| LJ Idol home game |
[May. 30th, 2008|05:58 pm] |
The remaining four ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) therealljidol contestants are writing the gauntlet. Those not competing have been encouraged to do "home game" entries. One of the topics is "do over" a chance to revisit a past week's topic. I actually wrote this back in week 15 when the alternate topic was a "Harlequin romance with zombies." I went with the main topic at the time. This isn't exactly "Harlequin" but, well, here it is:
Jean-Marie was by far the most handsome man in the village. The women often shot glances, and some just stared as his tall frame worked the field. Watching his muscles slide under his glistening skin. They would shiver a little when his baritone laugh echoed through the streets in the evenings.
Of course, he knew this. He didn't need to stop and stretch as often as he did. And he laughed often, even at James' poor jokes. And so it was that when he was stricken and his health suddenly failed, “vanity” was whispered with the other rumors. It was said he had taken to bed, listless and weak. “Ain't no man so pretty God won't curse him!” was heard often through the village.
A week to the day after he had disappeared from the field, word went round that he was dead. Cut down like the cane in his prime. Some scoffed, some wept when he was buried, the priest showering blessings. Many a trinket was slyly left by careful women with darting eyes.
Three days had passed since the burial and a thick fog kept the people indoors. Pegu wasn't much remembered. He wasn't handsome or strong like Jean-Marie; not wealthy or social. He had no teeth and was lame, so no one paid him any more mind in death than they had in life. Almost no one.
He quietly dug shovel after shovel. Like a machine, his pace was unrelenting as Claire sat on a nearby stump, smoking a pipe. Her eyes were intent in her otherwise passive face. Thick wild locks of hair surrounded her face as the smoke curled round her and merged with the fog. When she heard the shovel hit wood she stood, “Bring it, Pegu. I'll be waiting.”
Claire's small shack stood away for the village. Everyone respected her power, and many had used it—for a price—but no one wanted to live near her. Inside hundreds of candles burned, the flames caught by bottle and jar. Powders and liquids, pastes and ointments; bark and leaf, skin and entrails. They filled every shelf lining the room and spilled onto the altar opposite the door.
Claire knelt before this ancient and bloodstained shrine slowly moving the pestle as she hummed a tune. Her smooth shoulders rocked under her shawl as she ground in unison with the rhythm. She did not stop but smiled as the scraping sound faintly began and came closer. “Put him on the floor in the circle, Pegu. Then you will sleep.”
As Pegu's steps faded around the corner she suddenly arose and whirled about, mortar in hand, beads and dress a flash of many colors as her shawl fell about her feet. Her laugh was rich and long, then she slowly knelt again, her knees to either side of the dead man's head as she cooed, “Jean-Marie, Jean-Marie, Jean-Marie.”
Her hand traced the contours of his face as she sighed, “So long, I have waited. When your mother came to me thick with child, I did not refuse her. 'Please, Mama, please!' she cried. 'My husband ... he is so ugly ... I fear for my child!'
'You want beauty for your child?'
'Yes, Mama. More than anything ... I want the most beautiful child. I have saved for this, see!'
She laid gold and jewels before me.
'I will take this as promise of payment,' I told her, 'but I will collect the balance in time.'
And now that time has come!” Claire pulled down her bodice and nestled in the cleave of her opulent breasts was a large crimson gem that caught fire in the light. She leaned over and the gem fell forward and dangled on it's fine chain just above his full lips. She opened his mouth and let the pendant slowly slide in.
“Commence,” she shouted, and his mouth snapped shut as she sprung up, the necklace snapping from about her neck. The song she'd been humming became a chant as she danced and writhed about his body. Like dripping honey, her dress seemed to melt off her body and her skin glistened and sparkled as the flames bowed and swayed with her. Distant drums echoed through the forest, rooted in the song and movement of her body. Faster and faster as the smoke swirled and gathered, the beat, the heat, the song rose in crescendo, her skin tingling and one with the night, a handful of powder from the mortar brought close to his face and she blew ...
As the last beat crashed his eyes flew open. The silence sudden and powerful was broken only by the call of a bird, high and clear but faint. And as that note descended, so did she.
Her round hips swayed as his tongue took up the rhythm. Lightly at first but stronger as the phantom of life filled him. She could feel it as the heat began to flow from him as sinew and muscle tensed and strained, power bursting from him and entering her like electricity wherever their bodies met.
His large hands drew up and slipped onto her sides matching her motion as they slid around her breasts, the intensity forcing her head back and a guttural moan from deep within her. Though all seemed silent the music was rising in her again, beaming from the place where her pleasure and his tongue danced, where his hands touched her body, drowning out her cries as wave after wave washed up her thighs and crashed into her body.
The beat was slow now, but deliberate. Sultry and smoldering with the shimmering threat of fire as she moved down his body. She felt his chest as it expanded under her hands and breasts with each breath, an almost subsonic sound coming from him, louder as she descended.
She felt the pulse of his heart in her hand as she murmured, “Erzulie, you have outdone yourself with this man.” She marveled at this sculpture of the Goddess as her tongue explored in adoration. She would know this arch, each vein, the crest of head so she could match each sensation she felt with the memory. The power, now channeled into her flowed forth and she felt as his muscles tense and his taught hips could not help but leave the floor, his strong hands straining to lightly cup her face. His breathing became ragged and she lifted herself above him and drank the anticipation as she ever so slowly lowered herself, her eyes locked on his, savoring the wildness he couldn't hide.
At the touch, neither could contain their breath or the sound as the music leaped again and engulfed her as she engulfed him. And the sensation and the memory fused and burst forth, covering her body and he was inside her and all around her and no nerve was free of the song and the rhythm and the touch as she moved and slid, her mind consumed with the physical.
She moved forward and turned and felt the Earth beneath her, pleasure seeping in like roots as the softness of her legs met the hardness of his and they intertwined, forcing herself down to meet his thrust with each beat. He felt like a force of nature, something divine and ancient with barely enough control to keep from destroying them both.
And as she screamed a bottle on the altar toppled and the wine splashed down and each drop that touched her exploded as her body flashed forth and she was drowned and lost as her arms and legs melded into him and they were the center, aglow and aloud ...
... Pegu stood in the doorway looking at the cold, lifeless bodies on the floor of the shack. A light of freedom was in his eyes as his smile showed gleaming teeth. He turned and walked away. The ghost of a limp faded and he interrupted his humming to speak to the air, “Tout est reglé*. Eh, Erzulie?”
*Everything is as it should be |
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