“Oh my God, Casey! The ring! It’s beautiful! … and big!” she exclaimed, holding her hand up behind as she hugged Casey to finally get a good look at it. “It’s not so big. It’s only a …” “Don’t tell me how big it is! I don’t want or need to know. All I need to know is that you gave it to me, and we’re gonna be married, and I love you so much! Oh, Casey! I’m so happy!” “I am too, my beautiful Princess fiancée!” he said and...

The festival ended on the twenty-fifth. Avignon should have recovered from its hangover by now. My throat thickens. I try to put it out of my mind. But I am walking down this cobbled lane towards it, and the sweet smells from the patisserie turn my stomach. Like Aix, there is little that endears me to this place. It is early August, and the rising heat is a punishment. A folded letter from the Diocese rests in my pocket....

I drove from the July heat into the mountains. When I took the road out of the low country, I carried the memories of the Salins and their mineral glare. I wanted Étienne. I had him. I left. He remained with me for a day afterwards, leaking into my panties. The plains bend and fold into hills and mountains. The air cools by degrees. It is a dry warmth scented with pine resin. The woods close in around me, and old schist w...

No one makes plans in Aix-en-Provence at the height of summer. This syrupy heat lingers, creating an indifference in its people. The Cours Mirabeau is swollen with tourists who mill around and dawdle. They have nowhere urgent to be. Aix is a city smeared as an arc at the foothills of Provence. Twilight lingers at its longest now, casting a reddish hue on the limestone buildings. The silhouette of Mont Sainte-Victoire bear...

This place is as picturesque as it is cruel to any artist. The unpredictable sunlight offers no place to hide. She will dry out colours quicker than the tears of your frustration. The sea does not forgive. It requires the use of blue, and not green, confounding artists for centuries. The fort glitters with a latent black violence. The church dome in pink rose is in every picture I remember of my favourite artist. It looks...

All I can see is an unfolding drama. The sky grows larger with each passing minute, and the last hills of Provence fade. The over-saturated colours wash out, tinted by burnished chrome. I pass the last village before the coast, and the expanse of the sea fills the horizon. I find the turn, and the narrow road diminishes into a track of hard-packed dirt. As I thread the van between two expansive lagoons, the precarious sit...

One month. Thirty days later, and I do not recognise myself. I sit at their table, the same polished oak as before. Anaïs emptied Jules with her mouth here, and he made his confession. I am no longer in the shadows, but pangs of nervousness still haunt me. The stem of a glass of Chablis rests between my fingers. Light and shadows dance over my naked arms. It flickers over my exposed décolletage. Candlelight softens the ed...

Benoît looks nervous, and she has every right to be. Making our introductions, I am the fresh face. Now, we wait, in this decaying temple of decadence. We sit as a fragile circle on four mismatched chairs. Mine threatens to impale me with a rogue spring, and its corduroy arms are pockmarked with cigarette burns. I shift to avoid it, and the rough fabric grazes the back of my thighs. A coarse reminder of how far I have fal...

At 7:00am I left Terrence’s room and headed right to Suki’s apartment, I felt refreshed and energized better then ever before. I stopped for some coffee and a bite to eat. But because of the shots the night before I could not have eggs or milk or drink alcohol for seven days. I made my way to the apartment, I stopped at two street vendors and bought some pastries and some flowers for Suki. It would be rude of me to show u...

My phone buzzed, snapping me out of the haze of reflection. For the last several minutes I’d been staring out at the rain-slicked street, replaying the last three months and the breakup that wasn’t really mutual, the quiet ache I’d been burying under long hours at my office job and weekend Uber shifts. Work had become my shield. Dating? Not even on the radar. But the gym had helped; the tall frame and broad shoulders I wa...

The week of total submission intensified with every filthy command Daddy barked through texts, his voice in my head growing harsher, more possessive. No more gentle coaxing—only raw, degrading orders that made my cunt clench instantly. Morning one brought his first brutal text: “Get your fingers in that sloppy hole right fucking now, slut. Edge three times before you leave the dorm. Send video proof or I’ll make you crawl...