They were ancient long before buried temples were discovered and before the tombs of every king and every queen were unearthed – they've had love in their grasp for eternity.
Or so it felt. So it seemed.
///
Ashley doesn't do it to be bad. It doesn't make her feel good.
Some acts are just natural – not right – but they can't be helped.
And she consoles herself with the fact that they mean nothing to her with the breaking of dawn, she gives herself a free pass on that highway called shame.
But the man she calls husband is sleeping heavily.
And those kids are tucked away tight.
The house is silent and still and her footsteps are way too loud.
Her heart beats the loudest, though, pitter-patter for another… fitfully for another now… and it looks like this Camelot will finally crumble down around her.
///
Dug up and whisked clean, artifacts of age-old lovers – the curling of soft stone and the tapestries of legs and arms together… the evidence of magical desire, trapped within dust and bones…
They were as eager then as they are now.
Or so it appears. So it seems.
///
Spencer doesn't do well at functions such as these, all lace and stiff necks and pompous talk.
She isn't made of ivory and bourgeoisie notions. She isn't made of marble.
And when she closes her eyes, it is the endless desert behind the fluttering of lashes.
"Must be nice to retreat so simply."
What is awakened, with a touch at the elbow – like it is careless when it is anything but – just shatters those barren land dreams.
And Spencer's heart plays a new kind of melody, without words and without rhythm.
But she knows the beat all too well.
///
Istanbul is built around spice and trade and cobblestone.
It is fine printed text, in the tons of silver and along every hungry tongue.
It is calling everyone home again, to the fairy towers and the arid plains… to the place where all romance was born…
Or is it Egypt? Or is it China? Or is it somewhere even further away, through time infinite – stuck in a loop in the cosmos, caught in Einstein's hair…?
///
Books are meant to be read, not kept unopened and in a row – bound soldiers in a quiet war in an empty room.
So, Ashley opens them all.
The pages flicker and fly as blonde hair mingles with black-n-white letters.
And the edge of some lost cover burrows into her back wonderfully.
Painfully. Decadently.
They kiss like they've always done. And it is heated. And it is pure as the driven snow… right before they fuck it up and make it dirty again.
Before it was sex, it was everything else.
Ashley doesn't want to remember, not when Spencer is so deep inside of her that they might as well be one person.
Ashley doesn't want to remember, not when Spencer is clenching wet thighs in a way that spells out disaster in the making.
They are just doing a little light reading.
That's all.
///
"What do you want to do after high school?"
"I don't know…stay alive?"
"C'mon, be serious."
"I am. Who knows if any of us will be around in ten years? Hell, in five years even…"
"Way to be positive."
"Okay, fine, sorry… umm, being famous would be nice…"
"Yea, famous for doing what? Shooting up? Sleeping around?"
"What the fuck, Spence?"
"…Sorry. Sorry."
"Whatever."
"No, not 'whatever'… I'm sorry. I just care. I care too much. Sorry."
"I said whatever… so you know, let's just drop it, okay?"
"Yea, okay."
The graveyard is used to the spats of youth, with many a tombstone shielding lust from parents and fights from prying eyes.
The graveyard is even used to the boundless amount of lies that the living can tell.
"So, I got accepted to that school."
"Which one? So many want you..."
"The one in Athens."
"Athens?"
"In Greece."
"…Oh."
The dead do not envy those that still breathe.
Because to breathe means to feel and to feel means that you can be broken.
The dead do not miss those long days at all.
"Will you miss me?"
"Sure."
"No you won't. Fuck you."
"I will. Stop begging for scraps, Spencer. It isn't attractive at all."
"Kind of like you, then…"
"Did I touch a nerve again, babe? You have so many ways to get offended, I've lost track."
"Seriously, Ashley, fuck you."
"Might as well, you know, since you are leaving and all."
"Excuse me?"
"I think they call it 'pity sex', Spence. Your crush has been sweet and all and I consider you a friend… hell, you are one of the few friends I've got at all these days… but you want something from me, just like everyone else."
"I, uh… what are you… what are you talking about? Because if this is down to some, you know, line of coke racing through that thick skull of yours—"
The night has held onto so many kisses.
The night is overflowing with the rapid touches and the whispered words of lust.
The night covers up mistakes and makes them seem like reality.
The night hides you from yourself, again and again… all so you won't get hurt once the sun comes up.
"W-What are you d-doing…?"
"I'm creating a memory for you, something to keep you warm on those long Grecian evenings."
"Not like this, Ashley… please, not like this…"
"I don't know how to let you have it any other way, Spencer."
"…What?"
"Don't make me talk this out with you and ruin it, okay?"
"But I don't understand—"
"Don't understand it then. Just feel it, just feel me… just…just a little..."
"Fuck…what are you..."
"You… have the softest skin I've ever felt…like every nice dream I've ever had, Spencer… you are every good thing I've ever had…"
"Don't…don't say things… you don't mean just out… of pity… Ash… god, Ash, oh fuck…"
"Have it your way then…"
///
Study it upon these walls, the blood of flowers and the charcoal at the edge of forever – scratches on the surface, speaking of something as mundane as laundry and as profound as the gods of the sun.
There is the warrior and there is the priest and there is the farmer and there is the slave.
There is the maiden and the maid and the crone and the queen and the owned.
There is royalty and peasantry. There is all and nothing at all.
Cities rising up out of the sand, as if one just forgot them and didn't return soon enough.
Passion is a lot like that. So is love.
Or so it would seem.
///
"I could watch you for the rest of my life."
"I really need to go."
"I could watch the way your face flushes over and over…"
"Let me up."
"You don't need to hurry. No one comes in here… well, except for you and I. Double-meaning fully intended."
"Seriously, Ashley, I need to go."
"Spencer, I was thinking—"
"Dangerous for a girl like you."
"I was thinking of, maybe, checking out what you do."
"'What I do'?"
"Yes, your profession."
"…Why?"
"Why not?"
"I can name off a million reasons, three of them being quite obvious."
"They have tutors all day long and Aiden doesn't care what I get up to, so it would be easy."
"I still don't understand the 'why' of this scenario, Ashley…"
"Forget it."
"…Okay."
///
Sometimes you don't realize just how much you need in this lifetime, how much you want and how much you must have… just to live, just to find the energy to take one more step.
Ashley missed Spencer Carlin those four years, that was no lie.
And Spencer did have the softest skin ever, like a lamb's ear.
Spencer really was Ashley's best of all things – friend and confidant and partner in most crimes – and when she was getting her stomach pumped and at the brink of death…
…Ashley wished she had kept on talking that night, had pushed past her own limitations and Spencer's justified doubts and made that girl feel as special as she was meant to.
Because now she is reaching and that girl is too far gone.
///
Spencer walked home alone, the car dropping her off a mile from her doorstep.
And she felt like crying, so she did.
Not because her virginity was taken, not because it was some special thing that was meant to be shared with a true love… but because it was with Ashley and Spencer can't hide the disappointment.
It lingers in her sore back and in the tender depths of her body.
Ashley lives there now and Spencer knows that getting rid of the girl will take forever now and now… now…
They are linked by more than words and looks.
They are bonded by more than laughter and cutting classes.
They are fused and it is the last thing Spencer ever wanted.
Love is a funny thing. It is wonderful one minute and horrible the next.
And Spencer is so damn in love with Ashley.
It went from mere crush to full-on obsession too quickly. It went from idle attraction and spiraled into utter devotion and Ashley teased this love into bitterness.
And now it is one messed-up moment in the shadows, never to be replayed and never to be better than it was… as it could have been…
Spencer walks home, trying to erase the only thing Ashley ever really gave her, before she gets lost in it.
///
END