Chapter I: Reality

Ariadne gathered up her phone, her ipod, and her papers into her messenger bag and headed towards the elevator. She was six feet away when a strain of music stopped her. She followed it back through the labyrinthine workshop, smiling as she recognized Louis Armstrong's trumpet solos. She rounded a corner and found Arthur, hunched over a tiny tangle of wires with a magnifying glass and a pair tweezers.

"Arthur?" He didn't look up. His tongue was clamped between his teeth, his brow furrowed. Ariadne checked her watch: 12:45. She took a few steps to his desk. "Arthur, its late-very late. You really should sleep." Was he ignoring her, or was he just very interested in that bunch of wires? She looked hard at him. His eyes were deepened by dark shadows, and he had a fixated look about him, as though he had been sitting in that spot since they started work at noon. Ariadne dropped her bag. "Arthur. Helloooooo…" He didn't move. "I hear you Ariadne," he said quietly. "But I need to find the blue wire…" he trailed off.

She sat on the bench next to him, keeping her eyes on his face, silhouetted against the street lights pouring in from the window. He was kind of handsome…actually very handsome. She took a breath and laid her hand over his fingers, gently but firmly. He looked up, but not at her. "Ariadne, please go home." She ignored that. "Do you ever leave?" she asked simply. "Do you…sleep?" She waited for a reply. "Do you ever stop working?" She sighed exasperatedly. Then she noticed the way his forearms worked each time his hands moved. The way his biceps shifted under his clean blue button up shirt. Ariadne bit her lip and moved closer on the bench. She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Do you ever….relax?" She trailed her fingers across his collarbone and loosened his tie. "Do you ever just…take the time to stop and notice what's happening around you?" She unbuttoned his collar, letting her nails scrape across his chest. She saw Arthur's jaw and fist clench simultaneously. He took a breath and held it.

She held back a smile, letting her hand fall to undo three more buttons. Arthur finally raised his hard, dark eyes to hers, dropping the wire and the tools. Their knees touched. Ariadne ran her hand up his thigh, feeling his muscles tense. Her stomach fluttered as he bit his lip. She slipped off his tie, pulled him close and softly kissed his neck. He smelled like green tea leaves and French cologne. Arthur pulled back from her and time seemed to stop as he took her face in his big strong hands and kissed her; his mouth was so gentle that Ariadne felt sparks of electrical energy pass through their tongues. His long fingers slithered down her neck and pulled off her shirt. Ariadne's breath caught in her throat, Arthur gripped her waist and devoured her lips, his fingertips grazing up over her stomach and down her hips. He bit her bottom lip, pressing her against his warm, tense body. Ariadne sighed into him, running her hands through his hair, down his chest, ripping open his shirt. She kissed his smooth chest, then looked straight into his eyes, catching her breath.

"So how do you feel now?" she panted, brushing a stray hair off his forehead. Arthur swallowed hard. "Well, I'm a bit distracted right now. Its very unfair, what you're-" he couldn't finish his sentence: Ariadne ran her tongue along the edge of his jaw line slowly and softly, obliterating any ability to speak or think anything except for what was in Arthur's head at that moment. He sighed: "Ariadne…"

She sank her teeth gently into the back of his neck. "How about now?" she whispered into his ear, sending a burning shiver cascading through his spine. Arthur tried and failed to breathe normally. "Um….uhh…my pants are a little tight," he said distractedly, his face buried in her thick hair, inhaling vanilla and jasmine. Ariadne kissed his neck, his shoulders, his chest, smiling at the way he moaned softly.

"All the better to take them off, then."