a/n: Just a warning: this is a bit more racy than my usual work, and involves rather more strong language. Oh, but as usual, it's deliberately confusing.
Scheherezade
They like to say "once bitten," but there weren't any teeth involved. The blood was nothing compared to the knowledge – the betrayal. I'd never loved a woman so much, and she never loved me at all, but I guess sometimes life's like that. I moved on.
Goku doesn't understand it, but he's really too young. I didn't get it either, right at first. I met her somewhere between grief and starvation and let her have my body 'cause I sure didn't want it. It wasn't me, when she stripped away my clothes. It wasn't me, who gasped like a goldfish out of water, and almost, maybe, cried about it. I'm not saying she took anything I wasn't perfectly willing to give, but then I hadn't realized until that night that I still had anything left to lose. She took it anyway, and showed me how to ask my price. By morning, I think she might have wanted more, but I was smart enough to be scared. I slipped out of her bed and into the cold solution of running away. I cut her off as surely as myself, and that was it – the first time.
I'd like to say I caught on quickly, but it wasn't my own wits that helped me there. The lesson that I'd learned was only half of what I should have. Still, just knowing that the twining of legs, the softness of breasts, and the sweet, wet warmth of 'I don't give a damn' were out there was something. While my hands learned how to turn a card and pinch a wallet, my body learned how to play the game of lust. I've always been one good looking sonuvabitch, so it was no surprise that they came to me. We'd have our night of passion, and then I'd cut them off. Their heads didn't interest me – just their lips, their thighs. No more hurting for Sha Gojyo. But no healing either.
The storytelling came as a surprise. Her first face was tawny gold, with dark eyes (can't remember what color) and long black hair that I couldn't stop stroking. She'd let me have it, let me kiss her, while she fumbled the door open and dragged us both inside. I was a little drunk and a little bitter – I didn't care about her expression as long as her hands didn't stop. But then we tripped. One stubbed toe, and I was cursing, but she... was laughing.
Her laughter didn't stop. It opened her mind and her mouth, and she opened my eyes that night. Between tickling fingers and giggling passion, she told me about the joy of being young and drunk and picked up in a bar. She explained the humor of sex for its own sake and how delight could be orgasmic in itself. Oh sure, she teased me. But somewhere in the middle of the night, I finally started listening. There was truth and irony in the way she moaned. There was reckless, happy abandon in her thighs. And when morning came, I wanted something different: not the driven, mindless escape of thrust and throb, but the next chapter in her story. I felt fucking enlightened.
Sanzo would disagree. That's why I don't explain myself to him. I'd never call myself religious – the gods would laugh their almighty asses off – but I think there is something heavenly in the skin of a beautiful woman.
Yeah, that's kinda cheesy. I realize I'm sounding more like them. Still, the stories that she tells are always such a relief. For one thing they're different every night. Sometimes they're full of words and she just can't keep her mouth shut. She tells me about family and friends and old lovers and new interests. Once I swear she spent the entire night going on and on about band camp, but what the hell? There's only so much strong and silent a guy can take before he wants to rip his ears off, and I get both in plenty from the front seat of the jeep. So if come nightfall, she wants to give me a thousand word monologue about why she likes country better than hip hop, so be it. I'll listen. By morning I'll either have something new to bother the monkey with, or at least be more appreciative of the silence.
Sometimes she talks with her hands. Two fingers on my wrist says she'll meet me when her shift is over. A brush against my cheek explains her interest. A thumb on my lips invites a kiss or just more time to look, while a palm under my chin says "now" and "please." Hands clutching at each other can tell me about her childhood. Hands clutching wadded sheets tell me what she likes. The night she was actually deaf and her hands traced words against my palm, I couldn't quite figure out what she was saying, but we understood each other well enough. Her hands never talk about death or fear or pain, well, except in the mildest sense. They never carry bandages or weapons, anyway.
And once in a while the stories are kinda dark, and she tells them with tears and gritted teeth. You'd think I'd hear that sort of thing from my companions, but you'd be surprised. Men don't talk about it that much. Men don't cry unless it's damn near fatal. When she tells me that she's hurting, it's a pain that I can fix. She expects a shoulder, an embrace, maybe just to be fucked mindless. I listen to those stories for the proof it could be worse, and maybe for the chance to make it better. She knows it's not my problem – she's never been so weak that she expected me to save her – but she also knows that misery loves company and we can drink and weep together without anybody asking the questions we're hiding from. She's never known me well enough for that.
Can't say the same for Hakkai. He knows me more than well enough to disapprove. Too well. Sometimes he acts like my goddamn mother, except that my mother never acted like that. He reads – books, and sometimes people – so that no one could hope to get a word in edgewise. He'll never meet Scheherezade, but funny, he's the one who told me about her. I guess he hasn't figured out I was sleeping with her at the time.
Will it really take a thousand and one nights? Fuck if I know. The guys all think I'm shallow as the saucer I ought to be wearing, except when sometimes they don't. Still, if I'm honest, they're the ones that matter. They're the ones that watch my back, give me something to do, write out the story that I go telling every night. In a scary sort of way, they're the ones I can relate to: the priest who'd die before he'd let you see his soft spots, the monkey who wants to belong so bad he can taste it, the sinner who hates himself so hard he can't stop laughing – hell, the dragon who lets us ride him into the ground just 'cause it's what he's good at. It's exhausting and intense and a few things I don't want to think about, but mostly it's just constant. And so is she.
Tonight, she's hot and cynical and I feel like I've met her before.
"Scheherezade?" she whispers, "how exotic."
And I don't remember telling her that, but we did have a lot to drink, and it's funny the shit you say when she's got you where she wants you, but not quite where you want her. Then she says how she loves a good story and she starts hers with a kiss. Her lips are so soft and her jaw is so hard, and damn am I drunk, but so what. She's stronger than she looks and I couldn't leave if I wanted to. Good thing I don't want to, I guess.
Her hips move a little, and it's all about heaven and earth. Exotic doesn't cover the half of it. There are bits and pieces that I almost remember: the guy with the monocle would be worried that she drugged me, but the guy with the lab coat would probably laugh. My mind clears out; god, it's fantastic. Her hair is all silky. Her skin tastes like sakura and sake. Her voice sounds important, but she's laughing at me. She's telling me her story like it's something I know, with her legs wrapped around me and her breath in my ear. Then we're gasping and it's perfect and oh.
"--so they holed up in the office," she smiles lazily, then yawns. "But it's almost dawn, so I guess I'll have to finish this some other time."
That's the way she is, a tease some times. I like to think I've learned at least that much. Love and betrayal and laughs and tears; they're all important, but then, so is escape. It's good not to always be the main character, even if I make that happen in the arms of a beautiful woman. Sanzo would say I'm still just thinking with my dick, and Hakkai would smile and be angry because it's a risk or because I'm satisfied with less than love. But Goku, hell maybe he would get it, if I explained it just right... and waited a few years. That kid's always been a sucker for a story.