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Mistletoe
I half see you, half know you
Take care if you turn now to face me
She slips into the bustling room, a moth among butterflies. The chatter and the gossip hold little interest for her, but she throws in a word here and there. A joke, a barbed bit of wit, hello and how are you, a chorus of twittering cockatoos.
Seriousness isn't welcome in the festive gathering; the talk is all froth and bubbles, like the champagne they pass around, and she abides by their convention from civility and habit. It's as much her camouflage as it is theirs. She seeks out the boy, hungry, hunting, the beginnings of fascination fizzing in her stomach.
Their eyes meet. Yes, across a crowded room - she revels in the cliché. It's almost a private joke, shared in that skittish glance that lasts a handful of seconds. The flash of his smile is unexpected, crafting a brief electric intimacy, and it takes on a wicked slant as he beckons her with one finger.
She waits a few moments, just to prove she can, just to prove he has no hold over her. And then she gives in, and winds through the crowds towards him, her movements measured, leisured, dipping into conversations she has no care for to deny him any whiff of a victory.
Looking up, she finds him gone. He has moved away, sinking into another net of conversation. She begins to sense the shape of this game, teasing, subtle, intensely private.
He spares her a glance over his shoulder, the intent clear: come and catch me, if you want me.
The seduction of his absence is stealthy and novel. She could refuse the invitation, she supposes, but why? To tend her hollow heart, which is already halfway to healing? She'd just be wallowing in self-pity, and she really can't see the point.
It gives her a dark, snug pleasure to think of them playing hide and seek among unknowing acquaintances. A child's game, elevated with an adult's intent.
And so she comes to know him at a distance; over shoulders and framed in gaps between bodies, perceived through the reactions of others. A volley of laughter from one group, a woman's scandalous gasp a moment later. Clinking glasses, and the cool murmur of his voice, muffled under a dozen other conversations. His path is revealed by the noise he leaves in his wake, this chaos butterfly of high order, and in the brief clashes of their eyes which bring to her dark, declious thoughts: of tangled covers, heavy heat, of rhythm and creaks and wonder.
She cannot explain his magnetism, only acknowledge it.
The distance between them reduces down, mutual gravity drawing them closer. She becomes used to the languid rhythms of his speech – quickening only to deliver some sharpened phrase, little verbal blades that leave those puddles of laughter. Puzzled laughter, she comes to realise, from people unsure if the joke is on them.
And ending another breezy conversation, she turns – and he is there, his stage smile as fake as hers. They remain alone, the privacy of a possible couple respected by a roomful of people who live on vicarious thrills.
"Well, fancy seeing you here," he says, amusement curling under the words. "I didn't frighten you off, then."
"I think you overestimate yourself," she answers, testing him as he has been testing her.
"Not in the slightest. I know exactly what I'm capable of." He rolls the words on his tongue like an actor, but she can't fault his delivery. "All sorts of nefarious things."
"Then I don't think a girl of my good standing should risk her reputation with you."
"You're probably right," he agrees, and leans in. She doesn't shrink back; this is a confrontation, after all, and so the space between them shrinks down to petal-thinness, his hand light and impersonal on her shoulder, his voice anything but as his breath brushes her ear. "Well, if standing won't do, I'm perfectly prepared to risk your reputation sitting down."
Startled laughter escapes her, and he's stepped back, bottom lip between his teeth, wearing a demure expression that just doesn't match up to the purring promise in those words.
"Risk it or ruin it?"
"Oh, whichever's more fun." He takes a sip from his glass, full now, and the dark red liquid leaves a brief stain on his mouth before he licks it off; the image stays with her, only it's her lipstick he's tasting, the lingering traces of her lips.
She loves and loathes the feel of desire; it's bright and sharp and intoxicating, the first notes of what will inevitably be a requiem: all things end, that's her mantra. She tries to harden her heart with it, but never succeeds. Desire leads to pleasure, to gratification, to soft words and caresses, and to time passing. Enough time passing, and the soft words become laced with regret; one way or another, she's left bereft.
Such is her existence, moving from person to person in a dance echoed by everyone in the world. A familiar routine, longing for the first flush of love, certain one day the first flush will never fade, equally certain of its effervescence.
And she enjoys it every time. Strangest of all, really – she never learns. Never changes.
"Ruin me, then," she challenges, and meets his eyes, which are dark and secretive and unreadable as the sea.
His glass is drained in one movement, droplets left clinging to the rim, merging and swelling like the hope she's starting to feel, the promise of something new and fresh. "My pleasure."
"What? I thought it was supposed to be mutual." She sweetens the words with a smile, playful as a kitten, claws unsheathed.
"It will be," he answers, tone soft and slow.
Something's beginning, and it delights her as much as it saddens her.
"And will you ruin me in front of a crowd?" she asks, as coy as he is brazen.
His mouth curves. "Certainly not. There's a perfectly good hallway everyone's avoiding." He steps backward, and beckons her once more; behind him, the knots of onlookers part like the curtains drawing back on the first act of a play.
She shrugs off the interested stares as if they're gossamer-light, her attention swallowed by him, leading her on to what may come, though part of her already knows: to an ending. But before that, fragile joys, tender moments, the chance to learn him in character, in mind, in body. Chances she will not pass up.
In his face is the premonition of that kiss, hovering in the space between them that will dwindle to the thinness of heat and clothing, speeding up her heart.
We'll kiss under poison: it's fitting, at least.
In the hallway, under the mistletoe, he waits. And she knows this is the last moment she can turn back; she can change, she can choose.
She chooses him.
~*~