More bits and pieces
See here for a bit of an explanation.
Title: Passing the Hours
Author: Linsey
Couple: Mi/L
Disclaimer: I own only the characters you don’t remember from the TV show, all else belongs to Katims and company.
Summary: Michael paints and contemplates how he marks the time.
Author’s Note: Companion to “Surviving Santa Clara.”
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[I]“…Many in the art community have remarked on Mr. Guerin’s tendency to use female subjects in his works. Several of his most famous pieces from Singing Oklahoma’s transparent woman doing the dishes to Nightmare II’s bloody and bruised girl-woman act as a focus for our emotions, commanding us to feel the same sadness, nostalgia, rage or happiness that artist himself felt. The women in these paintings command our attention, drawing us, the viewers, in until their images blaze themselves on to our brains. This is not to say that his paintings and drawings lacking a human subject are any less powerful, nor do they lack the feminine influence that marks his other works. Each painting gives us the feeling that the mysterious she has been there, or will be coming, the reason for her presence depending on the work. Given the severity of Guerin’s early life in the foster system, it amazes many that he is able to produce work of such depth and attachment, leading one to wonder if the time of his childhood was not marked by minutes or hours, but by the women who passed it with him.”[/I]
[right]~ A. Zanta, Associated Press[/right]
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He contemplated the canvas in front of him, the smell of turpentine and paint lingering in the air. Thick oils delineated each feature, each face except for the last one, the one he could not paint yet. Soon. The moment crept closer each day, but since she would not arrive until she was ready, he contented himself with the others, letting the memories wash over him with each stroke of the brush.
Only the minutest details remained, details that he had not planned on approaching until later, but the article had hit so close to the truth that he had found himself heading towards the painting without any conscious thought. The sibilant rasp of scissors cutting through paper reached his ears from the kitchen. She was cutting out the newest article on his work to add to the collection she had started years ago. He always asked her why she bothered; he didn’t care what the reporters thought. He painted for himself, not for the stick up their ass critics that had to review because they did not have the talent to make the art themselves. She would listen to him repeat the same rant against the scions of the art world patiently before finally explaining that she did not save them for him, but for those to come. “Your ego is big enough already Michael, I’m doing this for our future children.”
He wondered if she realized they repeated the whole routine time and again because he secretly loved hearing her talk about their future like that, so definite, so assured. It was comforting for a man who never had any real permanence in his life. He had been fully prepared to follow the script this morning when he had found the Times next to his coffee, but his wife had not cooperated.
“Someone has finally figured out your secret Michael.” She grinned. “I didn’t know they had spies in the art world.”
He shot her a confused look, which she ignored, suddenly engrossed in the book she had been reading. He would have tried for an explanation, but he feared that his darling wife would spout some “interesting” fact from her newest tome, and the title alone, Natural Childbirth and You, was enough to give him chills. He focused his attention instead on the article she had been taunting him with. It was full of the same old nonsense and flowery tone that seemed to dominate the art world reviews, yet another reporter trying to prove that they had a direct feed into the artist’s mind. It used all the right buzzwords, naming him the “hot new artist of this year.” He chuckled, partially because it was bullshit, partially because he had earned the same title three years ago in a West Coast publication. When would they get some new material?
The whole article struck him as recycled bits of those who had come before all the way up to the last paragraph, which grabbed him by the throat and refused to let go. Although it was simple black and white, it seemed to blaze from the page. [I]“…it amazes many that he is able to produce work of such depth and attachment, leading one to wonder if the time of his childhood was not marked by minutes or hours, but by the women who passed it with him.”[/I]
He did not remember leaving the table, nor answering his wife’s teasing about art world insider trading. He could not put in to words why he could not laugh with her that one of them, this unknown critic that he had never heard of, had managed to get it right after seven years of the rest of them failing miserably. It spooked him that someone else had managed to see what he did, what Liz did. He did not remember walking down to his studio, but he found himself standing in front of his newest work, paint brush in hand.
The first was in profile, a gentle flow of high forehead to aristocratic nose, laugh lines permanently carved deep into her cheeks. Susanna…Susanna who took in foster children because cancer had stolen her uterus, Susanna with the out loud personality and the body too weak to house it. She had been the first. His first attempted mother, his first taste of Earth, the giver of his first word. His first night in her house she sang him to sleep to quiet his nightmares, a husky voice singing show tunes and lullabies to penetrate his fear.
[I]Momma Sue, baby. Just call me Momma Sue.[/I]
His first word had been Oklahoma. Momma Sue used to sing the pieces from the musical when she washed the dishes, worn ballet slippers covering feet that used to have the strength to go on point, to tap, to do more than move about the house. The word seemed magical to him though because all little Momma Sue had to do open up her mouth and out it would burst, long and pure. He would practice shaping his mouth like hers in the mirror, try to produce the same sound after she and Bill had gone to bed. Momma always seemed happy when she sang, and he wanted to know how it felt.
Three weeks after he moved in with them, Momma Sue stopped singing. She looked more drawn, and her shiny blonde hair-the hair he liked to bury his face in when he had a nightmare-became lank and dull. He did not understand until years later what Bill meant when he said that the cancer was back.
The next face was turned almost completely away, only a sliver of worn, sallow flesh peeking out from behind graying hair. Marge. Even now her name struck him as an apt reflection on her harsh personality. Marge had been disappointed by life, rundown. She did not sing like Momma Sue, or hug him. She treated her home like a halfway house for the children passing through, tossing him sheets and leaving one of the older kids to show him around.
Marge had cleaned houses for twenty years, leaving her with slumped shoulders, rough hands and an obsessive need for order. She assigned chores like a drill sergeant. He earned her attention by completing his tasks efficiently, making his bed with tight corners, carrying his plate to the sink without complaint. His reward was the hesitant pat of scratchy skin and the loathing of those around him. The other kids, all boys, all older, taunted him. They called him dumb, strange. They tripped him, elbowed him, took turns waking him up at odd hours.
During the second week at Marge’s, nine days into the constant harassment, he broke. One of the oldest boys-funny how he could not remember anyone’s name but Marge’s-pushed him as he got up to put his plate away. He couldn’t take it anymore, the feelings that had been building inside of him came blasting out, spinning the table and its contents out at his tormentors. He had his revenge, but after Marge looked at him with fear in her eyes. There were no more uncomfortable little pats, and he left her home two days later. That was his first lesson in control, in closing off.
The next lesson would come with Sarah. Sarah whose voice trembled when the social worker brought him to meet her. Sarah who hugged too tight, and could never run fast enough to escape Hank’s fists. Even in the painting, her eyes were downcast, refusing to meet the viewer’s, refusing to meet his. A huge mottled bruise radiated from her left eye, colors bleeding into one another. It saddened him that even after living with her for a year and a half before she ran; he could only remember how he saw her on the final day, bruised and fearful.
The memory made his fingers clench, snapping the delicate handle of the brush he been using to deepen the purple. It was that time with Sarah, that time spent dodging Hank, that he learned he could sense other people’s feelings. Her feelings hurt his head, all jittering pain and fear, love and abandonment. What hurt him the most was that she thought she deserved it, the acceptance so closely entwined with the shame. She could hide the bruises on her ribs, but she could not hide the feelings that seemed to ripple off of her. Sarah unintentionally helped to close off more, shut the little door that was letting her feelings in. At first he dodged the suffocating hugs physically, but when he saw how much it hurt her, he learned to dodge them in his mind, to stand perfectly still and hold back. Sarah did not seem to care; she just needed someone to hold on to.
To this day, he still was not sure what finally made her run. Maybe it was the extent of her injuries after Hank had thrown her against the breakfast bar in their tiny trailer. Maybe she had finally had enough. Those had been some theories, ones that he wished he could believe, but he knew the truth. Sarah had been at least two months pregnant before hitting the breakfast bar. He knew because he had felt it growing inside her, calming the jitters. The next day though, when he had found Sarah packing, he could not feel the baby anymore. It was gone. Hank had finally taken away the one thing that Sarah ever wanted, someone completely of her own to hold.
The last hug he gave had been to heal, although he did not know he was capable of it at the time. Standing there watching as she got ready to leave he had realized that he would never see her again, one more person in his life gone with out a sign that they had been there. He had grown use to her frantic presence in the back of his mind, the willowy sound of her voice, the crushing embraces that he had once tried to avoid. One minute he was standing off to the side of the car, and the next he was reaching through the window, wrapping his arms and his mind around her. The healing of her ribs and other injuries was not conscious choice, simply the result of trying to combat some of the pain he felt when he connected. He had taken her pain into himself, and then she had driven away. He had known he could not leave, but a part of him had wanted to. It was that part that cried every night for a week after she left.
“What’s your favorite part of Michael’s body?” Maria’s voice blared from the phone, shattering the peaceful state my bath had created.
“Ex-excuse me?” I barely stopped myself from dunking the receiver in the water.
“Michael’s body. You’re favorite part.” I heard the clash of dishes and the chatter of conversation in the background. “I’m doing a [i]Cosmo[/i] quiz and I realized I didn’t know what my favorite part of Jason’s body was. So spill on Michael’s bod, I always liked his-”
“I’ll, uh, have to call you back on that,” I murmured, interrupting quickly. There were some things that we just didn’t need to share as friends.
Dropping the phone on the small table I had installed next to the tub, I leaned my head back against the porcelain rim. My favorite part of Michael’s body? Couldn’t she have made it a little easier? There was so much of the Michael that was unique and different, so much that I still hadn’t observed or experienced. And what counted as part of his body?
For me there was the ethereal: the heart that made him go out of his way to help someone or please me, his mind with its constant analysis and grasp of abstract thought, the sound of his voice and the way it would deepen to that low husky note as he looked up at me through his lashes. Dear lord, that look!
Which brought me to the physical: the clarity of his eyes; the strong, rough hands on my skin; the strength of his arms when he wrapped them around me at night; his lips; his…
I sunk down, letting the water close over my head.
What was Maria thinking, asking me a question like that?
* * * * *
Michael sprawled across the bed. We had found a California King, but every night the same thing happens, him sleeping diagonally; one arm anchored across my hips, his head resting on my stomach. He slept that way now, his hair tickling my diaphragm, his breath a moist caress on my skin.
Propped up slightly by the pillows, I stared down at him. At one time I found this position uncomfortable, difficult to breathe around. Michael tried to stop, even tried stuffing pillows between for about three hours until he balked at the extreme. Still, every morning we would wake up in the same position and I realized that it didn’t seem to bother me in my sleep. Michael seemed to need the connection-and find me more comfortable than a pillow-so I was his human teddy bear.
I tried to explain that once, but he took offense. “You’re more than comfort.”
His look was so clear, hot, that I blushed for days just remembering.
Smiling, I let my hand drop to his back. Those eyes. Why did Maria have to make it so difficult?
My palm coasted up along muscles it rested over the protrusion of bone at the base of his neck. The first thoracic vertebrae. This was how I slept, my thumb tunneled into his hair, my fingers loosely wrapped along the contours of his neck. Sometimes, if he lay just right, I could feel his pulse under my middle finger as I fell asleep reviewing the day.
This was my comfort. My more in the middle of the night.
I stared into the darkness, massaging my palm into his skin.
I think I know my favorite part of Michael’s body.
Who knew that the T1 vertebrae had such importance.
Title: Heat stroke: a scientific study
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Liz puts the scientific method to good use.
A/N: This is certainly not what I expected to write when I woke up this morning.
[i]"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."[/i] -William Bragg, Sr.
(who would probably be appalled to find his words used thusly)
[b]I. Observation[/b]
She tried to be scientific, detached. The physical discomfort was not caused by the wetness that defined sweat, but rather how the biological reaction made a person completely and totally aware of one’s whole body. Skin stuck and slipped, clothing clung, and perspiration gathered in every crease and hollow. Air-conditioning became both a pleasure and a torture; each stirring of air heightened the feelings that crawled through her skin, causing goose bumps and prickles in the 100-plus heat.
Her mind and body were held captive by the sensation, the cloying press of temperature and time, focused on each incremental movement. The minute interactions of the everyday were overexposed, humid with new meaning.
New possibilities within the mundane.
The moisture on his skin grabbed at the folds of his t-shirt, revealing muscle definition that she hadn’t known existed beneath the baggy fabric whose front advertised a concert long faded from memory and cloth. The same dampness bunched his lashes together, forming a dark frame around eyes that saw far more than they showed.
She found herself more aware of Michael in this state, alert to his moments, his gaze. The weather caught at her mind, reminding her of the last heat wave and her first understanding of the fact that life was changing around her; people awakening to the play of emotions and hormones. Circumstances were different now, and perhaps the off-again state of everyone’s relationships was the cause of the building the tension.
Or maybe the weather was just pushing her over the ill-defined edge of sanity and she was imagining things.
Sometimes Liz thought she felt him watching her, a tickling that started at the backs of her knees and traveled slowly up her thighs. She would still inside, falling back on the mechanical patter that appeased the customer, while her mind followed the phantom sensations under the slick polyester of her uniform. Sometimes he stayed confined to the lower half of her body, causing the involuntary clench of her stomach, the not-quite-roll of her hips. When this happened, she would sneak a deep breath, swallow down the heat, and rip her mind away from the reactions she couldn’t fight, couldn’t prove were real. A glance over her shoulder would reveal nothing more than a man busily working a stove, she knew that-he was too good to get caught-so she fought for her focus and won.
Sometimes, though, he continued his journey up her back, seeming to wrap his personality around to contract her nipples all the while brushing against the nape of her neck. On the rare occasions this would happen, she couldn’t fight her response: her words garbled into a sigh, she found herself caressing the edge of her order pad with her thumb even as she swung around to try to catch him in the act. Inevitably his attention would be on the grill, his face free from the tension she knew was caught on her own. He wasn’t watching her. He couldn’t be watching her.
His appearance gave absolutely no indication.
Face wrinkled into a smirk at whatever remark Maria threw his way, he flipped burgers and dispatched fries in a smooth, uninterrupted pattern. There were no sidewise glances, but, maybe, just maybe, his movements seemed slower, a touch lethargic, as if something had captured a bit of his attention from the job and held it in thrall deep inside his mind.
She couldn’t though. Couldn’t guarantee that she wasn’t just projecting.
Maybe she was going crazy, given to wild imaginings caused not by reality but the hormones that seemed to become more active with each rising degree.
But then again, the sensations were never present when someone else was working the grill, the awareness never as heightened when Max was watching her.
The heat was different, more intense. It overpowered the senses, took control. Not a gentle push but a dominating wave that swept her into parts of her mind that she thought she had boxed away. Sexuality distracted from her goal to get out, break free of constraints, it left ties far deeper and stronger than words and promises. So far she had managed to avoid that last step into forever with Max, had never gotten close with Kyle, but when he watched her she felt the hesitation she’d frozen herself in trickle down the back of her neck to be wiped away by the collar of her uniform.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she controlled the situation, the outcome.
Maybe she should go take a cold shower and forget she ever entertained the thought.
Sweat slid between the valley of her breasts, wetting the cotton of her bra. Mrs. Larson stared at her strangely, her gaze hardening into a glare. When that didn’t elicit the response she wanted, she cleared her throat. Obviously Liz was not covering her…agitation very well. Frowning, the girl forced her attention back to her customers, turning to take Mr. Larson’s order. His eyes never rose above her chest.
Maybe her customer service was not what Mrs. Larson had a problem with.
[b]II. Hypothesis[/b]
She’d discarded all other alternatives: Max, someone unknown, her own desire to be free. Each had proven impossible under intense scrutiny.
Max’s eyes evoked sadness for what they had before his destiny, and understanding of how fragile young love can be, how cerebral. Even when she’d been pulled by emotions, they had been heartfelt, not hormonally driven.
And her body was definitely doing the driving now.
As for the stranger theory, the idea of some unknown watcher held no merit after she nixed everyone outside of the optimum age group. There was no one consistently present in the Crashdown; no one who could possibly be the source of the intense focus she felt on her body.
Her own “Get out of Roswell” fund was growing at a healthy rate thanks to the larger than average tips she’d been getting lately from the older men in town, and she’d been accepted, full scholarship, into a science program at U.C. Berkeley for next summer. So what she was feeling couldn’t possibly some twisted form of her own need to escape the confines of Roswell, and find…
Well…
Release.
She was ninety-nine percent, without almost a smidgen of a doubt, positive that Michael was the one watching her, touching with his eyes. For a split-second, she’d caught their reflection in the dusty glass of the front window as she went to draw the blinds. It could be no fluke that it coincided with a lick of heat that sent her rushing to the Ladies to run cold water over her wrists, rest wet towels along her neck.
It just couldn’t be.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling. The heavy scent of the ylang-ylang candles that Maria had given her mixed with the citrus-sunshine of her sheets to coat her skin. The blend was hypnotic, drowning, as she watched the waver of the shadows above her. Hands danced and bodies moved as each black shade formed and reformed in accordance to her imagination.
Her own fingers traced along the scalloped waist of her panties, slipping below.
Ninety-nine percent sure.
And if she was wrong, and the lack of any reaction voided her belief in this new reality, so be it.
She would be the only one to know.
But if she was right, then maybe this was all tied in with the weather. Some kind of meteorological phenomenon.
She pressed deep, in, fingertips finding a wetness sweat could never match, and her inner tension blazed higher.
Dear God, there was a part of her that hoped she was right.
Needed it no matter how insane the idea was.
For the sake of her own sanity if nothing else.
[b]III. Testing[/b]
She started out small, unwilling to let her plans be known to anyone, even Maria.
Especially Maria.
She was pretty sure that this violated every best friend principle in the book, which was almost enough to make her stop before she started.
But it was like his eyes had taken control of her body, burning her from the inside out. Her walls were the first to collapse, then her morals, all falling to feed the tension flickering throughout her body.
There was only enough of her mind left to keep it subtle: a brush of their shoulders as he helped her fill the sugar dispensers; bending a bit more at the waist instead of the knees when she went to pick something up; instead of being so blatant as to open a button on her uniform, she would simply tug at the front to “circulate air” affording glimpses of bare skin and skimpy lace.
Only on her breaks, when she knew no one would see, did she let herself indulge in openness. She began to study him, tracing the swirl of damp hair against his neck, the strain of muscles beneath his clothes. A single drop of moisture running down his cheekbone could consume ten minutes or more until he finally wiped it away. She found herself wondering if it carried the same taste as the salt that beaded on her upper lip. Her imagination conjured images of approaching him and licking the remnants from the back of his hand with a quick, cat-like dart of her tongue. Sanity only reared in time for her to look away before he caught her in the act, but she couldn’t stop from sucking in her lower lip.
After a few days, Maria asked if she was on drugs. The question was jarring cold in the cauldron of Liz’s mind, and it snapped her out of the hormone induced trance. “Of course not.”
Drugs would be a whole lot easier to explain…but carried far less appeal.
“Then what’s up, Chica, ‘cause you’ve been checked out of the reality hotel for awhile now.” Her friend regarded her, face open. The multitude of butterfly clips that held her twisted hair from her eyes seemed to quiver with expectation.
What could she possibly say?
“It’s…hormones.” Okay, that sounded weak. More than weak. The only people who would possibly fall for that excuse were those possessing a Y chromosome.
“You’ve been PMSing all week?” Skepticism apparent, Maria proved once again that she was the proud owner of a pair of Xs. “Not even Isabel can make that excuse work.”
Liz ran her hand along her periwinkle lapel, nails scraping her skin. He was watching again. Damn him. “Not [i]those[/i] kinds of hormones.”
For a moment the other girl went blank, puzzled, before understanding slid into place. “Oh.”
“Oh,” she repeated, her tone deeper, drawling. A smile-small, knowing-shaped her lips. “It has been hot lately, hasn’t it?”
“Roasting,” Liz responded. What was going on?
“Just…” Maria paused, as if searching for the right words, “don’t get burned.”
Laughter burbled, burst from her throat to shatter the tension of his gaze on her back. “Cliché much?”
“If the shoe fits…” Maria’s laughter, when it came, did not hold the same sharpness of relief. The blond glanced over Liz’s shoulder briefly before meeting her gaze. “Just be careful.”
The words stayed with Liz even after Maria’s shift was over. They circled within her mind, clashing.
What she was doing was the antithesis of careful.
[i]But then why had Maria smiled that smile.[/i]
Maybe a girl didn’t want to be careful all the time even when she knew what was good for her.
Maybe she didn’t have to be.
Didn’t they say that the teenage years were all about experimentation and “finding yourself?” Wasn’t that what she was doing?
Besides, the circumstances were controlled. She could always change her mind. This was fine.
She canted her hips back as she cleaned the table in front of her-to better wipe down the table, of course-but the action forced Michael to twist to get by: denim scraping against her exposed leg, pulling up on her skirt.
The breath he released was a hissed swear, but he kept going.
Success.
Ducking her head, she let her hair hide her smile.
Everything was fine.
[b]IV. Conclusion[/b]
The salt on his skin was different, darker. It sucked the moisture from her tongue and left her gasping.
Or maybe that was because of the hands, rough, that snagged on the slick cloth of her uniform as they tried to tear it away.
Who broke first was up for debate. It might have been the pulling grasp of his long fingers that led her back into the deserted stock room, but it had been proceeded by her really-quite accidental, I don’t now how I did that, I’m such a klutz-fall right up against his chest.
Was it her fault that her nipples chose that moment to stand at attention?
Another, lower, part of his body didn’t seem to think so.
Thank god.
His teeth scraped over her chin, sliding up to capture her lower lip as his shadow blocked out the light of the single naked bulb. The buzzing of the electricity was echoed beneath her skin, and she fought to help him yank the offending clothing out of the way. Part of her wanted to slow down, make a thorough study, and capture those fleeting observations of the magic his lips and hands performed in reality.
The rest of her was pushing up his shirt, and running questing hands over the muscles that the sweat had only hinted at before. The rest of her didn’t care about the reasons for starting, but about the conclusion that the rushing flood pouring through her had to reach.
Release.
Please.
“What are you doing to me?” his words were almost lost in the harshness of his breath, in the way he hooked an arm under her thigh to better press against her.
“Not me,” she moaned, shimmying her hips to notch him in the perfect…
Oh God.
Giving up on his shirt, she snaked her hand down to the front of his pants to fight the row of buttons between them. Her own moisture covered her knuckles through her underwear as she tugged at the denim. “S’you.”
She turned her hand to cup him. “All you.”
The muscles of his body locked down, freezing. For a moment she thought he was going to pull away and leave her with a smirking, “Gee, Parker, didn’t know you cared.”
Instead his hand came up to cradle her face, his thumb pushing against her chin until her features were exposed in the weak light. The shadows hid his eyes, but the intensity was there, familiar, moving over her.
His grip shifted, fingers spearing backwards into her hair, and suddenly she hauled up tight, her bare breasts rubbing damp cotton. His other hand shifted up her thigh to her hip and finally to the edge of elastic at the top of her panties.
“Must be the heat,” he rumbled into her ear, before turning her head to steal her lips, her breath.
[i]Yes. [/i]
Fabric tore, leaving her bare from the waist down, and her own frantic fingers pulled off his last button in their haste. He stroked his penis through her wetness, a testing glide that left him coated. The smirk of his lips twitched on her cheek. “Definitely the heat.”
And then he was dipping down, pressing deep.
[i]Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou[/i]
Filling her up even as her body contracted, grabbed. The pain was nothing compared to the sense of finally-[i]finally[/i]-channeling all that tension under her skin. A small part of her realized that his grip on her hips would leave bruises, that they could be could be caught.
That this was completely and totally out of character.
He pulled away, only to return, harder.
Her hands shifted, nails digging to compel him to that one. perfect. spot.
[i]There.[/i]
Head tipping back, she felt his teeth on scrap the tendon of her neck as she went over the edge.
[i]It was most definitely the heat.[/i]
The end.
Title: Passing the Hours
Author: Linsey
Couple: Mi/L
Disclaimer: I own only the characters you don’t remember from the TV show, all else belongs to Katims and company.
Summary: Michael paints and contemplates how he marks the time.
Author’s Note: Companion to “Surviving Santa Clara.”
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[I]“…Many in the art community have remarked on Mr. Guerin’s tendency to use female subjects in his works. Several of his most famous pieces from Singing Oklahoma’s transparent woman doing the dishes to Nightmare II’s bloody and bruised girl-woman act as a focus for our emotions, commanding us to feel the same sadness, nostalgia, rage or happiness that artist himself felt. The women in these paintings command our attention, drawing us, the viewers, in until their images blaze themselves on to our brains. This is not to say that his paintings and drawings lacking a human subject are any less powerful, nor do they lack the feminine influence that marks his other works. Each painting gives us the feeling that the mysterious she has been there, or will be coming, the reason for her presence depending on the work. Given the severity of Guerin’s early life in the foster system, it amazes many that he is able to produce work of such depth and attachment, leading one to wonder if the time of his childhood was not marked by minutes or hours, but by the women who passed it with him.”[/I]
[right]~ A. Zanta, Associated Press[/right]
[center]* * * * *[/center]
He contemplated the canvas in front of him, the smell of turpentine and paint lingering in the air. Thick oils delineated each feature, each face except for the last one, the one he could not paint yet. Soon. The moment crept closer each day, but since she would not arrive until she was ready, he contented himself with the others, letting the memories wash over him with each stroke of the brush.
Only the minutest details remained, details that he had not planned on approaching until later, but the article had hit so close to the truth that he had found himself heading towards the painting without any conscious thought. The sibilant rasp of scissors cutting through paper reached his ears from the kitchen. She was cutting out the newest article on his work to add to the collection she had started years ago. He always asked her why she bothered; he didn’t care what the reporters thought. He painted for himself, not for the stick up their ass critics that had to review because they did not have the talent to make the art themselves. She would listen to him repeat the same rant against the scions of the art world patiently before finally explaining that she did not save them for him, but for those to come. “Your ego is big enough already Michael, I’m doing this for our future children.”
He wondered if she realized they repeated the whole routine time and again because he secretly loved hearing her talk about their future like that, so definite, so assured. It was comforting for a man who never had any real permanence in his life. He had been fully prepared to follow the script this morning when he had found the Times next to his coffee, but his wife had not cooperated.
“Someone has finally figured out your secret Michael.” She grinned. “I didn’t know they had spies in the art world.”
He shot her a confused look, which she ignored, suddenly engrossed in the book she had been reading. He would have tried for an explanation, but he feared that his darling wife would spout some “interesting” fact from her newest tome, and the title alone, Natural Childbirth and You, was enough to give him chills. He focused his attention instead on the article she had been taunting him with. It was full of the same old nonsense and flowery tone that seemed to dominate the art world reviews, yet another reporter trying to prove that they had a direct feed into the artist’s mind. It used all the right buzzwords, naming him the “hot new artist of this year.” He chuckled, partially because it was bullshit, partially because he had earned the same title three years ago in a West Coast publication. When would they get some new material?
The whole article struck him as recycled bits of those who had come before all the way up to the last paragraph, which grabbed him by the throat and refused to let go. Although it was simple black and white, it seemed to blaze from the page. [I]“…it amazes many that he is able to produce work of such depth and attachment, leading one to wonder if the time of his childhood was not marked by minutes or hours, but by the women who passed it with him.”[/I]
He did not remember leaving the table, nor answering his wife’s teasing about art world insider trading. He could not put in to words why he could not laugh with her that one of them, this unknown critic that he had never heard of, had managed to get it right after seven years of the rest of them failing miserably. It spooked him that someone else had managed to see what he did, what Liz did. He did not remember walking down to his studio, but he found himself standing in front of his newest work, paint brush in hand.
The first was in profile, a gentle flow of high forehead to aristocratic nose, laugh lines permanently carved deep into her cheeks. Susanna…Susanna who took in foster children because cancer had stolen her uterus, Susanna with the out loud personality and the body too weak to house it. She had been the first. His first attempted mother, his first taste of Earth, the giver of his first word. His first night in her house she sang him to sleep to quiet his nightmares, a husky voice singing show tunes and lullabies to penetrate his fear.
[I]Momma Sue, baby. Just call me Momma Sue.[/I]
His first word had been Oklahoma. Momma Sue used to sing the pieces from the musical when she washed the dishes, worn ballet slippers covering feet that used to have the strength to go on point, to tap, to do more than move about the house. The word seemed magical to him though because all little Momma Sue had to do open up her mouth and out it would burst, long and pure. He would practice shaping his mouth like hers in the mirror, try to produce the same sound after she and Bill had gone to bed. Momma always seemed happy when she sang, and he wanted to know how it felt.
Three weeks after he moved in with them, Momma Sue stopped singing. She looked more drawn, and her shiny blonde hair-the hair he liked to bury his face in when he had a nightmare-became lank and dull. He did not understand until years later what Bill meant when he said that the cancer was back.
The next face was turned almost completely away, only a sliver of worn, sallow flesh peeking out from behind graying hair. Marge. Even now her name struck him as an apt reflection on her harsh personality. Marge had been disappointed by life, rundown. She did not sing like Momma Sue, or hug him. She treated her home like a halfway house for the children passing through, tossing him sheets and leaving one of the older kids to show him around.
Marge had cleaned houses for twenty years, leaving her with slumped shoulders, rough hands and an obsessive need for order. She assigned chores like a drill sergeant. He earned her attention by completing his tasks efficiently, making his bed with tight corners, carrying his plate to the sink without complaint. His reward was the hesitant pat of scratchy skin and the loathing of those around him. The other kids, all boys, all older, taunted him. They called him dumb, strange. They tripped him, elbowed him, took turns waking him up at odd hours.
During the second week at Marge’s, nine days into the constant harassment, he broke. One of the oldest boys-funny how he could not remember anyone’s name but Marge’s-pushed him as he got up to put his plate away. He couldn’t take it anymore, the feelings that had been building inside of him came blasting out, spinning the table and its contents out at his tormentors. He had his revenge, but after Marge looked at him with fear in her eyes. There were no more uncomfortable little pats, and he left her home two days later. That was his first lesson in control, in closing off.
The next lesson would come with Sarah. Sarah whose voice trembled when the social worker brought him to meet her. Sarah who hugged too tight, and could never run fast enough to escape Hank’s fists. Even in the painting, her eyes were downcast, refusing to meet the viewer’s, refusing to meet his. A huge mottled bruise radiated from her left eye, colors bleeding into one another. It saddened him that even after living with her for a year and a half before she ran; he could only remember how he saw her on the final day, bruised and fearful.
The memory made his fingers clench, snapping the delicate handle of the brush he been using to deepen the purple. It was that time with Sarah, that time spent dodging Hank, that he learned he could sense other people’s feelings. Her feelings hurt his head, all jittering pain and fear, love and abandonment. What hurt him the most was that she thought she deserved it, the acceptance so closely entwined with the shame. She could hide the bruises on her ribs, but she could not hide the feelings that seemed to ripple off of her. Sarah unintentionally helped to close off more, shut the little door that was letting her feelings in. At first he dodged the suffocating hugs physically, but when he saw how much it hurt her, he learned to dodge them in his mind, to stand perfectly still and hold back. Sarah did not seem to care; she just needed someone to hold on to.
To this day, he still was not sure what finally made her run. Maybe it was the extent of her injuries after Hank had thrown her against the breakfast bar in their tiny trailer. Maybe she had finally had enough. Those had been some theories, ones that he wished he could believe, but he knew the truth. Sarah had been at least two months pregnant before hitting the breakfast bar. He knew because he had felt it growing inside her, calming the jitters. The next day though, when he had found Sarah packing, he could not feel the baby anymore. It was gone. Hank had finally taken away the one thing that Sarah ever wanted, someone completely of her own to hold.
The last hug he gave had been to heal, although he did not know he was capable of it at the time. Standing there watching as she got ready to leave he had realized that he would never see her again, one more person in his life gone with out a sign that they had been there. He had grown use to her frantic presence in the back of his mind, the willowy sound of her voice, the crushing embraces that he had once tried to avoid. One minute he was standing off to the side of the car, and the next he was reaching through the window, wrapping his arms and his mind around her. The healing of her ribs and other injuries was not conscious choice, simply the result of trying to combat some of the pain he felt when he connected. He had taken her pain into himself, and then she had driven away. He had known he could not leave, but a part of him had wanted to. It was that part that cried every night for a week after she left.
“What’s your favorite part of Michael’s body?” Maria’s voice blared from the phone, shattering the peaceful state my bath had created.
“Ex-excuse me?” I barely stopped myself from dunking the receiver in the water.
“Michael’s body. You’re favorite part.” I heard the clash of dishes and the chatter of conversation in the background. “I’m doing a [i]Cosmo[/i] quiz and I realized I didn’t know what my favorite part of Jason’s body was. So spill on Michael’s bod, I always liked his-”
“I’ll, uh, have to call you back on that,” I murmured, interrupting quickly. There were some things that we just didn’t need to share as friends.
Dropping the phone on the small table I had installed next to the tub, I leaned my head back against the porcelain rim. My favorite part of Michael’s body? Couldn’t she have made it a little easier? There was so much of the Michael that was unique and different, so much that I still hadn’t observed or experienced. And what counted as part of his body?
For me there was the ethereal: the heart that made him go out of his way to help someone or please me, his mind with its constant analysis and grasp of abstract thought, the sound of his voice and the way it would deepen to that low husky note as he looked up at me through his lashes. Dear lord, that look!
Which brought me to the physical: the clarity of his eyes; the strong, rough hands on my skin; the strength of his arms when he wrapped them around me at night; his lips; his…
I sunk down, letting the water close over my head.
What was Maria thinking, asking me a question like that?
* * * * *
Michael sprawled across the bed. We had found a California King, but every night the same thing happens, him sleeping diagonally; one arm anchored across my hips, his head resting on my stomach. He slept that way now, his hair tickling my diaphragm, his breath a moist caress on my skin.
Propped up slightly by the pillows, I stared down at him. At one time I found this position uncomfortable, difficult to breathe around. Michael tried to stop, even tried stuffing pillows between for about three hours until he balked at the extreme. Still, every morning we would wake up in the same position and I realized that it didn’t seem to bother me in my sleep. Michael seemed to need the connection-and find me more comfortable than a pillow-so I was his human teddy bear.
I tried to explain that once, but he took offense. “You’re more than comfort.”
His look was so clear, hot, that I blushed for days just remembering.
Smiling, I let my hand drop to his back. Those eyes. Why did Maria have to make it so difficult?
My palm coasted up along muscles it rested over the protrusion of bone at the base of his neck. The first thoracic vertebrae. This was how I slept, my thumb tunneled into his hair, my fingers loosely wrapped along the contours of his neck. Sometimes, if he lay just right, I could feel his pulse under my middle finger as I fell asleep reviewing the day.
This was my comfort. My more in the middle of the night.
I stared into the darkness, massaging my palm into his skin.
I think I know my favorite part of Michael’s body.
Who knew that the T1 vertebrae had such importance.
Title: Heat stroke: a scientific study
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Liz puts the scientific method to good use.
A/N: This is certainly not what I expected to write when I woke up this morning.
[i]"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."[/i] -William Bragg, Sr.
(who would probably be appalled to find his words used thusly)
[b]I. Observation[/b]
She tried to be scientific, detached. The physical discomfort was not caused by the wetness that defined sweat, but rather how the biological reaction made a person completely and totally aware of one’s whole body. Skin stuck and slipped, clothing clung, and perspiration gathered in every crease and hollow. Air-conditioning became both a pleasure and a torture; each stirring of air heightened the feelings that crawled through her skin, causing goose bumps and prickles in the 100-plus heat.
Her mind and body were held captive by the sensation, the cloying press of temperature and time, focused on each incremental movement. The minute interactions of the everyday were overexposed, humid with new meaning.
New possibilities within the mundane.
The moisture on his skin grabbed at the folds of his t-shirt, revealing muscle definition that she hadn’t known existed beneath the baggy fabric whose front advertised a concert long faded from memory and cloth. The same dampness bunched his lashes together, forming a dark frame around eyes that saw far more than they showed.
She found herself more aware of Michael in this state, alert to his moments, his gaze. The weather caught at her mind, reminding her of the last heat wave and her first understanding of the fact that life was changing around her; people awakening to the play of emotions and hormones. Circumstances were different now, and perhaps the off-again state of everyone’s relationships was the cause of the building the tension.
Or maybe the weather was just pushing her over the ill-defined edge of sanity and she was imagining things.
Sometimes Liz thought she felt him watching her, a tickling that started at the backs of her knees and traveled slowly up her thighs. She would still inside, falling back on the mechanical patter that appeased the customer, while her mind followed the phantom sensations under the slick polyester of her uniform. Sometimes he stayed confined to the lower half of her body, causing the involuntary clench of her stomach, the not-quite-roll of her hips. When this happened, she would sneak a deep breath, swallow down the heat, and rip her mind away from the reactions she couldn’t fight, couldn’t prove were real. A glance over her shoulder would reveal nothing more than a man busily working a stove, she knew that-he was too good to get caught-so she fought for her focus and won.
Sometimes, though, he continued his journey up her back, seeming to wrap his personality around to contract her nipples all the while brushing against the nape of her neck. On the rare occasions this would happen, she couldn’t fight her response: her words garbled into a sigh, she found herself caressing the edge of her order pad with her thumb even as she swung around to try to catch him in the act. Inevitably his attention would be on the grill, his face free from the tension she knew was caught on her own. He wasn’t watching her. He couldn’t be watching her.
His appearance gave absolutely no indication.
Face wrinkled into a smirk at whatever remark Maria threw his way, he flipped burgers and dispatched fries in a smooth, uninterrupted pattern. There were no sidewise glances, but, maybe, just maybe, his movements seemed slower, a touch lethargic, as if something had captured a bit of his attention from the job and held it in thrall deep inside his mind.
She couldn’t though. Couldn’t guarantee that she wasn’t just projecting.
Maybe she was going crazy, given to wild imaginings caused not by reality but the hormones that seemed to become more active with each rising degree.
But then again, the sensations were never present when someone else was working the grill, the awareness never as heightened when Max was watching her.
The heat was different, more intense. It overpowered the senses, took control. Not a gentle push but a dominating wave that swept her into parts of her mind that she thought she had boxed away. Sexuality distracted from her goal to get out, break free of constraints, it left ties far deeper and stronger than words and promises. So far she had managed to avoid that last step into forever with Max, had never gotten close with Kyle, but when he watched her she felt the hesitation she’d frozen herself in trickle down the back of her neck to be wiped away by the collar of her uniform.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she controlled the situation, the outcome.
Maybe she should go take a cold shower and forget she ever entertained the thought.
Sweat slid between the valley of her breasts, wetting the cotton of her bra. Mrs. Larson stared at her strangely, her gaze hardening into a glare. When that didn’t elicit the response she wanted, she cleared her throat. Obviously Liz was not covering her…agitation very well. Frowning, the girl forced her attention back to her customers, turning to take Mr. Larson’s order. His eyes never rose above her chest.
Maybe her customer service was not what Mrs. Larson had a problem with.
[b]II. Hypothesis[/b]
She’d discarded all other alternatives: Max, someone unknown, her own desire to be free. Each had proven impossible under intense scrutiny.
Max’s eyes evoked sadness for what they had before his destiny, and understanding of how fragile young love can be, how cerebral. Even when she’d been pulled by emotions, they had been heartfelt, not hormonally driven.
And her body was definitely doing the driving now.
As for the stranger theory, the idea of some unknown watcher held no merit after she nixed everyone outside of the optimum age group. There was no one consistently present in the Crashdown; no one who could possibly be the source of the intense focus she felt on her body.
Her own “Get out of Roswell” fund was growing at a healthy rate thanks to the larger than average tips she’d been getting lately from the older men in town, and she’d been accepted, full scholarship, into a science program at U.C. Berkeley for next summer. So what she was feeling couldn’t possibly some twisted form of her own need to escape the confines of Roswell, and find…
Well…
Release.
She was ninety-nine percent, without almost a smidgen of a doubt, positive that Michael was the one watching her, touching with his eyes. For a split-second, she’d caught their reflection in the dusty glass of the front window as she went to draw the blinds. It could be no fluke that it coincided with a lick of heat that sent her rushing to the Ladies to run cold water over her wrists, rest wet towels along her neck.
It just couldn’t be.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling. The heavy scent of the ylang-ylang candles that Maria had given her mixed with the citrus-sunshine of her sheets to coat her skin. The blend was hypnotic, drowning, as she watched the waver of the shadows above her. Hands danced and bodies moved as each black shade formed and reformed in accordance to her imagination.
Her own fingers traced along the scalloped waist of her panties, slipping below.
Ninety-nine percent sure.
And if she was wrong, and the lack of any reaction voided her belief in this new reality, so be it.
She would be the only one to know.
But if she was right, then maybe this was all tied in with the weather. Some kind of meteorological phenomenon.
She pressed deep, in, fingertips finding a wetness sweat could never match, and her inner tension blazed higher.
Dear God, there was a part of her that hoped she was right.
Needed it no matter how insane the idea was.
For the sake of her own sanity if nothing else.
[b]III. Testing[/b]
She started out small, unwilling to let her plans be known to anyone, even Maria.
Especially Maria.
She was pretty sure that this violated every best friend principle in the book, which was almost enough to make her stop before she started.
But it was like his eyes had taken control of her body, burning her from the inside out. Her walls were the first to collapse, then her morals, all falling to feed the tension flickering throughout her body.
There was only enough of her mind left to keep it subtle: a brush of their shoulders as he helped her fill the sugar dispensers; bending a bit more at the waist instead of the knees when she went to pick something up; instead of being so blatant as to open a button on her uniform, she would simply tug at the front to “circulate air” affording glimpses of bare skin and skimpy lace.
Only on her breaks, when she knew no one would see, did she let herself indulge in openness. She began to study him, tracing the swirl of damp hair against his neck, the strain of muscles beneath his clothes. A single drop of moisture running down his cheekbone could consume ten minutes or more until he finally wiped it away. She found herself wondering if it carried the same taste as the salt that beaded on her upper lip. Her imagination conjured images of approaching him and licking the remnants from the back of his hand with a quick, cat-like dart of her tongue. Sanity only reared in time for her to look away before he caught her in the act, but she couldn’t stop from sucking in her lower lip.
After a few days, Maria asked if she was on drugs. The question was jarring cold in the cauldron of Liz’s mind, and it snapped her out of the hormone induced trance. “Of course not.”
Drugs would be a whole lot easier to explain…but carried far less appeal.
“Then what’s up, Chica, ‘cause you’ve been checked out of the reality hotel for awhile now.” Her friend regarded her, face open. The multitude of butterfly clips that held her twisted hair from her eyes seemed to quiver with expectation.
What could she possibly say?
“It’s…hormones.” Okay, that sounded weak. More than weak. The only people who would possibly fall for that excuse were those possessing a Y chromosome.
“You’ve been PMSing all week?” Skepticism apparent, Maria proved once again that she was the proud owner of a pair of Xs. “Not even Isabel can make that excuse work.”
Liz ran her hand along her periwinkle lapel, nails scraping her skin. He was watching again. Damn him. “Not [i]those[/i] kinds of hormones.”
For a moment the other girl went blank, puzzled, before understanding slid into place. “Oh.”
“Oh,” she repeated, her tone deeper, drawling. A smile-small, knowing-shaped her lips. “It has been hot lately, hasn’t it?”
“Roasting,” Liz responded. What was going on?
“Just…” Maria paused, as if searching for the right words, “don’t get burned.”
Laughter burbled, burst from her throat to shatter the tension of his gaze on her back. “Cliché much?”
“If the shoe fits…” Maria’s laughter, when it came, did not hold the same sharpness of relief. The blond glanced over Liz’s shoulder briefly before meeting her gaze. “Just be careful.”
The words stayed with Liz even after Maria’s shift was over. They circled within her mind, clashing.
What she was doing was the antithesis of careful.
[i]But then why had Maria smiled that smile.[/i]
Maybe a girl didn’t want to be careful all the time even when she knew what was good for her.
Maybe she didn’t have to be.
Didn’t they say that the teenage years were all about experimentation and “finding yourself?” Wasn’t that what she was doing?
Besides, the circumstances were controlled. She could always change her mind. This was fine.
She canted her hips back as she cleaned the table in front of her-to better wipe down the table, of course-but the action forced Michael to twist to get by: denim scraping against her exposed leg, pulling up on her skirt.
The breath he released was a hissed swear, but he kept going.
Success.
Ducking her head, she let her hair hide her smile.
Everything was fine.
[b]IV. Conclusion[/b]
The salt on his skin was different, darker. It sucked the moisture from her tongue and left her gasping.
Or maybe that was because of the hands, rough, that snagged on the slick cloth of her uniform as they tried to tear it away.
Who broke first was up for debate. It might have been the pulling grasp of his long fingers that led her back into the deserted stock room, but it had been proceeded by her really-quite accidental, I don’t now how I did that, I’m such a klutz-fall right up against his chest.
Was it her fault that her nipples chose that moment to stand at attention?
Another, lower, part of his body didn’t seem to think so.
Thank god.
His teeth scraped over her chin, sliding up to capture her lower lip as his shadow blocked out the light of the single naked bulb. The buzzing of the electricity was echoed beneath her skin, and she fought to help him yank the offending clothing out of the way. Part of her wanted to slow down, make a thorough study, and capture those fleeting observations of the magic his lips and hands performed in reality.
The rest of her was pushing up his shirt, and running questing hands over the muscles that the sweat had only hinted at before. The rest of her didn’t care about the reasons for starting, but about the conclusion that the rushing flood pouring through her had to reach.
Release.
Please.
“What are you doing to me?” his words were almost lost in the harshness of his breath, in the way he hooked an arm under her thigh to better press against her.
“Not me,” she moaned, shimmying her hips to notch him in the perfect…
Oh God.
Giving up on his shirt, she snaked her hand down to the front of his pants to fight the row of buttons between them. Her own moisture covered her knuckles through her underwear as she tugged at the denim. “S’you.”
She turned her hand to cup him. “All you.”
The muscles of his body locked down, freezing. For a moment she thought he was going to pull away and leave her with a smirking, “Gee, Parker, didn’t know you cared.”
Instead his hand came up to cradle her face, his thumb pushing against her chin until her features were exposed in the weak light. The shadows hid his eyes, but the intensity was there, familiar, moving over her.
His grip shifted, fingers spearing backwards into her hair, and suddenly she hauled up tight, her bare breasts rubbing damp cotton. His other hand shifted up her thigh to her hip and finally to the edge of elastic at the top of her panties.
“Must be the heat,” he rumbled into her ear, before turning her head to steal her lips, her breath.
[i]Yes. [/i]
Fabric tore, leaving her bare from the waist down, and her own frantic fingers pulled off his last button in their haste. He stroked his penis through her wetness, a testing glide that left him coated. The smirk of his lips twitched on her cheek. “Definitely the heat.”
And then he was dipping down, pressing deep.
[i]Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou[/i]
Filling her up even as her body contracted, grabbed. The pain was nothing compared to the sense of finally-[i]finally[/i]-channeling all that tension under her skin. A small part of her realized that his grip on her hips would leave bruises, that they could be could be caught.
That this was completely and totally out of character.
He pulled away, only to return, harder.
Her hands shifted, nails digging to compel him to that one. perfect. spot.
[i]There.[/i]
Head tipping back, she felt his teeth on scrap the tendon of her neck as she went over the edge.
[i]It was most definitely the heat.[/i]
The end.