tfln open post

[byanyname]

***

either leave a message (or set of muses) for one of my assholes, or request a message from one of them. choose messages from the classic source, from your own skull, or whatever you may please.

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[loyalless]

[ He very nearly drops his phone.

Fumbles and barely, barely catches the damned thing, pointedly ignoring Wallace’s barely, barely lifted eyebrows, and returning at once to her message. ]

Why, Katrina! I never thought

’Come’ indeed, oh, who’s ‘ha ha’ing now, very clever!!

[ … ]

Katrina, my dear, what is your husband to DO without recourse to his ‘ha ha’s? You must know that it’s a mainstay of his expression!

(Hm, perhaps… Perhaps, if my wife is hellbent on speaking such honeyed words of her own, if she persists in speaking of her husband’s [ … ] less repulsive qualities, he’ll learn to lean less on those modes of self-mockery.

Perhaps! Regarding this matter, I can offer you no promises!)

I’m happy to report - and you may be surprised to hear - that the Deforest Scarlett experience is alien to me. Not to say he hasn’t attempted to ingratiate himself, or that I never considered it Fuck’s sake, that also isn’t anything you need to be told right now Fuck’s SAKE To hear him speak, he might run through an entire county and still hold get-up-and-go to spare.

Still, the man IS fond of spinning his own gossip, and whether he can truly manage five occasions - and that when his partner is miles distant from the room! - is a question one might hotly contest!

Five times! Five times indeed, you inveterate minx!

Skilled enchantress. I do adore you.

And how pleased I am to find myself capable of lending light to a dreary home. Or, no, I say ‘pleased,’ when what I mean tends closer to ‘grateful’ or ‘honored.’

Both, I think.

[ … ]

Do you know, Dearest? I [ … ] believe wonder whether believe our home needn’t ever be dreary again. What do you think? If we take care never to be parted. If we keep close watch over one another’s hearts?

The sky’s blue never struck me as remarkable before I met your eyes. Now it holds me captive; now I would brave the beating sun to bear witness to that blue.

How many other colors will you deepen for me? How rich will the world turn around you? You, mijn vrouw, are a wonder, and yes, of course, you may expect kisses to follow my every word when we’ve been reunited.

Saturday, my Dearest, Saturday. We must endure until then!

[ He might be smirking while he types that last line. A little. (Smirking with a hint of honest joy. Smirking without acerbity, or any measure of ill will. Soon, oh soon, e’ll see her! (And he hopes. (Tries not to anticipate. Tries not to worry.) He hopes Katrina will be pleased.)) ]

[lostyourheart]

[ Every line buoys her, sends her toward ecstatic heights. (What he said of their home, oh - how could she ever hope to find better than this man? How could she be so fortunate now, after all the misfortune that plagued her?)

She even draws the phone to her breast, presses it to her heart as though embracing it, her eyes closed and smile blissful.

And then reads his final words and feels a bitter, mercilessly sudden plummet into desolation.

Saturday. Damn his brother. Damn his father.

But she won't make him feel worse about it! No, he shouldn't know (until he returns home) (they'll have to let him come home eventually, surely!) just how miserable she is at the distance. ]

For you, Husband, I will endure anything - anything at all! Just as you brave a cruel sun for my sake. And I shall do so with a smile, because the reward is inevitably your kiss.

As for Meneer Scarlett, he may run through the county all he pleases, but you have my word of assurance that he has not one fair lass (or lad) to run with him. The gaggle that followed him at my father's party was - how did your friend put it? 'Having a go'?

Sporting with him. At his expense - laughing at him for days after. Not one of them would show her petticoat for his knife, jellied or otherwise. (And the men here who would invite virility instead of the blush of womanhood are far too cautious to take a stranger's assignation.)

I expect he was left to the same 'get-up-and-go' as you have been, perhaps (probably) (definitely) without someone as enjoyable as myself to assist.

Oh, no more talk of Deforest! He speaks enough of himself. Let's play a game to help you pass the dreary hours!

(Not THAT game, mind you. Just now, anyway.)

You find the world's color deepened by my eyes? Oh, let's do try to brighten it across the miles. Tell me a color you see, and I shall try to guess the form it takes!

[loyalless]

A kiss and another, and more to follow! You'll find, Katrina, that where I care to kiss, I become a singularly generous man.

Well, and I have

[ ... ] [ ... ]

Well, and I have a prodigious store of kisses left untouched all these years. You didn't know, did you?, that your fortune in marrying me would be a wealth of fond kisses, my lips brushed soft against your cheek, imploring at your throat. I have such devotions for you, mijn liefste. I can't believe we'll ever see their end.

(That, dear wife, is one form of the fortune I bring. The other is... Mm. Well. We discussed the other recently, did we not? Your stroke of fortune stokes my own.)

(...And it is my fortune's fortune to have had your assistance, while jellied daggers could only quiver and sag to the tune of their self-styled fabrications.)

A game, Dearest? I confess, you have my interest. In point of fact, you charm me. You, possessed of this knack for play even alongside your familiar misanthropy. You, who smile and set the weary world at ease. You, who might draw the dourest of men convivial. (And you must understand that I speak for the dour men, being a paragon among their kind. Finding that my gloom disperses with a single glance from you. Charming creature; my darling enchantress.)

Mm, let's start with something striking. I see... A deep, shimmering amethyst.

What might it be, Katrina?

[lostyourheart]

A deep, shimmering amethyst?

What might a man see amid the socialites of Manhattan, bearing such a hue as that. A bodice, with a pale hand pressed to the stomacher? A man's frock-coat, or the embroidery thereupon? The flash of a jeweled choker, a bracelet, a ring? Feathers in finely-coiffed hair?

Oh, but you. You have eyes for no other living form, isn't that so? You have spent your waking moments with your attentions wholly on your languishing wife. No cloth or adornment, no matter how richly purple, could attract your eye, because you have no care for the wearer.

I shall close my eyes and pretend I see through yours. (And I shall not pretend any further than that, for I would never wish to grasp your fortune at such an inopportune time!)

Hm. I see. Your eye is terribly clouded with the ghostly image of your darling, your enchantress, and even across all these miles, you see the flowers I picked as I strolled home-ward!

(An audacious guess, no doubt, because you will be inclined to say I have guessed correctly, because my answer is so very charming. My dour husband with his dour pursuits, who is so lovely when awakened. Who indulges his liefste in her every whim. Ah, I am fortunate. Truly, truly.)

An honest guess, then: is it a painting you've seen?