What Now?

[Oriena]

Oriena never admitted to weakness in words, and nor did she confide in others. But life took from her as it did everyone else, and sometimes the wounds pierced deep enough to make her flinch. The past weeks had been a downward spiral, and though at no point had she ever needed the reprieve of leaning on another, it did not erase the vulnerability that existed inside like a yawning pit in her chest. Nox fell into their normal rhythms, but there was a hollowness to it, like an artist’s rendition of what they had once been. Exquisitely skilled, but entirely manufactured. Sex didn’t have to mean anything, and Ori didn’t care about the partners she chose, just for whatever connection sparked a chain reaction for as long as it lasted. But she didn’t like it to feel like nothing – action with no true hunger, pain without driving passion. She’d rather an unskilled but earnest lover than one dead behind the eyes.

She hated it almost immediately. Nox knew where to touch, and how, yet every part of it felt like loss – just another thing finally gone in a long, sorry life of loss. For a while he’d been an equal to her – someone just as adrift, someone chasing the same vices, who could take a punch as well as give one. He’d been as close as she’d ever found to whatever it was she really craved.

And it wasn’t like she couldn’t just switch off her brain and roll with it; tune out a little, let their bodies do the work. But it would only be to placate. As they went through the motions of tearing at each other she already knew that if she fucked him like this then the moment she walked out afterwards she would not be looking back. It would be done, whatever was left between them severed clean in a single moment of insincerity. He said nothing had changed, and she knew this was meant to prove it. But the only thing it proved was that everything had changed.

“Turn it off.” Anger made the words brittle. He’d blathered something about a song, and she didn’t know what he’d meant. But nothing here felt real. Teeth and lips and the promise of bruises – all an offering to an altar Ori tore down with a growl. Her hand jammed under his chin; she knew he wouldn’t resist. It was a weird sort of intimacy. Her eyes were blazing, furious that he thought he could fool her. But she also searched his gaze for truth, and she didn’t untangle herself or pull back. Her thumb moved along the edge of his lip. It wasn’t a romantic gesture so much as one of possession, because she always treated him like he belonged to her when they were together. That hadn’t changed. She didn’t know what she wanted him to be, or what he needed her to be, but if he wanted to keep hold of any of it Ori wouldn’t suffer the pretence. It could be something new. But it wouldn’t be fake.