Free Unlock Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy E-Short Part 0.5) by Evie Blake Page B

longer merely tomboyish. No. Louise’s hair is shiny as a blackbird’s feathers, sleek, and smoothly framing her precisely crafted face. The haircut is a statement:
I am no longer encumbered by the wants of men. What I want is what I want for myself
. Instinctively Ludwika reaches up to touch her own locks, coiled and locked tight into a bun on the back of her head. Set loose her hair reaches her tailbone. It is one of her husband’s most prized possessions: Ludwika’s long tresses of inky black. He used to like to brush her hair, in the early days of their marriage, yet now all he does is pull it, hard, tight at the back of her head, so that it tears at her scalp. Ludwika tries to banish a sudden image from her head but she can’t quite. Last night, their first night in Berlin, and he wound her hair tight around his hand like it was a rope and he pulled her head back as he made her kneel on the bed, and tried to make a child inside her, in the way that dogs do it. He had been brutal, urgent, and yet something about it had been better than when she just lay on her back. Part of her was disgusted by it, and yet part of her fascinated. There were other types of sexual acts.
    She feels a flutter of fingers upon her forehead. It is Louise. She is stroking the worry lines from her face.
    Forget him, she whispers to her, pulling Ludwika’s gloves off each of her hands, and hurling them at the attendant.
    How does Louise know? Is Ludwika’s story of being a trapped wife written so plainly upon her face?
    Louise opens wide another door and makes her entrance. Ludwika is flooded with sensations: the frenzy of music, the heat from the compressed bodies as Louise leads her through the dancing throng, the heady taste of champagne as her companion hands her a tall flute from a passing waiter. Everyone knows Louise. They are waving to her, calling out to her.
    Lulu … Lulu … they sing. Come play with us Lulu.
    Louise glitters, and she laughs, and she kisses passers-by upon the lips but still she glides herself and Ludwika expertly through the crowd, past the sole songstress in suspenders and top hat, and round the back of the stage, through the black curtain and beyond.
    This is where the real party begins, Louise says, then turns to her and winks.
    She opens another door, and they stand upon the threshold of a second room, flickering with candlelight, smoky and full of shadows. Ludwika is a little frightened to go inside. Louise stands in front her, ushering her in, and yet Ludwika hesitates.
    What are you afraid of? Louise asks her.
    She shakes her head, unable to speak.
    Isn’t this what you want? she asks her. We are the new spirit, Ludwika, we do it with brazenness!
    Louise knows her better than herself, Ludwika thinks as she clasps her hands to her chest, and steps through, for isn’t this exactly what she came looking for tonight? Something clandestine and magical, something passionate and dangerous – everything that is not in her life. She wants Louise to unlock her cage. She wants to fly.
    Her new friend leads Ludwika by the hand. The first thing she sees is nakedness. It doesn’t look shocking or bad; it is good, she thinks, to see all that is natural, uncovered. Two women sit facing each other on a gilt-edged chaise longue before her. They do not notice her, so intent they are upon each other’s bodies. She watches them stroking each other so delicately as if examining objects of rare beauty, lingering over each other’s nipples and plump bellies, and lacing their fingers together. Just watching them is softening her, making her warm in a place that has always felt cold. Louise squeezes her hand. She feels the firm cool grasp of her fingers curled around hers, and she is afraid to let go.
    To her left Ludwika sees a man and a woman. They are doing what she and her husband did last night, and yet, it does not look to her how it felt. They are not two separate entities but one being, one complete movement of