TheBanyanTree: SUB: Drawn into the Rhythm / 860 / R / Language

[Guy Koehler]

 Drawn into the Rhythm
 By Guy Koehler
 860 words
 2005-07-25-pm0932


 "How long have you been standing in line?"

 She turned, gave him the once up then down, rolled her
 eyes, turned back to her place in queue, and shifted her
 shoulders just so, obviously dripping disgust.

 "...ain't you a piece ..."

 No sooner did his last word roll oiled off his tongue --
 the Neanderthal behind him stumbled, pushing him, crotch
 first, grinding into her ass. He had to fiercely hold her
 tightly by her wasp-thin waist to keep them both from
 falling to the stones at their feet.

 "Get your fucking hands off me, you moron!" She was not
 pleased he had saved her, stones or not. It was obviously
 his fault, as he could have thrown himself into the pit
 they all hugged themselves to the cliff to avoid.
 "Asshole!"

 It was going to be one of those days, again; he could just
 tell. She had become his obsession from further back than
 he could remember, always there, forever untouchable, her
 scent driving him mad. Innumerable were the variations he
 had played through his dreams: pushing her to the wall,
 pinning her, thrusting his need, taking what she so
 obviously was built for. Did she really think she could
 stand there, next body in line, perfect ass twitching in
 rhythm to the beat of his heart, and not _know_ she was
 begging him to be Male?

 "Are you deaf?" she screamed defiantly.

 "Suh -- sorry?" he whispered, one syllable at a time in
 hoarse, rasping breaths.

 "Get the fuck off my ass!" She twisted away, pushed
 herself back against the cliff, and kicked him squarely in
 the balls.

 "Ooommmph..." Pain is an illusion, a fire, a rasping
 ragged tortured rusted knife slicing across your belly, up
 your wind, into the deep of where you didn't know could
 feel, pulling your insides out across your lips, drooling
 bloody drivel down your open-mouthed gaping fish out of
 water. He curled up into himself, silent tears beading up
 in the corners of his eyes, squeezed out tiny noises a
 mangled puppy might whimper.

 She watched him suffer, slow satisfaction fading into
 realization.

 She knelt next to his fetal nakedness, self-righteous
 anger melting into real concern. She reached out one hand
 toward him, stroked the nothing a breath above his head,
 then pulled it back to her lips, sucked air between
 clenched teeth, and sighed. "Damn fool. You've stood
 behind me silent as all time, but couldn't bother to ask."

 He drooled on the hot stones, the ragged remains of last
 season's weeds -- no light left in his eyes. His mouth
 uncontrolled, open, left side of his face twitching
 arhythmically, echoes reverberating across his cheek, eye,
 nose, obstinately pulling the right side of his lips along
 with.

 "Fuck!" She sat down next to him, cross-legged, and pulled
 his head over onto her lap, stroked his hair, and murmured
 to the child she had never held. "Shhhhhh. Shhhhhhh."

 They were ignored by the others, who had passed them
 before and knew they would again, heads down watching
 their feet move from one step to the next, shuffling into
 obscurity -- abandoned despair. Feet drummed out the
 negligent chord neither had forgotten, but dared not hope
 might yet have light. None of the others spoke, whispered,
 breathed out of turn, let alone looked at the two huddled
 up against the rubbled cliff edge. There was only the
 line, the eternal snaking line from obscurity to oblivion.

 There were no hours, for the light never changed. It was
 never high noon, not hot, not cool, not humid, not dry. It
 was not really light, but they could see, of a sort. They
 just knew where things were, what to avoid, where to step,
 to keep going, never stop.

 And thus it was she held him, stroked his hair, while he
 drifted even further than the illusion they wished they
 could see, that they almost remembered, felt shiver along
 the back of their neck when the wind that didn't move
 touched them. As she sat, the him of him distant and gone,
 she closed her eyes and hummed gently, softly. His pain
 leaked into her, washed in silent waves across her body,
 forced her to sway with its anguished beat, rocking back
 then forth, to the side, with him, with him, for him. Felt
 him shudder as the light slowly dawned in his eyes, and he
 fell head first into the bottomless pit of pain.

 He moaned, began to thrash, but she held him tighter
 through the dark of it, whispered lies he heard with his
 skin, and her body drifted. She took him with her, away
 from the stones, away from the weeds, across the blue
 smoke dreams of turtle-no-shell, eagles who leave tortured
 flesh on fingers visited, crows heralding chimneys coming
 home to roost, steaming buckets of bull's blood. They
 touched on other illusions, drifted without visas, knit
 themselves into a single heart. While all the while, the
 line shuffled, one step, two, past them into the
 direction.

 He moaned, blinked, and tried to bring one hand up to his
 mouth, ignored her attempts to shush him. "Where am I?"

 "Back in line."


 END


-- 
Guy Koehler
Rivendell Ranch
http://home.centurytel.net/rivendellranch