4.

~ Outside, the sun was starting to slip away from her orbit in the sky. The moon was coming to take her place. The ritual shift change turned the clouds a luminous color pink. Like they were blushing.

"It's an old radio tower." Ariadne whispered as Arthur's attention was caught looking up at the massive metal structure left to rot and rust. Long abandoned and forgotten. They were on the roof and enjoyed a solitary view of the city. A City that was springing into a new life. One where the day was dieing a slow death, only to replaced but it's vibrant, younger night self. Artificial lights glittered in the sky line.

"Why do you like it here?" Arthur asked as she danced away from him and leaned precariously over the edge of the roof. Taking advantage of the exceptional view of the city.

A cool breeze had blown away the muggy, oppressive heat of the day. The Eiffel tower was starting to lite up. Beckoning tourists to her.

"You don't seem like the kind of girl who spends a lot of time at a place like this." He told her.

She laughed.

"I don't seem that way, do I?" She said sadly. "People... they don't know... who I really am. They see what they want to."

She seemed to feel him approaching her and turned to smile at him.
"Thank you, for taking me here, for staying." She said touching his shirt with her small hands. He only nodded as he looked at her. Completely engaged and enamored.

"What is this place?" He asked. "To you?"

"A safe place. No one knows about it. Not a lot of people know I'm friends with Henry. Don't worry, he's gay." She said with a laugh as Arthur immediately had a disliking for the man he never met.
"I didn't say anything." He said with a smile. A real smile for once. She looked back at the view.

"Sometimes, I come here when I just can't stand it anymore." She whispered. "It's safe here."

"From what?" he asked.

She sighed.
"Do you know the poem 'The Lady of Shallot'?" She asked him.

The Point Man was knowledgeable of many things, but romantic poetry was not one of them. He shook his head.

"The Lady of Shallot, She was cursed. Forced to live in a forgotten tower by a river that would lead to Camelot. She had to weave a tapestry forever. She could never leave the tower, and never stop her weaving. Because she could never stop her weaving, her only means of seeing the world outside, was through a mirror."

Ariadne looked sadly at the people walking the sidewalks far below them. Interested and hypnotized by them.

"She could only glimpse them. Only see their lives from a far distance. Never be near them. Never touch their lives or be touched. One day, Lancelot comes riding by and she becomes so lost in his beauty and gallantry, she falters in her work. She stops her weaving.

"Realizing the curse is upon her, she flees her tower. Trying to reach Camelot by means of a boat by the river. But it's all too late, she dies trying to escape. Trying to escape her curse. When all she wanted... was to be like everyone else."

Ariadne finished her story sadly. Leaving Arthur spell bound.

"Were you trying to flee your tower?" He asked her pulling her body closer to his. She cast those eyes up at him. His hand went to her face. Trying to smudge free the ruin of black eye liner that marred her beauty.

He didn't waste to moment. He didn't hesitate. He was trained never to hesitate, never to second guess himself. His lips reached hers as if by slow motion. A perfect syncing that she met with him. Her smell reached him first. That deeply embedded clean scent of something he could not name. It seemed to grow out of her pours and make him drunk.

The ever sensible Point Man suddenly didn't care. He didn't care who she was, where she came from or what she was running and hiding from.

He wanted her. Wanted her touch to burn her skin. He wanted to be her rescuer.

~ It had been a beautiful mess of limbs and bed sheets. Of insistent, wet kissing and warm skin making contact on foreign flesh.

Her body was beautiful. Not in the "oh so perfect" sense most women thought of a beauty. To him, her physical self was soft and enriching. It gave him such health to be with such a creature. He felt so much calmer after she had taken him to the less then isolated bedroom and helped him to shed his clothing. Casting off his suit and shirt like they were cumbersome armor. Not needed or wanted.

He had been naked with her for hours like that. The both of them, little more then strangers, worshiping each others bodies.

~ When they finally ended their happy coupling, she had showered and returned to him. Her face and body washed free of all make up and body glitter. Somehow, looking ever more lovely then before. She looked more normal now. Like she was real girl. Not the other worldly being that had made him lose himself to her.

She had dressed in an old T-shirt that no doubt belonged to the loft's absentee owner, away in Bali.

She returned to him with kisses and a renewed want for him. He had been happy to teeter on the edge of sleep as she made his skin burn at her kiss. Her lips trailing down his naked body.

"Aren't you sleepy?" He asked sitting up and pulling her to him. She happily curled into his lap. Her legs wrapping around him as he could not openly stare at her.

"I normally can't sleep with out pills she said sadly."

He pushed her freshly washed hair off her face and smiled at her. Kissing her again. She was so lovely with her natural skin. The make-up before, had been just a mask. Now, she looked perfectly normal. She didn't need such decorations, she had no flaws or imperfection on her beauty.

Stripped of her illusions, he could now enjoy the real woman she was.

He was about to kiss her again when there was a loud pounding on the door.