half-cocked.

[glassed]

<center> I met a Christian in Christiansands, and a devil in Helsinki
..
When you talk, you make me cringe
..
You and me, what does that mean?
Always, what does that mean?
Forever, what does that mean?
It means we'll manage
I'll master your language
And in the meantime
I'll create my own</center>


<center></center>

<font color="#C90202" size="1">[ October 18, 2005 04:41 PM: Message edited by: the transient ]</font>

[glassed]

The high cathedral ceilings of the opera house had his attention rather than the woman at his side who smiled through a waxy shade of red lipstick at him as a gloved hand fell on his kneecap. Cherubs with crackled faces peeked out from the molding while their bodies were hidden by sculpted ribbons that eventually draped into the tapestries which hung in rich burgundy velvet, much like the carpet that lapped across the floor and the chairs that they were seated upon. He felt his breath catch as the lights dimmed and his head tipped down toward the stage. He watched as proper spines straightened in the anticipation of the opening movement. A lone woman stepped out from the shadows as the curtains on the stage were pulled away and began to lift her voice toward the highest point in the building -- a haunting series of notes that sent a shiver through him.

The woman on the stage entranced her audience with the power of her voice as she wove the story of the opera through the hours and when it was over, applause rippled slowly over the crowd until everyone had made it to their feet.The woman at his side smiled shyly toward him as lashes dipped low over her cheek and he leaned over, quietly pouring words into her ear, "I'm glad I could share this with you." The woman dipped her head against a shoulder demurely and ceased clapping as the sea of black and white bodies started to leak down the carpet toward the exit.

Her arm was linked in his own as they were spat from the mouth of the opera house into the chill of January's frost that still licked at noses and turned them pink. He stopped her and shrugged himself out of his long coat to wrap around her shoulders while they walked to the back of the car where their driver had been waiting for them. Bodies folded into the back seat where they sat in silence until the car rolled to halt in front of her apartment complex, he shifted out of the car to help her out, still wrapped in his coat. He led her by the elbow toward the steps and pressed his mouth against her cheek.

"You can kiss me," she breathed a reply against the warm brunt of his jaw.

His smile was broad as he blinked at her slowly. Words bubbled in his chest but never made it to full fruition in his mouth, instead, she slid the key into the lock and held the door open for him. She wove an intricate pattern around the complex's lobby until her hand was pulled out of her glove and a finger extended to depress the elevator's button. As doors parted, she stepped inside and pressed her floor's number before her spine flattened itself against the back of the elevator while a hand extended to beckon him to her. He did as he was requested, arms slid underneath the coat and around her waist as she smoothed palms up the lapels of his jacket, lips pressed very close to his ear, "I'm so glad I could share this with you."

Mouths leaned close to touching, breath was transferred between them before the elevator rung her floor and opened its doors. He broke away from her first and stepped out of the elevator with her right behind him. She led him to her apartment and unlocked it, shrugging herself out of the coat that was left on the floor for him to step over as he followed her inside of the lavishly decorated apartment. She plucked earrings from her ears and looked at him over her shoulder with that same demure smile before she turned slowly to face him, catching the grin spreading softly on his face.

"Thank you for taking me tonight, I've never been. It's something I've always wanted to do."

"I know," he replied before he stepped forward and smoothed a hand over her face. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

She responded with her mouth pressed against his as her hands slid over his shoulders. He deepened the kiss and she clawed at his shoulders, grasping for something to hold onto as her knees buckled. When his mouth broke with hers, she gasped for air as her eyes split wide, rolling toward the ceiling as vision blurred. He was gentle as he helped her to a sprawl on the floor, her blood already creating a blossom on his white shirt. He slid fingers over her eyes to close them and unscrewed the silencer on the gun that he put back into the pocket of his jacket. He then crossed himself as if it would provide some holy redemption and picked his coat up from the floor, pulling it over his hands as he turned the handle to her apartment and slid out. When he reached the elevator, the jacket was slid over shoulders and a cellular phone was pulled from his pocket. Punching numbers, he waited until he was in the lobby to press send.

"I'll be out front in five minutes."

[glassed]

Autumn swirled around his ankles in intricate patterns of leaves as he breathed out steam from his mouth while hands shoved into the pockets of a wool coat. His shoulder hitched against the side of a building as he became her shadow -- footsteps were taken in her rhythm as the scarlet scarf around her neck waved like a pirate's flag, fingers flailing as she rounded the corner of brick down an entirely different street. Where her reflection showed up in stream lines of a woman, his angles were distraught as his image bled across storefront windows just seconds behind her.

In the city this sort of thing was less noticeable -- a man with a habit would be counted among the ranks of so many others, but here he had to pause and buy a newspaper while she walked through the park. Here, he had to busy himself in a storefront window while she had coffee with someone else, leaving a soft imprint of lip gloss on the rim of the mug. He wondered the flavor, the texture of her mouth in these moments. Fingers skated over postcards and other delicate works of paper, before he spun out of the store entirely. Here, with her small group of friends, he watched her mouth bow wide in a laugh and his own mouth stretched to emulate the motion as if he were some alien being. Fingers lifted to curl in the ends of her hair when she shifted direction, but instead only brushed against the mahogany threads before he ducked into an alleyway and pressed his spine flat against it. She might've caught the corner of his coat in her eye, but it could've been passed off as a carrier pigeon.

While he slowed his breath -- so close to death, it was nearly impossible to differentiate the two, his phone buzzed silently against the palpitation of his chest. Fingers crawled inside of his coat to remove the object as if it were an arrow that pierced him too deeply. The phone was held toward his ear as he closed his eyes and imagined the rouge painted lips, wrinkled with age, move through the smoke rings it made while words poured out from it toward his ear. He could already hear the agitation in the slow rattle of breath that was loud enough to surpass the static of phone wires that hung heavy like licorice cables above his head.

"I've been waiting for you, Mr. Glass."

Eyes flew open as the voice that spoke to him was jarring -- a man's slow southern drawl dripped like molasses out of the shadow of the alley as the owner tipped his hat. He had all the makings of a mobster, yet none of the intimidating qualities. Instead, his were composed of pale eyes and a jaundice smile that crept out from the shadow of his fedora. The phone was snapped shut as it served no purpose other than to gain the man's attention.

"I've been waiting for you too, Mr. Price."

<font color="#C90202" size="1">[ October 03, 2005 09:42 PM: Message edited by: the transient ]</font>

[glassed]

He prowled through the museum looking for sheep amongst the scattered carvings of rock. Greek gods burned their stylized stare onto his skin while their immortalized limbs cradled pieces of heaven and musculature forms sat entombed in a building that would never change its core temperature. The way the glass panes reflected light into the most hollow of places was specifically designed, he was sure, by a hand that had a mind for expansion -- a rare gem among the pile of rubble that made up Camden. He wove his way around the pools of light and pale statuettes toward the walls where paintings progressed in their eras, fingers touching over the boundary where red rope hung along the ledge of the paintings. In the early morning, everything seemed at a standstill despite these snapshots that could never be silenced.

"Such a shame to see you fade," his voice was a mourning whisper as he took in a deep breath and continued through the museum toward the staircase that led away from the vibrant rooms full of art toward the private collections. "Such a shame to stain these hands."

In the basement of the museum, behind the dank doors that were labeled with various equipment labels, he entered the studio full of paintings in small stacked rows -- each with crackled lacquer begging to be repaired. The fountain of youth for something so timeless involved a careful hand and a skilled eye, restoration always involved some level of destruction and that was something he had perfected into an art.

Though a stream of light filtered through the window bright enough to paint by, he pulled the chain on the overhead bulb and opened the two boxes full of oil paint. Brushes were tested and selected before he stood back to admire the painting. "Laertes and Ophelia" had been loaned to the museum from a private collection and while Maurice Greiffenhagen was not one of his favorite artists, this painting held a particularly striking beauty to it. He supposed it was in the way that Ophelia was portrayed as a lamb driven mad with a somber expression, while Laertes stood at her side like a shadow -- colorless and expressionless.

Paint edged into the canvas like a lover -- he allowed no mistake in brightening the virgin white and darkening sinner's black. When he had exhausted himself, he stood back to look at the image as the figures were now hauntingly clear. It was an image that he carried up the stairs with him as hands were wiped free of paint and a black oxford slid over shoulders in the curator's design. It wasn't until he watched the light shine off of her hair, that he recognized the woman.

"Magnificent isn't it?" His voice expelled all the richness of a merlot as he stood at her side with hands folded in front of him.

"I don't think words can justify it."

"Much as they cannot justify you," he kept his eyes focused on the painting as he spoke, though he caught her glance from his periphery.

Her abrupt movement, however, had him sidestepping his stance so that she could pass hurriedly away from him -- running toward some unknown. He watched her figure disappear through the museum like a feather still caught in the wind and smiled as a hand slid over his shoulder and dropped a small envelope into his pocket.

"I'll see you soon."

[glassed]

Her pale fingers haunted the piano keys as they ghosted over the black and white slats while smoky eyes were turned toward the end of the wire microphone that hung toward her like a dismantled tree branch. Her spine curved against the row of buttons that held the midnight colored fabric together over milk colored skin. A red-rouge mouth pouted closer toward the microphone as the keys on the piano pounded out notes that were acutely louder than the last as wrists arched fingertips down. Eyes opened, their lake colored irises swept over the silhouettes underneath the white spotlight that was focused on her and she looked for him. His presence as a shadow within a shadow was almost daunting, so much so, that she had to string out another measure before her mouth parted with the husky murmur of her words -- ones that were haunting, echoing through the acoustically sound room just for him.

"Once my lover.."

The moment that her voice hit the air, he stopped moving. Almost as if she had some tragedy to spill from her mouth, he wrapped fingers around the back of a chair while she let out another string of lyrics.

"Now my friend," she sang with a bitter edge to her words as frostbitten eyes searched for her muse. "What a cruel thing/to pretend."

No one shifted in their seats as she sang, her fingers directed the piano while her tongue plucked carefully at the heartstrings wrapped neatly in every chest. Her spine curved backward as she let the long waves of her hair slide over her shoulder like Venus De Milo surfacing. He watched the intricate curvature of her throat as she sang to the sky like there had been some divine possession. His feet moved slowly, as if he were walking over tripwires that she laid careful with each note sung from her mouth. She pulled him toward her, regardless of how many times that he had pushed her away and he loomed like a heavy shadow underneath the spotlight.

So darlin'," her mouth curved faintly, "I just want to say/ just in case/ I don't come through.." She let her head tip back down toward the spotlight as if, by some magnetism, she had found him. Eyes burned beneath the bright light and she let her words drop carefully from a coquette mouth. "I was on to every play/ I just wanted you."

He remembered the way the words had felt pressed against his ear as eyes watched her hands moved over the keys of the piano -- how they still retained that ghost-like charm as they crept over his lapels on the evening that had both joined them together and separated them. Even against his pillow, she looked like some fallen goddess whose lungs could not handle the stale air of the earth. He watched her tragic beauty fade on the stage with the rest of her song but it wasn't until he heard the applause clapping like thunder behind him that he moved -- they mirrored one another like vases shattering their facades. They would never hold beauty, only ruin it.

By the time she had made it back to her small dressing room he had pinioned himself against the wall, just outside of the mirror's range of vision. She pinned her hair back and stood in front of the vanity, its contents in a neat order that had been meticulously organized time and time again by her own hands. Eyes fell under their painted lids as she let out a sigh, one that sent her shoulders forward before she sunk onto the small stool and plucked up the items to remove her stage presences from her reality -- she was no harlot, no smoldering siren content to lure men into disarray. Instead, as eye makeup was smeared away, she was revealed as a woman with features to fair to be beautiful; she was ethereal.

He moved quietly beneath the clamor of glass against glass, scraping for some higher meaning. Gloved palms smoothed over her shoulders to straighten her as he breathed words into her ear while her mouth stitched itself shut.

"I can almost see your heart leaping right out of your chest, Cynthia." He breathed in deeply as he buried his face against her neck. "I cannot remove your perfume from my mind. Most women would have chosen more jasmine, but not you. You always did prefer the scent of lilies."

He watched her frozen state in the mirror, catching her eyes with his against the plate of glass as his mouth skated across the pale flesh of her throat. She had the sullen look of a girl caught at her own game. Her eyes fluttered but she did not allow herself to submit to the warmth of his mouth.He snaked an arm around her waist to pull her closer to him as his other hand reached into his pocket. Her stiffened posture made him smirk against her skin before he spoke into her ear again,"I've got to get you out of my head. You said it yourself, your gaze is dangerous."

He pressed a kiss to the ledge of a sharp cheekbone before her face was covered by his hand. She inhaled against the white fabric that he had placed over her mouth and sent her hands crashing into the glass table, knocking its contents everywhere while she thrashed. He kept a firm grip on her waist as she writhed to free herself from him, fingers turning ashen as they clawed against his arm. He watched the color of her eyes seem to intensify the more her lungs took in the concoction he had spread carefully on the cloth. In true '30's villain fashion, he poisoned her with Strychnine Sulfate and waited for her lungs to boil. Within ten minutes, her muffled screams and violent jerks had been replaced with the slow calm of death.

He laid her body along the floor and stuffed the cloth into the pocket of his coat before he spotted the keys to her car and slid them off of the table where they sat in his wake. The door was left only slightly ajar as he wove his way through backstage areas toward the parking garage. The trunk was popped on her silver jaguar and he almost felt a twinge of guilt for what he had to do. Gloves were peeled carefully from hands before the latex layer was peeled off and dumped into the back of the car. His coat was then set neatly in the trunk, before it was locked with the keys inside of it. He smoothed down the front of his suit, keeping his skinny black tie in place as he reached into the breast pocket of his sport coat. When he had made it to the car that had been waiting for him beneath the expanse of Vancouver lighting, he pulled a small remote from his pocket and pushed the button. Words echoed through his head where the sound of an explosion should've been.

Once my flame and
Twice my burn.

(Italicized lyrics are Fiona Apple.)

[glassed]

The woman stood in the doorway to her back yard, thick heavy sunglasses shaded her eyes from the brilliant light of a summer morning as she watched the twin marble cherubs in their eternal praise to the sun god. Their arms never tired of their burden of stone fruit and water that trickled out from the center of their plate and twin faces smiled toward the sky. Her ancient fingers pinched a cigarette regally between them as smoke dwindled to latch onto the molding surrounding the doorframe. Her gray hair shielded the side of her face save for that mouth -- that heavily painted sinister design in red, always slightly curved.

Slowly, she would turn her face from the window and pull the sunglasses from her eyes -- such dark, dark irises that seemed to hold night just beyond their pinhole pupils. The cigarette was pressed between lips and wheezed upon until her red lipstick stained the edge of the filter. Smoke left her mouth slowly as she watched his posture remain rigid in her presence.

"You'd better wake up soon," Her voice taunted before that mouth stretched wide in an obscene gesture.

--

He awoke in a sweat -- the cotton of his t-shirt clung to his frame as he swiped fingers at the matted mess of hair that had stuck to his forehead. Shaky palms washed over his face as elbows stabbed against his thighs. It took a few moments before he bothered to switch on the light and look at the digital read out from the clock; 5:47 a.m. He pulled himself from the edge of the bed and stalked into the bathroom, rinsing his face several times with cold water. He stared at his image in the mirror, still dripping like a melting man as hands gripped the basin of the sink.

"Who are you?" He muttered the question to himself and reached for the towel as his phone rang.

Eyes darted toward their corners before he retracted his hand and stalked back out to the bedroom, plucking the phone from its cradle to rest it against his ear. There was silence from either end of the line as his eyes slid to a close. He heard the familiar flick of a lighter and sighed heavily.

"Don't sound so enthused, darling," a pause, "There's something I need for you to do for me."

"Anything."

[glassed]

The rain had subsided in the middle of the night but rather than force her back into it, he let her sleep soundly on his bed. He worked by candle rather than electrical light as power had been lost long ago and he hadn't the heart to disturb her. From his memory, her image was coming to life on his canvas while he imagined that her REM cycles were swirling with color the way that he made her hair swirl in thick black curls over the slope of her shoulders. Her dimpled spine was prominent through pale skin, which only made her a sharp contrast of blacks and whites.

Slowly, her face took its form with gaunt cheekbones and a petal soft mouth. Her eyes were lined in heavy lashes but rather than bear her natural color, they spurned frost with an unnatural blue. The entire movement of the painting suggested that she had been swept ashore, swathed in the dark waves of his sheet like Venus rising. Still, he preserved her innocence in the modest lines and curves. It was not his intent to turn her into some harlot painting.

When he had finished the very last shadow on her cheek, the sun began its steady rise through windows that hadn't been covered. He let it wash in waves over her as he dressed himself quietly. A note was left for her along with the skeleton key that held entry to his apartment -- one that unlocked all but that black door that stood in the corner like a brooding shadow.

--

Ophelia,

Forgive me for not waking you. I've left you a key so that you may leave at your leisure. I had to be at work quite early this morning.

Careful with the painting, it is still drying.

<font color="#C90202" size="1">[ October 18, 2005 05:24 PM: Message edited by: the transient ]</font>