Re: carnival: sparrow/matt
"We went when I was small. I remember the freakshows lined up, their banners waving in the heat, dust underfoot that kicked up and danced in swirls around our ankles. The carnival was different then, and the row of sideshow tents was long and long, and the rides were small. Now, in the fairs, it's all about the rides. They loom big, and they loom tall, and people scream when their bellies end up in their throats. Now, the tents are small, and we're here, quiet and nowhere, and it's different." She explained it all patiently, the girl upon the bed, when he said he didn't think he remembered carnivals.
It was all made up, of course. Contrivances, and she wasn't sure what she remembered, so the fact that he didn't remember, that wasn't strange to her, not at all. Most people had memories, indelible things in watercolor that seeped into their minds and stayed. For most people, things faded, lost color at the edges and that watercolor became paler and paler over time, but they still remembered the outlines, the places where the paint was darkest. But she didn't remember, and she was never surprised to meet someone else with a similar blankness. It made her softer toward the man that left footprints along the pristine floor of the airstream, and it made her already-kind face become kinder.
She didn't think Repose was safe, not the town, that wasn't what she meant. She meant the carnival, the tent, lying on her back and spreading her thighs, and that wasn't as safe in other places. Street corners, trailers, things there could be bad. But here, in this place, bad wasn't going to happen. Any little sound, any little peep, anything wrong and the carnies would close in. Outsiders helped their own, and the carnival was a strange little family of misfits, and it was safer here.
"I have ballet shoes. They're pink. I have tights too. Do you want me to put them on?" The white dresser, there, at the midway point in the airstream, was filled with oddities. Strange things she'd found, and strange things she'd liked, and she was fond of dance. Really, really fond, as if it was a thing brighter, closer to her lost memories than most, and she had ballet slippers, worn soft, in that bottom drawer. "I love dancing. I never trained, and I didn't even take one tiny class, but I love it." He sat, and he looked big and took up space in the small white chair.
She liked that.
She yearned, longed for, and it would be hard to find words, but the presence of broad shoulders and male knees spread wide. She liked that, and it made her feel safe. It was illusory, gone once the door closed on the night's visitor, but she liked the feeling of it, and she cherished it while it lasted. "Was she nice?" She stood, walked to the dresser with soft footsteps on dainty feet. "The dancer, was she nice?"