A/N: 12-12-02. I'm back. :P That was fast. LOL. I actually started this
story in July. Now that OPOW's out of the way, I can focus on it. The idea
came to me at random while I was at the movie theater seeing Ice Age. My
friends and I have since called this story Ice Age. It has been very
difficult for me to give it the title you see here. LOL.
I have Grand Plans for this story. (The first 50 or so pages have already been written.) Lots of twists and evilness and cliffhangers planned-you know, the usual. It's going to be a huge-ass epic. And Mimi doesn't die this time! *flails*
(See OPOW disclaimers. I'm lazy. :P)
(Becca wrote the first kiss and the page or so surrounding it. Yay. :)
We begin after Mark's birthday party.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
and who can say
when the day sleeps
if the night keeps
all your heart?
-enya
1.
There is something about that post-party essence that I've always loved. Everyone's either gone home or passed out in various rooms of the apartment- the latter in this case-and I'm left alone. I never seem to get drunk enough to fall asleep on the floor or against a random shoulder. I try, I really do; there's nothing fun about being in a dark empty loft, essentially all by yourself, surrounded by paper plates and remnants of cake.
Oh, I'm kidding myself. I love it. I love it because it plays out wonderfully on film.
I nestled myself on the floor of the living room just outside the kitchen, between a giant beach ball Maureen had dragged with her (do *not* ask why) and a box that appeared to be the official location of used wrapping paper and ribbons. In this state of perfect security and solitude, I lifted my camera from the table and held the lens up to my eye.
You'd think they would have been a bit kinder on my birthday, but no. The apparent deal had been that I could get as plastered as I want, eat cake till my heart's content, and go to bed that night with whomever I liked, as long I could just "put the fucking camera down for once in your life, Marky!" I ventured the offer of remaining sober, hungry, and celibate, but this did not suit her.
And so, for the entire evening, I was resigned to sit and open gifts and eat cake (and I never did get to pick who I wanted to sleep with), while the filming duties were passed to whoever currently had the least amount of alcohol in their bloodstream. It wasn't long before that individual ended up being the kitchen table.
But now, I was alone-in the best imaginable way: in a room surrounded by life that was oblivious to the unrelenting scrutiny of a camera.
I began my night's work in a corner of the living room, panning first across the sight I knew would prove most rewarding when I handed out copies of this video. Roger went before anyone else-he'd passed out on the couch hours ago after a particularly grueling round of strip poker. He hadn't been asleep for thirty seconds before the girls crowded around him with their respective make-up bags and...
Let's just say, this is why I never fall asleep first.
"I want a copy of that tape."
I spun towards the direction of the voice, and seeing as it came from behind me, nearly dropped my camera in the process. Mimi stood in the shadows of the kitchen, fitting perfectly-as she always tended to do- between the refrigerator and a countertop.
She shot me a grin. "Bribery at its best. Imagine all the things we could make him do."
I smiled back. "You're evil, Miss Marquez."
"Tell me something I don't know."
She took a few steps forward as I returned to my camera, zooming in on the purple eye shadow that had been Maureen's final contribution. "Oh my God..." I mumbled to myself, squinting through the lens. "Is that red nail polish?"
"Not red. Cherry Explosion," she announced proudly, waving her matching fingernails in front of the camera.
I captured her hand in mine and held it out of the frame, trying not to laugh. "He looks like Angel."
"I think it's sexy."
"I think you're drunk."
"I think you just need to get laid."
That was it. The camera dipped as I dropped my hand to my side, and the perfect shot was lost. I found myself trapped in an incoherent laugh/gasp hybrid as I turned to face her. "You're shameless."
"You're blushing."
Damn it.
I brought the camera back up to my face. Everyone was right. I did hide behind it. Under the circumstances... wouldn't anyone? "I had plenty of chocolate tonight," I informed her, mock-indignantly, as I pretended to adjust the focus. "That's enough. Sex is overrated."
A stifled snicker. "Typical," she diagnosed, crossing the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of champagne and two glasses, which seemed to have been magically summoned into existence out of thin air.
I watched as she deftly poured identical quantities into both glasses and handed one to me, still boasting that knowing smirk. "Typical of what?" I had to ask.
"Of men I haven't slept with."
Of course, I'd picked this moment to take my first sip of champagne, which now went spurting across the kitchen in a spray of embarrassment. She smiled smugly, and it was obvious this was certainly not the first time she'd elicited such a reaction.
"I see," I replied casually, failing to force back the grin that was threatening to expose my amusement. Feeling the color in my face rise yet again, I subtly reached for my camera and went back to filming the party wreckage.
It was times like this that I felt that little bit of regret. It wasn't a very powerful or frequent sensation... but it was enough to come back and haunt me in a very laughable sort of way, whenever I had a moment alone with her. Which wasn't all that often. She was quite the skilled flirt, I knew that much. Her charms had seduced us all, to some extent. Collins always joked that if anyone could convert him, it would be her. In weekly fights, Maureen frequently threatened to leave Joanne and run off with her, not at all fazed by the fact that Mimi was a) somewhat straight, and b) somewhat devoted to Roger.
Which brought me to that little, infrequent regret. If I'd kicked him out of the house that Christmas Eve and elected to stay home myself and mope... she might be mine at this very moment.
She was just one of those women, I suppose. The kind so far out of your league, that even the fantasy would be little more than comic relief.
I became suddenly aware of her chin resting on my shoulder as she attempted to peer through the camera lens from behind me. "Are you always up this late?" I asked.
"Always. Can't sleep if anyone else is still up."
"But I'm always up."
I could feel her smile... I'm not sure how. Maybe a smile warmed the breath that was tickling my neck. Maybe I'd spent so much time behind a camera that I'd developed eyes in the back of my head, purely out of necessity.
Finally, I had to know. "What exactly are you doing?"
"Trying to see what you see."
It was a simple enough answer for an equally simple question, but it seemed to strike me in a less obvious way. Perhaps because I couldn't remember the last time anyone had tried to see anything I saw. Even if it *was* out of boredom. Even if they *were* drunk.
All right, maybe it wasn't quite that flattering after all.
Another long, silent moment passed us by. "You're missing out," she informed me.
Distraction had hit me long ago, but it finally materialized as I set down my camera and turned to face her. "What do you mean?"
There it was. That smile from the night we met, Christmas Eve. The "I know you-you're the guy who tripped over his chair and sprained his ankle when I gave you a wink at the club" smile. Yes. Yes, that was me. And that was the smile.
"Come on, I'm taking you out." This wasn't a request. Her hand had already latched onto mine, and she was dragging me toward the door.
"Wh-what? No. I mean-no. Why?" I finally concluded, straightening the bag of Styrofoam cups I'd tripped over.
I had no particular (or valid) objections to spending a night painting the town with arguably the most beautiful woman in it. But the appeal seemed to decrease significantly at the image of Roger waking up to find that he had been decked out in drag, and that his girlfriend and I had disappeared by ourselves for a night of traditional birthday festivities.
All right, maybe not traditional. I was a guy, after all. 'Traditional' would mean a strip club.
Hmm.
That smile was still illuminating her face, begging for consent. And under normal circumstances, really, who'd be able to resist? I was just beginning to contemplate why I'd been so immediately inclined to label these circumstances as beyond normal, when-
"You think too much."
I looked up from my still-scattered cups. She was right, of course. Usually I despised it when people called me on that, because it always sounded like such an accusation. An imperfection. Something that needed to be worked on. But the way she said it made it sound like... a talent. An admirable, almost enviable, talent.
For the first time without trying to hide it, I smiled back. "You don't think Roger would mind? I mean..." How to put this tactfully? The truth was, I wasn't sure I could handle her. Mimi was wild enough on her own; God knows what she was like with a few drinks in her. If she ended up dragging me to a bar and going home with some guy, I wouldn't know how to stop her, and Roger would kill me.
I was being completely irrational, of course. She'd never leave him. You have to love someone an awful lot to feel confident enough to give them a makeover in their sleep.
A giggle escaped her lips. "What, Marky? You think I'm trying to seduce you?"
"No!" I laughed. Although if her voice hadn't been so unmistakably teasing, my answer may have been different.
She'd already swung open the front door. "Come on. I want to show you something. Bring your camera."
Involuntarily, my ears perked up at this, and I followed her into the hall- somewhat defeated to find that I was as easily entranced by her charms as anyone else.
For three minutes my camera followed her, and I followed my camera-somewhat closely behind, seeing as I was holding it at the time. I looked around the neighborhood for signs of things I had perhaps missed during daylight filming, her claim that I was "missing out" still echoing in my head... but found nothing particularly uncommon. And so I filmed her instead.
She darted around a street corner, and I followed. "Is it true, then?" she asked suddenly, and so casually, without even turning around, that I began to wonder if it had been my imagination.
"Is what true?"
In an instant she stopped walking and spun around to face me, a smile dancing across her face. "That I have the best ass below 16th Street."
I raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was 14th."
"Well, I've been working out." She raised a hand up to my still-filming camera and gently lowered it from my face, looking directly into my eyes. It was amazing how the lack of a screen between us could so exponentially raise the level of intimacy... and when she spoke again, although remnants of that grin were still noticeably detectable, her voice was slow and deliberate. "This wasn't what I meant when I said you were missing out. Wait until we get there."
It soon appeared as though I wouldn't have to wait very long. A quick turn on her heel, and she had started toward the door of a ritzy apartment complex. Ritziness, granted, isn't too easily measurable at night, so I was forced to base my assessment on the uniformed doorman at the front entrance. He shot a wink and a smile in Mimi's direction, opening the door for us both, as Mimi led us inside.
And up the elevator.
...And onto the roof.
A whisper of summer breezes tickled the ends of her hair as she stood across from me on the other side of the roof, looking very much like a child who'd triumphantly made it to the top of the jungle gym.
"Very nice, Meems," I observed bemusedly, my senses instinctively snapping into awareness as the filmmaker in me began absently seeking out new targets. Still, I was struck by nothing extraordinary.
So enveloped by this aimless search, I hadn't even seen her approach me. She slid her fingers around my camera-less hand, leading me over to a far edge of the roof, as we plopped to seated positions. Once more before I even noticed-beginning to make me regret my distractedness-she was behind me, hands resting lightly on my shoulders, soft breath caressing my ear as she guided her unobstructed line of vision as close as possible to my lens- covered one. The slight, comforting pressure on one of my shoulders vanished, to reappear only seconds later as her hand covered mine, slowly averting my camera's focus just a few degrees to the right. The prompt punch of a button-an action I knew had not been my own-and in an instant I was zoomed in on a lighted apartment window.
"How did you..." The rest of the words ("...know how to use the zoom?") evaporated by the time they made it to my lips, as I found myself looking in on a young child's bedroom.
"His name's Toby. See?" Her index finger appeared in a corner of the frame, pointing to a racecar nameplate above the bed.
A tiny burst of shock emerged from my mouth in the form of laughter. "Mimi, this is-like-"
"Illegal? Probably." The camera tilted again, just barely, fully independent of my own efforts, until it rested on the bedroom door. As a boy of six or seven burst cheerfully into the room followed by a lab puppy, Mimi's voice melted into a whisper. "He has leukemia." Silence. I was beyond tempted to question her, but had quickly learned in recent moments that an impending explanation was almost a guarantee. "On worse nights, you can hear his mom on the phone, screaming at the latest ten-year-old they just made a doctor."
I was momentarily paralyzed, enraptured by how she could weave a casually verbalized handful of facts into a story I found myself utterly absorbed in.
Almost as abruptly as it had appeared, the frame was lost as she tipped the camera upward, plunging us into the window of an entirely new apartment, where a woman was planted leisurely in front of her antique television set. The scene wouldn't have been anything exceptionally bizarre, save for the multitude of cats I began-and was continuing-to spot... everywhere.
"She has twenty-seven. I've counted them. One for every man she's tried to date." A smile crept into her voice. "I've counted them, too."
My awed silence had settled into a state of ease, and I stifled a snicker.
"And this is Parker." In a flash of roughly changing scenery, the camera panned far left, leaving the cat woman behind us and presenting a young, upscale-looking man in a business suit, staring intently out his window. "He pretty much lives in that suit. Or another one. Sleeps in them, eats in them. Even works out in them." A brief, sweeping gesture indicated the exercise bike in a corner of his room. "Except the last weekend of every month, when his daughter comes to stay with him. They have this sort of weekend-initiation ritual, where they toss one of his work shirts out the window and order pizza..."
I suppose she would have continued-I undoubtedly wanted her to-but her voice faded when she averted her gaze to meet mine, discovering that I in fact wasn't watching Parker through my camera, or watching him at all. I was watching her.
She grinned shyly, lowering her eyes to the ground, and shrugged. "Anyway."
I set the camera down beside me. "Do you bring a lot of people here?"
"Just the ones I think will appreciate it."
I wondered if that meant every man she'd ever snagged from a bar, or just the sensitive artistic bunch. Wondered, yes. Had the nerve to ask? No. One thing, however, I felt confident enough to inquire of. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Since I moved here seven years ago."
The shock must have burned right through my eyes, because she smiled.
"I know; I have no life."
I knew my silence was proving me rude, but I could find no words that would do justice to what I was feeling.
"Anyhow..." (And she was still talking-God help me.) "I just thought you might find it interesting, y'know, knowing the way you... watch people, and stuff... and I-"
I deemed this enough, and gently held a finger up to her lips. It didn't take much. She fell silent.
Even though I knew there were only two words I'd be able to get out at this point, I found myself delaying even them. Silence always bought me time to think. To ponder. Or in this case, to ask. Who was this person in front of me, and why had I never met her in all the time she'd been dating my best friend?
Where was I? Oh. Right. My two words.
"Thank you."
She smiled that soft, wonderful smile at me, that smile she usually only saved for quiet moments with Roger.
"You're welcome."
She leaned forwards slightly and brought her mouth to mine in a brief brush of lips. Before I could even react, she pulled back and rested her head against my shoulder. I gazed down at my camera, fumbling to grasp what just happened.
"Didn't I already tell you once tonight that you think too much?" she said, pinching my side.
I couldn't help but grin as I squirmed out of her reach. "What's so wrong with thinking? It keeps me out of trouble."
She rolled her eyes and crawled after me. "How boring is that? What's life without getting into trouble once in a while?"
"You want trouble?"
She raised her eyebrow at me, and I launched myself at her, tickling her sides, her neck, her stomach. Her laugh rang out clear and musical through the night sky as she tried to push me away.
"Stop!..Stop, I-.I can't breathe!"
"But I thought you liked getting into trouble!"
She collapsed against the rooftop trying to catch her breath, and I followed, never relenting.
"Mark, please!"
Her hands flailed against mine trying to push me away until finally she gave up on defending herself and launched her counter attack. Her fingers crept under my shirt to the bare skin of my stomach. Why is it that women always seem to know the one spot where you're really ticklish?
I lost my balance and fell on top of her, our laughter drifting together. I wondered vaguely if they could hear us at the loft from here.
"Okay, okay! Truce?" Her hands withdrew, and I hovered above her, an arm holding me up on either side of her body.
"Truce," she whispered, tears of mirth rimming her eyes.
Slowly she raised herself up on her elbows, her mouth meeting mine for the second time that night. My mind shut down, and all I felt was this woman's beautiful body beneath me, and her lips pulling eagerly at mine. It never occurred to me that this was Roger's girlfriend, that this was wrong, that I was betraying him and ruining his relationship with both of us. It never occurred to me to stop it from happening.
Mimi pulled back a fraction of an inch. "See what can happen if you just put down your camera once in a while?"
Words weren't all that failed me. Even a courtesy nod or single blink of disbelief escaped my capacity. Never before had I found myself so able to watch someone, so closely, without a shiny, humming piece of machinery between us. And, contrary to what I suspected was popular belief, that wasn't because I feared this closeness-it was because *they* did.
Or... I thought they did.
Some untouched moments later found me wondering if I was dreaming. The way her eyes now penetrated mine conquered any doubt that this was utterly, impossibly real. But that kiss... how easily it could have been imagined.
Off some absurd, subconscious notion that distance would encourage coherent thoughts, I slowly pulled myself out of that awkwardly perfect embrace, one piece at a time. First the sliver of moonlight between our bodies grew larger until we were a full twelve inches apart, seated across from one another. I allowed my hand to linger over hers for a moment, until I actually realized this, and shyly withdraw it. My eyes were last to retreat. I stared down at my camera, suddenly missing the safety of being behind it... and noticed it was still on.
Fuck.
I scrambled to turn it off, and turned back to Mimi, who let a giggle escape. "Oops."
"Um..." My hands ran through my hair nervously-when had I started doing *that*? That was a Roger trademark.
Roger...
Suddenly all those concepts that hadn't occurred to me moments ago were occurring now. This was Roger's girlfriend. This was wrong. This... could still avoid disaster, with a carefully worded question.
"What the hell was that?"
Fortunately that came out less harsh than it sounded in my head, because it wasn't exactly the carefully worded question I'd been searching for. Her head rolled back in that musical laughter, completely squelching my attempt to remain frustrated and confused. Instead I found myself breaking into a smile.
"Oh, Mark," she sighed, still grinning, as she pulled herself to her feet and started toward the door.
"Mimi! Wait-what-" Scrambling after her, I vaguely wondered if someone was watching our little drama from their own rooftop.
She spun around and watched me, with that same closeness I'd felt only seconds ago, only meters away... but seemed to be in another life now. "I don't know," she confessed, the corners of her mouth just barely rising. "You just looked like you needed to be kissed."
I actually felt the tension in my face vanish. Usually it never left, or disappeared so briefly that I never had time to notice. No one else had ever been able to tell when I needed something. Not even me.
I felt the sudden urge to ask her if there was anything else she thought I needed.
Instead, all I heard leaving my mouth was, "What about Roger?"
She laughed. "What about him?"
"Your boyfriend doesn't mind that you go around kissing people who look like they need it?" By this point, a straight face was out of even my reach.
"My boyfriend is passed out on your couch wearing red nail polish and purple eye shadow. Where do *you* think his priorities would be right now?"
I grinned, and she grinned back. And for the first time, I truly saw it. That look Roger used to rave about, when they'd first started dating, and he'd been sickeningly infatuated, talking about her nonstop. I'd ignored most of it, and as I'd been working obsessively on my film at the time, that wasn't very difficult. But there was one rant of his I could never forget. Maybe because I'd been forced to listen to it so often; maybe because I was jealous that I couldn't see what he saw. "She has this smile..." he'd declare, "but it's not intentional. It just independently appears on her face when she looks into my eyes. And I know it's because she's reading my mind."
I blinked slowly, and when I opened my eyes, she'd looked away.
Figures. I always manage to sabotage whatever precious moments I can't capture on film. Probably because they're so foreign.
"Hey." A slight pressure from that small, delicate hand appeared on my arm. "You want some French toast?"
For once, I was not going to question her. I nodded. "Yeah."
And as she took my hand and proceeded to drag me to the elevator... I felt an unintentional smile of my own beginning to form.
Between the two of us, a grand total of three strides had been taken toward the door before she spun around. Again. It was almost becoming predictably impromptu of her. I nearly ran into her, again, and started to wonder if this new habit of hers was just an excuse for physical contact.
I smiled at the thought. Mimi was probably the last person on earth who would bother with an excuse for *that*.
She smiled back. "Um..." Silence. The beautiful, lingering, welcome kind that only helped prolong a perfect moment. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
I blinked. It was a non-question. I *was* forgetting something. I just had to figure out what.
Her entire upper body-spandex and glitter and all-leaned in, pressing lightly, tauntingly against me as her lips floated just below my ear. "Your camera," she whispered.
I knew that.
Forcing away an embarrassed grin, I walked mechanically across the roof, retrieved my camera, and followed her downstairs. I hadn't imagined this possible. That a woman-that *anything*-could so distract me that I would actually forget my camera. Not simply drift from thoughts of it-but actually, truly forget about it entirely. But then again... I should have known. That's Mimi.
No wonder it took Roger a year to find his song.
[reviews will bring forth the following activities: strip clubs, stargazing, waffles... and more. word. :)]
I have Grand Plans for this story. (The first 50 or so pages have already been written.) Lots of twists and evilness and cliffhangers planned-you know, the usual. It's going to be a huge-ass epic. And Mimi doesn't die this time! *flails*
(See OPOW disclaimers. I'm lazy. :P)
(Becca wrote the first kiss and the page or so surrounding it. Yay. :)
We begin after Mark's birthday party.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
and who can say
when the day sleeps
if the night keeps
all your heart?
-enya
1.
There is something about that post-party essence that I've always loved. Everyone's either gone home or passed out in various rooms of the apartment- the latter in this case-and I'm left alone. I never seem to get drunk enough to fall asleep on the floor or against a random shoulder. I try, I really do; there's nothing fun about being in a dark empty loft, essentially all by yourself, surrounded by paper plates and remnants of cake.
Oh, I'm kidding myself. I love it. I love it because it plays out wonderfully on film.
I nestled myself on the floor of the living room just outside the kitchen, between a giant beach ball Maureen had dragged with her (do *not* ask why) and a box that appeared to be the official location of used wrapping paper and ribbons. In this state of perfect security and solitude, I lifted my camera from the table and held the lens up to my eye.
You'd think they would have been a bit kinder on my birthday, but no. The apparent deal had been that I could get as plastered as I want, eat cake till my heart's content, and go to bed that night with whomever I liked, as long I could just "put the fucking camera down for once in your life, Marky!" I ventured the offer of remaining sober, hungry, and celibate, but this did not suit her.
And so, for the entire evening, I was resigned to sit and open gifts and eat cake (and I never did get to pick who I wanted to sleep with), while the filming duties were passed to whoever currently had the least amount of alcohol in their bloodstream. It wasn't long before that individual ended up being the kitchen table.
But now, I was alone-in the best imaginable way: in a room surrounded by life that was oblivious to the unrelenting scrutiny of a camera.
I began my night's work in a corner of the living room, panning first across the sight I knew would prove most rewarding when I handed out copies of this video. Roger went before anyone else-he'd passed out on the couch hours ago after a particularly grueling round of strip poker. He hadn't been asleep for thirty seconds before the girls crowded around him with their respective make-up bags and...
Let's just say, this is why I never fall asleep first.
"I want a copy of that tape."
I spun towards the direction of the voice, and seeing as it came from behind me, nearly dropped my camera in the process. Mimi stood in the shadows of the kitchen, fitting perfectly-as she always tended to do- between the refrigerator and a countertop.
She shot me a grin. "Bribery at its best. Imagine all the things we could make him do."
I smiled back. "You're evil, Miss Marquez."
"Tell me something I don't know."
She took a few steps forward as I returned to my camera, zooming in on the purple eye shadow that had been Maureen's final contribution. "Oh my God..." I mumbled to myself, squinting through the lens. "Is that red nail polish?"
"Not red. Cherry Explosion," she announced proudly, waving her matching fingernails in front of the camera.
I captured her hand in mine and held it out of the frame, trying not to laugh. "He looks like Angel."
"I think it's sexy."
"I think you're drunk."
"I think you just need to get laid."
That was it. The camera dipped as I dropped my hand to my side, and the perfect shot was lost. I found myself trapped in an incoherent laugh/gasp hybrid as I turned to face her. "You're shameless."
"You're blushing."
Damn it.
I brought the camera back up to my face. Everyone was right. I did hide behind it. Under the circumstances... wouldn't anyone? "I had plenty of chocolate tonight," I informed her, mock-indignantly, as I pretended to adjust the focus. "That's enough. Sex is overrated."
A stifled snicker. "Typical," she diagnosed, crossing the kitchen to retrieve a bottle of champagne and two glasses, which seemed to have been magically summoned into existence out of thin air.
I watched as she deftly poured identical quantities into both glasses and handed one to me, still boasting that knowing smirk. "Typical of what?" I had to ask.
"Of men I haven't slept with."
Of course, I'd picked this moment to take my first sip of champagne, which now went spurting across the kitchen in a spray of embarrassment. She smiled smugly, and it was obvious this was certainly not the first time she'd elicited such a reaction.
"I see," I replied casually, failing to force back the grin that was threatening to expose my amusement. Feeling the color in my face rise yet again, I subtly reached for my camera and went back to filming the party wreckage.
It was times like this that I felt that little bit of regret. It wasn't a very powerful or frequent sensation... but it was enough to come back and haunt me in a very laughable sort of way, whenever I had a moment alone with her. Which wasn't all that often. She was quite the skilled flirt, I knew that much. Her charms had seduced us all, to some extent. Collins always joked that if anyone could convert him, it would be her. In weekly fights, Maureen frequently threatened to leave Joanne and run off with her, not at all fazed by the fact that Mimi was a) somewhat straight, and b) somewhat devoted to Roger.
Which brought me to that little, infrequent regret. If I'd kicked him out of the house that Christmas Eve and elected to stay home myself and mope... she might be mine at this very moment.
She was just one of those women, I suppose. The kind so far out of your league, that even the fantasy would be little more than comic relief.
I became suddenly aware of her chin resting on my shoulder as she attempted to peer through the camera lens from behind me. "Are you always up this late?" I asked.
"Always. Can't sleep if anyone else is still up."
"But I'm always up."
I could feel her smile... I'm not sure how. Maybe a smile warmed the breath that was tickling my neck. Maybe I'd spent so much time behind a camera that I'd developed eyes in the back of my head, purely out of necessity.
Finally, I had to know. "What exactly are you doing?"
"Trying to see what you see."
It was a simple enough answer for an equally simple question, but it seemed to strike me in a less obvious way. Perhaps because I couldn't remember the last time anyone had tried to see anything I saw. Even if it *was* out of boredom. Even if they *were* drunk.
All right, maybe it wasn't quite that flattering after all.
Another long, silent moment passed us by. "You're missing out," she informed me.
Distraction had hit me long ago, but it finally materialized as I set down my camera and turned to face her. "What do you mean?"
There it was. That smile from the night we met, Christmas Eve. The "I know you-you're the guy who tripped over his chair and sprained his ankle when I gave you a wink at the club" smile. Yes. Yes, that was me. And that was the smile.
"Come on, I'm taking you out." This wasn't a request. Her hand had already latched onto mine, and she was dragging me toward the door.
"Wh-what? No. I mean-no. Why?" I finally concluded, straightening the bag of Styrofoam cups I'd tripped over.
I had no particular (or valid) objections to spending a night painting the town with arguably the most beautiful woman in it. But the appeal seemed to decrease significantly at the image of Roger waking up to find that he had been decked out in drag, and that his girlfriend and I had disappeared by ourselves for a night of traditional birthday festivities.
All right, maybe not traditional. I was a guy, after all. 'Traditional' would mean a strip club.
Hmm.
That smile was still illuminating her face, begging for consent. And under normal circumstances, really, who'd be able to resist? I was just beginning to contemplate why I'd been so immediately inclined to label these circumstances as beyond normal, when-
"You think too much."
I looked up from my still-scattered cups. She was right, of course. Usually I despised it when people called me on that, because it always sounded like such an accusation. An imperfection. Something that needed to be worked on. But the way she said it made it sound like... a talent. An admirable, almost enviable, talent.
For the first time without trying to hide it, I smiled back. "You don't think Roger would mind? I mean..." How to put this tactfully? The truth was, I wasn't sure I could handle her. Mimi was wild enough on her own; God knows what she was like with a few drinks in her. If she ended up dragging me to a bar and going home with some guy, I wouldn't know how to stop her, and Roger would kill me.
I was being completely irrational, of course. She'd never leave him. You have to love someone an awful lot to feel confident enough to give them a makeover in their sleep.
A giggle escaped her lips. "What, Marky? You think I'm trying to seduce you?"
"No!" I laughed. Although if her voice hadn't been so unmistakably teasing, my answer may have been different.
She'd already swung open the front door. "Come on. I want to show you something. Bring your camera."
Involuntarily, my ears perked up at this, and I followed her into the hall- somewhat defeated to find that I was as easily entranced by her charms as anyone else.
For three minutes my camera followed her, and I followed my camera-somewhat closely behind, seeing as I was holding it at the time. I looked around the neighborhood for signs of things I had perhaps missed during daylight filming, her claim that I was "missing out" still echoing in my head... but found nothing particularly uncommon. And so I filmed her instead.
She darted around a street corner, and I followed. "Is it true, then?" she asked suddenly, and so casually, without even turning around, that I began to wonder if it had been my imagination.
"Is what true?"
In an instant she stopped walking and spun around to face me, a smile dancing across her face. "That I have the best ass below 16th Street."
I raised an eyebrow. "I thought it was 14th."
"Well, I've been working out." She raised a hand up to my still-filming camera and gently lowered it from my face, looking directly into my eyes. It was amazing how the lack of a screen between us could so exponentially raise the level of intimacy... and when she spoke again, although remnants of that grin were still noticeably detectable, her voice was slow and deliberate. "This wasn't what I meant when I said you were missing out. Wait until we get there."
It soon appeared as though I wouldn't have to wait very long. A quick turn on her heel, and she had started toward the door of a ritzy apartment complex. Ritziness, granted, isn't too easily measurable at night, so I was forced to base my assessment on the uniformed doorman at the front entrance. He shot a wink and a smile in Mimi's direction, opening the door for us both, as Mimi led us inside.
And up the elevator.
...And onto the roof.
A whisper of summer breezes tickled the ends of her hair as she stood across from me on the other side of the roof, looking very much like a child who'd triumphantly made it to the top of the jungle gym.
"Very nice, Meems," I observed bemusedly, my senses instinctively snapping into awareness as the filmmaker in me began absently seeking out new targets. Still, I was struck by nothing extraordinary.
So enveloped by this aimless search, I hadn't even seen her approach me. She slid her fingers around my camera-less hand, leading me over to a far edge of the roof, as we plopped to seated positions. Once more before I even noticed-beginning to make me regret my distractedness-she was behind me, hands resting lightly on my shoulders, soft breath caressing my ear as she guided her unobstructed line of vision as close as possible to my lens- covered one. The slight, comforting pressure on one of my shoulders vanished, to reappear only seconds later as her hand covered mine, slowly averting my camera's focus just a few degrees to the right. The prompt punch of a button-an action I knew had not been my own-and in an instant I was zoomed in on a lighted apartment window.
"How did you..." The rest of the words ("...know how to use the zoom?") evaporated by the time they made it to my lips, as I found myself looking in on a young child's bedroom.
"His name's Toby. See?" Her index finger appeared in a corner of the frame, pointing to a racecar nameplate above the bed.
A tiny burst of shock emerged from my mouth in the form of laughter. "Mimi, this is-like-"
"Illegal? Probably." The camera tilted again, just barely, fully independent of my own efforts, until it rested on the bedroom door. As a boy of six or seven burst cheerfully into the room followed by a lab puppy, Mimi's voice melted into a whisper. "He has leukemia." Silence. I was beyond tempted to question her, but had quickly learned in recent moments that an impending explanation was almost a guarantee. "On worse nights, you can hear his mom on the phone, screaming at the latest ten-year-old they just made a doctor."
I was momentarily paralyzed, enraptured by how she could weave a casually verbalized handful of facts into a story I found myself utterly absorbed in.
Almost as abruptly as it had appeared, the frame was lost as she tipped the camera upward, plunging us into the window of an entirely new apartment, where a woman was planted leisurely in front of her antique television set. The scene wouldn't have been anything exceptionally bizarre, save for the multitude of cats I began-and was continuing-to spot... everywhere.
"She has twenty-seven. I've counted them. One for every man she's tried to date." A smile crept into her voice. "I've counted them, too."
My awed silence had settled into a state of ease, and I stifled a snicker.
"And this is Parker." In a flash of roughly changing scenery, the camera panned far left, leaving the cat woman behind us and presenting a young, upscale-looking man in a business suit, staring intently out his window. "He pretty much lives in that suit. Or another one. Sleeps in them, eats in them. Even works out in them." A brief, sweeping gesture indicated the exercise bike in a corner of his room. "Except the last weekend of every month, when his daughter comes to stay with him. They have this sort of weekend-initiation ritual, where they toss one of his work shirts out the window and order pizza..."
I suppose she would have continued-I undoubtedly wanted her to-but her voice faded when she averted her gaze to meet mine, discovering that I in fact wasn't watching Parker through my camera, or watching him at all. I was watching her.
She grinned shyly, lowering her eyes to the ground, and shrugged. "Anyway."
I set the camera down beside me. "Do you bring a lot of people here?"
"Just the ones I think will appreciate it."
I wondered if that meant every man she'd ever snagged from a bar, or just the sensitive artistic bunch. Wondered, yes. Had the nerve to ask? No. One thing, however, I felt confident enough to inquire of. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Since I moved here seven years ago."
The shock must have burned right through my eyes, because she smiled.
"I know; I have no life."
I knew my silence was proving me rude, but I could find no words that would do justice to what I was feeling.
"Anyhow..." (And she was still talking-God help me.) "I just thought you might find it interesting, y'know, knowing the way you... watch people, and stuff... and I-"
I deemed this enough, and gently held a finger up to her lips. It didn't take much. She fell silent.
Even though I knew there were only two words I'd be able to get out at this point, I found myself delaying even them. Silence always bought me time to think. To ponder. Or in this case, to ask. Who was this person in front of me, and why had I never met her in all the time she'd been dating my best friend?
Where was I? Oh. Right. My two words.
"Thank you."
She smiled that soft, wonderful smile at me, that smile she usually only saved for quiet moments with Roger.
"You're welcome."
She leaned forwards slightly and brought her mouth to mine in a brief brush of lips. Before I could even react, she pulled back and rested her head against my shoulder. I gazed down at my camera, fumbling to grasp what just happened.
"Didn't I already tell you once tonight that you think too much?" she said, pinching my side.
I couldn't help but grin as I squirmed out of her reach. "What's so wrong with thinking? It keeps me out of trouble."
She rolled her eyes and crawled after me. "How boring is that? What's life without getting into trouble once in a while?"
"You want trouble?"
She raised her eyebrow at me, and I launched myself at her, tickling her sides, her neck, her stomach. Her laugh rang out clear and musical through the night sky as she tried to push me away.
"Stop!..Stop, I-.I can't breathe!"
"But I thought you liked getting into trouble!"
She collapsed against the rooftop trying to catch her breath, and I followed, never relenting.
"Mark, please!"
Her hands flailed against mine trying to push me away until finally she gave up on defending herself and launched her counter attack. Her fingers crept under my shirt to the bare skin of my stomach. Why is it that women always seem to know the one spot where you're really ticklish?
I lost my balance and fell on top of her, our laughter drifting together. I wondered vaguely if they could hear us at the loft from here.
"Okay, okay! Truce?" Her hands withdrew, and I hovered above her, an arm holding me up on either side of her body.
"Truce," she whispered, tears of mirth rimming her eyes.
Slowly she raised herself up on her elbows, her mouth meeting mine for the second time that night. My mind shut down, and all I felt was this woman's beautiful body beneath me, and her lips pulling eagerly at mine. It never occurred to me that this was Roger's girlfriend, that this was wrong, that I was betraying him and ruining his relationship with both of us. It never occurred to me to stop it from happening.
Mimi pulled back a fraction of an inch. "See what can happen if you just put down your camera once in a while?"
Words weren't all that failed me. Even a courtesy nod or single blink of disbelief escaped my capacity. Never before had I found myself so able to watch someone, so closely, without a shiny, humming piece of machinery between us. And, contrary to what I suspected was popular belief, that wasn't because I feared this closeness-it was because *they* did.
Or... I thought they did.
Some untouched moments later found me wondering if I was dreaming. The way her eyes now penetrated mine conquered any doubt that this was utterly, impossibly real. But that kiss... how easily it could have been imagined.
Off some absurd, subconscious notion that distance would encourage coherent thoughts, I slowly pulled myself out of that awkwardly perfect embrace, one piece at a time. First the sliver of moonlight between our bodies grew larger until we were a full twelve inches apart, seated across from one another. I allowed my hand to linger over hers for a moment, until I actually realized this, and shyly withdraw it. My eyes were last to retreat. I stared down at my camera, suddenly missing the safety of being behind it... and noticed it was still on.
Fuck.
I scrambled to turn it off, and turned back to Mimi, who let a giggle escape. "Oops."
"Um..." My hands ran through my hair nervously-when had I started doing *that*? That was a Roger trademark.
Roger...
Suddenly all those concepts that hadn't occurred to me moments ago were occurring now. This was Roger's girlfriend. This was wrong. This... could still avoid disaster, with a carefully worded question.
"What the hell was that?"
Fortunately that came out less harsh than it sounded in my head, because it wasn't exactly the carefully worded question I'd been searching for. Her head rolled back in that musical laughter, completely squelching my attempt to remain frustrated and confused. Instead I found myself breaking into a smile.
"Oh, Mark," she sighed, still grinning, as she pulled herself to her feet and started toward the door.
"Mimi! Wait-what-" Scrambling after her, I vaguely wondered if someone was watching our little drama from their own rooftop.
She spun around and watched me, with that same closeness I'd felt only seconds ago, only meters away... but seemed to be in another life now. "I don't know," she confessed, the corners of her mouth just barely rising. "You just looked like you needed to be kissed."
I actually felt the tension in my face vanish. Usually it never left, or disappeared so briefly that I never had time to notice. No one else had ever been able to tell when I needed something. Not even me.
I felt the sudden urge to ask her if there was anything else she thought I needed.
Instead, all I heard leaving my mouth was, "What about Roger?"
She laughed. "What about him?"
"Your boyfriend doesn't mind that you go around kissing people who look like they need it?" By this point, a straight face was out of even my reach.
"My boyfriend is passed out on your couch wearing red nail polish and purple eye shadow. Where do *you* think his priorities would be right now?"
I grinned, and she grinned back. And for the first time, I truly saw it. That look Roger used to rave about, when they'd first started dating, and he'd been sickeningly infatuated, talking about her nonstop. I'd ignored most of it, and as I'd been working obsessively on my film at the time, that wasn't very difficult. But there was one rant of his I could never forget. Maybe because I'd been forced to listen to it so often; maybe because I was jealous that I couldn't see what he saw. "She has this smile..." he'd declare, "but it's not intentional. It just independently appears on her face when she looks into my eyes. And I know it's because she's reading my mind."
I blinked slowly, and when I opened my eyes, she'd looked away.
Figures. I always manage to sabotage whatever precious moments I can't capture on film. Probably because they're so foreign.
"Hey." A slight pressure from that small, delicate hand appeared on my arm. "You want some French toast?"
For once, I was not going to question her. I nodded. "Yeah."
And as she took my hand and proceeded to drag me to the elevator... I felt an unintentional smile of my own beginning to form.
Between the two of us, a grand total of three strides had been taken toward the door before she spun around. Again. It was almost becoming predictably impromptu of her. I nearly ran into her, again, and started to wonder if this new habit of hers was just an excuse for physical contact.
I smiled at the thought. Mimi was probably the last person on earth who would bother with an excuse for *that*.
She smiled back. "Um..." Silence. The beautiful, lingering, welcome kind that only helped prolong a perfect moment. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
I blinked. It was a non-question. I *was* forgetting something. I just had to figure out what.
Her entire upper body-spandex and glitter and all-leaned in, pressing lightly, tauntingly against me as her lips floated just below my ear. "Your camera," she whispered.
I knew that.
Forcing away an embarrassed grin, I walked mechanically across the roof, retrieved my camera, and followed her downstairs. I hadn't imagined this possible. That a woman-that *anything*-could so distract me that I would actually forget my camera. Not simply drift from thoughts of it-but actually, truly forget about it entirely. But then again... I should have known. That's Mimi.
No wonder it took Roger a year to find his song.
[reviews will bring forth the following activities: strip clubs, stargazing, waffles... and more. word. :)]