waddesdon ~

[esperanza lillian buganski]

She loved him because he towered over her, even when she was wearing her ridiculous heels. She loved him because when she ran all the way to the theater, plopped down next to him sweaty and out of breath, he just handed her a soda like he’d been waiting for her. She loved him because she stole his earring and he never asked for it back. It hung in her ear as she made her way up the driveway, long legs ending in a pair of slouchy boots that clunked with every step she took. When she bought them, they’d been falling apart, and now it wasn’t any better - she spent her days waiting for some kind of revelation to strike her and found that if you wait long enough, your days turn into your nights and from there weeks sprout, and then months, and soon nothing is left but you and your thoughts. Your inspirationless thoughts. So of course, she did what any irrational, profoundly wealthy teenager would do and got in the back of a cab on a trip and wound up in New York, and decided to stay for a while. When she came back it wasn’t cold anymore and her legs weren’t pale anymore and she couldn’t remember anything except the feeling of someone tonguing the back of her throat while she lay twitching, sprawled across their lap - or maybe it was her choking and they were digging it out with their fingers but she couldn’t remember anyway, right? So what did it matter. It didn’t. She couldn’t find her phone and her money was gone and all she had left was credit cards - which she was pretty sure taxis didn’t take, not to mention that everyone’s house was right down the block from each other and he said she’d know it, so she’d left the house in those insufferably clacking boots and kept walking in her see-through, holey shirt until she stopped in front of the most beautiful house she’d ever seen in her life. It was saying a lot, really, considering the duration of her life and the places she’d spent those years in - she’d been to Versailles, to Waddesdon, to countless other remarkable shrines of glory and beauty to the gods, to the commoners standing with their faces outside, pressed against the fences, but she’d never seen one so utterly astounding.

And she knew it was his.

She knew the license plate number on the car out front, she knew the overdone fountains, the expensive brocade draperies hanging in the front window. And she knew the smell of him, the garden and warm smell that permeated the air whenever she was within ten feet of him. She couldn’t believe it’d been that long. Raking her narrow fingers through her hair, she stubbed out the cigarette that’d burned past the edge of the filter in her hand and knocked on the door, forgoing the doorbell because she knew he knew who it was. If he didn’t, the bag in her free hand, vodka bottles and seven up cans sliding all around, told well enough her name and her story; this was her. This was her standing in her beat up boots, leather shorts with slick, satiny underwear poking barely above the waistband and a braless torso with a see-through shirt. This was her with the unbrushed, tangled mass of red hair, the faded red lipstick from two nights ago, the eyeliner she couldn’t remember putting on and the mole on her cheek that hadn’t gone away since she got sunburned when she was five. This was her with the cheap smile and long, long, long legs. So she opened the door. And she set down the plastic bag on the table in the entry way like it was her house and kicked off her boots, and padded through the marble hallways until she found him and she hugged him and he smelled like tobacco and home. Kissing his hair, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead into his broad, slender chest, “I really did miss you,”

click for outfit.

[bogie]

It was hard being perfect.

In a sad attempt to keep his father and mother happy, the twenty two year old gave up his dream of becoming a pilot and became his father's apprentice. He obviously proved to be more useful than intended and soon became vice president of Baldwin Global, a company that owes all of it's fortune to investments that began ages ago in Europe-specifically England. All in all, the effect snowballed a bit and soon enough, his mother decided she wanted grandkids and what better way to get them than through a business deal? Now, his parents weren't horrible people. Simply oblivious.

They didn't notice when the young man got himself a boyfriend. Of course they didn't. He made sure to keep it as secretive as possible-to the point where in public, they act as if the other doesn't exist. But they got him a fiancee. A Japanese shopaholic whose pastime is making sure she remains forever youthful. Running his fingers through his hair as he took a drag from his cigarette, he stared at his computer screen in shock. Ezzie. The only gal he'd probably ever get a hard on for. The one who made him get his ear pierced, gave him his first cigarette, and who gave him the unforgettable name of Bogie. The gal he professed to loving. The same gal who rejected him in the process. He tried. He moved on. Or at least he told himself he did. More than likely he didn't. There was only one Ezzie after all. But he had his boyfriend who he cared about tremendously even if the ever so faint remnants of a bruise on his left jaw were from him...as well as the scratches on his back and chest. He managed to tell anyone who asked that he wasn't looking when he got up for a glass of water in the middle of the night and tripped over the edge of the rug, sending him all over the place. It was believable...only because of how extravagant his home was and how much Nana, his fiancee, adored it because it was so flashy. Anything to show off their wealth sat happy in her stomach.

So Ezzie was back and all he wanted to do, as much as he wanted to see her, was crawl onto the couch with a tub of icecream and a coke slurpee and watch Breakfast At Tiffany's or Gone With the Wind. Instead, he stood, flicking the ashes into the already full ash tray on his large desk and stepping out of his office lighting up another one. He was headed for the kitchen in search of some wine. He needed it because he felt like everything was way too heavy on his shoulders right now. Nana had become more touchy lately and he'd never slept with a woman before...and he kind of didn't want to. He only slept with his boyfriend and he wanted to keep it that way. The stupid Russian held a chain around Bogie's heart for the moment. It was just invisible so no one could know about it. It wasn't until he was already in the kitchen that he realized he had forgotten there was no wine. It was locked up in the cellar because Nana had a fascination with wine and he had to save them for special occasions. If he didn't hide them from her-she would have finished them within a week of them moving in together.

Scrunching up his nose in frustration, the loud and obnoxious doorbell rang-loud enough to be heard on the entire terrain which was the point. He was heading for the door which wasn't all that far but he was almost there when he saw she already let herself in and was hugging him. Instantly, his arms went around her, missing her familiar scent, how she always fit so perfectly in his arms...everything really, "I really did miss you too, E," he responded, kissing into her hair before pulling away a bit to take a look at her, a soft and weary grin falling on his face, "Beautiful as always," he wore nothing special. A button up white collared shirt with the tie loose, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and some very expensive designer pants. His hair was back and a bit messy obviously from running his fingers through it. All in all, he looked like he just got back from the office...which he did.

[esperanza lillian buganski]

There were lapses in her memory where she knew she should remember something, but she just couldn't – why he was mad at her at the theatre, the way her heart hurt so desperately, the high pitched keening of her mother when she called her on the phone and said goodbye, the profound expression of blankness in the hospital as she lay in bed, what it was that was engraved on the locket she gave to Caro, the way her weight used to balloon up and down when she was in high school from whatever drug she favored during the week. It was heart breaking, soul destroying to look up at the boy who'd been there for her for as long as she could remember and know that she would never, could never, make up to him all the things she'd forgotten, and he'd never be to her everything he needed to be; they were stuck on that horrendous line between friends and lovers and she hated every second of it, she wished she would have followed her mother's orders and done the dishes when she was supposed to instead of sneaking out the back door and she wished she would have kissed him when he was begging her to with those puppy dog eyes and all she'd done was look the other way and pretend she'd never seen it. She could love him. She could give him her heart and soul and then some. There wasn't much left, but he could have it. Her mouth was glued shut, so she made a sound of vague discontent when he pushed her away and twirled to show that she was, indeed, ravishing astonishing lovely and entirely organic. Liar. She'd swallow bleach if it would get her out of this frazzled brain of hers. “So..” she didn't want to talk about it, but she knew it'd come eventually anyway and her mouth stayed glued shut and she had to pry it open with all of her might to speak, fingers clawing her chin and it probably looked hilarious but she managed regardless, determined as she always was to gain the achievement she yearned for. Reaching a hand for a stray hair that'd fallen away from his charmingly boyish face, she smoothed it back, holding back the giggles at the irony of her own state versus taking care of him, like she always felt she should, even if right now what she needed was for someone to come in and swoop her up and make her all right again. She couldn't look at him as she kissed him, on the lips, and then danced past him back to the table with the vodka and held it up triumphantly, feet smacking the tile floor.

She hated shoes, always had, always would.

“Bet the asian sensation can't hold her liquor like I can,” she said it like it was a challenge, looked him over with an eye well used to judging, and giggled, “Bet you can't either.” brushing past him, she made it to the end of the hall with her cans of coke and the bottle of vodka before she realized that she didn't know where the kitchen was, and it was a miracle she'd smacked into him or else she wouldn't have ever been able to find her way around at all. It was like a labyrinth of beautiful artifacts, and for a moment she was too busy mourning the loss of her own wealthy estate to the pawn shop to bother crying over the fact that she didn't live here with him. And so, she asked him with that familiar smirk on the corner of her lips, “Where is the kitchen in this beast anyway?”, shifting the handles of the bags along her slender fingers in order to better adjust herself, “Guide me, my lighthouse in the dark,” another friendly chuckle. There was something about him that drew from within her the angry emotions, the despondent personality that had overtaken her sometime in the recent years she'd spent away from him. It was like she was two different personalities, the happy Ezzie that was born and raised in Georgia and provided a good time like no other, and the urban girl with the dark rimmed eyes and the emotionless expression permanently plastered across her classically beautiful face. She yearned for the days when she could skip around down by the lake without worry but knew, as she knew many things she didn't want to, that those long, sweaty summers were over and in their place lay commutes to work and stingy, stuffy meetings in dry-rotting rooms with ten other junkies who would go outside the room and exchange phone numbers and skag. And so it went, and so her trust and humanity faded away until she relied solely on the will to live to keep her alive and not even food could take that away from her.

And then he came back. And immediately, so did she. As they came into the kitchen, she set the bottles down and hunted around through the cabinets for glasses, big ones, coming across a couple and filling them up with ice because neither the soda nor the vodka was cooled and she was too lazy to wait, filling them up three quarters of the way with the alcoholic delight and then the other fourth was soda and she handed him one, slurped half of it down in a sloppy fashion, dribbling on her chin and wiping it away with the back of her hand before she stretched and chuckled, “I'm such a lady, hm Bogie?” another sip, the sweet burn in the back of her throat and she cleared it to make sure she wasn't choking, pulling an ice cube from the glass into her mouth and tonguing it to the side to ensure she could clearly voice her thoughts, “What have you been up to?”

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