Part Six: The Tiger at Dawn.
"Everything is closing, but tonight, we'll stay awhile...And if this darkness lingers, I'll fall to you just like a child. Pretty thing, I've got you, right where this trouble lands—with reckless burning, I have been charged again." ~Jesse Sykes, Reckless Burning
Emily regained her composure and sat back again.
There was a moment as the two women simply looked at one another, the reality of it all sinking in.
"Well, that was a hell of a going-away present," Emily quipped, and Erin immediately began to laugh, all of the nerves and uncertainty disappearing once more.
"That was a hell of a resignation letter," she replied.
Emily smiled, taking a moment to brush back a lock of Erin's hair with her left hand—the hand with the band-aid, the hand that started it all. She placed a kiss on that smooth forehead and pushed off, standing to collect her clothing.
Erin rose behind her, taking a moment to look back at the sofa and blush at the wet spots left on the cushions. She flipped them over, hiding the evidence—she would clean them by hand tomorrow, but for tonight, they could stay.
"There's some, um, Kleenex," Erin grabbed the box and offered it to Emily, who gratefully took some and began to gingerly clean away the stickiness on her thighs. Erin did the same, tossing the evidence in her waste bin and smiling ruefully at the fact that whomever came to empty it would have no idea that they were throwing away the last bits of physical proof that this strange thing had ever occurred (another story untold, another moment unnoticed, the world keeps turning and hearts keep burning). She could never tell anyone, and Emily would never tell anyone, and this moment, this breath, this feeling would go forever unknown. It was a strange thing, knowing she'd just written a chapter in her life's story that would never be read. She didn't regret it (regret wasn't productive, regret hindered performance, regret was a weakness) but she felt a slight pang at the fact that it was well and truly over.
"Nice tattoo." There was a smile in Erin's voice. "I didn't really notice it before."
The brunette raised her right arm, allowing her former boss a better look at the small Arabic scribble with a flower blooming out of it, just three inches below her arm pit, on the rib. "A political statement in my late teens. My mother was thrilled."
"Odd place for ink." Erin commented.
"Not the oddest." Emily stepped forward, hooking her bottom lip between her fingers and flipping it inside-out, so that Erin could see the black lines of another tattoo on the inside.
Erin gave a slight grimace, "Why the hell would you get one on the inside of your lip?"
"Because it's a secret," came the simple reply. She gave another small shrug, "You're the only person here who knows about it."
"What's it say?" Erin stepped forward, hoping for another glimpse. "It looks Latin, but my Catholic school grammar is a bit rusty."
This earned her a smile from the younger woman (of course she went to Catholic school).
"It's a secret."
Erin simply smiled. She understood the need to have secrets, the need to have some part of your life that was simply and truly your own—she also understood that regardless of what just happened, they were not at the level of sharing those kinds of secrets.
Emily slipped into her jeans again, hiding a smile as she felt the cool wetness on her knee (a piece of Erin, a small token, a physical reminder that this really just happened). Emily held up Erin's bra with a grin, "I think I might like to keep this. A souvenir."
The blonde snatched it from her with a light shake of her head and a feigned eye-roll. They finished redressing in silence, soft smiles and unvoiced thoughts.
"Could I walk out with you?" Emily asked, moving to the door but not actually opening it. Erin looked up, surprised, but she nodded in acquiescence.
"Just let me grab my things," she moved back behind her desk, picking up her bag and depositing her glasses in their case. She tried again to smooth her wayward locks into something a little more presentable, although she was fairly certain it was a lost cause. She made her way to the door, but Emily stopped her as she reached for the handle.
"I just…I need you to know that I'm not the kind of person who normally does this kind of thing," Emily said quietly. "I don't want you to think that I ever had any kind of relationship with any of the other agents. I'm not—"
"I know." Erin said quietly. She leaned forward again, her left index finger hooking Emily's belt loop and pulling the younger woman closer to her again. Her expression stilled as her green eyes (yes, green, they were pure green now) locked onto Emily's mouth. As if in a trance, she gently placed her fingertip at the corner of Emily's lips, tracing their outline with a slow softness that made the brunette's chest tighten again.
Those light eyes flicked upwards to meet dark ones again, breaths held and forgotten as the world stopped for another beat. Then Emily shifted forward slightly, slowly opening her mouth to take Erin's fingers in, tasting her own juices on the pads that had left deep red tracts on her skin, that had pillaged and plundered and ransacked the defenses of her world, that had helped her hold the match to the quivering bridge, dragging her headfirst into the flames.
Erin's fingers withdrew and were replaced by her mouth, her tongue searching out the salty tang of Emily's arousal, their lips both sharing the taste.
"It's our secret, Emily," she whispered, once they'd finally drawn apart.
"So we're back to first names?" Her dark brows arched playfully.
Her companion smirked and opened the door with a flourish. "For now."
They didn't promise to keep in touch (Emily wasn't that cruel, Erin wasn't that stupid). They didn't talk about it on the elevator, or on the long walk across the parking garage, or ever again, even when they did meet at the rare government function or fundraising gala.
Erin simply stopped next to her SUV, giving a quick two-finger salute and a knowing grin, hip popped out like some USO Poster Girl. Emily had never seen her act so sassy, so comical, and she gave a laugh, a true deep laugh from the bottom of her stomach. She returned the gesture and shook her head in wonder at the events of the evening. They both got in their vehicles, took a deep breath, and went their separate ways.
Emily went back to her apartment, back to the makeshift home that was already half-packed in boxes because she'd never felt comfortable enough to fully unpack. She took off her clothes, tossing her top and blazer in the clothes hamper. She hesitated when she came to the jeans. She tossed them aside. Maybe tomorrow she'd wash them. Not tonight.
The next morning, she noticed something in the mirror when she got out of the shower. There was a deep red mark, just under the swell of her right breast. She smiled softly, touching it reverently. She traced her fingers over the light dots forming over her biceps—one for each of Erin's pristinely-manicured fingers. So Erin had also left her mark.
When it disappeared several days later, she actually missed it.
Erin went home, to her quiet little house in her quiet little suburb, to her color-coordinated rooms of carefully arranged objets d'art and sleeping children and the bed that seemed too large now that her husband wasn't sleeping in it. She took off her shoes at the door, padding quietly into the laundry room, where she immediately put her clothes in the washing machine, finding a housecoat to throw over herself as she went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She slowly removed the robe, studying her reflection, her face flushing again at the sight of Emily's marks across her chest, her shoulders, her torso—Emily had been careful enough not to place them on her arms or lower legs, nowhere that would show when Erin was clothed. She mapped and catalogued them carefully, these tokens, these settlements established by that lovely mouth, these sites of passionate pilgrimage.
The next morning, she was sore, but she didn't care. She simply smiled.
The taste of whiskey still sends a soft warmth through Emily's body. Sometimes Erin looks over at the black leather sofa and a smile plays on her lips (the kind you use for lovers, for delicious secrets and passionate memories).
It would be easy to tumble into the rabbit hole of regret and longing, to over-romanticize those heated moments, to paint them with a rosy hue and pine for their loss. But Erin is practical and practical people don't pine. And Emily learned a long time ago to accept the fleeting nature of relationships, because that was how the story of her life had been built—a patchwork quilt of sweet moments and warm touches, from different hands at different times in different ways, sewn together with the thread of memory, becoming a comfortable thing she pulls over her mind in life's stormy times. Some pieces are larger than others, some appear in patterns, some are small pieces with no mates, no patterns, no connections. She doesn't know if this is a piece that will be forever without a match, she doesn't think she wants to know.
They move forward, move apart, move in the directions their lives were meant to go, down paths they wanted and chose many moons ago. And neither one regrets it for a single moment.
After all, the tiger doesn't feel remorse for being a tiger.
"The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you—it's strange what desire will make foolish people do. I never dreamed that I'd need somebody like you. I never dreamed that I'd know somebody like you." ~James Vincent McMorrow, Wicked Game
*Author's Note: To my ain true love-I know the secret of the tattoo on your lip, and its meaning, and it's mine to keep. Like my love is yours.*