A plethora of colour catches her eye. She doesn’t know their names, but each shade carries with it a memory of some moment in her life that touched her sultry soul. Some of the memories she considers life-changing, while others seem to have persisted for reasons she can’t decipher. It’s strange how these small, superfluous moments share the same stage with those that have defined her, and yet she considers both to be of equal importance in her quest to paint the perfect image. After all, that which leaves a mark, no matter how innocuous, must have some flavour worth tasting twice. And not only tasting but sharing. With her hand turning over and gliding through the air as if she were conducting music, the image of Jasmine on the beach is squashed down into an infinitely small point. Such a thing may or may not be possible. Gretchen considers it for a moment before her eye is drawn to a curled tube of paint half-hidden on her desk by a library book. The book in question is a biography of Jackson Pollock. The back cover has a photograph of him, but she’s covered his face with tape because she doesn’t like his features. The pages inside are littered with Gretchen’s scrawled, drunken notes written in felt-tip. Her handwriting is awful, and although the drunken notes were no doubt the result of some midnight epiphany obtained not just through drinking but an abundance of solitary self-awareness, she can never make out what they say and so can only guess as to what triggered them and what virtues they claimed to have deciphered from the masterpieces within. If she returns the book in its current state, they’ll issue her with a fine. Which is fine, because she has no intention of ever returning it. It’s her book now. She’s even printed her name on the inside cover and written the date underneath as if it somehow shows proof of ownership.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US