A/N: This is a little something, penned by me when I had a little free time when abroad recently. I've been trying to get back into writing for this genre for a LONG time, but never quite made it back properly. One shots seem to be the way to go for me right now, as my concentration won't hold out for very long these days!
In any case - this was inspired by not one, but two songs: the first being "Where Have All The Cowboys Gone" by Paula Cole, and the second being "Long Lost Smile" by Lonestar.
Beautiful Necessity
Her thumb throbbed as she pressed down on the handle of the fuel pump. She ignored it however - it was a beautiful unnecessary pain that wouldn't even exist if she hadn't spent most of the morning hastily scribbling that note that she had lain awake last night redrafting over and over in her head. Only his snores disturbed her thoughts. How he managed to sleep after what he had done to her over the last few years she would never know.
It had all begun so long ago. She had met him one day at a county fair, where he had been working as an animal wrangler. She was a simple town lass, and it was only on the encouragement of her friends that she had gone along. But her friends were too busy playing the idle side games; trying to shoot fake ducks with fake bullets, throwing hoops over prizes on small stools, and eating sugary candyfloss that stuck to her fingers and teeth until she could tolerate it no longer.
Her feet wandered her away from her group, on the pretence of finding someplace to buy a drink and sit down. It was on the very edge of the fair that she saw him - tousled brown hair under a brown hat, faded plaid shirt, brown trousers that accentuated his slim legs, and brown cowboy boots with spurs. His features were dark and tanned, just like those of someone who worked outdoors all day every day. But it was his eyes, which although tired, gleamed with life, a life that the sheltered young woman had only ever read about in books. She got the feeling he had been many places and done many things.
That first day she noticed him, he was wrangling a beautiful dark black bull – she later learned the magnificent beast went by the name of Rex. He noticed her immediately too, she was sure; young ladies didn't approach as willingly as she did, but the spectacle he provided was nothing short of fascinating to her.
At length he had approached her and asked her what she was doing in such an area that was unbecoming to a woman of obvious stature.
This made her blush, he had already woven his magic with the animals and this was the icing on the cake. It was this spark of feeling that caused her to return, several times in the short time the fair was in town. To her surprise she found that he wasn't part of the travelling melee, but rather at the fair to sell livestock, and worked as a local cattle hand on a nearby farm, about two miles from where she lived.
Things moved quickly after this discovery. Within two months she was seeing him every weekend. When the work at the farm dried up due to bad crops and a poor breeding season, she tried to help him with the meagre wage she made from her job at the local store.
Of course the path of true love certainly did not run smooth, and on meeting her parents for the first time they had warned her to be careful - advice she did not heed.
After another brief period of time she upped sticks to move in with him, essentially eloping. Because there were no immediate plans to marry, her father, furious at his daughters silliness, cast her out, and her mother stood steadfastly by. Because of this, she vowed to show them she could make things work, and everyday she would catch a local bus, and make the hour journey for her job in the next village.
It was about another two months before the farm work became almost non existent, and in a further two she had started returning home to a silent apartment, made even worse by her walking into the kitchen and finding an empty bottle of whatever had taken his fancy. Usually this would be vodka, but whisky and scotch ranked high on that list as well. These were all three beautiful necessities to him.
It was only in the last month that the return was made even worse. The first time she had locked herself, shaking, in the small bathroom. The second time she curled up, trembling, on the bed. The third time she picked herself up and began to tidy the things he'd broken, cutting her finger in the process of retrieving a shard of glass from an unusually large bottle of rum - she didn't want to make him angrier when he saw the mess the room was in. The fourth time however, was the final time. She couldn't definitely work out why that time and not the first – but something inside her snapped. Maybe it was realising he was bleeding her dry, first her money, then her spirit, and then physically.
The heat steamed off the fuelled car, much reminding her of the anger she had felt at finding out about his drinking down at the bar - on the nights she took extra shifts at the store, in order to make ends meet. She allowed herself to be a doormat and that irritated her to think back on it.
At least he wasn't aware of one thing – one of her shifts at work hadn't been a shift at all – it was the day she went to see a lawyer about an instruction she had received in the mail. It indicated clearly that she was to come alone, and on arriving she had been shown into a room where she had been informed that her late father, who she had been estranged from since moving out of town, had left her a small sum of money. On viewing the cheque the attorney handed her, she realised it probably was small in comparison to what he made in a week. But this sort of money was also something she had only ever dreamed about.
The paperwork accompanying the money wasn't a legal document, just something handwritten in an envelope. Her mothers writing met her eyes, telling her how much she was loved by her one remaining parent. With tears in her eyes as she tucked the cheque safely in her bag, she thanked the young lawyer and left the offices.
She had ample time and means, so she chose to spend it with a mug of coffee, sitting on the patio area outside a quaint little café on the main street, and for the first time in her life, she began to plan her future.
She bade her time, and when he had come back last night, after a particularly heavy time at a seedy bar in the middle of town, she pretended to be asleep. He had drunkenly crawled into bed beside her, cursing when she didn't respond to his amorous advances. She half expected him to force himself on her – it wouldn't be the first time after all - but he evidently was too drunk to care much, for the next thing she knew, he was snoring loudly besides her, the alcohol having numbed him to the world completely.
It wasn't like she hadn't tried to make better the bad situations of course, she reminded herself, as she tried to tune out the snoring. She had tried wearing pretty clothes, and had splashed out on a particularly lovely red dress months ago for their anniversary. That was what had started it all really. He promised her dinner at a little pub downtown, and eagerly she got ready and sat down to wait, making sure not to crease the delicate folds as she did so.
Two hours later and he had not returned, and she began to worry. Another hour still, and she was beginning to debate whether or not to call someone, anyone for help, when the door banged open and he staggered in.
Initially she was pleased to know he wasn't lying in a ditch somewhere, but it didn't take long for this feeling to fade. It was replaced with a mixture of emotions as he loomed over her; anger that she'd squandered time on him that could have been better spent, money she did not have spent on a beautiful unnecessary frock. Then fear as he approached her closer still, using words she hoped never to hear again, names that spilled like milk from a broken glass bottle on the kitchen floor. They rained down on her, hurting her ears, and then descended even more as his hand connected with her thin arm - yanking her to him, ripping her dress, still shouting at her, the names turning to full insults. Had she been with another man? Wasn't he good enough anymore?
She cowered in place, knowing if she spoke he wouldn't believe her anyway; it would only be another excuse to hit her, tell her she was a liar. Only when he had reduced her to tears and her dress to ripped shreds didn't her leave her, striding into the kitchen. As she dragged herself from the floor of the small lounge to make her way to the bathroom, she heard him shouting about lack of alcohol in the 'damned place', smelt her own sweat and fear, saw the blood dripping from the marks to mix with the coral fabric of the beautiful unnecessary dress.
The next day, after a night with no sleep, she got on a bus to town, and visited a store. She smiled at the memory now – she had just been browsing, thinking of a life that could never be hers in a million years. The young salesclerk had been so eager to try and sell her a beautiful unnecessary piece of merchandise.
She now stroked the hot bonnet of the car, her short nails pale against the red of the paintwork, as she walked around to the drive side door and slid herself into the faux leather covered seat.
It really was the most beautiful unnecessary thing she could have chosen, she thought, but with $50,000 in the bank from her fathers estate, and her store salary increasing when she had been promoted four months ago, she been able to save enough to live on for some considerable time yet. The car had been a splurge, but then it was a Cadillac after all.
As the started the engine and pulled out of the gravel drive of the service station, she smiled to herself in the rear view mirror. It was time to put distance between herself and that no good excuse for a cowboy.
Not beautiful, but most definitely necessary.