Velvet spills down from her hips, a long, gathered skirt draped over torn fishnet stockings and tight, high black leather boots, the picture of a gothpunk club kid, almost too perfect an image. It's all you can see of her at the moment, that soft black cloth pouring down over the bars of the steel cage, bootheels kicking against metal, her legs swinging slightly in time to the song she sings beneath her breath. A shift, and then fingers wrap around the upper bars, red-polished nails and half-gloved satinclad palms and skin so white it's almost shocking.

You can't help it, your head lifts once more, tilting, neck arching painfully as you struggle to press your lips to that silken skin, nuzzling pitifully at her hands with an instinct long trained into you. She laughs, the sound barely interrupting the lyrical hum, and one hand slips between the bars to stroke your cheek, fingertips brushing over the bruised flesh, rubbing away the trace of blood that had trickled from your open mouth only a minute ago. She pets you, a gesture so casual you know she'd do no different to a cat, a dog, and you melt into a whimper as you try your best to keep your head lifted within easy reach.

Her hand withdraws, the velvet shifts, and now you can see her clearly as she slides off the cage and twirls into the center of the room, feet pounding against the polished wood floor, skirt flaring, her velvet and silks whispering a counterpoint to the techo that is still pulsing through the room. You can feel your heartbeat, as always seeming to settle into matching speed, the music, her movements, guiding the unconscious clench and release within your chest.

She is beautiful, when she is in this mood. Terrible, beautiful, touched by a madness you have never quite matched. Your own insanities she accepts, savors, drags out of you even if you try to bury them, but this... this is something foreign, the way she sinks into the rhythmic sound and the bloodlust and the almost childlike joy she takes in watching you brought down to nothing but a mewling, moaning, helpless creature trapped in her cage. She spins again and you can feel her attention on you, the taunting movements of her hips intended to tease you, the flash of leather and gleam of flesh and gods, the glitter of steel strapped to her thighs, her wrists, it all combines and your eyes flicker shut for a moment as you once more gasp her name.

This is what she lives for. This dance, this destruction, forcing you to react to her presence and stripping away your humanity, this is why she keeps you. The other times, the soft words and the gentle touches, the laughter, the days when she is friendly or when she clings to you and cries, in these dark nights you know how little they truly mean. She would throw them away in a moment if they were not part of this. She would throw you away. No hesitation, no question. She loves you and you whisper that to yourself over and over, trying to believe it, to make it be enough, and even while you try to keep yourself willing she pushes you that fraction further, destroys one more tiny fragment of your heart, your soul, your sanity.

...a voice comes out
from the bottom of my soul
a beat goes on
let the music make me whole...

*shrugs slightly* Don't ask. The laptop modem is nowhere to be found, I think Caleb put it somewhere when we got back from the dentist, and the router is still sucking, I've spent too much time offline tonight and too much time since I got back on reading one of the few slashfics that can still make me cry.

I want... but tonight, it's not the usual speech. No, tonight I want something else. I want words, I want to hear someone else's soul, someone else's pain, someone else's desire, poured out in paragraphs and trapped in text. I want to read something that makes my breath catch and my heart, for just a moment, beat faster. I want to see lust, to be able to trace the patterns of desire and need across the page.

I want to know I'm not alone.

*shrugs again* Also, I want some sleep. But really, that's not new.