(edyta)
a beauty impossible to endure : the blood imparted in little sips : the smell of you still on my hands

She reclined on the italian leather couch painting her toenails a vivid shade of red, a handful of black and whites scattered negligently over the glass top coffee table for her scrutiny. It was a half-n-half collection, parts of which were better left unseen. A myriad of fashion shots, broad cityscapes and happy smiling faces of someone elses (commitmentphobe) wedding. The rest, a man in his late forties, taken without his knowledge during the various activities of his day and early evening. A cigarette smoldered where it rested in the ashtray, the tobacco and paper slowly being eaten away by the charring heat. A half-drunk glass of redwine next to the ashtray and the open bottle sitting on the polished wood floor at the end of the couch. Another day and night secluded behind four walls, another day and night spent alone.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:03PM EST
He doesn't come in by conventional methods. No walking through doors and riding elevators for him. Do that too much and the wrong guard might drop the wrong hint to the wrong person, and then it'll all go to hell.

No, he comes in the Garou way. After all, she's his mate now, and what's hers is his by the laws of their tribe. One moment the bathroom is dark and empty; the next, Konrad stands before the mirror watching his own reflection, the muscles of his face pulled taut in strain against the bonds of the Weaver.

-pop-

The Gauntlet lets go at last. He snatches a breath out of the air before turning to flick the bathroom light on, illuminating enough of the hallway outside for him to find another lightswitch. Bathroom light goes off. Hallway light comes on. He leans against the wall at the mouth of the hallway, watching her.

"Don't you ever grow sick of this place?"


Edyta

Fri 04:07PM EST
She pauses midstroke with the small nailpolish brush, the muscles along her shoulders and back rippling with the contraction of muscles beneath the black cotton tank top hugging her torso. More than likely as a result of his unheralded appearance and the strain of reaching for someone she logically knew was not where her hand had been meaning to slide. Silence extends and then she continues to slowly, methodically apply the last of the nailpolish before stretching her back out.

"I go out." sometimes.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:11PM EST
"Oh?" She can feel his eyes on her back, enjoying the view. That, or clinicially, detachedly considering just where he might slip a blade to sever the most nerves, inflict the greatest damage. A sardonic smile curls his lips like smoke, "And what extenuating circumstances might bring about such a phenomenon?"


Edyta

Fri 04:15PM EST
"Work."

She slides the nailpolish-brush back into the small glass bottle, screwing the lid on tightly and setting it aside on the floor. She leans forward again, gathering the spread out mess of enlarged prints into a neater pile and then, as a whole, sliding them into a waiting A4 sized manila envelope which is then slid under the small space left between the floor boards and the bottom of the couch. Privacy was definately going to be being an enforced issue, apparently. She picks up cigarette and glass of wine in either hand and leans back into the enveloping carress of the thickly padded couch.

"Did you want something?"


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:19PM EST
"Work," he repeats, softer. While the photos are being shuffled, his tawny eyes are watching. When they're all slid away, he nudges off the wall and comes to sit across from her, keeping his silence until he's comfortably seated.

"Stalking someone, Edyta?" That gentl(y mocking) smile; those unkind eyes. Then, some measure of relaxation; his eyelids aren't quite the steel shutters of a nighthawk, and he leans back as well. "Perhaps I wanted to see you. That is not unheard of when one is mated to another, you know."


Edyta

Fri 04:25PM EST
"I doubt you find my company that pleasent," she replies blandly as she finishes what was left of the red wine in her glass before pouring another glass and sipping again. She rests her head back against part of the cushioning of the backrest of the sofa and raises her eyes to inspect the ceiling. If nothing else it seemed his cruel humor washed over her without much infliction of emotional disturbance. More gentle souls, those used to kindess, would probably be undone by the mocking, the unkind eyes, the scathing comments. She just seemed to... ignore it.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:32PM EST
"You don't know that," he contradicts, gently, but with an echo of finality.

"At any rate," a little later, "pleasantries have little enough to do with it. Are you going to pour me a glass, or at least pass me the bottle? Oh, and answer the question, Edyta."


Edyta

Fri 04:37PM EST
A slow exhalation of a breath through her nose before she stands with a liquid grace and goes to the kitchen to retrieve another wine glass: she wasn't about to tempt him to drink from the bottle. She returns and places the glass on the coffee table in front of him before resuming her seat across from him.

"Profiling." That was her answer to his question, apparently.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:42PM EST
He watches her rise...
...and he watches her sit.

All the while that small smile lingers on his mouth. He unfurls his arms along the back of her sofa like some great bird-of-prey spreading his wings; like some antichrist rising from crucifixion. He studies her another moment, and then, "Did that insult you, Edyta? Do you chafe at my commands, when once you were - more or less - your own mistress?"


Edyta

Fri 04:47PM EST
"No," she replies after studying his pose (that small smile) for a few moments and then returning her attention to her glass of wine.

"Privacy however, as you offered, is mine. That," and she gestures down towards where the manila folder had been slid under the couch,"Is my business."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 04:53PM EST
And that small smile seems to widen just a notch, just for a flicker before it is gone. "You remember, then. Good." He is serious and sober, then, reaching forward to pour himself half a glass of wine. "I will have to wait for the full."


Edyta

Fri 04:58PM EST
"Yes."

She grinds the almost finished cigarette out in the glass ashtray and the looks around for the soft pack in which to retrieve another to take it's place. With the cancer inducing vice stick slide between her lips she lights it, inhaling the miasma of noxious fumes deeply.

"You will have to wait."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 05:04PM EST
A quiet passes. He swirls wine about his glass without seeming to realize he is doing it. He watches her smoke, and then he sips his wine.

"Do you want to hear about my business, now? The one I may pack with; the territory I claim? And your human lover, when he'll be coming home. Or am I the lover?" Another sip, and a flash of a grin. "Should I hide under the bed when he comes home?"


Edyta

Fri 05:09PM EST
"You can tell me if you wish," she replied, leaving the choice up to him. After all, she was keeping her business to herself it wouldn't be surprising if he choose to keep his to himself as a reprisal for that decision. She glances over her shoulder for a moment at the front door and then back with a languid shrug. She rolls the tip of the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray, sculpting the glowing ember.

"He's on a business trip."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 05:21PM EST
"I'll tell you if you want to know," he returns, simply.


Edyta

Fri 05:25PM EST
The conversation (as bland as it was) could probably have ended there as she stared at the ashtray and the withered filters and ashy contents. Finally, however, she looked up in a manner to keep the conversation going: vague sense of eyecontact and a psuedo-expression of vague interest that may (or may not) be feigned, it was hard to tell with her.

"Tell me."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 05:27PM EST
"...and only if you tell me something in return." Did she really expect something for nothing? His mouth parts in a quick wry smile; his inhuman eyes flicker to the envelope under the table. "A simple question. Nothing about your business."


Edyta

Fri 05:31PM EST
Did she really want to know if that was the cost (compromise of her privacy) and more pointedly did she actually care? Probably not on both of the answers. However, given that the only other course of action if the conversation died was to sit in silence with him smirking contemptuously... well, she prefered her silent time to be alone. That was why she locked the bathroom door and stayed in there for hours on end when Mark was actually home.

"Ask."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 05:39PM EST
And an extended, watchful silence.

"I'll tell first," he says finally, crisply, "and trust in your," smirk, "honor.

"I have met a no-moon of the Tribe called Simon Bobtail. He is a Cliath, and assures me he is well versed in the ways of espionage and war. If that is so, I may become his Alpha. We'll see in a week or less.

"I have territory in the Pine Barrens now, adjacent to Bobtail's and a Fianna who I have yet to meet. That is where I will spend much of my time. I would draw you a map if I thought you might visit - but I don't.

"And now I'll ask. Do you ever feel anything at all?"


Edyta

Fri 05:44PM EST
"Occasionally," she shrugs her shoulder languidly with a slow exhalation of breath coupled with a a haze of smoke. She studies the coffe table top for awhile, head canted to the side slightly, before she returns her gaze to him from across the way.

"I have little reason for emotions: they're, at best, messy."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 06:02PM EST
"Messy." He had a way of repeating her words that was almost a mockery. At the ends of his long, muscled arms slung along the back of the sofa, his hands turn briefly up. "Sex is messy. Childbirth is extremely messy. What made you agree to those?"


Edyta

Fri 06:10PM EST
"You said: I won't expect anything from you that I have not given in turn..." she draws deeply on the cigarette and reclines back in the sofa once more, spreading out like a sated cat as she curls her legs up on one side and rests her cheek on the cushioning of the matching armrest of the other side.

"You give actual birth to a child and then I will consider doing the same."


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 06:20PM EST
There's a brief (stunned) pause - and then Konrad laughs, and laughs hard. Grinning at her, "Well, the clawless kitten has other tricks of her own. My family will have something to say about that. They'll likely be of a mind to drown you in a paddling-pool." He drains his glass and sets it down, then lifts the bottle and pours himself another.

"Luckily for you," he continues, "I'm not of a mind to sire pups yet - and might yet develop some measure of fondness for you by the time I am. Another drink?"


Edyta

Fri 06:29PM EST
"Yes."

Sitting up again seemed like too much effort in and of itself, so instead of expending the energy to do so she merely finished what wine was left in her glass and held it out (mostly) steadily. At least with the assistance of slight enebriation ('beer goggles') he didn't seem to come across quite so much the beligerant, mocking brat. Or something like that... She stretches her legs out, twisting and arching her back slightly to pull against muscles grown tight from too many long hours immobile in the partially-crouched position he'd originally found her in. Backs weren't designed to spend so much time in a hunch position, but then again that was the purpose of the bathtub: hours soaking away the muscle tension in relative silence.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 06:37PM EST
Mostly steadily. He leans across the table and touches the lip of the bottle to the lip of her glass, pressing down to tilt the latter at an angle where wine sheets smoothly down the side, rather than tumbling into the center. He fills it neatly to within a hairsbreadth of the rim, then lifts the bottle away and leans back. The bottle is turned in his hand until he can read the label. A faint smile crosses his mouth and he raises his strange wild eyes to hers.

"In search of a little courage tonight, I see."


Edyta

Fri 06:45PM EST
"You aren't that impressive," she replies blandly, sitting up barely enough to take a sip of the wine and lower the level so as not to accidentally spill any of the vintage liquid at a later point. She carefully sets the glass down on the darkly polished floor and stubs out the cigarette before the filter could start to burn and leave a rancid smell in the air on top of the cloying sting of the already present tobacco smoke.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 06:46PM EST
Just as blandly, "And your little put-downs only work on your human pets, Edyta. Cheers."


Edyta

Fri 06:55PM EST
A moment of silent pondering before she returns to regarding the ceiling with some vague semblance of interest in the architecture wrought across it. Finally she stretches the length of the couch again, leather creaking with the supple felinesque movement, before she rises fluidly. She stands, arms loose at her sides, and looks down at him (in so many ways) as if coming to some inner conclusion. A soft pad of bare feet against the floor boards that was between where she had been standing and where he was sitting. She stops before him, the length of her shins pressed into his in a line of warmth and cants her head slightly to one side.


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 07:11PM EST
He looks down at her shins touching his. One ankle is up on the opposite knee, a cross-bar against the press of her knees. He looks down, and then he looks up, the slightest (not faintest, but slightest - ) of smiles coiling at the edges of his mouth.

"Sex is messy, Edyta," he reminds her softly. "Be certain of what you are offering."


Edyta

Fri 07:21PM EST
Another heartbeat of nothing done and nothing said before she bent down. Her knees lent against the cross-bar of the one leg he had up and resting on the other and she placed one hand on either side of his head, the leather sighing at the indentations her hands made when she rested the weight into the padding. Her face came close to his, eyes partially lidded with long lashes criss-crossing over the slit of color showing of her irises. Her head tilted to one side and the the other only minutely before she moves position so that her lips were beside his ear when she spoke.

"Life is messy," (and so was death) she replied...


Konrad Vrdoljiak

Fri 07:43PM EST
This close, and yet barely touching, she can smell his scent: aftershave, forest, masculine skin and flesh. She can feel him breathe as a current in the air, and a pressure in the space between their bodies. He inhales, exhales, and inhales again - deeply, shutting his eyes, turning his face to her hair - before opening his eyes again, partway, to note in a vague and disconnected moment that he still held his wineglass in hand.

"I know," he murmurs, and smoothly (surgingly) stands.

In that moment his strength is clear. He supports her weight upon him one-handed, and stoops briefly to set his glass carefully down on the table with the other. No need to spill wine all over her pristine floor. Then he straightens, loosening his collar with his free hand until she takes it over, and he undoes her clothes instead, and moves toward the bedroom like he knew exactly where it'd be. And he does.

"I could fuck you standing," he whispers in her ear, because it's not his style to let go without a final taunt, "but I think I prefer your boyfriend's bed."