Simple Concavity

Simple Concavity

I. Meeting

Ginny Weasley has never been foolish, never been stupid, but now, she isn’t too sure. She is losing control, she concludes silently to herself as she stumbles into the kitchen. The night is already old, but she cannot sleep. So in search of some warmth, she absently stumbled down here, where nothing is warm.

Ginny sighs. It bothers her, this cold, damp room and this solemnity. It makes her want to cry, for some odd, disturbing reason. So she sits there, high on the kitchen counter; legs dangling and pertaining to the contour of the wood; eyes cast downward and tracing the lines of grain. Then, with a high flash of hormones, she finds herself sobbing in unsteady motions and shivering like mad. Pull yourself together, it’s just a crush. She tells herself over and over again, but it isn’t convincing enough.

She knows — knowledge searing ardent — that it is something so much more. So much less childish than a teenaged obsession, so much more real than what he thinks. But whenever their eyes met, she is caught and envious and she wants to scream at him for his controlled ignorance.

The kitchen is quiet, the sways of her legs are forlorn motions and Ginny begins to hate herself for feeling so foolish.

Get up and wipe your eyes.

*

Softly creep down, don’t wake up the portraits, creep down the stairs and don’t let the alcohol…

She frowns because someone is down in the kitchen already. Who it is, she isn’t sure yet, but by the wine-gloss of her hair, it must be one of the Weasleys. Ah, Ginny. She isn’t sure why Ginny is down there, but Nymphadora Tonks has always wondered about her. That’s why when she catches Ginny sitting quietly on the kitchen counter, she is more or less intrigued than bothered. Something about Ginny is puzzling, her appearance, maybe. Or maybe it is her voice — her simply spoken syllables having the delicate, feminine sort of elegance. But she has never been the type to be eloquent with words.

Change back, change back to the face she knows.

Tonks steps into the kitchen and — damn it — immediately Ginny looks up; eyes staring and lips startled; Tonks silently curses herself for almost failing Stealth. Ginny raises her head from her arms and fervent eyes now fully open, ashamed, embarrassed. Crisp, light brown eyes that convince Tonks for a full second, it was Ginny’s eyes that baffled her all along, ever since the beginning. But she know better, she knows that eyes tell no story — only there to deceive — only there to distract; in fact, only there for seeing. But something is screaming wildly behind those eyes, pure and innocent and deliciously stainable, and it is only after several moments that she remembers how she should say something.

“Sorry, saw you sitting there.”

Ginny looks away, towards the window and the midnight sky, reddened and awkwardly motionless.

“So,” she manages to weave her words into casual sounds as she fling herself up onto the counter, but in the end knocks over a glass of juice. “Fuck, I just got this cleaned,” she sighs and look down at the cherry stain on her shirt, (at least it smells like cherry), and when even a good “Scourgify!” doesn’t work, she finally gives up.

When Ginny doesn’t answer, or even smile, Tonks realizes that something is wrong.

“Are you okay?”

Ginny still says nothing and will not look at Tonks’ eyes. “It’s…” her girlish stutter fades away to a smeared smile. “It’s nothing.”

And Tonks laugh softly, because she vaguely remembers saying exactly the same words to her own mother and afterwards watching herself twist into a ghastly face then crying later. She’s been crying, Tonks notices now, the tear marks that line Ginny’s face. “Don’t give me that Ginny,” she says after a small pause, “you know me better.”

“No, really, it’s nothing.”

“No it’s not, or else you wouldn’t be here crying. It’s getting cold, you shouldn’t be down here alone. It’s late.”

“I’m fine,” Ginny firmly states.

Tonks can only sigh and follow Ginny’s gaze to the window, where outside, summer buzzes with lovely sounds and would soon surreptitiously fade away. She makes note of that — because autumn is coming, because autumn is the strangest of the four seasons. She has never noticed it, never, not until it was too late and the yellow leaves are already brown and winter has long set in. But afterwards, all through the months, she would think about autumn and how she missed it, strange kind of nostalgia growing strong. But whenever summer dripped in, she would forget about the golden smell of fallen leaves and let the presence of autumn slip through her consciousness all over again.

“I am an Auror, you know. I was trained to get certain truths out of people,” she says, voice solemn and eyes lying.

“You don’t mean that.”

Tonks frowns lightly, seeing that her attempt to lighten up the air has failed, and look down at her hands, barely smiling. Then she finally answers, “No, of course not, Gin’. Now c’mon. You can tell me.”

Ginny still does not speak, the smile she’d earlier put on slips away into a pensive look, then into the sad and slouched curve of her body. Strange impulses spin around Tonks’ mind now — stretching into stranger desire for the fourteen year-old Ginny who seems all too child-like now. Instincts triumph over reason and her hand is on Ginny’s arm in a soft, delicate notion to comfort — except Ginny interrupts her motion with a sudden, jerky statement.

“It’s about Harry.”

Her hand hangs in midair, barely within the warmth of Ginny’s arm, and then she retreats, knowing better but wanting more. About Harry… She remembers now, the meandering emotions surfacing on Ginny’s face with each twist of muscles and skin whenever she saw him, and Tonks secretly laughs at herself for being so unobservant.

“I’ve had a crush on him for god knows how long, and he’s never even looked at me that way. He knows — I know — of course he knows. I know it’s silly but,” slurs Ginny among shivers that make her take her feet onto the table. Now Tonks can see the thighs beneath the skirt, the soft skin silky and the muscles and flesh shivering — so tender and touchable and luscious — “Damn it!”

She is suddenly brought back to awareness and so is Ginny, who did not meant to say it so loud.

After a small silence, Ginny murmurs mutedly, “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. I didn’t mean to sound so stupid,” she pauses there. “It’s just that… that… no one has ever kissed me,” is the mumbled, frustrated statement — but afterwards, amidst the awkward silence that follows suit, Tonks realizes that Ginny never meant to say it aloud.

Never been kissed? She cannot believe it. She raises her hand to cup the side of Ginny’s cheeks, because desire is like the irrational yen for the illicit — too hot and too burdensome. She wants to maybe just feel Ginny once. She wants to test something too — to see if eyes really do tell a story — so, chancing in this pursuit, she morphs into the face of Harry Potter. Suddenly, looking at Ginny through the jade stony eyes that belonged not to her, Tonks realizes what this means, what she is doing — what will Molly and Arthur think? — but she cannot, will not stop, because oh-gods she wants this.

Besides, Ginny does not seem to be objecting to this notion, lips silently imploring — touching — exploding — curving —

Tonks likes curves more than angularity; too sharp are polygonal structures that frame her own body. She likes the ease of a smooth line curling itself down and up, and the contour of Ginny’s hands that are half-grown but still uncomplicated; arcs being so much more seductive, so much more traceable and limitless. She likes the smooth in the skin and the simple concavity and the never-ending visible poetry. Besides, she has never been too big of a fan for the ars de geometria.

But oh, Ginny is more than just curves, so much more than the body. Fresh and delicate and so fucking pure that Tonks wants to empty her — desire burning, sensation growing — until her tongue is on Ginny’s lips and entering, licking, smearing salty tears, and Tonks is shamefully aroused. Must not think of the senses. Must not lose — but they are irresistible, those greedy senses, the way Ginny tastes so sweet and soft; the way Tonks feels guilty for violating her like she is doing now — letting the mask slip away — doing so intentionally.

Stop… But Ginny is something addictive, something that she cannot let go of even if she tries, like chaste skin begging to be touched. She moves her hands through Ginny’s hair, and they feel as if they haven’t been washed in days by the way they cling onto Tonks’ fingers like static. Ginny moves as if to speak but she won’t let her, she cannot let this end, or else it won’t suffice the fucking desire.

When they pull apart, saliva lacing thinly between them, Tonks sees that Ginny’s eyes are open, judging, watching, open, and know that they were open all along, all through the kiss, seeing, knowing.

And it triggers something — those eyes with lust and disgust all mixed up — they make Tonks to want to kiss her again, this time harder, this time harsher, kiss her all before she can ever respond and say what she wants to say. Hands would rove this time, they would stroke, they would ravage the flesh that doesn’t understand. Fingers entering there, moving, feeling, spilling. But all she dares to do — dares to violate — is to trace her tongue along the curving shape of Ginny’s neck — memorizing — scanning — knowing, soft mouth sucking on softer skin.

She is nostalgic already, for the sweetness that lingers in her mouth — somehow like the musty smell sweat and another body on her hands — and for the softness of skin and lips. Like autumn.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, knowing that it values to nothing, and does not make up for what she has done. But the feelings took control — her own longings for what she cannot have — and she was carried away for those moments. Carried away to some distant dream lost, and no matter how hard she will try to forget, Tonks will remember from now on, the way Ginny tasted and the smell of her hair.

*

Ginny watches as Tonks hurriedly walks out from the kitchen and up the heavy stairs, and cannot bring herself to think. What had happened was just too quick, too rushed, too foreign for her to process. Ideas, thoughts, feelings rushing in all at once, too fucking complicated.

She is baffled now, at Tonks who does not seem to know what she wanted; whose lips are electric and bitterly whiskey-like but confusingly mixed with something else — alcohol, perhaps — perhaps not.

And suddenly, she realizes that her crush on Harry Potter is all too insignificant, because Tonks just showed her what was real — how can it not be real? — the reality being, in the end, too perplexing. Mesmerizing like being controlled, but not quite the same…

Get up and wipe your eyes.

II. Parting

Ginny doesn’t remember anymore, if it was the mountains’ fault — they way they were lost within the dark mist — making it so easy for her to get lost; to take the wrong turn; to places strange. Then again, it might be all because of the motion, the smooth, charming motion stretching and zooming and unending, coaxing the mind into respite.

Maybe in the end, it was because of the clouds after all, the way the blended together and riddled the light and heat and shaped this strange, surreal day.

She remembers, though, the black-and-white pictures and roses bright red.

Tonks’ mouth is hot and insatiable, and oh — empty. Her hands are searching and wading through the strands of hair wine-like; and Ginny is lost between sensations.

Ginny would remember, the way the sky looks right now as her body crashes with Tonks’, breasts crushing against each other and fingers tracing muscles, hands searching but getting nothing. Ginny says nothing, not even now when Tonks’ tongue is licking her nipple, about the emptiness that grows inside her. Ginny says nothing when Tonks’ hand is between her thighs and stroking. And when Tonks’ fingers enter her, all she can do is moan and scream and melt into the force of orgasm.

*

“Remember I kissed you that night? Right before you left for school?”

Ginny remembers, of course Ginny remembers; the night when things stopped making sense the way they used to, the night she grew up; but now it is Christmas and they’re hiding from the world.

“What about it?”

“That’s when I realized how much I wanted you.”

Ginny smiles. “Do the snout,” she requests.

“What?”

“You know, the pig snout.”

Tonks is pausing, Ginny knows, because she is hesitating.

“What is this, Gin’?”

“Please?”

“Alright,” Ginny watches as Tonks puts on her favorite nose, and reaches out to touch it. It feels real, the way it curves and its textures — tangible and real and there. Then Ginny remembers that it isn’t real — none of it is — nothing as bona fide as it seems.

Ginny smiles. “Show me the old lady.”

And so Tonks does, morphing her face into a haggard, furrow-ridden face. “What are we doing?” she asks dubiously as she changes back.

Ginny leans forward, and initiates a kiss that make invites Tonks’ tongue to smooth the folds and creases on Ginny’s lips, exchanging lust and scent and saliva. But Ginny remembers also, the emptiness that has always razed the desire. She remembers about real and falsity, merging together to form confusion, merging together to form existence.

“Show me your real face.”

Tonks frowns at Ginny now.

“Show me, please.”

Hands hold onto Ginny’s flesh and eyes dig into her mind, but Ginny does not falter. She wants the truth. And the fingers tremble now, panicked.

“Ginny…” Tonks’ eyes are closed.

III. Yearning

Tonks missed this autumn too.

But autumn seems to matter so much less now. She missed other things. Things that she couldn’t have — had for a time — and then lost again; things like warmth and family and simplicity.

Obsession is so much alike passion;
— ah indeed real —
while black eloquence bears no title, everything is obscured.
Everything there
not there
transformed and new
not there at all
casting no shadow, casting no image
affairs of men and women.
Night raven.