November 19, 2002.11.19.02. - cheshire [rune][north jersey, condo]
(james)
leather covered ankles cross on the great stucco'd dividing wall between the balcony and the rest of the world
chair tipped slightly backwards
long gray canvas covered legs stretched out
navigating this gauntlet between gravity and balance
dreads a haphazard waterfall pouring down across shoulders and chest
shadows cast sprawling across the balcony from the single light behind him
the one illumination that peeks from between the partially opened drapes
eyes the color of earth's rich soil lifting from where they rested
lifting to where, hours ago, he watched the fireball atom bomb sun dip below the horizonnow there is only the night
now there is only the drifting clouds
now there is only the errant, haphazard star that peeks towards the planet
now there is the moon, bright and full, hidden behind the partial cloudsas if some strange game of hide and seek
he wonders
from this strange itch twinged against his lumbar spine
who hides from whom?there's a part in the clouds
Luna's silvered brilliance shining
broadsword slice in the darkness
as if some sudden Bridge that offers passage to the sky
even now, he can feel the reaction
the little tug
the little pluck of heartstrings
just like the first time he saw Her with .these. eyes so many years agodark gaze drops once more
fingers still wrapped by boxer's brace flipping to the book's next page(rune)
Full moon, dark moon, bleak moon, bright moon: the crawl of it like fire beneath skin, fire beneath sinew and muscle and bone, spiritfire beneath it all, before and within and behind and above the body that somehow conspires to containg a thousand contradictions. The full moon prowls beneath her skin.And the wolf prowls beneath the full moon.
It was just dusk when she returned from the mundane but necessary task of grocery shopping. It was - just dusk - when she caught a glimpse of the moon, low and pregnant and huge and fat and silver on the eastern horizon hazed with pollution that reflected back the last of the sun's dying light as if the sky itself was burning brighter than any star. And it was just dusk when the heavy disk slipped from her view, behind a drifting bank of clouds blown in off the ocean, drifting in from the unseen gray sea. Just dusk.
It was still dusk when she returned, when her footsteps rattled through the empty condo, and the rustle of plastic bags and glass bottles broke the breathing silence, until the groceries were away.
Half-an-hour later (in the interim: pixelated death, a thousand fold, blooming on the television screen like bloodflowers. She waded through the blood of thousands and emerged triumphant, but the full moon is bright tonight, and this was not enough.) the door swings open, and she prowls onto the balcony, a dark bottle dangling negligently from her curled fingers, still hissing as carbonation escapes.
Her footsteps are (unusually) almost silent, bare feet slapping against concrete rather than high heels discarded immediately upon her return, leather whispering its usual quiet symphony in time with the great sure strides, the swing of muscled legs, the shift of curving hips beneath its hungry grasp. Rune lifts herself onto the wall, and the bottle clinks against the stucco as she rises, as she casts her dark eyes to the sky.
The moon has slipped behind the clouds once more, but they do not need to see it. Warriors that they are, they can still feel its silvered burn.
"Whatcha reading?" she asks, after a long moment, not yet dragging her eyes (the pupils, dilated: self-medication, the first and best defense against rage) from the sky. "Any good?"
(james)
as the wolf prowled beneath the moon
his eyes prowl jungle cat frenzy up the length of leather covered legsthe spanse of skin molding into slender ankle
the gentle curve of muscular calf
the slow flare of muscled thigh
the perfect curve of hips to dipping waisthow intimately he knows this
yet he still studies it as a novice pupilthe slink, the prowl, the steady climb higher
across the bars of her ribs hidden beneath her clothes
swelling curves that rise and fall with each contemplative breath
the sloping plateau of shoulder sweeping to throat and jawit's this slow study
this silent appreciation
this steady devour
of her form that finally ends upon her eyesor where they would be if she faced him
"Lewis Carrol."
murmured
night's eerie glow the silver lining silhouette of the Ahroun before him(rune)
Somehow, she stills beneath his slow, silently study, the rising tide of umber eyes, the steady devouring of her form. Without looking - without a glance in his direction - she stills to savor the steady climb of his gaze across her body, and then she moves beneath the weight of his eyes.Then she moves: the shift of curving hips to settle slow upon the balustrade, the curving stretch of spine up and back, expanding the space beneath her ribs for an endless sighing breath. Her lungs fill with the clear, cool air, and expell it humid cloud of breath as she turns to meet his eyes.
"Lewis Carrol?" Absurb, the low raw rasp of her voice, the echoed words dragged from her red mouth and offered to the night air. Lewis Carrol. She could have said: steak, medium rare. She could have said: do you want fries with that? She could have said: let's fuck.
The words would have sounded the same.
(james)
as she turns
as she moves
as she inhales
beneath the weight of his gazeit is so easily transcripted to the memory of it beneath his weight
as she turns
a steady smile begins to grow
bonfire beneath the easy warmth
molten core glow within the deep soil brownbook snipping shut between his fingers
boots removing themselves from the balustrade
weight shifting to offer the book's cover facing up to her at the end of an outstretched arm
its tattered and well-read pages seeming at home next to the rags that bind his hands"Alice in Wonderland?"
brow's lifting in recognition's question
(rune)
Alice in Wonderland.Dark eyes flicker from his gaze and graze across the title, though whether understanding somehow blooms there is an entirely different question. His eyes - all easy warmth, molten - snag hers again, the pupils devouringly (drugged) dark, too large, too wide, too much even in this twilight world.
Her back curves forward, and a long pale arm drifts out to reach the offered volume. Her fingers slip across the cover, linger on the raised whorls of the worn cloth binding, then feather across the soft slurry of well-read (beloved) pages beneath. Her hand lingers there, twisting past worn and raveling threads at the edge of the binding, tracing the faint impression of the title embossed on the bookboard as if she could read the curving letters with the shadow of touch, as if she were a blind woman reading braille.
"Alice in Wonderland. The - " a pause, the gaze turned briefly inward as she delves the depths of faulty memory. The familiar red smirk twists across her brazen red mouth as her eyes find his once more. "...calico cat?"
(james)
how easily
how willingly
how openly
he gives one of his most treasured items to her
where she could so easily turn once more
giving him only the view of her back
as she casts it into the darkness
to crash and ruin in the dew stained grass below
or perhaps onto the silvered bridge offered between cloud breaks
to land there and disappear forever beneath the next shadowcould she ever question his trust
plucking the bottle from her fingers in fair (?) trade
smiling after long swallow
the smile growing
warm
hungry"Cheshire."
(rune)
It's hardly a fair trade: a half-full bottle of beer for one of his most treasured possessions, one of this most favored things, carried and carted and saved and savored and protected through his long, hard, brief life. And she - who so easily discards her things, a thousand every month (the lipstick is old, the jacket no longer suits her, the far too expensive shoes are last year's fashion, and cannot be recycled into her wardrobe against the possibility that they will become next year's fashion) - she rises, she sliiiiiiiiiiiiiides off the balcony, one leading foot, one twisting, shifting hip - his book still in her hand."Cheshire, I knew that," she murmurs in reply, savoring the shape of the word. Sometimes she has the grace to look ashamed of her lapses. Sometimes she has sufficient wry self-awareness to make sure a remark with a self-deprecating lightless. Tonight, the moon is full and high and hungry. Tonight, the silver moon writhes beneath her skin. "Like that smile on your mouth."
She is standing in front of him now, the volume resting against her leatherclad thigh, tucked safely in one (almost) negligent hand. She is standing before him, and she is advancing on him, the slow warm heat of his smile mirrored in the raw hunger of her own. She is standing before him and she is leaning into him, dark hair falling across her pale cheek, empty hand settling on the arm of the chair in which he perches, fingers gripping the plastic, hard.
"I should wipe that smile," - the slow red curl of her smirk, the brush of her inner thigh against his knee, the crawl of her dark gaze down from his eyes, lower, and lower still. "right off your fucking mouth."
(james)
she slides
she saunters
she stalks
she scorches
with but a lookher hand clasps the arm of his chair
her thigh rests against his knee
the smooth slipwhisper of leather across canvas
expensive choice inanimately groping desperate make-dowith each step
something grew
just as the way the moon slowly swelled
as the way his mouth elongates its wicked curve
as the way his eyes burn and invitingly darkenas she stands
he risesas slow as her movement from the balustrade to his side
as slow as his eyes had climbed her form
he now stretches to leave wanton throne and meet the gaze of silvered night's (knight's?) queen
a breath as the wind shifts
an inhilation - through nose and mouth - he can smell the raw fire burning beneath her flesh, he can taste the warmth that rolls from taught body that stands so close - but not touching, not yet that close - so coyly deceptive, so tauntingly out of reach for no better than miles between them this bare inch cavern abyss on the balcony, his warm voice the echoing winds heard echoing throughout each nook and cranny in the yawning crevasse, as if daylight suddenly piercing the darkness to offer a scandalous heat all its own this moon-driven simmer that backs Rage laced words, lips moving in the slowest formation of the whisper leaned in to offer her senses
all of them"I. dare. you."
cheshire
Posted by james at November 19, 2002 12:00 AM
challenging
gauntlet thrown to separate them further
drapes billow king's banner as the Gnawer moves through them into the darkness of the condo