Sydney didn’t argue. The spa was a reprieve from the constant construction noise and Vanja’s watching eyes. She left Vanja in the penthouse study, surrounded by blueprints and medical journals, a queen plotting the geography of her kingdom.
Vanja took a walk later, the steamy air clinging to her skin. She preferred the city’s aggressive heat to the sterile chill of air conditioning. She was cutting through the vaulted lobby of a historic building near the park, a shortcut she often used, when a voice like smoked glass stopped her.
“Where is the little actress?”
Vanja turned. Helen leaned against a marble pillar, a statue of calculated leisure in a cream linen suit. At forty-five, her beauty was a sharp, maintained weapon. Her eyes were a brilliant, artificial blue, her blonde hair a perfect sheet of expensive foil. The subtle lift of her breasts beneath the silk shell was the work of a master surgeon.
“Helen,” Vanja said, her voice flat.
“You’ve grown,” Helen observed, her gaze crawling over Vanja with an appraiser’s familiarity. “More than just taller. You’ve solidified. Where is she?”
“In a spa. She’s relaxing.”
Helen’s painted lips twitched. “How dutiful. And what about you, libeling? How do you relax these days? Changing diapers on your new doll? Planning playdates?”
Vanja rolled her eyes, a juvenile gesture that Helen alone could provoke. It was a callback to a seventeen-year-old Vanja, furious and fascinated. “What do you want, Helen?”
“Is that any way to greet your first?”
Helen pushed off the pillar and closed the distance. She smelled of tuberose and old money. “I read about your… engagement. Saw the pictures. You always did have a flair for the dramatic purchase. Tell me, does she know how to be quiet, or does she make those grating little noises like she does on screen?”
“She’s learns quickly.”
“I’ll bet.” Helen’s hand came up, her index finger tracing the air an inch from Vanja’s jawline. She didn’t touch. The threat of it was the point. “Your mother is worried. She says you’ve gone native. Playing house. That you’re wasting your… particular gifts on some temporary Hollywood fixation.”
“My mother’s concerns are archived and ignored. As are yours.”
“Are they?” Helen’s blue eyes glinted. “You were a spectacular learner, Vanja. A natural. I remember the first time I had you in that house in Gstaad. You were so voracious. So beautifully empty. I filled you with such delicious corruptions.” Her voice dropped to a whisper that slithered between them. “Does she fill you? Or do you just pour yourself into her, hoping she’ll somehow hold your shape?”
Vanja’s expression didn’t flicker, but a muscle in her jaw tightened. Helen saw it. Her smile was a victory.
“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” Helen murmured. “I can see it in the set of your shoulders. You’ve anchored yourself. How strangely conventional. You used to scream that you’d never be owned by biology.”
“I’m not. Biology is owned by me. It’s a housed function.”
“Spoken like a true psychiatrist in training. Such pretty jargon.” Helen finally let her finger make contact, a cold tap on Vanja’s collarbone. “When the doll breaks, or bores you, you know where I am. Some appetites don’t fade. They just require… more seasoned palates.”
She turned and walked away, her heels clicking a dismissive cadence on the marble. Vanja stood motionless, the ghost of that touch like a spot of decay on her skin. She didn’t watch her leave. She stared at a cracked vein in the marble floor, seeing instead a different ceiling, different silk, the crushing weight of a first lesson in submission that felt nothing like the power she now wielded over Sydney.
The spa was a temple of whispered voices and the smell of eucalyptus. Sydney floated in a silent pool, her body weightless, the baby a quiet, internal presence. For an hour, she had not thought of Vanja. It was a small, guilty freedom.
Back in the treatment room, she lay face down on the warmed table as the masseuse worked on her lower back. The woman’s hands were strong, kneading the tension from muscles she didn’t know she had.
“You carry a lot of stress here,” the woman said softly, her thumbs pressing deep into the sacrum.
Sydney just mumbled into the face cradle. The door to the room opened, not with a knock, but with a smooth, assured sweep. A different scent entered—city heat, expensive perfume, a predatory stillness. The masseuse’s hands paused.
“You can go,” Vanja’s voice cut through the humid air.
Sydney tensed. She heard the therapist’s muted protest, then quick, retreating footsteps. The door clicked shut. Vanja’s presence filled the silent room. Sydney didn’t move, her heart pounding against the leather table.
She heard the soft rustle of clothing. Vanja was undressing. The lock on the door engaged with a solid thunk. Then Vanja’s hands were on her, but they were not the skilled, professional hands of the masseuse. They were possessive, demanding. They pushed the sheet down to Sydney’s waist, then lower, baring her completely.
“Vanja,” Sydney whispered, turning her head to the side. “What are you—”
“Be quiet.” Vanja’s voice was a low wire of tension. She climbed onto the table, straddling Sydney’s thighs. Her naked skin was hot, flushed from the walk. Sydney could feel the firmness of Vanja’s body, the slight slickness of sweat between them.
Vanja’s hands slid up Sydney’s back, not to massage, but to possess. She gripped Sydney’s shoulders, her fingers digging in. She leaned down, her mouth close to Sydney’s ear. “Someone saw me today. Someone from before. She asked about you. Called you my little actress.”
Sydney froze. A cold dread pooled beneath her ribs.
Vanja’s hips ground down against Sydney’s ass, a slow, deliberate rotation. She was already hard. The familiar, low hum vibrated through the table, through Sydney’s bones. “She thought she knew me. She thought she owned a piece of me.” Vanja’s breath hitched. She reached between Sydney’s legs, her fingers shoving roughly into her folds. “She doesn’t. This owns me. Only this.”
Sydney was wet, her body betraying her with instant, shameful arousal at the anger in Vanja’s touch. Vanja’s fingers worked her open, a brutal, efficient stretching. She spat into her hand, the sound crude and violent in the serene room, and slicked her cock.
She didn’t wait. She positioned herself and pushed inside in one relentless, deep stroke. Sydney cried out, her fingers scrambling against the slick leather. Vanja filled her utterly, a claiming that felt like an exorcism. Vanja set a furious pace, fucking into her with a hard, driving rhythm that shook the table on its base.
“Tell me who you belong to,” Vanja grunted, her hands clamping on Sydney’s hips, holding her down for each punishing thrust.
“You,” Sydney gasped, the word forced out of her.
“Say it like you mean it. Say it like you’d gut anyone who questioned it.”
“I belong to you! God, Vanja, I’m yours!”
Vanja’s rhythm faltered. She bent over Sydney’s back, her teeth sinking into the muscle of Sydney’s shoulder, not quite breaking the skin. The pain was sharp, bright, a perfect counterpoint to the deep, internal pounding. “She’s nothing,” Vanja hissed against her skin. “A ghost. You are the flesh. You are the blood. You are the fucking cage I’ve built for myself.”
Her thrusts became ragged, losing their controlled fury, devolving into something more primal, more desperate. Sydney could feel the tension coiling in Vanja’s body, a spring wound too tight. She pushed back, meeting each drive, letting Vanja use her, wanting her to. She came with a silent, open-mouthed scream, her body clenching in a series of tight pulses around Vanja’s cock.
It triggered Vanja’s release. She slammed home one final time and froze, a choked, raw sound escaping her as she emptied herself deep inside Sydney. Her body shuddered violently, all her cool control shattered by the force of it.
They stayed locked together, Vanja’s weight heavy and spent on top of her. Sydney could feel Vanja’s heart hammering against her back. Vanja’s face was buried in the crook of Sydney’s neck, her breath coming in hot, damp gusts.
Slowly, Vanja softened and slipped out. She rolled off, lying beside Sydney on the narrow table. They both stared at the ceiling, a serene painted sky of clouds they had just violently defiled.
Vanja’s hand found Sydney’s, their fingers intertwining. Her grip was almost painfully tight.
“The paint for the nursery,” Vanja said, her voice hoarse and strangely young. “I was thinking a deep, matte grey. Not a passive color. A substantive one.”
Sydney turned her head. Vanja’s profile was perfect, but her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, seeing something else. The encounter with Helen had left a mark, a fissure in her granite certainty. Sydney squeezed her hand back.
“Grey is good,” Sydney whispered. “It won’t show fingerprints.”