Tainted Love

Fall

IRIS

Iris shrugged her coat onto her shoulders as she stepped out of her apartment building, pulling it tight around her body and inching her hands into her sleeves.

October had announced itself with a five-degree drop in temperature and wild gusts of wind. It hadn't rained yet, but it was only the third, so Iris supposed that was coming too.

The leaves outside the Love Chamber's window were properly fall colored now - rich oranges and yellows. A couple of them had started to fall.

September had felt like a weird in-between, a gray area between the suffocating humidity of August and the undeniable chill of October. September had been a weird in-between in a lot of ways, actually.

Things were different between Iris and Draco now. Neither one of them had acknowledged it out loud, but Iris knew it was true. She could no longer convince herself that she hated him. She didn't get angry with him over small things anymore, and she didn't really care when he offhandedly insulted her.

His insults paled in comparison to the other things he had said to her, done to her - the whispers and nods and little noises from the back of his throat. He acted bitter with her to prove to himself that he still could. She could do the same, but it was too much effort.

September was a month for change.

It was Wednesday now, Wednesday morning, and Iris took off her jacket and levitated it absentmindedly to one of the hooks on the wall. Draco was already in and already working. They were finishing their treatment of Felix Felicis with the love magic from one of the gemstones in the room.

They'd probably have the results by the end of the day today.

They could've had them Monday, but, like the weather, Draco had cooled off considerably lately. He was more withdrawn than usual, as if he was trying to distance himself from Iris's mere presence - but not in an angry way. He wasn't trying to annoy her. He just wasn't speaking to her.

The last time they had fucked was on Friday night at the Siren.

Once she got home that night she had taken off all her clothes and stared at herself in the mirror, running the pads of her fingers over little marks and bruises and feeling the leftover stickiness of the brandy on her skin.

She looked at her body and tried to picture it from Draco's point of view. He had leaned back on the couch and asked her how much nerve she had - the sort of casual seduction only he could pull off. He had watched her blankly as she pushed the straps off her shoulders, unzipped, let her dress fall and stepped out of her shoes.

But afterwards he had told her to come to him and his hands were steady on her waist and his mouth was perfect against hers, so perfect, like he could read her mind and knew exactly what she was going to do.

So maybe he did like it.

He had fucked her enough times that she supposed she shouldn't be worrying about whether or not Draco liked the look of her. Whether or not he had actually liked watching her undress.

At home in her bathroom mirror, still somewhat drunk, marvelling over the marks he had left behind, she thought he had to like her. He had to. And the way he had spoken to her friends, too.

He had been so cold to Theodore out of nowhere, singled him out for no reason Iris could think of besides the fact that he was the nearest boy to her. And he had gotten angry at that other boy, the one from earlier who had bought her a drink.

So you really couldn't blame her for thinking maybe. Maybe he might be willing to admit to himself that he wanted her in a tangible way, a way he didn't have to deny anymore. A way he could give into whenever he wanted.