Violeta Noir

Forty eight hours.

That was apparently all it took.

By yesterday afternoon I was so fucking horny I could barely stand myself.

Wounded Boy was supposed to be at my house by six.

I got off work at five.

Dinner reservations were at six thirty.

Afterward, we were going to the speakeasy I have quietly adopted as my third place.

This left approximately one hour for me to get home, shower, transform, and behave as though I had not spent most of the afternoon thinking about all the things I wanted done to me.

Naturally, I spent most of that hour in the shower.

Priorities.

I wanted every inch of me soft.

Supple.

Touch me and slide.

So I took my time.

Then came three layers of moisturizers, floral oils, and perfume.

By the time I was finished, I smelled like something expensive you probably shouldn’t touch without permission.

The dress was lace and sheer with a slit all the way to my hip.

The liner underneath was skin toned enough to create questions I had absolutely no intention of answering.

No panties.

Lace bralette.

Sheer shawl.

Peacock studded purse.

Tennis necklace.

Gold across my eyelids.

Cat eye sharp enough for the gods.

At five thirty he messaged that he was on his way.

I was just getting into the shower.

I told him that if he managed to arrive at six and I wasn’t ready, he could punish me however he saw fit.

I did make one rather specific request involving my mouth and his complete disregard for my gag reflex.

I was ready at five fifty five.

Of fucking course I was.

Which meant I had five minutes to spare.

Enough time to curl my ends and sweep my hair into a dramatic Jessica Rabbit swoop.

Lip tint.

Gloss.

Done.

I met him at the door.

He was holding flowers.

Grey jeans.

White shirt.

Black cardigan.

Brown dress shoes that did not belong to the same story as the rest of the outfit.

The outfit was terrible.

His smile wasn’t.

Neither was the way he looked at me.

I forgave the shoes.

The flowers went into a cup of water because apparently I can spend an hour turning myself into a perfumed vampire but cannot be bothered to locate a vase when there are reservations involved.

We left.

At dinner they seated us across from each other.

I hated it immediately.

It occurred to me that this was the first time in years we’d gone somewhere together and not sat tucked against each other.

Across the table felt strangely formal.

Almost like a first date between two people who had absolutely no business pretending they didn’t already know each other intimately.

We ate quickly.

Half the dinner came home.

So did dessert.

Then we went to my speakeasy.

I ordered Wounded Boy a Boar in a China Shop.

Bacon fat washed rye.

Apple brandy.

Amaro.

Aperol.

Chinese five spice.

Lemon.

Togarashi hot honey.

Beef jerky sitting on top because apparently subtlety had been banned from the building.

I had a margarita.

Subtlety had also been banned from me.

Before we left, I invited him into the bathroom for an inspection.

It is a very spacious bathroom.

This seemed worthy of investigation.

There is an old tube television in there.

I bent over it.

Wounded Boy understood the assignment.

Our inspection became considerably less architectural until somebody tried the door.

I washed my hands.

He slipped out.

Then I followed.

Very respectable citizens.

Nothing to see here.

We were home by eight thirty.

One of the great advantages of having your favorite places ten minutes from your bed.

I had already smoked Sour Diesel before we went out. Between that and the margarita, everything felt warm around the edges.

My skin.

My head.

His hands.

His mouth.

And Wounded Boy knows my body.

That is one advantage history has over novelty.

He knows where the electricity lives.

But last night he didn’t seem interested in rushing toward any of it.

He touched me.

Everywhere.

Slowly.

His hands kept traveling over my skin while he told me how soft I felt.

Which pleased me because I had put in work on that softness.

Three layers.

Moisturizer.

Floral oils.

Perfume.

I had spent most of my precious hour in the shower turning myself into something I wanted him to touch, and now he couldn’t seem to stop touching me.

Good.

Appreciate the craftsmanship.

He rubbed my feet.

Kissed every inch of me.

Spent an almost ridiculous amount of time with my toes in his mouth.

Nothing was being skipped.

Nothing was being rushed.

He explored a body he has known for years as though he’d been away from it long enough to need reacquainting.

Maybe he had.

Everything between us lately has seemed rushed.

Stolen hours.

Limited windows.

Bodies trying to consume as much as possible before somebody has to leave.

This time nobody was watching the clock.

Somewhere between his hands traveling over my skin, the kisses, the attention to my feet, and him repeatedly telling me how soft I was, I remembered something.

This used to be our favorite rhythm.

Slow.

Indulgent.

Completely fucking unnecessary.

We weren’t trying to get anywhere.

We had nowhere else to be.

And once we found that rhythm again, the rest of the world became considerably less interesting.

Time stopped behaving normally.

Twenty minutes became an hour.

An hour became something I stopped measuring.

I lost track of how many times my body answered him.

Eventually I reached that strange place where pleasure stopped making me move.

I became completely still.

That has never happened to me.

Usually pleasure makes me arch.

Grab.

Shake.

Something.

This time I simply stopped.

My toes crossed over each other.

My eyes disappeared somewhere into the back of my skull.

I felt like every electrolyte in my body had packed a tiny suitcase and left.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, he did something familiar.

Something I had very recently praised Pint Sized Mechanic for doing.

That caught my attention.

For one strange second I wondered whether Wounded Boy had been reading my stories.

I don’t know how he would have found them.

I am, for the most part, discreet.

But there it was.

The same thing.

Maybe coincidence.

Probably coincidence.

The Archivist merely records.

After that, we moved the way we used to.

Like dancers who had performed the same choreography so many times that neither needed to call the next step.

Turn.

Shift.

Pull.

Follow.

Again.

There is something different about a body you’ve known for years.

Novelty has surprise.

History has shorthand.

We have shorthand.

Eventually language abandoned me.

Movement followed.

My body had become one long exposed nerve and he had spent hours remembering exactly what to do with it.

Somewhere in there I found enough life for one more ride.

I watched his face change.

Watched his eyes roll.

Watched the last of his composure disappear.

And because apparently even near death I remain a little shit, I changed the rhythm precisely when he seemed least prepared for me to do it.

Eventually I collapsed on top of him.

There was nothing left.

No more performance.

No more cleverness.

No more Violeta.

Just two completely depleted people in a thoroughly marinated bed.

I laid my head on his chest.

His heartbeat was the last thing I remember.

Apparently I passed the fuck out.

Later he informed me that I drooled and snored directly into his face.

And he loved it.

Now that is a man in love.

And this is the dangerous part.

It is when he makes love to me like this that I think I could be a one woman man.

Not out here.

Not in reality.

In the secret little pocket we share.

The pocket where nobody else exists.

No one in my life knows about him.

He insists everyone in his life knows about me.

Maybe they do.

I have seen no proof.

So as far as I can tell, this thing exists almost entirely between two people who step into it, close the door, and temporarily agree that the rest of the world has disappeared.

And inside that pocket, I am his.

Only his.

I tell him that.

I tell him I’m his.

I tell him who I belong to.

And for those hours, I mean every fucking word.

That’s the peculiar thing about truth.

Sometimes it has borders.

Mine ends at the door.

Because eventually Wounded Boy leaves.

The pocket closes.

Reality becomes reality again.

He returns to his life.

I return to mine.

And Wounded Boy goes right back into the Archives.

Preserved.

Catalogued.

Loved, perhaps.

But archived.

Because Sunday I see Chiron.

And I’m excited about that.

Then Monday there is a blond haired, blue eyed drink of water who has apparently spent the last few years being a fucking pirate.

A pirate.

Of course.

Apparently Violeta’s calendar has stopped accepting ordinary men.

Wounded boys.

Mechanics.

Gods.

Centaurs.

Pirates.

At this rate I expect a werewolf by Thursday.

And maybe that is why I understand these men better than they think I do.

When I say my darkness recognizes his, I mean it.

I know what it is to contain things that don’t announce themselves when you walk into a room.

Because all they ever see is the light.

The glasses.

The smile.

The softness.

The flowers.

The woman who remembers the reservation.

The woman who smells like something blooming.

The woman sitting politely behind a desk.

They see light and assume light is all there is.

Meanwhile there is an entire nocturnal ecosystem behind my eyes.

They don’t see the Archives.

They don’t see the pockets.

They don’t see the men wandering in and out of mythology.

They don’t see the woman who can belong completely to one man in a dark room on Friday night and still wake up entirely her own.

Maybe that’s the riddle.

Maybe it isn’t a riddle at all.

Maybe they keep mistaking the part of me illuminated for the whole woman.

At some point during the night I woke to ocean sounds playing from the television.

Wounded Boy was snuggled against a pillow.

Absolutely not.

I moved it.

Pulled him onto my chest instead.

Wrapped myself around him.

Went back to sleep.

Morning arrived lazily.

Warm sheets.

Sleepy bodies.

The smell of both of us still trapped beneath the blankets.

My favorite kind of morning.

There was no rush then either.

We stayed tangled together until eventually morning stopped being quite so innocent.

Apparently neither of us had been as depleted as we’d believed.

Eventually he collapsed over me again.

That should have been the end.

It wasn’t.

I curled in front of him to become the little spoon.

He pulled me closer.

And somehow we found one last reserve.

I don’t know where this man stores it.

I don’t particularly care.

Because today, finally, I am satisfied.

I am writing this from my desk at work.

There is a customer in front of me.

I am wearing my glasses.

I am smiling.

Polite.

Professional.

Completely respectable.

Meanwhile I am squirming in my chair because my body remembers last night every time I move.

Nobody looking at me would know.

That’s one of my favorite things about myself.

They see the glasses.

The desk.

The smile.

They have absolutely no idea what the woman sitting in front of them was doing twelve hours ago.

Or what she is thinking about doing tomorrow.

Because tomorrow there is Dionysus.

I already told him I’m looking forward to meeting him.

He’ll be behind the bar.

He’s already informed me that when I arrive he’s grabbing my face and kissing me.

He wants considerably more.

Slow down, Dionysus.

We have barely exchanged words.

I’m not there yet.

But my, oh my.

He is sexy.

Dark.

A little dangerous looking.

Very much a horse you probably shouldn’t bet on and absolutely want to ride anyway.

And after Dionysus comes Chiron.

Then the pirate.

Tonight, however, I require nothing.

Forty eight hours had made me ravenous.

Wounded Boy fixed that.

For today, I am satisfied.

Tomorrow?

We’ll see.