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You wake.
"You seem a trifle cross, Eames," Arthur drawls from his chair, one leg crossed high on the other. Focus. A slim ankle, a polished shoe, a foot swinging too smooth and slow to be careless. You frown a tiny V into your brow and clear your throat. Slap at the line like it's a spider and you're a man who's not afraid of spiders, it's just this one, with its fuzz and its agitating feet. It's barely a weight on your arm but it's a presence and this is — should be — a summer day, lazy in a field of small flowers, a meadow with sun and no breeze or movement, you — him — and nobody else. It's just this footed presence, and you can't think and can't rest.
Arthur coughs, short and refined, a sound that rattles once and slides back in his throat, his jaw twitches fast fast slow and his eyes fix. There's someone dull and unbearable standing directly over your left shoulder, it seems.
You slap at your arm, the line pops free and you climb from your chair and walk away.
*
It was obvious, really. Privacy was going to be the only way.
We could try this in Mombasa, of course we can.
*
Entering the embassy ballroom on the rising notes of some sonata you can't recall the name of — okay, never had a clue of — you register white gloves and brown liquor and an urbane American, again. No idea who he is with or why he came to stand precisely there, only that you turn and he is.
And you're... you wouldn't say drunk. You are big-eyed and a little warm, with a thrum beneath, no, within your skin. Your tie worked a little loose and your mouth feeling bigger, more treacherous than usual, lips licked then bitten, slowly and held while your eyes never deviate from him. He can see you and you do it anyway and the fine lines of his face, his architectural brows don't shift at all.
*
Another dream. You could call this a thing, a thing about outposts and tonic water and wide rooms with rattan fans on the ceiling. A thing about dead empires and black tie. He has a snag of mint between his teeth. If he knew, he'd be mortified. You long to tell him but you don't. You look, watch his tongue skim near and never exactly, watch him close his lips around his last sliver of ice, watch him shatter and swallow and grin as the band scuffles, tunes, begins again, the clarinetist skating over maybe sixty years of sentimental numbers. Arthur's nose twitches, his eyes crinkle and he has his hands on you like he knows how to fox-trot, like he thinks he can convince some grace and rhythm into you.
It's an odd and minor miracle, the fitting together of the separately imagined pieces, the trodden toes, the elbows, the noses, chins mismatching. The skidding, sudden touch of his lips, the nick of teeth, the way your eyes hesitate and close and the way you each fit the curve of the other. Your eyelids flicker, you have a hand on the edge of his collar, a hand at his waist and it could have been a catastrophe. From across the room you look like a set of nails poised over a chalkboard. A fault-line, a trembling pen ready to record it all. The death of a spell. The band slides into another tune and Arthur half turns, steps closer while keeping perfect time and keeping your jaw still in the cup of his palm.
*
You are dreaming. You are dreaming and I am not sentimental over accidents or chemicals.
Your smile isn't alchemy. The flush staining your cheeks, your neck, the way your mouth slides hot and slick, the way his skin makes you stutter — that's all haemodynamics, exothermy, neurotransmission, what you will. Those sounds (small, ridiculous) are simple call and response. Tripwire and trigger.
Sleep, dear, your imaginary hand on an imaginary cock (or mine on yours). Hush your imaginary mouth.