Fleeting
by [R]
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Do I *really* have to do this *every*time?
Author's Note: This started out as a challenge that Amberina set me. I was hoping for a one-part fic. Unfortunately, she’s evil.
Dedication: Cass. And Amberina. You bitch. [smirks]
“Do you have any idea what it’s like, being in love with some one like you Faith?” my voice was sad as I spoke those few words to her, her eyes locked onto mine for a single instant, before flickering away to look at the carpet down and to the right of me.
I could see her fingers, slowly working themselves, fidgeting against each other, while her brow furrowed in concentration. I guessed she was trying to think about how it would be.
To love your best friend. To know that your best friend knows. To watch her strut around as if it was nothing. To fuck whoever she felt like it, and spend hours telling me about them the next day.
I suppose the last part was probably my fault. I told her to just forget it, to act like it hadn’t happened. But despite a part of my brain forgetting it, the rest was still playing catch up, at an amazingly slow rate.
At the speed it was going, I doubted I’d ever forget.
“I know what it’s like..” she sighed heavily, leaning her elbows down on her knees and covering her face with her hands. She sat; doubled over for long minutes, leaving me thinking she wasn’t going to answer me. “I know what it’s like to want someone so much you feel like you can’t breathe.”
“What did you do?” she laughed mirthlessly as she sat up again, leaning her head back against the chair she was sitting in, her eyes focused on some unseeable point on the ceiling of our living room.
“I haven’t done a god damn thing.” She looked at me then. Burning balls of almost pure black, searing into mine. And I felt myself falling. Taking a header into those eyes, and feeling the pull, the lure they always had on me, become all that stronger.
I shook my head out, dragging my eyelids closed and hoping she hadn’t noticed how much of a profound effect her looking at me like that really had on me.
“They don’t know?” I brought my hand up, rubbing my closed eyes with my finger tips, hoping to elevate the pain of knowing where she’d just been, with god knows who. When all I could really want is for her to come home with me after clubbing. If only to just have a cup of coco before falling into our respective beds and drifting off into sleep.
At least that way I’d know she was safe. That she was home for another night at least.
“No, probably not.” I could almost hear the shrug in her voice; see that humorless smile flutter across her lips. The far away look that her eyes always gained when she was thinking about something she thought she could never have. “Cause I haven’t told them. I’ve had the opportunity to tell them.”
I opened my eyes, slouching down further in my chair and propping my head against the back of it, getting myself comfortable.
“Really?”
“Yeah. But.. how do you tell your best friend, you’re in love with them?” My entire world froze. Like someone had just found the remote and accidentally pressed the pause button.
“What? I’m sorry I just meant… *what*?!” the force with which my voice tumbled out of my mouth shocked me slightly. But I had suddenly found myself through the looking glass and into a world of permanent acid trips. She couldn’t have just said, what I thought she said. Right?
She shook her head and sighed slightly, looking back up at me, and then away again. Her hands hanging limply between her legs as she swallowed deeply.
“Buffy. I’m in love with you. I have been for the longest time.” Her voice sounded resounded. Like she’d set herself up for the inevitable fall of rejection. But why, when she knew that I had loved her for the longest time?
“Then why the hell didn’t you say something?” I found the anger in my voice slightly surprising. But hell, I shouldn’t have done really. She’d known for the better part of a year how I felt about her. She’d had the chance to tell me how she felt for just as long. Dammit, I had a *right* to be angry. “Fucking hell Faith. You’ve really put me through the fucking ringer.”
I slammed my head back against the chair I was in and slammed my eyes shut. Shit. I always swore when I got angry. I hated that my mask slipped, if even for just a second.
I suddenly felt the backs of her warm fingers, trailing a soft line of fire down my cheek. Forcing me to open my eyes, to look at her as she knelt on the carpet before me.
“I’m sorry.” She swallowed deeply, her eyes following her fingertips as they carried on their path, down the side of my neck and over my collarbone. The very contact causing shudders of pure passion and longing skuttering throughout my entire being. “I was scared. Even when I knew how you felt.”
I could understand that. She wore a mask too. One of strength. One of confidence. And only I was the one to see the scared and confused girl beneath the thick hide of the woman the world got to see. I was the one to hold her when she woke up crying in the night. I was there whenever she started hyperventilating, when the panic attacks grabbed her. Her head reeling from the past she had worked so hard to forget.
“What changed?” I was silently pleased that my voice came out almost steady. Her digits making it hard for my breathing to remain normal, as they wove an intricate web of heat around my body.
“I saw the way you looked at me when I came in tonight.” Her eyes flickered up to mine for a brief moment, a ghost of a smile on her lips, before they lowered again to her hand. “That look of utter fear, and then complete relief when I walked through the door. That it was me, and not some police person coming to tell you that I wouldn’t be coming home.”
I grabbed her hand, stilling her fingers on my flesh, and squeezing slightly, causing her to look up into my eyes again.
“I’m always scared that tomorrow might be the last day I ever see you.” I smiled weakly at her, finding my fingers slowly interlinking with hers. Holding the back of her hand against my bare color bone, and the seam of my top. “Because I’m so in love with you, I don’t think I could survive if I knew you weren’t gonna be there the next morning.”
She smiled at me softly, her thumb running back and forth gently over mine, her skin grazing the skin on my color bone as it glided gently, soothing the ache that had come upon me with thinking thoughts of her not being there.
“I..” her eyes slowly drifted from mine, trailing a soft path over my face, and coming to rest on my lips, slightly parted and waiting with bated breathe for the chance to steal the kiss I’d been wanting to have for as long as I can remember. “I desperately want to kiss you right now.”
Her breath whispered softly across my face, causing a shiver of pleasure to worm its way down my spine, at the husky and endlessly sexy levels her voice had dropped into. Whispering her need to kiss me across the airwaves to me.
“I’ve been wanting that for years.” I whispered back as I pushed my fingers into her hair and gently pulled her towards me. Her lips landed on mine and neither of us moved for fear of suddenly waking up and finding out this wasn’t real.
But the dawning of reality came over me, and I gently lead the way in our first kiss. Brushing the tip of my tongue over her bottom lip so lightly, I wondered for only a moment if she’d felt it, before her lips opened up to me and responded.
It wasn’t a memorable day. The sun wasn’t crystal clear, the weather wasn’t notable. The club was monotonic, the music lethargic, the clothes having been worn countless times before. It wasn’t a national holiday, nothing happened to make that day stand out in my mind.
But for that one moment, the clocks stopped ticking, the wind died, and the world stop turning. I will remember that single moment for the rest of eternity, simply because it was just her, and only me.
I will remember that instant, because in that moment, she was mine.
I slowly ran my fingers tips down her collarbone, flickering them so softly over her heated skin. Wondering when I stepped out of the dream, and ended up in a reality that didn’t leave me breathing hard, my world cracking just a little bit more.
Continuing my path, I trailed my digits down her chest, between her breasts, almost being unable to curb the impulse to veer off to the sides, to cup my hand fully around one of them.
But I kept going, gently rubbing the material of her shirt over her skin, being unable to suppress the screaming rush of heat that flooded me, every single time her breathing hitched against my lips.
I popped open the bottom few buttons of her shirt, and quickly rushed my hand inside of it, pressing my hand flush against her skin, reveling in the feel of her muscles ripping underneath her skin at the contact, my eyes closing at the warmth of her being underneath my palm. Causing the heat that was surrounding me, to increase.
God. I wanted to take her so much right then.
Rip open her shirt buttons and tug down her pants, until there was nothing left but her, sitting there in that skin I loved to feel so much. To make her whisper out my name as I kissed every single inch of her body.
As my lips led their way down the smooth column of her throat, nipping softly and gently suckling at her flesh, I shifted my hand, letting it flow over her stomach, around to her side and squeezed my fingers gently. Her body arched up into mine slightly, pushing her further forward. Almost as if she was half laying down.
I could feel her fingers woven into my hair, her thumb slowly running back and forth over the skin of my throat. Her other hand resting on the top of my arm, slight perspiration causing our skin to stick together. Forcing mental images of sweat covered stomachs pressing against each other, as the bodies they belonged to wreathed together as one.
“Wait..” I breathed, pulling my lips away from her so I could see her face, gulping heavily. Her cheeks were flushed, lips parts as she almost heaved air in and out of her body. Her eyes were slightly glazed, an air of confusion ringing behind them. “Wait.”
“What?” a shudder ran down the length of my spine as her voice wrapped itself around my brain. Soft, whispered, breathy, husky. And so very deeply sexy.
“Dawn’s home soon.” She nodded gently and then sat up straight again. Tugging her shirt back into place and running her fingers through her hair.
“Right. We can always save this for..” I shushed her quickly with my finger over her lips. Shaking my head softly before leaning in and replacing it with my lips. The kiss was short, yet passionate. Letting her know that tomorrow never came soon enough.
“Let’s not go too far.” I pulled away and smirked slightly at her.
“Your room?”
“My room.”
For slayers, I don’t think either of us have ever moved so fast in our entire lives.
My back was pressed into the hard surface of her door, my head lolling against the wall as she gently thrust herself up into my heat. A slow, lapping rhythm that caused my legs to wrap around her waist impossibly tighter.
I could feel my lips starting to crack slightly, as I breathed heavily through my mouth, and it took almost inhuman effort for me to close my mouth and lick them to get them half way moist again.
Her lips blazed a trail of utter molten lava down my throat, latching on to my pulse point and making me keen into her thick hair, as I lazily ran my finger tips over the back of her neck. If I had it in me, I would have been smiling at the sensation of gooseflesh appearing in their wake. Positively grinned at the vibrations of shudders that were rambling through my body, from her.
My mind sudden took stock of the fact that our entire torsos were pressed together. Breast against breast, stomach against stomach. Heat against heat. The thought made me moan, low and deep into the room. And I knew, if she kept this up, no matter the pace of her gentle thrusting, she wouldn’t even have to take the rest of my clothes off.
My shirt lay in a heap on the floor, her tank top throw carelessly next to it. I frowned slightly, as her top was shed, to reveal the black bra beneath. The one time she chooses to wear a bra, and it just has to be tonight?
I ran my fingers slowly down her back from under her hair, feeling her arch like a cat into me, as I pressed into her flesh with my nails. I figured her bra clasp for a few moments, before quickly flicking it open and pressing my palm to the newly exposed skin beneath.
I knew, without ever having to see into the future, that I would spend countless hours memorizing every single inch of her skin. Smooth expanses of darkened flesh. Goosebumps arising where ever I breathed out onto her. The soft downy hair on the back of her neck, trailing down from her hairline. I wanted to know it all. I wanted it all.
I pulled her head back up towards me and almost brutally slammed my lips to hers, shocking her enough to make her stop the movement of her lower body, giving me enough time to at least be naked before I blew into ecstasy.
Dropping back down to the floor, I stayed close, but slowly pulled off her bra, letting the garment fallen, forgotten, between us to the floor as I looked at her. A small smile playing over my lips as I rounded her body, running my hands over her shoulders, and down her back.
A grin spread across my face as I looked at her. The very center of her back was covered, almost completely, in a delicate, very detailed tattoo. Raven’s wings spreading out as if to take flight, seemingly coming out from her body, ready to take her with them. Blacks, grays and whites flashing across her skin, filling in the details that would have been missed without them.
Running my fingertips gently over her skin, I started to trace the lines and curves of that tattoo. Memorizing it, taking a mental and physical snap shot of its beauty.
My raven.
She slowly turned around to face me, her hands running up my arms and back down again. Linking her fingers with mine as she looked into my eyes.
“Just for you B,” she whispered, before slowly walking me backwards towards the bed. My heart was thundering in my chest, both from the way she was looking at me, and the memory of that day, years ago.
“Faith, you’ll die! You *can’t*!” I screamed at her over the sounds of burning wood and rusted metal. The cries of pain from below where we stood.
“Buffy, I have to.” I could see Dawn leaning heavily against one of the poorly constructed pillars, over Faith’s shoulder, ignoring the shaking she was putting me through as I pleaded with Dawn to help me save her.
“Buffy listen to me, listen. I love you. I will *always* love you.” She looked over my shoulder at that point, the blazing blue shimmers of the vortex reflecting in her eyes. “This is what I have to do. Tell Nisis.. Tell Nisis that I figured it out. And.. and I’m ok. And give my love to our friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be *strong*. Buffy.. the hardest thing in this world.. is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”
She leaned forward and kissed me softly on the forehead. I could feel her lips quivering against my skin as she gulped down the tears I knew she wouldn’t let fall. Then she pulled away from me, smiling one last time before she turned around and pulled Dawn into a quick, fierce hug.
She quickly ran around me, after dropping Dawn from the hug, and jumped off the end of the platform. I felt myself stumbling behind her and dropping to my hands and my knees at the edge, my breath all flying out of my body as I blinked, hoping the tears would fall so I could see her just one last time.
My vision cleared to see her entangled in ropes of electricity. The blue bolts running up and down her beautifully flawless skin, as she wreathed about in pain. Her arms were spread out to either side of her body, and her fingers kept clasping and unclasping in the obvious pain she was going through. And her hair was flying about her head in the wind that was whipping against my face.
And a second before she took her last breath, she opened her eyes, and looked straight up at me.
My last thought, on seeing into those eyes, for what I felt was the last time, was how beautiful she looked. Despite the pain, despite how she wasn’t going to be left standing after this, despite the throbbing of agony welling up inside my chest, and threatening to pull me down into that dark place. That quiet place. Despite all those things, her beauty was still radiating out of her very being, and the thought suddenly cross my mind that she looked like a raven.
Beautifully formed in the pre-Dawn light, arm spread as if the wings of a raven, her dark tresses wildly rushing around her head.
“My Raven.” I whispered, knowing she wouldn’t hear me even if I shouted, but knowing if she was still alive, she’d know what I had said.
Her mouth opened in a soundless cry, before her head lolled back and her eyes rolled up into her head. And then she was falling.
[I’ll remember]
A whisper of her voice across the wind, the last time I thought I would ever hear that sweet, melodic sound, ever again.
My knees hit the bed, causing me to waver on my feet, my balance lost for a moment, before I finally gave up the fight with gravity, and sat down. My eyes were levels with her stomach, and it took only a moment for me to register this fact before I leaned forward and laid a gentle kiss just above her belly button.
I could feel fresh tears stinging the backs of my eyes, a lump had risen in my throat and I fought desperately to swallow it, to blink back the tears that memory wanted to fall. I refused to cry. I refused because she was right here, stood in between my legs, her fingers running soothingly through my hair.
And I refused because most of my entire being would rather not wait another hour or two to make love with the woman who stood in front of me. The woman who went through hell to get back to me.
“Well well, isn’t this a surprise?” the voice jolted me out of the haze I seemed to have been existing within for the last year or five. My vision swam in front of me, making it hard for me to focus on the being sat in front of my battered and bruised body. “You know, you weren’t supposed to be here now.”
I shifted slightly, closing my eyes and swallowing the bile that rose up within me, as I left the jagged edges of two broken ribs, creak against each other and push at my skin.
“When that whole mayor thing went down, well hoo boy howdy! *then* you were down on the guest list. But you just had to go screw things up by doing that whole redemption gig.” The voice continued talking to me as I was making a mental checklist of exactly what in me was broken.
Four ribs.
Left wrist.
Dislocated left shoulder.
Shattered kneecap.
Twisted right knee.
Broken right ankle.
Fantastic.
“Yeah, you landed pretty hard. Haven’t seen someone hit the ground like that in a good long millennia. But then, mystical portals always shake things up with speed.”
“Where..” my voice sounded completely alien to my ears, causing me to cough and swallow before trying again.
“No no. Don’t bother. I know what you’re gonna say. And, unfortunately, there’s been one *hell* of a mistake. Someone in admin’s gonna pay for this one, if that blonde slayer ever gets wind of this.”
What the fuck, are you talking about?
“Listen, some dumbass in admin screwed up. Something about the old filing system being in disarray or something. Anyway, he had your file. And then saw on the monitors what you were about to do. So, he was there in that portal, ready to bring you here. Figured he’d get a promotion or something. Pffft. Lucky if he gets away with just a broken neck.” The guy, because it was obviously a guy. I’ve never met any female yet could talk in that low of a pitch.
“So, basically, he screwed up, took you when he wasn’t supposed to, brought you here. And there in lies the problem.”
I found my vision growing slightly darker, despite having my eyes wide open. What the fuck was *wrong* with them anyway?
“Oh.. that. You haven’t used them in about a year. Listen, you’re obviously about to pass out again, so I’m gonna leave you to it, and I’ll be back when you start coming around again. Okay?” if he was expecting an answer, he was disappointed.
He was gone before my head hit the deck.
“Hey sleepy head.” I groaned out loud as I was forced, once again, out of the darkness that seemed to like me so much. I mean, what’s not to like? It’s quiet, you don’t have to move, and no one bothers to come in a get you.
Unless you’re this asshole sat in front of me that is.
“Hey hey now. No need for that. Last time I woke you up was a week ago missy.”
“A week?” my voice shot across the room, obviously startling him with the power of it. I cracked open my eyes to find myself looking at a huge horned demon, with black and red skin.
“Yeah. A week. Skip by the way.” He held out my hand and I softly shook my head at him. “Oh sorry. I forgot you’re still slightly broken. Didn’t expect you to have your voice and vision back so soon though. You haven’t used them in a very, very long time.”
“You said last time I’d been here for a year. Then why am I still hurt?”
“Ah. Unfortunately, this is hell. The laws of human physiology don’t apply here. We let people go to sleep? They start to heal. And as you probably already know. Pain hurts a lot more if you’re still banged up. So you go to sleep, and your entire body kinda does this.. you ever watch demolition man?”
“Err.. that film with Wesley Snipes in it?” the question had caught me completely off guard. Demons watch movies in hell now? Well fuck a duck.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Well, it’s like that cryostasis. You go to sleep and you just like, stop. Well you keep breathing and stuff, but you don’t start to heal.”
“So, basically, I’m gonna have to stay awake to get better.” He nodded at me, and I wondered what it was about him that made me not want to rip his head off. “But there’s no point in that, because hey! Hell. Torture when you’re awake.”
“You don’t listen very well for someone who hears, do you? This, you being here, it’s all one big mistake. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’m not? But.. I deserve to be here.”
“No one who gives up their life to save everyone else’s, deserves to be here. The people here, they never even think what they did was wrong.” He shrugged and looked around the room I was in.
which I didn’t notice looked a hell of a lot like my apartment back in my dimension.
“Listen, there’s only one way to put this mistake right. Faith? Faith!”
“Huh?” I shot my attention back to him, tearing my eyes away from the picture of B, Dawn and me in the park one day. Xander had taken that picture a week before everything with Glory when down.
“This mistake, it needs to be fixed, because you can’t stay here. Not when you’re not supposed to be here.”
“So send me home wizard of oz.”
“I can’t.”
“What?! You guys fuck up royally, and you can’t fix it? what kind of hokey shit is that?!” I really had the urge to jump up and lamp the guy. They stole me away from whatever the hell I was supposed to have when I died, and they’re telling me they can’t send me home? They can’t fix it? well fuck that!
“It’s.. I have no idea why it’s the way it is Faith, but, the only way out of here, is to fight your way out of here. You need to get better, get stronger, and then you need to get out of here.”
“And how the fuck am I supposed to do that. Ask the guy in cell five B which way the big fucking green exit sign is at?”
“You need to get to the main gates. There’s some pretty nasty things out there that don’t want to see you leave Faith. You killed a big chunk of them. They want you to suffer. And they’re gonna do anything they can to trap you here.”
“How do I know you’re not one of them?”
“Did you ever kill me? I don’t think so. I work for the powers. I don’t die. Listen, I gotta go to a meeting about some chick in L.A., but when I get back? I’ll help you out properly. You just concentrate on getting better.”
“But..” I turned my head towards where he was sitting, and groaned out loud to myself.
I *Hate* when he just disappears like that.
Her eyes burned into my skin, leaving invisible trails of molten lava in their wake. Their path drawing intricate lines across my skin that only I could feel, as they sizzled and heated the blood beneath.
The urge to look up at her, and watch her as she watched me was almost too much to resist, but I held strong, and continued to watch my fingers and they traced little circles and random patterns across her stomach.
I could feel the carpet digging into my knees slightly, the edge of the bed as it pressed into my waist. Could hear each amber crackling lazily in the fire behind me, catch the soft scent of her shampoo as she moved her head slightly.
I was completely awash with her. She had invaded my senses and stolen the breathe right out of my body. Her smooth skin running underneath my fingers, as if directing the path my digits took, as they became intimate with her flesh.
I shifted my hands further upwards, resisting the urge to move them in the opposite direction, and gently pushed up her shirt a bit more. Revealing more of that creamy skin to my eyes. She pulled herself up right and quickly grabbed the bottom of the garment of clothing, and pulled it off over her head.
Dropping it to the floor, she sat back on her hands, before her eyes became drawn, once more, to what I was doing.
Touching, teasing, caressing. Barely registering the passing of time as I slowly wove a tangled web of arousal and heat around her. Smiling softly every time her breath hitched. Swallowing every time she whimpered softly and slightly arched her back.
I flickered my eyes up to her face, before lowering my mouth to her skin. Slipping out the tip of my tongue and running it into her belly button, almost groaning at the taste of her slightly damn skin in my mouth.
I kissed, licked, and nibbled a random trail upwards, biting down softly on her skin as she pushed her fingers into my hair. Rubbing the tresses between her fingers, her thumb running backwards and forwards over my scalp.
Placing my hands on either side of her, I pulled myself up further, breathing out harshly onto her skin, causing the warm path of kisses to suddenly become cold, contrasting each other, and bringing a gentle moan from her lips.
I stopped moving, lowered my breathing slightly and just exhaled softly, causing the area of skin below my lips to peak and stand out against the air. Aching to be touched. Begging to be tasted.
I sneaked out my tongue, and quickly flicked it over her nipple, holding in my soft groan at her whimpering. Repeating the action, but slower, I rested my elbows gently on her thighs, before, at almost a torturously slow pace, I wrapped my lips around her flesh.
Suckling softly, spurred on by the keening and whimpering, as I continued to lick and nip her nipple from behind my lips. I leaned forward and gently bit it, tugging it softly with my teeth and feeling my eyes roll up in my head, at the low moan she released.
Releasing her nipple, I kissed my way quickly up her chest, the column of her neck, over her chin, and captured her lips in such a passionate, longing kiss, it left the edges of me burning from the heat.
I pressed my lips more firmly against hers, nipping her bottom lip before opening my mouth and gently sliding the tip of my tongue over hers, flickering it over the stud of her tongue bar, feeling her gasp against my mouth.
I continued to kiss her lips, ravishing them with my own, licking and softly biting my way around her mouth for endless minutes, as I brought my hands gently to her knees.
She jumped slightly as my palms connected with her, and then began to squirm as I trailed my fingertips up her inner thighs, making the juncture at the top of her legs my target. My arms were shaking slightly with the force I was using to keep my fingers moving at a slow pace over her skin.
Once again I flatten my palms to the very tops of her thighs, on either side of her heat. Only a few centimeters away, but seemingly endless miles. The muscles in my back and arms were rippling as I restrained myself. Drawing out the anticipation for as long as I possibly could do, just so I could feel her hips trembling beneath me.
“Please.” She gasped against my lips, pulling away to utter that single word and to gulp in a huge breath of air.
I lingered back, my lips just out of her reach, as I looked into her eyes. Burning balls of pure green, swirling before me, pulling me in, and I felt myself falling even further into them, than I have ever gone before.
Slowly, I lifted my thumb off her skin, sweeping it outwards and grazing her heat, causing her breathing to hitch, before I took my digit away again. Holding it mere millimeters away from where the both of us so desperately wanted me to touch.
I watched with utter fascination as she pulled her lips closed and swallowed deeply, before pushing the air out of her body again, her breath washing over my face as it came out heavy and fast.
As I continued to watch her, feeling my thumb shaking as I held it suspended above her, the dawning of exactly how much I loved this woman before me, crept into my mind. Blanketing me in a wave of heat, a rush that caused my eyes to flutter closed for a moment, before I opened them again.
I wanted to express that emotion, the depth of it, the endless eternity’s I knew I’d love her for. But the beauty I found at opening my eyes again, simply took away my ability to form a single word.
She swallowed again, and I could feel the tension in her legs lessen slightly, her body becoming resigned to the fact that what she wanted, she wasn’t going to get. Unfortunately for her, her body wasn’t in my mind, knowing exactly what I was going to do.
I quickly lowered my thumb, pressing the pad of it gently against her clit, and I stared as her eyes rolled up into her head, as it fell backwards. Her hips rose to greet my thumb, but I gently pressed them back down to the bed again with my hands. Refusing to give her the pressure I knew she so desperately wanted.
Tearing my eyes away from her face, I lowered my eyes and looked down at my hands. And I knew, that if I were standing up, my knees would have buckled at the sight that met my eyes.
I have not now, nor ever will see a sight as erotic as my hands surrounding her heat, my thumb pressing gently against that small bundle of nerves. The image made me groan, and I flickered my eyes back to her face to find her watching me.
Slowly, in a circular motion, I started to move my thumb, smiling softly at her as I mentally asked her eyes to follow mine, and see what I was seeing. I watched as her eyes lowered before mine, dropping to watch what I was doing.
She groaned lowly in the back of her throat, the sound coming out as half a growl and sending tendrils of arousal to my center. I could feel my inner muscles pulse with the force of it.
I wanted to watch her watch what I was doing forever. To see the look in her eyes as she followed my thumb, memorizing the way I moved, learning intimately what I was doing to her.
But the need to taste her, to feel her wreath beneath my tongue, was too strong for me to resist. I leaned forward, my mouth finding her opposite nipple without my even having to look.
Quickly, I blazed a trail of warm, wet; open-mouthed butterfly kisses down from her nipple, over her stomach. I spent moments lingering at her belly button, dipping the tip of my tongue inside, running it around the outside of it slowly and gently nipping the top edge of it, before continuing on my downwards track.
She shifted slightly, pushing her hips further forward, making it easier for me to bend down and reach what I was on a mission to have. I slowed myself, spending more time slowly kissing and licking the area of skin just above that patch of soft hair. Lingering because I could hear heavy breathing rushing through my head, and I was unsure at to if it was her, or me. Or both.
Satisfied that the continual loop of hitched, heavy breathing wasn’t my own, I finally carried on my path, veering off to the side and softly licking, in one long stroke, the join where her leg met her torso.
She shivered beneath me, gasping as my cheek barely brushed over the hair that was there, and moaning when I slowly started to shift my thumb off her clit.
I ran it downwards, pressing it into the torrent of wetness I found there. Rubbing the tip of my thumb backwards and forwards a few times, over the small knot of hard muscle that lay just below her clit, before carrying on downwards.
As I reached her entrance, I swirled my thumb in a circular motion, teasing her, offering her something, but yet not giving her what I was asking her to take. I wanted to here her whimper, to here her whisper to me that she wanted this. If only to have the sound of her husky, endlessly sexy voice whispering through my head.
She whimpered, yet again pushing her hips forward, attempting to catch my thumb and embed it as far inside of her as it would possibly go. But I knew her every move, and moved my thumb with her body, refusing to enter her.
“More, please” her words were forced out of her body as if she couldn’t get enough air to breath, and the sound made a flood of wetness rush out from in between my legs, soaking my underwear through.
I bit her thigh gently, slowly licking it, then laid a soft kiss where my tongue had been, as I slowly, gently, torturously eased my thumb inside her.
A groan escaped my lips at the guttural moan she released, as her hips rose slightly off the mattress and pressed down onto my thumb harder. Trying to get the pressure she wanted, trying to put an end to my sweet torment.
I smiled against her skin, before kissing my way back to the join of her leg and torso, lingering for long moments as I breathed out over her heat. Causing her to shudder every time I exhaled, and her hips to quiver in anticipation.
A wave of her scent assaulted my nostrils, rushing up into my nose and causing me to exhaled deeply before breathing in again. I quickly lowered my mouth over her, closing my lips around her clit and sucking, swallowing the tang of wetness that lingered there. I gulped, once. Twice, attempting to calm myself before I was the cause that this torment was over before I had really finished.
Pulling away, I quickly flicked the tip of my tongue over her clit, revealing in how she pushed herself up into my mouth, my nose pressing into her pubic hair as I continued slowly lap at her clit.
Pulling my thumb out of her slightly, I quickly pushed it back inside, bending it at the knuckle and pressing the tip of my thumb against the area inside of her that I knew would make her arch up into me more.
I wasn’t disappointed. And then she moaned out my name.
My entire insides clenched tightly, and I could feel my clit twitching as my insides pulsed, sending rivers of wetness escaping my body once again. Without meaning to, I softly bit down on her clit, making her gasp and jerk into me.
Turning my thumb downwards, I forced pressure in the same direction as I dragged it back out of her, holding it still for a single instant before I pulled it free of her body. Lifting my head, I looked up at her, and smiled.
Her mouth was open slightly, her lips cracked with the force of the air that was rushing out and in from between them. Her eyes were slightly glazed and a thin sheen of perspiration washed over her face, causing her to look flushed.
I lifted my thumb, smiling at her softly before opening my mouth and pulling it deeply in through my lips. Closing my mouth around it and ravenously suckling off her wetness, swallowing deeply from the pure and tangy tasting liquid.
She whimpered slightly as she watched me, and I smiled up at her before I lowered my tongue back to her clit, and once again began to slowly flick the tip of it over and over again.
Brushing the backs of my fingers across her inner thigh, I ran my nail gently over her flesh, before quickly pushing two of my fingers as deep inside of her as they would go. She keened loudly, her fingers in my hair, holding me to her as her back arched at an impossible angle, before she leaned back again on her free hand.
I pulled back slightly, keeping my fingers inside of her, and swallowed heavily before reaching out my tongue again, and starting to flicker it faster over her clit, keeping my pace steady as I began to move my fingers in and out of her.
I pulled my fingers almost all the way out of her body, before I slammed them back inside of her, again, and again. Almost in perfect time with the speed of my tongue as it kept its virgil over her clit.
I could feel her hips thrusting in time with my fingers, her body twitching and her inner muscles gripping my fingers ever tighter. Her wetness was flowing at a steady pace out over my fingers, slowly covering my hand and seeping down my wrist in thin rivers.
The fingers she had in my hair gripped the tresses tighter and I felt her body start to arch up from under me, pressing her hips further into my hand and mouth. All I could hear was the heavy sound of her breathing, gasping, hitching out of her mouth, accompanied by short, sharp moans.
I looked up at her, staring at the sight of her. Eyes screwed closed tightly, mouth open slightly, her chest heaving and her body shaking, twitching from my ministrations. Her forehead was beaded with little droplets of perspiration and I could see the pulse point on her neck flickering so fast and so hard, it would have frightened me.
Except, at that moment, she opened her eyes and looked down at me, for only a second, before her head fell backwards again and her back once against arched her up off the bed.
Her body stilled for one, single, endless moment, as if she were a spring. And then the spring snapped. She dropped to the bed again, her breathing coming out irregular, stilling for the gasped, hitched groan that uttered its way out of her mouth.
Her hips twitched against me, her inner muscles pulsating around my fingers, attempting to draw them in deeper, to hold them there. Her grip on my hair had become impossibly taunt, not painful, and not yanking the hair out of my scalp, but keeping me exactly where I was.
I stopped the movement of my fingers, slowing down the speed of my tongue to a very slow, very gentle lapping. I was determined to draw out every last moment of her orgasm, and watch every single second of it.
Finally, her body relaxed and fell fully back onto the bed. Her eyes once again closed as she breathed deeply, letting go of my hair, her hand falling to my shoulder as she attempted to grip on to my skin.
I sat there, looking at her, my fingers still buried deep inside of her, and a torrent of her wetness covering my chin. I watched as her breathing leveled out, I watched as her heaving chest began to slow. I watched as the perspiration on her forehead started to dry.
She finally opened her eyes again, smiling down at me and swallowing deeply a few times before she pushed herself up into sitting. I slowly pulled my fingers out of her, straightening my back and looking up at her, my tongue sneaking out every couple of seconds to taste her still on my lips.
I reached up my hand, intent to wipe the wetness from my face, but she stopped me, holding my wrist, as she leaned down and slowly licked herself off my face. I moaned, my eyes closing of their own accord as she cleaned my chin, kissing every single drop of her from me.
She pulled back as I opened my eyes again, and I smiled softly at her before I lifted my fingers and slowly pushed them into my mouth, sucking and licking her off me, swallowing the distinctive tang of just her from my digits and grinning around them.
My grin widened as I pulled my fingers from my mouth, watching her as she watched me. She caught my eyes again and smiled back. Her patented lopsided smirk as she lifted her hand and softly ran her fingers through my hair.
Raising myself off my legs, I knelt between her own and wrapped my arms gently around her back. She kissed the top of my head as she ran her fingers down the side of my neck, and I could feel her smiling against my raven colored hair.
I pulled away slightly, watching her as she smiled at me, long and slow, before pulling herself from the edge of the bed, shifting herself further backwards until she was led down fully.
She looked at me then, smiling softly as she laid on her side and wriggled her finger at me, telling me to come to her. I pulled myself up onto the bed and crawled over to her, watching as she shifted onto her bed.
Opening her legs, she grabbed hold of my shoulders and pulled me down on top of her, pulling my lips to hers and ravishing my lips with a kiss so heated I felt as if I were going to burn from her.
“Let me show you” she whispered against my lips, looking up into my eyes.
Despite the creature comforts of my new home, including all the food I could eat without having to work for it, the heat hadn’t escaped my notice. Now living in sunnyhell for five years should have taken care of that problem, but then I was never really prepared to find myself in hell, while still being very much alive.
It’d been a good five weeks since Skip had last come to see me, the memories and words of the conversation seemingly dripping out of my mind, except for one thing: I had to get out.
Dragging my almost fully healed body from the confines of the sofa, I trudged over towards the small training area I’d set up, and eyed the punching bag for a long minute, before laying down on the weight bench, and starting to lift the bar in a series of repetitions.
I didn’t really need to tone the muscles up, but without a sparring partner, there’s only so much a girl can do by herself. And even if B were here, I doubt she’d actually know how to get ready for it anyway.
I hadn’t ventured outside since I’d arrived, knowing full well that half the demon population of this hell, were gunning for me. Not to say I didn’t have a few unpleasant callers over the time here. But it wasn’t like I had anything else real life to fight.
Laying the weight bar back down, I sat up flexed my back, feeling the muscles stretch slightly under the sheen of sweat that had been ever present since I got here. I wouldn’t have minded the sweat if I was getting a tan at the same time.
Laying on the mat on the floor, I curled my feet underneath the metal bar that I’d attached to the wall, and started to do a rapid series of sit ups, following a set of 50 by a set of 50 crunches, then starting to process all over again.
A whooshing sound came rumbling through the apartment and almost made me loose rhythm, until I realized that it was just Skip arriving.
“Hey fella. Where’ve you been for all this time?” I could feel my stomach muscles bunching slightly underneath my skin, but I didn’t turn to look at him, carrying on my work out instead.
“L.A. jesus, I was only gone for two days.”
“Five weeks actually. If you’re running by this time.” Finishing off, I slowly climbed to my feet and turned to face him, smiling at him, despite knowing he was a demon, but liking the big guy anyway.
“Man! You’ve been working hard haven’t ya?” his eyes trailed up and down my body, causing me to walk over to a full-length mirror and peer at myself curiously.
Well fuck a duck. My eyebrows almost shot off my forehead when I saw myself. Where before the femininity of my gender softened my body slightly, making me look like I couldn’t hurt a fly, my body was now bunched up in groups of hard, rippling muscles. Not like those creepy body builder women you see on tv. But everything had been fully toned, the muscles structures I had before being hardened beneath the skin, now giving me the look of a predator.
“Damn.” Turning this way and that, I checked out my body, feeling a small sense of pride at the results of my hard work.
“Faith?” looking up at him through the mirror, I saw a look of sadness cross his eyes as he watched me through the glass. There was something in that look that I knew I’d seen before. Something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Who?”
“Tara.” His voice smashed into my head, making the blood rush behind my eyes and cause a white-hot stabbing pain being them. Pressing the heels of my hands into them, I lowered my chin to my chest and just tried to breathe. Without even opening my eyes I knew that little black spots were dancing in front of my face.
Staggering slightly, I turned around and put my back to the wall as I slide down it, the sound of my own breathing vibrating so harshly through my own head, I couldn’t even tell if Skip was talking to me again. Maybe he wasn’t, maybe he’d gone.
A wave of dizziness raced through me, causing nausea to jump up into my throat, threatening to spill over. Just like the tears I was scarcely holding behind my lids with my hands.
Tara?
I kept tapping the end of my pen on the corner of my book, as I propped my head in my hand and attempted to read the text in front of me. Why on Earth had I let B convince me to actually pass high school? And worse, talk me into going to college?
I’m quite positive that I didn’t give a flying fuck about South East Asian politics.
A hand suddenly clamped down on top of my own, causing me to jump slightly and turn to the girl beside me.
“Jesus T-bear.” I whispered to her softly. We were in a library after all. “You scared the bejesus outta me.”
She smiled softly at me as she removed her hand and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Sorry. But that was bugging me.” Indicating with her hand towards where my pen holding hand was.
I smiled sheepishly at her before closing the textbook and shoving everything into my bag. “You coming? I’m boring myself to tears here. Need a coffee fix.”
center>*****
“I dunno. Sometimes it’s just a little too much for me to handle all at once, ya know?” she nodded as she took a sip of her drink. “I mean, I never had to worry about kid sisters, and college assignments and friends all at once, *and* on top of slaying.” I shrugged before sucking up some iced mocha through my straw. I swallowed deeply before continuing. “It used to all be so simple. Sleep through the day, slaying at night, making sure to relieve the vamps of their wallets before dusting commenced.”
“The only thing I ever had to worry about was getting away from my family.” The hint of sadness and anger behind her voice didn’t escape my attention. “and then when I got here it was all just.. old Tara, ya know? But now there’s willow. And with willow comes the rest of the gang. Not to mention the whole ‘fighting evil’ thing too.” I grinned at her balsay mentioning of our work, so to speak. “Not to mention the actual life stuff on top of that.”
“Yeah but, what can we do?” I shrugged, curling my empty coffee cup into a near by trashcan and leaning back in my chair as I stretched.
“The thing you gotta remember Faith, is even though now you have people to care about and look out for, at least two other people wake up thinking the same thing.”
“You saying you think of me when you wake up?” I smirked as she blushed and ducked her head, before looking back up at me.
“I’m saying that it works both ways. You have people to care about now, but those people also care about you too.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, looking down at my fidgeting hands and wishing, for not the first time in my life, that I could just sit still for a couple of minutes. “I get that now. Doesn’t mean the ends gonna be any different. Cause I’d still gonna die young.”
Reaching across the table, she grabbed one of my hands and gave it a gentle squeeze before letting go again. “You just gotta remember Faith. There are no happy endings: only the moments before.”
As I sat shaking, my eyes glazed over as I remembered the rest of that day, I swallowed the sob that wanted to bark its way out of my mouth. That was a Wednesday. B and Red were in class all day, and me and Tara made a habit out of studying together and hanging out for a good portion of the day.
A small smile lifted the corners of my lips as I recalled the number of times Tara had to actually come to my room and practically yank me out of bed, just to make sure I was awake.
“Who?” I said, shaking my head to clear the fog, and looking up at him. I could feel the rage burning within me as I looked at Skip, feeling the bittersweet hatred for whoever did this to Tara welling up within me.
“Guy called Warren. I wouldn’t worry about him though. Someone’s already taking care of the shit.” Willow. I smirked mirthlessly as I thought of what all that witchy power could be used to do to him.
“He dead yet?” I pushed myself up to standing, feel a dull ache within for the loss of my friend. My *best* friend. And almost a child like glee at what was going to be done to him.
“Almost.” He looked at me, knowing exactly what I was thinking, before I even thought it. “You know you aren’t gonna be able to get to him without a fight, right?”
“Do I look like I give a flying fuck right now? Huh?” I shouted at him. Fuck it, going home could wait.
There was someone I had to wait to see before I went anywhere.
I feel like my entire body has been brought to flames and back again. The skin stretched almost unbareably tight over my body. Constricting my breathing, making the thud of my heart against my chest almost painful.
It's been a while. They left me here, stood and chained to the wall, my body sagging backwards against the cruel burning bricks. I can smell the stench of my own burning flesh, and I find myself ideally wondering when they had it replaced. The last thing I remember is the pain of it being ripped whole from my body. And then nothing.
Suddenly, the door smashed open, the streaming light of hell streaming through the frame and smacking me full in the face, making me blink several times because I haven't seen light for what seems like a thousand years.
There's someone stood in the door frame. A girl. Short and perfectly formed, from what I can tell by her silhouette, and a sudden burst of hope errupts underneath me. Maybe she's here to set me free, maybe she's here to help me.
She saunters into the room, my cell, the lantern she'd brought with her being placed on the floor by her feet, lighting her face and body up to me.
A large gash in her forehead oozes blood at a tremendous rate, short spurts pistoning out of the slash with every pulse her heart makes. The liquid runs down her face, covering the right side in crimson, making the feral look on her features seem so much more deadly.
Her clothes have random slashes and slides over them, each revelling another cut, and each of them bleeding. She looks bruised, tormented, almost broken. Her hair hanging in thick matted dredlocks, held together by her own blood. The over all effect of this girl, being one of primal, preditory power.
Kicking the door shut again behind her, she looks at me, her cold and almost dead eyes rivetting into mine, almost burning me within at the look of pure hatred she's gracing me with. And I know she's not here to help me.
"You." She growls out to me, her voice low and husky. Literally growling, a snarl and sneer fixing her features into distain at my meer existance. As if my very breathing offends her in some way. But I don't know this girl, I've never seen her before in my life.
The raven haired beauty that slowly, calculatedly pulls a knife from behind her. The double blade of the weapon beautiful, esquisitly craved and crafted as the glow of her lantern flashes over the cool metal. Her eyes lower to the knife for a moment, in almost a loving caress, before coming back to my face.
"You killed her." She whispers to me, something in her voice telling me that whatever I did to her, whatever action I took, destroyed a part of her. A part she was about to crave out of my skin.
The scream that arose drowned out the pain of the other suffers in this hell. It wrapped around every being's ears, causing painful shivers to rush down their spines, making them feel even slightly grateful that whoever was torturing that poor bastard, wasn't torturing them.
For hours the screams carried on, weaving themselves almost painful over the hils and buildings, streets and roads of the dimension. Causing the people who worked there to stop, and smile a small smile of satisfaction at the pain that was being inflicted.
If only they knew.
She moved away from me, breaking away from my agony for just a moment as I breathed in deeply and harshly, ignoring the feeling of my lungs, being ready to explode from constriction.
The tears were flowing freely down my face, marring the pale skin in invisible scars and cooling my heated flesh. If only they would fall to my chest.
She'd been here forever, silently watching me and almost lapping up my screams, they became so tangible. Almost as if you could cut through them with a knife. The smell of my own blood fermenting the air, making me gag at the coppery taste that lingered around us.
She hadn't said a word to me for hours. Since she first came in here with me. The word 'Tara' leaving her lips meer moments before she took that beauiful blade and dug it deeply into the flesh of my thigh, twisting it and swiftly yanking it upwards. Creating a cavernous gapping hole to appear in my leg. I recall watching dully as my blood gushed over my skin, flooding the floor beneath my feet.
The time in which she'd been here spent making almost all of my body one great big network of bruising, burns and open wounds. She took a lighter to that first rip in my thigh. Kneeling before me as she slowly worked the flame over every square inch of the bared inner muscle, a cold smile washing over her face as I begged for her to stop.
She walked over to the corner of the room, where she'd set up some sort of fire in a small metal bin. Numerous fire pokers being shoved into it, the handles protruding at various angles and they were heated by the small flames. She looked into the fire, her arms folded across her chest as she remembered something I no doubt had never been a part of.
"I want to take your life, in pennance for hers." She said softly to me, the only part of her body that moved was her mouth. Her eyes still locked onto the unseeable point in her past. "She stole her from me, from us." She turned to look at me then, her bitter hatred welling up in her eyes as she wrapped her fingers around the handle of one of the pokers.
"I.. I didn't.. mean to.." I gasped out. It being so long since I used my voice for something other than screaming in pain. My throat burned at the effort and trying to talk, attempting to beg for her to stop.
"Do you think I care, about whether you meant to kill her or not?" slowly stalking me through the flickering shadows of the room, and I suddenly wished I hadn't tried to get her to stop. I had a feeling that she would just cause me more pain if I tried to.
Placing the burning tip of the poker on my chest, she smirked at the yelp I let out at the short, sharp point of heat. It stung, and the smell of my own flesh singing was disgusting. But it was nothing compared to what she'd already done to me.
I looked up at her just in time to see her smirking ferreling at me again, before she reached her arm back and shoved the poker brutally straight through my chest. My mouth opened in a silent scream as I found myself unable to breathe, unable to talk, unable to make a single noise.
Was I dead? I couldn't hear my heart beating. But I guess this is the place where you don't die. Because my eyes are still open, still watching her as she moved to get another poker, staring at the tip with a critical eyes, before she spun around and threw it at me.
The point landing right in my hip, the force breaking and cracking the bone beneath as it fought to hold purchase in my flesh. I felt it slipping, ready to fall, before she was grabbing the handle of it and shoving it right through my hip bone, effectivly pinning me to the wall behind me.
Explosions of fantastical color burst from behind my mind at the pain, tendrils of agony running through my very veins, pulsating into every single cell of my body as I fought to breathe, prayed to pass out, and silently begged with my eyes for her to stop.
Leaning back against the wall next to the door, I let my eyes roam over his body, feeling almost a child-like glee errupting from my chest at the sight of him. The most promising part of it all being the dozen or so burning hot pokers I'd effectivly managed to shove right through his body, pinning him to the wall.
The chains were obsolete now, as two pokers were brutally shoved through his wrists, elbows, knees and feet. Rivers of blood joining with the tides and oceans of crimson liquid that seemed to be on never ending supply from his body, as it freely flowed down his flesh, coating him with a sickly pinkish glow.
He was still awake, unable to talk or to breathe, but still there, his head resting backwards against the wall as he watched me, as I watched him. I smiled mirthlessly as every twitch his body made caused a flash of agony to wash over his facial features.
"Faith, it's time to go now." Skip's voice resounded softly inside my head, and I realised that the demon who had the esquisite pleasure of torturing this son-of-a-bitchy for eternity, was coming back.
I walked back over to the bin of burning ambers and molten lava in the corner. Silently thanking Skip for providing me with such raw materials, before grabbing it and lifting it off the floor. I could feel his eyes on me as he watched the sizzling steam arise from my hands. Grabbing the rim of the bin with one hand, I took hold of the bottom rim with the other, and walked over to stand directly in front of him.
"I hope you rot here, you son of a fucking bitch." I said, smirking evilly at him, as I threw the contents of the bin onto him.
I stood there, reveling in the sight of his flesh almost melting from his skin, his left eye banging inside of his head and taking half of his face with it, of the muscles on his stomach bubbling outwards and popping softly like small pimples. Spilling lava balckened blood over his body.
Sliding my knife back into the sheth on my belt, I took one last look at him, before quietly slipping out the door, to find Skip waiting for me, ready to ap me back to my hell-home.
I found myself ideally wondering what the demon would say when he saw the distruction I left behind.
She held the blade loosely in between her finger and thumb, shifting it slowly from side to side as she looked at its glinting surface in the pale moonlight. She could make out the shallow lines hastened into the flat surface, and abjectly wondered why, if so marred by its making, should it feel so soft to touch, so smooth.
The diamond shape that coursed down the center of the razor blade left shallow indentations of pressure over her finger tips, and she ran them over the aperture, digging her flesh harsher, almost smiling at the soft, rippling sensation that raced into her wrist and gently blossomed out over the muscles that lay beneath the skin.
Rolling up her sleeve, she prolonged the moment before her entire forearm was revealed. Glistening white skin shimmers with streaks of moonshine. The delicate rays of ether-glow, rebounding off the downy blonde hairs, creating flutters of flocculent shadows, weaving breakable patterns over the appendage.
She grasped the small silver blade more firmly within her hold, taking a moment to once again relish the compression within her digits, before apathetically laying the tiny corner on the underside of her limb. Her breathing almost coming to a complete halt as she stared at the bitter sweetly beautiful image before her eyes.
The palest expanse of cool, smooth skin, seemingly flowing, changing, breathing over her forearm, a stunted indentation in the river of her flesh, where the miniscule but deadly blade was applying the smallest amount of pressure underneath its point.
The muscles within the extremity holding the razor seemed to move of its own accord. The shoulder cramping slightly, holding the elbow steady as that, in turn, shifted the wrist. The complex series of movements creating a slow, sweeping action with the cutlass.
She watched in abject fascination as a small crevasse seemed to blossom her skin apart, the sight of her raw flesh beneath causing her to gasp gently. To see what makes us is a powerful drug, one that is not easily quenched and quickly covered up. As so the slice in her arm swiftly fills with blood, the swallow cut spilling but one drop onto untouched skin.
Lost within the beauty of her actions, and powerful notion of utter control, she felt a void, at the misplacement of her reason. Although breathtaking to sight and almost heart stopping to watch, the pain she craved was forfeit to the vision before her.
Moving on to another area of, as of yet, untouched skin, she quickly sliced, a soft hiss escaping her as she refused to focus not on the image, but on the pain. A deep lying, resounding physical anguish at the sensation of her skin being split open like ripe fruit before her.
An almost tidalic wave of sharp, shooting pain vibrated within the appendage, causing the hairs on her skin to stand on end. The shadows that lay a gentle breeze of grass shapen pattern across her flesh now becoming nothing more than pin pricks of darkness, washing over her, as the blood quickly raced towards gravity.
The slight feeling of agony that had started to fade, pressing her on, making her move the blade once more over her skin and add laceration after laceration upon her outer, tormented shell. A delicate yet bitterly alluring constellation of slices weaved an intricate impression across her arm.
Streaks and small rivers of crimson liquid converging into one oceanic waterfall, cascading from limb to sand, as the patterns in her mind became a reality on the canvas of her own body. Swirling images of dark, blood stained designs galloped through her mind, without knowledge being transferred to her arm and instantly dismissed as another took its place.
Time stood still with that blade, tracing its way over her skin, drawing lacerations that were unconsciously planned, ripping hairs from their roots, and the reddest blood she had ever witnessed from her veins. Pain forgotten as the part of her mind that was usually so quiet and submissive took over, controlling her limbs, commanding her muscles, weaving that tiny implement of death.
The pain was all but forgotten, the beauty dismissed and the liquid that now coated her skin in a slick sheen unnoticed, as she turned her arm this way and that, attempting to reach any area of her forearm that was missed, and not yet 'drawn' upon.
Her breathing came out ragged, as she slowed to a stop, having found herself out of the canvas she had now become accustomed to using, her heart beating out a temperal rhythm within her chest. The world slowly came back into focus. The moon draping the beach with its gentle light, the waves as they quietly caressed the sandy shores.
And the points of pressure in her fingertips, where the pads of her digits pressed tightly into the diamond shaping of the center of the blade. The resounding and constant throbbing of her arm, it yelling out its protest against being abused as such.
She clenched her fingers into a fist, attempting to either alleviate the ache, or to intensify it. Not knowing which. Her digits slipped over each other, causing her to look at the offending limb. She startled slightly, to see it covered in her own lifeblood, the crimson aqueous material covering her entire forearm in rivers that bled into each other.
Her eyes turned towards the sand beneath her, her eyes roaming freely over the splattering of deep darkness over the sands, knowing in the morning that all traces of her ever being here would be washed out to sea. Yet the cravings on her arm being testament to her endeavour.
She rose slowly, using her unmarred hand to once again drape the razor blade around her neck with its chain, and pushing that hand into her pants pocket. Her eyes lazily travelled the gently breaking waves of the ocean in front of her, causing her hair to shift in the wind.
Looking down once more, at her crude blood splatters on the dusty sand, she started the gentle walk back towards the town.
Unwittingly forever leaving her beautifully soulful markings upon the sand, where she rested for just a while.
...to be continued...