Chapter One: the Doctor Jekyll and the Mr. Hyde
Krasota
In English it means beauty;
beauty the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense
pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations
She is beauty, she is loveliness and comeliness. But she is also trouble. And asphyxiation.
Amelia F. Jones was in trouble.
More so, Amelia "Free Eagle" Jones was the exact incarcerated cage of trouble.
And all who were near her seemed to simply fall in line.
No, the war was over, but still the young nation was having trouble . . . coping with her new lifestyle of good-cop, bad-cop (leisurely, she was pro and con Prohibition –at the same time). The wanton insanity of her double dealing split personality reminded him a little of his own mental state of mind. She was crazy, as was he. And insanity was always driven by that little indiscreet push into the bottomless downfall of the blackened pit of hell.
Such a push was the regiment of her roommate, an instigator by the name of Lovino Vargas, the personification of South Italy, who toppled her 'coping' methods and seduced her with darkness, with the beauty of men, with the cool chill of an amber colored glass bottle that touched her heated skin, the fiery adrenaline rush and crash of drugs, and the pulling of a trigger.
Da, the nineteen-twenties had turned into an inside out Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde situation of night and day.
By night, she dressed in the shortest skirts flapper fashion had to offer, flaunting her short-since-the-Revolution hair and drinking the night away with her trusted South Italian and some of Al Capone's chosen best. She stumbled home drunk, drove her sleek Italian bred cars and used language and slang that would had made Arthur, personification of England and a once father-figurine, faint and acted in such a way that would make Francis crawl off his alter and kneel at her feet, begging in utter want for the vigorous girl-child that had so easily fallen, and adapted, into the secrets of womanhood.
Nevertheless by day, she was the perfect lady, all P's and Q's and long lace encrusted skirts that would have put his Imperial princesses to shame. England's teachings were pulled to the surface at political lunches –the soup spoon, the dainty lobster fork, asking for a glass of lemonade and resisting temptation to spike it with gin– but her newly instated feminine independence came like a tidal wave of a tongue lashing to unsuspecting male politicians. Her anger towards these men was irrelevant. One moment she was perfectly fine, a 'petty little woman' and next she was the one the men whispered about in the smoke room, the 'she-devil'.
You could see these changes. How her face turned from sweet like a summer breeze to anger like she'd been struck. She pulled to snuggling on her girdle, pulled to tightly at her curls, stared to intently with her piercing eyes.
He knew then the new-Amelia (her Mr. Hyde) was eating the other half (her Doctor Jekyll). Albeit, English literature didn't normally appeal to him in the slightest, the sense of mold and just old, oldness of the words seemed to drown like a miserable mantra in his mind. He did enjoy the story though.
She was a monster of the woman species, unwanted by the boorish posh men of yesteryear, but worshiped upon by the new flesh that surrounded her.
She had turned a page, written a new chapter, turned a new leaf.
She was the seductive demon Lilith to the sweet cursed Eve.
She had become a witty, fast-talking, two-faced, crazy woman.
To put it simply by Ivan's standards.
"Hey Pachuno!" Everyone in the club shouted, raising their arms in the air, and then falling into their dancing routine again. He wondered how they could all danced in such a fashion, so quickly, gravity defining, the men lifted the women and twirled them around their bodies as their flailing limbs shook and the music erupted from the instruments and the slick haired, olive-skinned man on stage sung with his deep velvety voice that shook Ivan's bones. He would have made a good lover to him, had his eyes already not been on a certain woman in the room.
In the room that was an arcane haze of smoke and obscene clatter and clamor, he spotted her for the trademark gold she wore. Surrounded by suits or black and clouds of wispy grey that whisked around her curves and mysterious movements, she was a magnificent hue of pale Mother of Pearl white-gold. The gleaming silver threaded inlays on her dress had made a happy merger with the somewhat dull, pale gold and the translucent beads that dangled from the fabric –like tiny tassels the twists and made happy music when they clinked together. The pearls circling her throat were shaped and sized like peas on a string, twirling with her fingers and shining their own luminescent glow of unearthly beauty.
It was like she wore the sun on her body and the moon on her neck.
She was like a goddess of such foreign entities, jestingly bring together something as different as the moon and the sun. How dare she think to do so? How they clash, how they hate, how they seem to compromise on the likes of her.
He had to have her.
This, at the moment, was all Ivan felt he had ever known. Through the decades of fear and lies, centuries on loneliness, the millennia of cold cruel worlds; he saw something –someone– he could love and warm what had for so long been frozen, at long last. Someone that brought the fire into him again, that tempted his demons to parry and leave him bare to her brandished claws and whirlwind passion.
He wanted to posses her.
He wanted to consume her completely. From the sovereign arrogance of her face to the ethereal sunlight embedded into her warm, inviting skin. The length of her lovely legs that broke wild mustangs with the strength of her thighs and then men's jaws as she passed and they hit the floor in their unison. The smooth curves that Gaia had blessed Amelia's human arsenal. The stubborn curl of her hair. The teasing red velvet of her mouth as it slowly curled over a half-sane million dollar smile.
She was perfect, in body, and in personality held the challenge Ivan so desperately wanted.
How she teased–
She laughs with her new friends and shares a drink, laughing like she knows people are looking, her head tossed back and letting out the high, but not shrill, throaty, but not at all masculine, laugh of hers. Not a chuckle, not a giggle, just a laugh. Always a laugh. Not one of those osly around her would think anything of her laugh. No, they thought of nothing but her head thrown back, but not as it was know. As if they could get her to submit to them.
–How she taunted–
She makes a hoax upon them all and dances with the like of them, two moments each, none last too long –as he's seen this before. He watches as she moves away in a twirl of motion, like a naturalist studying their subject, he sees she is a huntress on the prowl again. Her uncloak of gold making her an impossible miss but, at her best, an invisible catch. Her body's hungry, he can see it in her eyes as she analyzes each welcoming gesture and stance. She unassumingly can read the mood, the atmosphere and the character of everyone around her. She moves on.
–How she dances–
A certain Feliciano Vargas is her reluctant catch of the night. A homosexual, he knows, and a good friend of hers, due to him being the brother of her favorite business partner, agrees to dance with her. The young North Italian personification has the same hungry look in his eyes, but Ivan knew none could slat his hunger –no matter how beautiful Amelia is, no matter how many times he could try, it would just hurt him, and her, even Feliciano knew that– but the one he burns for, the one he yearns for, the one how rejected him because of his gender, most simply. Germans were so particular these days. Amelia is working him to slow dance with her, softly sighing her head hits his shoulder, but the Italian barely reacts and mumbles something to her. They continue to speak, their whispery little voices becoming unbeknownst to Ivan as he watches their body language.
–How she betrays–
She leans a little too comfortably against him. Thumb drawing circles on the hill of his palm, watching their entwined fingers with promiscuous interest as she wonders. Ivan could practically see her thinking –"How would this hurt Ivan? How would this hurt me? Do I have to care? Why do I care?"– and she's wanton in her motives towards Feliciano. She knows of Ludwig, she knows of his pain . . . she even knows of Ivan in the corner.
He is sure of that when she presses a soft kiss to the North Italian's jaw.
–.
The little look that she doesn't give him makes that glass break in his hand. Shards piercing his skin and drawing angry welts of crimson from his palm that rained down onto his shady table. Making tiny rivulets in the wood.
He barely notices though –no matter really, it will heal soon– and he almost smiles when Feliciano gives an apology and tries to shuffle away. Amelia holds him though, softly explaining and then allowing him to flee like a leaf she'd decided to let loose in the wind. She could have held him in that exact spot for hours, if she so pleased.
Byt' ostorozhnym, Amelya. He thinks wryly.
She would sooner drag his demons to play.
Tada~
This is what happens when I get into an arguement with my friends, I read Lolita and suddenly I'm so inspired to finish an old flame. Do not ask me how a book like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the main character is French-British) I don't even know why the hell it was able to prompt me to write this story (I love this). One moment I was reading, then BAM I wanted to write. Two things have no connections what's-so-ever. The writer is Russian, last stretch of Imperial Russia born, and I checked the dates in my head and then of course I start thinking of 'The Gathering Storm' which is another book I'm reading, where two characters are, in fact, Nicolas and Alexandra the last imperial rulers of Russia and then I landed back to my Hetalia phase love for my little Vanya~ Again, no idea.
This is a new chapter story I guess. I like the words and I think their pretty.
The years is somewhere around a distorted 1920s faze of mine, if I find an invent that I like in the twenties; I'll mention it and give a year.
About the Character(s):
Amelia (America): She's going through a phase, she fought in world war one, she wants peace and the quietness of the American Dream, but can't seem to shake the law breaking citizens that keep messing up her image. After fighting it so long, she just seems to fall in.
Ivan (Russia): He's communist now; Imperial Russia is long gone due to the death of the Imperial Family during the revolution. I guess you could say he's a bit of a twisted spin off from my other RusAme fic "The One That Chased the Boys" because of his infatuation with rosy Little America who seems to be clawing at the darkness just like him.
Lovino (South Italy): He brings the mafia. Plain and simple. He and Antonio (Spain) are taking a bit of a break so he needed someone to bother.
Feliciano (North Italy): He and Ludwig (Germany) had fallen into an on-again, off-again since world war one. Though they love each other premature flicks of Hitler's influence are on Ludwig's mind so he can't seem to be stable enough to realize that he loves him.
Translation of Foreign Languages:
osly - jackasses (Russian)
Byt' ostorozhnym, Amelya - Be careful, Amelia (Russian)
~QueenVamp