Birthday Gift for Ariana.
Goodbye to Molching.
The words swirl in her head, twisting and turning and cleaving and uniting. Eight years to the day when she was delivered at the hands of a silver-eyed man and a cardboard woman, Liesel Meminger sits on the front steps of Alex Steiner’s shop, wrestling with the three words.
Did she ever plan to leave? An important question. Liesel ignores it because its weight is too much for her shoulders now. What strength she can muster goes into hammering three words into her head: Goodbye. To. Molching.
Perhaps, if the SCHNEIDERMEISTER hadn’t died the previous week.
She gives up. Instead, she abruptly stands and inserts a key into a lock. Soundlessly, she enters the tailor’s shop and greets the familiar mannequins, now chipped and forlorn. A memory of a lemon-haired boy in a suit walking towards her; butterflies in her stomach; a breath of relief when he trips on the way. She brushes it aside.
Time plays with her as she sits on the floor, rocking back and forth. She’s soaked in lukewarm sunlight coming in through the window, caressed by churning dust and embraced by nostalgia that has hardly been kind. Yet she won’t begrudge herself this last hour. She knows she owes Molching this much.
Max will arrive soon.
Max. Fist-fighter, basement-dweller and booksmith of old. Flitting in and out of her life ever so often. She never asks him where he disappears into when they are not together; it doesn’t matter as long as he returns.
Max. Sliding into the immeasurable void under her skin. Not enough, yet sufficient. One of the many unspoken promises he has made her is this: I will never leave you, because I have done enough leaving, and enough have left you.
Max. The sound of the door opening, the silence of the wordless entrance, the comfort and consolation nearing her, settling down. Feathers and a wary smile.
She looks up.
Soon, he seems to say. We’ll leave soon.
The funny thing about what follows next is that neither of them expects it to happen. Perhaps, it is something that once flitted across her mind; perhaps, it has been growing in the sporadic absences; perhaps, it is an epiphany. Liesel will not waste time wondering about the source, the symptoms, the cause. She will unlock herself, lean towards Max and touch his lips with hers.
He is surprised. He is hesitant. He is confused. He is scared. He is thrilled.
The contact breaks; the air hums.
She waits for him.
His hands - bruised and pale and haunted - reach for her cheeks and touch them.
A shiver.
Eternities are often contained in microscopic spans of time; this moment that passes between them is an example. Max ponders so many things. She is Liesel, he thinks. She’s … Liesel. Liesel. Liesel. The only reason left.
And what does Liesel have to say?
Max. Everything in Something. Something that loves her. Something she loves. She lost Rudy. She won’t lose him.
They seem to realise these things at exactly the same second, because he draws her in just as she moves closer. They are crushed in each other’s arms as the kiss consumes them.
The kiss.
What a kiss.
Of all the forces that drive it, lust is the least. It isn’t even on the radar yet. No, Liesel and Max’s kiss thrive on other things. Hunger. Need. Absolution. The utter joy of feeling yourself being filled to the brim. So much, so much.
They break off. Liesel is surprised to see Max’s eyes are wet. With a nervous smile, he makes to wipe them, but she reaches there first.
It’s salty. Salty, but real. Very, very real.
The smell of his skin is real.
The coarseness of his stubble is real.
Real and alive.
She wants this realness, this presence, this life which can be seen in the rise and fall of his chest and heard in his breath and felt in his warmth. She wants this badly very suddenly, and she doesn’t know why but that doesn’t matter. There is Max, pulsating almost, while everything else blurs and merges into themselves, no longer of any importance to her consciousness. There he is, all hers, forever hers, and it is scary and exciting and incredible, and she wants to claim him right now, right here.
Her lips are upon his again, and this time, a soft moan escapes them. She lets her hands roam over his hard, cardboard like chest, and although she can’t stop kissing him, there is this desperate need in her to have all of him, so her lips slip down and finds his neck as her fingers quickly open his buttons.
Max seems to be ready, for he doesn’t stop and demand to know what the hell she is doing. This is no longer the meaningfull kiss that was so devoid of the heat building in his body now. This is entirely something else, but he doesn’t complain.
No, he doesn’t say anything even when his shirt has been taken off by the ravenous Liesel, who is no longer a girl, no longer the book thief he knew, but someone more. More, more, more than that. He finds himself madly in love with her, with her unremarkable and worn blue tartan dress which makes her all the more beautiful, with her blond hair that has no business being tied in a ponytail (and to correct which, she pulls off the ribbon so that everything breaks loose and falls around her face and over her shoulders).
When, he wonders, did she grow into this?
A lump of guilt slides up his throat, and his hands, which were reaching out for the large round black plastic buttons on her shirt, stop halfway.
Liesel, he tries to say, except it is only a rasp.
She waits impatiently, although she knows why he has stopped. Yet she also feels the urgency of the thing, the need to act before the moment is smothered by hesitation and forced to sink into the pit of regrets. Max may worry she’s still too young for he doesn’t understand her youth ended a long time back. Max may be Max, and Liesel doesn’t have any time for his nonsense.
So Liesel takes his hands and lets them rest on her neck, the tip of his fingers meeting at the nape. She moves a few inches forward, her eyes never leaving his, closing the last remaining gap between them.
It’s all right, she murmurs, while hating the need to say the words aloud. I want this, I want you.
I want this, I want you.
And Max’s thoughts turn around so fast he feels dizzy. He wants this, he wants her! How has that ever escaped his notice? Why does he always return to her? Of course, he is aware he’s responsible for her, now that there’s no one left. Of course, she’s the only person he has left as well. Of course, of course, of course.
But buried under these dulling, obvious truths, there has been something else, and he doesn’t know where it has come from but it is there in its naked glory, red and vivid and imposing and laughing at him for being so utterly stupid. And Max orders it to shut up, because the time is right only now. Only now, things are unfolding; only now, things are correct and sensible; only now, things are valid.
So his hands are now trembling over the large round black plastic buttons, so he manages to fight his way through them, so he is blinded by the sight of her breasts, milky white in the shade of the room, with the deep brown nipples sticking up. He can see the goosebump all over them, and he thinks: his callused hands could only hurt them more.
They don’t.
The roughness of his skin is a shock, which surprises her because she is so familiar with its texture. Yet how is it that its melts so well into her unmarked one? How is it that when it glides over her stomach and her waist and her hips, it excites her? How is it?
Something is happening inside of Max, something words can only attempt to be. It’s shaped by the curve of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, the softness of her thigh; it’s calling him through her scent. He wants to drown in it, and he does.
Liesel cannot close her eyes. She is seeing Max, seeing him as she has never seen
him before, but then her feet are curling, and the ripples that pass over her entire body are alien and powerful and welcome, and she can’t help it. Her eyes are shut.
He tries his best not to hurt her.
She gasps in pain, but it is quickly gone. She doesn’t let him stop. His weight upon her is comforting; his thrusts into her earnest. She brings him into her arms, and plans never to let go.
Liesel, he murmurs. Liesel.
Goodbye. To. Molching.
Except she doesn’t have to. Molching will go with her wherever she ends up, for Max will never leave her.
The words swirl in her head, twisting and turning and cleaving and uniting. Eight years to the day when she was delivered at the hands of a silver-eyed man and a cardboard woman, Liesel Meminger sits on the front steps of Alex Steiner’s shop, wrestling with the three words.
Did she ever plan to leave? An important question. Liesel ignores it because its weight is too much for her shoulders now. What strength she can muster goes into hammering three words into her head: Goodbye. To. Molching.
Perhaps, if the SCHNEIDERMEISTER hadn’t died the previous week.
She gives up. Instead, she abruptly stands and inserts a key into a lock. Soundlessly, she enters the tailor’s shop and greets the familiar mannequins, now chipped and forlorn. A memory of a lemon-haired boy in a suit walking towards her; butterflies in her stomach; a breath of relief when he trips on the way. She brushes it aside.
Time plays with her as she sits on the floor, rocking back and forth. She’s soaked in lukewarm sunlight coming in through the window, caressed by churning dust and embraced by nostalgia that has hardly been kind. Yet she won’t begrudge herself this last hour. She knows she owes Molching this much.
Max will arrive soon.
Max. Fist-fighter, basement-dweller and booksmith of old. Flitting in and out of her life ever so often. She never asks him where he disappears into when they are not together; it doesn’t matter as long as he returns.
Max. Sliding into the immeasurable void under her skin. Not enough, yet sufficient. One of the many unspoken promises he has made her is this: I will never leave you, because I have done enough leaving, and enough have left you.
Max. The sound of the door opening, the silence of the wordless entrance, the comfort and consolation nearing her, settling down. Feathers and a wary smile.
She looks up.
Soon, he seems to say. We’ll leave soon.
The funny thing about what follows next is that neither of them expects it to happen. Perhaps, it is something that once flitted across her mind; perhaps, it has been growing in the sporadic absences; perhaps, it is an epiphany. Liesel will not waste time wondering about the source, the symptoms, the cause. She will unlock herself, lean towards Max and touch his lips with hers.
He is surprised. He is hesitant. He is confused. He is scared. He is thrilled.
The contact breaks; the air hums.
She waits for him.
His hands - bruised and pale and haunted - reach for her cheeks and touch them.
A shiver.
Eternities are often contained in microscopic spans of time; this moment that passes between them is an example. Max ponders so many things. She is Liesel, he thinks. She’s … Liesel. Liesel. Liesel. The only reason left.
And what does Liesel have to say?
Max. Everything in Something. Something that loves her. Something she loves. She lost Rudy. She won’t lose him.
They seem to realise these things at exactly the same second, because he draws her in just as she moves closer. They are crushed in each other’s arms as the kiss consumes them.
The kiss.
What a kiss.
Of all the forces that drive it, lust is the least. It isn’t even on the radar yet. No, Liesel and Max’s kiss thrive on other things. Hunger. Need. Absolution. The utter joy of feeling yourself being filled to the brim. So much, so much.
They break off. Liesel is surprised to see Max’s eyes are wet. With a nervous smile, he makes to wipe them, but she reaches there first.
It’s salty. Salty, but real. Very, very real.
The smell of his skin is real.
The coarseness of his stubble is real.
Real and alive.
She wants this realness, this presence, this life which can be seen in the rise and fall of his chest and heard in his breath and felt in his warmth. She wants this badly very suddenly, and she doesn’t know why but that doesn’t matter. There is Max, pulsating almost, while everything else blurs and merges into themselves, no longer of any importance to her consciousness. There he is, all hers, forever hers, and it is scary and exciting and incredible, and she wants to claim him right now, right here.
Her lips are upon his again, and this time, a soft moan escapes them. She lets her hands roam over his hard, cardboard like chest, and although she can’t stop kissing him, there is this desperate need in her to have all of him, so her lips slip down and finds his neck as her fingers quickly open his buttons.
Max seems to be ready, for he doesn’t stop and demand to know what the hell she is doing. This is no longer the meaningfull kiss that was so devoid of the heat building in his body now. This is entirely something else, but he doesn’t complain.
No, he doesn’t say anything even when his shirt has been taken off by the ravenous Liesel, who is no longer a girl, no longer the book thief he knew, but someone more. More, more, more than that. He finds himself madly in love with her, with her unremarkable and worn blue tartan dress which makes her all the more beautiful, with her blond hair that has no business being tied in a ponytail (and to correct which, she pulls off the ribbon so that everything breaks loose and falls around her face and over her shoulders).
When, he wonders, did she grow into this?
A lump of guilt slides up his throat, and his hands, which were reaching out for the large round black plastic buttons on her shirt, stop halfway.
Liesel, he tries to say, except it is only a rasp.
She waits impatiently, although she knows why he has stopped. Yet she also feels the urgency of the thing, the need to act before the moment is smothered by hesitation and forced to sink into the pit of regrets. Max may worry she’s still too young for he doesn’t understand her youth ended a long time back. Max may be Max, and Liesel doesn’t have any time for his nonsense.
So Liesel takes his hands and lets them rest on her neck, the tip of his fingers meeting at the nape. She moves a few inches forward, her eyes never leaving his, closing the last remaining gap between them.
It’s all right, she murmurs, while hating the need to say the words aloud. I want this, I want you.
I want this, I want you.
And Max’s thoughts turn around so fast he feels dizzy. He wants this, he wants her! How has that ever escaped his notice? Why does he always return to her? Of course, he is aware he’s responsible for her, now that there’s no one left. Of course, she’s the only person he has left as well. Of course, of course, of course.
But buried under these dulling, obvious truths, there has been something else, and he doesn’t know where it has come from but it is there in its naked glory, red and vivid and imposing and laughing at him for being so utterly stupid. And Max orders it to shut up, because the time is right only now. Only now, things are unfolding; only now, things are correct and sensible; only now, things are valid.
So his hands are now trembling over the large round black plastic buttons, so he manages to fight his way through them, so he is blinded by the sight of her breasts, milky white in the shade of the room, with the deep brown nipples sticking up. He can see the goosebump all over them, and he thinks: his callused hands could only hurt them more.
They don’t.
The roughness of his skin is a shock, which surprises her because she is so familiar with its texture. Yet how is it that its melts so well into her unmarked one? How is it that when it glides over her stomach and her waist and her hips, it excites her? How is it?
Something is happening inside of Max, something words can only attempt to be. It’s shaped by the curve of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist, the softness of her thigh; it’s calling him through her scent. He wants to drown in it, and he does.
Liesel cannot close her eyes. She is seeing Max, seeing him as she has never seen
him before, but then her feet are curling, and the ripples that pass over her entire body are alien and powerful and welcome, and she can’t help it. Her eyes are shut.
He tries his best not to hurt her.
She gasps in pain, but it is quickly gone. She doesn’t let him stop. His weight upon her is comforting; his thrusts into her earnest. She brings him into her arms, and plans never to let go.
Liesel, he murmurs. Liesel.
Goodbye. To. Molching.
Except she doesn’t have to. Molching will go with her wherever she ends up, for Max will never leave her.