Re: B&B: Cat & Jack
"You sound like you dislike charity and publicity events as much as I crave them. I loved them from the first one I attended. I was always amazed at what a different world it was, as if everything changed for one night. Everyone wore their best jewels, and the men were polite, and it was the closest approximation to a fairy tale that I've been able to find in my entire lifetime." She sound entertained as she spoke, as if it was all terribly fun, and not out of any sentimental attachment to such events. Cat, she had a tiny problem with the bourgeois, while still enjoying their hedonistic ways.
She saw him flinch. She waited, because sometimes tells came on the heels of pain. Perhaps he wouldn't disappoint, and he seemed inclined to words in this room of bad memories, which also entertained her, because he'd been so reluctant to part with those same words in the darkness.
The Arabic word, that interested her, and she tested it on her tongue. "We buried the empty coffin of the man I loved for my entire adult life. For a year, I thought he was in the ground somewhere. I know how that word feels, and the fact that he wasn't dead at all?" She lifted an elegant shoulder. "That hardly matters, because I never saw him again after that." She paused, considered, waited for him to swallow down the vodka. "Did you kill her?" It seemed an obvious follow-up, especially given prior implications.
"And," she added, "which did you miss more when it was gone? The career? or her? Jen, I think you said her name was." As for the little girl with the dark hair, Cat chuckled. "That little girl is grown now, and nothing I do can change anything for her. But, to answer your question? I gave up the risks for as long as I was allowed to. It wasn't my choice to pick them up again, but that was a long time ago. It would be harder now."
Ah, that was too many words, and she wasn't sure whether it was the room or the vodka, though the latter was unlikely. She stretched in her chair, and she stood, and she walked to where he was sitting. She smelled of spices as she leaned down, dark curls slipping forward to lick at his cheek as she brought her mouth close to his ear. "If you want to get me in bed? Next time, skip the Russian decor, and invest on some disgustingly expensive bedsheets."
She straightened, and she looked at the chess set. She took her bishop, and she slid it diagonal and put his queen in check. "Gardez." She retrieved the Rilke.