Contrast Drabbles
by Mab
Velour
“It's one of those things. I get a little lost in it, you know, sensually speaking.”
“Uh huh.”
“Look at it from my angle. All that smooth nap, really soft and silky, and if you hold your hands just right it's like hundreds of little massaging fingers, and you can go to the left or the right, or up and down, and it's – it's great, Chief…”
Blair regretfully accepted he was losing the tussle for his brown velour top. “Oh for – but when,” he considered Jim's rapt expression, “if - I get this back, it had better be thoroughly laundered.”
Linen
Jim lies in bed convincing himself that it's okay to do this. Not the jacking off – hey, that's normal. No, it's this other thing, sensuality infiltrating sexuality, awareness that he can sense more than mere evidence at a crime scene. Soldiers, cops, can't afford to start thinking about how everything feels, whatever that hippie hedonist in the downstairs room might say.
But what would the hedonist say if he were here, under the bedcovers with Jim, smooth skin rubbing against smooth skin resting against smooth linens amongst a world of scent? Jim thinks that one day he might say 'Yes.'
Low
It'd be easy to let go of Freeman. Jim could claim that he couldn't hold on, that the stink and noise of sewers and storm drains had distracted him, and Freeman and all his crazy spite would be washed away in the underground torrent below. Blair wouldn't know any better. How could he, braced and straining to help Jim support Freeman's weight in dark tunnels under Cascade's streets? But Jim hauled Freeman up and cuffed him while Blair grinned and said, “Guess you did it, then.” And Jim steadied himself in Blair's presence and said, “Yeah, I guess we did.”
High
If the fall didn't kill Sandburg Jim swore that he would. What kind of idiot jumped out of a plane on thirty minute's notice, mouthing big fat lies about how experienced a parachutist he was? He was screaming, “I've only jumped tandem.” Now he tells me, Jim thought as he bellowed instructions. “Don't lose me, Jim,” Sandburg yelled as he swooped crazily towards the ground. Jim would do his best, but the kid didn't make it easy, whether they were talking Peru or expeditions to Borneo. It was a fine time to realise that losing Blair was unacceptable either way.
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