HOME | DD

Description
She stood in the doorway with a smile. Her arm rested on the doorframe and with the other she bid me welcome. Her wraith like frame looked frail as she turned to walk in the house, a broken Mistress running a broken home. The paint cracked and flaked off the wall. Pictures hung depicting a time when the house was busting with business, girls with the men of the evening. Back in those days when girls ran up and down the stairs. The parlor was filled with Gentlemen Callers, now empty save for a few cobwebs strung between cushions. The once fine and beautiful Baby Grand sat in the corner the ivory keys cracked and yellowed with age and abandon. The house once smelled strongly of lipstick and peppermints now faded to a faint smell of formaldehyde and lilac. The broken woman held her head high just the same.

She walked up the dilapidated stairs with all the airs and grace of a fine young woman. Her torn and moth eaten gown swept the dust from those forgotten steps. She walked around the banister and down the hallway, the floor boards warped from years of negligence as the house breathed in loneliness creaked and groaned. She opened a door at the end. The simple oil lantern fighting with all its might to stay lit as the breeze blew in through tattered curtains, waving in the breeze as ghosts in the night. The once vibrant deep reds and purples in the room long faded to pastel hues of their origin. The old four-poster bed sagged with its own weight. The wood sighed as she lighted on the mattress to remove her heels. Her feet small and delicate, just as they were years ago in the house's prime. She stood again and walked to her floor mirror to stare at herself through the years of dust. All these years in a dead and dying house started to wear on her. Her eyes were a light milky grey. She wiped the deep red lipstick from her lips. Her thin lips spread into a broken smile as she asked me to make myself at home. She stood and removed her gown. It slid from her body smoothly like silk. Her lithe frame stood delicately before me she looked like a porcelain Geisha doll. Her eyes distant, her lips spread in a thin smile. Her bare face glowed vibrantly. Her hands covered her naked flesh as she posed before me; she stood like a ghost in a long forgotten house. Her body faintly reflected in the mirror to her side. I asked softly, for fear of breaking her, if this is how she wished to be painted. She nodded to me, a broken woman in a broken house she called home. On her last days she wanted nothing more than to be remembered as the graceful, beautiful, southern belle she was and always will be.

There was to be no funeral for her, her friends and family had long passed on before her. All memories of the woman and her house were wiped from history save for the painting that my Great Grandfather could never bring himself to sell to a gallery. So it sits with a golden plaque nailed to the frame reading “Forlorn Beauty”. She hung with care above the fireplace on show in our own private gallery our secret treasure to never see the unforgiving light and eye of an art gallery. We go regularly, on the anniversary of her death, to her grave which lays next to our Great Grandfather’s to remember them both. Two lovers separated by a two worlds but brought together by the one they shared for the briefest of moments.

Description
She stood in the doorway with a smile. Her arm rested on the doorframe and with the other she bid me welcome. Her wraith like frame looked frail as she turned to walk in the house, a broken Mistress running a broken home. The paint cracked and flaked off the wall. Pictures hung depicting a time when the house was busting with business, girls with the men of the evening. Back in those days when girls ran up and down the stairs. The parlor was filled with Gentlemen Callers, now empty save for a few cobwebs strung between cushions. The once fine and beautiful Baby Grand sat in the corner the ivory keys cracked and yellowed with age and abandon. The house once smelled strongly of lipstick and peppermints now faded to a faint smell of formaldehyde and lilac. The broken woman held her head high just the same.

She walked up the dilapidated stairs with all the airs and grace of a fine young woman. Her torn and moth eaten gown swept the dust from those forgotten steps. She walked around the banister and down the hallway, the floor boards warped from years of negligence as the house breathed in loneliness creaked and groaned. She opened a door at the end. The simple oil lantern fighting with all its might to stay lit as the breeze blew in through tattered curtains, waving in the breeze as ghosts in the night. The once vibrant deep reds and purples in the room long faded to pastel hues of their origin. The old four-poster bed sagged with its own weight. The wood sighed as she lighted on the mattress to remove her heels. Her feet small and delicate, just as they were years ago in the house's prime. She stood again and walked to her floor mirror to stare at herself through the years of dust. All these years in a dead and dying house started to wear on her. Her eyes were a light milky grey. She wiped the deep red lipstick from her lips. Her thin lips spread into a broken smile as she asked me to make myself at home. She stood and removed her gown. It slid from her body smoothly like silk. Her lithe frame stood delicately before me she looked like a porcelain Geisha doll. Her eyes distant, her lips spread in a thin smile. Her bare face glowed vibrantly. Her hands covered her naked flesh as she posed before me; she stood like a ghost in a long forgotten house. Her body faintly reflected in the mirror to her side. I asked softly, for fear of breaking her, if this is how she wished to be painted. She nodded to me, a broken woman in a broken house she called home. On her last days she wanted nothing more than to be remembered as the graceful, beautiful, southern belle she was and always will be.

There was to be no funeral for her, her friends and family had long passed on before her. All memories of the woman and her house were wiped from history save for the painting that my Great Grandfather could never bring himself to sell to a gallery. So it sits with a golden plaque nailed to the frame reading “Forlorn Beauty”. She hung with care above the fireplace on show in our own private gallery our secret treasure to never see the unforgiving light and eye of an art gallery. We go regularly, on the anniversary of her death, to her grave which lays next to our Great Grandfather’s to remember them both. Two lovers separated by a two worlds but brought together by the one they shared for the briefest of moments.