Unseemly

Her life has been about appearances, about pleasing others in the form that she presents to the world but mainly it has been about sublimation. In a way it was ironic that the expenditure required to remain in perfect control far exceeded anything that would have been required to give into her wants. She’s not really sure what she wants anyway, not even sure that she is able to recognize her own feelings anymore. She doesn’t really remember when it began, did it start with the frantic efforts to remove all trace of blood from the street or did it predate that event? Had it always been there? Was it why she had felt compelled to cleanse the site of her mother’s accident rather than enquire as to her mother’s wellbeing? She didn’t know and until recently she didn’t care. She was comfortable with her life, her existence made sense and despite outwardly seeming a dichotomous combination of submission and control, the Bible and the NRA, she had been content with her place and her function. Even her rebellion and been contained – she may have passed over her fiancée, and her father’s approval for Rex, but he was still a safe choice, he was reliable and dependable and would give her the place in society that she craved.

All that had changed now, her world had tilted on its axis and no matter how much she willed it, it would not tip back. The change itself was hard enough to deal with but what frightened her most was that she couldn’t really pinpoint when this had happened, when the reigns that she had always held so tightly had begun to slip through her fingers. She imagined that it must have begun gradually, too small a change for her to notice – something that she felt that she might have forgiven in someone else but found to be an unconscionable error on her part.

She realized that she was being overdramatic, it wasn’t as if, outwardly, her life had changed and really that had always been her main priority. She wasn’t an automaton and she wasn’t without desire, even she could admit that she had carnal needs, it was just that she’d never been a slave to desire before. It sounded so clichéd, like the stuff of some cheap bodice ripper, if it wasn’t so distressing it would have been laughable. None of this should have mattered anyway, she had built a life on ignoring her own emotional responses and damn it she was good at it. She might look at Lynette a little too long, imagine what it would be like to hold her, fantasize about what it would be like to kiss her and dream about what it would be like to have her but she was never going to act on her feelings. Sometimes it all seemed so pointless, she is going to burn in hell for her impure thoughts and yet she was never even going to tell Lynette how she felt. It had nothing to do with how the other woman would respond and everything to do with the fact that she would not give up that modicum of control. Yet her control was slipping, the tactile nature of their friendship was a crippling burden but it would be noticeable if she stopped touching Lynette. The fear that one day she may take some casual exchange too far was almost enough to make her want to banish Lynette from her life but there were times when just catching a glimpse of the blonde got her through the day and she knew that she didn’t have the strength to push her away.

Her resolve was complete, she would never give in to those urges but fighting against them left the door open to so many other transgressions. She would wake each day and promise herself that today she would not do anything based on her feelings for her neighbour but almost everyday she failed. So when Lynette had asked her the question she was determined not to compromise her principals, after all, this was something that she really believed was wrong but Lynette was all hopeful smile and luminous eyes and making her feel like the centre of the universe and she had given her the address of the park. She wondered if there was anything short of physical intimacy that she would ever deny Lynette and it hurt. She hated Lynette for making her breech her principles and wondered if she’d honestly feel any worse if she just grabbed the woman and kissed her, somehow she doubted it but the only thing that Bree knew for sure was that she was never going to allow herself to find out.