Author's note: I hope you enjoy this. I certainly enjoyed writing it. I own nothing, but a girl can dream.
~oOoOoOo~
Fiona crossed her expansive room sheathed in only a towel, the lavish blonde curls that cascaded down from her scalp grazing her bare shoulders. A bead of water descended from Fiona's trimmed bangs, traveling along the striking appearance of her cheekbone and down in the fleshy slope of Fiona's neck, just above her jugular. A sigh of contentment, a combination of relaxation and the release of stress, escaped Fiona's plush lips, a cherry pigment in their natural state. Fiona dropped her bath towel, allowing it to slowly shed itself from Fiona's creamy flesh, pallid and soft, smooth like the silk of a king's robe, and fall into a heap at Fiona's feet.
Fiona scrutinized her naked body in the cheval mirror that was propped against the mauve wall, her reflection staring back at her. Fiona was gorgeous, she always had been. Throughout the years, she had aged like fine wine, allowing each of her lovers to take a sip of her bittersweet liquor. Fiona was all fox; sinister and seductive, a femme fatale at her finest, but never had she expected her youth to vanish from her flesh right before her eyes, replaced with wrinkles and drooping skin.
It's a dance; a dance no one had to teach me; a dance I'd known, since I first saw my reflection in my father's eyes. My partners have been princes and starving artists, Greek gods, and clowns; and every one of them certain they led. But it's always my dance. I make the first move, which is no move at all. I always just understand that they will eventually find themselves in front of me; primitive, beautiful animals and their bodies responding to the inevitability of it all. It's my dance and I have performed it with finesse and abandon with countless partners. Only the faces change and, all this time, I never suspected that the night would come when the dance would end.
Fiona's appearance made her cringe, made her want to gasp in awe and scamper away like an injured beast, but she could only stare, and wonder where the years had gone.
Fiona reminisced of many things that night, but most of all, she missed the palatable tang of whiskey coating her slick tongue, and the soothing sting of nicotine as the silvery plumes of smoke infiltrated Fiona's lungs. Drugs and alcohol had been her first taste of love.
She missed the bite of cocaine as she snorted a line of the potent powder, a poison that soothed such a troubled soul.
Most of all, she missed the calloused hands of a lover gliding along her luscious flesh, groping and making Fiona mewl as a result of the raw, unadulterated passion. She missed those same fingers discovering every inch of her voluptuous body, crawling along the curves of her thighs, legs that continued on for miles. Calloused palms that slipped between the juncture of her thighs and…
Fiona craved a love so deep, it would make the ocean envious.
She needed to be needed, to be desired. She wanted one more love affair in her life, an affair that would put Aphrodite and Ares to shame.
Slicking her slender digits through her damp hair, Fiona crossed the bleak wooden canvas beneath her bare feet, sauntering towards her broad wardrobe with sliding doors. Inside, Fiona clasped her grip around a batiste evening gown, an attractive pattern woven within the sheer fabric. She sheathed herself in the garment, welcoming the friction as it slid against her otherwise bare flesh. Fiona pulled the free-falling fabric that was intended to act as a belt around her waist, securing the gown in place. Once she had convinced herself that she looked presentable enough to be seen by other individuals, she left her room.
Fiona considered checking in on her beautiful Delia, but thought against the fleeting notion. Fiona's daughter resented her mother enough as it was. Fiona didn't need to fuel that fire by waking her daughter up in the dead of the night just to make idle conversation. Instead, Fiona turned the sharp corner and descended down the extravagant staircase. The Supreme of the era when Miss Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies had been erected certainly had an eye for detail, Fiona would give her that. She didn't have a terrible sense of style, either.
There wasn't a soul downstairs, aside from that god damn cat that Cordelia insisted on keeping in the Academy. Fiona couldn't even remember its name, let alone its gender. Whiskers… Mittens… Fiona tossed around ever generic name for a pet that she could think of, but she cared little. Fiona hated cats. She hated all animals. But animals were certainly a step up from people, so she couldn't complain—but she could try.
Fiona crossed the inclusive common room, the prying eyes of previous Supremes scrutinizing her every move, looking down upon Fiona from their balconies. They could peer all they wanted, but a picture would have lasted longer. Fiona didn't give a damn. She'd tear their balconies down, just as she had Annaleigh Leighton's balcony, Fiona's mentor as a teenage which who was blossoming into the next Supreme.
When Fiona finally reached the liquor cabinet, she counted her lucky stars that she was able to cross the canvas without falling on her face. The cancer that was plaguing Fiona's aging body made her weak in the knees. Her strength was deteriorating. She couldn't afford to fall, and she certainly couldn't afford to break the heels of her Jimmy Choos that would certainly suffer the consequences of that fall.
Fiona didn't even bother to grab herself a shooter. She put the bottle to her lips, her tongue tracing along the rim of it, before tipping it up and downing its contents in several rushed gulps. Fiona desperately needed a whiskey lullaby to coax her mind and body into succumbing to slumber. As she polished off the next bottle, she turned on her heel, a devilish glint twinkling in Fiona's eyes as a mischievous smirk staked its claim upon her lips. Spalding was standing across the room, his eyes wide, taking in all of the glory that was Fiona. He looked like a fool in love, settling his eyes on the woman of his dreams for the first time. Fiona had no time for his foolishness, nor did she possess the desire to entertain, or play into his ridiculous fantasy. The bastard didn't even have a tongue.
"Cat got your tongue?" Fiona slurred, the disappointment and humiliation crossing over Spalding's face bringing a smile to Fiona's face, stroking her ego, and inevitably, making Fiona feel as though she was an individual of royal caliber. She was, of course.
"Thought so," Fiona murmured, setting the bottle down on top of the Davenport desk beside her, and traveling back up the steps, fully intending to sleep off the bad memories and the pain… not the affliction of her cancer, but the ache of aging. The loss of youth, and the invasion of wrinkles. She was no longer young and beautiful.