Fic: Kùaxìng (Firefly, NC-17, Inara, others)
Title: Kùaxìng
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Inara, other peoples
Warnings: Uh. NC-17 for strap-on sex.
Author's Notes: Never wrote 'strap-on' (well, the double dildo) sex before. Never wrote geisha painting before. Never. Well. Yeah.
Summary: There are flounces and silk and a few ties and buttons. There are necklaces and flowers in hair. There are a few more stolen kisses, anywhere but on the mouth, really, Xian-li's hands, her shoulder, the innocuous clavicle, the bend of the elbow, and then finally, when they are powdered and gleaming and their every movement produces the rustle of taffeta and the low groan sound of tight fabric being forced to move with their every breath, Inara offers Xian-li her hand, and they step from the shuttle to the darkness, where the private courier is waiting to take them to the hotel.
This is for 14valentines, whose theme today (Feb 2nd; I'm behind. That should be remedied later today.) is Transgender Issues. I really anguished over this one until arsenicjade gave me the ok. Now, she never saw the finished product, so while she approved of the concept, she is not aware of the execution.
Kùaxìng: (pinyin) Mandarin; 'to go beyond sex', (has recently come into use as a literal translation of the English term "transgender")
And then your self control lets go
And suddenly you’re up against the bathroom door.
The hallway lights are finely getting dim
You’re in the front row touching him.
--Van Morrison, 'Madame George'
Inara runs the comb through Xian-li's hair one more time, using the last of the ivory sticks to twist the smooth black hair up and away, looping ribbons through the coarse darkness. By the time she is finished and the last comb is in place, the lacquer on Xian-li's nails is dry, and she slips three jeweled rings on her left hand, kissing the soft spots in between her fingers, lips briefly touching each digit as she raises the flat of the palm to her face to examine the skin there: smooth, soft, scrubbed of calluses, slightly yellow with the henna and saffron Inara'd painted there earlier.
Xian-li turns a little to see the dress hanging behind her, but Inara uses one finger to being her face round, shaking her head. Later. Later.
Now, there is a matter of her face, tanned now, but made shades and shades lighter with the white paint Inara administers, her long brush starting at the back of the neck, just behind the ear and down, down to the curve of the shoulder blades where the dress will be, a seamless illusion of a creature not entirely human. Then the pads rub it smooth and translucent, Xian-li's color shining through the whiteness like amnion. Inara holds her breath as she sweeps the brush in a long stroke across the curve of the chin, and then back and forth across the neck; Xian-li's mouth quirks up in a smirk at the sensation and catches her eyes. For one second Inara considers stopping for another quick kiss, but then again, they don't want to be late. Not for this.
Again with the buffing pad across the lower face, and then a smaller brush to start on the nose, washing all color away, something frightening and suffocating going on in the flattening of the features. She had turned the mirror away from Xian-li for a second, not wanting her to see until it was done; the blinding skin is foreign and surreal without the rest to go with it, Inara has always thought, but Xian-li reaches out for the mirror and returns it to its place, her eyes intent on watching the entire thing.
The eyebrows have been thinned and painted over, the face has been patted dry, and Inara feels Xian-li's hand reach in between her legs as she mixes the colors for the rest of the eye; she lets Xian-li run her fingers along the inside of her thigh, trying to remain steady with the pencil she is applying to Xian-li's eyebrows even as her portrait slips two fingers inside her while she's drawing.
"Stop, or I'll have to start over."
Xian-li's fingers slip out of her, and she misses them a little. They rest just on the outside, running concentric circles on her clit.
"That's not really better," she says with a gasp, finally finishing the last of the eyebrows and trying to remember the routine of make up that she's had memorized since she was twelve. "But nonetheless very appreciated."
Xian-li's hands still and slide away from her, which is just as well, because she has to peer in close now, adding the bright red to the corners of the eyes and working it over and under Xian-li's lids. The last time she had done this, her subject had stared at the ceiling or the floor, most of them do. Xian-li stares at her face, so close, watches her eyes as she must be frowning, squinting, widening her eyes in sympathy gestures that demonstrate what she wants Xian-li to do. She can feel her hand grow slightly unsteady and her cheeks a little hot. She finds herself not a little disconcerted and opts to have Xian-li line her own eyes with the fine point brush, tip so very thin that Inara has to hold it right to her face to see it.
Xian-li leans into the mirror to trace the rim of her eyelids and Inara finishes the preparations for the rest of the brow paint, and when Xian-li mutely hands her the brush, her fingers cross Inara's. She stops to wonder if she could smell herself on Xian-li's hands, and if she mightn't just lift her hand to her nose and smell it anyway, or if that would be too much right now. Xian-li's mouth quirks up again, and she lifts her hand to her mouth and licks her finger, very pink tongue darting out of her ghost-mouth.
"We're not done," Inara says sternly, her hand stilling Xian-li's face so that she can brush her eyebrows with burnt sienna. The body is quiet under her hands, a little warm, as if her shuttle has been heated too well, and she knows from their savage state of undress that when they dress themselves they had best move quickly to avoid sweating out of their gowns. She adds the final coloring to the brows and retouches the red around the eyes a bit, her own fingers several shades lighter with her ministrations.
It takes several more minutes to draw the cupid's bow on Xian-li's upper lip, and then another to draw the bottom and fill it in with the paint, and then the slight sheen of oil to make it shine a bit. Inara focuses Xian-li's face out as she works, because she knows that if she stops to admire her handiwork then she they will never make it out of the shuttle and to their engagement.
Xian-li watches her put the brushes away, into the little lacquered box that she had to dust off just for her (no call for this out in the black, this detail, this strangeness, this paleness. Men on the outer rim like their women rosy and smiling.). Inara rises from the dressing mat to slip her robe off and fling it on the bed, reaching for the corset, which she slides into and turns so that Xian-li can tighten and tie it for her. She sucks in her breath and rocks back with the tug, settling into Xian-li's taller frame for a moment, feeling the press of something hard against her ass for the split second of contact before Xian-li pushes her away for another pull.
She takes a second to get used to the feel of constriction before turning to tie up Xian-li, the corset cinching in the middle of Xian-li's waist, her hands wandering along the stays and the boning of it to marvel at the curve the garment has created, knowing even as it has, it is also pushing things inside Xian-li, inside her, into places they shouldn't. It seems strangely familiar in concept, and she places a few soft kisses along the place where the corset stops and Xian-li's hips begin, slipping her fingers up under the edge in the front to touch the soft skin of her belly. Xian-li's hands push her away and she stands. Quite right.
There are flounces and silk and a few ties and buttons. There are necklaces and flowers in hair. There are a few more stolen kisses, anywhere but on the mouth, really, Xian-li's hands, her shoulder, the innocuous clavicle, the bend of the elbow, and then finally, when they are powdered and gleaming and their every movement produces the rustle of taffeta and the low groan sound of tight fabric being forced to move with their every breath, Inara offers Xian-li her hand, and they step from the shuttle to the darkness, where the private courier is waiting to take them to the hotel.
She doesn't remember the two hours in the ballroom; no one here is unfamiliar, she knows them all, and so she can make the introductions slowly, without thinking, instead reserving every ounce of her attention on Xian-li's head inclinations and whispers and small bows and little smiles when some gentleman or other says something meant to be humorous. She can settle in the wooden chair at their table and watch Xian-li circle the dance floor with an elderly gentleman, nodding her head and cutting glances at Inara out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't even have time to spare for Atherton, who must have bribed his way in and even now watches Inara watch Xian-li on General Shoern's arm. She doesn't worry when Atherton crosses the dance floor to cut in, because the general gives Atherton a withering look and simply spins Xian-li further away.
Inara can feel her pulse in her sternum, and she shifts her torso a bit to feel the corset cut across her ribs, this way and that. She keeps her legs crossed demurely at the ankle, and the beat of her heart seems to travel all the way down to her groin, just out of sync with the music. She sees though, that Xian-li's feet always seem to touch the floor in time with Inara's bloodstream.
Someone gives her champagne, someone plies her with a small pipe of something clandestinely under a table, and she breaks her own rules and accepts it. Someone else runs a finger across her exposed shoulder blades. Xian-li cocks her head from across the room, and Inara raises her brows. She has brought Xian-li here, but she does not get to decide when they leave. Xian-li's hands are in those of a tall woman with a tsubushi shimada set off by delicate combs. The woman bends her face over Xian-li's hands, examining them for a mark, and she finds Inara's, painted there over and over, a mark left in brown stain that couldn't be painted over or smudged. The matron's eyes flit to her, her face set in a small line.
Inara smiles.
Later, the much later that Inara has made into a little knell in her head every time a man had tapped her on the elbow and asked to dance with Xian-li, or herself, not that she danced much tonight, she can finally silence the music by retreating down the hall, Xian-li on her arm, a stray glass of champagne knocking over as their skits brush by the last empty table in the room. (The crushing glass underfoot makes a few men and women turn, and she can see in their faces that they know where she is taking Xian-li, and what they will be doing. These looks have never meant anything to Inara, even before she knew what everyone in this room looked like naked.).
This is the later, the later that is even better than watching Xian-li's light touch on a gentleman's shoulder as he whirls her out on the dance floor, even better than the faint line of flesh toned skin that shows between the white paint and her hairline. In this later, Inara shuts the door on the outside hallway, walks Xian-li into the inner suite and sits her primly on the settee. She removes her gloves, one finger at a time, watching Xian-li's eyes dart about the room, so much more spacious than Inara's shuttle, on which they have been staying for the past two days and in which they had readied themselves for the evening
The porter had brought their things here, and as she hands Xian-li her gloves and opens the trunk, she unfastens her skirts from the waist of her dress; the smart little buttons and ties are invisible to the onlooker, but allow her to part her dress and insert the dildo into herself while she faces away from Xian-li and her tightened, trembling body.
Xian-li's face is still when she returns to the settee, her hand on the dildo. Xian-li has undone the first two laces of her dress, and her lips have run a bit, a smear of red trailed wickedly across her cheek. Inara runs her thumb along it and then returns her hand to her cock, rubbing the tip of it red before coming to stand in front of Xian-li, who is breathing a little heavy and has already lowered her face to rub against Inara's hand and the dildo.
When Xian-li takes the cock in to her mouth, she bends it to her a bit, and the part inside Inara presses even further into her; for a split second she has to grasp Xian-li's shoulders, and then she can let go when Xian-li grabs her hips and swallows Inara whole, right down to the skin, burying her nose in the hair there. Inara's hands flutter uselessly; it occurs to her to grab Xian-li's hair, but her training reminds her that isn't done, not like that, anyway. Instead, she places her hands over Xian-li's and rocks with the movements of the mouth moving the dildo inside her.
It isn't long, though. Inara opens her eyes to find Xian-li sighing, her mouth free of the cock and placing little kisses along Inara's hip, following the bone up into her belly, crossing over, pausing to kiss the head of the cock before taking up on the other side and trailing down one thigh in a small, shiny line.
Inara pushes Xian-li back against the settee, feeling light and dizzy from the corset, her whole body groaning under the pressure of being squeezed and thrumming with not enough space to do it in. She lifts Xian-li's skirts and drums her fingers up over Xian-li's cock, real and hard and warm under her hand. Xian-li's eyes widen for a moment, and Inara knows in that second that she had forgotten that it was there, this thing that might have been impossible to forget, really, but that the makeup and dress, and the mark on her hand, the one that reads Inara's name had pushed from the recesses of her mind for the space of three hours or so. Inara's hand cups Xian-li's balls and then slides further back, fingering her ass and watching Xian-li's eyes close then, her hands scrabbling the front of Inara's dress, possibly to untie the corset a little, but no, Inara knows then that Xian-li remembers where the small vial of lubricant is, tucked into the lining of her dress, nestled between her compressed breasts, warmed from a night of exertions and gasping and sheer arousal.
Xian-li covers one of Inara's hands with lubricant and watches as Inara prepares them both, propping one of Xian-li's legs over the back of the settee a little, so that Inara can press herself in slowly, forgoing the fingers at Xian-li's request, back when they'd written this whole night down on paper. Inara stops to think, or rather flashes on it in a single moment of shakabuku, that she hadn't really expected it to be quite as fascinating as it has been, or that she'd be almost shaking with pent-up frustration and want, preferring instead of this slow sliding entry a rough thrust so hard that she'd knock them both a foot or so across the crushed velvet of the settee. She isn't even aware that she is frozen in the moment until one of Xian-li's hands hook the back of her neck, pulling her in as close as they can be, face to face in this position. Xian-li's eyes are hooded, red and white tiger eyes. That familiar mouth painted in a pout.
"Fang xin," she says into Inara's ear, her fingers slipping in between Inara's clit and the dildo and resuming her circling motion from before the party as if no time has passed between then and now.
Inara pushes in and reaches out with both of her arms to round Xian-li's chest when it flexes beck and her spine makes a rainbow arch from tip to tip. Something in the bend of it presses into Inara and she hunches over, her mouth hovering over the silk and slick satin of Xian-li's dress, the floral accents in front tickling her face before she crushes her forehead into it, pulling the cock out of Xian-li and then thrusting back in, the other half rocking and almost punching things inside her. Her hands flatten and lift the small of Xian-li's back skyward, pulling out again and wondering if she could possibly maintain a rhythm under the pressure of her dress and Xian-li's hands exploring in it, dancing along the front laces of Inara's corset to pull it free, expanding her chest and freeing her breasts slightly. One of her hands comes from the back to grasp Xian-li's cock, pulling and tightening, pulsing in time with the smaller thrusts that she makes in rapid succession.
Xian-li's face is red under the white makeup. One of her hands flies to her face, bumping and skittering across her mouth to widen the red paint. One of her eyes runs with tears, sliding through the white paint from the corner, rose tears run down into her unpainted hairline, and Inara brings her other hand from behind Xian-li's back so that she can press flat onto her body, riding her a little, grinding against her even more, craning her neck so that she can finally, finally, oh finally kiss those ruby lips, open that petal mouth and work her tongue inside her. Xian-li's hands find her nipples when they loosen the corset a bit more, fingers fine and tapered and particularly skilled at this kind of movement when they pinch gently, more reflex than anything else, even though they are all but trapped between the two of them. Inara returns her hands to Xian-li's very real cock, and her very fake one buries itself in Xian-li until the hair on her groin brushes against Xian-li's balls and she groans under Inara, her hips moving; her lower leg leaves the floor, toes pointing before curling up almost into her foot. Inara watches it over her shoulder when she pulls out again and hesitates just a second too long.
Xian-li urges her faster then, her hips rising, her hands leaving Inara's dress in favor of her ass, pushing and pulling them both with muscles that are decidedly stronger than Inara's own, until Inara knows that she has lost control and is simply holding on, waiting, waiting for the later to finish itself as Xian-li comes all over her hands and her dress, and Inara is finished with a few more thrusts and Xian-li's urgent fingers on her clit. Inara pulls in one long ragged gasp, like someone coming up for air, and then falls forward onto Xian-li's chest, her hands still holding onto her softening cock.
Xian-li's breathing is rapid, and she still twitches a bit, though one of her hands has come up to run a finger up and down Inara's jaw. Inara's eyes finally realize that she has been staring at the room's andirons for a full thirty seconds before they come into focus.
"Jing cai," she murmurs before closing her eyes.
***
The shuttle doors open and Kaylee bounces on her feet in front of them as they descend the stairs into the upper floor cargo bay. Inara slides her hand leisurely down the railing.
"So? Have a good time? Were there lots of Companions?" Her eyes widen even more impossibly. "Did you have any good sex?"
Inara laughs, and the hand at the small of her back warns her not to say something that its owner already knows she'd never say. Or maybe it says something else, something more intimate. She likes to think that she understands almost all body language, but sometimes she has to admit to herself that there might be things about men that she doesn't know, as impossible as it might seem.
Instead, she cocks her head to the side and says, "I'm not at liberty to say." And when Simon's hand leaves her back, and lays one of her own on his shoulder. "Thank you for the escort."
Simon hefts his bag lightly over his shoulder, shrugs and smiles as he leaves her there, leaning against the railing. He murmurs something in old Mandarin that she doesn't catch, and neither does Kaylee. Instead, Kaylee chatters happily as she takes Simon's yellow stained palm and they saunter down the steps, their footsteps echoing in the hollowness of the empty bay.
FINITO
Descriptions of the makeup ritual are from here, a video of a maiko putting on makeup. This was as far as I went in the dressing stage, since it is infinitely more complicated, really, and I wanted like a blending of cultural images, like the ones that we see in the show itself.
I'd also like to point out that out that I am amused that the porniest thing I have ever written has also garnered me a 12.0 on my Flesch-Kincaid Reading Scale. My fic is generally around 5.4. Heh.
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Firefly
Characters: Inara, other peoples
Warnings: Uh. NC-17 for strap-on sex.
Author's Notes: Never wrote 'strap-on' (well, the double dildo) sex before. Never wrote geisha painting before. Never. Well. Yeah.
Summary: There are flounces and silk and a few ties and buttons. There are necklaces and flowers in hair. There are a few more stolen kisses, anywhere but on the mouth, really, Xian-li's hands, her shoulder, the innocuous clavicle, the bend of the elbow, and then finally, when they are powdered and gleaming and their every movement produces the rustle of taffeta and the low groan sound of tight fabric being forced to move with their every breath, Inara offers Xian-li her hand, and they step from the shuttle to the darkness, where the private courier is waiting to take them to the hotel.
This is for 14valentines, whose theme today (Feb 2nd; I'm behind. That should be remedied later today.) is Transgender Issues. I really anguished over this one until arsenicjade gave me the ok. Now, she never saw the finished product, so while she approved of the concept, she is not aware of the execution.
Kùaxìng: (pinyin) Mandarin; 'to go beyond sex', (has recently come into use as a literal translation of the English term "transgender")
And then your self control lets go
And suddenly you’re up against the bathroom door.
The hallway lights are finely getting dim
You’re in the front row touching him.
--Van Morrison, 'Madame George'
Inara runs the comb through Xian-li's hair one more time, using the last of the ivory sticks to twist the smooth black hair up and away, looping ribbons through the coarse darkness. By the time she is finished and the last comb is in place, the lacquer on Xian-li's nails is dry, and she slips three jeweled rings on her left hand, kissing the soft spots in between her fingers, lips briefly touching each digit as she raises the flat of the palm to her face to examine the skin there: smooth, soft, scrubbed of calluses, slightly yellow with the henna and saffron Inara'd painted there earlier.
Xian-li turns a little to see the dress hanging behind her, but Inara uses one finger to being her face round, shaking her head. Later. Later.
Now, there is a matter of her face, tanned now, but made shades and shades lighter with the white paint Inara administers, her long brush starting at the back of the neck, just behind the ear and down, down to the curve of the shoulder blades where the dress will be, a seamless illusion of a creature not entirely human. Then the pads rub it smooth and translucent, Xian-li's color shining through the whiteness like amnion. Inara holds her breath as she sweeps the brush in a long stroke across the curve of the chin, and then back and forth across the neck; Xian-li's mouth quirks up in a smirk at the sensation and catches her eyes. For one second Inara considers stopping for another quick kiss, but then again, they don't want to be late. Not for this.
Again with the buffing pad across the lower face, and then a smaller brush to start on the nose, washing all color away, something frightening and suffocating going on in the flattening of the features. She had turned the mirror away from Xian-li for a second, not wanting her to see until it was done; the blinding skin is foreign and surreal without the rest to go with it, Inara has always thought, but Xian-li reaches out for the mirror and returns it to its place, her eyes intent on watching the entire thing.
The eyebrows have been thinned and painted over, the face has been patted dry, and Inara feels Xian-li's hand reach in between her legs as she mixes the colors for the rest of the eye; she lets Xian-li run her fingers along the inside of her thigh, trying to remain steady with the pencil she is applying to Xian-li's eyebrows even as her portrait slips two fingers inside her while she's drawing.
"Stop, or I'll have to start over."
Xian-li's fingers slip out of her, and she misses them a little. They rest just on the outside, running concentric circles on her clit.
"That's not really better," she says with a gasp, finally finishing the last of the eyebrows and trying to remember the routine of make up that she's had memorized since she was twelve. "But nonetheless very appreciated."
Xian-li's hands still and slide away from her, which is just as well, because she has to peer in close now, adding the bright red to the corners of the eyes and working it over and under Xian-li's lids. The last time she had done this, her subject had stared at the ceiling or the floor, most of them do. Xian-li stares at her face, so close, watches her eyes as she must be frowning, squinting, widening her eyes in sympathy gestures that demonstrate what she wants Xian-li to do. She can feel her hand grow slightly unsteady and her cheeks a little hot. She finds herself not a little disconcerted and opts to have Xian-li line her own eyes with the fine point brush, tip so very thin that Inara has to hold it right to her face to see it.
Xian-li leans into the mirror to trace the rim of her eyelids and Inara finishes the preparations for the rest of the brow paint, and when Xian-li mutely hands her the brush, her fingers cross Inara's. She stops to wonder if she could smell herself on Xian-li's hands, and if she mightn't just lift her hand to her nose and smell it anyway, or if that would be too much right now. Xian-li's mouth quirks up again, and she lifts her hand to her mouth and licks her finger, very pink tongue darting out of her ghost-mouth.
"We're not done," Inara says sternly, her hand stilling Xian-li's face so that she can brush her eyebrows with burnt sienna. The body is quiet under her hands, a little warm, as if her shuttle has been heated too well, and she knows from their savage state of undress that when they dress themselves they had best move quickly to avoid sweating out of their gowns. She adds the final coloring to the brows and retouches the red around the eyes a bit, her own fingers several shades lighter with her ministrations.
It takes several more minutes to draw the cupid's bow on Xian-li's upper lip, and then another to draw the bottom and fill it in with the paint, and then the slight sheen of oil to make it shine a bit. Inara focuses Xian-li's face out as she works, because she knows that if she stops to admire her handiwork then she they will never make it out of the shuttle and to their engagement.
Xian-li watches her put the brushes away, into the little lacquered box that she had to dust off just for her (no call for this out in the black, this detail, this strangeness, this paleness. Men on the outer rim like their women rosy and smiling.). Inara rises from the dressing mat to slip her robe off and fling it on the bed, reaching for the corset, which she slides into and turns so that Xian-li can tighten and tie it for her. She sucks in her breath and rocks back with the tug, settling into Xian-li's taller frame for a moment, feeling the press of something hard against her ass for the split second of contact before Xian-li pushes her away for another pull.
She takes a second to get used to the feel of constriction before turning to tie up Xian-li, the corset cinching in the middle of Xian-li's waist, her hands wandering along the stays and the boning of it to marvel at the curve the garment has created, knowing even as it has, it is also pushing things inside Xian-li, inside her, into places they shouldn't. It seems strangely familiar in concept, and she places a few soft kisses along the place where the corset stops and Xian-li's hips begin, slipping her fingers up under the edge in the front to touch the soft skin of her belly. Xian-li's hands push her away and she stands. Quite right.
There are flounces and silk and a few ties and buttons. There are necklaces and flowers in hair. There are a few more stolen kisses, anywhere but on the mouth, really, Xian-li's hands, her shoulder, the innocuous clavicle, the bend of the elbow, and then finally, when they are powdered and gleaming and their every movement produces the rustle of taffeta and the low groan sound of tight fabric being forced to move with their every breath, Inara offers Xian-li her hand, and they step from the shuttle to the darkness, where the private courier is waiting to take them to the hotel.
She doesn't remember the two hours in the ballroom; no one here is unfamiliar, she knows them all, and so she can make the introductions slowly, without thinking, instead reserving every ounce of her attention on Xian-li's head inclinations and whispers and small bows and little smiles when some gentleman or other says something meant to be humorous. She can settle in the wooden chair at their table and watch Xian-li circle the dance floor with an elderly gentleman, nodding her head and cutting glances at Inara out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't even have time to spare for Atherton, who must have bribed his way in and even now watches Inara watch Xian-li on General Shoern's arm. She doesn't worry when Atherton crosses the dance floor to cut in, because the general gives Atherton a withering look and simply spins Xian-li further away.
Inara can feel her pulse in her sternum, and she shifts her torso a bit to feel the corset cut across her ribs, this way and that. She keeps her legs crossed demurely at the ankle, and the beat of her heart seems to travel all the way down to her groin, just out of sync with the music. She sees though, that Xian-li's feet always seem to touch the floor in time with Inara's bloodstream.
Someone gives her champagne, someone plies her with a small pipe of something clandestinely under a table, and she breaks her own rules and accepts it. Someone else runs a finger across her exposed shoulder blades. Xian-li cocks her head from across the room, and Inara raises her brows. She has brought Xian-li here, but she does not get to decide when they leave. Xian-li's hands are in those of a tall woman with a tsubushi shimada set off by delicate combs. The woman bends her face over Xian-li's hands, examining them for a mark, and she finds Inara's, painted there over and over, a mark left in brown stain that couldn't be painted over or smudged. The matron's eyes flit to her, her face set in a small line.
Inara smiles.
Later, the much later that Inara has made into a little knell in her head every time a man had tapped her on the elbow and asked to dance with Xian-li, or herself, not that she danced much tonight, she can finally silence the music by retreating down the hall, Xian-li on her arm, a stray glass of champagne knocking over as their skits brush by the last empty table in the room. (The crushing glass underfoot makes a few men and women turn, and she can see in their faces that they know where she is taking Xian-li, and what they will be doing. These looks have never meant anything to Inara, even before she knew what everyone in this room looked like naked.).
This is the later, the later that is even better than watching Xian-li's light touch on a gentleman's shoulder as he whirls her out on the dance floor, even better than the faint line of flesh toned skin that shows between the white paint and her hairline. In this later, Inara shuts the door on the outside hallway, walks Xian-li into the inner suite and sits her primly on the settee. She removes her gloves, one finger at a time, watching Xian-li's eyes dart about the room, so much more spacious than Inara's shuttle, on which they have been staying for the past two days and in which they had readied themselves for the evening
The porter had brought their things here, and as she hands Xian-li her gloves and opens the trunk, she unfastens her skirts from the waist of her dress; the smart little buttons and ties are invisible to the onlooker, but allow her to part her dress and insert the dildo into herself while she faces away from Xian-li and her tightened, trembling body.
Xian-li's face is still when she returns to the settee, her hand on the dildo. Xian-li has undone the first two laces of her dress, and her lips have run a bit, a smear of red trailed wickedly across her cheek. Inara runs her thumb along it and then returns her hand to her cock, rubbing the tip of it red before coming to stand in front of Xian-li, who is breathing a little heavy and has already lowered her face to rub against Inara's hand and the dildo.
When Xian-li takes the cock in to her mouth, she bends it to her a bit, and the part inside Inara presses even further into her; for a split second she has to grasp Xian-li's shoulders, and then she can let go when Xian-li grabs her hips and swallows Inara whole, right down to the skin, burying her nose in the hair there. Inara's hands flutter uselessly; it occurs to her to grab Xian-li's hair, but her training reminds her that isn't done, not like that, anyway. Instead, she places her hands over Xian-li's and rocks with the movements of the mouth moving the dildo inside her.
It isn't long, though. Inara opens her eyes to find Xian-li sighing, her mouth free of the cock and placing little kisses along Inara's hip, following the bone up into her belly, crossing over, pausing to kiss the head of the cock before taking up on the other side and trailing down one thigh in a small, shiny line.
Inara pushes Xian-li back against the settee, feeling light and dizzy from the corset, her whole body groaning under the pressure of being squeezed and thrumming with not enough space to do it in. She lifts Xian-li's skirts and drums her fingers up over Xian-li's cock, real and hard and warm under her hand. Xian-li's eyes widen for a moment, and Inara knows in that second that she had forgotten that it was there, this thing that might have been impossible to forget, really, but that the makeup and dress, and the mark on her hand, the one that reads Inara's name had pushed from the recesses of her mind for the space of three hours or so. Inara's hand cups Xian-li's balls and then slides further back, fingering her ass and watching Xian-li's eyes close then, her hands scrabbling the front of Inara's dress, possibly to untie the corset a little, but no, Inara knows then that Xian-li remembers where the small vial of lubricant is, tucked into the lining of her dress, nestled between her compressed breasts, warmed from a night of exertions and gasping and sheer arousal.
Xian-li covers one of Inara's hands with lubricant and watches as Inara prepares them both, propping one of Xian-li's legs over the back of the settee a little, so that Inara can press herself in slowly, forgoing the fingers at Xian-li's request, back when they'd written this whole night down on paper. Inara stops to think, or rather flashes on it in a single moment of shakabuku, that she hadn't really expected it to be quite as fascinating as it has been, or that she'd be almost shaking with pent-up frustration and want, preferring instead of this slow sliding entry a rough thrust so hard that she'd knock them both a foot or so across the crushed velvet of the settee. She isn't even aware that she is frozen in the moment until one of Xian-li's hands hook the back of her neck, pulling her in as close as they can be, face to face in this position. Xian-li's eyes are hooded, red and white tiger eyes. That familiar mouth painted in a pout.
"Fang xin," she says into Inara's ear, her fingers slipping in between Inara's clit and the dildo and resuming her circling motion from before the party as if no time has passed between then and now.
Inara pushes in and reaches out with both of her arms to round Xian-li's chest when it flexes beck and her spine makes a rainbow arch from tip to tip. Something in the bend of it presses into Inara and she hunches over, her mouth hovering over the silk and slick satin of Xian-li's dress, the floral accents in front tickling her face before she crushes her forehead into it, pulling the cock out of Xian-li and then thrusting back in, the other half rocking and almost punching things inside her. Her hands flatten and lift the small of Xian-li's back skyward, pulling out again and wondering if she could possibly maintain a rhythm under the pressure of her dress and Xian-li's hands exploring in it, dancing along the front laces of Inara's corset to pull it free, expanding her chest and freeing her breasts slightly. One of her hands comes from the back to grasp Xian-li's cock, pulling and tightening, pulsing in time with the smaller thrusts that she makes in rapid succession.
Xian-li's face is red under the white makeup. One of her hands flies to her face, bumping and skittering across her mouth to widen the red paint. One of her eyes runs with tears, sliding through the white paint from the corner, rose tears run down into her unpainted hairline, and Inara brings her other hand from behind Xian-li's back so that she can press flat onto her body, riding her a little, grinding against her even more, craning her neck so that she can finally, finally, oh finally kiss those ruby lips, open that petal mouth and work her tongue inside her. Xian-li's hands find her nipples when they loosen the corset a bit more, fingers fine and tapered and particularly skilled at this kind of movement when they pinch gently, more reflex than anything else, even though they are all but trapped between the two of them. Inara returns her hands to Xian-li's very real cock, and her very fake one buries itself in Xian-li until the hair on her groin brushes against Xian-li's balls and she groans under Inara, her hips moving; her lower leg leaves the floor, toes pointing before curling up almost into her foot. Inara watches it over her shoulder when she pulls out again and hesitates just a second too long.
Xian-li urges her faster then, her hips rising, her hands leaving Inara's dress in favor of her ass, pushing and pulling them both with muscles that are decidedly stronger than Inara's own, until Inara knows that she has lost control and is simply holding on, waiting, waiting for the later to finish itself as Xian-li comes all over her hands and her dress, and Inara is finished with a few more thrusts and Xian-li's urgent fingers on her clit. Inara pulls in one long ragged gasp, like someone coming up for air, and then falls forward onto Xian-li's chest, her hands still holding onto her softening cock.
Xian-li's breathing is rapid, and she still twitches a bit, though one of her hands has come up to run a finger up and down Inara's jaw. Inara's eyes finally realize that she has been staring at the room's andirons for a full thirty seconds before they come into focus.
"Jing cai," she murmurs before closing her eyes.
***
The shuttle doors open and Kaylee bounces on her feet in front of them as they descend the stairs into the upper floor cargo bay. Inara slides her hand leisurely down the railing.
"So? Have a good time? Were there lots of Companions?" Her eyes widen even more impossibly. "Did you have any good sex?"
Inara laughs, and the hand at the small of her back warns her not to say something that its owner already knows she'd never say. Or maybe it says something else, something more intimate. She likes to think that she understands almost all body language, but sometimes she has to admit to herself that there might be things about men that she doesn't know, as impossible as it might seem.
Instead, she cocks her head to the side and says, "I'm not at liberty to say." And when Simon's hand leaves her back, and lays one of her own on his shoulder. "Thank you for the escort."
Simon hefts his bag lightly over his shoulder, shrugs and smiles as he leaves her there, leaning against the railing. He murmurs something in old Mandarin that she doesn't catch, and neither does Kaylee. Instead, Kaylee chatters happily as she takes Simon's yellow stained palm and they saunter down the steps, their footsteps echoing in the hollowness of the empty bay.
FINITO
Descriptions of the makeup ritual are from here, a video of a maiko putting on makeup. This was as far as I went in the dressing stage, since it is infinitely more complicated, really, and I wanted like a blending of cultural images, like the ones that we see in the show itself.
I'd also like to point out that out that I am amused that the porniest thing I have ever written has also garnered me a 12.0 on my Flesch-Kincaid Reading Scale. My fic is generally around 5.4. Heh.