The Park, All Day Friday

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On Friday morning, a strange mist rolled out from the park. It smelled sweetly of cotton candy, much like the scent of the night before. When the mist ebbed, it left something in its wake: tents and booths and rides, spread somewhat haphazardly around the park.

A moment later, the lights went on. At the front, an arch that bore a sign: Cooger &

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Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

[nookiepowered]

Temple of Temptation was what the sign said, but even if Bo wasn't what Bo was, she'd be able to tell from the veiled female silhouettes below the lettering, the music slithering out of the tent-flap past the huddle of chuckling men, that it was no kind of church her mother would have let a good little girl get caught dead in.

Bo was what she was; more than the music drew her past the men -- funny how a brush of her hand along an arm or cheek and they turned into perfect ladies-first gentlemen, no line, no waiting -- and into the dimly-lit space.

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

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The dancers didn't pause in their undulations, not even enough to throw off the ching shush ching of hanging coins as hips swished to and fro. One did move slowly, though, from the circle of five...six... how many? It was smoky in there, incense mixed with the baser scent of flickering kerosene lamps.

"Most women don't come to watch us dance," she said in a low voice, mouth obscured by a gauzy veil, eyes kohl-rimmed and almost black.

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

[nookiepowered]

"I'm not..." Not most women, Bo meant to say, but she frowned and trailed off as the dancer moved close to her, hands making snakes in the air around her own face, then Bo's. Almost touching her cheek, her chin, her hair. Almost, but not quite.

There was something in the air, and it wasn't just smoke.

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

[fh_thumbprick]

"Not here just to watch?" Behind the shimmery gauze, the slow flare of a smile. Fingers tracing the outline of Bo's body without touch became hands held out to her, palms up, glittering with rings. "No, not you. Feel the music, movement, the heat, sister?"

There was nothing familial in that woman's voice. Unless you were Jaime Lannister.

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

[nookiepowered]

Whatever part of Bo had felt something was off, was wrong - and she had, she had when she walked through the carnival arch, maybe even still knew it when the tent-flap brushed her leg as she stepped in - it was silent now. There was only the thump of the music and her own pulse in her ears, her heart, her wrists. Other places.

She held out her hands as well, fingers just above the other's. "I feel it. You. All of you. Everything."

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

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"Of course you do. You were made for this. To move and touch and take." The woman lifted her hands, palms flat to Bo's, skin dry and hot despite how the rest of her body glistened in the lamplight. "We've been waiting so long for you. Come dance with us."

Re: Stroll Around The Carnival - At the Temple of Temptation

[nookiepowered]

One hand curled into those waiting fingers, one sliding down to rest upon a coin-hung hip, to move her own against it. Bo nodded, and came, and danced.