Norwegian Wood

"I swear to you, I don't usually do things like this." The compulsion to defend my honor drops the words off my tongue right as I'm noticing their incongruence; this is how I know I'm out of it, and part of me goes cold and clenches, bracing for impact.

"Things like what?" she asks, laughing behind the words as she drops her purse onto something solid in the dark and walks into the abyss with the calm assurance of one who either knows the terrain intimately or is too giddy to care whether she stumbles. I pat the wall for a lightswitch.

"Go home with strange girls. Mostly high. Hell, get mostly high in the first place... D'you have lamps here, or do we have to wait for lightning to see by?" Oh Christ. If I were her, I'd shoot me now and drop my body out the window. Shut up. I need to just shut up.

There's a snort or a snicker from deeper in the room and a weak light clicks on. Cyn--for this is how she introduced herself to me--weaves her way away from it, and I admire the view. "You are a lightweight, aren't you?"

"I barely register on the scales," I answer, smiling wryly. "But I'm cute."

Another amused noise from off our little stage. Rain on her windows and distant thunder. What else is there to say?

The front room is much like the girl. Or maybe it's the other way round. A comfortable collection of things pulled out of pockets and mailboxes, empty glasses, thirdhand furniture and cathair. She has a cat. I now know three things about this pixie who's taken me in, and (as another sign of my daze) the cat is the most comforting piece of information. She takes in strays, my pixie does, and feeds them. I may yet survive with my kidneys intact.

What the hell am I doing here?

"Come in, come in--you're dripping on my carpet."

And so I am. And so I do, toeing off shoes by the door so as to minimise the amount of mud tracked in.

~*~

Moonlight peering softly through the thunderheads and that waiting stillness in the air as we walked the park's trails, an accidental meeting and a fortunate combination of personalities making for conversation that ate the time whole and left no waste. I was half-stoned on her perspective (nevermind her body) before she even reached into her pocket, asked if I minded her smoke. She could've set me on fire; I couldn't mind anything she did. Instead, the heavens opened up and drenched us both. She laughed (and I could see something serious and sad behind it, but not clearly, not yet) when I looked at the sky, surprised and offended. "Come on," she'd said. "I live a block that way. This'll pass in a couple of hours; we'll get dry in the meantime." A block was more like a mile; I have no idea how she's timing the storm, and I doubt "dry" will be a word one can use to describe me for any amount of time. I want her so much it lodges in my throat, and it scares me senseless. So of course, here I am.

~*~

She isn't in the next room I come to, but I can hear her in the one adjoining. I realise it's a bathroom a split second after I step forward to glance in the door.

Unblemished white skin gliding in rich, Reubenesque lines from skull to shoulder, shoulder to ribs and elbows, ribs to hips to knees to ankles, elbows to wrist and hands. Nothing but translucent skin and a faint sheen of rain between those dangerous curves and my eyes.

Too far.

This is too far.

I step immediately back, mindless apologies rolling off my lips, and try to find somewhere else to look, something else to see. There is nothing else, and my mind reels, displaying details missed in first assessment. A steel nipple ring throwing light from her left breast. One small birthmark high on her right thigh which somehow still doesn't classify as a blemish. Her neat shave, a day's stubble beginning to show. God, stop; it's too much...

"It's alright, you know."

"Wha--"

"I promise." She steps out of the bathroom, a towel just barely wide or long enough wrapped round her chest. "Here. You should too; your lips are turning blue." She holds out another towel, this one, the same shade of maroon as the streaks dyed into her hair. "Go on; it's alright. I won't peek unless you ask me to." That almost-sad smile again--why is that there?

"I'm so sorry; I should've spoken first..."

She steps close, puts the towel in my hands and her face near enough to mine that I can smell the cannibas and cloves on her skin. "It's alright." Her eyes catch mine--hold them, let them go--and I walk further into the rabbit hole this tiny wee flat is becoming, towel clutched like a talisman.

Lightning flashes.

What in hell am I doing here?

)O(

"I'm noticing a theme," she says to me.

It's later; if the storm is still storming, it's neglected to notify me, and I'm in no hurry to ask. We're sitting on her floor in front of a snappy fire, sipping wine and trading life histories and listening to our clothes tumble dry.

"How so?"

"You always wait. Wait for someone to start the conversation. Wait for some sign to tell you how to move. Wait for direction to get out of wet clothes. Wait for an invitation..."

"Is that such a bad thing, really? Would you prefer I presume?"

"That's just it. 'Would I prefer...'" She shifts round to lounge before me, head in palm, weight on one side and one elbow, "What, for once in your life, would you prefer?"

The lingering smoke makes this a far more profound question than it could've been. My preferences at the moment encompass world peace and a bit off affection, with no preference which I get. Also present, though: the niggling fear that always accompanies criticism; it draws my brows together and I study the dregs in my glass to avoid her eyes.

"My point. So damned afraid of offending someone or being rejected. This way it's not your fault if something goes wrong, because you were, after all, only following direction."

God. Damn. It. "I'm finding it rather hard to hear that from someone who's known me the grand total of one night," I answer archly, and immediately regret it, tone and words and all.

"You'd find it rather hard to hear from someone you've known all your life, but it's true all the same. Look. You can spend your life waiting for someone to take care of your needs, or you can look after them yourself. ... There's nothing wrong with asking for what you want, you know."

"There's not?" Sarcasm, a trace of anger, a trace of desperate hope. God, I hate to hear myself sometimes. When--when!--did I become this small, pathetic creature?

"Not one damn thing." Her eyes catch the firelight, throw it back at me in browns and greens and golds.

"Alright. Then..." (what am I doing?) "What if what I want is a kiss, ah? What if I'd like nothing better than to say to hell with the storm and to hell with our clothes and to hell with these damned towels, and see whether your skin is as soft as this light makes it look? What if I want to feel your nails down my back? Does that sound like an idea you'd throw in with? I'm asking."

I wish to God I had a camera; her face is priceless. Anger and curiosity and flattered pleasure and offense all marbling together. It's exactly what I expected, exactly why I was waiting, biding my time, instead of actually saying anything before. I raise my eyebrows.

She looks away, looks at the fire; after a while her composure returns. Silence. And damn it, just once I'd like to be proven wrong... Please prove me wrong... Still more silence.

"I have to work tomorrow; I should probably turn in." This from my marble pixie, quietly, and for the first time, she seems like a human girl, spooked and wondering what the hell she's doing. I wish I hadn't burst forth that way; she didn't deserve it and I'm seven kinds of ass. But how do you apologise now? Mute, I nod.

She glances at me--no silent words, no telepathic messages, just eyes--and retreats to the bedroom.

"Goodnight," I manage, as the door clicks shut behind her.

For half an hour, I stare at the fire and listen to the click of my buttons in her dryer. Court sleep. It avoids me, too. "Avoidance is the theme here," I mutter, padding into her laundry to fetch my things. "Avoidance and how it nets no one anything." I dress and douse the fire, wish I could lock the door behind me as I leave.

)O(

Dawn is threatening the horizon when my own lock tumbles open. Same kitchen, dishes obscuring every horizontal surface. Same living room, his socks and shoes scattered from pillar to post. Same bedroom, and him asleep in the same position I left him in last night. Some things never change. I strip off and curl up in the space inside his arms, put my feet on top of his.

"Cold," he mumbles, barely coherent; I wait to see whether he'll flinch away or curl around me. He does neither.

When his alarm goes off two hours later, I'm feigning sleep.

If he noticed me gone, he doesn't mention it.