Wilted Petals By: Sean Roberts
Author's Note: I would appreciate any feedback, please send to seanr_13@yahoo.ca
Chapter 1
At the botanical garden, Johanna takes a picture of a purple orchid growing out of water. From the green stem rising out of the stream, spiked, purple petals emerge, some reaching for the sun and others towards the banks. In the centre the flower is yellow. She knows that if she could see further into the swamp, the roots would touch the ground. The flower blooms from soil and water into the sunlight. Johanna wants desperately to take the rare flower back to her lover but she believes in the balance of nature and does not want to up-root either one.
She hates computers but loves what they can do. She sits, as if in her father's arms, in the large leather chair in his study. She uses his computer to magically send two of the pictures she has taken today to Leslie. The second one was taken when she arrived home from the garden: a plaid skirt lying on her bed.
The saleswoman watched her suspiciously as she took the skirt out of the store, knowing it was much too small for Johanna. But apparently that was the point.
Johanna smiles when she thinks about the look she will see on Leslie's face. In twenty minutes Leslie will be there, adding herself to Johanna's day of beauty.
Johanna is seventeen years old. The camera now sitting in her father's study, beside the computer, is brand new. The one that uses film is in her closet. But unlike the clothes it shares the space with it is now covered in dust from not being used.
As she sends the flower she remembers the first picture she ever took of Leslie; the one protected in a plastic sleeve inside her leather journal--Leslie dressed in a yellow shirt and faded blue jeans. The picture was taken two years ago while Leslie was painting. Joanna took it from behind the painting, capturing her friend's concentration. The visual representation of life: a passion shared by both girls.
A light, summer breeze blows through her open window and caresses her almost naked body. She lies on her bed wearing only the skirt, which is much too short.
Leslie. Johanna always knows it is her by the short, brown hair. With no brushing or gel or mousse or spray her hair is always magnificent. Her hair and her eyes and Johanna's eyes all match the plaid skirt.
She strips slowly and then jumps onto the bed, placing her hand on Johanna's thigh. She moves it higher, discovering that there is no underwear. The realization excites her even more. Then the girls kiss--quickly, lightly--smiling into each other's eyes when they are finished. They do not need to speak to each other. Leslie pulls off the skirt.
Johanna spreads her legs to allow Leslie's fingers inside. With her other hand Leslie touches Johanna's right breast, her nipples now hard: a woman's erection. She does not let it go even after Johanna has had an orgasm. She continues to hold it, the softness of the skin mixed with the hard nipple in her hand, Johanna's tongue in her mouth.
Out of the corner of her eye Johanna sees a felt flower sewn to the knapsack Leslie has left on her floor. It is purple with a yellow centre. An arts and crafts project from the first grade; from a time they did not know each other.
Johanna's fingers enter warm, moist flesh. She does not have to think about where to put them or how to move them. The pattern of Leslie's breathing changes, matching the rhythm of the movement of the fingers inside of her.
She notices that Leslie has stopped smiling so with her fingers she touches Leslie's lips. The petals of her mouth. They kiss each other passionately during the second explosion.
At thirteen she was headlong into puberty. It was at this age that she began to discover her body--her emerging breasts, widening hips, and increasingly sensitive vagina; this area between her legs that at times she could barely stand to touch because of the intensity of the pleasure, especially when she was thinking about boys. And then it happened.
He was five years older, out with his friends and drunk. She never remembered how many people there were but the sounds of their voices never left her mind. What she remembered clearly was the boy who did it first--him she would never forget. He smelled of sweat mixed with cologne mixed with soap, like her father after a shower, but the boy's smell was stronger; it was painful. She wasn't ready when he entered her so forcefully. All it took was a moment to rip out her innocence.
By the time the second one was inside her she had closed her eyes and her mind. She could not get rid of the pain and humiliation; she got comfort only from the fact that she couldn't see or smell or hear what was going on around her; what was happening inside her.
They left her where they had found her. She was walking her dog, one street away from her own house in a quiet, sub- urban neighbourhood, though it was not quiet that night. She walked home slowly, crying, only to find a police car in her driveway. Her parents had become worried when the dog ran home without her.
She entered the house quietly, a beautiful thirteen year old girl with long, flowing blonde hair and bright, hazel eyes. The dog, a large, black Labrador, ran up to her. He had been trained not to jump on her but he stretched his neck, reaching as high as he could to lick her face. He tasted the salt of her tears and backed off, the dog confused from the taste that he has never before tasted on his best friend.
Johanna collapsed on the floor, throwing her arms around the dog's neck, burying her head into the muscles above his arm, savouring the familiar smell of his fur and the unconditional love she needed at that moment more than ever before.
Her mother saw her first. The moment she looked into her daughter's eyes she began to cry. She knew exactly what had happened. She could see the hurt and pain and confusion in the eyes of the one and only child she and her husband had been blessed with.
But it was her father Johanna needed. He put his hand gently on her back while she hugged her mother, but she shrugged away the touch. For two days she couldn't even look at him. The sight and smell of him disgusted her, made her want to vomit.
Three days later she came to him. He was in the large leather chair in his study. He put down his pen when he saw her and gave her a half smile, not knowing what to say to the girl he loved so much, the one he so desperately wanted to hold. She burst into tears when she saw him, running up to him and throwing herself at him. With her arms around his neck she heard him start to cry as he held her.
"I'm sorry daddy. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you." She started crying as she said these words, her guilt at having hurt her father stronger than anything else.
"No sweetheart," he replied, "you don't have to be sorry. You don't have to be sorry." The sound of his voice and the smell of his aftershave made her sit on his lap, his strong arms around her. When she was little she would sit like this, on his lap, him watching her solve a Rubik's Cube or share a piece of chocolate from his desk before dinner. She lifted the Rubik's cube from his desk, the one she had solved that he kept beside him whenever he was working. She looked at all the sides, the perfection of the colours. As she sat in her father's arms she began twisting the cube, jumbling up the squares, trying to bring order back into her life.