Pure Belleza | ✔️

(33)

If there was a bar Abby could charm her way into, make friends with the staff and drink without consequence, she would find it. 

Which is how we ended up in The POP. Pierre's Own Palace. 

As the name suggests, Pierre owns the joint. It's packed, the lights are low, the walls, floor and ceiling are black, color is inserted with strobe lights on the ceiling.

It's like a small night club. Pierre was a former model. Apparently he'd worked with some big names. That was how he and Abby met. He was mentoring a shoot she was on and of course, the 'silver fox' in his mid forties was smitten with her charisma. 

Abby, Flynn, Lucas, Milly, Marnie and I stood around a tall round table with a drink each. Marnie had been reluctant to come along. She wanted to have a Game of Thrones marathon but when I told her my siblings were in town, I suggested she join us for a drink.

"How's the creative writing going?" Abby shouted to Milly.

Lucas had been staring at Abby all night with his brows furrowed and some sort of mild frustration. I could feel confusion coursing through our veins. 

When I met his stare, he pointed at our sister in her cropped tank top and black high waist jeans and mouthed, "thin as fuck."

She'd been thin for as long as we could remember. Trust him to find something to argue about with her.

She was a model. But she wasn't unhealthy at all.

"It's going well," Milly said, cradling her vodka and orange juice. "The course is brilliant. I'm doing a creative writing project at the moment. The professor chooses someone to feature in Cosmopolitan."

"That would be so perfect," Abby squealed. "A feature for me and a feature for you! I'm so proud."

"It hasn't happened yet," Milly said and sipped her drink.

Lucas nudged her and leaned down, giving her a quick kiss on the head. "It will. It's a fucking good story."

"I always wished I could write," Marnie added with her expressionless tone. "Like, I had ideas. But I can't write for shit. I wrote an entire chapter once and read it back. The fucking worst thing I've ever looked at. And I look at myself in the mirror every morning."

Abby met my eyes across the table and recoiled. Marnie is a bit odd. But that didn't bother me.

"You should keep practicing. Just write the idea. You could always have someone edit it," Milly suggested.

"No time," Marine pushed her glasses up her nose.

"Well, what was the idea?" I asked.

"It was about a woman who was in a controlling marriage with a man who didn't believe in women expressing themselves. So she joins campaigns. Ya know, free the nipple. She advocates for and loves masturbation because men are disappointing anyway. And then a climax of course - pun intended - her husband would snap, attempt to shut her up but she kills him and lives happily ever."

The entire group stared at her.

"There would be a lot more to it," she added, unconcerned at the response. "That's just a verbal blurb."

It was still silent, apart from the thudding music and drunken slur of the other club goers. Our gazes continued to dart around and meet with utter shock. Well, I wasn't quite as shocked as the rest of them. That was Marnie.

Milly broke the silence. "That sounds bloody brilliant," she laughed. "How would she kill the husband?"

Marnie narrowed her eyes behind her glasses while she thought about it. "Originally she would have pushed him into the river with a concrete slab around his ankles. But I reconsidered that idea after a while. I'm not sure."