Fate met me at the glassed-in menagerie, smiling her slow sweet smile and playing with the fringe of her scarf. “Herbert,” she said to me in a coquettish half-whisper as she stared at the elephants and I stared at her hips, “Herbert, don’t be so awfully lewd.”
I didn’t think to ask how she knew my name, caught as I was by the splendour of organza draping over curves so luscious that a dehydrated man would instantly have been revived simply by looking at them, but I moved closer to her and let my gaze roam where my hands could not. She moved on and I moved with her, through the caged wildness of a scaled-down Africa; by the time we reached the patchwork-furred tiger, I was close enough to hear every catch in her breath.
She was puzzling over Latin names on faded placards when my knee brushed the back of her thigh through the layers of palest pink, her exasperated/desire-filled sigh mixing with the sigh of the fabric as my leg and the breeze pushed it in different directions.
At the giraffe enclosure, where the leaves were so wilted that the long-necked cage-walkers weren’t anywhere near interested, I slipped my hand along her ribbon-covered waist and tried to remember all the sorts of suave and charming things one says to disastrously beautiful women who are playing with scissors.
I met Fate at the glassed-in menagerie, gasping with shock as something exploded in my chest and a piece of fringe fell from her scarf. “Herbert,” she said to me with a dangerously wrinkled, one-eyed leer as she stared at the hyenas and I tried not to look at her sagging hips, “Herbert, don’t be so awfully rude. You’re bleeding on my dress.”
I'm really not sure where this piece wanted to go. Or what it's about. Or if I like it. In other news, I'm trying to get out of the habit of bookending my pieces with the same/similar paragraphs. Step One: admit that you have a problem.
3 comments:
Well, I don't understand much of it, but I really like last line.
Hmm. I find this lewd, for you. Not bad, but lewd and repressed.
And as one tiny pinch to my spirit--the slash that's inserted into one of your descriptions. Agh! It irks me.
But otherwise nice.
I actually quite liked this! It was different from your usual style, but oh-so-wonderful! I vote you try it more often :D I love the transition between the beginning and the end and the sudden change in her, but the similarity in what she says. It was fantastic. And I liked how Herbert wasn't afraid to be forward with this woman - usually in these kinds of pieces the man is always intimidated by the woman and she's got all the power, but in this he raises his status up almost and tries to be equal. Of course it doesn't work out that way in the end, but I still thought it was quite nice how you worked off that convention! I also like the scarf tie in at the beginning and the end, with the fringe. There were so many nice little touches in this. And I loved the setting. I just loved it all. There was nothing wasted in this piece, all the words and movements of action and whatnot seemed very economical so I didn't feel like it was dragging. I liked this basically! I would even like for this to be made into a larger piece! Although I love it how it is :) I just want to read more like this, whether it be in this world or this style in particular.
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