Denim
by Nymph Du Pave

Steven rubbed his head, feeling the beginnings of a headache just right there.  His most tender spot.  The one behind his right temple.  There was a piercing kind of throb that wouldn't go away with sleep.  It wouldn't go away with music or a drink or a woman.

Especially not a woman.  Not now.  Not after his choices and actions, his past with women was why he was where he was.

A woman.  One.  One he hadn't even...

He sat up, the creak in his dying office chair just another annoyance drilling in the fact that he was not where he should be, he was not accepted in any form of community.  Right along with his dirt floor, his splintery wooden walls, the clustered air and his pitted desk.

Oh, God, how he missed the gorgeous oak of his old desk.  It had a honey-gold glow in the sunshine that he'd never before seen anywhere.

…anywhere but her hair…

Fist hard against wood and suddenly his headache was not the only ache he had to suffer.

Luthor was the only one that would except him and even that was only because of his theories.  His outrageous theories that had once been widely acclaimed underground as a possibility- even if they were not always agreed with.  He loathed that he now lived in a world, in a life, that a Luthor -- any Luthor, even a semi-respectable one -- could look at and sneer with disgust.

All because of Denim.

...all because of me...

He groaned.  He couldn't blame her anymore than he could look at the paperwork, at the formal and scientific black words on the old,cheap off-white print paper.  Couldn't look at his name, Dr. Steven Hamilton, anymore.

He was lucky that he didn't knock to the ground anyone that called him anything else.  There was still respect in his name, in the "Dr" that he'd worked so damned hard to get.  Still a shred of dignity, a light at the end of the tunnel and he was working hard to prove it.  Once he proved his theories, his now mocked and jeered at theories because of a sullied reputation…  Once he proved them, he'd be rich.  And, more importantly, respectable.  And if he had to take Luthor Junior with him just to get to that summit, well, he'd take that foul little brat with him.  And then he'd find his Denim.

He sighed and stood, his back popping with the first stretch in over three hours.  He was wondering if he should possibly turn off the CD player.  He liked Major Glenn Miller and his Army Air Force band, but they weren't much to sleep to.  And since he'd been working non-stop to earn another payment from Luthor, he'd been sleeping in the barn.  And sleeping in the barn meant all the comfort he could muster was still less comfort than he desperately needed.

He crossed the filthy floor towards the CD player when 'Pearls on Velvet' ended and 'People Will Say We're in Love' came on.

...god...

As the music swelled Steven shut his eyes, smelling the poinsettias of his classroom, the slight scent of the cleanser used on the wooden floor and his desk.  The light airiness of a sunny day in the clean, romantically archaic part of Metropolis.  Where the stone statues still stood, tall and meaningful, the streets were still of cobblestone and old lighting fixtures; the greenery was lovely, fragrant and abundant.

…they said it was an affair; they said he was taking advantage…

Ah, but he could feel the softness of her skin in his hands.  He was simply leading her onto the makeshift dance floor, the middle of his emptied classroom, and his life was the happiest it had ever been.

...everyone was supposed to be gone; they were supposed to have vacated that wing of the college...

Sitting down on the couch, he inhaled.  Instead of must and soil and rotting wood he caught a whiff of her perfume.  Wispy.  Garden Lace.  It had quickly become his favorite smell.  It was her, no doubt about it.

…oh, darling, Denim…

She'd left a note in her long, gorgeous cursive saying she was coming, she'd be there later.  He had shut the windows for her sake, for their sake.  The sake of private encounters that he was sure were all the same.  He was longing, though, for the day that he would be able to leave them open.. That day he would be able to see her golden hair shimmering in the sunlight, slivers of sterling and aureate glinting as he spun her.  Then he would know that everything would last.

…an affair…

God, the feel of those soft, shy lips on his when he dipped her.  He had once surprised her with a kiss, a chaste and adoring kiss.

He did adore her, every bit of her.  She was his angel.  She walked in a room and he wanted to laugh.  His heart took off and his body became more alert, more sensitive.  Ignoring the rest of the class, he'd make jokes just to make her laugh, just to see the twinkle in her eye or the easy to find grin.

They'd met by accident in the gardens of the college.  Corny meeting, bumping of bodies, dropping of books, the painful smack of two very thick but tender skulls.  He wasn't sure that that had really ever happened to people.  Until it happened to him.  He'd made some random joke that had flew into his mind and out his mouth.  To this day he wished he could remember what he'd said to hear her laugh for the first time.

And he knew the moment she smiled at him that he was in love.  That was it.  She was the one.  This was his life and it was all wrapped up in her ivory skin, in her fragile body and her glorious golden brown eyes.

He'd wanted to propose right then and there, but he figured that somehow, in some distant way that might be somwhat innapproprate.

Then she was in his class.  He knew that in six months, when it was all over, he'd ask to court her.

…court, what a funny, old word…

Then he would romance her, marry her and cherish the very air she breathed until neither of them did anymore.

He didn't have to wait that long and in retrospect he realized that they should have.  They enjoyed each other's company during class, though you wouldn't really have been able to tell.  They looked at each other frequently and she'd often stayed after class to chat on simple little subjects.  She's smile and laugh and look.  Even the silences where they just smiled at each other…

Those were nice.

...nice...

The day she touched him for the third time -- third to the bump, second to the head smack -- was the day he fully understood that she felt the same.  She stayed later than usual.  Her other class had been canceled.  They talked on subjects for more than two hours.  She found out he was a scientist who was researching a mysterious little rock and the mysterious little town from whence it came; he learned that she lived on campus thanks to her parents' money, that she was seventeen and looking for her future.

The time had flown and she had to leave.  He felt like Prince Charming as Cinderella started to take off.  He wanted to grab for her, but couldn't.  It felt wrong.  Then she reached out to him, touching his hand and stroking it lightly, longingly.  For seconds upon seconds.  Told him she'd enjoyed herself in his company.  More than she had in anyone elses.

Steven lied back on the couch, ignoring the bar in the middle and reached for the remote.  He put the song on repeat just as it was about to end.

Their courtship had been wonderful.  She'd come at the end of every day to sit and talk.  To chat.  To say goodbye over and over when all he wanted was to sleep at nights with her in the bed, curled into his body.  Making love hadn't crossed his mind much.  This was deeper.  This was the kind of company that you kept forever.

She told him in a moment of intense emotion that leaving was getting harder to do.  The end of the semester was only three weeks away.  And then they could be together.

But they'd been to obvious.  The few times she didn't make it to his class, he was moody, difficult, ready to snap at anything.  Her roommate noticed her absence after class and until eight, sometimes nine.  His colleagues noticed the two cars -- one student parking, one teacher -- as they left the building.

Their love, he was sure, was never meant to be consummated the way that it was, much less ever.  He was sure that, in some form, they would be together again.  Some day.  And everything that had been taken from him, from them, would be returned.

...she'd be twenty-three now; so far from seventeen...

They'd danced.  Touching and twirling.  He remembered the way that her skirt twirled as she spun away from him.  It had been perfect.  Her smile, her loving gazes and voice as she hummed along.

Then the song came on.  'People Will Say We're in Love'.  Such a long, awkward title for a song so pretty and meaningful.

Denim had laughed and pulled him tight against her.  His heart had exploded, his head felt light and every inch of him tingled.  He wanted to keep her there forever, just there, in his arms, dancing.  This was what she was and he wanted that to be his.

At the swell of the band, he'd dipped her and let his lips press lightly to her.  It was a small kiss, but it had meant the world to him.  It lasted until the end of the song; just lips pressed to lips.

After the song ended, he'd pulled her up and they stood there, looking in each other's eyes, trying to find the words, any words, but neither were capable.

…we didn't need them; it was perfect…

"Oh, Steven."

His breath hitched at the memory of her voice.  He'd memorized every sound she'd ever made, but the tone there had held the only note of sensual need that she'd ever produced.  She reached up, felt his face.

And the door came crashing in.

Steven pushed a button on his remote, flipping the radio off, and pulled the heavy, moth-eaten afghan around his suddenly chilled body.

He didn't want to remember the look of panic and sadness that had appeared on Denim's sweet face as the Dean walked in.  He had caused it.  Him and his stupid inability to be cautious for the both of them.  She was young and the world trough her eyes had been beautiful; like a movie set.  Always perfectly in order for whatever life had going on.

He wondered if there was any way that she could have maintained her innocence.  It would break his heart now to see even the slightest jade in those light brown eyes.

The Dean of Deans, Donna Vann Allen, had been furious.  She was an active member of MALA, Metropolis's Active Lesbian Association, and she was a feminist to the extreme.  She didn't see love.  She didn't see tender.  She didn't care about the fact that they'd only shared one modest little kiss and some dancing, that no bed had ever even made it's way into their late day topics.

And neither did the jury.  Or the public.  Or his colleagues.  Or his love's family.

They all saw a professor of sciences and a young, susceptible student.  They saw late thirties to barely late teens.  They saw dirty old man and brilliant young child.

He lost his job soon after and was socially banned from all of Metropolis.  He heard months later from a contact that only emailed him from anonymous email addresses that Denim Conner had moved to England with her parents shortly after he'd left.

She'd always told him how much she loved England.  How she wanted to live in that heavenly place.

He shut his eyes against a shiver and wondered if she ever thought about him.  Wondered if she recalled anything of him while living in her paradise or if she thought him the dirty old man that others did.  Others that knew his past, that thought him perverted.

He often wondered if she ever found time to think of him.  He wished she would as he did.

He had loved her.  He hadn't touched her until she allowed it.  He had only wanted her company, her talk, the look of her sitting somewhere close.

If it wasn't for their dance and Vann Allen, their unconscious refusal to err on the side of caution...

He wondered where he might be now.  Whether or not the feel of sweet Denim's skin could be under his now.  In a large bed.  He would run his fingers through her hair as she slept, protect her from the ugly world outside.  He would make the world stop for her.  He could do anything.  And that was what the green rock was for.  He would do anything and if he could prove his scientific ability, then maybe he could find Denim and dare to face her again.  He would have proved his worth to himself and others.  He could find her and surely other people would understand this time that it was love.  He could find her.

Or maybe she would find him.

…Denim…

Until that day, though, he would love no one else.  It was him and the meteors until his world was righted once again.

He drifted off to the smell of Garden Lace and the ghostly tune of the song they danced to.

Don't sigh and gaze at me
Your sighs are so like mine
Your eyes musn't glow like mine
People will say we're in love

Denim…
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

FIN