He'd never seen her wear glasses before.
He turned to her, absent minded, scratching at the coarse dark hair on his bare chest, and as always was taken aback.
The woman beside him in bed was, as ever, a pleasant surprise - blonde curls perfectly teased and rock solid, red lipstick (as always; that damn lipstick - staining her pillows and his collar), black polka-dot nightshirt. Polka-dots were in, she had assured him, when he raised a sceptical eyebrow at her choice of bedroom attire, which had momentarily replaced her usual white lace and pink satin. "Woman's stuff", he'd grunt impassively when she cooed over photographs and price tags in lingerie catalogues, and every one of her new frothy, candyfloss-coloured delights was met with a shrug of the shoulders while his heart burned and swelled in his chest and his eyes ached to look at her forever.
Now her dark, focused eyes (oh, those eyes, with those lashes) were magnified by a plain pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses, her head buried in a magazine.
She sensed him looking at her, her skin prickling under his gaze.
"Yes, darling?" she murmured, a faint pink smudge appearing on her pale cheeks.
"You're wearing glasses," Olaf said, immediately embarrassed by the softness of his voice. His eyes lingered on her mouth as she bit her plump bottom lip.
"You're not wearing anything," Esme countered playfully, her eyes flicking down across his bare torso. She self-consciously pushed the glasses up into her curls.
Olaf reached over and gently moved the glasses back into position, trying to gaze into her eyes in a casual way; God knows she'd have a field day if she ever realised the depth of his affections for her. "You look beautiful," he muttered. "Leave them on."
Esme chuckled softly, smoothing the magazine across her lap. Her nails clicked against each other, painted pepper-red, matching her lips exactly. Olaf marvelled at her attention to detail, so contrasting to his philosophy of "if it needs washing, wear it again anyway". Although he couldn't see them, he knew her long legs would be immaculately shaved and moisturised - something overpowering she drenched herself in every night, the fragrance sinking into her skin and insistently clinging to his senses as he tried to sleep beside her. He had no doubt that her toenails would be painted exactly the same red: unchipped and glossy and oddly tantalising.
"You like my glasses, then?" Esme murmured into his ear, her lips grazing his skin. He closed his eyes and fought back a shudder - her power sometimes took him by surprise. "The sexy secretary look?"
She slowly grazed her fingers along his chest, tightening them momentarily around his neck (he swallowed audibly and she grinned; a dangerous satisfied smirk). "Tell me why you like them."
She slowly reached under the sheet - those satin sheets he'd flown into a rage about, because why on earth did anyone need sheets that cost more than a week's rent? When he'd seen Esme staring deep into his eyes and lying naked on them that night, her skin so pale, the skin between her parted legs so flushed and her body so tempting, he'd begged and pleaded for her forgiveness, because of course his goddess deserved to sleep in satin. Esme had denied him even touching her until the early hours of the morning, cackling at his desperation; and this vicious, cold Esme was returning to him, as she always did in these situations. Her red fingernails dug into his thigh as she ran her tongue down the side of his neck. He fell asleep next to an angel but slept with a harlot.
Olaf let out a moan. A catch in the throat, he allowed himself, as Esme nipped at his neck with her sharp white teeth.
"Tell me," Esme repeated, a dangerous lilt to her voice, "why you like them." She brushed her fingertips across his hardness - oh God how he wanted her - and sunk her nails into his upper thigh, hard enough to sting. He grunted in pleasure and gazed pleadingly into her eyes.
"Oh Esme, please," he rasped. Esme giggled - an unnervingly girly sound despite the way she was beginning to twine her body around his.
"Answer my question, Olaf," she chided. He paused, watching as her eyes became wary. "Olaf?"
"They remind me that you're human," he muttered finally, defeated, and she quirked an eyebrow, her lips mouthing his words as she mulled over them.
Olaf bit the bullet.
"They're so... ordinary, Esme. They make you look like a real person, not this... not this minx I'm lucky enough to share a bed with."
She was laughing, and this irritated him, so he ploughed on.
"You're mine," he snapped. "You're mine, and I can do what I want to you, because God knows I could throw you across my lap and make you cry, but right now I don't want to do that, I want to lie you down on a bed of fucking rose petals and brush your hair and feed you grapes, and I want to look in those eyes and make love to you. Alright?"
He trailed off. Esme looked at him coolly, appraisingly.
"Green ones?" she murmured finally.
"What?"
"Green grapes. Red grapes are out."
Then she was kissing him.
Esme's kisses were astonishing.
They were fevered and passionate and graceful and there was always so much lipstick, and yet she never looked ridiculous with the red paint smeared across the point of her nose or her chin. Olaf suspected he must look absurd in these situations; cheeks hot and lips swollen and flushed pink to match her lipstick, while Esme looked unruffled; calm and superior and always so, so beautiful.
He was moaning into her mouth and her glasses were digging into her nose and she was frantically trying to wriggle out of that bloody nightdress. His hands scrabbled across her skin as he lunged forward, trapping her underneath him. She stared up at him, her mouth an almost comical 'o' as he ran his fingers along her underwear, letting them dip inside her for a moment, just a moment, or he'd be broken, and she'd win.
"Stay still," he grunted, and for once in her life Esme Squalor did as she was told. He panted, staring down at her, feeling the pulsing heat from between her legs as he teased her, slicking his fingers with her wetness and stroking her thighs. She was being unnaturally quiet - Esme was many things, but a quiet lover was not one of them; he had lost count of how many times various members of the troupe had banged on their door while he had her screaming his name into the mattress, or against the wall for that matter.
"What are you doing?" she whispered, her voice hitching as he paused.
"Loving you," he whispered back, and the edge of teasing irony he'd hoped to force into his voice was non-existent.
They locked eyes - oh God, those glasses - and the smallest smile flickered onto Esme's face.
"Well do hurry up darling, I look rather undignified like this, don't you think?" The words were so her, he'd heard them a thousand times. She said it with a roll of her eyes as he crouched over her, bent double, urging himself to come; with a wry smile as she stroked herself while he watched, alert and panting like an animal; with her lipstick making patterns on his pillow as he pressed himself inside her.
"I love you," he said, because suddenly he'd realised that he did.
"Of course you do, sweetheart," she whispered, "and I love you."