Layers
by Silvia

She shimmers in layers sometimes.

They weave like shadows, the memories. Mother into daughter into rival into child into lover.  Once a hovering echo, she's moved from the vague presence that painted an ink black profile in the corner of my eyes. She arched over, creeping the way she does. She crept inside of me, spread out to be my world.

In this new life, Drusilla is everything.

"You're made of cobwebs", she whispers, soft lips brushing wet along my earlobe.

And I agree, silently. There are lines of steel silk wrapped around my mind, tying me whole, and she presses them tight - twisting the conflicting recollections into pretty red bows, so that I shall not fall. We shall rise until the streets return to cobblestones, and the dank ground is speckled with blood.

I remember. I try not to - she tells me not to disturb the queen of clubs, who is done and over now - but, just sometimes, it cannot be helped. I must remember, and I see great fires pinned like butterflies against the night sky, flouncing petty coats stained red, dark sparkling eyes that dance with me but turn. Dark eyes sharpen to despair, fear lapping at her ankles as her skirt fans out in waves.  I hear soft whimpering and desperate squirming under my hard hands. I see madness streaming from her painted mouth and bottomless gaze. I see her dancing under the moonlight, crying to the sky, crying for me to join her. But I never did; not until now.

Now we are one.

She sighs so sweet, coal black dove cooing at my touch, and her whispered ramblings blanket me until I am almost warm. It had been so long since warmth was a word larger than its paper and pen, but now I remember. There is a system now; I remember until I know. I remember and then it hurts sometimes... until she can make me forget. She makes me love the cold, her icy hands running over my thighs like rushing water. I can drown in my daughter... my mother... my wife...

Hands tremble when we are together. All hands quake, splattered with dripping down tears, and they flutter like panicked birds as she twitters, singing to their distress. My love, she understands everything... She hears whispers of the future in her head and she pushes me forward. She keeps me moving and feeling and tasting - no time for thought.

"Thinking tears the ribbons," she says. "It's deafening and oh so hurtful."

And I listen.

I center myself on her voice and on her flesh, feeling her words waft around me as I sink into her softness. She presses up against my  solid-now body like a cat, purring and rubbing in contentment. A soft tongue will sneak out with delicate licks, stealing shivers. But I do not beg. Begging is for the ones we cut down, the playthings, and they sob as she strokes me - sharp nails digging into my stomach until it's sweet enough for her mouth to follow. They try to run but we're fast, much too fast, and they crumble like ash between our fingertips. They are only wisps of wind crumbling before our mountains. We are eternal. She tells me so.

And it feels like eternity when I'm beneath her, iced lips crushing my own. She is a wave, crashing down upon me, and I drift in her desire. Hands skip lightly over my body, playing some strange game that only she knows, and I find breath entering my dead lungs once again. I have to pant. Too much feeling when her fingers are between my thighs, and I have to - there are haves now, suddenly. I have to release something.

She is my determination. It is because she wills it so.

return