The dress was slinky first and foremost.  The dress of a siren.  An enchantress.  Only a woman of great confidence would attempt such a dress.  And it was white.  As white as the breasts Solomon sang about.  Her dark hair tumbled down her back in soft curls to her waist.  The only things soft about this woman were those curls and that velvet.  Rich and thick. 

But there at her breast, one might have taken it for an oversized brooch of office or such, was her heart like a wet, red stain on otherwise perfection.

She wore her heart on her sleeve?  No.  On her breast. Beating and bleeding one drop at a time like a metronome keeping beat to the insistent memories of those she had let harm her.

Let.

No more.  Her beating heart was now a warning.  It said, “I have been used. I have been a victim.  No more. Be wary of what you do. I will not be trifled with.”

And you could see her resolve in the set of her jaw.  Her smooth brow.  Her wide eyes.  Oh yes.  Eyes wide open she was walking into the arena of life, herself blameless other than for the crime of accommodation.  No more.  She was to be earned.

Her blood dripped one drop at a time down her breast, her skirt, a single rivulet.  Not much.  Not enough to harm her.  Just enough to remind those who saw that she had once bled sorrow.  Bled angst.  Bled despair.  But no more.

Oh no.  No more. It was a whispered warning and a banshee’s battle cry.  She was now a legend. Something to be desired.  Something to be feared. 

Someone to be valued.