jamjar

Title: This is the morning of our love
Author:

jamjar

Prompts:
Sight : lilac
Sound : scream
Smell : alcohol
Touch : warm
Taste : burnt

Notes:

When I think more than I want to think
Do things I never should do
I drink much more than I ought to drink
Because I brings me back you... (Lilac Wine, written by James Shelton, performed by Eartha Kitt.)

Content some may find disturbing.
All feedback appreciated, positive and negative. Written for the Sensory Overload Challenge

* * *

He wakes up to the wreckage of his room. He doesn't open his eyes to see it, knowing from long experience that it's not worth the pain. He smells booze and cigarette smoke, and there's an angry red when he turns his face out from the pillow that lets him know he forgot to close the curtains last night.

There's water, Irn Bru and deep-fried apple-puffs in his bedside cabinet, kept there for mornings like this, along with extra-strength panadol and vitamins A, B and D in the drawer. They'd make things better if he could take them, but he's not sure he can, not right now. He'd have to wake up a little bit more to do that anyway, and he doesn't want to.

Really doesn't want to see if he put himself through this for nothing.

There's the swish of curtains being drawn and soothing darkness on his face, and in spite of his headache, his nausea and the suspicion that being hanged would be a mercy compared to feeling this hungover, he smiles. There's only one person who'd do that.

"Hello." He grimaces at the taste in his mouth and blinks, trying to focus.

"Paul," she says. She bends over the bed to kiss him. "You really shouldn't be doing this any more. You're not eighteen anymore." She tastes like a good bitter, or table wine. Hair of the dog, because it clears his head a little, replacing the sharp-edged feeling like his skull's been shattered and the pieces are cutting into his skin and brain from the inside with something softer.

"You don't have any sensory nerves in your brain," she said.

"When did you come by?" he asks. "I don't remember..." And he'd looked for her, in the bottom of each glass and the vaguely political and extremely drunken ramblings of his friends.

"Some time between the Jaegermeister and the gin," she says. "You drink too much."

"Just as much as I need to," he says. "I had to see you again."

She strokes his forehead and he wishes her touch was cool. He needs to stick his head in the freezer until it goes back down to it's usual size, but her hands are warm and he wants them anyway.

"You smell like rum," he says. "I'm pretty sure that's the only thing I didn't have last night."

"Mmm, there was a party last night. Costa del Sol. Rich kids on their father's yacht,sun, sea and narrow avoidance of alcohol poisoning."

He raises an eyebrow. "Avoidance?"

She shrugs and leans down, crossing her arms over his chest and lying more or less on top of him. This close, her hair is the pale straw of white wine and her mouth is a deep burgandy. She's in a traditional mood, then. "These days, I'll take my once a week worshippers for as much as my sacrifices," she says. "Though I expect I'll see a few of them laid before me soon enough." She smiles and he wonders if she's picturing barroom brawls or car crashes that no-one walks away from and there's nothing left recogniseable.

He's had enough experience with the former, and been near enough to the latter, to know that it's only by the grace of--

No, if he's honest, it's only by her distraction that no-one died. If she'd noticed him then... He's done his research, and having her attention, or worse yet, her affection, offers far less protection than her indifference.

He wants it anyway.

"My pretty little heathen," she says. "If only you'd known me then. We would have torn you apart in our ecstasy."

"I wish you didn't make that sound so appealing," he says.

"It would have been quicker for you than this," she says. Her hand is over his liver. He doesn't know what kind of state it's in. When he was younger, he could call her with cheap cider and vodka. Later, it took wine, the better class of beer and vodka. Now, he has to mix it, gin and cream liqueurs, blackberry wine, Stella Artois, He's got a nagging suspicion that in ten years time, maybe sooner, it'll take cans of Super T, or maybe the fortified wines that his Aunt Maggie used to knock back when the kids had left home.

Maybe it'll be champagne and Napoleon brandy. She's never been predictable.

She gets on the bed and kneels over him. He's still wearing last night's clothes, though he at least managed to take his shoes off. The hangover is better, though still there. He spreads his hands over her thighs, feeling the muscles flex as she settles down on him.

"I'd do anything for you," he says.

She looks at him and smiles. "Liar." She shakes her head. "I miss the days when I was an excuse. You can't give yourself up to me, not completely."

"I--"

"You'll drink yourself unconscious, and still say what happens is because of you instead of me." She looks at him and shakes her head. "You're a product of your era," she says.

He reaches up for her. She feels impossibly high, even though he can feel her weight. She's soft around the waist, but he can feel the hard bones of her hips underneath. "You know that--"

She covers his hands with her own. "I love all that you give me, Paul. It's just not enough."

She lets go of his hands and drops on top of him, covering his mouth with hers. There's a moment when it feels like a kiss, lips and teeth and tongue, and then his mouth burns.

Drowning. He's drowning and it hurts and he can't stop kissing her. His lungs are burning and it tastes like wine but it burns like vodka. He feels it clogging his throat, thick and harsh and he swallows it down, keeps kissing her.

She pulls away and he tries to stop her. His eyes are watering and she's blurred in his vision, the only thing he can see is bright eyes and a red mouth.

She laughs. It's not pretty; she laughs like a hyena or an old woman, glee and no regard of anyone else. When his eyes clear, he can see that her mouth is wet.

"I never cared what or who they sacrificed," she says. "As long as they did it right."