Like Tinder for Ghosts

In the dark hours where only ghosts roam, a light that shouldn't be is burning in the basement. A woman's head is bent to the gentle process of restoration, to the task of memory.

Outside her door, another woman with curves like an oil lamp waits, her shadow bending and swaying on the corridor wall, her fingers ready to destroy. Lust, with the jerk of a hip and a tumbling candle, could erase all of the memories housed in this basement office, all of the memories of Central City. She's done it before, facing a foe far more formidable than this mousy girl with thick glasses and rings under her eyes. One swipe of talons, the dull thud of a corpse, and Lust could set this file room ablaze.

She loved the flames she'd set at the Central Library, hot on her skin like the desert sun. After Scar had jumped in the river, she had watched the library burn, burn to the ground. She had watched the depository of memory darken and crumble to ashes, watched the remnants blow away.

And now, shadows holding her in repose, she watches the process of deconstruction in reverse. She watches this quiet woman recall without trying, transcribe without pausing. The act fascinates her. The woman fascinates her and Lust pushes the door open.

The woman's head rises, her eyes blinking away the blur and Lust takes small satisfaction in distracting her.

"Can I help you," she asks, startled and gripping her work.

Lust smiles, slides over to the cluttered desk.

"I was looking," she says and half-sits on the edge, "for Lieutenant Colonel Hughes."

"The lieutenant colonel? He's home," she stutters, "with his family."

"Mm. Pity."

Lust lets her voice frost over at the edges and her breath makes the flame of the oil lamp twist and unfurl.

"Are you Sheska," she asks, dragging one gloved finger down the hip of the lamp.

Sheska blinks and Lust can feel the woman's eyes tracking down her bared skin, over her clavicle. She leans back on one hand, curving her back, a shadow lapping down her spine.

"I - do I have to call security?"

Sheska looks worried now and Lust laughs, low and dangerous.

"I wouldn't worry about security, love. They can't help me."

Now she trails that long finger down Sheska's cheek and watches goosebumps rise in its wake. Sheska's eyes don't leave Lust's hand as fingers wrapped in black scratch down her arm, over her own hand, cupping beneath to caress the palm.

"But you can," Lust says as she raises Sheska's fingers to her mouth.

"I can?" Her eyes slide shut as Lust's tongue slides between her fingers.

"I need files," she says, "you can get them for me."

"What?" Sheska's eyes go wide and she pulls her hand back. "I can't do that!"

"Of course not," Lust says as slides over the desk until she is squarely in front of the trembling woman. She leans down, cool breath leaving her mouth and chilling Sheska's ear, and pushes her nose into the woman's hair. Her eyes trail over file drawers and bookcases, and she freezes.

She'd already destroyed these books. She remembers; for once, she remembers. She twists her fingers in Sheska's hair and draws her head back to see the woman's face.

"These books," she coos, cold and fierce, "where did you get these?"

"We had to remake them," Sheska stutters, and she is scared now. Lust can smell it.

"Mm," she hums, "with alchemy?"

Sheska blinks, swallows, tries to compose herself. "Memory," she whispers, "I did it by memory."

Lust catches her eyes for a moment, then forces her lips into a smile. "Memory, you say."

And the mouth of the woman who remembers not at all descends to crush upon the lips of the woman who remembers too much. Lust lowers herself to straddle on Sheska's lap and she wants nothing more than to make this woman forget, to make her lose everything but the feel of tongue and fingers and sweat.

Memory, or rather fragments of memory, still life portraits that seem like they belong to someone else flicker in her mind, a slide show of a life that she can't remember having, and Lust can't imagine the ache of remembering everything. Her teeth press like venom into Sheska's tongue and the woman jerks away. Sheska brings quivering fingers to her lips, tastes metal like a blade and her brows knit together.

"You need to leave," she mumbles, one hand clenched to her chest.

Lust smirks, her lips slick like oil. "Why would I do that?"

"Please. Security is just upstairs."

"But we're having fun," she says and tilts her head forward, staring through long lashes, "besides, they were hardly a bother on the way in."

Sheska chokes on a breath, tries to stand and run, but stumbles on the chair leg. The crash of metal on cement is loud and scraping, but she knows that no one will come for her.

"Please," she whimpers and feels her knees hit the ground, cold and stinging and now her feet are numb, "please don't hurt me."

Lust smiles and it is so cold. She smiles, and places one black-gloved hand atop Sheska's head. "You are having fun, aren't you?"

Before Sheska can answer, Lust grips her short brown hair and pulls her up to standing. Sheska can feel the heat of the oil lamp swaying like shadows against her back, and she can smell the sharp odor of kerosene in the air. But more than anything else, she is aware of how close, how cold Lust's curves are up tight against her own body. She can feel her own heart beat against Lust's rib cage and wonders for a brief, flickering moment why she can't feel the other woman's heart pounding as well.

Time shudders like static as Lust peers down at her, all sly lips and deep eyes; Sheska is terrified, but she's a moth under that gaze. And when a tongues snakes out of Lust's mouth, drags across Sheska's lower lip to taste the blood she had earlier drawn, Sheska's body trembles.

"You ruined a lot of hard work, love. Do you know that," Lust asks, her lips so close as to move against Sheska's, so close that Sheska feels Lust's breath slide into her mouth like smoke.

Lust's shadow dances on the wall behind her, tall and serpentine, halfway between human and figment. All Sheska can hear is the wind outside, the echoes of her own frantic breathing against the stone walls. She doesn't hear the soldiers upstairs--had Lust been telling the truth? She shivers as Lust's icy fingers slip between their mouths, covering Sheska's lips.

"You weren't thinking of yelling, were you?" Lust's mouth is a steady flame. "It wouldn't matter."

Sheska whimpers against Lust's fingers.

"If you cooperate, this will all be over soon," she says and pulls her fingers away.

Sheska would scream if her lips didn't feel so scorched from the touch, so frozen in place. And Lust stares at her fear, stares at her trembling bones, stares at her as she slides one cool hand beneath Sheska's shirt. The fabric makes the softest of whispers against Lust's glove, the barest of noises, and Sheska cries out—a strangled, soprano sound. Lust grins as she feels the goosebumps rising on the woman's abdomen.

And then something like recollection collects like smoke in Lust's mind: a man, a dark desert man with kind eyes hidden behind glasses. He's touching her--is he? Is it her?

She shakes it away, lets it smolder for a moment in the corner of her mind before the spark dies, and lets her talons grow just enough to press into Sheska's skin. Sheska closes her eyes, bites her lip, and Lust can only gaze down at her. This girl, this girl with the memory and hot skin covered goosebumps—ghosts of a touch—this girl must be in so much pain all the time, so bowed under the weight of all this memory. Lust could take that away.

With one fluid movement, she slides all of the paperwork from the desk and it flutters to the floor. She presses the girl against the edge of the heavy wooden desk, presses her against it and the oil lamp teeters on its surface. Their shadows swing across the walls, dark and fluid, dancing as their bodies are leaning into each other, still but for heaving breaths. Lust slides her hand up, over soft skin, over hard ribs, over the warm curve of breast, and her tongue finds the pulse in Sheska's throat. She moved her tongue in time with the rhythm, beat, pause, beat, pause, and Sheska presses against Lust's shoulders.

She lifts her head, gazes through her lashes to see the girl's eyes squeezed shut, her cheeks flushed pink and bathed in the orange light of the oil lamp. And, behind her, Lust sees the deep shelves of musty books. Sheska looks so tired, her mind weighed down with the words of countless others. All day, her world is invaded by the adventures, the memories of people she's never met. Lust can't imagine how Sheska can distinguish, daily, between the experiences of others and her own.

What is her own?

Lust is pulled from musing like flame from tinder as Sheska shoves against her. She stumbles backward, heeled boots clicking against the stone floor, but stretches her arm out in front of her. Sheska is frozen in place as she watches the talons of Lust's gloves grow outward, long and sharp, until they are pressing against her chest.

"What are you?" Sheska asks, voice small and trembling. Lust grins.

"How far do you think you could get, dear?"

And Sheska whimpers, tears thick in her eyes, her face red with fear and adrenaline. "Please," she whispers, "please don't hurt me. I won't tell anyone you were here, just please. Please go away."

They both stare down at the talons, at the way they press into Sheska's sweater, their long-legged shadows. Sheska breathes, deep and frantic, and Lust's talons move with her chest. Lust watches her, watches the small spots of blood spreading out around the talons, watches her deep-ringed eyes, her life sheltered in these musty book pages.

She retracts her talons enough to stop the blood, but not enough to let Sheska move. "I don't want to hurt you," she whispers, her dark eyes washed in shadows, "I want you to remember me."

Sheska pauses, looks at Lust. Her lips are parted just enough to let a small sound of confusion out from between them.

"What," she asks, eyes wide beneath glasses that flicker with the lamplight, "remember?"

Lust makes an effort to keep her eyes steady, makes an effort to block out the image of the impossibly familiar scarred man, and retracts her talons. "These books exist," she says and slides one pale knee between Sheska's, "because you remember then. Even if they disappear, they exist for you."

Sheska stares at her, can almost ignore the way Lust's knee is moving between her legs. "But I -- don't you want the files?"

Lust grins like brimstone and moves her hand back under the hem of Sheska's sweater. "I'll get what I want."

Sheska shivers once; then her shoulders relax. She's not going to be harmed.

Lust is met with very little resistance, only a small peep of noise like a mouse would make, as she moves her body tight against Sheska's and presses them both back against the worn wooden desk. The wood is cold against Sheska's back, but her body is so warm; it makes her head thick with dizziness. She can feel Lust's hips move against her own, can feel Lust's gloved hand sliding slowly against her belly, cool and certain. She feels those unearthly talons grow, can feel them pushing against her skin, slipping up the valley between her breasts, then back down. Their sharpness surprises her as they slice open her bra and leave her exposed, cold.

The sharp instruments burn, and Sheska doesn't know if they've drawn blood. She can only mewl in response as Lust's cool, soft lips make contact with her throat, her neck. When Lust works her way up to Sheska's earlobe, she opens her mouth and pierces the tender flesh with her teeth.

Sheska tastes nothing like the desert -- and Lust isn't sure why this should matter -- but the thought only lingers in the back of her mind like deja vu, and she has become adept at concerning herself with the foreground -- flushed cheeks, clenched fists, shadows like fingerprint bruises on flesh. Lust slides her hand over one bare breast, over one bare nipple, and watches Sheska writhe beneath her. The girl's hips lift off the desk and she brushes, slow and smoldering, against Lust's thigh. Her fingers bury themselves in Lust's hair, deep into the thick black mass, and fingernails press into her skull. The burn feels good and, with one razored talon, she splits Sheska's sweater down the front.

A small shriek slips from Sheska's lips and she covers her mouth. Lust smiles, her eyes sparking in the dark. This girl, she is so ashamed, so afraid of her own experience. With one strong whip of her arm, Lust slices through one row of books. Better than anyone, she knows that past prevents present, and she crushes her lips against Sheska's. The oil lamp rattles against the desktop.

Lust drags her tongue over Sheska's chin, tastes trembling, drags her tongue down her neck and tastes pulse. Slowly, slowly she pulls her tongue over a clavicle, bites into a shoulder. She feels the deep moan pouring out of Sheska's body like heat before she hears it. Lust's tongue laps at the blood welling up from the small bitemarks, tastes all the hot wet life that Sheska has bottled up like sacred ashes for so long while she recounted the moments of others. It tastes so thrilling on her tongue, like the sun and the metallic sweat of the desert.

Only when Sheska whimpers, raises her hips off the desk, does Lust continue her journey. She tastes the curve of bicep, the soft warm crook of elbow, the throbbing junction of wrist and sweaty palm. She traces the faint lifeline of Sheska's hand, follows it up to a finger and takes it into her mouth, folds her tongue around it, drags her tongue over its length. A soft sound works its way from Sheska's throat, and she hooks one blue-jeaned knee over Lust's bare shoulder.

Lust looks up and examines the orange light-shadows cast on Sheska's finger-thin ribs, over her soft belly, watches the shapes shift and change with Sheska's breaths. She follows the shadows with her tongue, tasting sweat and heat, reaching up and discarding the girl's glasses. The act is a small one, but Sheska moans, raises her hips, and Lust feels the girl's warmth press against her chest.

Lust pushes forward, one hand braced beside Sheska's head, a knee pushed tight up between Sheska's legs. Between her lips, she pulls a nipple, hot and stiff, and she slides her other hand to the waist of Sheska's jeans.

"Burn," she whispers, breath condensing on Sheska's breast, "burn to the ground," and her talons extend into long, sharp blades that slice Sheska's jeans to tatters. The denim falls away, revealing damp panties clinging tight to the contours of Sheska's body, flesh and soft hair visible beneath the cotton. Lust can feel the hard, hot pulse vibrating up her talons. One long, gloved finger slips down over the soft flesh between Sheska's legs, moves down the split, and glides beneath the hem at her hip. It scratches along the fabric, the desert-sand sound mingling with moist breaths and flesh-on-wood. She pulls the panties away from Sheska's body, lets them snap back into place, and slides the nail closer to the visible area of dampness.

When Lust nears the hottest place, brushes the nail across the slick heat, Sheska's hips jerk from the table, her fingernails making small, pale indentions in the wood. And, when Lust presses the talons through the panties, making a long slit, Sheska cries out. She cries out, forgetting to cover her mouth, forgetting her embarrassment, forgetting, forgetting.

And here, here Lust gives in to the memories in her mind, the memories small like grains of sand that structure great dunes of lost lives. She gives in, remembers the heat of the sun, the scorch of his lips, the feel of him inside her, hard and hungry and always so, so tender. Lust slides down the desk. Pauses with her face between Sheska's quivering thighs, and slowly slides her tongue from between her teeth. She moves it gently down the slashed fabric of Sheska's panties, just enough so the girl can feel the vibration, the heat. Sheska squirms, lifts her body from the table, back arched like the desert horizon, and swings her arms above her head.

Her hands collide with the oil lamp. It teeters once, twice, and falls on its side. Lust watches it roll, swiftly, loudly off the edge of the desk, and watches it hit the floor, shattering. Sheska doesn't notice. She is too distracted by Lust's tongue, too flushed, too gone. And Lust is the only one who sees the first signs of flame. First, a small rug, crackling and birthing fire up into the air.

Lust moves her tongue away from the cotton, closer to trembling flesh. She feels Sheska's heat, and her tongue touches down on inflamed skin. Sheska squeals, her fingers gripping tightly into Lust's hair, fingernails pressing into her scalp like needles, and Lust's tongue presses inside the deep, wet warmth. She tastes Sheska, tastes this girl's want, her loneliness. It is caustic, sharp on her tongue, but she slides in deeper.

The flames have now claimed one side of the desk, licking upward, and Sheska sees them. She gasps and props herself up on her elbows but Lust is too fast. Her talons are out, pressing into Sheska's throat before the girl can move any farther. Sheska swallows, her throat moving against the sharp nails and Lust takes one long lick before peering up at her.

"Stay," she says, "let it burn."

And she goes back to her work, the slow, agonizing dance of tongue on flesh, the arrhythmic movement of hips, the faint sense that she knows how Sheska feels -- that she's felt it herself. Long ago. Quick still-life images enter her mind: she remembers being stretched out on a bed, remembers staring down over her breasts and between her dark, raised knees, seeing that bobbing head of short dark hair. His glasses would be discarded for the time being and she remembers something like tenderness in her chest.

But it is no matter. She sighs softly against Sheska's flesh, a wicked vibration, and the girl inhales sharply. Sheska coughs on the smoke, her body wracking on the surface of the desk, each cough moving Lust's tongue deeper inside her, and the flames make the room so hot. Sheska is slick with sweat, both from the growing fire and Lust's roaming hands: over her abdomen, her lips, her breasts. Another cough rips through her body.

"Please," she rasps, "we have to get out of here."

Lust growls against Sheska's skin; so many interruptions. Her nails retract, and she moves one hand under Sheska's knee, lifting her body off the table. Lust pulls her tongue back into her mouth, then slips two slender fingers inside. Sheska shudders at their chill but allows a small noise to escape her lungs. Lust moves up her body, slipping soft curves over soft curves and slows when she is eye to eye with the girl beneath her. Sheska is something like pretty with the orange flicker of flames on her face.

Lust's lips drag up into a sly smile. "Where would you want to go," she asks, stroking her fingers into Sheska's warmth.

Sheska's face is pink, her eyes clenched shut. "Please." It is a whisper-soft plea.

Lust scowls and pushes her mouth down upon Sheska's and feels the girl press up against her body. She no longer knows if Sheska is responding to sudden pleasure, or if she is trying to get away; she no longer cares. She wants this girl: wants her need, wants her memories buried in hot, desert sand. She moves her fingers with more urgency and stares down at the girl. Sheska stares back. One hand is fisted around Lust's arm; one hand is covering her mouth. Her cheeks are streaked with tears. Lust finds that it is becoming difficult to see with the growing cloud of black smoke.

Then Sheska's eyes widen.

"You," she says through her fingers, and Lust pauses, "you. I remember you."

Lust stares at her for a long, smoky moment. She stares and Sheska looks very sad.

"The military," she whispers, "they kept records. You're Ishbalan."

Lust closes her eyes, feels a clenching in her chest where a heart should be. She trembles when she feels Sheska's fingers resting against her cold cheek.

"The files said that you died right before the war."

Lust takes in a slow, hot breath. She tries to slow the flashing images in her mind -- the sand, the sun, the brothers, the man keeping watch by her sick bed, bringing her water. She tries first to block out the taste of sulphur, the scent of blood, the memory of her desert lover. Then she tries to pull them together, to shape them into something that feels like more than a photograph with a hole burned in the center. She coughs against the smoke.

Sheska caresses her face. "Are you a ghost?"

Lust shakes her head and the memories dissipate like footprints in the desert.

"I don't know," she whispers, and forces her fingers forward again.

Sheska cries out, lets Lust slide her tongue inside her mouth, hot on cold, and her hips jerk upward. Lust moves her fingers, hungry back-and-forth that beckons the small death of mind that wipes clean the canvas for the briefest of moments. She moves her fingers to remember heat; she moves her fingers to forget chill. And when Sheska lets loose one last strangled whimper, Lust's hand is drenched and they have forgotten even the smoke.

Sheska's fingers are gripping the edge of the wooden desk; her leg is wrapped around Lust's waist. Breaths come quick and short, desperate and burning against the heat of flames, and Sheska bolts upward. Startled and confused, she presses a hand to her chest -- a futile attempt to cover up her nakedness. She feels Lust slide off her, fluid as flame, and Sheska fumbles around for her glasses. She can feel Lust near her, though her vision is blurred. She can feel Lust's weight on her still, can smell her mingled in with smoke and sweat. She shivers.

When flame waves against the bottom of her foot, she yelps and pulls it back up onto the desk. That's right. Burning. The office is burning.

Sheska launches into scrambling, fingers dancing over the sooty desktop and her heart beating a savage rhythm against her ribcage. She has to get out. She has to call someone. She has to explain... How will she explain? The lamp. She knocked over a lamp. Yes. That's what she will tell them. It was an accident; she fell asleep.

She finds her glasses, resting on the far edge of the desk and slips them back onto her face. She scans the room for her clothes, the woman. Then takes in the growing flames, the inky shadows in the corners and near the bookcases. The woman, the Ishbalan, is gone. Sheska is alone.

She sits on the desk for a moment, feels the flames like the desert sun wavering against her arms, her ribs. Her bare skin feels like it is burning from the inside, but she reaches for the jacket she'd hung over the back of the chair. It covers so little of her, but it will have to be enough.

One steadying hand, one long leap and she scampers from the room, the ghost of a memory lingering in her head and burning away slowly at the edges.