California

Note: Wrote this as a fun experiment. It'll take a while to get to the erotic stuff. Feedback is welcome.

The opening piano notes twinkled in to break the silence of the smoke-filled room, dimly lit by purple LEDs. There were scraps of paper stuck to the wall with lyrics typed on with an old Olivetti that sat on the dusty table in the corner. There was no bed, only a mattress awkwardly placed, with a printed sheet on it featuring little fish floating. Feeling the stale air, they lay naked on the unaware fish, watching the trails of smoke go up from the cigarette, dissipating onto the lights diffusing it. He turned to face her, and his hand reached between her legs, and quietly rested there. She turned as well, her middle slowly deepening against his hand, and they quietly stared into each other's eyes.

"I love this stupid song so much." he said, as renowned actor Jason Schwartzman started playing the drums.

"It's a nice song." she said, and the piano came back in.

They both realized in slow motion that they had nothing to say to each other anymore.

The morning they met, he had woken up with a moment of fear. He had dreamed the night before of being with a beautiful woman, as he often did, whose face he could not remember, but she was most certainly a woman, her thin arms laid bare in the sun, the slight hair on them shining golden, her hair long and flowing like a lion's mane, and her neck so soft and long that his would slide down them for eternity, always at the edge of meeting her flushed chest. He woke up afraid because he was aroused and hard and he thought he was still home and someone would see him like that.

He paused and looked around the room before going back to sleep, only to be kicked awake seconds later by his roommate. "Oi wanker! It's 6:30, we've got to go."

He rolled around in bed, eyes opened just a slit, "Go sit on a flagpole." he mumbled through the pillow. His roommate jumped on him and started roughing him up until he finally awoke with a jolt, filled with momentous rage and an urge to set fire to his roommate. The obligatory morning routine however, calmed him down a bit, especially the cold shower, with water painfully warming up against his skin, racing down his back and up his butt, collecting on his taint and finally going down his thighs ending up in between his toes. He closed his eyes, and tried to return to his dream against the white noise of falling water. His hand inadvertently reach downwards, his fingers racing through the bush to reach the thick veined skin, slowly caressing it. She was right around the corner, he could see her luminosity overflowing. Then some water went up his nose, and he quickly spanned out of it. "Get a hold of yourself man." he whispered to himself.

"Do we have to go on this thing man? It's the weekend, and I really just want to relax." he asked, lazily drying himself.

"We don't have to do anything, but you haven't been out of the house for a week, and a hike up in mother nature's bosom will do you some good. Better than relaxing by yourself at home."

"Well some of us have to relax by ourselves because some of us aren't in hyper-saccharine freaky relationships like you."

"Dude, that's just what a relationship is. It's your life that's so dull that watching a snail crawling seems orgasmic."

"When have you seen an actual snail crawl?"

"When I go on hikes, like today. Plus Mila's bringing her friend remember?"

"You say that like you expect me to do something about it."

"Certainly wouldn't hurt to try. And don't tell me you aren't starved."

"It's not up to me. The most I can do is tell weird animal facts."

His roommate sighed.

The sky was gradient, reluctant to let the morning light come, and a wet breeze ran throughout the land, sending shivers up his spine. Even though he wore a sweater and a jacket, their warmth did little to battle the biting cold of the morning. His nose felt soft and limp and he hated waiting at the foothills for Mila to arrive with this mystery friend. For a moment his mind hopelessly wandered, as all wanton minds do, into the possibility that this might actually be an important day in his life. He pictured Mila's car, and stepping out of it the same luminous woman, a genial smile on her face, blossoming at the sight of him, because she saw the same luminosity in him. He wondered about her touch, her voice, her warm breath on his skin, her delicate fingers holding him, her pure unfazed eyes curing him of all sadness. All this made him feel an unnatural warmth, growing from his centre and moving all over the place. He rubbed his legs tight together in an effort to quell his random spike of thirst, and closed his eyes to think about something else, anything other than her.

He finally opened his eyes when he heard Mila's voice, her sweet innocent voice, calling out to his roommate. He looked at her as she wrapped herself around him and gave him the longest of kisses, her hands clutching his roommate's jacket tightly, and her eyebrows slightly quivering with pleasure. He liked Mila, and when she hugged him after, he could inadvertently smell her scent, made so strong by the act of love she had just performed. It made him feel awkward and stunned, because he loved his roommate, his best friend, and so feeling this way always made him resistant to hang out with them. It wasn't until she let go of him, that he noticed in the corner of his eye, an immense shroud, a dark and deafening wonderful void of a figure that had suddenly creeped up on him, making his heart skip a beat.

"Hey." she said in the most resigned of tones, almost too resigned.

His head whipped involuntary, and it took him a good few seconds to process what he was looking at. She was dressed in an oversized grey t-shirt with hieroglyphs on it, tucked inside black shorts, and black buckle belt high tops with a white base. Her skin was olive brown, tiny follicles standing at attention in the cold, and her head looked like it had been shaved only a week ago. Her face was calm and cold, and he caught a glimpse of her braces. There seemed to be a darkness around her, a presence that invoked the same fear he felt when he woke up this morning.

"Hi-i." he said choking on the last syllable. His roommate rolled his eyes, and Mila seemed completely oblivious.

She simply walked past him and started up the hill with Mila. His roommate came up to him and put an arm around him, "Come on buddy, you're hopeless."

"What made you guys think she was anything like my type?"

"Well, she's weird, bored, and a loner like you. You guys are perfect for each other."

"I'm not-"

"Who are you trying to fool man? You're the human equivalent of spoilt milk at this point. The best thing you can do at this point is turn into cheese."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You'll understand someday." And he ran to catch up with Mila. Seeing them get all cozy and handsy with each other during the hike, she inevitably slowed down and he was able to catch up with her.

They walked quietly for a while, listening to the rustling grass, the sloshing sound of the mud they stepped in, and the birds making their early morning announcements. She spotted one such bird going on non-stop on top of a bush. She observed him for a second, and then heard, "He's doing a mating call I believe."

"How do you know it's a male?" she snapped at him quietly.

"Well, look at the colours. Males are always more colourful than the females, it helps them attract mates. They put up a display and everything, it's called lekking. There's fierce competition and only one of them gets the prize."

"The prize being the female bird."

"Well, the right to mate with her, yeah."

"Sounds like a pretty awful existence."

"It's just nature. Animalistic urges of preservation. To mate is to reproduce, and to reproduce is to ensure continued existence."

"To what end?"

"Ah well, that you'll have to ask the birds. Maybe they plan to perfect their species and dominate the world someday."

She gave a slight smirk, "Wouldn't that be something? And what happens to the birds who don't get to satisfy their urge? What do they do?"

"I guess they drown their sorrows in nectar."

"I suppose that's always the answer. Do you do that?"

He wanted to lie, to save face, be decent, but instead he firmly said, "Yes. Do you?"

She stared at him for second before replying with equal firmness, "Only when I'm tricked into thinking it's blood."

He blinked. "Wait what?"

She laughed. "It's just a joke with my name."

"I don't know your name."

"Sekhmet."

He chuckled involuntarily, and was met with a stern look from her. "I'm sorry." he said, "But I've never met anyone with that name. Nobody's named that."

"Oh yeah? And what's your name then?"

"It's Nin."

"Yeah, that seems accurate." she said with a scoff.

"I was named after my grandmother." he said sheepishly.

"I was named after the Egyptian goddess of war. She had an unquenchable thirst for blood, and it's said that she sucked the blood out of the Nile when it turned red." And she turned away and started walking.

"Really? Your parents named you after a vampire?" He said, pacing up to walk alongside her again.

"They didn't. I named myself."

"Ah, big Anne Rice fan, are you?" he snapped at her, without so much as giving it a thought, instantly regretting it.

She laughed awkwardly, "Yeah, I guess I am." and there was dead silence drowned in embarrassment for the next minute, which to him felt like an eternity.

The clouds now parted, and a sliver of light shone through, feeding the dampness and shitting out humidity. Against his better judgement, Nin made another quip, "You might wanna find some cover."

"Yeah, let's. I don't like the sun." She said, dead serious.

Great, a complete goth chick. Thanks, you guys.

"Typical, I know, but I'm enjoying the damp cold weather right now, and the sudden transition to striking sun rays makes me all cranky." She said as humourlessly as she could. It was a tone filled with such hopeless insecurity and mousiness, that he fell for it. They veered off track, finding what was barely a trail and lazily following it into thicker bushel, and denser cover, which blocked the sunlight, but also increased the humidity, every now and then though, there would be a slight gap in the shrubbery, and a strong wind would enter to cool their sweating skin.

They walked around for a while, and it was too long until either of them were ready to admit that they had no idea where they were going, and each thought the other knew the road. At the point when they were both completely exerted, and their limbs ached, clothes were drenched in sweat, they decided to stop and rest for a while. They found a tree from where you could see the whole city set framed haphazardly between two vine-laden shrubs. Nin sat down while Sekhmet played with the tendrils, nimble as they were, rolling them around her fingers, trying not to break them. Nin let his hands run along the soil, collecting the red sandstone in lumps on his palms.

"Can I ask you something?" He said. She nodded. "How did you get roped into coming here today?"

"I didn't get roped into anything. It's just, I'm new here and don't have a lot of friends. Mila was really nice to me and so when she asked me to come on a little trek on the weekend, I just said yes immediately. Didn't realize at the time she had a boyfriend and..."

"And you were gonna be stuck with me?"

She pursed her lips. "It's not like that."

"No no, I get it."

"Yeah, I don't really think you do." She sat down next to him, hugging her knees and resting her chin on them. "She's..."

"Oh. Ohhhhh." he said with the same realization Wile. E. Coyote used to have after looking down and realizing there was a chasm below and not ground.

"Yeah. Her hair is so shiny and her smile is murderous, and when she comes close to you..."

"That fragrance. It's like sunflowers on a misty morning."

"Sunflowers don't have a smell." She said. They both looked at each other, and laughed.

"I'm sorry you got stuck with me."

"No, come on, you're not so bad. Besides, I'm guessing you were hoping for someone else too, and you ended up with me."

Nin smiled sadly to himself. It was true, some part of him expected the girl he saw in his dreams, who was bright, luscious, and warm. She was abstract but perfect. Sekhmet was real and rough and dark and flawed. He thought about himself for a second however, how he'd look through his eyes, or Mila's, or his roommate's, and each version was worse than the last. There was a sad abandon to him, a resignation of himself and life and all effort outward. He pitied himself, and for all her faults, he felt in that moment that he was nothing compared to her.

"You're already way better than my last boyfriend though. He was a real dick." She said, being almost clairvoyant of him for the second time that day. And hope returned to his eyes again.

"What happened?" He asked, trying to maintain geniality in his tone.

She looked at him, eyes studying his face. "Oh nothing, I'd rather not get into it."

Another quiet minute went by. Her stare was vacant now, in the direction of the ground. Her finger gently and absently caressed a spot on her waist under the shirt. She felt lost within herself, no doubt reliving all the highlights of that last relationship. Nin knew that stare all too well. He gathered the courage and broke the silence, maybe a little too loudly, startling her.

"You know my ex, uh... sorry. My last relationship, it ended pretty terribly. I thought we were in love, I was half right. It uh... it kinda broke me. I'm an unfeeling, cold, robot now. Or that's at least what my roommate says. And it's not that I don't want to feel again, I do, it would be amazing to be able to be loving and affectionate and caring and happy and sad and excited and thrilled. But then I think to myself, 'What's the point?'. If it's not meant to be and it's going to end in flames anyway... and so I had in my head this idea of the perfect girl, and I'll just wait until she appears in my life."

"Wow. That's... really dumb." She said with a cheerful smile. "Thank you for telling me that."

Nin shrugged jestfully. "It is what it is."

"Yeah." She bit her lower lip, exhaled, and continued, "My last boyfriend, he thought of me as some kind of achievement. I was too stupid to realize it at first, or maybe I did and I thought I could change him, honestly it's hard to remember, they feel like someone else's thoughts and actions now. He would keep me around like someone kept an expensive car or a prized steed. Nobody was allowed to mess me up, not even me. Whenever something went wrong, I had to explain myself, he would try to analyze it, try to fix me so I would still be this shiny little trophy that he could show off to his friends. It started to become toxic and I became more inclined to self sabotage."

"Hence the whole faux-goth thing?"

Now she shrugged. "When he dumped me, I went a little crazy. Maybe a little too much, I wanted to be so broken that nobody would ever want me like that again. Guess I made myself completely unwanted."

"See now that's dumb. Do you have any idea how seductive the whole devil's right hand girl style is?"

"Really?" She turned to face him, "And what would you know about that Mr. I want the perfect girl to fall in my lap?"

He turned too and they were now perfectly aligned, "Kintsugi." he said, almost on instinct.

"Go on." she whispered.

The information flowed from the vault of random facts in his brain and out his mouth almost involuntarily. His id had taken over. "It's a Japanese word, refers to rejoining broken things. The idea that when something is broken or shattered, instead of throwing it away, you put it back together by joining the pieces together using gold, so the result becomes something even more beautiful than what it used to be. The imperfectly laden gold lines aren't just aesthetic, they're now a part of the history of the thing, and they make it richer. You're beautiful because you were broken and you put yourself back together, the way you want."

"I don't think I've put myself back together."

"Maybe not, but you stopped being broken the moment you decided to own it." He said, more to himself than to her. She was looking at him intently, and he leaned in swiftly and kissed her.

His hand went to hold her neck from one side, and hers clenched his jacket at the shoulder and tugged at it. She tasted of sweat and sweetness, the strong smell of her invading him. She felt his dry lips and hot breath on the inside of her mouth, and brought forth her tongue to lick them. He pulled away slowly seconds after, leaving her tongue with a little longing. His chest felt week, he wanted to fall horizontal in her lap and smell the strongest parts of her, but managed to remain in his awkward posture. Her lips turned in on themselves and she rested her open palm on his chest, her head coyly turning away from him. Both of them had not a lick of sense left in their body right now. It had left them, no train of thought would run their tracks for the rest of the day. It was only about the immediate now.

Speaking of immediate, rain. As if the clouds themselves were having an orgasmic release, a downpour started almost as their lips parted. It was like Zeus was watching them and he couldn't hold the excitement in any more. Sekhmet's grey tee was darkened in seconds, and a cold wind sieged up the hill. They found some protection under the tree, but it was about as effective as a glass house is at keeping privacy. Nin noticed Sekhmet's shivers, as well as her, nipples piercing through the heavy wet grey cloth, and insisted on covered her in his jacket. He took off his sweater too before it got soaked, and put it over his head, if nothing else, then only to make her laugh.

"Turn around." she said. He obeyed, but in a few seconds, could listen to her struggle to take her wet and sticky top off, and inadvertently peeked. He thought she didn't notice. "Done." she said, when she was finished, his jacket packed around her body. He turned around, and she threw the top at his face, and it hit with a splotch. "You need to learn to listen." she said coyly.

As much as he wanted to let the shirt stay on his face, taking in her smell until he went weak in the legs and all the blood drained into that one place, he quickly pulled it off, along with his sweater, and strategically held them in front of him to conceal if any bulge were to appear. They walked for a while, trying to find the trail leading back down to where their cars were parked, but as the rain fell harder, the found a little sharp decline, like a natural ramp, and along it, there was a small hut like structure that had been created by a large fig tree. It was just cozy enough to fit the two of them, closely stuck together. They had no other option for now though, and being so close did stave off the cold and the piercing shower. All around them now were roots, patches of white and yellow fungi growing on them, droplets of water collecting on them and falling onto the two human bodies, inside their clothes, running along their skin, and collecting in the only place they could. Their hands, their legs, and their butts were caked with the newly formed mud of the soil.

"Come for a hike in nature's bosom, it'll be good." he mimicked with a sour face, and kept mumbling to himself. Sekhmet was quiet, her eyes lost again, head rested on one of the roots, finger caressing the same spot. He went quiet too, and observed her little routine. She looked pristine. He wanted just to run his mud laced finger along her cheek, to mark her seeming virginity with his dirt. Instead his hand went for her waist, to touch what she was touching. His warm hands startled her, scared her almost, and she tried to recoil instinctively, but in that little space there was nowhere to.