Re: B&B: Cat & Jack
"Are you a caviar kind of man?" Her mossy gaze flicked to that swipe of tongue over fish egg, and her brow raised. She had no idea what kind of man Jack Penhaligon was, not really. Not when he wasn't drunk in a diner, and not when he wasn't hiding whatever he felt behind questions and poets. "I took you for steak, perhaps, maybe a good beer." But it was just a guess, and she wasn't trying to read him for a take. It was a lazy kind of attention. Sometimes, she liked people to unravel themselves for her. It was infinitely more pleasurable than doing the work herself.
She became lost a moment, in the room. It was the blini, the taste of it, and it was the vodka she chased it with. The room was demons closing in, and she heard the quiet whine of women behind locked doors. The experiments went badly sometimes, and no one ever called for a doctor. There was a chute outside the door, and the stench rose in winter.
She put down what remained of her blini and caviar.
"Dying young is worse, isn't it?" It was. You expected the aged to die. But loving a career? She chuckled. "You can feel something for a career, but it isn't love. Unless we define love differently, which perhaps we do. The woman that died, did you love her as you loved your career?" But Cat wasn't the best person to speak on the subject of love. After all, for Cat? Love was obsession in a cowl and cape.
She leaned back in her chair, officially ignoring the chess. "I feel alive when I take risks, but that isn't love. That has nothing to do with love."
Read the Rilke, he said, and she reached for the book and took it between her elegant fingers. She didn't open it, and she didn't read from it, but she did tuck it next to her hip. She'd take it with her when she went, when the room became too much. Sitting there, in that chair, was becoming an exercise in will, you see.