[It has been a pleasant interlude, but that is all that it is—an interlude. Merely a short respite from reality before she is ushered back inside, before she rejoins her husband, the weight of pearls and diamond necklaces like hands closing around her vulnerable throat. Their odd course of conversation, the undertone of something darker and somber in their words, all but forgotten as their slow dancing comes to a gradual end. His hands vanish from her waist, and she is just as quick to retrieve her own hands from his shoulders.
For how unbearably polite they had been, attempting to be on their best behavior to the stranger before them, the sentimental press of his lips against her forehead is at once affectionate and ill-suited as a parting gesture. Truthfully, a handshake would feel just as artificial as any rehearsed farewells, but a kiss—a kiss is just too much. Too intimate, too visceral, something that is better shared between even the meekest of lovers, not them. Lovers would taken it all in stride, lovers would have long forgotten dancing in favor of all scandalous sorts of ways to pass the time, lovers would have been far more bolder and blunter and—well, not that it applies to them.
She should have recoiled, but it's far too late. All she can do to return the favor is to smile, graciously and sweetly. And, just because they are being rather silly and sentimental, swept up in the fever of summer, she dips her head and spreads out the lace edges of her skirt in a little old-fashioned curtsey.]
[The curtsey makes him smile, even if he does feel slightly odd about the kiss, like he'd crossed some kind of invisible line that he perhaps shouldn't have, or, at least, that he should have been aware was there. It probably doesn't mean anything, not really, but maybe it had been a bad idea, anyway.
There's nothing for it now, and he's not going to apologize, because that seems like a bad note to leave on. All the same, he does need to leave, and he's well aware that he'll probably never see her again, unless he runs into her at another party like this. There's a chance, maybe, but...
... well, that's not for thinking about, either.]
Bye.
[And with that, he's turning away, heading back for the noise and light and chaos of the party, not offering a 'see you later' or anything particularly reassuring, not the formalities and niceties that most people give when they're parting ways.]
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For how unbearably polite they had been, attempting to be on their best behavior to the stranger before them, the sentimental press of his lips against her forehead is at once affectionate and ill-suited as a parting gesture. Truthfully, a handshake would feel just as artificial as any rehearsed farewells, but a kiss—a kiss is just too much. Too intimate, too visceral, something that is better shared between even the meekest of lovers, not them. Lovers would taken it all in stride, lovers would have long forgotten dancing in favor of all scandalous sorts of ways to pass the time, lovers would have been far more bolder and blunter and—well, not that it applies to them.
She should have recoiled, but it's far too late. All she can do to return the favor is to smile, graciously and sweetly. And, just because they are being rather silly and sentimental, swept up in the fever of summer, she dips her head and spreads out the lace edges of her skirt in a little old-fashioned curtsey.]
You're absolutely welcome.
no subject
There's nothing for it now, and he's not going to apologize, because that seems like a bad note to leave on. All the same, he does need to leave, and he's well aware that he'll probably never see her again, unless he runs into her at another party like this. There's a chance, maybe, but...
... well, that's not for thinking about, either.]
Bye.
[And with that, he's turning away, heading back for the noise and light and chaos of the party, not offering a 'see you later' or anything particularly reassuring, not the formalities and niceties that most people give when they're parting ways.]