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"So, um, this is my house." she said, walking up the driveway, towards the door. She led Herman and Bela to the front door, where she managed after going through a couple keys to finally open the door. All the keys looked the same, how was she to tell.

She walked inside, and after a small foyer, to the right was the living room. She led them there, "Um, so make yourselves at home..."

She didn't really know what to say. With just Herman this would have been easier, but she felt like she had to watch her words around Bela, she could use anything against her. So instead, she reverted to host mode, what else could she do? It was so unfair, Herman was in her house, but the most she could do was offer him tea or coffee. She really did hate the blonde.

"Do you guys want anything to drink?"

(I'm going to god mod, kinda ish. Because Serend's not around and it would be awkward to pretend Herman never came)

"Ok, then" she said, exiting to the kitchen to fix Herman the drink of his choice. She contemplated for a moment on her own how she could get rid of Bela, it wasn't even about Herman any more, she just wanted the girl out of her house. She felt like she was intruding on her personal space.

She came back to the living room with a happy face, smiling at Bela, and then Herman, setting the drink down on the end table next to him. "Mmm--hmm...girl time." Winnie responded, looking at Bela. "My room is upstairs," she gestured towards the spiral staircase at the end of the entrance hall. "Let's go then." She didn't want to say much to the girl, she seemed to find flaws in everything she said.

She turned back to the man, with a small wave and a smile before she walked towards the stairs, gesturing at the girl to follow her. Reaching the top, she turned left down a small hall to her room. Across from the bed was a large walk-in closet, it seemed almost out of place in the quaint house. It looked like a celebrity's closet, she had that many clothes, that many shoes, and that many hand bags. Why she never wore them, and how she got them were two mysteries.

A large central light lit up the entire rectangular closet, on the left wallthere were clothes, the back wall was shoes, and the right a large full length mirror and about 10 bags hung up. It looked as if Winnie had put a lot of time into this, it was obviously important to her. and More than half of the dresses were zipped up in dress bags, and a trunk sat in the middle of the essentially small room, probably filled with more clothes.

"Umm this is my closet." she said, turning to Bela. She looked almost embarrassed as if she was ashamed, but more than that she just hoped the blonde didn't touch anything. Who knew where her hands had been. "If you want to change, go through the trunk in the middle."

In the trunk where her regular outfits, the things she wore often, and didn't care much about; the things she had bought herself. There were a bunch of button down blouses, v-neck tee-shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and other pants, and a couple of skirts.

The red head reached into the trunk on her own, pulling out a a simple skirt and top. "What's wrong?" she said, looking at Bela.

She hadn't meant it in a vindictive way. These were the clothes she wore. Wearing anything else would be a hassle, wearing anything else would be self-abandonment. None of those clothes really belonged to her, they were all picked out by the men she had been with over the years. Those clothes represented what they wanted her to be, hot side piece, the elegant young date, whatever it was for the night. Her collection would rival that of any young hollywood starlet's, she had Versace, Alexander McQueen, Micheal Kors, just to name a few. In the trunk however, things were simple, and the Winnie they were better. Not better in the sense that she looked better in them, because that was not the case, they just made life more simple, they helped her forget.

"This is the stuff that I wear." she looked down at the trunk and back up at the blonde, "Is it that bad?" For a moment she forgot how much she hated Bela, without Herman around there wasn't much she had to worry about, so she was ok with it; she just wanted to know what her problem was with her clothes.

"I mean most of it is from J.Crew..." she added, slightly defensively.

Winnie stood up too, taking an almost defensive stance, as if Bela was coming in between her and her most private and cherished possessions...well, not as if, she was.

"I do wear a few of them!" she said, her voice in an almost panic. She grabbed a white cut out dress from the rack. "It's Donna Karan" she smiled at it, and then looked at Bela.

"I don't want to ruin them. If I wear them too often things will happen to them. Anyway, half of them aren't appropriate to wear to school...." she shook her head, reaffriming her previous desicion.

"Just look in the trunk, everything's perfectly fine there." she had already told her too much, next thing she knew the blonde would question her on why they were so important to her. Or worst than that she'd open a dress bag. Winnie's stomach curdled, why did she ever even bring her in here? She thought she'd be okay with the things in the trunk! Her eyes glanced over the dress bags, a slight frown coming to her face as she tried to remember what was in each of them...ball gowns...cocktail dressses...

"We can't wear any of that stuff...or um you can't." she said, she sounded quite confident. There was no way she'd let the other girl walk out of there wearing one of her memories.

Winne clenched her teeth for a moment, she was so angry. The blonde b***h stood there in the middle of her closet in her house, with absolute disrespect for her. She considered attacking her, slapping her, killing her...but she didn't know how strong the other girl was, and Herman was downstairs.

The dress she had in her hands wasn't one of the important ones, one of the earlier boyfriends gave it to her, to show her off at some party; she didn't remember much about it, just that there where a lot of shiny cars, and on the limo ride back to his apartment they joked about how pompous everyone was; she remembered the way he always smelled like the forest...David Neunbraun...auto executive. She never truly had feelings for him, but he did treat her well; he liked to stay up late and read about old cars, he would tell her about the up and coming models, always joking about what one he was going to buy her, and she would make him coffee in the morning... hazelnut roast...3 sugar cubes...2 tablespoons of creamer... and a kiss on the lips. The red head shook her head, and bit the inside of her cheek. Why was Bela so evil?

She left David one morning when he couldn't pay the bill. He had the money, he just told her he thought their relationship was more than that. She didn't agree and ditched him; he never bought her that car. Winnie would have given the dress to Bela if she had asked politely.

The girl stood there mouth slightly open for a moment, too distracted by her own thoughts to want to listen to Bela. Until she said Herman's name. What was she going on about now? No.

She was wrong. So dead wrong it was ridiculous. Winnie tensed up more, more in complete sadness than in anger. She felt like she was going to cry. Herman was more than that. He was more than what had cast her aside a couple years ago, more than the one's she really loved, and never loved her back; the one's who did exactly what she did to David.

She didn't know what to do. At this point it almost sounded like Bela really just wanted to help, like she knew what was best for her even. She shook her head, continuing the silent battle in her mind. There was no way she would go back to living that way. Did Bela know what it was like to be discarded so frequently, to have your heart broken tri-yearly? She was wrong, but at the same time so right. Never had Winnie met a man that she truly loved that loved her back...maybe they all just wanted 'a good time'?

"You can't have anything here, it all belongs to me." she choked out. She was trying to keep her balance, her point, before she tumbled of the deep end. "Not that it means anything, I just don't want you to have it." she lied, it was right that she didn't want Bela to have it, but it also meant a lot to her.

"You can't have anything that belongs to me. It's mine." she sneered, trying to regain composure, though her voice cracked a little. She meant both her clothes and Herman, neither of which she had no intention of surrendering to Bela. She wasn't going to give up so easily, though Bela could easily crumble her into pieces if she found the root. She wasn't going to consider that with Herman, though she had in the past. All men wanted a good time, but she wasn't ready to give up hope that they all wanted something more at some point. Bela just didn't see the way things could be, if you tried hard enough you could live alright.

"I'm not hiding anything" she hissed. She considered snatching the dress bag from Bela, but she'd probably rip it in the process. "Would I have even let you in here if I was hiding anything?"

"These are my nice things, so I'm not going to give them to a whore like you. They were gifts to me, for me." she looked Bela up and down, her eyes narrowed. If Bela was going to be mean to her, she wasn't just going to let her run all over her.

"Now maybe you think there are skeletons in my closet, because I'm sure there are plenty in yours, but sweetheart, I am nothing like you. I never have been, and I never will be. My business is none of yours." she said, an obvious double meaning to her words; business meaning, both personal information, and literal business.

She just wanted this to be over. She wanted to change, go downstairs, find some excuse to make Bela leave, and spend the day with Herman. After all, she was sure that if Bela hadn't been forced in their team at the tomato festival, Herman would have only picked her as a teammate, he did like her as a friend at least. She wasn't going to reveal her 'deep dark secrets' to her current worst enemy, the blonde could count on that. She didn't even understand why she was trying so hard to get them out.

"Now, if you want to change, look in the trunk, otherwise keep what you're wearing on. I'd be glad to let you have a respectable cardigan, I think you need it."

Winnie smiled to herself as she took the dress from Bela, hanging it back on the racks, making sure it went in the right place. Going for a season at a time? Did she mean without...hahahahha. Wrong she was, but Winnie wouldn't her in on that one.

How else did Bela think Winnie supported herself. The house was far too big for her to stay afloat on a school counselors salary, she was the only income in the house. Aside from the money she had saved over the years, through gifts and pay, Winnie still took the occasional offer from old friends.

As Bela leaned again over the trunk, Winnie turned around to face her dress bags. Bela was a little right, why did she keep these hidden? It would benefit her cause if she showed a little skin sometime. She looked back at the blonde tossing her clothes around in the trunk, as she went through her mental index of clothes. She remembered at least one dress from every boyfriend, even though the richer one's had given her upwards of thirty each. One had a habit of never letting her wear the same thing twice, unfortunately he also had a habit of making her throw them away.

Hmm... she thought to herself, Andrew...Donald...Thomas...Jack...yes Jack. Jack was one of her older boyfriends, he had taken her on a cruise, and bought her two weeks worth of cruise wear. Winnie went to the 'Jack' section of her closet, and pulled out a white micheal kors dress, one she remembered wearing at a beach restaurant in Grand Cayman, one of the only times she had a tan in her life. It would do for now though, she took it off the rack.

She figured she'd show off a bit for Herman, especially after 'degrading' Bela to look through the trunk...after all, she wasn't really sure if Herman still knew she was a woman. She checked to see if Bela was watching her, it didn't look like it. She wanted to get changed in private but didn't want to leave the blonde in there.

"Uhmm..." she said, going through a drawer and picking out lace underwear. "We should probably change in the bathroom...we can wash up in there, also I have makeup if you need some, you could use some of my eyeliner, but I'm not sure if the foundation will work." she sounded nice, and though she did mean it, she wanted more for Bela to leave the closet with her, plus she was sure that she had tomato all over her, cleaning off a bit couldn't hurt.

She didn't respond to Bela, because there was fun in an unfair victory, she wasn't going to let her have that though, it would be Winnie's victory. She didn't want to ruin Bela's new found likeness toward her, after all that could bring the horrible comments back.