Re: Outside: Clementine & Rudy
She wasn't lackluster. That wasn't it. Overpolished. Too much luster, brassy on her bones, gilding her sickle-moon smile, but there was nothing behind it. That was it—just gold foiled over to add shine. And that brought them right back to impressions and making them, deliberately or not, for one's own benefit or not. It was like scruffing fur gathering forward in aggression, ears perked, eyes wild, teeth bared in show—don't fuck with me—, but, that was posturing. It was never used on prey. Prey simply got the teeth in belly and throat. The impressions people liked to make were more mercurial and more complex in turn, and that was where the man lost interest. It wasn't that he couldn't grasp the concepts. He just didn't wish to. They served him no purpose. It wouldn't have mattered if she was made of solid gold, the shine on her skin was cold in a distinctly human way.
But her lie—the one she told about not being afraid, that was universal. And maybe she believed it herself. But, he had smelled her sudden fear and that was more honest than anything.
"Right. It's just a nice night." Lying is genteel. He lifted his hand to bring his cigarette to his lips, after ashing, for a drag when the woman plucked it from him. He gave her an amused exhalation. With his shot glass netted in his fingers, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes, slapped it on the flat of his hand and thumb, and took the filter-end that popped out with his teeth. He lit the thing in a short flash of spark, the stench of tobacco flaring. Tucking everything away again, he looked at Clementine as he inhaled deeply on the fresh cigarette. "No." Smoke boiled over his lips with the 'o.' He tilted his boot against the porch floor, glancing down, before telling Clementine dryly: "Not sure I have the shoes for chasing. You planning being adored by someone?" A nod at the door behind him. "Not him."