it sticks. it lasts. it sneaks. it makes its way home in the hollow of his bones without him all the wiser: thoughtless, reckless, careless — a thousand other things he’d sworn himself off from being, a thousand other things he couldn’t help but still become.
it, meaning: there are instances where the softness of her skin so easily touches the fabric of his clothes, two or three layers of material separating skin from skin, her hand on his shoulder; just a bit lower — sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right — rests his heart, that indefatigable fist of blood and tissue. a pulse beats along to a rhythm he dare not name, so far removed that he dare not even call it his pulse beating from his own heart, instead hiding behind the indefinite, cloaked behind words, as he always tended to, as he always will be.
as much, perhaps, as he does not wish to be: a cage of his own making, with no one else but himself to blame.
he comes to her late at night, so late that it becomes morning, twilight about to become light. perhaps, if he stayed, and yet he never does, it might become metaphor; but there is only this: tomorrow, the whispers will talk about how the right honourable lord dormer is lurking where he shouldn’t be, and oh, look — what a pretty box he carries! silk ribbons and floral wrapping paper! a gift, perhaps, for a secret beau from the demimonde? and so he lets himself in, and here there could only be speculation. here, the truth is known only to two, and the truth is this: he unties the ribbons and opens the box, unveiling metal pipes, supplies of opium, bottles of laudanum… presented, ever so prettily, ever so tenderly, at she who could have had dresses but instead only received this unfortunate man’s benedictions.
at she, whom he might give the world and more, and so does not.
❛ what do you think? ❜ he asks, voice low, body coming nearer so that the breath of his words might caress her ear. he puts down the box on a table nearby, but his fingers catch the tail-end of a silk ribbon, already looping it ‘round his fingers. ❛ of the ruse, that is? ❜ he takes her hand in his, his own hand brushing the length of her arm, thumb caressing wrist-bone, spreading out the other’s fingertips so that he could tie the ribbon on her little finger. ❛ the box might be counterfeit, ❜ he muses, ❛ but the ribbon — why, i just got it this morning. ❜ for you, he does not say. ❛ it suits you so. ❜
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