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Saving Ash(book #2)-Chapter one

Writer's picture: Gina A. JonesGina A. Jones

Ash...14 years old



She’s pretty. I like it when she rubs against me when we play together. I love the way she smells—lemon verbena. I like the way her hair frames her face—like an angel. There’s something in her eyes when she looks at me. Something—I can’t tell. Her smile is beautiful in a wicked way—like she has a secret she wants to tell me.


Today she is wearing a short, white skirt. It’s shorter when she sits next to me. When I play well, she pats and rubs my back. It makes me feel special—to her. I don’t feel special to anyone else. Father works all the time, making more money than we need.


I used to be lonely before she came. I look forward to the days I get to be with her. Sometimes, I think about her. That’s a lie, she’s is all I think about. Especially at night, in the shower…


Her shirt is unbuttoned at the front. I try not to look, but when she catches me, she tells me it’s alright—that it’s human nature to be curious. She doesn’t scold me—not the way the teachers do at my Catholic school. Not her. She’s understanding, kind… beautiful.


I think about what it would be like to kiss her. Touch her in places I shouldn’t. Sometimes, I accidentally touch her on purpose. I tell her I’m sorry, but she always says it’s okay. And she always says it with a smile. I love her smile.


Her hand covers mine, as I press down on the piano keys. I’ve practiced for hours because she told me once it was her favorite song—The Butterfly Waltz. I practiced for her.


Her eyes are closed and she lays her head on my shoulder as I continue to play. Her hand moves to my thigh. She rubs it to the song—slow and methodic. She feels music, and like her, I want to feel everything she feels. Be there for her.


“That’s it, Ash, you play beautifully. I think you’re a natural,” she says softly. I love it when she talks to me like that—delicate.


“Thank you, Miss Jennings.”


“Ash,” she says, rubbing my chest, “please call me Pippa.”


Pippa. I love her name as well. It’s unique—like her. I want to say her name on her lips. Repeat it as I kiss down her neck, and down her chest. I think about her naked all the time. Lately, it’s consumed me. I no longer pay attention to my teachers, and my grades are falling. She has cast a spell on me that I don’t want unbroken. She can have me—all of me. She already owns my thoughts.


“Pippa, can you tell me why this is your favorite song?” I ask, still gently playing the keys.


“Because when I hear this song, I see freedom. Butterflies in a flowery field who care nothing but just being a butterfly. No competing. No fighting with the other butterflies. No sadness, no pain. I see a perfect world.”


She has this way of saying things—things that put me at ease. Beautiful things. I can’t tell my class mates, they wouldn’t understand. No fourteen-year-old boy thinks of beautiful butterflies in a field. But I do. I do when I’m with her. I think a lot of things when I’m with her.


“Tell me, Ash? What do you see when you play this song?” Her eyes are still closed and  her head is still on my shoulder. She makes me feel like a man.


I can’t tell her what I really want to—what I envision. We are both naked in the soft grass, she’s sitting on top of me. I’m inside her. She moves so gracefully, enjoying herself. I see her perfect breasts as her chest rises and fall with her heavy breathing. She sees me as a man. The man who can pleasure her like no one else. The butterflies are dancing all around us. They are drawn to her beauty.


No, I can’t tell her that.


“I see you, a rainbow of butterflies dancing all around you. The smile in your eyes. The sun shining on your golden hair. I see you happy, Pippa.”


She moves her head from my shoulder, and places her soft hand on my cheek. The smell of lemon verbena fills my soul. She’s looking at me in the most peculiar way. She blinks a few times, and I watch her long lashes flutter—like butterflies. Is she mad at me? It was probably too personal to say. She will think I’m a freak now.


“Ash, you are very special, do you know that?” She lightly pushes my bangs to the side, her scent now on my skin.


The words are stuck in my throat. I’m looking at her. I want to kiss her. Will she let me?


“No, Pippa. That’s not how I see myself,” I manage to tell her.


She runs her fingers down the side of my face and lifts my chin. Our lips are inches apart. I feel her breath on my face. I can’t move. She paralyzes me.


“You are. You’re talented.” Her eyes crease a little. “And, you’re very handsome. I bet all the girls at school adore you.”


I puff a small inward laugh. “No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty quiet at school. I don’t think they even notice me.”


“Nonsense.” She then traces my lips with her finger. I watch her eyes follow the movement. Man, she’s so gorgeous. “Why, I bet even your teachers flirt with you.”


I smile. “Well, most are nuns. So, no.”


“Nuns, huh? Oh, trust me, nuns fantasize more than us secular people.” She lays her head back down on my shoulder. “That’s because…everything they do…is done in secret.”


Her hands move back to my thighs. My heart is racing. I want time to stop, stay with her forever, locked in a world where only we exist.


“Play for me, Ash.”


My palms are sweating and I lift my fingers to the piano keys. I wasn’t even aware I had stopped playing.


She rubs my thigh, as I continue with the The Butterfly Waltz. She rocks us slowly to the melody, and I’m falling in her trance. I’m all hers, every bit of me. All she would have to do is say the word, and I follow her to the ends of the earth. I know it’s such a cliché and would sound pathetic if I said the words. But Pippa is teaching me to live in my own mind, enjoy the things I can do without others seeing. She doesn’t know this, though. She only knows this Ash. The Ash who sits next to her two times a week on this piano bench, while she teaches me to play. She’s a good teacher. Everything about her is perfect.


She doesn’t know the Ash who wants her. Has made love to her countless times in my head.

The door opens to the music room and Pippa quickly takes her head away from my shoulder. The strong void of her already fills me with emptiness.


I watch him walk in and head straight to his bourbon cart. He pours himself two fingers worth, and then takes the leather chair in the corner. He crosses his legs, and smiles over at us. But I know it’s for Pippa, not me. Father hasn’t smiled in years. Not since Mother died. I don’t recall much about her. I was four when she passed of cancer.


“You have done will with him, Pippa.”


Pippa. I hate when he says her name. She’s never given him permission—like she has me.

“Mr. Sinclair, your son is a natural,” she coos back. I hate when they talk because when they do, I disappear from the room. Disappear from her.


My fingers softly end the song and I watch the two of them smile at one another. I feel anger inside. Hate and abandonment. I was all hers, until he walked in.


***


Saving Ash© 2024 Gina A. Jones rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.


This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.



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3件のコメント

5つ星のうち0と評価されています。
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angie jones
2024年2月19日
5つ星のうち5と評価されています。

いいね!

shannon Cheripka
2024年2月15日
5つ星のうち5と評価されています。

Oh wow..


いいね!

Brooke
2024年2月15日
5つ星のうち5と評価されています。


いいね!
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