Commentary: Look who's not dead!

Five minutes, five hundred words. I would have written more, but I'm working on something else. Hmm, I wonder what? =)

I hope you enjoy these.

Thank you for your patience.

Word One: LURE

"You're hurting me."

"I'm not."

"You are. Your hands, they're so hard—they're hot, Haruka." Beneath those hands a pale body twisted. Its owner said, "Stop it."

"If I stop, you won't, you know…" Haruka added a finger. Michiru shuddered.

"Fine. Don't stop. Don't. But be gentle—nn!" Thrusting her face into the cradle of her arms, the smaller woman writhed. The sheets bunched, pulled, bunched again, scuttering down the edge of the bed. Shadows collected in their folds and both women ignored them, each too engrossed in the other to care about the mess they were making.

"Sorry. This stuff—it's slippery, I can't—"

Her touch plunged low; her fingers coiled, the nails scraping. Michiru voiced a startled moan.

Between them, something snapped.

Haruka paused, eyes slanted, breath held. Michiru fell limp beneath her. Overhead the fan blades spun and snickered, and after a moment the taller of the pair said, "How's the hitch?"

Thoughtfully Michiru rolled, flexed her shoulders. "Gone," she sighed. Fetching a glance backward, she smiled. "Thank you for the massage."

A spatter of lotion lingered in the contour of her spine. Reaching to rub it into nothing, Haruka swallowed hard. She provided, "No problem."

Word Two: SCRUTINY

At first she thought it was an accident.

Haruka glanced up over the edge of her magazine, idle, and caught Michiru looking at her. The other woman twitched, startled—smiled, looked down again. Her fingers fiddled around the edges of her book. Arching an eyebrow, Haruka waited for an explanation that never came, eventually chalked it up to coincidence, and went back to her editorial on suspension systems.

She made it two paragraphs before the faint itch of suspicion meandered into her perception. Discreetly she angled her head aright, peered through her lashes and—oho! For the second time she found Michiru's eyes on her, combing over her intently, maybe even hungrily.

A gentleman, Haruka thought, would graciously overlook this severe breach of etiquette.

Haruka, who was no gentleman, flipped a page and said, "I see what you're doing there, you know." She closed the magazine, dropped it into her lap. Leaning across the arm of her chair, she touched Michiru's soft cheek—where sudden roses bloomed—and whispered, "You can look at me if you want. I don't mind."

Michiru delicately cupped a hand over Haruka's, pitched her voice low, and murmured back, "You have something in your teeth."

Word Three: WORTH

"I think," Uranus began, and stopped, and looked at Neptune. Her partner blinked back at her, eyes round and lit like marbles. The wind cut at them, a thousand sharp fingers tugging, twisting. The alleyway stank. They were tired. Ahead of them the night stretched long and terrible and unending, a misery of monsters, and maybe even before bed they would know murder too.

In the meantime, though, Uranus tipped her head and resumed, grave, "I think, just maybe, I have lost all feeling in my ass."

From the darkness rose a giggle. It was the world.

Redeemed, Uranus smiled.