You can change the width of the story text shown below:
Use how much percent of the screen width?
Options: Plain text or PDF (fanclub only!) version | Mark story | Mark author
Don't forget to vote for this story, in the yellow voting box below the story!
Part 1: Ledgers
"Fuck you, you selfish bitch!" Sisa's voice cracked across the clearing like a whip, raw and jagged. Before Salma could react, before her fingers even finished tightening around the ledger still clutched in her hand, Sisa was already running, bare feet kicking up sand as she vanished into the dense foliage bordering Nick and Nadine's bungalow. The humid air swallowed her sobs almost instantly, leaving behind only the sharp tang of salt and crushed frangipani blossoms underfoot.
Salma stood frozen. Her pulse hammered in her throat, not from anger, but from the sickening lurch of realization. The argument had spiraled too fast. Sisa's accusations about neglected promises, about Salma's "merchant's heart," valuing numbers over flesh, weren't wrong. The thought twisted like a blade beneath her ribs. She inhaled, and the scent of Sisa's sweat still clung to her own skin from their earlier coupling, now sour with betrayal.
The bamboo screen door slid open with a whisper. Pete stepped out first, his bare chest gleaming with massage oil, his brow furrowed. Behind him, Nadine emerged like a storm given human form, her silver-streaked hair loose and her linen wrap clinging to her damp curves. "Salma," Nadine said, voice low as tide-smooth stone. "That was a quake, not a quarrel. What in the name of Santa's Elves did you say to her?"
Salma opened her mouth, then closed it. The truth coiled like smoke behind her teeth: she didn't know. Not really. Not in any way that would translate into words that wouldn't sound like excuses. Their fight had been layers of old wounds and fresh neglect, Sisa's words peeling back the veneer of Salma's carefully maintained control.
Pete's hand, warm and calloused from decades of kneading tension from bodies far more stubborn than hers, closed around her wrist. "Come inside," he murmured, his Southern drawl wrapping around the command like velvet over steel. "You look like you could use a drink that ain't just regret." The bungalow's interior was dim, fragrant with the cedar-scented oil they'd been using before the interruption. A single hurricane lamp cast long shadows over the low table where two glasses already sat, condensation beading on the crystal. He didn't ask; he poured three fingers of bourbon, something aged and smoky, the kind Salma usually wouldn't let herself indulge in before noon.
Nadine's arm slid around her shoulders, grounding and unyielding. "Tell me," she said, her voice carrying the weight of glaciers shifting, inevitable, impossible to resist. "Not what she said. Not even what you said, tell me why." Salma shuddered against her, the ledger's leather cover creaking under her grip. The question bypassed the surface entirely, plunging straight into the marrow of the matter. Why now? Why like this? Why, when they'd survived empire-building and ice-bound winters, had a simple tropical morning fractured them?
Salma exhaled, heard her own breath tremble. "I thought we were fine." The lie tasted bitter. Fine was a ledger entry, balanced and neat. Fine was the distance she'd measured between them since arriving on the island, mistaking Sisa's silence for contentment. When had she forgotten to read her love's body like a mercantile report? The signs had been there: the way Sisa's fingers lingered less often in her hair, the quiet before dawn when Salma woke to find her already gone to swim, her side of the bed cold. "This morning... she asked for figs." A ridiculous detail to cling to, but the memory burned. Sisa, naked and sunlit, biting into ripe fruit with that warrior's hunger, then freezing when Salma reached not for her, but for the ledger left open beside their bed.
Nadine's fingers tightened, her thumb pressing the knot at the base of Salma's neck. "Troubles rarely flash," she murmured, voice like wind through ancient oaks. "They simmer slow, until the pot cracks." Pete nodded, passing the bourbon to Salma. His silence was its own language; years of healing had taught him when to let the body speak.
Salma swallowed the liquor, the burn chasing down the lie still lodged in her throat. "How did we meet?" she echoed, and the memory hit her like monsoon rain, sudden, drenching. "Baghdad. My warehouse," She hadn't thought of it in decades. "I was working late ... there were thieves. She, " A laugh, sharp as broken glass, escaped her. "She
Click here to read the rest of this story (856 more lines)
Options: Plain text or
PDF (
fanclub only!) version for easy saving or printing
ESmail: Click here to send a private message to MjBarbag (with ESmail, the site's internal message system)
Profile for MjBarbag, incl. 22 stories
Email: mjbarbag@yahoo.com
Add this author to your favorite author list
Add this story to your favorite story list