November 09, 2002
.11.09.02. - bitch-rhya [rune]

[cont'd from the pine barrens]

(rune)
The cool night air drifting through the treetops, spilling over the open convertible must be enough to cool their heated blood as they meander through the backroads of the Pine Barrens. It takes them a good half-hour to make it back to something approaching civilization, perhaps a little more. Rune, after all, feels compelled to offer James some instruction on shifting and the like, sliding her hand over his to help him find the sweet spot of second and soon third gear as they zoom beneath the breathing trees.

Once they gain the highway, though, the top comes up. Warm as it was during the day, it's just too cold a night to be blasted by jet-fast loops and whorls of frigid air even if they both need a nice, long cold shower to make it home safely.

Threads of conversation ("Think Luc'll live to see tomorrow?" "If not, at least he gets to die happy.") rise and weave and fall, leaving only darkness and heat, heat and darkness in the long stretched silences between.

"Turn here." Two exits early. Beyond the cloverleaf exit, a vast stretch of themed restaurants, strip malls and hotels spiderwebs out from the parkway. The reflected light plays strangely across their features, highlighting the razor edge of her sudden, sure grin. "I don't want to get interrupted again."

(james)
he doesn't mind her instruction
rather likes it, to be honest
he's even a little surprised to be allowed to driver her Baby
fingers spreading as her hand covers his
twining to lock their hands over the gearhead

he enjoys the ride, the comfortable silences save the engine purr
he enjoys the stars shining down on the highway
he enjoys, most of all, the semi-quiet company
the easy banter
the snide comments about their very fortunate packmate

a brow lifts at the directions
carefully coaxing the Beemer off the highway, onto the bi-road
glancing at the landmarks they pass out of idle curiosity
unable to wipe that smile from his face
unable to pull his lip out from between teeth's nibble
.... he can still feel where she bit before

"I don't either."

(rune)
"I didn't think so." Her smile flashes again, sure and dark and perhaps a little smug. "...though I'm not sure I can recreate the atmosphere, I can at least get a bath. We can raid a minibar to our heart's content. Maybe they'll even have a laundry service for my fucking clothes."

Late as it is, the suburban streets are far less crowded than they would be in the middle of a weekend afternoon. It's an easy drive. Even the left turn across traffic without a stoplight into the hotel parking lot takes no time at all. Some bland sign announces the chain's name, but it's not like he'll notice. Not with her hand slipsliding over his as he shifts again and slides the Beemer into a convenient parking space, just beyond the wide awning and the doubledoors.

It's nothing like the no-tel mo-tel in which James spent innumberable hours guarding Imogen, of course. Had they let Rune make that decision, they might've been holed up in the Waldorf-Astoria, or at least the local Marriott.

The engine dies, and she leads the way, bare feet slapping soft against the pavement. The superficial scratches have healed over, and her gait fluid again, the prowl that belongs to the ultimate urban predator. They're a strange pair, and the desk clerk gives them a long, narrow-eyed look. It changes, of course, when the charges are approved and Rune signs someone else's name in a sure, sweeping hand. If James bothers to look, he'll see a different name almost every time she charges something. (Smoke and mirrors, mirrors and smoke). Through the lobby, into the elevator: she doesn't even look at him until the double doors woosh closed. Then she tosses him the card key with a bright flashing smirk and leans back against the wall.

(james)
hotel, hmm?
I'm sorry are we at a hotel?
her hand warmly covering his, parking, finding the right button for the alarm to sound it's guarding chirp
the vision of her walking away
the easy, predatory, stalking gate
barefoot in leather and suede

there's a wry smile to see the marks where bark bit into the soft jacket

it's a moment before he catches up
he noticed nights ago the names on the cards weren't hers
and the desk clerk almost doesn't exist

tribal fires still burn deep inthe darkness
some place far out in the wyldness still within each of them
inferno blazes with the animal howling madness at the thermals around it
recreated atmosphere is one thing
recreated mood is another
even over the pine-sol clinging to his skin and coat
she can smell it
even under the garish lights of the lobby hallway and elevator foyer
she can see it
even -especially - in the closeness of the rising car
she can feel it

that scent
that vibe
that look

the card is caught
the Gnawer crossing
hands settling against her hips
first against the tree, now against the upholstered wall
weight draws close, warm, intent
brow lifting in mirror flash smirk
bare breath away from red red smeared lips
caught somewhere between a murmur and a growl

"What..... expecting me to go in first and draw the spoiled bitch-rhya's bath?"

(rune)
Her chin rises in haughty challenge, dark strands of hair falling away from her face, the sticky sap still caught therein snagging against the padded wall. White teeth flash and snap as the smeared red lips pull back, but do not - not quite, not yet - dig into the flesh of lower lip.

"Of course," she murmurs, sly-eyed and sure. Her hands settle on his hands settled on her hips, then trace a long sure line over the patchwork trenchcoat to his shoulders. One remains there, settled like a vise, while the other trails to slide beneath spidering dreadlocks and curl across the back of his neck. "If not for you, bitch-rhya wouldn't need a bath."

(james)
there is a sound
long, low, and lean
lips pulled away from her teeth because of his smile
grip tightening across the leather curving around her hips
using the wall to slide close
closer
unmistakable, suggestive, provacative contact

while a part of him would chance leaning into sharp nails
his response instead is to lean down
face tucking beneath tangled inky strands

"What I have in mind for bitch-rhya would only require another bath afterward."

the words already scalding steam across pale neck
a wonder if he even truly speaks
perhaps only mouths the words for chance to touch her flesh
the words what they each want to hear in their minds

"Or would she truthfully desire both."

(rune)
The sound is answered, mirrored. Low and lean, raw and primal (animal, baby, animal) caught somewhere deep in her throat and spilling across the razor-sharp grin (bared teeth, curving lips. animal.) into the dry, climate-controlled air of the rising cab.

The floors tick by unheeded, little lights winking to announce elevation to the uncaring pair, little bells chirping as if this delicious disastrous uncivilized battle wasn’t happening at all.

Her body arches, low-slung, hip-centered, daring his contact and demanding more. Blood red nails dig into the tender flesh of his neck (oh, he remembers those nails, the harsh trails they scrape along his skin, the blood almost drawn in the height of passion, the wildness of her response.)

Somewhere, somewhen, somehow, the insistent beep of the elevator draws her from the ragged, storm-laden sea of want in which they are lost. Sharp nails pull back, and her right hand glides from the tangled dreads to settle on his shoulder, curves strong over the taut muscle there and pushes him back and away, and hard.

It does nothing to dispel the heat.

She catches his hand, twisting fingers into his in a slow battle of attrition for dominance that neither will ever yield, and prowls from the elevator onto the quiet luxury of the carpet into the long, quiet hall. Dim lights flicker in sconces scattered at intervals, and everyone is locked away. Everyone is locked away, and no one sees the sharp glance tossed across the low curve of battered-suede clad shoulder, the look that catches his eyes and travels damnably lower as a spidering grin spreads across her smeared red lips.

Her eyes find his once more, and challenge fairly smolders there. “Do you think you can handle both?”

(james)
does he follow - or does he control the pace of their walk, stalk, prowl down the hallway as if some gauntlet to tresspass before this most deviant and delicate of pleasures waiting ahead for the battle that neither will win, neither will yeild, and neither, will ever, ever grant quarter
whatever it is that burns at the earth's molten core finds its way behind dark umber
peeking from beneath the jungle-vine hair
something crawling from the primal darkness in it's innate creep behind each near silent barefoot step

you bring something to life within me again

some bedraggled predator slinking through the mottled shadows in the hallway
the panther chasing the amazon queen
the jackal chasing the desert priestess
the wolf chasing the wolf

and when she stops before the appointed, annointed door
he pounces
warm length pressing against hers
twined fingers drawing both their arms around her shoulders
snug, safe, captured, held, worshipped and dominated
his breath scalding across the back of her neck
lips teased to teeth
free arm reaching around to slide the keycard into the slot
growl finding its way to her ear as the door shies away from them

"What if I can't wait for both."

(rune)
How did he manage that, the keycard, the lock, the little civilized fillips that intersect but never derail the low slink of the wild. They prowl through the tamed and groomed corridors, tested and retested among innumerable focus groups calibrated to mirror the hotel chains demographic and project a soothing, restful, tranquil feeling to ordinary guests on an ordinary night.

They are not ordinary guests. This is no ordinary night.

The walls are soft and muted, the carpet deep and plush. Somewhere - there is an impression of the bed, the scattered occasional tables, chairs and lights, and beyond, the citynight spread out in the darkness light so many Christmas lights - somewhere life goes on. She doesn’t see a bit of it.

The savage light spilling from her dark eyes is mirror to the molten core surging in his own. The slow-crawling smile perfect counterpoint to the low hot growl spilling across her flesh. She’s turning - he has the impression of movement, the supple curves slung against him, the slide of leather and silk over skin, the tangling fall of dark hair into her eyes and into his own. She’s turning, then, captured, as the door falls open behind them, each half-step into darkness inevitable as the promised battle. She’s turning, some low slow grapple of movement, shaking her hands free of his snare to push the trench from his shoulders.

“Prove it.” Oh, the wicked, certain grin. “Fucking prove it to me.”

(james)
it's like a beast unleashed
unhinged
the Rage all but forgotten suddenly washing tidal wave behind the door that slams closed an airlock around them, it's an atom bomb that finally detonates, freely, wontonly, responding to the sweetest of provocations which turns smelted steel into the most destructive lava flow

give an inch, he will take a mile

whatever light there is, shining brightly in the darkness
it comes not from the switch
perhaps it is the filter of Luna's Grace that makes it through the window
perhaps it is the twinkling of the city-light stars grounded outside the window
perhaps it is the supernova reverb that shatters to life behind the windows of his eyes

first step, the trench plummets to the plush carpeting below
second step, his hands returning to grapple with suede
third step, they reach for his shirt, slung somewhere into the darkness
fourth step, they reach for hers, fabric further tearing in this lust driven assault
fifth step, they slide rampant and rabid over leather

all backed by hungry growl that rolls thunder on distant horizons
the brewing hurricane that finds the lone island of her flesh in this richly decorated sea
an earthquake looking for mountains and valleys of muscular curves to reshape into the soaring heights of divine and forbidden union

a leg sweeps hers from beneath her weight
caught, before his pins her to the floor
whatever impressions of the bed there may be somewhere in the distance
just as with the condo, they do not make it
loathe to be interrupted

it is then, only then, that he pillages savage kiss

(rune)
Somewhere, people are fighting. Somewhere, people are sleeping the sweet sleep of the innocent, the sure sleep of the conscienceless, the wakeful sleep of the guilty. Somewhere, somewhere close, within the walls that hold half-a-hundred others, people are fucking, sedate in their beds, polite in their meaningless sweet nothings and saccharine pillowtalk. They know nothing of the wild. They know nothing of this wild, born and bred in the stinking asphalt streets, nothing the half-human half-divine animals that prowl through their glitter-bright, pastiche ruin of a world, nothing of the endless war, and nothing of the battle enacted beneath them, fueled by the strength of two full moons.

He sweeps her legs from beneath her; caught, she tumbles to the floor; pinned, she surges back against him, her body rising in a long, sure, driving arc. His hands are snared in hers, captured and dragged high above their heads as he plunders the first savage kiss.

She answers him measure for measure: the flash of pale, curving flesh sinking beneath his muscled frame, sinking into the carpet rich and soft as the sea and the curving heat of thighs parting to settle around his waist, each ragged breath its own small skirmish.

That’s her voice he hears, somehow, coming from somewhere above and below him, a panting rattle of thoughtless words, a running, savage commentary that continues as a rumble when his mouth finds hers and erupts into scorching sound when lips part for breath again. Little goads strung together into a snaking chain that amounts to nothing more than: now and more and yes and this and you and you and you and more and more and more.


...and to think, the night is just beginning.

(james)
they are predators
they are full-mooned full-blooded creatures crafted from Gaia's very core
they are her heart, her strength, her will, and her soul
they are of the earth, the sky, and of the sea

it is what tumbles avalanche between them
the part of limber thighs and the thick mudslide of words washing sticky sweet against his flesh
from above, around, below and even within
in consuming, he is consumed
buried
wrapped in this blanket of sinister intentions and the touch of a generous mouth

somewhere in the darkness
somewhere in this turbulent night
the reverberations of power and Rage that roll off them
waves traversing the endless air
each gasped word
each groaned breath
each cry that rises to the stars shining far above

it is more than the sweat that binds them
something elemental that soaks, clings and slickens
from the gentlest rain of absent kiss
to the tidal surge that crashes against granite muscle

earth, sky, and sea
so different yet so very neccessary to the other's survival
it is a strange circle that joins them
it is strange the commonalities they share buried so deeply beneath the surface
the sleek, spoiled, and pampered Walker
the ragged, rough, and struggling Gnawer

yet now
now there is no clothing to define them
now there is no tribe to separate them
now there is no rank to order them
now there is no pack to worry them
now there is no past to haunt them

it is just two equal beasts writhing in the night
taking all the other provides
and demanding endlessly more

Posted by james at November 09, 2002 12:00 AM