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WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
seresin
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
seresin
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
seresin
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
seresin
text ❖ audio ❖ video
@manon
[ Did she? Doesn't matter. Jake elicits in her the fast-car, open-highway feeling, always doubled any time she plays her cards actually right and sees a stranger's expression crumple upon realizing the rich-girl ditz in dance shoes might just have a real good poker face. Of all the secrets that bend ballerina body toward trouble, though —
This one's never made her scared. Only sure they have a similar ability to wield a smile like a lockpick. But then he went away, and she hates that he went away. Did he really do anything so awful as to require prison? It had all seemed so melodramatic. It's all just stuff. Money and property flow around here more prolifically than champagne.
(Maybe she should identify herself, but nah.) ]
no subject
[ No identifiable name. That's fine — Jake's played a lot of hands blind.
His next message comes through at a delay. A flick of a wrist, a turn of a playing card face-up: ]
Tag. You're it.
[ Sent with a photograph: blurry, low quality by necessity, a series of books nestled on a shelf easily identifiable as a smaller study in the manor. But one title's in sharper relief than the rest. Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut. A love story of escalating crimes. Tracking it down in person, opening it, reveals nothing but a playing card tucked into the front fold. The Jack of Spades. Written on the back: a smiley face, and little else. ]
no subject
Jack, Roza determines, needs an adventure. Or two. ]
My favorite tragedy! Next to Pretty In Pink.
[ A photo for a photo. This one depicts an unusual piece among assorted statuary, which is half-hidden between greater works (because it's ugly) and beloved by Roza (because it's ugly). It depicts a Dacian dog, cast in bronze, quite old. It extends its furious little face past its body, straining with unmistakable tiny dachshund rage. Its maw is slightly open so that its brownish teeth are on display; one has fallen off, giving its normally ferocious countenance some charm.
The Jack of Spades is held neatly betwixt those teeth. But to remove him is to dislodge a secondary clue, too heavy to remain intact inside the statue's jaws without a preceding companion: out spills a packet of seeds. The photo on the packet depicts a graciously vibrant set of velvety petals in tangy orange-yellow, like arms held aloft over a puff of white and pink. (She had contemplated roses of similar naming, but that's just being obvious.)
Roza thinks he might find it strange, but only 'might', because reputedly, an orchid is a delicate, difficult thing, and so often the artistry everyone now knows that he performed was exactly this. It's from her perspective as a dancer she particularly came to appreciate his talents; charm as its own labor, planning as its own discipline. There is a temperature and a sense of nurture to a good heist. Also included is a piece of folded-up paper, shaped like an origami crane, on which her broad cursive spreads from side to side:
In case of serious boredom, break packaging. ]
no subject
Jake's reply doesn't come until the next day. In-between the hours, maybe after breakfast, maybe when Roza returns to her room wearing someone else's cologne. The same playing card, left in the pocket of a coat that rests further back in her wardrobe — less of a statement about where he's been, and more what he wants to see her in. The accompanying photograph comes around noon: a view of the sunrise at a spot near the lake, taken earlier. The waters painted in glinting orange and sherbet yellow, just like the photo on the packet. ]
It's never boring with you around, Odette.
[ Thumbed out like a sly grin, golden charm not even steel bars and cold iron cuffs could take away. Too honed by half. ]
Busy tonight?
[ More accurately: whether she'll be alone, in those early hours before the sun rises. It gets cold out near the lake. ]
no subject
Besides, I miss being a swan. Maybe the water will turn me back.
[ His choosing settles the part of her brain already scheming to get him pinned down in person, to layer her knowledge of the past with Jake as he is now. She tried to look up articles about what changes people when they're incarcerated, but none of them really seemed appropriate.
(When she thinks about prison too hard a cold and sharp static slits a black hole in her brain and pulls out a physiological reaction, shaped like a tremble that radiates through hands and wrists and forearms, mysterious and unpleasant. The kind of thing that makes somebody at the dinner table say, finish your drink, the great cure for all enigmatically-sourced neuroticism. Blot that strangeness right out, like a reverse eclipse, something dark hidden behind a brighter, newer star. It passes.)
She attributes this need for direction, in part, to her current joblessness. Roza is the least scheduled she's ever been in her life. The circumstances of her ostensibly temporary hiatus from the Company remain undisclosed, but the dance industry gossip mill churns certain she did something. She has too many of those blips of bad behavior dotting her record of public opinion, symptoms of pressure demanding relief at any cost.
But all that feels far away. It's smooth sailing down to the lake, the appointed coat on, misty-grey silk skirt-set and black lace tights beneath it. The water moves in the low light of early, early dawn, the deep blue edge at the far horizon more premonition than reality. The creaky calls of morning-riser birds follow her. ]
There you are. Look at my hostage, [ is Roza's greeting, occuring in tandem with the bounce in her step and sunbeam on her face, no matter the hour. The card is aloft between thumb and forefinger. She has drawn a flower crown on poor old Jack. Any attempt to retrieve him results in his being instantly drawn back past her shoulder, though, held behind her body as her grin widens. ]
no subject
Jake makes a move for it. A play, more like: he enters her orbit, she twists away to hold it behind. Call, response. He snakes an easy arm around her waist, using that bodily momentum to bend her into a dip, one broad palm fitted securely to the middle of her shoulder blades as his nose hovers near hers. Well-executed more due to her instincts than his — but Jake Seresin makes all his bullshit look easy, gift rather than skill.
Lowly (playfully): ]
You sure about that?
[ A beat, for the glad show of it all. To look at her lashes up close. And then, inevitably, he rights them both, back to standing in full, his palm smoothing down her spine then lazily falling away.
Jake hasn't lifted the card back. But somehow, as if by magic, there's a new card that he shows her, held between his fingers: the Queen of Hearts, Jack's redder, more gleeful pair. ]
no subject
[ Roza hovers, held, in that state between grip and gravity, liking the way time seems to transform itself into an indulgent meander; the moment's not long at all, but in it she finds time to look at him with intention, his nearness a clear and true bell rung inside her. She thinks: he's different now, but not too different. It makes her happy to believe this. The blood in her veins moves warmer, faster, all that red making for insulation against the early-morning chill. The raven's-wing black of her hair falls free behind her, having been inadvertently tucked in her coat collar.
Her laugh is immediate and uninhibited, and she thinks they both knew it'd come quick — one of those near-noiseless giggles that plays on the quiet breathiness of her natural voice, more vibration in her sternum and ribs than it is real sound. ]
You would have made me one hell of a pas de deux partner, you know that?
[ Even while upright, she lingers at the edges of his personal space. The Jack between her fingers is now in closer proximity still, tapped light against his chest, by way of gesture. She sets speculative eyes on the unexpected new card, lower lip briefly catching between her teeth, which is one of an abundance of youthful gestures someone once tried to train her right out of and failed. ]
Bet I can get that one off you, too.
no subject
Maybe you would've made one hell of a thief.
[ Different, now, but not too different. Hair a little longer, jaw a little sharper — broadened by time, the physical realities of seeing ten minutes of sun a day, too much time to kill between sleep and staring up at cinderblocks. Older, maybe; the sunlit shine of a smile, angled in a new direction. But one that reaches all the way up to his eyes. Always, always, even as he makes a small, contented hum. The backs of his knuckles skim across her temple; he thumbs a stray sweep of hair behind the shell of her ear, the seaglass of his attention looking carefully at the sweep of her throat it reveals.
She looks, he thinks boldly, exactly the same. Bright, clever, raw. Told to be one thing and shown another. Jake grins back and the texture of it sits right along side her gestures, the ones they failed to take away. His is youthful, too. ]
Try it.
[ He mimics her motions, tucking one arm behind his back. Walks backwards away from her, grinning from ear to ear, right into the chase of it all. A buoyant repeat of the classics:
Tag, baby. You're it. ]
no subject
It comes, and she responds. Immediately. Her mouth makes an o shape, indignation exhaled in a little huff, always willing to be wound up, ]
Maybe. Maybe? [ The tigerish stalk toward him starts at matching pace. She can feel her heart move differently in her chest, hit by anticipatory adrenaline. ]
Forget the card, it's you I'm after now.
[ More like she has ambitions of multitasking, but Roza's priorities have shifted. One after the other. She's pretty sure he can predict her, but like a good dance, this game has choreography.
No preamble tension in her body or bearing warn him of sudden bolting escalation. Which means her shoes go skidding somewhere into the history of lakeshore escapades, possibly never to be seen again, adieu and rest in peace to that particular pair of Ferragamos. Grass and morning dew tag the places black lace leaves bare, all the way up to her calves. Her coat flags behind her, unbuttoned. Rather than move directly at Jake, Roza endeavors for an angle to capture him from the left. She plants the ball of one foot against the slippery ground and swings sidelong, reliant on strong legs and learnt grace.
She moves with her hands out, quick, just maybe quick enough — ]
no subject
He hits the dew with a rumble of a laugh, back hitting the grass. Air leaves his chest in a warm puff of breath, a hazy exhale in the cool morning light. Some clean feeling fissures through his expression as his hands immediately move in response, palms bracketing her sides, fingers wide and thumbs spread. Tightening, a fraction, as the pads of his digits press the thick fabric of her coat further, more insistent, as if all he's doing is warding off the chill. ]
Roza. [ He rolls the syllables inside of his mouth on purpose. Like he knows what they taste like; knows what she tastes like, as he looks up at her. ] What big eyes you have.
[ A beat. Held, extended, by two kinds of people who know how to lift a partner in a game. Jake looks, very quietly, into the planes of her face, and then grins. A little hungry, a little sharp; a hand skates down, dirty the way a joke is dirty, to palm under her coat. Shamelessly smoothing over the skirt at her ass. ]
Don't tell me I'm distracting you.
[ An abrupt but easy turn, so that he's the one bowed over her now, longer hairs falling in front of his eyes, a denim-clad knee between her thighs. Keep them guessing, hold an ace up your sleeve — beginner's tricks. Ones that she already knows, but Jake shows off anyway. Everyone needs to be reminded sometimes, don't they? That it exists this way, sometimes? Easy? Plain? Won, but not bled for? ]
no subject
She has intentions. Big plans for Jake Seresin, some of them involving more of his hands, her mouth, and some acts of theft in the middle, although those are increasingly less prominent on her ambitions. Only he uno cards her, and smugness segues to a sigh at her own complacence. Foiled, only, well,
This has its benefits, doesn't it, even as she makes a sound crossed between laugh-peal and whine of girlish indignation.
Or maybe this was her real goal all along, to be laid underneath him on some grassy hill, sunrise starting to say its name along the changing horizon, a long indigo beast with a back covered in stars. She feels happy, she thinks, and wonders vaguely if it's fair of her to be so when he's only so freshly freed, when she suspects there are many pieces of a life he has left to assemble. At least this one can slot simply in her place, and does so willingly; fondness shadows her when her smile turns smaller but no less sincere, head canting back so the sharp sides of her jaw tilt forward. She looks at him from under her eyelashes this way. ]
Only a little.
[ Roza's body knows what it wants, as always, before her brain does, which is to let the shape of her spine convex-curve outward, shoulders and ass firmer against ground, clothed breasts and stomach brushing against him. Her thighs part, his knee strong between them. She presses there just enough so that her eyes change with the sensation, which laces through each vertebrae in order to make her shiver. So he can see. ]
You'll have to try harder.
[ How 'bout them apples?, says the lift of her eyebrows, bid for playful imperiousness only somewhat at a loss thanks to her new angle. (There are few positions she can't brat from.) ]
no subject
Lightly, his hand wraps around the swell of her calf. His mouth hovers nears hers, but never quite makes contact. Up, then, his calloused palm smoothing from calf to warm bend of her knee, the pad of his thumb catching over textures and curves in the lace. He's leisurely with it — luxuriating, a little, the way men sometimes do with pretty things. ]
You want me to try harder. [ Not mean. The affectation of flatness, ruined in a heartbeat by the wink he flashes at her. But the sharpness inside of him grows more obvious, a fishhook as he places a kiss to her cheek, sweet even as he bears his body down a fraction. The obvious shift of weight; the push and grind between her legs.
Neither of them, really, are so sweet. Wild animals never really are. It's nice to try it on for size anyway, Jake's mouth nudging at her jaw. The scratch of his stubble as he murmurs, warmly, into the shell of her ear: ]
What are you thinking about?
[ This time of morning— too early for an audience, he's sure. Not so early that there's the promise of privacy. He hums lightly, the noise a rumble that echoes in his chest. From the lace of her tights, Jake, whose nucleus is hard-wired to want more even when the going's good, to nurture and build in the face of his flightless ambition, lets his hand roam her side. The dip of her waist, the flare of her ribs. Further, all the way, until his thumb pulls at the plush shape of her bottom lip. ]
Because I'm thinking about making you come all over my hand. [ His brows lift back, too. Head tipping, almost puppyish. ] And seeing how quiet you can be.
no subject
Roza's expression transmits her easy receptiveness during the exploratory course of his hand. Like a flower face opening when its season comes calling, this welcoming comes naturally; she would ask him touch her, she thinks, any way he wants. But she doesn't need to say it out loud; the upward flex of her pelvis is its own language. ]
Wouldn't you know it —
[ Her own arm comes coasting up to drag the edges of her nails gentle across the side of his hand, down to wrist, in twirly little patterns that will fade in seconds, sandcastle-brief, etched in white across skin. More sensation-building than real scratch. (As far as she's concerned, this is the primary reason for a good manicure.) ]
Same page. But you might need to gag me. [ This is itself a dare, be it via the tearable lace of her tights or her equally flimsy underwear or just the warm flat of his hand. ] I like to talk too much, you know.
[ And because some hedonistic suffering is good for the soul, and he's in jeans, which aren't always so forgiving: ]
See if I can't make you ache a little, too.