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The phone alarm starts blaring at noon and Eve groans at the noise. She hardly ever slept this late in her adulthood, but she worked until 2 am last night and collapsed into bed exhausted. She rubs her hands over sleepy eyelids, and she notes that her fingers smell of the cheap soap the restaurant provides.
Rolling over to her side, Eve begins the process of getting ready for work. That’s all she does now, really. She goes to the restaurant and works in the back kitchen. Her only real socialization is making polite conversations with her co-workers during her 12-hour shifts. At best, she gets to use her Korean, her language that she loves so much but hardly got to use during her last 20 years in London.
But, at worst, she is just a mere shell of a person. Drudging in and out of the back kitchen, clocking in and out, living a life that has lost all meaning, all comforts of home, and all friendships.
Eve is lonely. And scared. Whenever she catches a glimpse of customers milling about in the front, her mind goes into overdrive. She’ll spot an older man from the back with a black coat and she panics thinking it’s Konstantin.
She once was so petrified when a man who looked too much like Raymond, paused and stared at her for a beat too long, that she actually ran to the back and vomited into the toilet.
However, nothing compares to the women who walkthrough. Any well dressed looking blonde that strolls in makes Eve's entire stomach drop. The fear, anger, thrill that it might be her paralyzes her.
But there’s no way, Eve tells herself, that it could be her. She thinks she’s dead. Eve has to remind herself that every day. It’s been six months, and no one has come for her.
She has done a semi-okay job hiding in disguise. She’s going by a different name at work, she pays her rent in cash, nobody really cares to find out her background or why she’s here working and living in a run-down town.
With a tint of sorrow, she realizes that she feels settled. The whirlwind experience of healing from her wound, and deciding she needed to go on the run, left her anxiety-ridden for months on end. But now that the dust has settled and she is very much not dead- the all-consuming loneliness is almost too much to bear.
She drudges into work, goes through the motions of another shift, smiles at the photos her co-worker shows her of his new grandson, and suddenly realizes it’s 1 am and her shift is over.
It’s here, in the middle of the night, that she finally decides she’s hidden for long enough, nobody gives a fuck about her, and strolls through into the local dive bar- anybody who recognizes her be damned.
She’s on her third gin & tonic when she spots another woman sitting by herself. She’s cute, Eve thinks. She’s surprised by the thought. Surprised at the flutter in her stomach. Eve puts her at about mid-thirties, short blonde bob, tired eyes, and definitely a professional career woman of some sort.
She’s barely had human contact for six months and she’s just drunk enough to do this.
Eve approaches the woman, clocks her outfit as very chic and starts with a simple “Hi.”
There isn’t really any beating around the bush for what this is. Eve takes her back to her apartment, and they’re kissing. The woman’s name is Sarah, she’s 36 and works as a lawyer.
Eve’s kissed women before, drunkenly, as she is now. But it’s never gone further than that. But she’s so fucking lonely, and she needs this.
She thinks maybe, just doing this with a woman, will help satiate the twisted beast inside her that still aches for someone far more dangerous.
Sarah doesn’t seem to clock Eve’s inexperience with women or, rather, doesn’t seem to really care. She slides a hand into Eve’s underwear and Eve moans high pitched, and breathy. She’s so starved for affection that the simplest of movement in her underwear, and a hand on her breast, has her close.
Sarah slips fingers inside Eve and she starts circles with her thumb. Eve closes her eyes, and fuck it feels good but she needs something more.
She can’t help where her thoughts go. She pictures Villanelle.
She pictures the night she heard her moan and touch herself. How Villanelle had confessed that she wanted Eve’s mouth on her, how she wished her fingers were Eve’s and Eve goes to hold Sarah’s wrist and squeezes it harder against herself, encouraging her to move harder.
Eve remembers how excited Villanelle seemed when she whispered in Eve’s ear, “I can’t wait to be the one to make you feel this good.”
Eve bites down on Sarah’s neck and a thrum of satisfaction courses through her when she realizes she’s taking this from Villanelle. This fantasy that Villanelle would be Eve’s first time with a woman.
Eve comes hard against Sarah’s hand from the train of thought.
She then flips Sarah over and puts her wet, unpracticed tongue between Sarah’s thighs. She’s not nervous, they’re both drunk, and she does to Sarah what she likes between her own thighs.
Eve likes the taste of it, the feminine moans from Sarah, the softness of her hips, and the hand pulling so deliciously at her hair. She lets herself again imagine that its Villanelle pliant for her like this, and she reaches a hand down to touch herself while she licks at Sarah.
Soon, they’re both coming, and a few minutes afterward, Sarah pulls her up for slow, languid kisses.
“That was fun,” Sarah eventually says as she gets up to get dressed and leave.
“Fun, yeah” Eve replies. “Have a good night, get home safely.” Sarah nods at her and exits with a small smile. She wonders if Sarah was thinking about someone else as intensely as Eve had been.
Eve lights a cigarette.
-
Villanelle is in love with Barcelona. She fucking loves it. Her skin is warm and her hair is much blonder now. She wears dresses and buys flowers and flirts with the women who serve her coffee.
It’s a dreamy life. One she hasn’t had since she first moved to Paris. She kills boredom by exploring all the nooks of the city. She’s not one for museums so instead, she spends time in restaurants and clubs. She likes getting to know the people and having fun here and there when she can.
She’s created a whole new life.
It didn’t start out like this. She first got here about six months ago, straight from Rome. It was almost 24 hours on a train and she was miserable and uncomfortable. She had to buy some hideous oversized Roman tourist sweatshirt to cover the giant bruises blossoming from where Raymond strangled her.
She also had to sit still for 24 hours with her decisions, and an unspeakable pain settled in her stomach. She had killed Eve.
Eve didn’t want her so she had to kill her. That part makes sense in Villanelle’s brain. So it didn’t make sense as to why she felt sadness, and longing, and like a part of her heart was now shattered and missing.
And Villanelle really doesn’t understand why those feelings still crop up, half a year later. She sees a woman with curly black hair, and instead of pursuing her, as the old Villanelle would, she stands startled with … with…. grief. She’s never grieved in her life. Every doctor she’s ever met would scoff at the notion that she’s even capable of it. But grief is the word Villanelle has decided on and she’s sticking with it.
She thinks of Eve more than she would ever admit. She talks to her sometimes too. Little comments here and there about what she thinks Eve would like and hate about Barcelona.
However, Villanelle still has very real and very alive problems. Her days might feel free, but freedom is just an illusion.
The Twelve are constantly lurking and circling Villanelle. She doesn’t have a new Konstantin, per se- he’s certainly long gone in hiding. Just occasional men showing up or postcards arriving demanding she kills someone or else they will kill her.
She thought about moving, but the truth is she’s trapped.
They track her, they watch her, they’re everywhere. They are just waiting, hopeful, for Villanelle to mess up and get herself killed. They don’t want to lose someone they’ve trained as beautifully as Villanelle, but they constantly remind her that getting “fired” means almost certain death.
It leaves her feeling claustrophobic, but she’s been on such good behavior in Barcelona that she thinks her rope is growing a few more inches.
They let her party, explore, and wander the city, as long as she gets the job done.
She keeps her bed warm with a woman named Sofia. Sofia is wild, funny, and literally could not care less that Villanelle doesn’t experience the full range of human emotion.
They met in a nightclub, Villanelle spotted her immediately and bought her a drink. They fucked in the bathroom, and Sofia was so lighthearted and playful during the sex that Villanelle actually let her touch her back.
Villanelle also let her come home with her. She also let Sofia cook her breakfast the next morning. She also let her fuck her again.
Sofia was persistent on continuing to be with Villanelle and Villanelle liked the distraction.
In fact, Villanelle likes her a lot. It’s not the same feelings as when she was with Anna. Or Eve. But Sofia is just so easy . She’s not like previous girlfriends either, she’s not needy like Nadia, she’s just carefree.
And it feels so good, so good to have something like this, that Villanelle takes advantage of Sofia’s impulsive side and asks her to marry her.
They’re in bed, naked and lazy, when Villanelle pops the question. Sofia covers her face in kisses and gives the most enthusiastic yes.
“But I want to do it right away, okay?” Villanelle says.
“My cousin works for the most beautiful venue, I will see if he can fit us in.”
He can.
The wedding is a month later.
Before their big day, Villanelle and Sofia spend the night together making love.
Villanelle is enjoying the slow sex with her fiancee, taking the time to taste her and explore her body. Licking at her, watching her thighs quiver, and enjoying all the aspects of being with a woman as intimately as this.
When Sofia comes it’s a long drawn out moan.
Villanelle kisses back up her body, eager to take her own pleasure from Sofia, but when their lips meet Sofia whispers, “I love you. You’re mine.”
It’s like a lightning has snapped through Villanelle’s body.
“What? What did you just say to me?”
Sofia sits up to rest on her elbows, looking puzzled, “I love you?”
“No, not that.”
“You’re mine? Did it come off as possessive? Babe, I only meant it as your mine to love forever.”
It’s like a light inside Villanelle has been shut off, she starts putting her clothes back on, and immediately is cold and distant to Sofia. “Well I do not like you saying that. I am going to bed. I want to look good tomorrow and cannot have dark circles under my eyes.”
Sofia laughs, never really knowing what to do when Villanelle switches and turns cold like this, and says, “Sounds like you need your rest, honey. Good night.”
Villanelle heads to the bathroom and decides to take a scalding hot shower, furious with herself that tears are stinging at her eyes. It’s her wedding day tomorrow and still, the memory of Rome, the memory of her, lingers and lurks like a barely healed wound.
She presses her fingers to her scar, the only real tangible thing she has left from Eve, and promises herself that tomorrow, her wedding day, will be the first real day she never thinks of Eve Polastri again.