[original] son sueños que son amor.
jax's prompt: the snake is hungry, but the rat keeps fighting back
The days wear on, days of high suns and dripping brows. That orange circle rising and falling over the brownred of mudstones and old dinosaur leftovers. Elena and her brothers argued in the cooler evenings over what radio station to turn that dial to, over who's cooking and who's eating, over whether or not the time had come for them to skip town, as they'd done before.
The room was lit up by the single lamp in the corner on a table, chipped by foreign hands, a time machine they'd purchased off a neighbor. A tradition they hoped to follow, moving what possessions they wouldn't take with them out in front of the apartment complex to sell them. This Alejandro itched to do, and told them so adamantly. He had had it up to here with his shitty job, and if he was going to stick around for much longer, he could spend his time looking for some more adequate employment.
-What, a job in some office, huh? Con tu accento tan gracioso? -Elena spit out at him, suddenly irritated by his needless impatience. He had no goal, nothing in sight. What the hell was he hurrying off to?
Alejandro said nothing, but the look in his eyes, that smoldering rage and tightened jaw told her enough. She'd taken a step too far, but it would be worse to apologize. She wouldn't mean it, and her narrowed eyes delivered the message on their own.
The half-shadow of Oscar's lanky form stood up and turned off the buzz of the radio voices, but no silence greeted them. Instead, the cicadas sang loudly through the windows.
-Mira -Oscar began, facing the window, pushing back the curtain in order to better see what couldn't be mistaken for the view in front of the apartments. -Creo que este calor nos esta jodiendo las cabezas.
Such a simple answer, but in typical Oscar fashion, it had such double meaning. Summer heat or summer love? Human fire or the chemical burn of the sun?
-I have a decent job, okay? We really should be using this summer to save up for any problems which may turn up along the way during the winter -She wasn't convincing herself; she hadn't been born with Oscar's powerful voice, full of conviction and self-assurance. She had never been self-assured for a moment in her life.
Well, except when
When she'd told her family she was moving in with Ismene.
Her mind rolled around in the mud of the past, but Alejandro was winding up for a retort.
-You realize summers here are hot as hell? What emergencies are we saving up for, huh? A wedding ring?
Oscar didn't face either of them, his thin form following the action outside their walls.
-Look, don't give me some stupid fucking attitude just because I'm thinking ahead, okay! You'd rather run around and improv everything, but that's fucking kid talk, okay? Be an adult for once, you-
-Ah, yeah, leettle Priss Princeton, you goin play teach-ah wit us nah-oo?
Roles reversed, the shock of hearing the familiar nickname jolted them both back into cooler body temperatures, and the cars on the road became the main soundtrack inside the apartment.
-Look, just give me the summer, okay? The summer.
Her brothers exchanged looks, their gazes meeting as the streetlights reflect off their eyes. The meaning behind this was not in a secret language. They meant for her to catch it, but she wasn't about to be the booby to their trap.
-I'm off -she declared, standing and moving quickly toward the room they shared, toward her bag.
-What, like a rocket, ten nine eight?
-Something like that -she shot back. -I'm going out with people from Barleen's.
Oscar leaned against the window pain, the muscles of his shoulders tightening underneath his shirt. -You sure you're not getting too...attached?
Elena emerged from the shadows of the hallway, a handbag hanging from her right shoulder and her lips a little redder. -No. Pues...no. I have to go, I'm late -She fled like a rat after a pied piper dressed all in green.
Or a snake out of Ireland.
Of course, her brothers had seen it in her eyes, the burn of dishonesty, as they were fluent in the tongue. By work people, she meant Rosalyn.
Elena arrived late, leaving the Calais badly parked in the tiny piece of blacktop the bar had deemed a parking lot. The redhead was already perched at the bar, chatting with the bartender.
-Hey -Elena greeted, trying not to sound as if she'd rushed here, forcing her breath to slow.
-Hey! Uh, yeah, this is Alyssa. A cousin. Well, a cousin of Brinn's, hence, you know, the asian. She works here...obviously. I mean, so if you ever need a quickie, you can drop by here an' ask for Alyssa.
Alyssa leaned forward, her bountiful breasts barely contained by the skimpy top she was sporting. Elena wasn't some grubby trucker with sticky fingers, so her eyes only flickered briefly toward the temptation before smiling graciously at her almost-host. Alyssa grinned back, and it wasn't quite the patented Davies grin, but it was a shade of it. Definitely family.
-I guess by quicky, she don't mean in th'bathroom, ass onna sink an' feet smudgin' th'wall? -Before Elena could make a noise which might reveal both her embarrassment and mild arousal, Alyssa laughed and continued, straightening once more and taking her breasts off the shelf. -I s'pose she ken put it on yo'r growin' tab, Rosa?
The nickname made Elena leer over at Rosalyn out of sheer instinct. Rosalyn made a squatting motion at Alyssa, and ordered two multiple orgasms.
-Aimin' high t'night? -Alyssa teased, but moved away to follow through, her ass disappointing the display of her other endowments.
After the introductions were over with, Elena could come up with nothing witty or winning to begin a conversation with, and the grunts and laughter from the rest of the bar made their silence more pronounced. She looked around the bar for inspiration, pretending not to dwell on Alyssa's parting comment.
-Maybe I am.
Elena didn't catch on right away, trying to figure out if she'd missed something Rosalyn had prefaced the comment with.
And she remembered she'd met Ismene at a bar. After a mildly silly lesbian-feminist performance, which had felt liberating and radical at the time. Not Ismene's scene at all, and Elena had never gotten it out of her why she'd been there to begin with. It had a taste of destiny to it, but Elena had never admitted this to her, for fear of incessant teasing.
Rosalyn's hand was suddenly on her arm, and it was so glaringly different from Ismene's physical and emotional distance, years and miles away from her goddam frightened distance. Ismene had lied to her that day, trying to make herself more appealing to the awkward college student Elena had been then. It was almost too funny.
-You're frowning. What's up?
Elena smoothed her brow with effort and attempted to piece together a smile out of broken shards of glass. She could tell Rosalyn wasn't convinced.
-Uh, just...baggage. A little bit.
Rosalyn laughed a little.
-Who doesn't have some of that in their closet? Doesn't mean you have to carry those fucking bags around with you, though. Just, you know, leave them on the sidelines. Let some ill-meaning thief snatch them.
Elena briefly wondered how that would even work. To let someone else carry the weight of a dead girlfriend and mother. To put the ghosts to one side. Really, it was only alcohol which sent them away; it would be far too tempting to become an alcoholic that way.
Nonetheless, when the drinks were served Elena enjoyed only the first sip before swallowing the rest down into the infinity of forgotten peace. She didn't look at Rosalyn in case she caught concern, which would only invite guilt where she was begging for peace.
-Could I just get, you know, some vodka?
-Hey, I didn't say anything wrong, did I? -Rosalyn's hand was on her shoulder now, her bared shoulder, and her hand felt like a hot poker against her skin. Her voice tread lightly, frightened (always with the fear) of the mines which might lurk underneath the surface.
Elena turned to her and smiled, this time with teeth and something which resembled sincerity. -Look, if you want something, like tonight something, then I can't go about remembering. Leave the baggage on the side, right? -Alyssa gently put a glass in front of her, eyeing her in silent judgement. -So, let me have my three drinks, and then I'm yours.
-What's that mean...mine? -Rosalyn asked after a short pause, or hesitation, or commercial break.
-Whatever you want it t'mean -Elena told her her, halfway through her second drink now, serious commercial break between responses.
Rosalyn didn't say anything else as she watched Elena conclude with a whiskey, which she admitted to Rosalyn was something Ismene would finish with.
-She drank in threes, mostly -Elena continued, looking off at the lines of bottles behind the area where Alyssa perused.
-She's an ex, then? -Rosalyn asked, seemingly eager for some sort of answer to the strange attitude Elena had picked up.
Elena sniffed a little and pushed the glass away. She made sure she was well seated on her stool, her back straight, pretending she was that same girl who had met a blonde (who hadn't seemed dumb) at a bar. What would she have said then if she'd known what she knew now?
She wasn't going to tell Rosalyn about Ismene tonight, and there was no future plan to do so. It was something she knew Ismene had probably imagined, and had hated the thought of: some other woman being led through the maze of the memories and secrets of their relationship. She'd begrudge even the stupid little details one might share with friends, like the meetcute or what you desperately miss about them. Ismene would hate it.
-Ah. Better. I approve of th'multiple orgasm, by th'way. The drink. What's in it? -She could feel the eager tendrils of alcohol crawling through her stomach and into the rest of her circulatory system, her bloodstream, her heart. It made her think of homespun blankets, the colors powerful and warm.
-Bailey's and amaretto. Good choice, huh? -But her heart wasn't in the words, the emotions false and worry more prominent. It made Elena think of the apartment, of her two brothers knocking out early for work the next day, not waiting up. Probably.
-How 'bout we head off? Let's go somewhere we can dance. I love to dance.
Rosalyn took her hand, put some money on the counter, and led her off, going on and on about this one place he's never had the nerve to visit, but with company, why not, right?
The next morning, when Elena woke up in Roz's bed with her bra off, she only frowned before stumbling to find the bathroom.
The days wear on, days of high suns and dripping brows. That orange circle rising and falling over the brownred of mudstones and old dinosaur leftovers. Elena and her brothers argued in the cooler evenings over what radio station to turn that dial to, over who's cooking and who's eating, over whether or not the time had come for them to skip town, as they'd done before.
The room was lit up by the single lamp in the corner on a table, chipped by foreign hands, a time machine they'd purchased off a neighbor. A tradition they hoped to follow, moving what possessions they wouldn't take with them out in front of the apartment complex to sell them. This Alejandro itched to do, and told them so adamantly. He had had it up to here with his shitty job, and if he was going to stick around for much longer, he could spend his time looking for some more adequate employment.
-What, a job in some office, huh? Con tu accento tan gracioso? -Elena spit out at him, suddenly irritated by his needless impatience. He had no goal, nothing in sight. What the hell was he hurrying off to?
Alejandro said nothing, but the look in his eyes, that smoldering rage and tightened jaw told her enough. She'd taken a step too far, but it would be worse to apologize. She wouldn't mean it, and her narrowed eyes delivered the message on their own.
The half-shadow of Oscar's lanky form stood up and turned off the buzz of the radio voices, but no silence greeted them. Instead, the cicadas sang loudly through the windows.
-Mira -Oscar began, facing the window, pushing back the curtain in order to better see what couldn't be mistaken for the view in front of the apartments. -Creo que este calor nos esta jodiendo las cabezas.
Such a simple answer, but in typical Oscar fashion, it had such double meaning. Summer heat or summer love? Human fire or the chemical burn of the sun?
-I have a decent job, okay? We really should be using this summer to save up for any problems which may turn up along the way during the winter -She wasn't convincing herself; she hadn't been born with Oscar's powerful voice, full of conviction and self-assurance. She had never been self-assured for a moment in her life.
Well, except when
When she'd told her family she was moving in with Ismene.
Her mind rolled around in the mud of the past, but Alejandro was winding up for a retort.
-You realize summers here are hot as hell? What emergencies are we saving up for, huh? A wedding ring?
Oscar didn't face either of them, his thin form following the action outside their walls.
-Look, don't give me some stupid fucking attitude just because I'm thinking ahead, okay! You'd rather run around and improv everything, but that's fucking kid talk, okay? Be an adult for once, you-
-Ah, yeah, leettle Priss Princeton, you goin play teach-ah wit us nah-oo?
Roles reversed, the shock of hearing the familiar nickname jolted them both back into cooler body temperatures, and the cars on the road became the main soundtrack inside the apartment.
-Look, just give me the summer, okay? The summer.
Her brothers exchanged looks, their gazes meeting as the streetlights reflect off their eyes. The meaning behind this was not in a secret language. They meant for her to catch it, but she wasn't about to be the booby to their trap.
-I'm off -she declared, standing and moving quickly toward the room they shared, toward her bag.
-What, like a rocket, ten nine eight?
-Something like that -she shot back. -I'm going out with people from Barleen's.
Oscar leaned against the window pain, the muscles of his shoulders tightening underneath his shirt. -You sure you're not getting too...attached?
Elena emerged from the shadows of the hallway, a handbag hanging from her right shoulder and her lips a little redder. -No. Pues...no. I have to go, I'm late -She fled like a rat after a pied piper dressed all in green.
Or a snake out of Ireland.
Of course, her brothers had seen it in her eyes, the burn of dishonesty, as they were fluent in the tongue. By work people, she meant Rosalyn.
Elena arrived late, leaving the Calais badly parked in the tiny piece of blacktop the bar had deemed a parking lot. The redhead was already perched at the bar, chatting with the bartender.
-Hey -Elena greeted, trying not to sound as if she'd rushed here, forcing her breath to slow.
-Hey! Uh, yeah, this is Alyssa. A cousin. Well, a cousin of Brinn's, hence, you know, the asian. She works here...obviously. I mean, so if you ever need a quickie, you can drop by here an' ask for Alyssa.
Alyssa leaned forward, her bountiful breasts barely contained by the skimpy top she was sporting. Elena wasn't some grubby trucker with sticky fingers, so her eyes only flickered briefly toward the temptation before smiling graciously at her almost-host. Alyssa grinned back, and it wasn't quite the patented Davies grin, but it was a shade of it. Definitely family.
-I guess by quicky, she don't mean in th'bathroom, ass onna sink an' feet smudgin' th'wall? -Before Elena could make a noise which might reveal both her embarrassment and mild arousal, Alyssa laughed and continued, straightening once more and taking her breasts off the shelf. -I s'pose she ken put it on yo'r growin' tab, Rosa?
The nickname made Elena leer over at Rosalyn out of sheer instinct. Rosalyn made a squatting motion at Alyssa, and ordered two multiple orgasms.
-Aimin' high t'night? -Alyssa teased, but moved away to follow through, her ass disappointing the display of her other endowments.
After the introductions were over with, Elena could come up with nothing witty or winning to begin a conversation with, and the grunts and laughter from the rest of the bar made their silence more pronounced. She looked around the bar for inspiration, pretending not to dwell on Alyssa's parting comment.
-Maybe I am.
Elena didn't catch on right away, trying to figure out if she'd missed something Rosalyn had prefaced the comment with.
And she remembered she'd met Ismene at a bar. After a mildly silly lesbian-feminist performance, which had felt liberating and radical at the time. Not Ismene's scene at all, and Elena had never gotten it out of her why she'd been there to begin with. It had a taste of destiny to it, but Elena had never admitted this to her, for fear of incessant teasing.
Rosalyn's hand was suddenly on her arm, and it was so glaringly different from Ismene's physical and emotional distance, years and miles away from her goddam frightened distance. Ismene had lied to her that day, trying to make herself more appealing to the awkward college student Elena had been then. It was almost too funny.
-You're frowning. What's up?
Elena smoothed her brow with effort and attempted to piece together a smile out of broken shards of glass. She could tell Rosalyn wasn't convinced.
-Uh, just...baggage. A little bit.
Rosalyn laughed a little.
-Who doesn't have some of that in their closet? Doesn't mean you have to carry those fucking bags around with you, though. Just, you know, leave them on the sidelines. Let some ill-meaning thief snatch them.
Elena briefly wondered how that would even work. To let someone else carry the weight of a dead girlfriend and mother. To put the ghosts to one side. Really, it was only alcohol which sent them away; it would be far too tempting to become an alcoholic that way.
Nonetheless, when the drinks were served Elena enjoyed only the first sip before swallowing the rest down into the infinity of forgotten peace. She didn't look at Rosalyn in case she caught concern, which would only invite guilt where she was begging for peace.
-Could I just get, you know, some vodka?
-Hey, I didn't say anything wrong, did I? -Rosalyn's hand was on her shoulder now, her bared shoulder, and her hand felt like a hot poker against her skin. Her voice tread lightly, frightened (always with the fear) of the mines which might lurk underneath the surface.
Elena turned to her and smiled, this time with teeth and something which resembled sincerity. -Look, if you want something, like tonight something, then I can't go about remembering. Leave the baggage on the side, right? -Alyssa gently put a glass in front of her, eyeing her in silent judgement. -So, let me have my three drinks, and then I'm yours.
-What's that mean...mine? -Rosalyn asked after a short pause, or hesitation, or commercial break.
-Whatever you want it t'mean -Elena told her her, halfway through her second drink now, serious commercial break between responses.
Rosalyn didn't say anything else as she watched Elena conclude with a whiskey, which she admitted to Rosalyn was something Ismene would finish with.
-She drank in threes, mostly -Elena continued, looking off at the lines of bottles behind the area where Alyssa perused.
-She's an ex, then? -Rosalyn asked, seemingly eager for some sort of answer to the strange attitude Elena had picked up.
Elena sniffed a little and pushed the glass away. She made sure she was well seated on her stool, her back straight, pretending she was that same girl who had met a blonde (who hadn't seemed dumb) at a bar. What would she have said then if she'd known what she knew now?
She wasn't going to tell Rosalyn about Ismene tonight, and there was no future plan to do so. It was something she knew Ismene had probably imagined, and had hated the thought of: some other woman being led through the maze of the memories and secrets of their relationship. She'd begrudge even the stupid little details one might share with friends, like the meetcute or what you desperately miss about them. Ismene would hate it.
-Ah. Better. I approve of th'multiple orgasm, by th'way. The drink. What's in it? -She could feel the eager tendrils of alcohol crawling through her stomach and into the rest of her circulatory system, her bloodstream, her heart. It made her think of homespun blankets, the colors powerful and warm.
-Bailey's and amaretto. Good choice, huh? -But her heart wasn't in the words, the emotions false and worry more prominent. It made Elena think of the apartment, of her two brothers knocking out early for work the next day, not waiting up. Probably.
-How 'bout we head off? Let's go somewhere we can dance. I love to dance.
Rosalyn took her hand, put some money on the counter, and led her off, going on and on about this one place he's never had the nerve to visit, but with company, why not, right?
The next morning, when Elena woke up in Roz's bed with her bra off, she only frowned before stumbling to find the bathroom.