The Manuscript

Short story written by Gigi Reece

“Le manuscrit,” is what Genevieve remarked to me as we observed the congested city below us. The ionone from our violet garden blinded my nose. Ostensibly so did my morality. Strangely enough, Genevieve never held coercion over my head. I was the daughter of Alexander Sterling.

Founder of Evergreen Innovations. The irony of it was that he was butchering the environment to save it. Like any spawn of a business owner, I was destined to inherit the glory. Yet as my father mentored me, a hunger for a contrasting essence embedded within me, that’s where Genevieve meddled in.

As the apricot tree my father planted in his garden on my birth approached its fifteenth year, a fascination with skeletons spurred me. Throughout my childhood, whodunits cultivated me. With that, dissection of criminality festered in my bones.

My father’s associates nicknamed me “the true crime buff.” They’re just not aware that when you’re surrounded by aristocracy, you become accustomed to psychodynamics. Despite relishing embodying Lillian Gilbreth, the intrigue yearned for the mysterious allure of gore. Eventually, this led me to forensic anthropology.

Luckily, Dad endorsed this vocation in harmony with my nepotism. He boasted to his companions about my desire for bioarchaeology. During my secondary education, I ached for the dreadfulness to fizzle. The criminology & science classes at Dalton School were inadequate. My appetite deteriorated.

When the apricot tree saw its 235th lunar month, Dad enrolled me in extravagant tutoring. My criticisms about all the alma maters I attended must have been tiresome. For a year, he pampered forensic anthropologists to oversee me. My malnourishment swallowed them whole. And Daddy never dared to interfere or interrogate me.

On my fifth instructor, he declared one rule. “No more messes.” Contradictorily, my tidiness conceals the pestering pigs at bay. This time around, my body was submerged in hesitation. Having privilege in my possession gifted me a striving for outmaneuvering.

A flaw that my father became sightless to. Now, restraint bounded my hands and feet. To ease the burden, I reassured myself of my coping mechanisms beforehand. I would have been able to manage if I hadn’t met Genevieve.

Genevieve Müller was a forensic anthropologist located in France. Her side hustle to feed her devoted husband at home was teaching. At first, she resembled Aphrodite and unfortunately meshed with Tempestas. Nevertheless, her splendor remained glistening.

Her skilled schooling methods mainly involved visual and physical techniques. I soon learned how handsy Genevieve could get. Amid my twentieth midsummer, her rosebuds tainted my rotting flesh. My mania heightened like Tenzing Norgay. Her abandoned consort in La Hexagone became a fleeting thought.

Whilst attending my father’s corporate affairs, Genevieve lingered. Putting up a façade to the employees of Evergreen Innovations who questioned her about me. She often ambiguously asserted that I was her most hard-working scholar. Even quipped a few jokes about her shocking salary. For the duration of the guests praising her, I tactfully observed her.

Allowing temptation to rise in both of us. She was an Anglican whose secrets brew within the Machiavellian in me. When my father’s business partner etched me as a good girl, Genevieve’s eyes lit up like the luminous demise of a poor battered wife’s foreseen fate. She smirked over at me, sipping on her Château Margaux. “Trust me, I know.”

Evenings were swept away in the depths of my unknown penthouse with her. Genevieve was offered a room in my father’s mansion, but after meeting me, she refused. Escaping the entrapment of Dad, my sorrowful self traced its way back to the apartment. Our justification for our wrongdoings in every teaching was that our intentions started innocently.

But she inundated my corrupted lungs midday. And feasted on my heart at midnight. Her breath reeked of a guilty man’s booze. Devoid of any shame, I devoured myself into it. Her gaze upon me ached me. In those moments, I knew I wasn’t the only pawn in her prophecy. But I religiously supplicated to be her favorite.

As her golden locks lightened and mine darkened, our lessons were coming to a suffering end. She’d tell me that I was too brilliant for my own good. Dangerously, the circumscribing of my voracity was weary. My ravenousness for the baroness poisoned me.

It provoked me to indulge in other provocateurs like myself. If I wasn’t sneaking around enough, I was now. My palate savored the chagrin of the quarries, envisioning Genevieve’s ambrosia. However, regrettably, the catharsis was not fulfilled. Unlike most situations, I had to give in to acquiescence. There was no other choice.

On my blossoming twenty-first, Genevieve abducted me from the bustling parties. It had been a fortnight since we saw each other. My father graciously flew her back to France, declaring that she should visit her family for Christmas. As her husband kissed the same hands that created the billet-doux for my whipped soul, I succumbed to the Black Dog.

Since everyone knew my last name at bars, it was difficult to access alcohol. Inpatient suffocated my body. The wait for multiple belongings was torturous. I began to theorize Genevieve had hexed me since the liaisons I abused starved me. I was encased at Dad’s not-so-surprise celebration, endless witticisms about the alcoholism that’s welcoming me soon.

A gust of wind swept me, leaving me squealing. Genevieve dug her nails into my skin like a coffin, stumbling across the duskiness in the hallways. Her sophomoric comportment was seldom. Similarly, I was thanking the Lord I had no faith in. She guided me visionless to “our” apartment.

My consciousness caution augmented as we were back out in the chilly air. An enigmatic scent encircled us, sparking adoration in my vessels. Somehow, my mortal coil appeared to be healing. Genevieve’s appetency slithered down my neck as she removed her palms from my eyes.

Before me was a beautiful botanical violet garden on the veranda. A stunned huff fled from my pout as I scrutinized the environs. Genevieve wended in front of me to soak in my gratitude. The lustrous light of Selene descended onto the covered patio, saturating idolatry internally. She continued to maneuver me, molding my figure under her phalanges.

Genevieve sat first onto the Dedon Lounge Chair. Then she shepherded me next to her, shifting my legs in her lap. She peered idyllically at me. And I don’t regret saying that my gluttony was content. I contemplated the greenery while Genevieve slipped a box off the accent table. Nudged my hinged joint teasingly. I unclosed it mere moments later with another gasp.

“You wanted something from France,” she murmured, that youthful gleam returning. My dulled talons outlined the dagger before lifting it for a proper examination. A soft giggle came from me during my final inspection. On the blade, my initials were engraved.

I began to humor her, “I was pleased with just having you.” Her grin grew wider as her crimson arch grazed my scarred forehead. Afterward, I basked in the afterglow with our limbs entangled, Genevieve bestowed a taste for me. Until the witching hour, she proceeded with our pedagogy through a parable of hers.

That evanescent ephemeral formed into a continuous rendezvous. Our secrecy remained in the verdant havens. The intimate joke was that Genevieve would forsake me, and my complexion would alter into Sappho. At the proximate conclusion of my education, our nights in the boudoir dragged on. The immortality of the crab imprisoned me. Codependency never looked so elegant on some companions.

I cussed myself out whenever she carried the realism. Each day she resided in America, I took the structure of an infrequent martyr extolling her God. I betted on feigning ignorance during our final lectures, yet Genevieve would discern my motives in under a second. Our bodies often endured in the bloomscape. Longing for the actualities to be damned for their cruelty.

After Genevieve’s matinée, we traveled to the local farmer’s market. The bullet grazed us, and there was more to come. I accompanied her as she lavished any produce and supported microenterprise. My gloom shadowed her as we strolled. Her gaze was glued on me, cognizant like a clairvoyant. We arrived back at her car later, and she mumbled against my temple. “You know I would give you my heart if you needed it.”

Remorse was evident in her tone, encouraging me to scoff. “Be a professional,” I snipped at her, slamming the vehicle’s door behind me. Our commute was bitterly muted. Once we reached my father’s mansion, the avoidance began. And I attained my old ways antecedent to Genevieve.

In our stillness, I let spontaneous trysts distract me from her disintegration. Their wishes to enter the sanctuary of bouquets were denied. Hunger was gnawing, but Genevieve gutted me. All the nectar I contained in a menagerie uninterested my starvation. Despite my father stopping overseeing her as his personnel, Genevieve chose to stay.

Her departure was in five days, yet my analysis of myself was protracted. “Le manuscrit,” reoccurred in my mind. At Dad’s business soirees, I detached myself from them. The violets only had me as their visitor. I read my notes from Genevieve’s courses & lay on her side of the bed.

Her final day was mournful. I swore to the sovereign in the sky, I witnessed my tough father shed a tear. Genevieve’s stubborn pretension was remarkable. We had one thing in common, I figured. Dad honored her by gifting her a reception.

I became too inebriated by the champagne and ran off to the penthouse. Since my mother’s sudden passing, I embraced the sobs. My body was sprawled on the Dedon Lounge Chair. My face was buried in my hands. I was Benjamin Braddock. My grieving ceased once her utterance towered over me.

Genevieve came to give me the solace I deserved. But I demanded that she shove it somewhere unholy. My foul mouth granted her to slap me with the truth. She had a zealous husband almost four thousand miles away. Her family had been deprived of her since I purloined her. She claimed it was only fair. I had my balanced quota.

They existed long before I was born. All the good things end one way or another. I screeched at her reasoning like my adobe was an asylum. Our fight mirrored animals contaminated with rabies. The violets began to decay as they watched. The love they were planted with was spurious. As she tried to exit, I lost my footing.

I stare at the discolored poniard on the ground. How convenient that I leave it in the garden. My initials were now incised in Genevieve. She was finally mine. And the blossoms were delighted after I gave them their balanced quota. Another illicit affair this penthouse retained. The next morning, Genevieve’s flight culminated. I made sure of it. A broken heart was the last thing my father needed at his age.

An unexpected letter was mailed to her husband. It was an apology & explanation for her unfaithfulness and farewell. Rumors say she left him. The envelope had her wedding ring as well. Shame eventually entered me while cooking a week later. The only positive was having a past flame for dinner. I was fresh out of the slammer, but at what cost?

The current nickname for my absent appearance was “the bolter.” To my father’s surprise, I was supposedly following Genevieve’s steps. I was, after all, a wonderful student. I ascertained a cottage in Riquewihr. Genevieve’s hometown she yearned for in her adulthood. In my defense, France was an established ground for forensic anthropology.

So now I rest under Yves Delorme as I scrutinize the academic manuscript from the smallest woman who ever lived. I go to work and look in people’s windows. Although I keep mine closed. I took up her favorite hobbies to replace my insanity. As I type this out on a vintage typewriter, I have not endangered a single soul since hers. With jubilation, I hereby conduct this post-mortem.