The party has spilled out into the parking lot and to the neighboring side streets, as is typical of any Phantasmagoria gathering one would note. But tonight, there's a difference. There's a newer sort of Phantasmagoria element inside, at least in the minds of a few. When did the dive become... trendy? The harder core group lingers outside, aloof. Keeping to themselves. Keeping to their own.
     And they're joined by those spilling in and out of the club, in a river of colors and skin. Goths gathering, loving in leather, lace and velvet. One in feathers. And those in drag and those taking a drag off of a variety of herbal blends. And the trendy come and go. By the end of the night, the doms and the goths will rule the coop again...
     A breath of fresher air. A lessening of the crowding heartbeats. Light, sheer silk moves as he does, as the breeze does. It's late winter, but there's sweat on the skin. The cool wind settles against him, and cools him. He moves among the crowd, heading for a not so crowded area of the parking lot, dark eyes lifting and marking his car. Easy to find, look for the crowd around it wandering what the hell it is...
     William turns his head, lighting another blue paper wrapped cigarette, exhaling blue-grey smoke...

     Grumbling a little to herself, though mostly in a goodnatured sort of way, Drancy's spilled out of the club for a bit of fresh air. Fresher air. Something which contains less carcinogens than the particularly overwhelming and obnoxious mix of cigarettes of every type, fog machine, and various drugs that after a few hours has left her eyes stinging and burning.
     Her notebook gets flipped open, and she leans up against a car, using a little penlight taken from her bag to examine the notations she's so meticulously jotted in her own private shorthand (which seems to largely comprise of chopping words in half and extracting vowels). Grudgingly, she nods her satisfaction, pushing off the car and walking with her head still bent over the pad. "Should do... enough for this ish, anyway." Drancy's voice is absent, intent only on her writings, and so much of the anger-laced punkness is stripped from it. Then she bumps into an auto's bumper and falls across the hood. "Dammit!"

     And... as is the way of things... the car alarm goes off. An annoying series of loud beeps, flashing lights and goths and punks jumping out of the way. Which is louder? The alarm or the expletives suddenly pounding against the air. Now, why someone would want to protect an Austen Healey is another matter. Everyone knows it'll die about a mile away from the club...
     It's not like retrieving it would be a chore...
     A painted up and feathered gothboi in femme gear glides over, "Fucker!" A press of a gizmo in his painted fingers -- fingernails are a glittery electric blue -- and the alarm quits. "There!" He raises his arms and waves to his friends. Oh and a look back to you. "You gonna live?"

     And across the way, dark eyes that were distracted in some thought or Other, turns to the loud noise and the following sudden quiet. Mouth slides upward, a quiet, quirking grin. She attracts attention wherever she goes...
     William pushes off his bit of wall, taking a last breath of opium, a last holding of the breath until it sparkles against the blood. The cigarette is launched from his fingertips like a comet. It sputters in flame and dies midair.

     Drancy straightens up, brushing her shirt off. NOW she loses buttons - she was afraid that'd happen, this velvet contraption just is a little on the flimsy side. "Never died from mortification yet, though my shirt's mortally wounded. Thanks for turning off the noise." She staggers back a step or two, rubbing an ear as her blonde hair swishes hazily about her hips. "Ta, then."
     She's not the sort who feels a need to be the center of attention, which is what makes it so much worse, in some ways - no excuse, yet it makes it somehow forgivable. Drancy stuffs the notebook away, turning and slouching off to the darkest, most remote part of the still crowded parking lot, where she can die of humiliation in peace. "Bloody hell..."

     For some, it's a matter of genetics...
     For others, destiny...
     And sometimes the more one tries to hide, the more noticeable one becomes. Often, it is simply a matter of not trying to seem the center of attention that puts one squarely in the center. That is a lesson of life to be learned.
     The gothboi smiled -- it happens -- and turned, dissolving amid a group of similarly dressed and arrayed young men. Mortification is perhaps eased? By the fact that no one around you seems to give a shit. Way too much malaise. Maybe too much weed...
     And there are traces of something... medicinal in the darker ends of the parking lot. A few punks and the darker edges of the goth world linger nearby. Maybe weed. Maybe hash. Maybe something else. And nearby, one who is neither goth nor punk nor dom nor anything but himself. Beautiful, leather and silk. Does he look out of place? There is an air around him. Something... kinetic.... something relaxed. If he is out of his element, it does not seem to trouble him...
     Do you recognize him out of the club and smoke and bouncing lights. Some ...friend of Davydd's. Huh. He has friends?

     Easier to relax, in shadows. Drancy takes a couple of soothing breaths, then turns her sharp-eyed reporting gaze onto those few here - goth and punk and dom alike get easily dismissed. She's got enough material on those for another month, easy. But well, here's something new.
     And new, after all, is what not only sells magazines, but which Drancy has a particular interest in right now...
     "You were inside, I think I saw you." Well, even if it's not true, it's a good way of opening up discussion. Changeable eyes turn, and she impatiently pushes at the far too long hair. "Davydd's friend, right?"

     He starts to speak and then... translates...
     Speaking English does not come as naturally as it should. Out of practice. He does not think in it, after all...
     Laughter. A quiet ease of sound that holds in his throat and chest. "Amazing as it sounds," comes the drawl of French-tugged English, "... that is true. I am his friend. William," he adds, as if in reminder. Or... reintroduction. "You are the one who works for the vile underground rag, I think you called it?" A black eyebrow lifts in slight arch, and the grin is smooth, slowly spreading. "Myself, I prefer vile underground rags to glossy magazines. You have a better chance at finding...something real. That, and the entertainment value is high..."

     "One of them. And 'real' is important, to most of us, yeah." One hand tosses a lock of oak-blonde hair over her shoulder as Drancy slouches back on one shoulder. "And yeah, it's pretty amazin', innit. Davydd managing to have friends he hasn't scared off by now." She's cynical, but amused nonetheless, offering her hand to be shaked. "Drancy. And yeah, the rags suck, but hey." A shrug. "They pay me." Such pragmatism.

     There is a grin, and William takes your hand. His, like Davydd's is large, strong, but there is a fineness to his. And a warmth. The dark eyes -- do you catch the sparkle of violet in the darkness there? He frees your hand after a gentle squeeze. Oh, child, if you only knew. "And so... we seem to be meant for one another. The same is often said about me." A pause. "Among other things." And just how did you manage to stumble into both of us, Little Drancy? "Are you as bored as I am," comes the languid baritone, English elongated across a French tongue. "Want to go for a drive, Drancy....?"
     Off his wall, he takes a step toward you, towering as he is. Three inches past six feet. "I feel the need to... move around..."

     Drancy's hands are small, and she remains clueless, save for the very faint suspicion that ever lurks in the back of those changeably feral eyes. As always, that slight cloud of mistrust and simmering anger beneath the surface - she might be blonde, but she really ought to be a redhead, oughtn't she, with that temper?
     She reclaims her hand, staring at her palm for a moment as if making sure there's nothing on it before she gives a quick nod, eyes bird-bright, voice cheeky. "Sure, why not, I could use the amusement anyway. You gonna say something on the record for me there, or should I leave my pad at home?"

     It is an energy he enjoys. Fiesty, passioned, liable to scratch for the eyes. Usually just as liable to scratch one's back. Red headed? Now that'd be a plus...
     "You can take it with you if you want," William murmurs, grin slanting. "If you feel the need. Though," he looks to you over a shoulder, "...doing something is more fun than writing about doing something, wouldn't you say?" And the grin claims that mouth. The mouth that has claimed many in its own right. "You have any CDs in that backpack of yours?"
     The lambskin leather that he wears is supple enough, even if close fitting, to hold the keys to his car. William frees them as he is in motion, the sheer plum silk ... something seeming ethereal. For some, it wouldn't be shocking if it dissolved from him and turned to nothing. Like sugar in fire...
     There is a series of electronica chimes at the pressing of a black button, and the lights are activated on a sleek, metallic blue car. Fucking space age. Has to be worth, well... who knows? When the doors open, the open vertically, rather than outward. If you knew anything about cars...
     ...maybe it would give an indication... a hint...
     "I'm half-sick of trancing..." he rolls, a look to you. "Something with..." William grins, "...bite... would be nice."

     Drancy quirks up an eyebrow. If she had any clue, this would set warning bells off in her mind... unfortunately, the only clues she's got point to things like Colonel Mustard in the library with the revolver.
     "Yeah, I've got cds." What does he take her for, anyway? She's a punk. Of course she has stuff. She starts rummaging until she comes up with a cd wallet. Danzig, Dead Kennedys, Misfits, Circle Jerks, Saint Saens (classical music? quelle shock), Robin Hitchcock, David Bowie, the Pogues... "Help yourself to whatever you find."
     She eyes the car half with disapproval, half with envy. "Nice car," Drancy mutters reluctantly. "Terribly posh - no chauffeur, though? Guess that means I'm riding shotgun?" She aims a glance, still simmering with the fires of righteousness under the surface, across, waiting, evidently, for an answer.

     There's only two ways you can ride in this car -- only two seats. Shotgun or pilot. And it's not likely he's going to let you drive. The car sits low -- built for speed and hugging to the earth in a nice gravitational embrace. Snug. And the look says it all, a partial smile and eyebrows lifted. As if I'm going to let you drive. "Oui... shot... gun," he says, accent thick, and humor dripping from the sparse syllables. Like melting wax.
     "Want to go anywhere in particular," he queries, settling into leather. "Make your requests. Otherwise," William turns his head toward you, leaning in to look at you -- waiting for you to get in. "...we're just going to.... go..."
     The driver's side door lowers automatically and sets in. Locking...
     If you had any clue...
     The face and the form should be enough of a warning...
     The smile...
     Red flags...
     The car on top of it all...
     What are you walking into...
     Or are you not going to walk, but run headlong...?

     If Drancy has a flaw, it's a lack of ability to easily back down from a challenge. And this is a challenge : for all her brains, and she's far from stupid, she's sliding into the passenger side seat. Before she puts on any seatbelt though, she's turning, offering her own challenge with an animalistic snarl which has more than a hint of glee in it.
     "One condition though." Her voice is almost casual as she speaks - nonchalant. "I get out the way I came in."
     What's that supposed to mean? Ah, but she's already continuing, explaining with a flash to her eyes - having explained once to Davydd, it seems she's decided to come out of the closet as it were. She leans over, looking up through her lashes with a smug feralness.
     "See, I'm a virgin, and while you may be cute, mister, somehow I don't think yer marriage material." *click* And Drancy slides the seatbelt into place.

     We all have our notions of challenge...
     And if this were eight hundred years in the past, that would have been a gauntlet. And you would have lost. But as it is, William laughs. Intrigued. You see it. And amused. Beautiful. Oh if you only knew me...
     If you only knew...
     "I am flattered you would warn me. And you... you are a quick study," William whispers, leaning in. "I am not... marriage material..." But he wears a ring. He wears a ring where one would if one were. And before conversation can continue, his hands are in motion...
     And so is the car...
     A quick turn out of the parking lot -- goths and doms scattering -- and you are thrust out into London at Midnight. Darkness lit by neon, neon that slides like silk against the metallic shell that surrounds you. "Put something in. Your choice..."
     There is not much in the way of traffic. Good thing? Bad thing? The city whirls around you as the car picks up speed. His left hand shifting. "Very well... you get out the way you came in. Virginal. Fiesty." William chuckles, and then he pauses, his grin broad and warm as he looks ahead. "You are lucky," he quips, and indigo eyes glance to you. "...that you don't have the preferred equipment. Otherwise, no promises..."

     Drancy snorts rudely at that, eyes rolling. She should've guessed. But then, if that's the case, why's he wanting her to go for a ride? Curiouser and curiouser, as a long-dead one of her countrywomen would say.
     "Only dick I own is dishwasher safe." If one thing won't get a rise, maybe something else will. She watches the people scatter, watches London go by at far too fast for her to track, and finally, settles on a mix cd. CD burners are wonderful things... and then the pulsing angry beat of the Misfits snaps on, though not so loud you can't talk over it, loud enough though to be just vaguely reminiscent of the inside of the club - smaller walls, more vibration.
     Attitude, you got some fucking attitude
     I can't believe what you said to me
     You got some attitude
     Inside your feeble brain there's probably a whore
     If you don't shut your mouth you're gonna feel the floor
     Attitude, the one you got, oh baby
     Attitude, the one you got, oh baby
     Attitude Inside your feeble brain there's probably a whore
     If you don't shut your mouth you're gonna feel the floor
     Attitude, you got some fucking attitude
     I can't believe what you said to me
     You got some attitude
     What're the odds that this choice of music is random? Drancy settles back, self-satisfaction in her expression. Over the music, she calls, "So you just got a reporter fetish, then? What's the deal?"

     "If I had a reporter fetish, I would have fucked the woman from The Sun," and it isn't, apparently, a foreign concept. "Maybe, I have a virgin fetish..." Spoken, as if he wonders about it himself. And then he grins. The mouth. Whatever expression it would form would be sensual in nature. The sensuality simply his Being. Not something worn or put on. It exists. He exists. Inseparable from it.
     Don't watch the speed-o-meter. It'll all be so much more pleasant that way...
     At the current speed, the car seems to sit against the road, the act of Becoming One. As if it shall lift in the next moment. It never does. It moves out upon the motorway -- it doesn't matter which one, when there isn't really a destination -- and to the right lane...
     The smile spreads -- whether at the notion of a virgin fetish or some delight in being at 140kph, hard to say -- and William glances to you, dark eyes flickering. Violet-blue. "What're the odds, hmm? Waiting for marriage?" Both eyebrows lift and the grin slants. Who does that anymore?

     "You couldn't have a virgin fetish, there aren't bloody enough of us." Reasonably spoken, even with the profanity tucked in there. Drancy might or might not be immune to sensuality, but she's used enough to people who think themselves hot shite that by now, her reaction is to be blase about it. She ignores the speedometer - cast out all fear, as the Good Book says.
     She tucks her hands, fingers interlaced, behind her head, and slouches down in her seat. If she knew well enough for trust to exist - not too bloody likely, she'd say to that - she might even be so blase as to unbuckle the seatbelt holding her in.
     "Nah, not waiting for marriage. Just seems like a lot of fuss. You know what Sid Vicious said about sex, right? Fifteen minutes of squishing noise, means your brain's not clicking right." A louche shrug, though she doesn't go quite so far as to yawn. She's not that blase, even if there's the appearance of it. "But I'm all for the idea of someone wanting all of me, rather than to stick something in one of my holes for a while." Even if she's currently looking goth, the attitude's all punk - she flashes a grin which causes the corners of her eyes to crinkle, and with her current look, makes her look years younger, not even legal. "So why waste my time trying to find 'the one' and getting wrong numbers? I dare anyone to try convincing me it's right when it's not. Fuckin' braggadocio."

     He laughs again. You seem to have a way of inspiring that. It is, believe it or not, a very worthwhile talent. He picked you up? Or maybe it's the other way, Plantagenet. You've gone riding about with a Greek Chorus. What were the odds...
     "I would dare, but I've already promised. Braggadocio or not, I do keep my word," William drawls. At least, when it suits me. "Isn't Sid Vicious dead?" he quips, smirking. "You want to know why I chose to drive around with you..." his words come deep and slow, holding in throat, in chest. Mulling. William looks to you. Indigo in the glance.
     I had visions of ruining you...
     You want to know, don't you...
     I had visions of tasting you...
     Something unusual...
     You're that in spades...
     "You seemed... interesting. That you knew Davydd and Sandrine and yet I did not know you...well... this was also interesting. How ever did you manage to stumble into Llewelyn?" The voice deepens in humor and dark eyebrows lift, along with a smirk.

     Drancy isn't a mindreader... yet. Six months from now, who knows? For now, though, she's an artless beast, a young human animal without a clue of what she's been dropped in the middle of. And oh, if she finds out, won't she just have more ammunition to use against Davydd than ever.
     For now...
     Eyes that can't decide what colour they want to be glance sidelong, one eyebrow arching as she slouches further down. "Doubt you could convince me. We've already discussed it - not marriage material, plus yer not into girls," that is how she interpreted it after all, "and there's the fact that even if I were gonna give you a chance," full of herself, by deliberate choice, "you've got a ring on. I don't poach."
     Her curiosity's there, lurking beneath the skin, though. Of course - she's also wholly unaware of how unusual she seems...
Just as the world's unaware of how unusual she really is. But suspicion rears its head again...
     "Stumbled into? Not a bad way of putting it." Here's a full story she's not blurting out in a rush. "I guess you could say we have a love-hate relationship. He bumped into me when I was busy dealing with the... aftereffects of a late night..." he found me bent over an iron railing with a neutron bomb's worth of magic running through my system "and tried to help me up, but I knocked him down..." because his tattoos reacted to the bloody energy "-and we went for coffee. He had me over to meet Sandrine next time we met. Very polite, very mm, civilized. Ran into him tonight in a pub," when I tried to slam a fist into him because of this fucking tattoo that appeared on me overnight, "and we shared a cab here. Nothing unusual." Nothing unusual at all, mate. And let's pray you suck as badly as she does at reading between the lines.

     He is not as gifted as others he knows. Of looking to the...energy of a person, seeing it unfold. He has...been learning, however, over the years. And there are things he can recognize quite easily.
     Like incomplete truth. He's a master at that...
     "Well, that sounds like vintage Llewelyn," is all he says on that.
     For now...
     The smile slides again and his eyes to your continued slouching. You are outside of the city now. Do you even notice? On the hills of a nearby suburb. You can see the city lights from here. The car has slowed. Do you notice? How it seems to lift, not pulled into the earth quite as intimately. "I like the view," William notes above the music, a nod to your surroundings. Take a look. With his left hand, he turns down the volume, even as he turns the car off the motorway, curving through a roundabout to head, ultimately, back toward the city. "Who said anything about marriage," he mulls, with a grin. "Girls. Women. I have had my share. And men. Men understand that you don't need to marry someone to fuck them. Pleasure without complication." Without commitment. But you bring up a good point. And one to which he chuckles. His ring. The mate you do not know. The notion of poaching. "Ah, yes...nice ring isn't it," he murmurs.
     And the car lunges forward, on the same motorway but heading now in the opposite direction. Toward the gleaming jewel in the distance. From here, that's how it looks. The rest of England dark and sleeping.
     A hand comes out, the volume goes back up. "No Iggy Pop?"

     Drancy is offhanded - her eyes, her own, even if they change constantly. While that other one, lurking beneath the surface, in her blood, might know how to harness power, elicit truths from glances, she knows none of it, and is having none of it. "Davydd's all right. Sometimes..." And sometimes, she wants to rip his throat out. But that too can remain unsaid.
     She looks out the window, eyes sliding from green to azure in the span of time it takes to do so. "Quite a change," she comments, sotto voce - almost aimed more to herself than to her companion. "Contrasts... world above, the world below, and humanity smack in the middle. Though some might say we're below." She smirks, without humour.
     "So basically, wot you're saying is that you can't be bothered to commit, so you stick with people you can use and toss away without worrying they'll come after you with a shotgun." She turns to look over her shoulder, her smirk having more real warmth in it this time, even as her eyes are challenging. "Funny, that. I always thought that's what Kleenex got invented for..."
     She nods at the ring. "Looks like it set you back a pretty packet. Or someone, anyway. That, the car, and so on - I imagine you're not hurting any. Not on the outside." And sometimes she's a little too sharp for her own good - sharp enough to cut herself.
     She settles back against the cushioning support. "Nah, Iggy's all right, but I was getting tired o' him and Velvet Underground, decided to swap out some." Besides, there's always more at home. "What's your claim to fame, anyway?"

     "I like to be in the middle...that is where Life is," A soft utterance. Perhaps a hint. Perhaps Truth.
     But the softness ends in the grin. Ends in the laughter that issues out after it. Ends in the music that overpowers the whispers. You are sharp, you are quick, you see through bullshit, and so bullshit sort of settles in the floorboard. Eyes crinkle in the amusement. He's what.. somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five. Hard to say. Hard to put a finger on. Older and younger simultaneously. "You make it sound like a sad life, a hollow life, Drancy." Blue-violet eyes fasten upon you for a moment. And the smile is warm. And for a moment it is real. "I am an artist," he does not talk about commitment, or the ring, or the one behind it. He doesn't counter your arguments. He only listens to them. And perhaps that's the better compliment. "I ...restore paintings for museums...sometimes cathedrals. When they have an earthquake in Italy, I get phone calls," he explains.
     William chuckles, eyes ahead, the grin broad and sudden."I bet you think I took advantage of people for a living. Tell me the truth. You thought I was going to say lawyer, oui?"

     "Nah, I figured you took advantage of people for sex. Sex isn't living, it's just a part of living. And that is why I don't go out and get laid." Triumphant in the moment, she seizes little victories.
     On the surface, Drancy isn't soft at all, even with all that long oak-coloured hair and those changing eyes. Hard, uncompromising, ready to slice through things. Davydd's found her most sympathetic when she's unconscious - softest and most yielding then. Even now, she's got just the faintest edge of a headache from things she senses but can't put her finger on.
     "Sad? Life is full of blood and shite and pain. Sometimes that's sad. You don't think my parents actually named me Drancy, d'yer?" That lower class accent, it's a put-on to the educated ear, but it's something she took with her name, angrily accepting the burden of people's assumptions even as she skewers them six ways from Sunday. "And they're the ones wanting to see me married. Not me."
     Then she turns her attention to talk of jobs, and careers. "Explains the car," she says unconcernedly. "They must pay through the nose. But, well, art's art. I'm only an artist when I sleep..."

     "I never take that which is not given. To take advantage? What advantage is gained? If pleasure is not mutual," a roll of his broad shoulders in that. "There is not much point, yes? I'm not a total prick." He grins at that. It beautifies him. If such can be done.
     "I was wondering about the choice of names. Drancy isn't exactly Poitiers," how he speaks of both. English sounds... mechanical almost in comparison with how he speaks of things French. "But... I imagine... it is a protest, oui? But to what? To your background, your parents... or is it purely political?"
     "And yes," he adds, "...it is a nice living. But money is not the reason I do it..."
     London spreads before you, once looming on a dark horizon now swallowing the car and you, its passenger, in its lights, its streets. The motorway heading toward the heart of the city, where one of several roundabouts could send one off on a quest for the right direction, right exit. "Do you want me to drop you off at your flat or home?"

     Drancy says absently, "Flat's fine... you know where Pashmina's is?" Probably not, she figures, but well, directions're easily given, and she doubts it's a case of the gentleman having to see her home. Someone with this sort of life does not stalk punk-girl writers for underground e-zines.
     "My family's Jewish. Sell-outs, though," she adds bitterly. "They'd love to see me chuck my job, my life, and become something respectable. Lawyer or doctor, maybe jump off eventually into politics - or at least marry a lawyer-doctor-politician. Hunh." She snorts, nostrils flaring.
     A sidelong glance, then - "You do know why I chose Drancy, yes?" Her voice actually goes neutral, rather than challenging, though she doesn't quite wait for an answer. "Money's not a reason to do things. I don't do what I do for the money, either - of course, the things people do for money tend to be the dirtiest of the lot..."

     Pashmina's. "If only they were open. Best curry in London. Peanut chicken in a box," his eyes almost glaze over with delight. "And they deliver...know it? I'd live there if they'd let me." Is this surprising? "And, yes, I am aware of Drancy's history. History is always complicated." William pauses, eyes narrowing on the road, a look around, and a roundabout taken, motorway now left behind. "Very few instances is there ever a clear black and white to what is told of events that occurred," and well should the brother of Richard the Lionheart know that...
     And if one is jewish, that would be brother of Richard The Cruel...
     But he does not linger on history or philosophy long. "And you are right... money should always be the last reason. Happiness... fulfillment... these should come first. You like what you do. Maybe they will understand that eventually. Parents... when they give birth to children they give birth to ... Expectations."

     Drancy's voice is bitter when she speaks. "Sod that. I live for me, not for other people." She's almost shaking for a moment, strong emotions barely contained by a wire wall she wraps round herself. And... almost, there's a spark. Limit to what tattoos can do. Perhaps sensing this, perhaps not, she wrests her emotions back down.
     If only she knew...
     If she knew, she might be at your eyes with her fingers. Or perhaps not.
     Pashmina's. Much easier thing to focus on.
     "Know it? Hell, I live right upstairs." A smirk. "Next best thing to living in it. They know my voice, I order so often - 'cos I'm a lazy git, I just call down and they come running up the damned steps with my order."
     Clear, black and white... "There is never an excuse for what happened, mate." Her voice turns harsh, bitter again, eyes fixed on the windscreen and out beyond, unseeing. "I can't let go of that. If I let go - I let myself forget - how can I? How can anyone? Just because you don't hear their voices or see their faces... so you got lucky." Mercurial temperament - eyes go flat grey.
     "Nobody's ever expected a thing of me that I was willing to give."

     "That is what I was getting to. Very few times is something that clear. Drancy... was that clear." And other cities he won't name. And he has seen more cruelty than you can imagine. And some of that, he has brought. Some of that, he wrought. Cruelty. Does it have different definitions when it straddles centuries?
     But yes... curry... it is hard to argue with Pashmina's curry. William smiles, "Ah, I would become a fat bastard if I had the rice milk with honey every day. With cinnamon. The chai tea." An exhale. "Shite, and now I am hungry." It is not far from Pashmina's now...
     The car has slowed to an almost reasonable speed, even...
     "It is good you have anger for things that are not right, Drancy. You stand for something. There is not enough of that anymore..." He almost sounds... nostalgic...

     Anger only reluctantly loosens its grip on her. After all... she has no clue about the past of the driver. Just as well, isn't it? "I don't know. The only problem with fire is that while it burns hot, it also burns out, eventually... even with all the material there is. You get tired, y'know?"
     More truthful admission than Davydd's gotten so far.
     "Well, Pashmina's probably open, we can grab some vindaloo if y'like, you'll just have to deal with my humble abode not being up to your level of class." She bounces back quickly, at least.

     William chuckles at that, quietly. There is knowing there. Not of your class versus his, but of the places he has been. You could not know. Would not. Will not. The joke he gets, it is enough that he gets it. "I'll have to take a raincheck. If you are around Davydd long enough, I do not doubt but that you will see me again." And just what does Davydd do that he knows an artist who restores paintings for museums?
     Just what does Davydd do...anyway?
     "But ... as I have another commitment tonight -- and, oui... I do make commitments -and- keep them -- I must drop you off and say goodbye for now..."
     And there is the light on the sign for Pashmina's. The Abbey is nearby as well. You've passed that gallery. The car more banks than turns, sitting low around the curves of rounded English roads and is pulled near the mouth of the alley that runs alongside the building.

     Drancy is eternally cynical about that. "Sure y'do. Just not ones which involve love and marriage and nine months later an infant screaming its head off and who's gonna blame you for that but the mother..."
     She's got questions, echoing in her head, but not going evidently to ask them of William. Unbeknownst to him, William's now provided her with yet more ammunition to aim at Davydd. Won't he just thank him, now.
     "No problem. Doubt though I'm as tied to Davydd's apronstrings as you think. As I keep reminding him, he's got a girlfriend." Cynical. Amused. Bitter. Green, now, her eyes flash.
     "So. You can keep the cd. You gonna let me out now?"

     You couldn't imagine it, what has gone on between Llewelyn and I. The funny thing is, we don't really need ammunition at this point. It's like the weather. It just happens...
     "You're right, of course," William murmurs. "I know nothing about love, marriage and children." He says it so matter-of-factly. With nonchalance that borders upon seduction it is so languid.
     "Oh, thanks for the CD." Something genuine. Why are you leaving it? "It was an interesting evening, Drancy, merci for ... livening it up a bit, mais oui?" And that grin, again it resurfaces, reborn upon that mouth. No, who could believe a face such as his, with a smile such as his? How could words of love ever ring true?

     Don't talk to me about love, I won't believe it.
     It's thought, not said, but it's true and lurking in the back of her eyes - here's a woman who's heard words said, and never had the luxury of truth in them... not that kind of truth. Is it any wonder, then, at the feral savagery which passes across her face so often?
     I can't believe it. Can't take - and when giving becomes all that's left... you run out of things to give...
     "No problem, cds're cheap. I always burn two copies when I make up a mix anyway." Is that explanation? Or maybe it's a clue...
     She grabs her bookbag and starts climbing out of the car. "Ta, then, mate. And don't worry - I don't know shite about anything." Truth, or falsehood? The door's closing, then, and quickly, she's moving towards the building, not quite at a sprint. Ground beneath my heels, let me cast away.

      One last year you hear: "Cheers," strangely British. And then the door closes and the car roars in its turning. Heading off as quickly as you...

Posted by rowan at May 09, 2003 10:06 PM