Pulp Friction I

"Hey, Margie," Blue looked the same as always as she jumped from the last stair of the staircase and took a leaping few bounces to shake off the momentum. When she came to a halt at the dinner table, even her mother looked the same as always.

Luckily, she was in the midst of her summer break after her senior and final schooling year; the break in which she waited to make the leap to tertiary education. In favour of that, she did not look the same as she did on a school morning, which was far worse than the way she did on a holiday morning. Holiday-morning-Blue, as she was, emerged from her bedroom typically with her light and unbrushed hair around her shoulders and a dress of some kind on. School-morning-Blue emerged wearily with a school blouse and skirt on, the blazer icing the cake and the stockings garnishing the frosting, though she looked far more presentable, the uniform failed to rival the appeal of a short and child-like dress, as she often opted for. It was a strange thing to lean towards when dressing; to want to look like a sexualised child. Perhaps that was because she had been a sexualised child. "-Bagels today? You know how much I love you,"

"We've been over this, Blue, it’s 'Margetta', you can't nickname the help," 'And you can't wear blue with that awful tan', was all Blue wanted to say. Still, nothing was stopping the poor woman from making the tragic fashion mistake, so what was stopping Blue? Or who? Besides the woman who wore the figure-hugging blue dress all laws of nature argued against? Who with a valid and totally not redundant opinion was stopping Blue?

"Well, if Margetta is going to be handling my thongs and picking used condoms out of my jean pockets then I should be able to nickname her," It took no longer than a moment for Blue to smooth over her own dress and find her seat opposite her mother. When she did, it took hardly a moment longer for her to ensure her gaze fell everywhere but to the pair of the same blue as her own; like mother, like daughter, it would seem. "I'll call her 'Margetta' when I'm an old Latvian woman,"

"Don't be disgusting — and don't eat too many bagels, either, Richard is coming over any minute from work with your father and his boss to join us for a late breakfast," and suddenly, Blue put the bagel right back onto the plate she had taken from faster than it had taken her to sit down and avert her eyes. Never before in her life had she turned down a fresh and still-warm bagel, just she had never tasted rainbow ice-cream, or done anything her mother had told her to.

"His boss?" Sure, the girl had an odd edge to her words, but somehow it was even something the mother with so much spare time to spend staring at people and figuring out how exactly they ticked didn't notice. Even if she did notice, her skills weren't quite so advanced that she could deduce 'His boss? The one who came inside of me on the landing balcony?' from a simple question with a tone of 'oh, you've got to be joking', served with no more information. It seemed to simply fall unnoticed, instead.

Finally, Blue's eyes found the pair of the woman before her, the very pair she had been avoiding. Alas, the bottle blonde and spray-tan cased woman looked and sounded as oblivious as ever. Thank the heavens — on Blue's behalf, of course. "Yes, Vincent, I'm sure your father introduced the pair of you last night," and so Blue watched as the woman tore into her half of a grapefruit with a fork and a knife as if it were loaded pizza — but it wasn't, it was a fruit greatly resembling a vagina riding the crimson wave. In that moment, Blue was thankful that she had returned her bagel to the pile where it had sat.

"Dad didn't, no," As the blonde spoke, she put the most effort into sounding neutral she ever had... and all without her first cup of coffee.

"You say that as if someone else did," Though the woman sounded curt and knowing of something undisclosed, the fact she failed to look up from her organ-esque fruit convinced Blue it was simply her idea of a witty remark. The same wit Blue seemed to have stolen alongside seventeen ounces of blood in childbirth.

"No one did," when the words flew from Blue's mouth faster than the speed at which she had barrelled towards the dining table, she found herself forcing a pause. She knew, unless she revaluated, she would deeply risk her mother finally picking up on something. That meant, she'd have to force herself to sound as attracted to Vincent, the very man who came inside of her on the balcony, as she was to Robert — Richard. "I have no idea who Velvet or whoever is," A girl’s name… Nice save. "Why's dad's boss coming, anyway?"

"He's losing two of his top employees for a few hours, it's the polite thing to do," Oh, way to go, Marian Pierce, sneak in a compliment of the work ethic for your husband and double it with a compliment for your future son-in-law, if all goes to plan. That was the most ingenious plan you've ever had, Marian, considering you skipped birth control to purposely fall pregnant and get your now husband to actually marry you. Kudos, Marian.

Blue gave her mother a desperate and deep stare, her eyebrows furrowed, her lips in a delicate frown. It was the "look at me, I'm Blue, pat me" stare designed only to remind her mother she appeared as though she would never hurt a fly. The stare designed to make her mother revaluate any decision made that Blue may oppose. The stare that worked every time. "Mom, you can't force Robert on me, there's no chemistry," She even whined as she said it. Kudos, Blue.

"Richard, and after the second date offer you blew off, we came to Richard and he was the only person you exchanged more than monosyllables with," The woman paused the butchering of her grapefruit to finally meet the warm blue gaze of her daughter. She wished she hadn't, it was the fullest form of the "I'm Blue, pat me" stare, the form that could talk any poor soul into suicide if she so desired.

Perhaps it was the fact juice from the butchered grapefruit dripped onto the hem of her dress and stirred the grown woman into a tantrum that caused her to find the courage to rebuke her daughter. "He's on his way, he's to be seated next to you and that's final," And then the woman flew out of her seat in a huff and threw her napkin to the table as though she had the fullest intentions to curse the damn thing. "Margetta! I'm going to change and then you are to stain-treat this dress immediately," And then she stamped away — Blue mouthed a small 'thank you' to the severed grapefruit and listened to the marches of the surgically enhanced woman up the stairs before she finally spoke again. If she had met her mother before she fell pregnant, she wouldn't recognise her, not to deviate from the main issue at hand. The main issue was the fact that she would be forced to converse with three men, two of which she had the slimmest desire to converse with, and one of which nutted inside of her mother some eighteen years and nine months ago.

Only when her mother was so deep in the upper level of the house that Blue could no longer register the fading thumps of her purposeful march, did the girl dare to speak again. When she did, she called out loudly and with full intentions of her voice making it all the way to the kitchen, where (of course) Margetta would be hiding meekly in wait for Marian to storm in, guns blazing, to sodomise the poor maid until the dress was restored to how exactly it was before Marian took out all of her hungover rage on a fruit. "Margie, did you make a pot of coffee this morning?"

"Yes, I did Miss Pierce — just like every other morning," Margetta's voice was just as distantly afraid as any one maid would assume it would be. The poor, poor thing. The worst Marian could do without breaking a nail and throwing a tantrum about that, would be firing the woman. Luckily for Margetta, Blue loved her — and even if the favour of the daughter of the house failed, there was no shortage of work in the region. In fact, the Pierce household was quite small in stark and close comparison to others in the wealthy radius.

"Great, now put some whiskey in it," and the girl paused as she heard her mother quickly barrelling down the stairs. If it was the last time she would see or hear of Margetta alive, she needed to take advantage of the woman and all her early-morning service glory; all of it. "Three shots worth,"

Suddenly, her mother was standing at the doorway of the room. In all honesty, the dress looked much the same as the one she had so carelessly dirtied. The only difference? The depth of the neckline, perhaps even the shape if one would go so far as to mention where the other came to a sharp point, the new dress came to a more rounded dip right in the wrinkled crease between her breasts. "And what if Richard kisses you and gets the impression you're a drunk with no self-respect?" Of course, Marian had to find a way to circle the beloved Richard back into conversation. All Blue wanted to say to her mother was 'well, a man as fine as Robert deserves only the truth', yet all she could do was sigh and bite her tongue — in the very minute she did sigh and bite her tongue, Marian truly thought that the girl was going to reconsider. After all, Margetta had the track record of following Blue's orders before she followed the command of the rude but paying woman... at the end of the day, sometimes, Marian had no choice but to facilitate underage drinking, especially since she was the woman to introduce the habbit on Blue's sixteenth birthday. What she had thought would be a way for Blue to appear to be more matured and more suited for grown and ideally wealthy men quickly became a bad habit she wasn't a stranger to, herself, in her own former years.

But then Blue finally delivered the more tame version of the line she so desired to slide from between her lips with a shameless smile; "Make it five, Margie," and suddenly the woman couldn't bring herself to give even two shits any more. She had made a monster. She had bred a child who grew to be the exact copy of herself, without taking into account the house worth of plastic surgery hanging from her chest and her hairline alike. It was and always would be unknown if Marian failed to smile because of the tear-jerking botox and face-lift regime, or simply because the poor woman had no soul. Like most things, it could indeed be a good mix of both. She could have sold her soul to pay for the surgery.

When Margetta finally emerged from the depths of the kitchen with a dainty teapot it seemed only stupid to put coffee in, there was no way for Marian to ever know for sure if Margetta had spiked the morning brew or not. Blue knew for sure if the requested five shots had been added the moment she took her first gulp. And in addition to the fact that Margetta never failed to make awful, strong and bitter coffee, it burned as she took the mouthful down her throat without the quick pause she felt she needed that would still offer no reprieve to the potency. The only plus to the two conflicting solutions to form one product, was the fact that it physically was warm, and yet offered the burning warmth at the very same time — and that combination was far better than her consumption of iced wine the evening before. Blue paused over her mug as her mother shifted and smoothed out her dress beneath her, making an attempt to settle in her seat. For the fleeting moment she made the decision to speak again, decidedly due to the fact she felt somewhat bad for her mother.

She knew that her mother cared — and though she didn't actually care about Blue, but instead her reputation, it resembled authentic human emotion.

"Thanks for taking mom's side, Margie," and she made the effort to be just beneath the volume Margetta could physically pick up from the kitchen but of a volume great enough to lull Marian into a soft sense of victory.

"I knew the pair of you would still be eating," Only one thing was worse than facing Marian before twelve; Bradley Pierce.

The name was often misleading. It was the name of a party-boy or the thirty-eight-year-old leader of a college fraternity with time spent so often getting wasted he was balls deep in student debt with all the times he'd had to repeat the course. It was strange, he was an average man with the most disinteresting and booze-less life in the entire working industry.

"We're only still eating because Blue spends half of her life in bed and only emerges for meals — late, may I add," Marian spoke sharply, though Blue couldn't bring herself to care as of her second cup of the godly-nectar-infused-coffee. In all honesty, Blue was considering producing the flask she had taped under the surface of the table right at her seat and further diluting the coffee. In that case, Robert, Richard, wouldn't have to kiss Blue to discover the amount to which she was intoxicated. All it would take would be Blue simply breathing in the general direction of the man whose sight repulsed her more than anything in the world.

In the thickness of the headache that was sneaking whiskey-flavoured coffee past her mother, Blue failed to notice as a man seated himself right beside her. She was too busy sculling her teacup as if it was the best tasting coffee to ever land on her tongue to notice the man sparing her a glance and unbuttoning the single button of his blazer; even when his elbow brushed her shoulder and her eyes brushed his as she scanned the table for her beloved coffee pot. And even then, when they landed on the green and dark pair almost sinister beneath the frame of even darker brows, it took her a long moment to double back and for her stomach to sink far further than it ever had. In all honesty, she had forgotten that her mother had said the infamous Vincent was set to arrive.