Voices, shouting, calling, talking eternally on mobile phones. All talking - talking words, mutters, grunts, imprecations, agreements, denials. Endless words, clattering into the air like flightless birds, falling uregarded to the ground. Everyone was speaking at emptiness, not communicating with anyone. The voices reverberated in his head, clanging cymbals, banging symbols of the vacant world.
The mirror echoed the noises. A mermaid's song of a police car faded to the depths of the Heath, pursued by the breathy rush of the umpteenth jet circling to settle tiredly at Heathrow. He too was tired. Weary of the noises, of the need to block it off when doing almost anything except his job. Then he heard only the part, the man he was being. Acting seemed so effortless, being another person whom you'd never met, but had become. You understood them, these people you inhabited; you felt their pain, their unhappinesses, yearnings, wants, illnesses and health. You suffered with them in loss, breaking your heart, and weeping for deaths. Your eyes glittered with greed when riches were illegally offered. You rejoiced with gladsome heart, or made love because you were in love. They were not you, but you were them.
You, not them, dwell in lands forbidden and your cravings are for other things. You, who stand now before the bathroom mirror watching your body age, slowly, inexorably. The grey hairs can be hidden with dyes so easily now, but the thinning of the once heavy locks that women loved to run their hands into, cannot. Now it is a question of feeling the skull beneath the tired skin. You look at your eyes; they are still the same colour, but seem washed out, smaller. Too many bright lights, and too much bright amber in twinkling glass.
The fingers pinch at the cheeks, then the jowls, the fold beneath the jaw. Pulling them up and back to vanquish the deepening crevices, making the eyes slant, the lips part, a gross distortion of what once was formed and set by nature. The bones are still present, heavier it has to be agreed, but still there hidden under the padding of flesh thickened with age. The skin would eventually become fragile, fine again, and slip over the sharp cheekbones like crumpled art paper, razor edged.
He'd found the ways - through inexperience, to exploration, to discovery, to excitement. Then to use, overuse and jading. The new games played to brighten the sameness, which led to other games. Bondage had seemed so amusing at first, but then the ties became more ornate, more tight-fitting, less easily shed. The punishments for self-release had been understood at first, but then the soothing words and gestures were forgotten, and the real chastisements became not only for transgression but for supporting personal desires. The cravings for the wait for the first slap of leather against skin, the sting, the heat, and then the wait again. He craved the tension, his skin crawled with his need.
Then came the time when he'd found himself being someone else. Someone he knew. Words written, not spoken at first. Words that became him. He read the script, and he knew who he was. He'd found himself. Now he had to deny himself the right to be. He could look in the mirror as he was doing now, but all he could see was - that one.
With the long black eyelashes, the indigo liner and blue shadow above. The smoothest of cheeks creamed to glowing, base applied then the colouring. Deep organic plum shadings for these cheeks, the careful pouting and application of the scarlet, geranium, or wallflower velvet to the lips. The blonde hair that before he'd loved to caress and fold his face into, bury his body in, to make stiff with his cum, rubbing it in with his hot hands as she panted below him, was now pulled carefully over his own skull.
Now he wanted to fuck himself. He loved this person he was now. He put down the mascara brush, put the cover on the lipstick, and rose, pulling down his petticoat to cover the bulge barely contained in his lacy knickers.
He left the bathroom, his high heels pecking at the flooring. In the lounge he poured two glasses of wine, then raised one in salute. The empty chair opposite smiled in its white leather. It may accept the embraces of a drunken sobbing being later, or it may dispose the sodden heap on the white rug, to lie with a red and blue football sweater pressed to the strong nose, the skidded scarlet lipstick, the streaks of black mascara tattooing the skin of the lonely weeping actor.
Summary: Before the mirror....
Rated: NC-17
Categories: Actor RPS Pairing: Sean/Viggo
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 781 Read: 304
Published: 23 Aug 2012 Updated: 23 Aug 2012