Subject: [OTL]: [Jubilee/Jono] Moving Like Clockwork (1/1) Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 23:13:57 -0700 From: Lise Little Jono/Jubilee piece, though hopefully that's apparent. PWP, of a sort, since there's semi-graphic sex, and no plot. Consider them old enough to be doing such things, so alternate universe. Marvel characters. Falstaff contributed many of the paragraphs, so much thanks and kudos to Staffers. Rated about an R. =================== Moving Like Clockwork Lise =================== She crept in on socked feet, sure to avoid making any noise. He was waiting in the bed for her, sheets folded down, and she took off all of her clothing, making sure to touch her breasts as she removed the red shirt from her chest. She wasn't wearing a bra, because it was too much of a hassle to take off in the dark. She didn't bother to look down at her body, knowing that it didn't matter what she looked like, whether today she was less than perfect shaped, whether the scars from battles and training showed or not. He would touch her just the same. He beckoned her to the bed, and she paused to take off her rings and place them on the bedside table. He grasped her narrow hips, and guided her to his lap, groin already slowly burning. He was almost nude, just like always, and she became moist because of instinct. She felt the warmth and heat spread through her as his hands found the places they knew about, touching quickly, carelessly. She allowed him the exploring, let him take control of the waxing passions and waning emotions, physical seasons changing and sliding against each other like warm butter or sand from an hour glass, dripping away. They did the routine of foreplay, and did it as well as they could in the minutes allotted to the task. The lamp was off when she came down. It always was, and ever since the first night, it had stayed off. They didn't have the time to play with candles or the light switch. She felt the disillusionment when he first touched her, that it didn't feel delicate and soft, like the one she really wanted. His fingertips were rough with calluses, guitar strings having marked the limbs as being owned by music. They scratched against her creamy skin, making rasping sounds. It was exactly the sound the match made whenever Ange lit up outside the dorm, the faint flick and a hiss, sharp intake of breath before igniting such a slender, feeble flame. Her insides started wobbling, just like they always did with skin-to-skin contact. Ease of practice made the timing routine, every second happening like the one before. They didn't really hesitate. She always came to bed naked, and sometimes he wished she wouldn't. He would have liked the challenge of it, the pleasure of unclasping, unlocking the way to the body. If it were someone else, whom he really desired, he would have to try, to delve, and to get beneath her morpheable skin. But here, there was nothing barred, nothing hidden, nothing ducked down secret passageways or snaked covertly between white, slim thighs. He needed no keys to unlock her knees, no maps to find his way around the planes, curves and hollows of her body, no guide to the innermost secrets she held. He held himself in, controlled the fires in his gut, because she didn't ignite them. A quick fondle, a passing caress, less fumbling with the language, and that was it. All in all, they were unconcerned with communicating in all those ways that mattered. The piece that mattered most, the interlocking of lips in prayer to each other and worship of the soul, just didn't come up. He couldn't speak with kisses even if he wanted to, and she didn't have anything to say. A form of desperation, that's what it added up to. The only person she wanted in the heart-thumping way wasn't interested in sex at all -- not with boys, certainly not with a skinny little girl like her. And he wasn't getting anywhere with the one who'd taken his heart away -- she spent her days sucking face with the new guy. Everyone was entitled to act stupid at times, but this was over the line, wrong somehow. And so together they rode the rocking waves, and came back again, never quite happy, but barely satisfied, sometimes. It took the sting away from having more will to stay, than urge to go. The pendulum on the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs swung back and forth, as he went in and out. The will to stay was easy to produce. It meant walking downstairs in your socks without waking the other two telepaths, who both slept too soundly to hear the tick-tocking coming from behind the basement door; it meant waiting up for the girl to knock softly on your door and produce the forgetfulness that tried to be like the River Lethe, but never quite succeeded. It was all the effort they could produce after so long. Their urge to go lead would lead them upstairs, into light and uncertainty and the realm of the living, and so they chose to stay, a pale ghost, wandering around in white socks, and a dark spirit wrapped in black bandages and a blue robe. And they didn't think about, when all was said and done, they kept the status quo out of habit, and not from any effort to be as one. Out of desperation for the end to loneliness, even though they'd forgotten that desperation long ago. They got next to nothing, gave next to nothing, touched and moaned like clockwork from a clock with a set of tired gears and listlessly moving hands. She kissed his forehead, a ritual she never failed to complete -- something from the early days, when they thought this might have been more than what it was. She touched what was left of his stomach, licked his skin, as he pulled at her hard nipples with his fingers. She appreciated the way he was unconcerned with how she was the younger one, how he would pet her the same as he would any other girl. She raised her head from his belly button, and stared at the way the black bandages around his chest and face glowed dully. She saw the darkness pool, rivulets of it. Only, the shadows were close to forgotten in their crescendo -- nervous stimuli, electrical impulses and automatic reactions. They joined, coming as a unit, just like the other nights, nothing different, nothing changed. <> And it was true, after a fashion, but they were only dipping their metaphorical toes in. Not being able to find the ocean, they stuck with a bucket and a faucet that leaked. She cupped a breast, looking down at it. They were small, just like her, but when he held them, she felt a little bigger. She didn't want to talk about it; he just showed her something that no one else was willing to, and moaned inside her head. She lay against the pillows. "I don't know why." Not having an answer, he didn't reply. She held his hand in the darkness, let the lukewarm barely-quaking leave their bodies, and then she dressed quietly and left again. He didn't really miss her, though he wanted to. He could never be able to explain how much it meant, being able to prove that he wasn't half a man. He could control himself, he could do it, at least with her... but she wouldn't have stuck around to hear it anyway. She looked at her watch as she ascended the stairs. It was less than an hour, and stolen out of time. Their friends sometimes joked about what they'd tell their kids about the first time the world shattered in orgasm, sharing sex with someone else. They wondered what kind of story would be behind it, what words woven-spun as colorful cloth. She would be able to say that, at seventeen, a mute someone had respected her as more than she was, and saw her for something other than a child. Other than that, they had no plot, nothing else to say. He would be able to say that she didn't look at him, because they stayed in the dark, so they wouldn't have to face the fact that, when all was said and done, they both wished each other's faces would shift, blur, and then become someone else. The dark was easier. It was easier for him to forget for a second that her hair was black, not golden; easier for her to close her eyes for just a moment and feel delicate fingertips instead of rough ones. Both of them were glad for the dark and how it hid their usual dissatisfaction, though they made the halfhearted sounds of sated people. The gears made no protest, spinning around slowly, and they failed to oil the mechanism, failed to wind some more life into the apathetic springs or limbs. He felt his limpness beneath the sheets they shared, body finished the rhythm, mind wandering, and knew that everything was missing between them. But the part that hurt them most was they didn't know where to find it, because they never had it to begin with.