INCEPTION: BY MY LARYNX AND MY LACK OF COMMON SENSE.
(it's you who keeps dragging me back) by my larynx and my lack of common sense. how is your spine? it's been quite some time since it packed up its shit up and left you behind. inception: arthur/ariadne, post-movie, nc-17, 1,044 words.
She sleeps with him for the first time after the job.
He finds her outside the airport and they go out for a drink, she orders wine, he does not. They speak of trivial things, she asks him questions that receive answered deadpanned and lost in the lip of his glass (I went to Yale, I'm from Denver, I always hated highschool) and he watches how it's low quality wine that stains her teeth.
The conversation cheapens with the alcohol.
And, sometime before eleven, they are in the bathroom, she is perched against the sink with skirt hoisted up around her waist and her panties twisted so his fingers can curl inside her and she will grip the wrist of the hand he has inside of her and say his name and then his tongue will be a warm and solid presence between her legs.
They will return to his apartment (he has the one in L.A. and one in Milan and one in Rome, he will have told her earlier) and she will be on top, shoulders curled and splayed flat against his chest.
It will be an accident.
She tells herself it will not happen again.
(Before all this, Arthur will say: "Another drink?")
-
Late at night, on the phone Arthur speaks like he's drinking when he isn't. It is dark in her hotel room and her phone is a blue glow from the bedside table. She doesn't sit up, simply reach across without looking and press the receiver against her ear, in an old t-shirt and panties.
"Where have you been?" Arthur asks.
"Around." She shrugs. "Paris, mostly, Copenhagen, Hong Kong and Athens. Maybe Canada? I think I went to Canada sometime?"
"Where are you now?" The way Arthur asks the question is odd to Ariadne, not like he is positioning on a globe with a tiny green pin, but as if they are in the same city and they are old friends meeting for coffee while the Smiths play over the loudspeaker.
"I'm in my hotel." She replies, slow and careful. "In Los Angeles and I'm tired."
"If only the world revolved around you, yes?"
(She is at his hotel an hour later he invites her in and takes her coat.
This is what happens next: he will offer her a drink, dim lights from the kitchenette the only ones in the entire suite. She will decline. The door handles are all brass and so is the bed, the sheets will smell like detergent and dryer sheets when he lays her down, mouths sloppy with lust.
He will be on top this time, head tipped and nose pressed against her shoulder, eyelashes fluttering sticky against her skin. She will come first, then him.
She will leave before he wakes for coffee.)
-
"It hurts when you leave without even a note." This is a phone call in the afternoon, this is her in a cafe in London, this is espresso's and iron tables.
"Don't take it personal." She will tell him in monotone. "You have my number don't you?"
"That's not the point I'm trying to make."
"I know." There is a couple kissing across from her and she wonders how she ended up like this and they ended up like that, maybe it's the people involved, maybe it's the situation, maybe this what she wants, to run and for him to catch her.
The line is dead with silence for a long time. Then,
"Where are you?"
She tells him. He tells her in return. She will go. They will both come.
-
"I don't think this is what was meant for me." She says, stupored with post-coital, naked and on top of the sheets, the steady beat of a fan cooling the sweat and the blood in her veins.
"Of course it wasn't." Arthur lights a cigarette with a match, his word muffled around the curve of it.
She stares at the ceiling, the window closed and after-diner light pouring in from between the lace floor-to-ceiling curtains.
He pulls smoke from in and out of his mouth, the tip of it wet and shiny and she cannot help it, there is a glimpse of pink tongue and she has knows where it has been and the space between her legs is hot again.
She ignores it, tells him, "I should have finished school."
-
Sometime before the summer, she thinks she should go to Spain.
She is brought over to Dublin instead, a small booth inside a small pub, large glasses of beer and Arthur sitting across from her. "What are you doing out here?" She asks him.
"I'm was working." He replies, eyebrow raised because what else would he be doing? and she realizes quickly this was a stupid question.
"Was?"
He nods and thumbs the lip of the beer glass, it rings with the way he drags him thumb over it. "The job's done."
And she knows this evening will end in his hotel room. (She imagines: his fingers inside her first, two, twisting and his other hand with stroke her hair and his tongue will be in her mouth and everything will be bright and sharp even in the dark.
She will turn him over and swallow him whole.
He'll come twice. Once when she sucks him off, and once when she sinks down onto him and bites at his ear.
She will come once, but he will make up for it in the shower the next morning, sink to his knees and push his tongue inside her.)
(What will really happen is: she'll suck him off in the doorway, hand fisted in her hair and the other bracing him against the wall, he'll still be wearing his vest and tie, pants caught around his thighs and belt buckle at her chin. They'll fuck and she will be on top until just before he comes, at which time he'll roll her over to push into her further.
She will wake the next morning to a note that says he has already checked out, she needs to leave before ten am.)
-
She spends time in Germany. She goes to Munich and Frankfurt and stops to draw in Berlin.
She waits for his call.
She sleeps with him for the first time after the job.
He finds her outside the airport and they go out for a drink, she orders wine, he does not. They speak of trivial things, she asks him questions that receive answered deadpanned and lost in the lip of his glass (I went to Yale, I'm from Denver, I always hated highschool) and he watches how it's low quality wine that stains her teeth.
The conversation cheapens with the alcohol.
And, sometime before eleven, they are in the bathroom, she is perched against the sink with skirt hoisted up around her waist and her panties twisted so his fingers can curl inside her and she will grip the wrist of the hand he has inside of her and say his name and then his tongue will be a warm and solid presence between her legs.
They will return to his apartment (he has the one in L.A. and one in Milan and one in Rome, he will have told her earlier) and she will be on top, shoulders curled and splayed flat against his chest.
It will be an accident.
She tells herself it will not happen again.
(Before all this, Arthur will say: "Another drink?")
-
Late at night, on the phone Arthur speaks like he's drinking when he isn't. It is dark in her hotel room and her phone is a blue glow from the bedside table. She doesn't sit up, simply reach across without looking and press the receiver against her ear, in an old t-shirt and panties.
"Where have you been?" Arthur asks.
"Around." She shrugs. "Paris, mostly, Copenhagen, Hong Kong and Athens. Maybe Canada? I think I went to Canada sometime?"
"Where are you now?" The way Arthur asks the question is odd to Ariadne, not like he is positioning on a globe with a tiny green pin, but as if they are in the same city and they are old friends meeting for coffee while the Smiths play over the loudspeaker.
"I'm in my hotel." She replies, slow and careful. "In Los Angeles and I'm tired."
"If only the world revolved around you, yes?"
(She is at his hotel an hour later he invites her in and takes her coat.
This is what happens next: he will offer her a drink, dim lights from the kitchenette the only ones in the entire suite. She will decline. The door handles are all brass and so is the bed, the sheets will smell like detergent and dryer sheets when he lays her down, mouths sloppy with lust.
He will be on top this time, head tipped and nose pressed against her shoulder, eyelashes fluttering sticky against her skin. She will come first, then him.
She will leave before he wakes for coffee.)
-
"It hurts when you leave without even a note." This is a phone call in the afternoon, this is her in a cafe in London, this is espresso's and iron tables.
"Don't take it personal." She will tell him in monotone. "You have my number don't you?"
"That's not the point I'm trying to make."
"I know." There is a couple kissing across from her and she wonders how she ended up like this and they ended up like that, maybe it's the people involved, maybe it's the situation, maybe this what she wants, to run and for him to catch her.
The line is dead with silence for a long time. Then,
"Where are you?"
She tells him. He tells her in return. She will go. They will both come.
-
"I don't think this is what was meant for me." She says, stupored with post-coital, naked and on top of the sheets, the steady beat of a fan cooling the sweat and the blood in her veins.
"Of course it wasn't." Arthur lights a cigarette with a match, his word muffled around the curve of it.
She stares at the ceiling, the window closed and after-diner light pouring in from between the lace floor-to-ceiling curtains.
He pulls smoke from in and out of his mouth, the tip of it wet and shiny and she cannot help it, there is a glimpse of pink tongue and she has knows where it has been and the space between her legs is hot again.
She ignores it, tells him, "I should have finished school."
-
Sometime before the summer, she thinks she should go to Spain.
She is brought over to Dublin instead, a small booth inside a small pub, large glasses of beer and Arthur sitting across from her. "What are you doing out here?" She asks him.
"I'm was working." He replies, eyebrow raised because what else would he be doing? and she realizes quickly this was a stupid question.
"Was?"
He nods and thumbs the lip of the beer glass, it rings with the way he drags him thumb over it. "The job's done."
And she knows this evening will end in his hotel room. (She imagines: his fingers inside her first, two, twisting and his other hand with stroke her hair and his tongue will be in her mouth and everything will be bright and sharp even in the dark.
She will turn him over and swallow him whole.
He'll come twice. Once when she sucks him off, and once when she sinks down onto him and bites at his ear.
She will come once, but he will make up for it in the shower the next morning, sink to his knees and push his tongue inside her.)
(What will really happen is: she'll suck him off in the doorway, hand fisted in her hair and the other bracing him against the wall, he'll still be wearing his vest and tie, pants caught around his thighs and belt buckle at her chin. They'll fuck and she will be on top until just before he comes, at which time he'll roll her over to push into her further.
She will wake the next morning to a note that says he has already checked out, she needs to leave before ten am.)
-
She spends time in Germany. She goes to Munich and Frankfurt and stops to draw in Berlin.
She waits for his call.