brief conversations

Rating: MA15+ (Australian) (US) for language.
Posted: February 24, 2002
Notes: (1) Topic suggested by KarKar in the Couplet sub-text thread at Stranger Things.
(2) Acknowledging my trusty old "Thesaurus of Modern Quotations" and The Girls for their suggestions.
Spoilers: Set post "Birthday", season 3 AtS.
:

Cordelia sketched a tripogalia demon last night. Except for the wobbly nose, the minute ears and a vague oddness about the body, it wasn’t a bad representation. Wes did mistake the tripogalia for a lesser songung - he was confused by the ears until Cordelia told him the lobes were more pendulous. Not that Cordelia said ‘pendulous’ - of course, she’d known what it meant, she’s an intelligent woman, and “extra droopy Pluto” got the message across just as clearly.
She tends to shorten the legs of her demons. The tripogalia looked as though it might topple forward at the least hint of a breeze, huge body hunched on squat calves and flat feet. She says it is because she is short legged herself, and at school she was told that art should always be a portrait of yourself. That kind of took me by surprise and a mouthful of hot, black coffee went down the long, uncomfortable way. Here she is, sketching images of grotesque beasts and she says she is mirroring her own self? This gorgeous, impetuous, vibrant woman and a tripogalia? So because Cordelia thinks her legs aren’t long enough, that’s how other people, demons, come off her pencil - six inches shorter than they should be and dragging their knuckles or claws along the ground.
I’d never noticed anything out of proportion about Cordelia’s body but I spent three hours watching her closely to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
Result, Cordelia’s legs are nice and smooth, a healthy colour, and they go all the way up to, well - where they should go up to. No six inch gaps or short squashy thighs. Her thighs are firm and rounded and tanned and disappear under her skirt to join firm, rounded, not so tanned buttocks that you can cover with your hands and feel the wonderful little under-tuck and swell where leg meets soft squeezable cheek before running your thumb along the tiny downy hairs in the fragrant scooped out valley between the tops of her legs and the succulent moist warmth rises in waves from... I mean, I imagine.
Often.
Uncomfortably often in the last three hours.
I’ve been thinking I should give her some lessons in putting an image onto paper, but I’m not so sure how to go about making the offer. I don’t want to offend her and well, you should be able to do whatever you like in art but if we are going to depend on her drawings to identify dangerous stuff, then... I should offer, shouldn’t I? I’m the man to do it. Sit by her side while she draws, lean over her to explain a point, sniff her hair while she... Shit, I’d be taking advantage and probably creeping her out - but it’s for the good of the mission, right? Helping us to help people.
Bite the bullet, take the bull by the horns, procrastinate while I find more clichés.
To summarise. Besides the great legs, Cordelia could benefit from lessons in demon portraiture. We all have to make sacrifices, and I’m about to make one now.

“There’s nothing wrong with my pictures.”
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong - just that I might be able to help you get your hand, head and heart together because art is an affirmation, a blessing and ...”
“What? Look Michaelangelo, I don’t aim to be a Leonardo and I’m not talking turtles here!”
“Turtles? Turtles have short legs but what do... no leave it. You’re right, it is, um, the legs. We need accurate legs in the sketch. For identification purposes. It... it would help.”
“Fine, so I’ll just make everything a foot taller. What’s with the lily?”
“Oh... this? I brought it in from the courtyard. I thought you know, if you wanted me to help you, we could start with a flower.”
“There are floral demons?”
“No...no, maybe... I haven’t met one yet. Anyway, the point is this is a living thing and if you want to recreate the passion and life of nature...”
“Angel, it’s a half-dead lily. Wrinkly and ewww! I’m not getting the passion.”
"If I can find another subject, would you want to ... to, you’ll let me teach you?”
“I guess, not that I need teaching but I have to face my leg demon sometime.”
“Great! And having a leg demon, that’s great because you know that William Faulkner said an artist is a creature driven by demons. The thing is learning to accept your demon and how to use it.”
“Nice. I’m using my demon, but not my new demon - although you know I love to be reminded of it - to learn how to draw demons with passion without letting my leg demon get in the way. If I was a sensitive person I would probably cry now. Sit. Over there.”
“But...”
“Sit down. There. You’ve got more passion in you than a piece of greenery on its way to plant heaven.”
“Thanks, but...”
“Take off your shirt first.”
‘Wha...”
“The beauty and passion of the human form, yada, yada, yada. Come on, I’ve seen it all before.”

Sure, she’d seen it all before but suddenly there was a world of difference between a soothing hand attending to a gaping wound and a pair of hazel eyes drifting and lingering over my... bits. Drifting and lingering, who am I kidding? Critical scrutinising is a better description for the look in her eye. She even told me to suck my stomach in.
I thought I had been.
Seeing me, Cordelia sees Angel the Eunuch, not Angel with the bare chest, not Angel the Man. Even if I wasn’t safe eunuch guy I’d still be safe friend guy, wouldn’t I, because we are friends. I just have some thought control issues. Okay, so heart control has slipped a little as well, I’m damn lucky my head is still in full control. Except for those leg, thigh, buttock thoughts. Shit.
She looks tense.

“Angel?”
“Huh?”
“You can stop with the flexy bicep anytime - soon.”
“I’m not.”
“Angel, relax, okay? I don’t expect The Rock. Be Angel Angel, comfortable flab guy.”

So I did some more sucking in and tried to follow her eyes as they flickered and wandered from chin to hand and shoulder to knee. Eventually her eyes seemed to settle on a fold of skin above my belt. The pencil alternated between nibbling white teeth and slurping pink lips creased in gentle concentration.
The analytical light had faded a while ago and I really wanted to find out what was keeping her attention. Besides, I was tired of sucking in.

“How’s it going? Are my legs the right length?”
“I think so. It’d be easier if you...”
“Took my pants off? Nope, not going to happen. No way.”
“...stood up, Angel. Easier if you stood up.”
“Sure. Sorry about the pants, I thought, I mean you looked as though you wanted me to... and, how’s this for standing?”

She went back to moving the lead over the paper and I went back to burying my embarrassing gaffe under a pile of older, decaying gaffes and I waited impatiently for her to look at me again because in her glances I thought I could feel a softer touch.
Each flicker had become a lingering caress and every glance away to her sketch pad was an agonising eon of anticipation. I’d never consciously willed another person to look at me, just look at me and God, the relief when her eyes lifted to me once more and began a long slow drag of invisible fingertips along the inside of my leg from heel to anxious scrotum or padded lightly around strained nipples and whispered sticky honeyed promises against tingling skin. The warm rush of delight to my brain was so tantalising, I had to try and catch it, pin it down, close my eyes and feel the joy. Close my eyes so she couldn’t see my insides on the verge of begging for more of her gleaming velvet eye strokes.
Was it really in her look or was it my imagination, hungry for her devoted attention and loving touch?
I thought she looked tense? Christ, the pressure was building in me and all from a fancied eye fuck. I wanted more and my body wanted more and the pictures in my fucking head wanted more and it was time to stop before I made a fool of myself and scared the living crap out of her with a pathetic declaration of wanton affection.

“Angel, what are you doing? I haven’t finished?”
“Cramp and I, um... wanted to see if you are on the right track.”
“I was doing fine on my own track, now go and do the model thing again.”
“Well, while I’m here... look’s good but you should loosen up - don’t try and force the pencil someplace it doesn’t want to go.”
“Thank you, but I think I’m loose enough. Pose! Go on, get posey so I can look at you some, um... so I can draw you.”
“In a minute, let me see...”

Standing behind Cordelia, leaning over her shoulder, her hair brushing my chest, a glimpse of shadowed breast and pale memory of scent - this was an improvement? I wasn’t safer on the other side of the room? One positive, she couldn’t see me, she couldn’t do stuff to me with her eyes or see the effect. Not from here.
Safe.
Focus on the drawing.
The sketch was good. I could see me. She had made the invisible, visible. Given me a mirror to see my soul, confirmed my existence. And there on the paper was the Cordelia in me, in every line, in my eyes, in the curve of my lip. I needn’t have worried about looking a fool or telling her the truth, it was all there, on the sketch pad, a man in love.
I desperately wanted to know if she had felt all that emotion in me or if she was adding her own emotions, as a portrait of herself. If she had killed the short leg demon only to replace it with an emotional demon.
Wishful thinking. She couldn’t be.
She added a small flourish to the knee of my pants and held the paper up at arm’s length.

“So Mr Art Critic? Did I get all the passion and head, hand, heart stuff?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s... me.”
“Well, duh! Were you expecting a dead flower after all? And the legs?”
“Legs are just right. Everything is just right.”
“And the mood? Did I catch your mood?”
“Um... I guess so. What, um, sort of mood did you, er...”
“Frustrated. High tension guy. Like you could do with a massage.”
“Oh.”
“Or a kiss. Well? Am I close?”

Shit, but she was too close. Her face and body turned in the chair to look up at me, a smile and glow draped all over her. Was I being given a choice? Could I be greedy and ask for both? The kiss seemed the most immediate and her lips the most accessible so I leant in and covered her soft, welcoming mouth with my own.
The massage would have to wait.

Disclaimer: The characters are Joss Whedon's, Mutant Enemy's and probably a heap of other people about whom I know nothing.
I lay no claim to ownership of the characters, I simply like to ask them out to play now and then.