Lupo

Chapter Five: Battle Royal.

(C) Copyright SJCLewis2016

Picture: Alpha Nikolai

Music: Whitesnake, Is this Love?

Never before had Darcie bathed so quickly. Her sudden pizza cravings were mostly driving her as she tugged off her clothes,  yet a significant part of her also wanted to get out of the too-clean, designer en-suite as soon as possible. As she turned the shower on, she eyed the little row of fancy, apparently untouched, French toiletries arranged neatly along the bath tub and shifted uncomfortably. She felt too dirty, too working class to be there. It looked as if the bathroom had never been used before.

She scrubbed at her smudged face until her skin was red raw, clumps of mascara sticking to her wet fingers. She rinsed them away under the heavy jet of water and watched, almost guiltily, as they disappeared down the plughole.  For a brief moment she considered the expensive looking soaps before deciding against ruining their formation by breaking a seal. With a bitter sigh, she rinsed her underarms under the water before turning the shower off and getting out. 

"That'll have to do for now!"

Darcie rubbed herself briskly with one brilliant white towel, regretfully noting how it looked just as virgin and unused as everything else. She reluctantly pulled on the clothes Leala had given her, before folding her club gear into a neat little pile and balancing her boots on top. There was no way she was wearing her tatty, booze-soaked heels inside this  house. 

Before exiting the bathroom, she paused at the mirror over the sink and examined her reflection with an expression of distaste. With no hairbrush, and after dancing and sweating the night away, her hair was a frizzy,  tangled mess. She had thrown the whole disaster up into a messy bun, which left her bare face wholly unframed and undisguised. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were still slightly pink from the shower. She grimaced.

The sooner she was back home in Heavitree road, the better. All she wanted to do was lie in bed, watch TV and eat an unholy amount of food; without worrying about making a mess or about what she looked like.  With a final snort of derision at her hungover appearance, she clicked off the light and left the room. 

In the short time Darcie had spent attempting to make herself presentable, Leala had returned, cleared away her untouched tea-cup and remade the bed. She now sat cross legged on top of the blankets, hunched over her phone and tapping away furiously. When Darcie re-entered, she hastily shoved it back in her pocket again and scooted energetically off the mattress. Eyeing the tangled bun, swollen eyes and pink face, Leala smiled sympathetically.

"Here." She handed her a pair of balled up socks and then held out her arms towards the little pile of clothes Darcie was carrying. "Leave those here for now."

Wordlessly Darcie let her take them. Pulling the socks on, she spared one final glance around the room - lest her phone would suddenly reappear- before allowing Leala to steer her out and into the corridor.

The space beyond was bright and airy - a vast expanse of white walls and cream carpet. Darcie should have supposed the house was impressive, on the basis of the bedroom and en-suite alone, yet she was still slightly awestruck at the apparent size of the interior as they made their way across the landing. Large bay windows allowed the sunlight to dapple across the many pictures which were hung uniformly along the passage.  Landscape paintings and Monet-esq prints broke up clusters of family portraits and photographs. They paused at the top of the stairs and Darcie took the chance to examine a large, impressively framed photograph, far larger than the rest, of a party of people on a beach. Men, women and children - too many to count -were sat at long trestle tables and on rugs on the sand, eating, laughing together, some posing at or waving to the person behind the camera. In the foreground, a tall, grey haired man was tending to meat on a barbecue. Beach torches were lit along the dunes and behind them all, the sun was just beginning to set into the sea.