Insight. Ch1

Bette woke and stretched, opening her eyes suddenly when she realised the bed felt different and the air surrounding her smelled cooler somehow, like she wasn’t in her bedroom at home waking up to the warmth of the early morning sun drifting in through the open window,

Alice stretched next to her in bed, her toe tickling Bette’s shin,

“Bah!” Bette yelped

“Argh … Shit …” Alice woke with a start, Bette’s screaming in her ear had a habit of doing that,

“Jesus Christ,” Bette mumbled, brushing the hair from her face.

She took a look around, remembering arriving the day before into her new house, a step up from the dingy apartment she was renting by the gallery as they struggled to get it off it’s feet. But the cheques were rolling in, buyers crawling out of the woodwork and Bette suddenly found herself solvent again and with the help of her best friend Alice made the decision it was time to move.

“I thought we got to those boxes last night?” Alice mumbled, seeing a stack of them still behind the door,

Bette shook her head, “Almost,”

Determinedly she rose, stretching high and going to the window to take a look around. It was a cute little maisonette apartment, one of four in a complex that wound around a central courtyard with a pool. Perfect for someone who didn’t want to have to garden or bother with the up keep of such things.

She stood at the window, watching as a woman came out of her apartment opposite wearing a simple white towelling robe, her long hair blowing in the breeze. She slipped the robe from her shoulders and slid into the pool like a mythical, serpent-like creature, barely seeming to walk, more glide as if there were a thousand and one other things floating through her mind.

“What are you looking at?” Alice asked, as the strange woman dipped her head beneath the surface and proceeded to swim the entire length of the pool before resurfacing again,

Bette turned away reluctantly, “Nothing,”

~

They spent the rest of the morning unpacking, hanging Bette’s paintings and deciding where to stand ‘artistic’ objects Alice couldn’t see the appeal of,