A Slow Burn Pt. 01

**All characters and events depicted are purely fictional, and all written characters involved are over the age of 18**

*I will be posting part II and III very soon; Stay tuned for them, they will contain more explicit scenes and content.*

Hope you enjoy:)

..................

It wasn't much like they said it was. At least, not in her experience.

It wasn't loud, it didn't hurt.

She didn't scream, or kick, or push against ropes or holds.

It didn't leave a mark, a bruise, or even a cut.

And it wasn't quick.

In fact, it lasted for months.

Painless. Quiet.

Nobody saw it, nobody heard it.

She wasn't entrapped, held down, nor did she ever really feel the need to run.

It wasn't even scary.

Instead

It was a slow kind of burn.

A small flame, dancing and licking up the walls and curtains in the dark, almost unnoticed.

until it was too late,

and she was engulfed.

......................

o n e

It was almost seven o clock.

Her hands in the clay, Sinead wondered if he would be waiting for her at the house. She had not been out for long, and had made it a point to tell him yesterday what she would be doing this afternoon.

"Okay," he had said. But he didn't much like her at the river after dark. He knew why she preferred collecting clay in the evening; the river patrol probably wouldn't let her step foot on the trails again if they'd known it was her hauling pounds of the earth home to her studio. He knew she was careful, though, so he had given up the fight many weeks ago. "Just, you know. Call me if you need me."

Sinead caught her mind wandering. The wet clay smudged up her wrists had begun to dry and shrink against her skin. She looked back down from the darkening teal sky, back to her bucket. It was probably close to fifty pounds by now. She took a breathe, wiping the tip of her nose, smearing the slate colored paste onto her cheek in the process.

One more scoop should do it. She thought.

Hunching her back, she leaned into the river bank below her and dug the outside edges of her palms into the soft ground, scooping towards herself. After sloughing the fresh pile into her container, she gave her hands a haphazard rinse in the river and started to collect her things.

Sinead had been frequenting these trips more often lately. She tried not to go every night, but if the sculptures she worked on called for more clay than she could carry in one trip.. Well, she would just have to sparse out her dig locations. Too many holes in the river banks would leave the patrol too curious. The hike from the road to the bank was about a half mile, and the last house before the trailhead was the patrol's headquarters. While she was not often paranoid, Sinead felt more or less like an animal of prey out there; she always remained perceptive to the shifts of the undergrowth around her, and confident on her feet, ready to duck behind the bushels of fern, or decaying tree stumps.

As she hiked back to the road, the bucket dug with weight into her right hand. It had started to form an uncomfortable callus in her fingers; this would mark the fifth night in a row that she had hauled clay from the river bank. She hoped this trip would be enough clay to finish the project, but she knew the refining process could cut down on the amount of clay by a pretty substantial amount.

Sinead neared their street, turning left. She half-jogged across Umstead road before slowing and pushing herself up the last hill. The night was humid, but calm, and crickets roared around her. As she walked, her boot heals scuffed against the pavement, and she hummed outloud to the sound until she found herself pushing into the front door.

"Sinead? Come 'ere a sec."

He shouted for her almost immediately. She blinked a couple of times, shutting the door, getting her bearings. Alone and outside for the past few hours, she took a second adjusting to the artificial light glowing from the inside of her house and to the voice of another. Vainly, she had hoped to slink past him to get some much-needed studio time before it got too late. Her current sculpture was arguably her most ambitious yet: an abstracted bust of a bald woman, her neck tall and slender, her nose upturned and eyes softly closed. The entire sculpture process was tedious, and Sinead had to tend to the clay almost every day to avoid the piece from cracking or snapping. She felt as if she was getting fairly close to being able to fire it in her kiln, but needed to reinforce the supports keeping the woman's head from tipping off and hitting the floor. Alas, here she was, home just at the right time to be called in by her partner.

She unwrapped her stiff fingers from the bucket's handle, setting it by the door with it's dead weight thumping as she did, and then frowned as he called loudly for her again. She didn't like when he shouted, even when it wasn't out of rage or vile. It always had sent prickles down the back of her neck, distinctly after spending almost an entire day without voices around her. She slipped out of her shoes, peeking from the front hall into his office that was dimlit from a yellow-shaded lamp, and his blue computer screen. Through the crack of the door, she could see the side of his face only, his glasses reflecting the LED of his laptop. The lense reflection glazed over his entire eyes, making him look like a soulless, eyeless creature. She looked away, slightly unsettled, and set her jacket down on the foyer table before making her way inside his office.

"Hey," he turned his head up at her to look from his seated position, the reflection in his glasses dissipating to reveal his eyes combing her up and down. Her skin buzzed at the sudden perception as she stood straight and rigid, her right foot resting on top of her left one. She let a smile push onto her lips.

"How'd it go today? How much did you get?"

"Good,"she started. He reached his hands out towards her hips, pulling her in. "I think I'll have enough to finish this piece."

She spoke lowly, and looked down at him as he buried his nose into her lower stomach, inhaling. His hands pushed their way back to her butt and squeezed slightly. She wondered if he had even heard her.

"I'm glad, baby, listen, have you showered yet?" A low groan escaped his mouth, "I've been waiting to take one with you. Had a long day."He turned his head so his left ear rested just below her bellybutton, his hands moving up and down her lower back and ass.

Feeling more obligated than anything, she pulled her hands up to his head still resting on her tummy, running her fingers through his curled hair. She noticed the cracking clay still drying up on her skin, the wrinkles showing through as if she was turning to stone. Her studio pulled to her, but he rose from his seat and smiled down at her, taking her attention.

"I haven't, I was actually thinking of getting started on this tonight," She gestured towards the door; she had not planned on showering until after getting everything put away in her studio. She had not even gotten a chance this week to finish clarifying a bucket of of clay from one of last week's hauls. She still needed to pick out the twigs and stones, and hang it in cloth to separate, and needed to re-wet her sculpture. She imagined it drying and cracking into pieces as they stood together, anxiety starting to rush up her back.

He pulled away, reaching his hand up to grasp her own. "It'll be fast," he sung, smirking. He bowed his head towards her ear, and breathed into it. Her eyes shut, for a moment, and he brushed his lips against the neck behind her ear. As much as she didn't want to, he had his ways. "I'll be fast," he exhaled the words onto her skin.

She was silent, but, reluctantly followed him out of his office, up the stairs, and into the bathroom.

He was not, indeed, fast, and she swallowed her desires. It wasn't uncommon for these moments of passion to come up at not-so-great times for them. She had found that it was just easier to lean in to it, enjoy it while she was young. The project could wait. He could not. And they stayed content.

In her studio down the hall, her project cracked and dried, the head of her sculpture crumbling onto the floor in the dead of night.

Note from Author: I hope you guys enjoyed just this first peak into something I've been working on for a while now. I have multiple parts already written, so I'll go ahead and post part II and maybe part III to give you guys a better taste into what lies ahead. :)

**All characters and events depicted are purely fictional, and all characters involved are over the age of 18**