Discovered in Temptation
Mar. 11th, 2007 02:57 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
asymphototropic.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
discoveredinaljDemon devolves to mere man. Artifice yields to art. Perhaps.
[Have been urged by mod/admins to persist in posting, move along and finish the ruddy thing. Course they phrased it a lot more elegantly than that. heh.]
Contrary Virtue
Part Nine
The documents expert retreated to the threshold of the edifice. There he drooped artfully against the doorframe and fluttered his lashes at Bodie. "You've been away for ages, only to reappear with demands. Say it isn't so, sweetness. Whisper in my ear that it's mere longing for my company that has drawn you hither. Lie to me rather than crush my poor wounded heart."
Bodie groaned loudly. "Are you or aren't you a professional photographer? My friend here, RD, requires a passport photo as soon as possible."
"Oh, I see. So this is to be a simple business transaction. And I'm to deal with this other personage." The expert extended his middle finger and touched RD's chest with a lingering stroke. "In that case, Bodie, what's your excuse for remaining? Go away."
The command was accompanied by an extravagantly dismissive gesture.
Bodie clenched his fists. "Due to an accident, my friend is unable to speak."
"Poor soul. And therefore you've accepted the menial task of interpreter. How noble. In that case, you may join us, but only so far. My contractual negotiations are to be with RD, and you will not intrude your opinions. If my terms are unacceptable, feel free to leave at once."
Bodie sighed in exasperation, rolled his eyes, but grabbed RD's elbow and escorted him into the building. The main room wasn't particularly large, but mostly empty, it echoed their movements eerily.
The expert followed them. He indicated a single, gothically carved wooden chair, upholstered in crimson velvet, very charred and stained.
"Sit."
RD eyed the chair dubiously a minute before resting on the edge of it.
"Now my dearest fellow, how am I to interpret your proposition? You wish for me to capture your likeness in glittering silver crystals, to create a portrait of your delectable physiognomy? Yes. Well that's lovely. And quite an innocent undertaking, isn't it?"
RD nodded cautiously.
The expert's voice developed a breathless hiss.
"But then you wish for me to place this photographic likeness of your face into a passport? Shall we, for mere convenience, call it a previously owned document? Your desire is for me to place your image in such a manner that the passport will appear to be unaltered from its original state. In fact, it should deceptively appear that it was issued to you, rather than to its prior owner. Which is a far less innocent proposal indeed, far less innocent. Correct me if I misstate your intentions."
Soberly, RD shook his head.
"Very well. Having thoroughly addressed the nature of our undertaking, its more subtle nuances, we must now consider my fee."
"I've got cash," Bodie hastily intervened.
"Silence! You are here as interpreter only. That was the agreement. Shut up or leave," the expert shrieked.
Bodie shut up.
He felt he had no choice. They had shown their faces in town, the both of them together, he and RD. Had flashed his gold, told a certain tale. It was too late to change strategies, much too late to start over again. The mercenaries might still be after RD for assassination. Bodie too might be a wanted man, sought by his own people for treason. The two of them needed to be onboard that ship tonight. This opportunity was too good to lose, might in fact be their last chance at escape.
So Bodie shut up and clenched his teeth until his jaws ached.
The expert finished glaring, and turned his attention again to RD. "Do you have any money? No. Possess any valuables at all? Also, no. Which leaves us in the position of bartering for services, doesn't it? My talents to be joined in contract with yours."
Bodie stirred restlessly. RD simply shrugged.
"Well then, love, nothing simpler. I am an artist. You have the face and figure to interest me for a prospective model. You will pose for me. In exchange, I shall produce for you an impeccable passport. Have we a deal?"
RD frowned, but then nodded again.
"Excellent. Strip."
Against his very determined effort, Bodie's mouth opened on a howl of protest.
But now the expert merely giggled. He slunk toward RD, insinuated his fingers underneath the luxurious tangle of curls to touch the hidden flesh there. "Make haste, deary. You're the one with the deadline. Time and tide, and all that rot."
RD hesitated, gathering his thoughts and emotions, which whirled about his mind in a turmoil of confusion and failed memories. Hard as he searched, he couldn't find in himself any disapproval of being an artist's model. The undertaking didn't seem to him in the least reprehensible.
Rather it was Bodie's patent disapproval that unsettled him. But it was this selfsame friend whose steadfast loyalty resulted in the man's continued precarious position at his side. RD found that he could not reward his mate's generous constancy with a falsely fastidious front.
RD plumbed the depths of his own soul and discovered a very solid sense of self. Here was a person who revelled in righteousness. But his perception of good and evil was of his own creation. He refused the commands of all those who posed behind a semblance of virtue, whose thoughts and acts were contrarily weak and ugly.
This self he cherished, the one that considered art a glorious undertaking, the pursuit of beauty a justification unto itself. Upon this knowledge he made his decision. He would have to explain, perhaps even defend his actions to Bodie at a later time.
Calmly he stood, gathering the hem of his shirt, drew it over his head and dropped it on the floor.
All at once, the fight went out of Bodie. Held at a distance by some emphatic force, he silently watched the scene progress.
Rather perversely in response, the photographer sought to reengage his conversation.
"Such luscious features your mate possesses. I don't believe I've ever before seen a face so contradictory unto itself. Angelic attributes denounce, then delight in the demonic. Wrath pursues peaceful intent, with neither dominant. The scarred evidence of war is layered atop the innocent yearning of youth. Intricate, mysterious."
"You'll never get the passport done in time if you don't make a start. Stop drooling and fetch your equipment, damn it."
The expert ran his eyes, then his fingers appreciatively down RD's bared back. "Visual evidence of pronounced privation, and yet the warrior's physique survives, surmounts somehow. Quite eloquently his body communicates its history. Don't try to teach me my trade, Bodie love."
"I just want you to get the bloody fuck on with it."
"You've forgotten, old friend. My expertise is art, whereas yours is artifice."
Bodie's growl welled from deep in his chest. "My expertise is destruction, and don't you dare forget it."
"Ha. You imagine you've sunk to the level of the seven princes? Such pretension. And permit me to express my grave doubts. You've been stumbling along a different path entirely. And it ascends, or else I'm very much mistaken."
Shaking his head in a provoking manner, the photographer disappeared into an inner sanctum, emerging in moments with his camera, pedestal lights and tripod.
"I should adore to capture some daguerreotypes. But the antique process is too prolonged for your impatience, no doubt. I've heard it said that the natives hereabouts used to refuse to be photographed, for fear of losing their souls, trapped within the portraits. Can't say I've ever encountered that sort of resistance though. Perhaps their compliance is attributable to the prevalence of starvation. Food is such a motivating force after all."
He slithered to where RD stood barefoot, and tapped his belt buckle with a manicured claw. "Shed the rest, there's my sweet lad."
Bodie swallowed an ample portion of spittle as RD stepped out of his jeans and underpants.
The photographer hissed his approval. Hastily snapping up his camera, he plunged into documenting the view. "Sit. Now stand straight. Bend at the waist. A profile. Turn with your back to me. Glance over your shoulder. Scowl. Ouch. Now think pleasanter thoughts. Dream of kissing Bodie. Stop that, who told you to grimace? Put one knee on the chair. Here, I'll place you."
"Hell, who agreed to groping?" Bodie snarled, hastening to intervene.
The expert purred, running his fingers over lean, lithe quadriceps. "Hands have a memory of their own. The mind's perception is flat. In contrast, the sensory nerves of the flesh feel in four dimensions. Lustful longing persists over many lifetimes."
"Yeah? Well, back off or I'll strangle you, and my bloody mitts will be the ones with the sensory memories, understand?"
"Oh, how savage. Do that bit again. Your friend comes all alive in response."
Spitting venom, Bodie dragged the documents from his pocket. "You've got your damnable pictures. Now go alter the paperwork and have done."
"Nude passports? What a naughty notion. But don't you think it might raise an official eyebrow or two at the port authority?"
"Piss on this. RD, get dressed."
Under Bodie's scowling inspection, RD resumed his t-shirt and jeans.
Meanwhile, the photographer disappeared and returned, waving an odd scrap in the air. "False front. Old style dicky. If he arrives at the boat in the same shirt that appears in the passport image, it's a dead giveaway."
Chuckling, the expert fastened around RD's neck a paper collar and front, complete with black silk tie. He lingered to toy with the curls as he draped them artistically. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
"Oh yes-s-s." He mounted the camera onto the tripod and snapped a series of formal stills. "Most elegant, sir. Proper gentleman and all."
Snatching from Bodie's grip the documents intended for alteration, he leaned over to nuzzle his furious face. "Step into the darkroom with me, and see what develops, darling?"
And in reply to Bodie's barked, "Rather see you in hell," he pouted.
"How tedious your current pursuit of contrary virtue. Don't you find it so? Whatever possessed you to assume the undertaking, when you used to be so wondrously wicked? To turn onto such a dry, dusty path? Can't say I envy you at all. Except, perhaps, for the company."
And he offered a single sultry simper in RD's direction.
When presented with the finished passport, Bodie whistled his approval. "Looks authentic. You do good work. Said you were talented. Always said so."
The photographer preened. "Wouldn't you like to purchase some nude shots as well? The first prints are positively delectable."
"No!"
"Suit yourself. Here, this is for you." He handed a bright biscuit tin to RD. "Sweets for the sweet. Clearly Bodie doesn't feed you well enough."
RD chuckled, nodding his thanks.
"We've got to go now."
"Don't see how you can bear to leave it again."
"You know they mined the bloody beach, don't you?"
"Fools. Well, marred and mangled, it's still a fallen fragment of Eden. Mankind will destroy itself and other creatures devolve to fill the niche. But still the beach will meet the ocean there, eons away, long after you and I are faded fancies. Adieu."
"Yeah."
Half an hour's hike brought them to the end of the woods. Bodie glanced back to the surreal view of RD, still shaded by the dark primal forest, clutching the bright metal box to his chest. Crunching contentedly, a few biscuit crumbs were clinging to his moist lips.
Bodie couldn't resist taking him into his arms and licking the sugary leftovers clean.
RD squirmed with pleasure. Then wearing an expression of extreme mischief, he popped the lid off the tin.
Carefully fastened there, under a pristine layer of transparent polymer, was a photograph. A nude portrait of RD, the display of his tender flesh delightfully sweet and tantalizing.
It seemed ages, Bodie stood dumbfounded, gazing at the perfect image of his desire.
Lingering was dangerous.
They turned their steps toward the coast and their escape.
Title: Contrary Virtue
Author: asymphototropic [attracted toward the light but never quite arrives]
Slash or Gen: slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes
Disclaimer: No infringement intended, the author does not own "The Professionals"
[Have been urged by mod/admins to persist in posting, move along and finish the ruddy thing. Course they phrased it a lot more elegantly than that. heh.]
Contrary Virtue
Part Nine
The documents expert retreated to the threshold of the edifice. There he drooped artfully against the doorframe and fluttered his lashes at Bodie. "You've been away for ages, only to reappear with demands. Say it isn't so, sweetness. Whisper in my ear that it's mere longing for my company that has drawn you hither. Lie to me rather than crush my poor wounded heart."
Bodie groaned loudly. "Are you or aren't you a professional photographer? My friend here, RD, requires a passport photo as soon as possible."
"Oh, I see. So this is to be a simple business transaction. And I'm to deal with this other personage." The expert extended his middle finger and touched RD's chest with a lingering stroke. "In that case, Bodie, what's your excuse for remaining? Go away."
The command was accompanied by an extravagantly dismissive gesture.
Bodie clenched his fists. "Due to an accident, my friend is unable to speak."
"Poor soul. And therefore you've accepted the menial task of interpreter. How noble. In that case, you may join us, but only so far. My contractual negotiations are to be with RD, and you will not intrude your opinions. If my terms are unacceptable, feel free to leave at once."
Bodie sighed in exasperation, rolled his eyes, but grabbed RD's elbow and escorted him into the building. The main room wasn't particularly large, but mostly empty, it echoed their movements eerily.
The expert followed them. He indicated a single, gothically carved wooden chair, upholstered in crimson velvet, very charred and stained.
"Sit."
RD eyed the chair dubiously a minute before resting on the edge of it.
"Now my dearest fellow, how am I to interpret your proposition? You wish for me to capture your likeness in glittering silver crystals, to create a portrait of your delectable physiognomy? Yes. Well that's lovely. And quite an innocent undertaking, isn't it?"
RD nodded cautiously.
The expert's voice developed a breathless hiss.
"But then you wish for me to place this photographic likeness of your face into a passport? Shall we, for mere convenience, call it a previously owned document? Your desire is for me to place your image in such a manner that the passport will appear to be unaltered from its original state. In fact, it should deceptively appear that it was issued to you, rather than to its prior owner. Which is a far less innocent proposal indeed, far less innocent. Correct me if I misstate your intentions."
Soberly, RD shook his head.
"Very well. Having thoroughly addressed the nature of our undertaking, its more subtle nuances, we must now consider my fee."
"I've got cash," Bodie hastily intervened.
"Silence! You are here as interpreter only. That was the agreement. Shut up or leave," the expert shrieked.
Bodie shut up.
He felt he had no choice. They had shown their faces in town, the both of them together, he and RD. Had flashed his gold, told a certain tale. It was too late to change strategies, much too late to start over again. The mercenaries might still be after RD for assassination. Bodie too might be a wanted man, sought by his own people for treason. The two of them needed to be onboard that ship tonight. This opportunity was too good to lose, might in fact be their last chance at escape.
So Bodie shut up and clenched his teeth until his jaws ached.
The expert finished glaring, and turned his attention again to RD. "Do you have any money? No. Possess any valuables at all? Also, no. Which leaves us in the position of bartering for services, doesn't it? My talents to be joined in contract with yours."
Bodie stirred restlessly. RD simply shrugged.
"Well then, love, nothing simpler. I am an artist. You have the face and figure to interest me for a prospective model. You will pose for me. In exchange, I shall produce for you an impeccable passport. Have we a deal?"
RD frowned, but then nodded again.
"Excellent. Strip."
Against his very determined effort, Bodie's mouth opened on a howl of protest.
But now the expert merely giggled. He slunk toward RD, insinuated his fingers underneath the luxurious tangle of curls to touch the hidden flesh there. "Make haste, deary. You're the one with the deadline. Time and tide, and all that rot."
RD hesitated, gathering his thoughts and emotions, which whirled about his mind in a turmoil of confusion and failed memories. Hard as he searched, he couldn't find in himself any disapproval of being an artist's model. The undertaking didn't seem to him in the least reprehensible.
Rather it was Bodie's patent disapproval that unsettled him. But it was this selfsame friend whose steadfast loyalty resulted in the man's continued precarious position at his side. RD found that he could not reward his mate's generous constancy with a falsely fastidious front.
RD plumbed the depths of his own soul and discovered a very solid sense of self. Here was a person who revelled in righteousness. But his perception of good and evil was of his own creation. He refused the commands of all those who posed behind a semblance of virtue, whose thoughts and acts were contrarily weak and ugly.
This self he cherished, the one that considered art a glorious undertaking, the pursuit of beauty a justification unto itself. Upon this knowledge he made his decision. He would have to explain, perhaps even defend his actions to Bodie at a later time.
Calmly he stood, gathering the hem of his shirt, drew it over his head and dropped it on the floor.
All at once, the fight went out of Bodie. Held at a distance by some emphatic force, he silently watched the scene progress.
Rather perversely in response, the photographer sought to reengage his conversation.
"Such luscious features your mate possesses. I don't believe I've ever before seen a face so contradictory unto itself. Angelic attributes denounce, then delight in the demonic. Wrath pursues peaceful intent, with neither dominant. The scarred evidence of war is layered atop the innocent yearning of youth. Intricate, mysterious."
"You'll never get the passport done in time if you don't make a start. Stop drooling and fetch your equipment, damn it."
The expert ran his eyes, then his fingers appreciatively down RD's bared back. "Visual evidence of pronounced privation, and yet the warrior's physique survives, surmounts somehow. Quite eloquently his body communicates its history. Don't try to teach me my trade, Bodie love."
"I just want you to get the bloody fuck on with it."
"You've forgotten, old friend. My expertise is art, whereas yours is artifice."
Bodie's growl welled from deep in his chest. "My expertise is destruction, and don't you dare forget it."
"Ha. You imagine you've sunk to the level of the seven princes? Such pretension. And permit me to express my grave doubts. You've been stumbling along a different path entirely. And it ascends, or else I'm very much mistaken."
Shaking his head in a provoking manner, the photographer disappeared into an inner sanctum, emerging in moments with his camera, pedestal lights and tripod.
"I should adore to capture some daguerreotypes. But the antique process is too prolonged for your impatience, no doubt. I've heard it said that the natives hereabouts used to refuse to be photographed, for fear of losing their souls, trapped within the portraits. Can't say I've ever encountered that sort of resistance though. Perhaps their compliance is attributable to the prevalence of starvation. Food is such a motivating force after all."
He slithered to where RD stood barefoot, and tapped his belt buckle with a manicured claw. "Shed the rest, there's my sweet lad."
Bodie swallowed an ample portion of spittle as RD stepped out of his jeans and underpants.
The photographer hissed his approval. Hastily snapping up his camera, he plunged into documenting the view. "Sit. Now stand straight. Bend at the waist. A profile. Turn with your back to me. Glance over your shoulder. Scowl. Ouch. Now think pleasanter thoughts. Dream of kissing Bodie. Stop that, who told you to grimace? Put one knee on the chair. Here, I'll place you."
"Hell, who agreed to groping?" Bodie snarled, hastening to intervene.
The expert purred, running his fingers over lean, lithe quadriceps. "Hands have a memory of their own. The mind's perception is flat. In contrast, the sensory nerves of the flesh feel in four dimensions. Lustful longing persists over many lifetimes."
"Yeah? Well, back off or I'll strangle you, and my bloody mitts will be the ones with the sensory memories, understand?"
"Oh, how savage. Do that bit again. Your friend comes all alive in response."
Spitting venom, Bodie dragged the documents from his pocket. "You've got your damnable pictures. Now go alter the paperwork and have done."
"Nude passports? What a naughty notion. But don't you think it might raise an official eyebrow or two at the port authority?"
"Piss on this. RD, get dressed."
Under Bodie's scowling inspection, RD resumed his t-shirt and jeans.
Meanwhile, the photographer disappeared and returned, waving an odd scrap in the air. "False front. Old style dicky. If he arrives at the boat in the same shirt that appears in the passport image, it's a dead giveaway."
Chuckling, the expert fastened around RD's neck a paper collar and front, complete with black silk tie. He lingered to toy with the curls as he draped them artistically. Then he stepped back to admire his handiwork.
"Oh yes-s-s." He mounted the camera onto the tripod and snapped a series of formal stills. "Most elegant, sir. Proper gentleman and all."
Snatching from Bodie's grip the documents intended for alteration, he leaned over to nuzzle his furious face. "Step into the darkroom with me, and see what develops, darling?"
And in reply to Bodie's barked, "Rather see you in hell," he pouted.
"How tedious your current pursuit of contrary virtue. Don't you find it so? Whatever possessed you to assume the undertaking, when you used to be so wondrously wicked? To turn onto such a dry, dusty path? Can't say I envy you at all. Except, perhaps, for the company."
And he offered a single sultry simper in RD's direction.
When presented with the finished passport, Bodie whistled his approval. "Looks authentic. You do good work. Said you were talented. Always said so."
The photographer preened. "Wouldn't you like to purchase some nude shots as well? The first prints are positively delectable."
"No!"
"Suit yourself. Here, this is for you." He handed a bright biscuit tin to RD. "Sweets for the sweet. Clearly Bodie doesn't feed you well enough."
RD chuckled, nodding his thanks.
"We've got to go now."
"Don't see how you can bear to leave it again."
"You know they mined the bloody beach, don't you?"
"Fools. Well, marred and mangled, it's still a fallen fragment of Eden. Mankind will destroy itself and other creatures devolve to fill the niche. But still the beach will meet the ocean there, eons away, long after you and I are faded fancies. Adieu."
"Yeah."
Half an hour's hike brought them to the end of the woods. Bodie glanced back to the surreal view of RD, still shaded by the dark primal forest, clutching the bright metal box to his chest. Crunching contentedly, a few biscuit crumbs were clinging to his moist lips.
Bodie couldn't resist taking him into his arms and licking the sugary leftovers clean.
RD squirmed with pleasure. Then wearing an expression of extreme mischief, he popped the lid off the tin.
Carefully fastened there, under a pristine layer of transparent polymer, was a photograph. A nude portrait of RD, the display of his tender flesh delightfully sweet and tantalizing.
It seemed ages, Bodie stood dumbfounded, gazing at the perfect image of his desire.
Lingering was dangerous.
They turned their steps toward the coast and their escape.
Title: Contrary Virtue
Author: asymphototropic [attracted toward the light but never quite arrives]
Slash or Gen: slash
Archive at ProsLib/Circuit: yes
Disclaimer: No infringement intended, the author does not own "The Professionals"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-03-11 08:07 pm (UTC)Of course, the question still remains, what is a cop doing in that country? Inquiring minds look forward to finding out. I wonder if in this universe Cowley is heading up CI5, somewhere back in England...
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 06:20 pm (UTC)I've been striving to keep to the Temptation artistic line, without bludgeoning the motif to death.
And I greatly appreciate your "lust" icon as a visual aid to the text. Excellent.
Contemplating Cowley back in England. Just how nasty/nice do we want the man to be? Always assuming we let him view this version of B and D paradise [heh.]
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 06:45 pm (UTC)Either could be interesting!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 06:23 pm (UTC)Core, yes, exactly. [hurray for communication].
Thanks for the thanks.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 03:19 pm (UTC)And you got a great Bodie line too, in:
Yeah? Well, back off or I'll strangle you, and my bloody mitts will be the ones with the sensory memories, understand?"
And the delicate but powerful way RD is coming to the fore now.. I doff my hat and eagerly wait for more.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 06:26 pm (UTC)And I really like that hat. Is it an antique? From a past era, but with currently stylish gothic overtones. It quite suits you.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-12 06:31 pm (UTC)Very disappointed that isn't among the choices.
Much huggishness to all readers, and especially those associated with thought-provoking replies.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 04:42 pm (UTC)Poor Bodie forced to accept the Expert's "fee"! *g*
Loved Doyle's considerations on whether to model or not; and great riposte from Bodie, "My expertise is destruction...".
no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 06:23 pm (UTC)Thanks for the kind comments.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 04:56 pm (UTC)Now I'm all caught up, I'm looking forward to the rest :)
no subject
Date: 2007-03-13 06:25 pm (UTC)I had to go back and re-read it myself. Wanted to make sure I hadn't made any literary promises I couldn't keep, heh.
Glad you liked it so far.
More soon, methinks.
So stay tuned.