A couple of weeks ago I posted a story about going to the beach, which I had written as part of a writing course.
This week I am sharing another writing piece of mine. The challenge was to describe a 10 second event, only actions, in the first or third person, such as a kiss, hitting a deer with a car or going downhill on a roller coaster. I didn’t want to portray any of the immediate clichés that come to mind, so here is a story of someone applying lipstick. When writing this, my lips were never so moisturised, as, in true writer’s fashion, I applied lipstick and lip balm a bazillion times for research, obviously.
The Lipstick
Jess took the lipstick from the black and white marble top of her vanity dresser. A click, initiated with her right hand, released the magnetic lid. The sun reflected in the facets of the cap, which she placed in front of her. The lipstick laid in her right index finger and thumb, supported by her middle finger. The tip of the stick peaked out and bared a fiery red. With a twisting motion to the left with her right fingers, the red stick was revealed. The centre of the stick was now fully visible, showing fading initials of “CD”. Jess parted her lips and positioned the slope of the stick below her Cupid’s bow. She slid the stick up to the apex and down along the vermilion boarder to the end of her bow. She released the stick from the corner and placed it on the centre of her upper lip again to glide the red onto the left upper lip following the traces of her bow to the end. The colour shone in the sun and the mirror showed Jess the contrast to her natural lips. Her eyes fixed on her application, she inspected the upper borders. She adjusted the height of the lipstick. The slope of the stick matched the width of her lower lip. Jess applied the colour to the middle of the lower lip and moved it to the right against a slight resistance of her skin to the outer corner of her mouth. Without pausing, her fingers swung the stick to the left side and back to the middle of the lower lobe. Jess blinked. The red glistened. She pressed the two lips together matching the outer lip lines and rolled them outwards distributing the colour. With her right little finger tip, she erased lipstick from her Cupid’s bow dimple.
27 February 2017
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