Her eyes slowly opened, and she stared up at the ceiling, not quite understanding what she was seeing. But not caring to either. Desire could be sharp and uncomfortable, but right now it was like a gentle wave lapping over her body, ebbing and flowing with the slow thickness of her heart-beat.
Her hands were limp and open at her sides, and she slowly lifted one, resting just her fingertips on the exposed skin of her throat, right under her jaw. She felt the strong, steady throb of her pulse there, felt it stretching all the way down.
She had fallen back on the bed from her sitting position, leaving her legs to still dangle loosely over the edge. Her knees were parted slightly and her hand dragged slowly down over cloth. Then further. She smoothed the skirt down between her thighs, and her eyes fluttered closed and open as the heel of her palm kneaded against her throbbing sex.
Aki...
She bit her lip, pressing a little harder.
The water switched on in the bathroom with a muffled rush. She hesitated, turning her head slowly like a hunting animal, and slitted open her eyes. She focused with a strange dreaminess on the door. Heard the shower curtain rustle and close. Placing both hands down on the bed, she slowly pushed up, leaned on her arms and continued to stare at the door.
A long moment where she seemed to listen to her own breath, then she got to her feet, her moves feeling oddly smooth, and almost muted.
She had felt close to this before, hadn't she? A dreamy, soft hunger to her mind...
Her pace across the floor was unhurried, but intent. And she couldn't seem to focus her eyes on anything but that door. She didn't even try. Didn't want to. She didn't even really see it. She saw Aki, wet ivory and gold; flushed, sweet skin that could be hers. She wanted it.
She lifted one hand to the door, and then the other. She rested her body flush against it, closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to it, as if leaning on a lover's breast. She listened to the distant fall of water and felt her palms heating the cold wood beneath.
Aki...
I want...
Her right hand slid slowly down, dragging over rough, pitted wood, until her fingertips found the much colder surface of metal. She left them there for a long moment, as if to learn the feel of this isolated moment, then cupped her hand loosely around the knob.
She tightened her fingers to turn.
You do this, and that's it, her inner-voice whispered without inflection. You can have your dream, but be very sure you are ready to pay the price.
She didn't understand. She didn't understand concepts like 'consequences' at this particular moment.
You won't be able to turn back. He won't let you go. Do this. Let him inside, and this will be the path you walk for life...
She hesitated.
Don't misunderstand, her mind continued, I'm not telling you to stop. I'm just telling you what will be. You can walk this path with him, but it will be a path that will isolate you both from the rest of the world. Forever.
She opened her eyes and stared at that. Not picking the words apart or absorbing them, but something did stir in her mind. An understanding of some sort. Though she couldn't call it that at the moment.
We are already isolated from the world. The Mikages have made us this way.
Then the fleeting, seemingly non-linear thought: Aki is all that is real anymore...He is the only comfort in my life...
She didn't turn the knob, but didn't let it go either. The soft eddying of her desire was beginning to wash away...
Are you in love with him?
Her inner-voice seemed to think the answer to that would decide everything. But that was the one questiion she had no idea how to answer.
He seemed confident that she was, but how could he know? How could she tell? She loved him. She desired him.
But there was a line between 'love' and 'in love'. The desire seemed to make it harder for her to decide which side of the line she stood on.
That was her true hesitation, not guilt or shame.
Because whomever Aki gave his heart to-he deserved all of them in return. She couldn't be with him now, only to later realize that her feelings did not run as desperate and deep as his. Because being with him, and then not being with him...
It wouldn't be like any other boy. She couldn't bear a true rift between them. She had to know for certain. She couldn't risk everything on something as fleeting as lust.
Because, to be together in this world that would not understand them, they would both have to be very strong. And lust would quickly collapse under pressure.
I don't know. I loved him before. I desire him now (she still quailed at consciously admitting that).
With the combination of those two elements, how could one possibly push through them to see if that deeper emotion was there? How can you even tell the difference?
She let go of the knob, dropped her hand slowly to her side.
You couldn't. Not while you were so close to the situation, not while lust tinted your perception, so you couldn't tell if the love you felt was affection for a brother and friend, or the desperate strength of feeling one would have for a mate.
She turned her head slowly against the door and closed her eyes. She brought her hands up and rested palms and forearms against the wood as she leaned there and just...breathed.
The dull throb of desire was falling to pain. It was equal parts unfullfilment, confusion, and sadness.
She saw no path through this, and she feared the decisions she would make. The ones she would make in distraction and as a puppet to emotion, and the ones she would make in her attempts to sort truth from un-reality.
Maybe she even feared the decisions she would not, could not, make. Indecision could be a torment. For them both. But what else could she do? She kept deciding. She kept telling herself she did. She told herself she was firm. But he kept undermining her decisions, ignoring them, and countering them. And he had every right to-
She took away hope with one hand, then gave it back with the other. She said 'no' with her lips, but still reached and pulled him close with the force of desire in her eyes.
It was no wonder he didn't quite believe her 'no's'. She didn't quite mean them. And he could hear that. She knew he could. She didn't know how to stop...
I do know that...thoughts like that...don't help at all.
Her already closed eyes scrunched with something like pain, her brows slanting down in a decidedly unfamiliar expression.
Thoughts like that...only make me want him more...
They make it harder for me to care about what's wrong or right...
It is wrong.
Right?
She had never really had what you would call an attentive moral compass. She believed in wrong and right. But she just wasn't fanatical about it. But now...She waited for a solid answer, a solid pointing of the needle in one direction.
And nothing happened.
Nothing was guiding her...
How could her conscience seem just as hesitant as she was?
Emotions are not ruled by morality, despite how we might wish that to be so. Emotions are about need and instinct, and the purity of the id. That's why you cannot hold one decision firm...
You really do keep sabotaging yourself...
It makes you wonder, doesn't it?
She decided she didn't want to know.
It makes you wonder what exactly it is you are fighting. Not him, clearly. Not really. But yourself.
But what part of yourself-that is the question.
Leaning her forehead against the door, she tilted her chin down and sighed. She splayed her fingers on the wood and actually felt as if she were pushing at it. Maybe not to get in, maybe just to physically do something while her mind felt like it was stuck in place.
She really couldn't say either way.