It's a Graves thing (soundofwings) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-11-19 20:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | death |
Who: Iris and Elise
What: Post-Party meetings. And Jagermeister. And photographs.
Where: Elise's apartment
When: Right after the party and Iris's Alter change. Before DC crazies and Billy's show.
Warnings/Rating: No? Slightly crazy ladies talking?
The doormen were already under notification that Elise's suite was expecting company from someone in a scarf. While accustomed to the unusual requests from the woman's suite number, a good many of Turnberry's residents were eccentric at worst and abnormal at best. This wasn't the worst to come out of 1606. They didn't care about the writing on her wall, as her condo was purchased rather than rental. It was the late night loud music and the occasional tossing of items that were only suspected to have come from her windows.
As for the condo itself, security detail was one man on a systematic rotation. The men changed regularly, from off duty police officer to the occasional casino guard looking for a little extra pay on his day off. They were all employed by her agent, and while the money was good, only a few actually came back for a second run. What complicated matters was that the threat didn't exist on the outside of Elise's apartment waiting to come in, but was rather Elise herself. Fresh out of a psychological recovery ward, not many people were willing to give the photographer a break or benefit of the doubt. They didn't mind her taking company, however. Possibly because it hadn't happened yet, but mostly because it wasn't against the rules. Not many things were against the rules, although they had nailed her bedroom windows shut after the night she'd gotten drunk and thrown that bottle of wine out into the street below. They had wild imaginations and supposed that she might throw herself next given the opportunity. How ridiculous, a freefall had no style at all. So when there was a knock at the door, a man opened it. He had the vacant shark eyes of somebody who'd seen too much bullshit in too few of years. In dark fatigues and an old tee shirt, he seemed almost paramilitary. Then again, much of the security in this city was. Most of all, he didn't look amused in the least. It might have had something to do with the music bursting from deeper within the penthouse.
Or maybe it was the woman who came swishing from around the corner in an antique robe of fraying satin. The embroidery was opulent, even if it had seen better decades. Still, Elise adored it, and would sometimes go days in nothing but its shiftless form. Despite the fact that it hung too long and tangled about her feet, which could be something of a problem after several rounds of jagermeister and wine (both of which she considered medicine and therefore couldn't exactly do without). She'd done nothing to her hair after her afternoon bath. As such, the gold hung in frothy (if somewhat tangled) waves. The bangs were a bit overgrown, and Elise was in the process of pinning them back while juggling bobby pins on the edge of her teeth and a black cigarette in one hand. "Franz," Elise put on her best, poutiest, and kittenest smile for the security with the spiritless face. "Let's all have some tea."
The man only wrinkled his nose before taking a step back from the door, informing his assignment through grit teeth that his name was Frank, and he didn't drink tea. Elise scoffed, all playful energy and the kind of exuberance that should exist only in wild mistresses from the Babylonian court while she pushed for the door in order to get a better look at the woman visitor. "Franz hates music and tea, I do hope you have different taste."
After her turn on the stairs, Iris had trouble calming herself again. The new voice wasn’t answering any of her desperate questions with more than a word or two, and the hint of confusion there was enough to convince her that neither of them knew what was happening. With shaking steps, after long minutes of clinging to the banister, she had finally made her way up, climbing first and then guiding herself down the hallway with one hand trailing lightly along the wall, fingertips tracing jittery paths along the neutral colors, the other hand pressed flat against her stomach as if to keep it from leaping out through her scarf-covered throat. Every step was accompanied by the desire to turn back, to pretend that she had never even gone to Turnberry. But that voice in her head (that new, wrong voice) prompted her forward until she was standing in front of the door to 1606, music audible from within.
To a knock that was nearly against her will, Iris had expected a woman in response, so the flat, unimpressed expression from the man that opened the door was unsettling. She looked at the number again (it had to be wrong, right?), but it matched what she had been told, and she simply stared at the man for a while, uncertain of how to proceed. She began to shake her head, step backwards in retreat, but then they were no longer alone.
She’d had neither the time, inclination, nor ability to be attracted to much of anyone, the previous night notwithstanding, to the point that she didn’t even have enough reference to form what could be considered a preference. But the woman in front of her (Elise, she reminded herself with a distracted thought) caught her eyes with a stubborn refusal to let them go again. In those first few seconds, it was obvious that she was unlike anyone else Iris knew. The accent should have been expected, from the few turns of phrase on the journals, but it was still a surprise. The robe, its colors and designs, was gorgeous, and Iris found herself staring as she smoothed nervous hands down along her own dress. As usual, her own colors were muted, neutral, even the scarf just a cream-colored weave layered over grey. Nothing to pull a wandering eye toward her. Cream, grey, and cream again, pale skin and light hair that possibly held as much curl and froth as Elise’s, but that had been combed and brushed into relative smooth submission. For a brief moment, Iris felt as if she was looking into some strange fun-house mirror at a woman that had similar features but was a world apart from where she stood.
“I like tea,” Iris managed to force from her grater-rough throat, her voice croaky and painful, “and music.” Even with that, it took a soft go inside from that new voice in her mind before she stepped forward past the strange, stern man.
The voice certainly was no match the delicate, wispy thing in her doorway. It was hoarse and throaty, reminding Elise of multi-decade smokers who had hacked their insides raw. Elise liked it immediately. She didn't quite make the connection between the voice and the scarf yet, but no matter. "Oh, Franz!" Elise cooed like the proud owner of some new, exotic pet while she reached forward to catch Iris by the hand and draw her forward. Another set of fingers reached out to inspect the frostbitten blond of her one-time lover's hair. It was ice cream fair with almost none of the gold that trademarked Elise's own. "She vill look best in black and white, nein?" Although speaking to the guard, Elise made no move to glance back in the man's direction. Of course, he had no comment and had already sat back down in his designated chair to continue reading the local paper he'd discarded in order to answer the door. Not that this deterred Elise or the starspangled charisma of her smile. She released the woman's wrist as quickly as she'd taken it, slinking into reverse in dark slingback heels. Heels and a lack of traditional clothes was nothing new, not for Elise. "Come in, come in. I'll make tea."
Iris nearly took a step backward at the woman’s sudden swoop forward and fingers around her hand. She was rarely one to actually struggle though, and was easily drawn forward those few hesitant steps until her eyes went wide at the fingers through her hair. So few people reached out to touch her that readily, and she froze as it happened, uncertain of how to respond. She didn’t understand the words about black and white, though it had nothing to do with the woman’s accent and everything to do with the context.
She found herself following that smile farther into the rooms, something magnetic about it, even though she knew she should likely just apologize and leave to prevent herself from misstepping or overstepping or anything else that would relight her guilt. She was already feeling unsettled enough by the previous night, the shift of the presence in her mind, that anything else had the potential to tip over into something awful. She was close enough to the door that she could turn and reach for it again, could even step backward in a reverse mirror of Elise. But for all that, she followed, no smile given in return, but a simple nod at the thought of tea. If it was something she could lace through heavily with honey, all the better, not that she would specifically request such a thing.
The penthouse was extensive, although just as they were approaching the stairs toward the living room, Franz/Frank stood at fervent attention and stopped Iris in her tracks. "Ma'am, I need you to empty your pockets, and I am going to frisk you." It wasn't much of an introduction on his part, and not even a request when he reached for the unknown woman a moment later. The back of his hand gestured her arms up with a firm nudge before his palms sculpted a discreet and completely professional tap down to her hips, her legs.
Elise paused to survey, on her way to the kitchen, and have a huff of a sigh. "Franz, really!" Then those apologetic blue eyes turned to Iris, the kind of gaze that could beg forgiveness for melting icecaps that drowned more people every year. "He's only looking for guns, don't worry." Although don't worry about what she didn't say. Elise vanished around the corner a moment later to prepare their tea.
She was back in moments with no telltale sound of a kettle on the boil. Just two teacups brimming with a dark, soupy brew. Jagermeister. Surely Iris didn't think that tea really meant tea. Elise handed a cup over to her company once the frisking was complete.
Iris’ dress had no pockets, and the bag she was carrying was only large enough for her phone, the journal that she wasn’t even certain worked any longer, and her keys to Anton’s place. She shook her head in response to the man’s announcement, taking a few quick steps back away from him, but he was suddenly there, and her breath caught in her lungs at his quick, gruff touch. She was left reeling when he backed away again, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and not quite understanding why they were talking about guns. She knew there were a wide variety of people on the journals, and that even if Elise’s name wasn’t familiar, it didn’t mean that the woman wasn’t in need of being guarded. That thought did nothing to settle her fluttering stomach, though. She sidestepped her way toward Elise when the woman reentered the room.
The cup was accepted gratefully, a silently mouthed thank you given in return. Iris’ attention was still on Frank/Franz, and so not noticing that her cup was not warm enough, no steam bringing the scent of tea to her nose. She noticed the smell too late, just as she was taking the sip whose taste instantly caught in her mouth, drawing out a sputter and the start of a harsh cough. Her fingers clenched around the cup, doing her best to not spill or drop it to the floor as her eyes teared in reaction and then (the coughing ripping at her throat) from pain. With her lack of a free hand, she tucked her face into her scarf as she coughed.
The jager was lukewarm, the way God intended, and Elise took her own gentle sip of the herbal, licorice syrup of gag-worthy alcohol before nodding toward her guest. "It will help your sore throat." The sterling blue of her eyes widened with a subtle nod when Elise sipped again. No evil ministrations or foul intentions, just the truth. Of course, any remedies and wives tales that Elise recalled from her childhood were from Communist-era Berlin and not necessarily worth putting a great deal of reliability on. Still, there was something to be said for the fact that jager was once sold in small German pharmacies as a tonic for sore throats, head colds, and bronchitis.
Leading the way into the living room, most of Elise's condo seemed to be done in varying degrees of black and white. Ash and cream. She was the colorful ghost slinking through a monochromatic land. She drifted past the ice cream couch and the draped coffee table with the vase of drooping, dying lilies. The wall behind the couch was strategically graphed with what seemed to be a hundred photographs. Most of which were Elise's own work, but some were purchased favorites from other photographers. The lighthearted started at the bottom; a young girl struggling to fit into her mother's shoes, the old man carefully arranging a bouquet of daisies. The pictures got progressively darker as they ventured toward the ceiling; funerals, fingers turning blue while clutched around a spent needle.
Elise's heels left little gouges in the pale carpet, like footprints in snow drifts, and she made her way to the wide wall of windows. The curtains were drawn, but with close enough inspection, anyone would notice the steel nails pinning the windows shut to their frames. Outside, the city's lights were a neon circus, and Elise tilted her head with a thoughtful sip. "What do you think they do with all of the signs that die?" Every time that Elise came back to Las Vegas, there seemed to be replacement signs here and there. New bulb Frankenstein experimentation. Maybe it was a strange question, but Elise smiled when she glanced back at her guest and gestured her closer to the window to watch as well.
The taste was still sharp on Iris' tongue and in the back of her throat, foreign and strong, but she steeled herself and took a more prepared sip. It was warm as it traveled, burning briefly in her throat before it moved down. The highly tea-diluted brandy she'd had earlier (no more than a splash, not really) was the strongest thing she'd had in longer than she could remember, and the new addition was likely to go directly to her head. She took another sip though, not wanting to seem impolite.
She held the cup in very careful fingers as she followed Elise into the living room, her eyes drawn by the movement of color, and then by the wall of photos. She found herself staring at them, having to squint just a bit to find all the details. She got lost in some of the images, and wasn't drawn back out again until Elise' words pulled her across the room. She followed the dented pathway across the carpet, stopping just out of reach of Elise near the window. She didn't notice the nails, her attention instead drawn to the colorful neon on the other side of the glass.
"I once heard of a place that had old signs. Like a junkyard collection. Or a museum." Her voice was no smoother with the addition of the jager, though she still cradled it in hands that were only slightly unsteady with her remaining nerves.
Iris might have said words like junkyard and museum, but Elise heard something else entirely. Her eyes lit up with excitement, flooding with a dozen adventurous ideas from over the time of her teacup when she turned to regard her company. "A graveyard of signs. Oh, we should go!" Not tonight, of course. Franz seemed in an unusually put out mood. She very much doubted that he would even allow her out the door tonight. Franz was not so easily bribed as some of the other security.
"You never told me your name," Elise said suddenly, settling her robed hip against the window's nailed ledge. The girl had remained anonymous over the forums, after all. Elise didn't bother telling her that she knew the name regardless. It was a requirement to show identification in the lobby, and the concierge had called her while Iris was on her way up the elevator to confirm her guest's arrival. He'd told her the name, but Elise liked digging up secrets. Guessing games were the best, and even if this one was already spoiled, she was willingly to play pretend. She kicked off her heels for a forgotten tumble to the floor while balancing a precarious seat on the window's thin interior ledge.
“We should?” Iris’ eyes went wide, brows inching upward. She hadn’t thought past coming to the apartment and delivering her (still undelivered) apology, but Elise seemed to be making plans. Because certainly they couldn’t go at that moment. But together? She was so rarely part of a “we”, and when she was, it tended to be with family. Neither had she ever thought of going with someone to see old, rusted out signs. It was nothing like she was used to. And she didn’t want to admit how that made it at least a little tempting.
Gratefully, she didn’t have to commit to anything. Unaware that Elise already knew her name, she looked down into the reflections of the liquid in her cup, unused to lying in person, and so harboring the worst tells when she was delivering less than the truth. “Didn’t I? I thought I had...” She watched the shoes hit the carpet, the peek of Elise’s feet from beneath the colorful robe, the way she seemed no heavier than a bird as she perched on the window’s ledge. She couldn’t stop herself from being a little fascinated by all of it, and when she realized that she was staring again, she tried to hide it by looking for a place to set her cup. Her hair covered her face as she turned, hiding her even as her scarf, a slippery silk thing, started to drape looser around her neck.
Elise somehow doubted that Iris retained certainty and memory of having given her name. Maybe it was a secret, in which case Elise did not mind the subterfuge quite so much. It made the diamond fair woman with the trembling dove fingers a curiosity, and Elise preferred those very much. The brass and abrasive also had things to hide, but those that were immediately guarded had so much more. Elise made a little hmm sound of contemplation while she sipped at her teacup. She did notice that the woman was glancing around nervously, either for a place to deposit her cup of liquor or an escape from the conversation at hand. Elise merely watched.
Movement could be as fascinating as still life, and the slip of Iris' silken scarf caught Elise's eye. There were shadows of bruising beneath, and Elise did not have to think very long or hard about where they might have stemmed from. Elise herself had no lingering marks from the party, but she'd seen mention of such things on the public aspects of the journal. "That scarf is not your color.. I have something better.." Standing, her slim hip slid from the windows ledge and bare feet hit the carpet with new direction toward a hall to the left. "Come."
There were definitely things about herself that Iris kept secret, and her name was often one of those things. Other than the people that had known her before her move to Las Vegas and Dr. Roman, she wasn’t certain that anyone in the city actually knew the name she’d grown up with, the one of the family that had adopted her. Elise didn’t push for her name though, and Iris continued not to offer it. She finally found a small table where she could set down her cup, and it came to rest on the wood with a small snick. She rested slim fingers against the rim of it for just moment before turning back to have her gaze caught by Elise’s presence once again.
The attention drawn to her scarf made Iris raise a hand toward her throat, somehow paling further when she realized how far it had slipped and revealed. With a quick twist of her hands, she looped it tighter again and looked away. “Oh. You don’t have to. Really, this one is fine.” Her words didn’t stop her from following though, drawn forward in Elise’s colorful silk wake as readily as iron filings to a magnet.
"That scarf is not fine," Elise explained with all the gentleness of a chainsaw. It was simple silk, no embellishments, no story to tell. As Elise began to scrutinize the other woman's wardrobe, which Elise reluctantly labeled as frumpy and dull, she began to realize that the scarf matched the woman in that regard. Finishing off her teacup of jager, Elise rubbed the pad of her index finger against the inner corner of an eye. "As your hostess, I insist. That scarf is beginning to hurt my eyes."
So it was back to the bedroom with the multitude of closets. The excessive closet space was a shame because it would never be put to quality use. Elise was a minimalist when it came to dress. Those months she'd spent in Tokyo during one of the fashion weeks had been so enlightening. It wasn't about accumulating eclectic pieces by the barrelful, but rather chameleon pieces that could change from day to day. The simple elegance of an oversized gray silk tee and the dozen ways you could turn it into something else with a jacket or a belt or patterned tights. Elise hadn't given a shit about fashion for a long time, but the industry had a way of sneaking into your bone marrow if you hung around long enough.
Pushing open a door, Elise fished through many empty hangers before coming across her casting couch collection of scarves. She had a bit of a problem when it came to hoarding the oddest accessories, especially while traveling around the world. "This one," she decided immediately before she produced a long woven scarf. Blue did not even begin to describe the color, as it seemed somehow beyond any blue that had ever seen on this side of the world. Silvery, iridescent thread embroidered the edges all the way down on both sides. From a distance, it looked like shimmering fishscales, but up close, it was obvious that they were some kind of foreign lettering. "I got this in Tibet," she explained with a buzzed grin, extending it to Iris. "It has prayers of protection and good health stitched into it," and her finger traced the pale symbols in idle memory of her stay in that mountain side village.
Iris was confused as to how a simple cream colored scarf could possibly hurt Elise’s eyes. It wasn’t her most expensive one, but it was nice enough, she thought. Her fingers traced the edge of it as she frowned and studied its corner. She continued to follow Elise, her eyes widening at the vast closet space in the room they ended up in. She could have afforded to fill the closets, drawing on her parents’ money, but she’d never quite felt the need. She had several dresses, several skirts, and in a habit she hadn’t lost from her years of sightlessness, they were all neutral, all in cuts and designs that could be worn year after year, and all coordinated. The one red dress that she’d been convinced to purchase had been given away, and the brightest color she tended to wear was a soft pink.
She blinked at the emergence of the blue scarf. It was truly unlike anything she could ever remember seeing. She wanted to reach out and touch, but knew that touching things that weren’t hers would be rude. It didn’t stop her fingers from reaching half way across the distance between them, staring at the cloth, but then pulling them back sharply and curling them against her mouth. “It’s lovely,” she managed, muffled slightly by the fingers she had pressed to her lips.
If Iris was concerned about things like being rude, she was in strange company. Elise was a seemingly impervious creature, untouchable in the way that great artists were so often perceived. Well, perhaps writers more so than artists. All that talent and all that confidence, the glamour and charisma of an era-less Fitzgerald. Artists were a different lot, mad and great in equal alternation. Never respected until they were in the ground, and therefore constantly chasing through the map to Death's door.
"It is yours," Elise insisted with a step forward and a wiggle of the scarf in her grip. The scarf was hand woven and notably old. It looked like it would fall apart with any degree of poor care or brush with a washing machine. Considering how long it had survived in Elise's company, and how intact it remained, was something of a miracle. "I don't take nein very well," she said with a knowing smile that said Iris should not think her to be a harmful creature like that from the hotel. Reaching out, she plucked up the edge of Iris' pale silk scarf and drew it away slowly. If Iris wanted desperately to keep it, she was free to try and stop Elise, but Elise had no intention of stopping herself. She drew the silk slowly away from the woman's throat, exposing those mottled bruises but not flinching or showing any sign of reflection at the sight of them. There was no point in reliving the events of that hotel night.. the good or the bad. Moving closer, Elise draped the blue fabric over Iris' narrow shoulders. "There.." Elise tilted her head to admire the color, and the palette it created with Iris' hair and eyes. This would be one of the few photographs that Elise thought she might prefer to be done in color. "And now the spirits will watch over you." The words were a dreamy little laugh, fueled by liquor and riding the high tide of her enigmatic smile. Perhaps it would do Iris better than it had ever done Elise.
Iris had been concerned about being rude, was so often in fact, but Elise’s close presence made those thoughts push to the back of her mind instead of lingering near the front. She watched the water flow of the scarf, the way it moved when Elise stepped forward even closer. Iris finally took the chance to reach out very careful fingers and let the fabric flow over them. She didn’t grab or grasp the material, and instead finally lifted her eyes to meet Elise’s. Even before her own cream silk scarf was pulled away, an unusual flush of color began to stain her cheeks. It was very faint, barely a hint of pink, but it was more than was usually there.
The slither of silk away from her sensitive bruised neck made her shiver and cross her arms around herself. She thought about reaching out to keep it wrapped there, but in the end she allowed the other woman to remove her scarf and replace it with the other. She looked down at herself, at the blue that was richer than any color she usually wore. She felt barely like herself in the color, but in a way that she might be alright with. At least for the moment. She lifted her hand to smooth over her own shoulder, fingers to fabric as she stared at it. Without lifting her gaze, she whispered. “I don’t think there would be much for them to watch.”
"And why is that, little lamb?" Although Iris' attention might have fallen away from the magnetic stardust stare of the photographer's, Elise kept her eyes on the woman's expression. Wondering over the fairest details and the flickers in expression when the woman overlooked the tasseled ends of the Tibetan crafted scarf in her hands. With Iris' previous scrap of creamy silk in Elise's possession, she draped it in casual neglect over the back of a chair while she wandered through the bedroom.
Dragging back some rumpled bed sheets, Elise scoured through the nocturnal cavern of the abused comforter before uncovering the tragic loss of her camera. Why it had been hidden away in her bed sheets in the first place might have been questionable, but it was no mystery to Elise who tongued at insuppressible smile before pivoting wildly on her bare feet. She was vivacious blond spilling like champagne bubbles from one of many bobby pins, frothing into the wild and wide blitzkrieg blue of her eyes. "You do not mind, do you?" Elise always asked, even if no was never really an option. She waved the vintage camera with its professional lens extension toward Iris. Already getting comfortable, Elise shrugged casually out of her kimono robe. It could have been shocking except for the fact that there were actual clothes beneath its kaleidoscope satin. The flesh toned tank top and cropped shorts were more of a yoga uniform, but Elise found that minimalism worked best when taking a photograph. She didn't want to feel clothes, she didn't want to feel herself.. and in times like this, she didn't even have to be herself.
Before Iris could form any solid argument against it, Elise brought the lens up and caught the pale fawn in her crosshairs. Click.
Two questions, and Iris lifted her gaze in response to the first. Why wouldn’t there be much for spirits to watch? She breathed out a sound that might have been a laugh at one point, though there wasn’t much change in her expression. “No, you’re right. Maybe... Maybe it’s more that they shouldn’t concern themselves.” There was only so much that guardian spirits could accomplish, right? Even if they were real at all.
The sight of the bed, rumpled and wrinkled, kept the soft flush of color on Iris’ cheeks. She wasn’t used to being in other people’s bedrooms, even at Anton’s condo. Being in so private a space made her even quieter, and she lingered near the door, trying to seem as unobtrusive as possible. Being across the room, it took her a moment to register the second question, and when she looked up for clarification, Elise was slipping out of her robe. With a startled jerk of movement, Iris looked away sharply, eyes suddenly on the carpet. The color of the other woman’s tank top and shorts was so close to her skin that for several long moments, Iris thought Elise was standing there in nothing. Even the sharp click of the camera’s shutter wasn’t enough to pull her gaze back up, though the color on her cheeks settled into a true blush as she turned away, trying to hide from the lens. “I...” She started, but the words were skittering away in the moment.
The next three snaps of the camera were relentless, one after another. Unforgiving and unveiling. Wasn't that the fear of cameras? That they dug up old secrets and captured the soul? What was captured in celluloid could never never be taken back or disputed. Elise stepped forward and partially circled her flushed guest. Taking one knee, Elise angled her lens up to catch a snap of blurring movement as the woman tried to turn away. "Does this embarrass you? To be seen?"
"I vill tell you a story," because the jager always brought out the German in a heavy fold. "Ze first time I was photographed was as a child. I vas from the war and they were all there.. the journalists and the geographic. When I got older, I took pictures myself, but it vas only hobby. A mentor of mine told me something very important after I pursued it seriously. It was that I had to go before the camera to understand, and so I did." Sighing, she resisted the urge to to take another photograph from the hiding girl.
“I don’t... I’m not... good with photographs.” Iris’ words stuttered and stopped, looking for words that would explain without her actually having to share anything. No revelations about only be photographed as part of a family portrait for so many years, not being able to see the camera or photographer. And she didn’t dare reveal that she was more than puzzled as to why anyone would want to take her picture in the first place. She was afraid that Sam might somehow know and pop up if she would voice such a thing. Confused at first when Elise’s voice came from much lower than her height, a quick shift of her eyes to try to locate the other woman actually brought her gaze right to the lens of the camera, eyes wide and focused for a surprised moment before she lowered lashes again and looked away.
Her expression darkened with slight confusion at Elise’s story, trying to understand the talk about photographs and war. “To understand what?” she finally asked, eyes once again shifted over in tiny stuttersteps of clear blue.
The trigger went off rapidfire, a quick succession of frame after frame. Milliseconds in between when Iris glanced tentatively back into Elise's direction. The frames would be similar, but so different. Subtle variations of movement in every shot. The widening of eyes, the dilation of pupils, the shrinking of those same pupils caught in the flash of an Inquisition's pyre bulb. The lowering of lashes, the muddled need for escape, the darkness, the confusion. It was a mix and mash, a contortion of human development in thirty different frames that spanned mere seconds. It could be put together in a flip book, a key to the soul. Those clear blue eyes held such a similar color to Elise's own, but there was delicate asymmetry. Elise was flecked with gray, like the smoke constantly rising from her fingers and her mouth. Ringed in the blasphemous halo of dark indigo, tire treads through heaven's pale drag strip.
"What it means to be vulnerable," she explained. Pushing up onto her toes in a languid, feline stretch, Elise advanced for another click and another. Zooming in on frost fringe against a ruddy, blushing cheekbone. The dark mud of bruises on that throat. "Look through me," Elise instructed softly. "There's nothing to be afraid of.."
The flutter of shutter did nothing to calm the nerves that had been threatening to overwhelm Iris since she walked through the door. She’d never had anyone with a camera that close, that quick. She clung with delicate fingers to the new scarf around her, wrapping it tighter around herself, as if she could disappear behind the color, something she’d never done before. “I... don’t understand. There’s always something to be afraid of,” she disagreed, shaking her head. She snuck another look at Elise and finally, finally realized that it was fabric that matched her flesh that the woman was dressed in, not just simply her skin. The realization was a relief to her embarrassment, but it didn’t quite chase the flush from her cheeks.
"And what are you afraid of now?" Elise softened with a tired cock of her soft hip. In childhood, she'd been narrow bones and scrawny pallor. As a young woman, it developed into the sleek elegance of tapered curves that were nothing like the plastic injections of Los Angeles. Now, as the thirties crept into her cells, there was a soft pliancy where once had been the stark jut of hypoglycemic hipbones. Her femininity was not lush or plush in the tradition of showgirl hydras with their glitterslick scales and glossy tits, but it was delicate in the way that anemic gym-o-phobes could be. She wasn't one for yoga or pilates, just high doses of caffeine and workaholism. She actually lowered the camera before depositing her dwindling clove cigarette into a flower vase of long dead roses. Elise glanced at the flowers with thought. She liked that, the way they could preserve themselves if never disturbed, self-taught mummies.
Iris’s eyes finally found Elise’s for long enough to hold them. Her own did not hold the same dark variation that the other woman’s did, were a clearer, lighter color, sometimes more grey than blue. “Everything,” she whispered, the soft hint of sound only traveling to Elise because of how close they still stood. She pulled the scarf even tighter around herself, the shift of her arms accentuating the sharp angles of her shoulders and the dips along her collarbones, more shadows that echoed the purple bruises around her neck. Her body was made of the too-thin peaks and valleys of someone that rarely took decent care of herself, even though she could easily afford to. There were hints of curves here and there, but not quite the softness that her body should likely have held.
Elise smiled softly at the honesty of the response. At least the little lamb would not compromise on that. If there were things to be feared, they were surely everywhere. Even this ridiculous suite with its flowers (vibrant, wilting, and some finding long death in the state of a crinoline crumple), with its liquor in teacups, with its barely dressed madam. It was pretty wasn't it? Yet if one listened closely, there was the whisper of madness (or just sadness?) at every turn. It was easy to see how one could get lonely here, with the gruff guards and the nailed windowsills.
"It seems neither of us were what we seemed," Elise said with soft consideration before lifting the camera for one final snapshot. Closing in on the pale knots of Iris' knuckles when she tugged the blue scarf tighter like the prayer it was. Then there was a call from behind them, and Elise turned for an unperturbed glance over one peach toned shoulder when the security called her Ms. Daley and informed her that her agent was on the phone. It was an anticipated phone call, one that Elise knew was coming but didn't necessarily seem excited about enduring. Pulling a fresh cigarette from within the pocket of the discarded kimono on her bed, Elise moved for the desk beyond Iris. Tearing in half a flyer for some local charity event, Elise turned the vibrant paper over and withdrew a blotchy fountain pen from within the topmost drawer. Photography Rights came the scrawl with a stark underline beneath the words before she gestured toward Iris, passing off the pen whether the woman wanted to accept it or not.
"Signature," she pointed flippantly while scouring dresser drawers for a lighter, which she eventually found amongst the hosiery. "In case any of it turns out," she explained. It obviously wasn't a legal and binding document, but tradition was not something to be expected of Elise. Iris could only be glad that the photographer hadn't insisted on signing their names in blood and a voodoo hex.
Elise’s soft smile earned one from Iris in return. It was a moment of quiet sharing, a connection that said maybe they both understood each other at least on something, even though they seemed to be at odds on others. “I told you. That I wasn’t anything like I was.” It was a statement that perhaps didn’t make the most sense, especially were it to be taken out of context.
The gruff voice calling for Ms. Daley made Iris turn, edges of the scarf swaying with the movement. She stepped away from the door with a single step, still not comfortable with the man that had greeted her at the front door. She pulled her attention back from it though, and watched Elise move through the room, especially when the other woman’s back was turned. She took the pen before she even realized what was happening, not wanting it to fall to the floor. Looking between the paper and her strange companion, she gripped the pen awkwardly. “In case what...?” she started, but after those first seconds, it made sense. “Oh.”
She shook her head gently with a small, rather self-deprecating smile. “It won’t,” she said quietly. Not a remark on Elise’s work, but a reflection of her own thoughts on her suitability as a photography subject. Knowing that she had very little to fear about those flurry-quick shots of herself actually being of any worth, she gripped the pen awkwardly (in the way of someone not quite used to writing much), and leaned over the desk to sign the paper. Her hair fell forward along with the scarf, but all of her attention was on the writing. She signed carefully, large letters that held unpracticed angles, her handwriting the stalled sort of someone that never quite developed their penmanship past beginning cursive lessons. She scowled at it once it was complete, and set down the pen with a sigh, her expression evening out again before she looked back up at Elise.
Elise took the pen and resubmitted its glossy cap over the sterling point of weeping angel ink. It was an interesting pen, antique and engraved. Something that should have been passed down through generations, but of course when it to Elise, there was no such dowry. All the little salvageable antique things in her possession were collected knick knacks from European secondhand shops, or finders keepers trinkets taken in forget-me-not moments of kleptomania from the bedside tables of one-time lovers. "Maybe not," she said with a soft shrug. This soft-skinned, doe-boned little creature was nothing like the woman in red had been. Perhaps they were better suited if the tables were turned, and Elise mused on that for a moment. She reached out to strum an idle index finger along the blue fringe of Iris' new scarf. Committing something to memory before the man at the door cleared his throat and repeated that the phone was for her.
"I heard you!" Her snap was bitter sauerkraut and with almost no sense of farewell at all, Elise stalked for one of the adjoining rooms where the phone would inevitably be waiting for her off the hook. There was a string of muttered German under her tongue as she vacated the room, tossing one last instruction over her bare shoulder. "Show the lamb out, Franz."
Iris watched Elise’s retreating back, somehow expecting more than the snap at security and then the flat, tossed instruction. She had somehow, in those moments between the front door and the flutterclick of the camera’s shutter, convinced herself that there was perhaps more of a connection there than there apparently was. The security guard cleared his throat again, this time for Iris as she stood in the empty room looking after Elise. She startled slightly and turned toward him, nodding.
The fringe of the scarf tickled her arm as she turned, and she looked down at the blue against her pale skin. She turned a soft, sad smile at the color, saturated and unfamiliar against the washed out shade of her skin. It wasn’t her color, and it wasn’t her scarf. With the nearly planetary pull of Elise out of the room, she could see that again, even though it made her throat ache in a new sort of way that had nothing to do with her bruises. Slipping the scarf from her shoulders, she let the fabric pool in her fingers, thumbs stroking over the weave for a moment before she folded it carefully and draped it over the back of a nearby chair. Uncertain where her own slip of cream silk had been tossed, she self-consciously ducked her face as she passed the guard on her way back toward the front door, hoping her hair would cover her neck. She would need to find a cab to take her back to Anton’s, her thoughts already forcibly turned away from the accented voice floating from the other room.