A Doll's House (PoW: Angelina Tarrant x Madeleine Citronelle)

[Malkavia]

Music, she said. As if Madeleine could play when her arms were limp noodles.

And yet here she was, five minutes later, seated on the bench in the dimly lit ballroom, feet on the pedals while the keys swam and heaved in her vision.

God only knows what Angelina had in mind. She was decked out at the table constructed from a WWI-era propellor plane with...Madeleine had lost track of all the tools. A ruler, a protractor and compass, several stencils. She looked like an engineer bedecked for battle with the subtle equations governing some jet engine.

Hopefully the collar requested didn't require any rocket fuel. As soon as that thought crossed Madeleine's mind, however, she cocked her head to the side and squinted. Would such an idea be so terrible? If Angelina were really brilliant enough to come up with a neck-harnessed propulsion system.

"Erhrm..." Madeleine breathed until she felt the breath in her toes. Straightened her back. Swallowed down the drunken feeling one. More. Time. And finally leaned into the piano to play.

Were there errors as she gallopped into the thrilling trills of Beethoven's fifth piano concerto? Perhaps. But the recorded orchestral accompaniment covered them—and who could blame her, this early in the morning, with a head this unsteady? Nevertheless, she charged forward, throwing herself into the dance—

Here the piano twisting over a scale, twittering and begging for attention. There, pounding back at the orchestra–furious at its insolence. Back and forth the two parts go, until...

They land together, green grass, point and counterpoint, the star and the supporting cast finally hand in hand. As Madeleine's fingers flowed up the notes, she smiled and let her eyes drift up towards Angelina.

Kitten.

Her kitten was adorable when she was serious. And she looked so serious, hard at work, pencil in hand. Bent over the table. Did she always bite her tongue like that when she thought. As Madeleine rolled over the concerto, mentally, she blinked and took a picture. She wanted to remember Angelina like this, hard at work and un-selfconscious of who might be watching.

[Monsy]

The main problem in any design was making one that made Madeleine love her more than the sun and all that came before. Plus future-proof! Shimmer—Charlotte, she was a pet too, right? At one point? Yes — most likely. She had two cats. Who knows what family pets, family members, parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, bffs, one night stands or even ex-spouses she had. Could she compete with a full life lived??—shit. The led snapped as she pressed down too hard, peeking at Madeleine and squeezing herself into a rice grain. She had practice papers beside her along with a larger, poster-sized paper turned horizontal. And with the world slipping and whispering world salad about cracking group ii mechanical locks, she needed two hands on the protractor to make her base.

There was never a good design. She used coloured pencil to sketch on shades to play with colour scheme, with red and blacks, greens and browns, yellows and blues. Her practice paper was filled up, then she drew on more colour and observed. . . Fuck. Almost half of them didn’t even resemble a collar. She spent half the time studying Madeleine’s fingers, trying to measure the diameter and narrow down her ring size by drawing a row of escalating size from her smallest to biggest estimate.

She discovered that she painted them gold and black, and that made her toes curl with the itch to jump from her seat to find her drawing in physical form, then steal it. She took the colour, then laid it down beside the poster.

The final drawing started by folding the big paper in half, then biting her tongue, tapping her heel on the ground, leaning over the table as much as she can, then working away with a ceaseless tongue-nipping stoic trance. In some intoxicated way, she was making her own gold and seeing metaphorical numbers exponentially soar higher. First with mechanical pencil to draw the linework of an angled 3-d collar, then with golden embroidering around the upper and lower margins about a few centimetres from the vertical ends, sparsely dotted in 12 sparkly diamonds. Angelina’s name was embroidered across pure white in cursive. Frills came out the top and bottom. Then it was finished by a tiny chain and bell.

She drew precise arrows and written labels scattered about the paper, then flipped the page over. For another five minutes, she assembled a surprise on the inner flap of the paper, so when she refolded, the surprise was hidden by the title page to a book: collar

When done, she clumsilyslid from her seat and wobbly walked to Madeleine at the piano. Again, Angelina watched her hands, dexterous and sleek. She held up her page with the collar presented. The detailing was only slightly shabby when it was clear she wasn’t using a tool, unsteady and inconsistent. Otherwise, her linework was like a 3-D printer, fit to perspective and lightly shaded.

“Yo. How… I do?”

[Malkavia]

Performance was not about correct notes—not with the audience who mattered. Oh, yes, with competitive judges in their musty (and empty) concert halls, of course, technique was king.

But what did a wrong note matter outside of those pretentious halls if the audience never hears the error, if they're too busy, too enraptured by you?

There were many, many wrong notes tonight. By the time Angelina came wobbling up to Madeleine's perch, the Countess had lost time with the orchestra completely.

Madeleine stopped playing mid-phrase. "End session." And then the orchestra cut off just as abruptly. Madeleine closed her eyes, and the dark in her eyelids gave her the feeling of her head's boundaries expanding.

"How'd...you...do..." She cracked a smile, then let her eyes droop open as she leaned, sleepily, in her kitten's direction. "Why don't we take a look?"

She reached out with both hands, taking the paper delicately between her thumb and forefinger. Her mouth opened, and she clicked her tongue as her eyes slid over the paper. She squinted. "Lights up, please." The chandelier over the ballroom and lights fixed into the floor next to the walls illuminated the room—and Angelina's...schematic was probably the correct term.

"You are an eminently precise draftsman..." she said almost under her breath. She traced her finger over the precise ellipses, her eyes lingering over the bell, before she raised a hand and rested it over Angelina's throat. With her hand resting delicately over her neck, Madeleine stared at the paper. Then at Angelina. Then back. She nodded.
"Yes, my sweet, you've put my designers to shame, I'm afraid. This is exactly the kind of design I'd choose for you myself. It carries an exquisite elegance. Mmm. Gold and luxurious, just as a sweet kitten deserves, yet with a playful air. Even the colors are abssssolutely perfect."

She patted Angelina's chest. Good girl. Then she picked up the draft as gently as if it were a pressed flower, and handed it back.

"I'll have it ordered first thing in the morning."

Now where to sleep? Madeleine's mind slid to visions of her bed and all of the many...many many fluids that been spilled. And rubbed into the sheets until the whole room stank with...

But that was tomorrow's issue, yes?

...Angelina wasn't accepting her drawing. Instead, she was looking up at Madeleine with an expression that made the Countess rest uneasily in her chair. "I actually... Made ya a surprise. It's just as good, if not bettah." said Kitten. Madeleine's eyes drifted to the paper, to the fold Angelina indicated with her glance. "Open it up."

The drawing Madeleine found was a ring.

There was no mistaking it for a an eye or a necklace or Zen garden some other harmless circle plucked from the plane of forms. Angelina had drawn a gleaming, golden band that clasped a jewel. Even with Angelina's rudimentary coloring and shading, Madeleine could see the kind of gleaming diamond that was supposed to affix...whatever this was.
Madeleine stuck her tongue into her cheek, unsure whether to laugh or pat Angelina's head.

"It's..."

But she'd already spent all her praise on the collar. This deserved praise—or something like it. It gave Madeleine a feeling in her chest she couldn't describe, a kind of giddy pleasure, like the adrenal rush of peering over the edge of a very high cliff. The rush of nice feeling before the terror sunk in. She swallowed.

What to say about it though?

"I don't know what to make of it, Angelina. It's beautiful, but. I think it needs...a story. Yes. Your collar has a story, yes? The way it was conceived in the ring and built in here. What is this ring's story, hm?"

[Monsy]

She absorbed every flinch of Madeleine’s head, the move of her lips and turns of the gaze. She couldn't remember the last time she drew a schematic. Maybe a year, two, three or four. The last one she remembered was for a school project. Something about making a working laundry folder that could correct a mistake. And neither did Ma or Pa liked seeing them. They were too busy, too tired, too uninterested, cranky, completely silent and somehow always ‘almost’ asleep when she arrived. She didn’t even need to insist or make presentation this time. Something her folks frankly questioned why she cared at all if they saw it, because it’s just lead, paper and not real. But here Madeleine again excelled in her mind.

A precise draftsman. Designers to shame. Exquisite elegance. Gold and luxurious. Sweet Kitten. Abssssolutely perfect. Patted. Her chest was set ablaze and branded with flutterings. She started to curl her toes on the spot, then touched her racing heart. Her face became a beacon for a blood-red blush to strike across her cheeks ear to ear. She had held her breath through the time Madeleine gripped her neck gingerly, frozen to not upset her neck's shape, then swallowed hard afterwards and initiated a quiet pant.

Madeleine was so smart and thoughtful. Even after this one day, she decided on a question she had. In the ring, at the booth, Shimmer’s bedroom and here. She had the voice of a siren, with gold manifesting in every breath, blessing this draft paper into being worth its weight in rhodium. Surely then, if she was saying all that to her, then her surprise wouldn’t be too ridiculous. And if it worked, then no more Shimmers.

“It’s not written yet.” Said Angelina, knowing only the first line of this supposed story. She went around the bench and sat down beside her, then set up the paper across the keys, slanted on an able to stand. The ring had a central maisie blue diamond, surrounded by a halo of smaller pear-cut diamonds, then weaved in-between with thin ornate curves shaded for depths. It then had diamonds along the outer gold ring, getting smaller towards the bottom’s middle. Then the inside had a cursive inscription, spelling out Madeleine’s name and a date four years into the future. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, imagining it and feeling a level of pure happiness that was making her yearn for infinite tomorrows. Her arms went and wrapped around one of Madeleine’s, putting her cheek to it, then looking at the picture, feeling nothing but the daydream and booze-breath. “B—But, it’s yours. In the future. Someday… Maybe closah than ya know. I’m goin’ to marry you.”

[Malkavia]

"Marry?"

It would have been stupid to be surprised, so Madeleine wasn't, but the word still hit like a shot of pure alcohol, blasted across her face like a right hook to the cheekbone. She stared at Angelina, grinning while the quiet said all there was to say. She glanced away, then back, then let out the breath and pressed her eyes into her palms.

Well, perhaps there were a few more things to say. Laughter, mostly. Heaving, hissing laughter, unvocalized so she was more hissing with mirth than anything. She shook her head, back and forth and back and forth. She couldn't feel her toes. Eventually she ran out of air and she had to suck a breath between her fingers, which had become moist with her tears.

"Oh my God." She stared into the dark black of her palms, grinning until the corners of her cheeks were sore. Her shaking head had turned into her whole body rocking gently from side to side. "Oh my Gooooood. Annnnnge. Ange. Ange. What on Earth is wrong with you..."

[Monsy]

“Do ya have to call me Ange?” She frowned, spoke quietly, feeling a dash of pink slip into the room from the hopefully hypothermic outside. When she blinked, seeing Madeleine continue down this route of laughing, she chose to discard her name in favour of laughing herself. Strong hysterical laughter with a hand nursing the swollen part of her cut face, bumping her shoulders, rolling them, leaning over the keys, restarting when she ran of breath. Her eyes stayed on Madeleine through a sideways glance, head fixed at the keys and she clutched Madeleine’s arm full throttle.

When Madeleine stopped laughing, Angelina abruptly stopped as well.

“So that’s where you’re at, huh? I didn’t plan for this, but—” Said Angelina, then biting her lower lip, feeling her smile pull up naturally in a way she initially tried to suppress, but couldn’t. “If you’re so happy about it, then we can turn four years into next week. I can figure out everythin’ by then and we’ll be somethin’ special, I know it.”

[Malkavia]

Madeleine sat at her piano, resting her elbows along the keys. She stared at the musical notation on the composition in front of her – all those swirling and rolling notes, little black hills that swam queasily in her vision.

She felt like an anchor dragged along the ocean floor, clinging to the rock, while Angelina — the tanker on the surface — charged ahead. Let me think, sweet. Let me think.

Marriage.

Marrrrrrrrriage.

The word slopped around in her mind like an unruly cow, as alien the third time she twisted the word as the first. Just think it through rationally. She sighed, leaning back in her seat as she pulled the piano cover out of its slot and let it clunk shut over the keys.

The problem was that rationality hit that word — marriage — like a gopher encountering a sheer rock face, a mountain impervious to the claws he usually used to sift through soft clay. It was utterly ridiculous for Angelina to ask. How could Madeleine possibly project herself into Angelina's head if that was the word she was using?

The easiest thing, the simplest thing, took two letters and rhymed with snow. But that, too, felt like an unknown pit. With something lurking at the bottom.

"Angelina." Madeleine's turned towards the woman beside her, who was somehow even more sexy in her soaked slip than when she'd first put on Madeleine's gift of an outfit. Madeleine tried for a serious look. Her inability to hold her balance warred against the attempt. "You...promised me..." She pressed her finger into Angelina's chest, just off center so that it sank into the fat of her upper right breast. "A robot cat of such...Mmmf. Such spectacular features that I can't even remember them right now. Mhm. And I haven't even got a—a kitten yet. Not even a sleepy kitten that does nothing but...sleep." Madeleine huffed. And pouted. "And you want to get married? Already? Tsk!" She raised her eyebrows, lowering her chin to her palm as she shook her head an leaned her elbow against the piano. Tsk tsk tsk. "How silly of you."

[Monsy]

Angelina's nape crawled listening to Madeleine pile on more flaws in her proposal. For a second, she wanted to plug the hole that could utter a poisonous syllable by sticking her whole fist in their mouth, grab onto the soul, then recalibrate the answer. But would not, could not lay a finger on Madeleine like that again. She let her arms go loose as she leaned from Madeleine’s finger acting on her. Her eyes, curious and big, looked cut and refined to pull on heartstrings, as far as she could imagine them, and had a mooching plea that screamed a phobia for rejection. How silly.

“Oh.” Angelina glanced over to the keys, “You do have a point…” Then she swallowed, holding Madeleine’s bicep tighter with her hands as she slowed to put the logic together like dial-up internet. Finding the answer was sifting her hand in a dark body of water to find the chest key. Madeleine had standards and taste beyond what her little brain understood. It could've been the heist of all time. El Dorado and the fountain of youth stuffed into a mansion-sized vault of expensive cottons and world-wide decadence. Her soul would've popped in two. She sideways glanced, smug and feeling a match light under her feet. “You almost said yes, didn’t ya?” said Angelina, a brief yawn taking her afterwards. “I was goin’ to get away with not showerin’ ya in gold and stuff and… well-I-dunno… Things. Memories. Things and stuff. Memories and gold.”

She switched to wrapping her arms wide around Madeleine’s collar and head, weaving her fingers together around the nape. Then she pulled Madeleine in, putting a big kiss on that cheek. “You’re a genius. And my saviah, yo.” She swung a leg over Madeleine’s own, trying to seat the end of her knees. A soft, but firm rest for herself. She leaned a little left with her upper torso, folded over her hands and placed them on-top of her head to mimic ears. “So. Kitty-cat, huh?” She pursed her lips, thinking about the details in a shopping list from the different sensors, material candidates and structure to fit within a ten to twenty pound life-like feline. “When do I begin?”

[Malkavia]

Kitty-cat, huh? When Madeleine saw Angelina's kitty-cat face, it made the corners of Madeleine's oh-so-cool and controlled smile twist and curl. She tightened her grip on Angelina, and it took her several moments to realize she was talking about the robot and not herself.

When do I begin?

Madeleine huffed lightly through her nose and, exhausted, let her forehead fall against Angelina's forehead. Their eyes were inches apart, and in the low, gray light, the violet in her irises shone like the sole source of color in a grayscale image. Madeleine kissed her lips, and as her fingers traced three lines down Angelina's thigh, she was surprised to find — even after all the ways she'd been twisted and penetrated and cut — she could still feel a flickering desire for the slender body seated along her waist.

"Ssssh. That..." She kissed a second time, then moved and dotted Angelina's cheek and neck with her lips. "Belongs to the future, sweet."

The past was wandering out somewhere in the Odaiba district, trying perhaps to hail a taxi, or maybe to finally sprout fairy wings and flit off. Madeleine couldn't care less.

With a sigh and a stretch she felt down to the ligaments of her toes, Madeleine scooped Angelina in her arms and stood from the bench. "Let's forget aaaaall about the future. Just for this weekend, hm?"

"Shall I take you to bed?"

[Monsy]

She released any effort from her pose, melting on the spot she claimed. Her hips slid in, her upper torso leaning back until she adjusted moments later. Naturally, her hands fell around Madeleine’s neck, loosely riveting her fingers together in a long oval. She was half-tempted to squeeze Madeleine into her bosom as a trade to allow her head to find Madeleine’s scalp for rest. The kiss she returned was low energy with a keen softness like the lips she kissed were precious and or delicate. Both were true, with Angelina only endlessly contemplating which one was greater.

“Mm?” The second kiss had her sinking further into Madeleine’s clasp, taking in a slow deep breath after returning it. Her arms folded up towards Madeleine’s head, her fingers settling gingerly on Madeleine’s crown, then allowing the Countess free reign. “But ya got me thinkin’ about it like crazy—” She half-lied. There wasn’t any modicum of serious detail than the itch she felt to make it. Not even a vague solution. Just want.

But could she argue with a kiss? One? Maybe — but not in soft succession. That was too much to focus on, diverting her brain to primarily suppress the huge smile trying to take hold. Her dimples already ached from today.

“F-Finee…”

When picked up, she held Madeleine tight, seeing the world spin underneath. Her stomach went inside-out. She looked to the floor, then back at Madeleine. “Lets.. Though—” She adjusted to set her cheek against Madeleine’s shoulder so she can still watch Madeleine’s face up close. Her arms switched to capture Madeleine’s far shoulder, hanging on and doing what she could to support her weight.

Which was next to nothing. “—if I had a date waitin’ for me come next week, I’d sleep way bettah.”