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Title: Die Sprache der Blinden 17a/?
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laguera25
Fandom: Rammstein
Rating FRM
Pairing: Richard Kruspe/OFC
Disclaimer: Richard Z. Kruspe is a real person, with family and friends who love him. I am not one of them. I do not know him. This is a work of complete fiction, and should be read as such. No defamation is intended. For entertainment only.
Part I Part IIa Part IIb Part III Part IVa Part IVb Part V Part VIa Part VIb Part VIIa Part VIIb Part VIII Part IX Part Xa Part Xb Part XIa Part XIb Part XIIa Part XIIb Part XIIIa Part XIIIb Part XIV Part XVa Part XVb Part XVIa Part XVIb
He still hadn't broached the uncomfortable topic of life on the road two days later, when he'd found himself the host of a Silvester's party at the Hotel Concorde. He'd understood the ugly necessity of it, but each time he'd opened his mouth to invoke that dreadful demon, he'd been stopped cold by the intoxicating, open warmth of her smiling impishly at him over her morning toast and tea or curling her lips at him in a sly, conspiratorial grin, her pen poised gracefully over the pages of her journal. So alive and unabashedly pleased, a cat luxuriating in a patch of sunlight, warm wood at her belly and the sun's caress at her back. The flat had been redolent with her, with her equanimity and her quiet effervescence, and though Caron had clung tenaciously to the corners and the dark recesses of dresser drawers, she had been fading, overpowered by the traces that Calliope unwittingly left in her place: strands of copper hair on the pillows and in the drains; her fingerprints on the bathroom mirror where she'd wiped away the fog; the imprint of her hands in the rumpled bedsheets from their numerous and enthusiastic couplings; a book left on the bedside table or turned facedown on the couch, covers and pages splayed like the outstretched arms of a captured soldier; the faint, ragged shiver of her breath over the beads of water that clung to the shower tiles and her soap-slick skin as he pressed himself against her trembling, impossibly-pale back and whispered promises and gruff endearments as his fingers had traced patterns over her skin and his hips had rocked possessively against her; the huff of her delirious laughter in the grout as he'd called her his schoene Hexe, and the echo of her startled cry as he'd bitten the nautilus of her ear and cupped her gracile throat in his guitar-roughened hand and emptied himself into her pinned, spasming flesh.
His flat had been comfortable for the first time in years, cozy and lived-in, with proofs of a life beyond Rammstein scattered throughout its rooms. It hadn't been like that since Caron had packed her easel and her brushes and her designer clothes and left nothing but voids on the walls and in the closet. He hadn't wanted to disturb the rare peace he had found, taint it with the bitterness of wounded feelings and awkward conversations stitched around topics they could not bear to broach. So he had set it aside for a more opportune moment and drunk deeply of his unexpected fortune.
He had thought to raise the subject earlier today, on the neutral ground of the hotel, but when he'd slipped his arms around Calliope's waist as she'd examined her reflection in the mirror of the suite he'd booked for the evening and nuzzled her neck with the carefully-chosen words tickling his lips, she'd been taut and restive beneath his hands, rigid where she was normally pliant and supple and welcoming, thrumming with a frayed, wild energy, and he'd realized with a start that she'd been nervous, eyes wide and feet ceaselessly moving and shifting and hands constantly fluttering and smoothing flyaway curls. He should have seen it earlier, he'd supposed, but he'd been distracted by preparations for tonight's festivities and the daunting prospect of torpedoing a promising relationship in ten words or fewer. Besides, Calliope's placidity had previously seemed as indefatigable as the foundations of the earth.
So he'd swallowed the words he'd intended to murmur into her ear and buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled the scent of vanilla and almonds and Calliope, and then he'd smoothed his hands over the stiff, unyielding line of her back, soothing the tension beneath them with long, patient strokes, stopping now and then to knead at a particularly stubborn knot of muscle. She'd mewled appreciatively and sagged heavily against him, had closed her eyes in satisfaction and groped blindly for his nape with one hand. He'd hummed his approval, a deep, vibrato rumble in the center of his chest, and begun to rock to and fro with her as she'd so often rocked with him.
"It's a party, not a political summit," he'd murmured against her inviting flesh. "Just family and a few friends. We'll have dinner and a nice wine, and if anyone is still sober enough to walk straight, perhaps we can join the throngs at the Brandenburg Gate to watch the fireworks. Have a bit of anonymous pleasure, mmm? No one will notice us in the crowd. They'll be too drunk and too busy cheering the fireworks." He'd brushed the hair from her temple and mouthed the pulsepoint there.
He'd been rewarded with a grateful sigh and the gentle rake of her nails over his nape. "I know it'll be fine," she'd replied, and risen on her toes to stretch her calves. "I've just never been much good at mingling with family other than my own. I've only done it a handful of times, and it never seemed as daunting as this. Maybe it's just easier when you're a reckless teenager or a newly-minted twenty-something convinced of your impending greatness."
"Arrogance does make a lot of things much easier," he'd agreed, and met her gaze in the mirror. "When I was young and making shitty little espadrilles in Schwerin, I told anyone who'd listen that I was going to be this big, glamorous rock star someday. I meant it, too. I'm sure they thought I was just some mouthy young punk--and I was--but I thought my balls were big as Venus, and there was no way that I wasn't going to make it."
She'd smiled. "I'm not sure about your great Venusian balls, but you were evidently right about the glamorous rock star thing." She'd dropped to the balls of her black-stockinged feet and smoothed her dress for the tenth time.
"Yes," he'd said smugly, and then he'd stilled her smoothing hands and turned her to face him. "My point is that it's easier to step off the ledge when you're sure you can fly. Drop like a rock, and you're not exactly eager to take the same step the next time." He'd stepped back and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "There's no pressure here, Calliope. It's just a party. You've met the friends that matter, and my children are civilized enough not to chew with their mouths open at the table or belch in your face. I think," he'd teased. When her answering smile had been uncertain, he'd cupped her face in his hands and drawn his thumbs over her cheekbones. "It will be fine, and if it isn't, you can come back here and rest until I return. I'm not expecting you to play hostess. You're my friend and most honored guest, and if you want to get wasted on wine and schnapps and warble "Deutschland Uber Alles" to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne", then be my guest."
She'd blinked at him in surprise. "Has someone actually done that?"
"So I've heard. Some English promoter during the Ahoi tour. I didn't see it myself, but the story made the rounds." He hadn't mentioned that he'd spent most of that tour drowning himself in music and booze to forget the failure of his marriage and ease the sullen guilt of his affair with Margeaux. He'd spent the Silvester in question blind drunk and vomiting into bowls and potted plants and his whirlpool bath while Paul hooted laughter and Till had slurred at him not to puke on his new shoes, asshole. It might have spooked her, and besides, it hadn't been one of his finer moments. It had been one of his sorrier, as a matter of fact, and he wasn't the sort of fool who confused his embarrassments with badges of honor to be flaunted.
"Well," she'd said. "I'll bear that in mind. I must confess, though, that I was hoping to be sober enough for a celebratory kiss at the birth of a new year."
"Oh, I'll give you that kiss and more besides," he'd promised, and demonstrated his resolve by kissing her until they'd both been breathless and glassy-eyed with pleasure and the unapologetic greed for more. I'd give you more than that if we weren't so close to the damn party,, he'd thought as she'd stared at him with hunger in her eyes and faint traces of amusement in the corners of her upturned, kiss-swollen mouth.
"I'll hold you to that," she'd warned throatily. She'd given an unsteady laugh and slipped from the cradling cup of his palms with obvious reluctance. "Christ," she'd said dolefully as she'd caught a glimpse of her reflection in the forgotten mirror. "I'll have to tidy my hair again."
He'd chuckled happily. "Well, budge over, then. You're not the only one who needs to primp."
She'd smirked wickedly at him, but she'd obligingly made room at the small dresser, and they'd finished their preparations in companionable silence, jostling shoulders and rubbing elbows as they combed and plumped and pinched and massaged and pouted and twisted into tortured angles to observe the fall of gown or seam. Calliope had huffed at the intransigent wisps of hair that escaped her elegant French twist no matter how patiently or painstakingly she smoothed them into place or how many hairpins she used, and she'd grumbled irritably as she'd fastened the buckles on her sleek, black heels.
She'd straightened and smoothed her gown again and twisted and turned and canted her lovely hip in an effort to survey her buttocks in the mirror.
"You look lovely," he'd assured her when the vertebrae in her neck had creaked mutinously at her attempt to turn her head even further, and had resisted the urge to let his hand fall to an enticing swell of her outthrust rump. Instead, he'd busied himself with smoothing his eyebrows and teasing his hair into the most exuberant spikes possible.
"You would be looking."
"As if I could do anything else."
She'd laughed, filling the suite with the glorious ring of bells and smoke, and given a provocative shimmy as she'd moved to retrieve her wrap from the edge of the bed. Her stride had been hesitant, her steps taken with exaggerated care, and his brow furrowed as he'd buttoned his gold cufflinks and the topmost button of his shirt.
"Are you all right?" he'd asked.
She'd gazed at him in polite incomprehension for a moment as she'd thrown the sheer, black wrap around her bare shoulders, and then her expression had cleared, and she'd favored him with that wonderful laughter again. "Oh." She'd shrugged, and the ripple of pale flesh beneath black lace had sent lazy, avaricious heat into his blood. It had been exotic and strangely forbidden, a promissory mirage cast upon desert sand. He'd yearned to feel it beneath his mouth, the heaving undulation of shifting sand or the swell of cool, black water against his parched and burning lips. He'd swallowed and cursed the upcoming party for its inconvenient imminence.
"I was never much good at wearing these damn things," she'd confessed, oblivious to his dry-mouthed appraisal. "My sisters and I took turns trying on our mother's dress heels when we were little, but I never developed a taste for them. It always felt like balancing on the devil's hooves. It was hard enough convincing me to wear shoes at all as a sprog. I preferred to go socked inside and barefoot outside. Easier to climb trees with my monkey feets," she'd explained, and waggled her stockinged toes. "I didn't wear my first heels until I was sixteen. My sisters, who could pilot a pair like professional runway models by then, thought I was a freak. Maybe I was, but I still hate them." She'd tottered and grimaced. "Fuckers pinch."
He'd chuckled at her uncharacteristic profanity. "Then don't wear them."
"I don't have another pair to go with this dress," she'd lamented. "The only other pair I brought was the pair of flats I wear to work."
"So? Wear them if they are comfortable."
She'd sat on the bed. "They're just old black flats. They're scuffed to hell from the New York pavement." She'd worried her bottom lip with her teeth and cast a despairing glance at her feet, which had looked cowed and fragile in the tight, sleek shoes.
He'd smiled and pulled her to her feet. "Trust me; no one is going to be looking at your feet. You look radiant." He'd pressed another kiss to her knuckles, and honeyed warmth had blossomed in his chest as her face had suffused with pleasure and her eyes had danced with happiness.
"Oh, now you flatter me," she'd replied, and dropped her gaze in a belated attempt to hide the effect of his words, but too late.
"I do no such thing, and you know it," he'd said firmly. "You've got it, and you should flaunt every ounce of it."
"Well, in that case, maybe I should stick with the heels since they flatter my ass."
"As if your ass needs flattering," he'd slyly pointed out, an act that had earned him a huff and a scandalized, 'Richard!' in reply. "Wear what's most comfortable. It's going to be a long and busy night, and we wouldn't want those lovely feet giving out from all the dancing."
She'd blinked at him, nonplussed. "Dancing? What dancing?" she'd demanded dubiously. "You never said anything about dancing. You said it was dinner and fireworks."
"It is," he'd answered. "And the fireworks are amazing. But there is also dancing for those who want it. Discofox, to be more precise."
"Discofox?" she'd repeated blankly.
"It's-," He'd thought for a moment. "It's like modern disco meets ballroom dancing."
Alarm had dissolved into incredulous amusement. "Like Saturday Night Fever? With the ballhuggers and the chest hair and the white polyester leisure suits?"
"More like Grease. "And what's wrong with chest hair?" he'd demanded in feigned indignation.
She'd giggled at his theatrical pique. "Nothing, as long it doesn't feel like I've accidentally gone muff diving."
"Jesus," he'd sputtered, and resolutely thwarted his libidinous mind's attempt to conjure images of Calliope between the legs of another woman, a lioness in full languor, her wet, pink tongue darting out to flick between swollen lips. He'd cleared his throat. "I'll keep that in mind," he'd managed.
"Mmm." A wicked, knowing smile.
"Anyway," he'd said when he'd wrestled his dirty mind into temporary submission, "I'd hoped you'd dance with me tonight. There's going an informal dance contest, and I was hoping you'd be my partner."
"Were you now?" she'd purred, and slipped her arms around his waist. "And what's my prize if we should win?" she'd asked, and craned to sniff his neck.
"Spoken like a true American," he'd teased. "But if my company and pleasure isn't reward enough, then perhaps I can teach you a few moves." He'd stepped back, clasped her hands, and turned her in an elegant spin.
"Oh, Richard," she'd cried, and laughed joyously even as she'd stumbled in her unwieldy heels and fallen against him. She'd looked up at him, cheek pressed to the fabric of his shirt, and the naked fondness in her eyes had made his chest cramp with a dangerous, delirious hope.
He'd brushed the perpetually-errant curl from her temple with a hand that had threatened to tremble, and she'd closed her eyes and parted her lips and pressed her cheek into his palm. The air between them had thickened with a giddy, drunken anticipation, and his awareness had narrowed to that moment of perfect suspension, when all he had to do to realize the hope burning so brightly in the center of his chest was to lean down, claim her waiting lips, and whisper three words into her sensitive ear, three words that had bubbled behind his lips since she'd burst from his flat to greet his return from the Alps with arms wide open and joy writ large upon her face. Three words. Three singsong syllables that would grant him the sweetest boon. She'd been his for the claiming, face upturned and eyes soft and lips plump and rosy with blood and invitation. She would let him, he knew; she would be ripe and yielding and sweet beneath his greedy mouth, eyes closed and arms twining around him and hands curling at his nape and in his hair, heedless of the stiff slick of styling gel. She would open for him gladly and refuse him nothing if he chose to take it.
Take it, boy, the Hungarian farm wife of his memory had urged, raw hands twisting in the coarse fabric of her apron. There stands before you a chance for the happiness for which you have so long searched, the peace you glimpsed when you considered staying in Hungary to build a life among the farmers and the peasant women. You left that peace behind because the music was too strong in your blood, and because the land there did not speak to your bones. A wise choice, perhaps, given where you are now. It was not for you, not then, and not there.
But now you are in your land, with its voice in your blood and in your bones, and she is there before you, with her smile and her hair and her woman's knowledge of a man's most secret heart, and she offers far more than she seeks in turn, offers a serenity untainted by greed or the festering resentment of your demanding mistress. Seize it, boy, seize her, and savor the moment for as long as it lasts. Even if it does not last, you will have these memories and this sweet moment forever, and it will be one more moment than you have now. The peasant woman in his mind had given an encouraging nod and shooed him toward his just desserts with a brisk flap of her fleshy, blue-veined fingers.
It was right, and it was perfect, and in the end, he couldn't do it. He'd been too haunted by Caron and her Cheshire-cat grin, red lips and white teeth wreathed by cigarette smoke. Her indolent smirk as he'd stammered out his proposal in broken English as they'd strolled arm in arm down a Manhattan sidewalk. The glossy, cruel cupid's-bow of her lips as she'd laughed in his face and hurled insults at everything from his musicianship to his sexual prowess. Once upon a time, he'd had starry-eyed hopes for her as well, had envisioned a happily-ever-after on a South-African shore, surrounded by sand and surf and locals who spoke English with a German bent, nasal and sharp, barbed-wire and tuning forks on the tongue. He'd thought to grow old as the sun kissed the sea with a lover's languid fervor and age spots stained the backs of his hands as wood oil had once stained his fingers.
He'd stumbled badly then, fooled himself into believing that it was love at first sight and Meant To Be, and it had blown up in his face and left him reeling and clutching the sad tatters of his boyish fantasies. He's never relinquished them, those pitiful remnants of what might have been. Those he's kept, tucked close to his heart where none but he can see, and sometimes in the night, he retrieves them and turns them over in his fingers while the night settles over the world like the still, black waters of the River Leithe and his tongue tingles and itches with the need for a cigarette. He lets them fall through his fingers like strands of silk and remembers when they were whole and new and unbroken, remembers thinking how lovely Caron would look as she strolled along the beach in a crisp, white sarong, barefoot and sleek and laconic as she turned her face to the horizon's fire and watched the sun sink into the waiting arms of the sea, which accepted it with a roar and a satisfied hiss. He remembers imagining himself smoking imported Cuban cigars and drinking single malt scotch in a beachside tavern where broad-leaved ceiling fans paddled the dry air, eating fish so fresh he could still taste the salt of the sea and regaling the leather-skinned regulars with stories of past triumphs and future successes. The fantasy had been so sweet, so deep, that he'd even envisioned the the villa in which they would live--the sloping, red-tiled roof and the sweeping verandas that encircled the house; the balconies that studded the second floor and afforded a view of the sea; the bamboo floors and the whitewashed walls and the thick, Persian rugs; the wicker and rattan furniture that decorated the verandas and the airy sunroom, and the sturdier, more elegant oak furniture that ornamented the bedrooms and the office where he would write his music and his screenplays.
He'd devoted especial attention to the bedroom he would share with her, the quiet inner sanctum where he would shed his cares and slip from his armor to worship at the feet of the woman he loved. He'd pictured the armoire of teak or walnut and the matching bureau adorned with a pitcher and basin of glazed ceramic, white and cool and stark against the dark wood and reflected so clearly in the beveled oval of the mirror mounted above it on thick, wooden brackets. They daybed on which she would lounge with her sketchbook. The bed in which they would sleep, the grand, colonial four-poster with its white canopy and curtains, a glorious and secret cocoon in which they could lose themselves on sweltering summer days and dry summer nights. He'd imagined lying with her there on fresh Egyptian linens, idly skimming his fingers along her thigh while she smoked and watched pictures and ephemeral people unfurl in the smoke, the cycle of evolution in an expended breath. He'd imagined loving her while the sweat beaded on his skin and she clung to him with her long model's legs and gasped into his ear, one-note arias that danced along his nerves like messages from God.
He'd looked down at Calliope, and the whisper of tattered silk had slipped through his fingers like blood sluicing from a wound. Behind her dreamy smile, he'd seen the memories he'd never made with Caron, the white flash of a sarong that never was and the dark wood of a bed he'd never bought. He'd seen arguments and recriminations and the fleeting flash of flushed skin over a stranger's shoulder. He'd seen the dissolution of his dreams, seen the golden sands of a South African beach turn to the grit and ash of an overflowing ashtray in his Soho firehouse. Dreams, he'd thought as he'd felt his lips twitch and tremble with the urge to kiss his beguiling witch, who had waited so patiently in his embrace, were dangerous, shards of mirror glass that disappeared into the wounds they created and poisoned you forever after.
He hadn't been sure he could stand another draught of that sweet and inexorable poison. It would be so sweet on his lips, yet so bitter in his belly, ambrosia turned to gall and wormwood. It would torment him, burn in his belly as he tossed and turned and shuddered in his bed. He'd known even then the flavor the poison would take, had tasted a hint of it on his tongue and seen the world it would create, faint afterimages of not yet and perhaps never to be dancing before his eyes. Escritoires with intricate scrollwork and huge bay windows with reading nooks upon which to curl while the sun draped her legs like a gown and lighted the looping, whorling path of her pen. Roman reading couches that decorated the bedroom and the study, elegant and refined and aloof as a cat drowsing in the hot, humid stillness of a quiet room. Fountain pens and journals bound in vellum and rare editions gilded in gold. A cozy flat in Prenzlauer-Berg, one big enough for her dragon's hoard of books, with hardwood floors and a room she could turn into a library. The constant hum and drone of Tatoert in his ears. The hiccoughing sigh of her mouse slippers as she shuffled across the kitchen floor with a steaming mug of tea cradled in her hands, its fragrant steam wafting before her face, the mystical, potent vapors of the Oracle at Delphi. The fall of her hair over his hands as he kissed her, the shimmering fan of it over the bedclothes as he claimed her with a lazy roll of his hips. The ebullient peal of her laughter as he swept her hair from her nape and nibbled her neck, flicked out his tongue to partake of her sweetness.
The weight of all he stood to lose had threatened to crush him, and so he had shied from it, a spooked horse balking at the flash of a hare in the undergrowth. Rather than claim her lips, he'd pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead and cupped her face with reverent hands. "Go change your shoes," he'd told her. "It's better to be comfortable than glamorous."
She'd studied him for a moment, as though she'd sensed the lost moment between them, the prickling ozone tingle of a distant lightning strike. She'd blinked and closed her lips and furrowed her brow, but all she'd said was, "All right." She'd given him a peck on the corner of his mouth, and then she'd slid from his arms with sinuous ease. Her hand had lingered on his forearm as she'd turned from him, her fingers soft and feather-light against his wrist and palm, and he'd savored the frisson of contact that had sung along his nerve endings. He'd mustered a smile and squeezed her fingers just before they had slipped from his grasp. She'd returned his smile and minced gingerly into the bathroom, cursing her heels as she'd gone.
He'd waited until the door had closed behind her, and then he'd sat heavily upon the edge of the bed and tapped a nervous staccato on his black dress pants. "Shit," he'd sworn, and let out a ragged breath. "You're a fucking idiot," he'd told himself, and resisted the desperate urge to soothe his frazzled nerves with a cigarette. His hand had nearly been inside his pocket before he'd thought better of it. Better to wait until they were in the ballroom, where Calliope could discreetly move upwind of the smoke. She'd never complained about his cherished nasty habit, but her disdain for it was made plain by the subtle curling of her lip at the first puff of smoke and the way she discreetly stepped away from him whenever he abandoned himself to the tawdry pleasure of a good smoke.
Ah, Richard, what is this? A flicker of self-awareness? Caron had crowed inside his head. She'd been sitting in a rattan rocker on the veranda of their South African dream house, legs crossed beneath her white sarong. She'd had a cigarette in one tapered hand, and she'd taken a deep, seductive drag from it and blown the smoke heavenward, where it had caught the currents and drifted to meet the sea. You certainly are a fucking idiot, she'd agreed. I can testify to that. I'm just amazed you've finally realized it. Maybe your precious bookworm is rubbing off on you little by little, a little more with every sweaty fuck. She'd punctuated her hypothesis with a sneer and a lascivious swivel of her hips, a languid gyration that he'd remembered well from their early days in Manhattan when he'd been delirious with love and desire and she had been triumphant and oblivious to his flaws.
He'd tapped his feet and scratched the bridge of his nose and cast furtive glances at the bathroom door. It would be all right, he'd told himself as he'd waited for Calliope to emerge. There was no rush. The relationship was promising, but it was also young, and there was no need to sabotage it with too much expectation just because he'd never thought to feel love's dizzying pull again after Caron had cast him off with the raising of her heels and Margeaux had packed her bags and left him behind like a discarded scrap of unfinished music.
Still, the unspoken declaration had bubbled behind his teeth and sent adrenaline into his veins. He could rationalize all he liked, but he had loved her, purely and simply and hungrily, had adored her with a single-mindedness that he hadn't known since his boyhood, when puberty had set him adrift on a maelstrom of emotions and unfocused longing. The mere thought of her had made his stomach flutter and his palms prickle, and though he had kissed her often during her sojourn with him, the hope of another had driven him to sweet distraction.
She's your happily ever after, an optimistic voice had whispered beneath the nervous rush of blood in his ears as he'd unnecessarily adjusted the cuffs of his dress shirt. Don't let her slip through your fingers because you are afraid.
You felt the same way about Caron, and look how that turned out, the voice of prudence and bitter experience had cautioned. And fingers that squeeze too tightly can crush and break, or don't you remember how you nearly destroyed Rammstein because you couldn't open your hand and let it breathe?
Of course he did. He remembered it vividly, and if by chance he began to forget, the scars were there to remind him. The strained silences where once laughter would have taken root; the diplomatic hesitation that prefaced so many suggestions made during band meetings; the way they traveled and roomed separately when necessity bid them come together; the manic insistence on democracy in all band affairs; the thinning of lips and narrowing of eyes whenever his arguments grew too strident or too passionate, as though they were waiting for him to devolve into the wild-eyed, demanding, petulant tyrant he'd been when he'd been lost to the lure of cocaine and convinced that his sleepless eyes had been the only ones to see clearly.
Proofs of his failures followed him like blood from an unhealed wound, and he caught their sharp, metallic stink whenever he dared breathe too deeply. The last thing he'd wanted as he'd waited for her on the edge of the hotel bed was for her to weary of him and slam the door on his need and his clumsy, duck-footed courtship dance, to write him off as just another pathetic burden unworthy of his weight. The thought that she might had sent cold, greasy panic into his gut, and he'd redoubled his efforts to stay his hand from the fresh pack of cigarettes in the left front pocket of his slacks.
The scrape of a sliding tumbler, and Calliope had emerged from the bathroom. Her unsteady heels had been exchanged for less glamorous flats, and she'd moved with her customary feline grace, back straight and shoulders back and hips swaying with sultry nonchalance. She'd tidied her hair, too, tightened the plait in her French twist and teased the curl that never stayed in place no matter how painstakingly she pinned it. A bit more rouge, too, or perhaps it was the natural flush of pleasure and anticipation.
"Better?" she'd asked, and given a slow twirl, arms a loose, sinuous tangle above her head and back arched to accentuate her bosom. Her smile had been shy, but her eyes had sparkled with mischief and a wicked surety of his answer.
"You look beautiful," he'd replied, and the thinness of his voice had startled him. He'd cleared his throat and risen from the bed to join her.
A raised eyebrow. "Did I catch you on the inhale?" she'd teased.
"No, it's just-" He'd trailed off and reached out to caress the enticing strand of copper at her temple. I think you've stolen my breath along with my heart, he'd thought, and cringed at the lovelorn sappiness of it.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were developing a fetish, Kruspe." She'd flashed him a saucy grin and slipped her arm around his waist. "Maybe I should dye it blonde to free you from this budding obsession."
"No!" he'd said sharply, and then, when she'd blinked at him in astonishment, "No. Blondes are a dime a dozen and worth even less. Bottled gold doesn't make a woman beautiful; it makes her bland." And nine times out of ten, it marks her as a cheap golddigger, he'd added to himself. Of no more worth or interest than an ingot of fool's gold.. "It's your hair to do with as you please," he'd continued quickly, lest she decide him a chauvinistic pig and smothering control freak who predicated his affection on her willingness to remake herself in his narrow-minded image. "It's just that your hair was the first thing I saw that day, what drew me to you. I saw this magnificent flash of red that stopped me in my tracks, and I knew I had to(have you taste you touch you)know your name. It's unique. It's your crowning glory, and you shouldn't give it up."
"I do believe that's a ten-point answer, Mr. Kruspe. At the very least, I'm glad you're referring to the hair on my head."
He'd slipped an arm around her neck and sputtered laughter into her hair. "Well, the rest of it is nice, too," he'd admitted.
"'Nice'." She'd snorted. "I think it's a kink for some men."
"It's exotic," he'd explained. "Like saffron or Madagascar hash."
"Saffron," she'd repeated incredulously. Her lips had twitched as if she were trying to stifle disbelieving mirth.
"What? It's a rare spice, and when used in moderation, it creates edible works of art." When she'd given another snort, he'd stubbornly pressed his case. "Redheads are the rarest hair color on earth," he'd insisted. "There have been studies that say redheads will disappear in thirty years."
"Please," she'd retorted. "Those studies are pure bunkum and have been thoroughly discredited."
"Oh." He'd fallen silent, momentarily deflated.
"But," she'd purred as she'd turned and slipped her other arm around his waist. "Bless you for making it a mark of distinction. Growing up in a household of carrot-tops, I was nothing special, just another branch of the robust family tree."
"Hm. Forgive my presumption, but there was never anything ordinary about you."
She'd smiled and mouthed his sternum through the fabric of his silk dress shirt. "Besides, as long as there are Irish Catholics, there will be no shortage of redheads. The naughty Catholic schoolgirl stereotype has to come from somewhere." She'd grinned and waggled her eyebrows at him.
"And here I thought those Aerosmith videos were dirty lies."
She'd pulled a face. "They are. No teenage girl in her right mind would screw Steven Tyler."
"You'd be surprised what people will do for a taste of fame," he'd muttered darkly, and immediately regretted it. Such grim talk had had no place in Silvester's merriment, and besides, it might have raised the uncomfortable topic of life on the road, a subject he'd done his best to avoid. "And if you keep doing that," he'd said as she'd given her hips an enticing wiggle, "we'll never make it out of the room."
"Would it be such a bad way to spend the night?" she'd asked, but she'd dropped her arms from his waist and stepped back.
He'd reached for her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. "Not at all," he'd murmured, and squeezed her hand. "But there are many wonderful things I wish to show you, and not all of them would fit in my pants."
"My God," she'd sputtered. "In that case, lead on." She'd gestured toward the door with a curtsey and a grandiloquent sweep of her arms, a ballerina at the bar.
They'd left the room on the tide of her laughter, and as they'd walked arm-in-arm through the lushly-carpeted corridor in the direction of the elevator, she'd rested her head on his shoulder, a smile still upon her face.
Maybe it hadn't been too soon, he'd decided as he'd savored the weight of her head on his shoulder. Maybe after a good meal and a shot of liquid courage, he could bend to her ear and whisper the words that his heart had been tattooing against his ribcage and pushing into his blood like opium with every beat. Or maybe he could breathe them against her lips or the crook of her neck as they stood in the street and watched Berlin herald the new year with a blaring cacophony of Roman candles, Catherine wheels, and multicolored starbursts that turned frigid winter night into joyous, riotous day. Maybe the magic of Silvester would lend itself to his flimsy, human words and woo her cautious heart to his as his hands and mouth had wooed her body into his bed. Silvester was the night for wonder and wishes, hope and resolutions, and perhaps he had earned enough favor with the universe to hope for this.
He had filled the silence of the corridor with the idle, nervous chatter of his mouth, but his heart, busy with the feverish, myopic work of hope, had been deaf and dumb and blind to all but the red of her hair and the ivory of her skin and the three desperate words that had strained and trembled behind its scarred and fragile walls.
Cont'd next post
Author:
laguera25Fandom: Rammstein
Rating FRM
Pairing: Richard Kruspe/OFC
Disclaimer: Richard Z. Kruspe is a real person, with family and friends who love him. I am not one of them. I do not know him. This is a work of complete fiction, and should be read as such. No defamation is intended. For entertainment only.
Part I Part IIa Part IIb Part III Part IVa Part IVb Part V Part VIa Part VIb Part VIIa Part VIIb Part VIII Part IX Part Xa Part Xb Part XIa Part XIb Part XIIa Part XIIb Part XIIIa Part XIIIb Part XIV Part XVa Part XVb Part XVIa Part XVIb
He still hadn't broached the uncomfortable topic of life on the road two days later, when he'd found himself the host of a Silvester's party at the Hotel Concorde. He'd understood the ugly necessity of it, but each time he'd opened his mouth to invoke that dreadful demon, he'd been stopped cold by the intoxicating, open warmth of her smiling impishly at him over her morning toast and tea or curling her lips at him in a sly, conspiratorial grin, her pen poised gracefully over the pages of her journal. So alive and unabashedly pleased, a cat luxuriating in a patch of sunlight, warm wood at her belly and the sun's caress at her back. The flat had been redolent with her, with her equanimity and her quiet effervescence, and though Caron had clung tenaciously to the corners and the dark recesses of dresser drawers, she had been fading, overpowered by the traces that Calliope unwittingly left in her place: strands of copper hair on the pillows and in the drains; her fingerprints on the bathroom mirror where she'd wiped away the fog; the imprint of her hands in the rumpled bedsheets from their numerous and enthusiastic couplings; a book left on the bedside table or turned facedown on the couch, covers and pages splayed like the outstretched arms of a captured soldier; the faint, ragged shiver of her breath over the beads of water that clung to the shower tiles and her soap-slick skin as he pressed himself against her trembling, impossibly-pale back and whispered promises and gruff endearments as his fingers had traced patterns over her skin and his hips had rocked possessively against her; the huff of her delirious laughter in the grout as he'd called her his schoene Hexe, and the echo of her startled cry as he'd bitten the nautilus of her ear and cupped her gracile throat in his guitar-roughened hand and emptied himself into her pinned, spasming flesh.
His flat had been comfortable for the first time in years, cozy and lived-in, with proofs of a life beyond Rammstein scattered throughout its rooms. It hadn't been like that since Caron had packed her easel and her brushes and her designer clothes and left nothing but voids on the walls and in the closet. He hadn't wanted to disturb the rare peace he had found, taint it with the bitterness of wounded feelings and awkward conversations stitched around topics they could not bear to broach. So he had set it aside for a more opportune moment and drunk deeply of his unexpected fortune.
He had thought to raise the subject earlier today, on the neutral ground of the hotel, but when he'd slipped his arms around Calliope's waist as she'd examined her reflection in the mirror of the suite he'd booked for the evening and nuzzled her neck with the carefully-chosen words tickling his lips, she'd been taut and restive beneath his hands, rigid where she was normally pliant and supple and welcoming, thrumming with a frayed, wild energy, and he'd realized with a start that she'd been nervous, eyes wide and feet ceaselessly moving and shifting and hands constantly fluttering and smoothing flyaway curls. He should have seen it earlier, he'd supposed, but he'd been distracted by preparations for tonight's festivities and the daunting prospect of torpedoing a promising relationship in ten words or fewer. Besides, Calliope's placidity had previously seemed as indefatigable as the foundations of the earth.
So he'd swallowed the words he'd intended to murmur into her ear and buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled the scent of vanilla and almonds and Calliope, and then he'd smoothed his hands over the stiff, unyielding line of her back, soothing the tension beneath them with long, patient strokes, stopping now and then to knead at a particularly stubborn knot of muscle. She'd mewled appreciatively and sagged heavily against him, had closed her eyes in satisfaction and groped blindly for his nape with one hand. He'd hummed his approval, a deep, vibrato rumble in the center of his chest, and begun to rock to and fro with her as she'd so often rocked with him.
"It's a party, not a political summit," he'd murmured against her inviting flesh. "Just family and a few friends. We'll have dinner and a nice wine, and if anyone is still sober enough to walk straight, perhaps we can join the throngs at the Brandenburg Gate to watch the fireworks. Have a bit of anonymous pleasure, mmm? No one will notice us in the crowd. They'll be too drunk and too busy cheering the fireworks." He'd brushed the hair from her temple and mouthed the pulsepoint there.
He'd been rewarded with a grateful sigh and the gentle rake of her nails over his nape. "I know it'll be fine," she'd replied, and risen on her toes to stretch her calves. "I've just never been much good at mingling with family other than my own. I've only done it a handful of times, and it never seemed as daunting as this. Maybe it's just easier when you're a reckless teenager or a newly-minted twenty-something convinced of your impending greatness."
"Arrogance does make a lot of things much easier," he'd agreed, and met her gaze in the mirror. "When I was young and making shitty little espadrilles in Schwerin, I told anyone who'd listen that I was going to be this big, glamorous rock star someday. I meant it, too. I'm sure they thought I was just some mouthy young punk--and I was--but I thought my balls were big as Venus, and there was no way that I wasn't going to make it."
She'd smiled. "I'm not sure about your great Venusian balls, but you were evidently right about the glamorous rock star thing." She'd dropped to the balls of her black-stockinged feet and smoothed her dress for the tenth time.
"Yes," he'd said smugly, and then he'd stilled her smoothing hands and turned her to face him. "My point is that it's easier to step off the ledge when you're sure you can fly. Drop like a rock, and you're not exactly eager to take the same step the next time." He'd stepped back and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "There's no pressure here, Calliope. It's just a party. You've met the friends that matter, and my children are civilized enough not to chew with their mouths open at the table or belch in your face. I think," he'd teased. When her answering smile had been uncertain, he'd cupped her face in his hands and drawn his thumbs over her cheekbones. "It will be fine, and if it isn't, you can come back here and rest until I return. I'm not expecting you to play hostess. You're my friend and most honored guest, and if you want to get wasted on wine and schnapps and warble "Deutschland Uber Alles" to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne", then be my guest."
She'd blinked at him in surprise. "Has someone actually done that?"
"So I've heard. Some English promoter during the Ahoi tour. I didn't see it myself, but the story made the rounds." He hadn't mentioned that he'd spent most of that tour drowning himself in music and booze to forget the failure of his marriage and ease the sullen guilt of his affair with Margeaux. He'd spent the Silvester in question blind drunk and vomiting into bowls and potted plants and his whirlpool bath while Paul hooted laughter and Till had slurred at him not to puke on his new shoes, asshole. It might have spooked her, and besides, it hadn't been one of his finer moments. It had been one of his sorrier, as a matter of fact, and he wasn't the sort of fool who confused his embarrassments with badges of honor to be flaunted.
"Well," she'd said. "I'll bear that in mind. I must confess, though, that I was hoping to be sober enough for a celebratory kiss at the birth of a new year."
"Oh, I'll give you that kiss and more besides," he'd promised, and demonstrated his resolve by kissing her until they'd both been breathless and glassy-eyed with pleasure and the unapologetic greed for more. I'd give you more than that if we weren't so close to the damn party,, he'd thought as she'd stared at him with hunger in her eyes and faint traces of amusement in the corners of her upturned, kiss-swollen mouth.
"I'll hold you to that," she'd warned throatily. She'd given an unsteady laugh and slipped from the cradling cup of his palms with obvious reluctance. "Christ," she'd said dolefully as she'd caught a glimpse of her reflection in the forgotten mirror. "I'll have to tidy my hair again."
He'd chuckled happily. "Well, budge over, then. You're not the only one who needs to primp."
She'd smirked wickedly at him, but she'd obligingly made room at the small dresser, and they'd finished their preparations in companionable silence, jostling shoulders and rubbing elbows as they combed and plumped and pinched and massaged and pouted and twisted into tortured angles to observe the fall of gown or seam. Calliope had huffed at the intransigent wisps of hair that escaped her elegant French twist no matter how patiently or painstakingly she smoothed them into place or how many hairpins she used, and she'd grumbled irritably as she'd fastened the buckles on her sleek, black heels.
She'd straightened and smoothed her gown again and twisted and turned and canted her lovely hip in an effort to survey her buttocks in the mirror.
"You look lovely," he'd assured her when the vertebrae in her neck had creaked mutinously at her attempt to turn her head even further, and had resisted the urge to let his hand fall to an enticing swell of her outthrust rump. Instead, he'd busied himself with smoothing his eyebrows and teasing his hair into the most exuberant spikes possible.
"You would be looking."
"As if I could do anything else."
She'd laughed, filling the suite with the glorious ring of bells and smoke, and given a provocative shimmy as she'd moved to retrieve her wrap from the edge of the bed. Her stride had been hesitant, her steps taken with exaggerated care, and his brow furrowed as he'd buttoned his gold cufflinks and the topmost button of his shirt.
"Are you all right?" he'd asked.
She'd gazed at him in polite incomprehension for a moment as she'd thrown the sheer, black wrap around her bare shoulders, and then her expression had cleared, and she'd favored him with that wonderful laughter again. "Oh." She'd shrugged, and the ripple of pale flesh beneath black lace had sent lazy, avaricious heat into his blood. It had been exotic and strangely forbidden, a promissory mirage cast upon desert sand. He'd yearned to feel it beneath his mouth, the heaving undulation of shifting sand or the swell of cool, black water against his parched and burning lips. He'd swallowed and cursed the upcoming party for its inconvenient imminence.
"I was never much good at wearing these damn things," she'd confessed, oblivious to his dry-mouthed appraisal. "My sisters and I took turns trying on our mother's dress heels when we were little, but I never developed a taste for them. It always felt like balancing on the devil's hooves. It was hard enough convincing me to wear shoes at all as a sprog. I preferred to go socked inside and barefoot outside. Easier to climb trees with my monkey feets," she'd explained, and waggled her stockinged toes. "I didn't wear my first heels until I was sixteen. My sisters, who could pilot a pair like professional runway models by then, thought I was a freak. Maybe I was, but I still hate them." She'd tottered and grimaced. "Fuckers pinch."
He'd chuckled at her uncharacteristic profanity. "Then don't wear them."
"I don't have another pair to go with this dress," she'd lamented. "The only other pair I brought was the pair of flats I wear to work."
"So? Wear them if they are comfortable."
She'd sat on the bed. "They're just old black flats. They're scuffed to hell from the New York pavement." She'd worried her bottom lip with her teeth and cast a despairing glance at her feet, which had looked cowed and fragile in the tight, sleek shoes.
He'd smiled and pulled her to her feet. "Trust me; no one is going to be looking at your feet. You look radiant." He'd pressed another kiss to her knuckles, and honeyed warmth had blossomed in his chest as her face had suffused with pleasure and her eyes had danced with happiness.
"Oh, now you flatter me," she'd replied, and dropped her gaze in a belated attempt to hide the effect of his words, but too late.
"I do no such thing, and you know it," he'd said firmly. "You've got it, and you should flaunt every ounce of it."
"Well, in that case, maybe I should stick with the heels since they flatter my ass."
"As if your ass needs flattering," he'd slyly pointed out, an act that had earned him a huff and a scandalized, 'Richard!' in reply. "Wear what's most comfortable. It's going to be a long and busy night, and we wouldn't want those lovely feet giving out from all the dancing."
She'd blinked at him, nonplussed. "Dancing? What dancing?" she'd demanded dubiously. "You never said anything about dancing. You said it was dinner and fireworks."
"It is," he'd answered. "And the fireworks are amazing. But there is also dancing for those who want it. Discofox, to be more precise."
"Discofox?" she'd repeated blankly.
"It's-," He'd thought for a moment. "It's like modern disco meets ballroom dancing."
Alarm had dissolved into incredulous amusement. "Like Saturday Night Fever? With the ballhuggers and the chest hair and the white polyester leisure suits?"
"More like Grease. "And what's wrong with chest hair?" he'd demanded in feigned indignation.
She'd giggled at his theatrical pique. "Nothing, as long it doesn't feel like I've accidentally gone muff diving."
"Jesus," he'd sputtered, and resolutely thwarted his libidinous mind's attempt to conjure images of Calliope between the legs of another woman, a lioness in full languor, her wet, pink tongue darting out to flick between swollen lips. He'd cleared his throat. "I'll keep that in mind," he'd managed.
"Mmm." A wicked, knowing smile.
"Anyway," he'd said when he'd wrestled his dirty mind into temporary submission, "I'd hoped you'd dance with me tonight. There's going an informal dance contest, and I was hoping you'd be my partner."
"Were you now?" she'd purred, and slipped her arms around his waist. "And what's my prize if we should win?" she'd asked, and craned to sniff his neck.
"Spoken like a true American," he'd teased. "But if my company and pleasure isn't reward enough, then perhaps I can teach you a few moves." He'd stepped back, clasped her hands, and turned her in an elegant spin.
"Oh, Richard," she'd cried, and laughed joyously even as she'd stumbled in her unwieldy heels and fallen against him. She'd looked up at him, cheek pressed to the fabric of his shirt, and the naked fondness in her eyes had made his chest cramp with a dangerous, delirious hope.
He'd brushed the perpetually-errant curl from her temple with a hand that had threatened to tremble, and she'd closed her eyes and parted her lips and pressed her cheek into his palm. The air between them had thickened with a giddy, drunken anticipation, and his awareness had narrowed to that moment of perfect suspension, when all he had to do to realize the hope burning so brightly in the center of his chest was to lean down, claim her waiting lips, and whisper three words into her sensitive ear, three words that had bubbled behind his lips since she'd burst from his flat to greet his return from the Alps with arms wide open and joy writ large upon her face. Three words. Three singsong syllables that would grant him the sweetest boon. She'd been his for the claiming, face upturned and eyes soft and lips plump and rosy with blood and invitation. She would let him, he knew; she would be ripe and yielding and sweet beneath his greedy mouth, eyes closed and arms twining around him and hands curling at his nape and in his hair, heedless of the stiff slick of styling gel. She would open for him gladly and refuse him nothing if he chose to take it.
Take it, boy, the Hungarian farm wife of his memory had urged, raw hands twisting in the coarse fabric of her apron. There stands before you a chance for the happiness for which you have so long searched, the peace you glimpsed when you considered staying in Hungary to build a life among the farmers and the peasant women. You left that peace behind because the music was too strong in your blood, and because the land there did not speak to your bones. A wise choice, perhaps, given where you are now. It was not for you, not then, and not there.
But now you are in your land, with its voice in your blood and in your bones, and she is there before you, with her smile and her hair and her woman's knowledge of a man's most secret heart, and she offers far more than she seeks in turn, offers a serenity untainted by greed or the festering resentment of your demanding mistress. Seize it, boy, seize her, and savor the moment for as long as it lasts. Even if it does not last, you will have these memories and this sweet moment forever, and it will be one more moment than you have now. The peasant woman in his mind had given an encouraging nod and shooed him toward his just desserts with a brisk flap of her fleshy, blue-veined fingers.
It was right, and it was perfect, and in the end, he couldn't do it. He'd been too haunted by Caron and her Cheshire-cat grin, red lips and white teeth wreathed by cigarette smoke. Her indolent smirk as he'd stammered out his proposal in broken English as they'd strolled arm in arm down a Manhattan sidewalk. The glossy, cruel cupid's-bow of her lips as she'd laughed in his face and hurled insults at everything from his musicianship to his sexual prowess. Once upon a time, he'd had starry-eyed hopes for her as well, had envisioned a happily-ever-after on a South-African shore, surrounded by sand and surf and locals who spoke English with a German bent, nasal and sharp, barbed-wire and tuning forks on the tongue. He'd thought to grow old as the sun kissed the sea with a lover's languid fervor and age spots stained the backs of his hands as wood oil had once stained his fingers.
He'd stumbled badly then, fooled himself into believing that it was love at first sight and Meant To Be, and it had blown up in his face and left him reeling and clutching the sad tatters of his boyish fantasies. He's never relinquished them, those pitiful remnants of what might have been. Those he's kept, tucked close to his heart where none but he can see, and sometimes in the night, he retrieves them and turns them over in his fingers while the night settles over the world like the still, black waters of the River Leithe and his tongue tingles and itches with the need for a cigarette. He lets them fall through his fingers like strands of silk and remembers when they were whole and new and unbroken, remembers thinking how lovely Caron would look as she strolled along the beach in a crisp, white sarong, barefoot and sleek and laconic as she turned her face to the horizon's fire and watched the sun sink into the waiting arms of the sea, which accepted it with a roar and a satisfied hiss. He remembers imagining himself smoking imported Cuban cigars and drinking single malt scotch in a beachside tavern where broad-leaved ceiling fans paddled the dry air, eating fish so fresh he could still taste the salt of the sea and regaling the leather-skinned regulars with stories of past triumphs and future successes. The fantasy had been so sweet, so deep, that he'd even envisioned the the villa in which they would live--the sloping, red-tiled roof and the sweeping verandas that encircled the house; the balconies that studded the second floor and afforded a view of the sea; the bamboo floors and the whitewashed walls and the thick, Persian rugs; the wicker and rattan furniture that decorated the verandas and the airy sunroom, and the sturdier, more elegant oak furniture that ornamented the bedrooms and the office where he would write his music and his screenplays.
He'd devoted especial attention to the bedroom he would share with her, the quiet inner sanctum where he would shed his cares and slip from his armor to worship at the feet of the woman he loved. He'd pictured the armoire of teak or walnut and the matching bureau adorned with a pitcher and basin of glazed ceramic, white and cool and stark against the dark wood and reflected so clearly in the beveled oval of the mirror mounted above it on thick, wooden brackets. They daybed on which she would lounge with her sketchbook. The bed in which they would sleep, the grand, colonial four-poster with its white canopy and curtains, a glorious and secret cocoon in which they could lose themselves on sweltering summer days and dry summer nights. He'd imagined lying with her there on fresh Egyptian linens, idly skimming his fingers along her thigh while she smoked and watched pictures and ephemeral people unfurl in the smoke, the cycle of evolution in an expended breath. He'd imagined loving her while the sweat beaded on his skin and she clung to him with her long model's legs and gasped into his ear, one-note arias that danced along his nerves like messages from God.
He'd looked down at Calliope, and the whisper of tattered silk had slipped through his fingers like blood sluicing from a wound. Behind her dreamy smile, he'd seen the memories he'd never made with Caron, the white flash of a sarong that never was and the dark wood of a bed he'd never bought. He'd seen arguments and recriminations and the fleeting flash of flushed skin over a stranger's shoulder. He'd seen the dissolution of his dreams, seen the golden sands of a South African beach turn to the grit and ash of an overflowing ashtray in his Soho firehouse. Dreams, he'd thought as he'd felt his lips twitch and tremble with the urge to kiss his beguiling witch, who had waited so patiently in his embrace, were dangerous, shards of mirror glass that disappeared into the wounds they created and poisoned you forever after.
He hadn't been sure he could stand another draught of that sweet and inexorable poison. It would be so sweet on his lips, yet so bitter in his belly, ambrosia turned to gall and wormwood. It would torment him, burn in his belly as he tossed and turned and shuddered in his bed. He'd known even then the flavor the poison would take, had tasted a hint of it on his tongue and seen the world it would create, faint afterimages of not yet and perhaps never to be dancing before his eyes. Escritoires with intricate scrollwork and huge bay windows with reading nooks upon which to curl while the sun draped her legs like a gown and lighted the looping, whorling path of her pen. Roman reading couches that decorated the bedroom and the study, elegant and refined and aloof as a cat drowsing in the hot, humid stillness of a quiet room. Fountain pens and journals bound in vellum and rare editions gilded in gold. A cozy flat in Prenzlauer-Berg, one big enough for her dragon's hoard of books, with hardwood floors and a room she could turn into a library. The constant hum and drone of Tatoert in his ears. The hiccoughing sigh of her mouse slippers as she shuffled across the kitchen floor with a steaming mug of tea cradled in her hands, its fragrant steam wafting before her face, the mystical, potent vapors of the Oracle at Delphi. The fall of her hair over his hands as he kissed her, the shimmering fan of it over the bedclothes as he claimed her with a lazy roll of his hips. The ebullient peal of her laughter as he swept her hair from her nape and nibbled her neck, flicked out his tongue to partake of her sweetness.
The weight of all he stood to lose had threatened to crush him, and so he had shied from it, a spooked horse balking at the flash of a hare in the undergrowth. Rather than claim her lips, he'd pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead and cupped her face with reverent hands. "Go change your shoes," he'd told her. "It's better to be comfortable than glamorous."
She'd studied him for a moment, as though she'd sensed the lost moment between them, the prickling ozone tingle of a distant lightning strike. She'd blinked and closed her lips and furrowed her brow, but all she'd said was, "All right." She'd given him a peck on the corner of his mouth, and then she'd slid from his arms with sinuous ease. Her hand had lingered on his forearm as she'd turned from him, her fingers soft and feather-light against his wrist and palm, and he'd savored the frisson of contact that had sung along his nerve endings. He'd mustered a smile and squeezed her fingers just before they had slipped from his grasp. She'd returned his smile and minced gingerly into the bathroom, cursing her heels as she'd gone.
He'd waited until the door had closed behind her, and then he'd sat heavily upon the edge of the bed and tapped a nervous staccato on his black dress pants. "Shit," he'd sworn, and let out a ragged breath. "You're a fucking idiot," he'd told himself, and resisted the desperate urge to soothe his frazzled nerves with a cigarette. His hand had nearly been inside his pocket before he'd thought better of it. Better to wait until they were in the ballroom, where Calliope could discreetly move upwind of the smoke. She'd never complained about his cherished nasty habit, but her disdain for it was made plain by the subtle curling of her lip at the first puff of smoke and the way she discreetly stepped away from him whenever he abandoned himself to the tawdry pleasure of a good smoke.
Ah, Richard, what is this? A flicker of self-awareness? Caron had crowed inside his head. She'd been sitting in a rattan rocker on the veranda of their South African dream house, legs crossed beneath her white sarong. She'd had a cigarette in one tapered hand, and she'd taken a deep, seductive drag from it and blown the smoke heavenward, where it had caught the currents and drifted to meet the sea. You certainly are a fucking idiot, she'd agreed. I can testify to that. I'm just amazed you've finally realized it. Maybe your precious bookworm is rubbing off on you little by little, a little more with every sweaty fuck. She'd punctuated her hypothesis with a sneer and a lascivious swivel of her hips, a languid gyration that he'd remembered well from their early days in Manhattan when he'd been delirious with love and desire and she had been triumphant and oblivious to his flaws.
He'd tapped his feet and scratched the bridge of his nose and cast furtive glances at the bathroom door. It would be all right, he'd told himself as he'd waited for Calliope to emerge. There was no rush. The relationship was promising, but it was also young, and there was no need to sabotage it with too much expectation just because he'd never thought to feel love's dizzying pull again after Caron had cast him off with the raising of her heels and Margeaux had packed her bags and left him behind like a discarded scrap of unfinished music.
Still, the unspoken declaration had bubbled behind his teeth and sent adrenaline into his veins. He could rationalize all he liked, but he had loved her, purely and simply and hungrily, had adored her with a single-mindedness that he hadn't known since his boyhood, when puberty had set him adrift on a maelstrom of emotions and unfocused longing. The mere thought of her had made his stomach flutter and his palms prickle, and though he had kissed her often during her sojourn with him, the hope of another had driven him to sweet distraction.
She's your happily ever after, an optimistic voice had whispered beneath the nervous rush of blood in his ears as he'd unnecessarily adjusted the cuffs of his dress shirt. Don't let her slip through your fingers because you are afraid.
You felt the same way about Caron, and look how that turned out, the voice of prudence and bitter experience had cautioned. And fingers that squeeze too tightly can crush and break, or don't you remember how you nearly destroyed Rammstein because you couldn't open your hand and let it breathe?
Of course he did. He remembered it vividly, and if by chance he began to forget, the scars were there to remind him. The strained silences where once laughter would have taken root; the diplomatic hesitation that prefaced so many suggestions made during band meetings; the way they traveled and roomed separately when necessity bid them come together; the manic insistence on democracy in all band affairs; the thinning of lips and narrowing of eyes whenever his arguments grew too strident or too passionate, as though they were waiting for him to devolve into the wild-eyed, demanding, petulant tyrant he'd been when he'd been lost to the lure of cocaine and convinced that his sleepless eyes had been the only ones to see clearly.
Proofs of his failures followed him like blood from an unhealed wound, and he caught their sharp, metallic stink whenever he dared breathe too deeply. The last thing he'd wanted as he'd waited for her on the edge of the hotel bed was for her to weary of him and slam the door on his need and his clumsy, duck-footed courtship dance, to write him off as just another pathetic burden unworthy of his weight. The thought that she might had sent cold, greasy panic into his gut, and he'd redoubled his efforts to stay his hand from the fresh pack of cigarettes in the left front pocket of his slacks.
The scrape of a sliding tumbler, and Calliope had emerged from the bathroom. Her unsteady heels had been exchanged for less glamorous flats, and she'd moved with her customary feline grace, back straight and shoulders back and hips swaying with sultry nonchalance. She'd tidied her hair, too, tightened the plait in her French twist and teased the curl that never stayed in place no matter how painstakingly she pinned it. A bit more rouge, too, or perhaps it was the natural flush of pleasure and anticipation.
"Better?" she'd asked, and given a slow twirl, arms a loose, sinuous tangle above her head and back arched to accentuate her bosom. Her smile had been shy, but her eyes had sparkled with mischief and a wicked surety of his answer.
"You look beautiful," he'd replied, and the thinness of his voice had startled him. He'd cleared his throat and risen from the bed to join her.
A raised eyebrow. "Did I catch you on the inhale?" she'd teased.
"No, it's just-" He'd trailed off and reached out to caress the enticing strand of copper at her temple. I think you've stolen my breath along with my heart, he'd thought, and cringed at the lovelorn sappiness of it.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were developing a fetish, Kruspe." She'd flashed him a saucy grin and slipped her arm around his waist. "Maybe I should dye it blonde to free you from this budding obsession."
"No!" he'd said sharply, and then, when she'd blinked at him in astonishment, "No. Blondes are a dime a dozen and worth even less. Bottled gold doesn't make a woman beautiful; it makes her bland." And nine times out of ten, it marks her as a cheap golddigger, he'd added to himself. Of no more worth or interest than an ingot of fool's gold.. "It's your hair to do with as you please," he'd continued quickly, lest she decide him a chauvinistic pig and smothering control freak who predicated his affection on her willingness to remake herself in his narrow-minded image. "It's just that your hair was the first thing I saw that day, what drew me to you. I saw this magnificent flash of red that stopped me in my tracks, and I knew I had to(have you taste you touch you)know your name. It's unique. It's your crowning glory, and you shouldn't give it up."
"I do believe that's a ten-point answer, Mr. Kruspe. At the very least, I'm glad you're referring to the hair on my head."
He'd slipped an arm around her neck and sputtered laughter into her hair. "Well, the rest of it is nice, too," he'd admitted.
"'Nice'." She'd snorted. "I think it's a kink for some men."
"It's exotic," he'd explained. "Like saffron or Madagascar hash."
"Saffron," she'd repeated incredulously. Her lips had twitched as if she were trying to stifle disbelieving mirth.
"What? It's a rare spice, and when used in moderation, it creates edible works of art." When she'd given another snort, he'd stubbornly pressed his case. "Redheads are the rarest hair color on earth," he'd insisted. "There have been studies that say redheads will disappear in thirty years."
"Please," she'd retorted. "Those studies are pure bunkum and have been thoroughly discredited."
"Oh." He'd fallen silent, momentarily deflated.
"But," she'd purred as she'd turned and slipped her other arm around his waist. "Bless you for making it a mark of distinction. Growing up in a household of carrot-tops, I was nothing special, just another branch of the robust family tree."
"Hm. Forgive my presumption, but there was never anything ordinary about you."
She'd smiled and mouthed his sternum through the fabric of his silk dress shirt. "Besides, as long as there are Irish Catholics, there will be no shortage of redheads. The naughty Catholic schoolgirl stereotype has to come from somewhere." She'd grinned and waggled her eyebrows at him.
"And here I thought those Aerosmith videos were dirty lies."
She'd pulled a face. "They are. No teenage girl in her right mind would screw Steven Tyler."
"You'd be surprised what people will do for a taste of fame," he'd muttered darkly, and immediately regretted it. Such grim talk had had no place in Silvester's merriment, and besides, it might have raised the uncomfortable topic of life on the road, a subject he'd done his best to avoid. "And if you keep doing that," he'd said as she'd given her hips an enticing wiggle, "we'll never make it out of the room."
"Would it be such a bad way to spend the night?" she'd asked, but she'd dropped her arms from his waist and stepped back.
He'd reached for her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. "Not at all," he'd murmured, and squeezed her hand. "But there are many wonderful things I wish to show you, and not all of them would fit in my pants."
"My God," she'd sputtered. "In that case, lead on." She'd gestured toward the door with a curtsey and a grandiloquent sweep of her arms, a ballerina at the bar.
They'd left the room on the tide of her laughter, and as they'd walked arm-in-arm through the lushly-carpeted corridor in the direction of the elevator, she'd rested her head on his shoulder, a smile still upon her face.
Maybe it hadn't been too soon, he'd decided as he'd savored the weight of her head on his shoulder. Maybe after a good meal and a shot of liquid courage, he could bend to her ear and whisper the words that his heart had been tattooing against his ribcage and pushing into his blood like opium with every beat. Or maybe he could breathe them against her lips or the crook of her neck as they stood in the street and watched Berlin herald the new year with a blaring cacophony of Roman candles, Catherine wheels, and multicolored starbursts that turned frigid winter night into joyous, riotous day. Maybe the magic of Silvester would lend itself to his flimsy, human words and woo her cautious heart to his as his hands and mouth had wooed her body into his bed. Silvester was the night for wonder and wishes, hope and resolutions, and perhaps he had earned enough favor with the universe to hope for this.
He had filled the silence of the corridor with the idle, nervous chatter of his mouth, but his heart, busy with the feverish, myopic work of hope, had been deaf and dumb and blind to all but the red of her hair and the ivory of her skin and the three desperate words that had strained and trembled behind its scarred and fragile walls.
Cont'd next post