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lobelia321Here is a sneak preview of my new fic, exclusive to the LJ and the Karl Urban list. which I will post to the lists tomorrow.
It features Karl, Bernard and the lovely John Noble.
I hope my attempt to post it here will work.
Title: Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts
Series: A follow-up piece to 'Larks and Nightingales'. Stands on its own, though.
Part: 1a/1
Author: Lobelia; lobelia321@aol.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/
Pairing: Karl Urban / John Noble / Bernard Hill
Rating: NC-17
Category: Weird pairings.
Trianne's Category S: "The mysterious, gorgeous one (The one no-one in Europe has ever heard of but will probably bust a gut over when Two Towers is released)"
From the *Trianne Guide to Writing Successful Male on Male Slash*,
http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/triannesguide.html
Warnings/Content: RPS. Middle-aged men up to no good.
Archive: Closer than Brothers. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.
Feedback: Yes, yes, yes! *Especially* for these weird pairings. Tell me, even if you hate it! (I won't mind; I'm stubbornly committed to these guys.)
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen. No food was genetically modified during the production of this fic.
Summary: Karl wants to taste food. John and Bernard want to taste Karl.
Author's Notes: John and Bernard: who are they? John is Denethor, Bernard is Theoden, pics here: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/bernardandjohn.html
Tonnes of thanks and kisses to Gabby who gave the loveliest beta-fb on this!
--------------
Bernard and John were arguing again.
It was their fifth argument around the dinner table, and Karl had stopped listening to them. Bernard and John were always arguing in circles, always disagreeing about the same old things, but always going at it with a strangely intense passion that suggested that there might be something else to all these debates besides the audible exchange of words. Still, Karl didn't know what the something else was, and he wasn't really all that worried about it. All he knew was that he'd just eaten a most wonderful organic meal, courtesy of Bernard, accompanied by the most exquisite Penfold's 1996 Cabernet, and followed up with some gorgeously mellow Port. He felt pleasantly sated, pleasantly light-headed, and just ever so slightly, but also rather pleasantly, peckish.
Karl lifted his glass of Port to his lips, sucked the wine into his mouth and swilled it around a few times before swallowing it. Then he leaned across the table and picked two after-dinner mints out of the carton. He placed them both on his tongue, closed his mouth and waited for the chocolate to dissolve in his saliva. An interesting flavour of peppermint, cocoa and Port spread into the insides of his cheeks. Karl looked around the table for something else to mix with this cocktail of tastes, but just then Bernard nudged him.
"Don't you agree, Karl?"
"What? Sorry, er, I was miles away."
"Karl," repeated Bernard. "Don't you agree that acting for the screen allows for a greater intimacy with the audience?"
"Er, sure. Still on your favourite topic, are you?" Karl's eyes continued to roam across the table, and now he had discovered a twist of lemon lying abandoned on John's dinner plate. "May I?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," John replied distractedly. "But Karl, let me ask you, and I've been trying to drum this into benighted old Bern's head: what about all that rigmarole of filming everything umpteen times? Take one, take two, take bloody three hundred and seventeen. Where's the spontaneity? Where's your precious audience intimacy when you're on take three hundred and seventeen?"
"Hm," said Karl, sucking the lemon until his lips puckered. The zest of citrus combining with the chocolate, the mint and the Port made his gums tingle. "I see what you mean, John, but..."
"Christ, Karl, take that bloody thing out of your mouth, I can barely understand what you're saying."
"Sorry, John." Reluctantly, Karl extruded the lemon from his mouth, not without taking one last bite of the rind. Interestingly, the rind was quite bitter. "What I was going to say, er, was that doing several takes can actually make your performance better."
"Exactly!" cried Bernard. "Thank *you*, Karl! Finally someone who understands screen acting!"
"Oh, bloody marvellous," guffawed John. "Now I've got a Pom and a Kiwi ganging up on me, and both of them total prostitutes to the land of the great white telly! I mean, honest to goodness, Karl, you're not going to tell me that some cheesy gladiator rip-off proves how filming in lots of takes can make your performance better?"
"Er, John. Could I remind you that *Xena* was there first, a long time before *Gladiator*?"
"Yes, yes, but that doesn't change my point."
"What is your point, John?" cried Bernard.
"My point, Bern, my point is that TV makes a complete mockery of everything acting is and can be! TV-- and cinema, for that matter."
"And cinema, John? And cinema? So, why are you on this set, John? Just tell me that."
"Look, Bern, let's not get into that again." John swept his arm through the air, nearly upsetting one of the empty wine bottles in the process.
Karl rescued the bottle just in time. He lifted it, carefully licked the rim of the glass neck and then inserted his tongue into the opening. The droplets of cabernet produced an interesting sensation when infused into the lemon juice still embedded in his taste buds. He tried to stretch his tongue as far as he could into the neck, and it was only then that he noticed the silence.
Karl looked up, tongue still absurdly twisted into the bottle neck.
He saw two pairs of eyes fixed on him. One pair was passionately brooding, the other was piercing and intense.
"Ah, Karl," said Bernard and cleared his throat. "What are you doing there, lad?"
"Er," said Karl and hurriedly set the bottle down at the far end of the table. "Nothing."
"I see," said Bernard, and Karl noticed how Bernard's gaze flickered over to John and back. "Don't mind us, will you, Karl? Here, have another one." And he handed Karl the second empty wine bottle.
"No, no, haha." Karl vaguely waved his hand.
Bernard put the bottle down, looked over towards John again, then back at Karl and smiled a slow smile. "Pity," he said.
Karl wasn't sure what there was to pity. He was just beginning to feel uncomfortable under Bernard's prolonged and piercing gaze when John nodded, touched Bernard on the arm, and the two of them continued their dispute. Seemed to continue it, anyway. If Karl had listened more carefully, he might have detected a new note, a new undertone, creeping into Bernard and John's debate. He might have wondered why their eyes kept returning to him, why their voices became rough around the edges, why they smiled with the corners of their mouths turned down and their eyebrows arching.
Karl, though, noticed none of this. He seized the last wedge of taleggio from the cheese platter and popped it into his mouth. The taleggio was soft and springy, it tasted of goat's arse, and it half-resisted, half-yielded to Karl's teeth in a most satisfying way.
Eating the cheese reminded Karl of something. He closed his eyes for a minute, letting the viscous innards of the taleggio spread around his teeth, curling the tip of his tongue around the pliant, velveteen-like rind. He let his thoughts drift, and then he remembered what the cheese reminded him of. It was his first sexual experience. The taleggio reminded Karl of the night he had lost his virginity.
They'd been eating cheese that night, too; some sort of soft cheese, just like this one, hard outside, soft inside, just like his lover. They'd fed bite-sized chunks of the cheese to each other, inserting them into each other's wet mouths, fishing them out again with their tongues. His lover's skin under Karl's hands had felt like peach skin, or like the softly-furred rind of the taleggio. And their kisses had tasted of goat and cream and lust. And after the kissing, they had done something else. They had rubbed, yes what was it again? That's right-- they had rubbed vanilla custard onto each other's bellies and licked it off. Karl couldn't remember why or how they'd got hold of the custard, only its cool, glutinous texture and its sweet, spry taste.
"Karl? Karl! Isn't that right, Karl?" That was Bernard's voice.
"Sorry, what?" Karl opened his eyes and swallowed the cheese.
"Wouldn't you agree that multiple takes allow you to fine-tune a shot?"
Were they still going on about that? Karl had the vague feeling that he was being used as a counter in some on-going, private game between Bernard and John. However, at the moment he wasn't much bothered because he had spotted a limp rocket leaf on Bernard's plate and sneaked over two fingers to pinch it. Now the rocket added an intriguingly nutty note to the Port, lemon and cheese in his mouth but the chocolate flavour was rapidly disappearing so Karl leaned over and fished two more mints out of the box.
"Karl? Isn't that right?"
"Er, oh, yes, Bernard. With TV, you get a chance to perfect a particular shot."
"And that is just where TV goes wrong!" cried John. "Shots, perfecting, takes -- what garbage! A good actor doesn't need takes to perfect his role; he can do it first off! And a good actor shouldn't think in terms of 'shots', either, but in terms of the whole play, the whole performance in its entirety! Not just the bitty shots and crap you get in TV or cinema!"
"Prove it, John, prove it."
"No, you prove to me, Bern, how your takes and your scenes create that famous audience intimacy you're so fond of praising."
"All right, John. With pleasure, John. Come on, Karl, get up."
"Wha--?" Karl was still munching on a macadamia nut when he was unceremoniously pulled to his feet by his table neighbour.
"Think of a scene, John," urged Bernard. "Think of a scene, and Karl and I will show you what is meant by good screen acting."
"Er," said Karl.
"Don't be churlish, Karl," said Bernard. "You can do this, you've been in enough TV shows. And you love it, I've heard you go on about it. And, John, you know what, Karl here and I, we're going to convince you of screen intimacy. Aren't we, Karl?"
"This is going to be interesting," said John.
John was leaning against the back of the sofa, arms crossed. He had, Karl noticed, a decidedly wicked grin on his face. Not that Karl cared; he was trying to reach around behind Bernard's back and surreptitiously grab another handful of nuts. The nuts added not only a distinctive note to the taste melange in Karl's mouth but also had a crunchy texture which contrasted pleasantly with the limpness of the rocket leaf he'd just eaten.
"So," John went on. "How are we going to fabricate this intimacy then, Bern?"
"The intimacy, John," said Bernard, "arises out of the close-up. It's all very well to go on about using your body on stage but the beauty of screen acting is that the audience gets to see every tiny expression on your face, close up. You've got to activate every muscle, every nerve of your face. And you've got to be subtle about it."
"Let me see." John stroked his chin. "A close-up, eh? I know what. I think we should do a kissing scene. Don't you think we should do a kissing scene, Bern?"
"Kissing's good. Kissing works very well on the small screen. As it does on the big. Isn't that right, Karl?"
"What? We're going to kiss?" Karl was temporarily shocked out of his food reverie.
"Indeed we are, Karl. And Karl: do your best. We want to show this telly-sceptic what mettle we of the screen are made of."
"Did you say we're going to be kissing?"
"Yes, Karl. You've done a screen kiss before, haven't you?"
"Er, but..."
"Good, then. Now, John, you stand over there, in the position of the camera, and when you want us to start, just shout out 'Action'."
"Er," repeated Karl, feeling slightly at sea with the proceedings. He cast a longing glance at the table and moved his tongue nervously around his teeth. Grains of macadamia were still lodged between his molars. He wished for one last drink of Port but then John yelled, "Action!" Before Karl could even catch his breath, Bernard's mouth was on his.
Screen kiss, screen kiss, right. You sort of had to slant your head in a direction away from the camera and jut your chin out at an angle, and you didn't open your mouth, you just sort of sucked lips and moved your head about. He could do this, no sweat. And fucking hell, Bernard sure could. He had his hand at the back of Karl's skull, his eyes closed and his lips palpitating across Karl's. He was even making a low moaning sound in his chest; it was quite extraordinary. Not in a million years would Karl have imagined that an old guy like Bernard could give such an amazing screen kiss.
"Cut!" yelled John.
Bernard moved away. Karl felt almost disappointed. He had caught a faint taste of something on Bernard's lips, just a whiff of-- what? Cigar smoke? Artichoke heart? Karl licked his own lips.
"All right," said Bernard. "That was take one. And now, John, we'll do take two and we'll show you exactly how this can be perfected."
"Hang on," said John, and if Karl hadn't been distracted by the flavour of Bernard's lips quite so much, he might have noticed the lively glint in John's eyes. "Shouldn't you be directing this, Bernard? What's the point in me just standing here?"
"Excellent idea, John. You are right. It's you who's got to be convinced so you should stand here, in my place, and I'll go over there and direct."
Karl shook his head. How much wine had he drunk? Because what Bernard and John had just agreed on didn't seem to make sense to him at all. He opened his mouth to protest but nobody appeared to be very interested in his contribution to the debate so he shut it again. And before he could get his thoughts properly into gear, Bernard had yelled, "Action!" and John's mouth was on his.
Jesus.
"Cut, cut, cut! John, that was *not* a screen kiss! That was using tongues, wasn't it?"
"Sorry, Bern. How would I know? I don't know about the screen. Right, Karl?"
If there was a mocking note in John's voice, Karl wasn't hearing it. He felt vertiginous.
"Karl, you show him how it's done," said Bernard. "All right, everybody. Action!"
Right. Show John how it's done. The problem was that Karl's senses were still reeling from the last kiss. John's mouth had been a kaleidoscope of tastes, Port, of course, and rocket and lemon but also something else, salmon perhaps or olives in brine. Karl was desperate to get another taste of John's tongue. So when John kept his lips primly closed this time, Karl didn't hesitate to push his tongue between them into the delicious moist interior behind.
"Cut!" came Bernard's voice but Karl was so immersed in John's flavours that he didn't bother to stop, and John didn't either.
"Right." And this time Bernard's voice came from only a few inches away. Karl reluctantly pulled away. Hm, now he had a complex mixture of lemon, cheese, Port, nut, salmon and olive in his mouth. What he needed was another bite of those after-dinner mints because the chocolate taste was fading fast. He peered towards the table.
TBC here: http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=lobelia321&itemid=3089
It features Karl, Bernard and the lovely John Noble.
I hope my attempt to post it here will work.
Title: Olives in Brine and Artichoke Hearts
Series: A follow-up piece to 'Larks and Nightingales'. Stands on its own, though.
Part: 1a/1
Author: Lobelia; lobelia321@aol.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/
Pairing: Karl Urban / John Noble / Bernard Hill
Rating: NC-17
Category: Weird pairings.
Trianne's Category S: "The mysterious, gorgeous one (The one no-one in Europe has ever heard of but will probably bust a gut over when Two Towers is released)"
From the *Trianne Guide to Writing Successful Male on Male Slash*,
http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/triannesguide.html
Warnings/Content: RPS. Middle-aged men up to no good.
Archive: Closer than Brothers. My niche. Anyone else, please just ask.
Feedback: Yes, yes, yes! *Especially* for these weird pairings. Tell me, even if you hate it! (I won't mind; I'm stubbornly committed to these guys.)
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen. No food was genetically modified during the production of this fic.
Summary: Karl wants to taste food. John and Bernard want to taste Karl.
Author's Notes: John and Bernard: who are they? John is Denethor, Bernard is Theoden, pics here: http://www.geocities.com/lobelia321/bernardandjohn.html
Tonnes of thanks and kisses to Gabby who gave the loveliest beta-fb on this!
--------------
Bernard and John were arguing again.
It was their fifth argument around the dinner table, and Karl had stopped listening to them. Bernard and John were always arguing in circles, always disagreeing about the same old things, but always going at it with a strangely intense passion that suggested that there might be something else to all these debates besides the audible exchange of words. Still, Karl didn't know what the something else was, and he wasn't really all that worried about it. All he knew was that he'd just eaten a most wonderful organic meal, courtesy of Bernard, accompanied by the most exquisite Penfold's 1996 Cabernet, and followed up with some gorgeously mellow Port. He felt pleasantly sated, pleasantly light-headed, and just ever so slightly, but also rather pleasantly, peckish.
Karl lifted his glass of Port to his lips, sucked the wine into his mouth and swilled it around a few times before swallowing it. Then he leaned across the table and picked two after-dinner mints out of the carton. He placed them both on his tongue, closed his mouth and waited for the chocolate to dissolve in his saliva. An interesting flavour of peppermint, cocoa and Port spread into the insides of his cheeks. Karl looked around the table for something else to mix with this cocktail of tastes, but just then Bernard nudged him.
"Don't you agree, Karl?"
"What? Sorry, er, I was miles away."
"Karl," repeated Bernard. "Don't you agree that acting for the screen allows for a greater intimacy with the audience?"
"Er, sure. Still on your favourite topic, are you?" Karl's eyes continued to roam across the table, and now he had discovered a twist of lemon lying abandoned on John's dinner plate. "May I?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," John replied distractedly. "But Karl, let me ask you, and I've been trying to drum this into benighted old Bern's head: what about all that rigmarole of filming everything umpteen times? Take one, take two, take bloody three hundred and seventeen. Where's the spontaneity? Where's your precious audience intimacy when you're on take three hundred and seventeen?"
"Hm," said Karl, sucking the lemon until his lips puckered. The zest of citrus combining with the chocolate, the mint and the Port made his gums tingle. "I see what you mean, John, but..."
"Christ, Karl, take that bloody thing out of your mouth, I can barely understand what you're saying."
"Sorry, John." Reluctantly, Karl extruded the lemon from his mouth, not without taking one last bite of the rind. Interestingly, the rind was quite bitter. "What I was going to say, er, was that doing several takes can actually make your performance better."
"Exactly!" cried Bernard. "Thank *you*, Karl! Finally someone who understands screen acting!"
"Oh, bloody marvellous," guffawed John. "Now I've got a Pom and a Kiwi ganging up on me, and both of them total prostitutes to the land of the great white telly! I mean, honest to goodness, Karl, you're not going to tell me that some cheesy gladiator rip-off proves how filming in lots of takes can make your performance better?"
"Er, John. Could I remind you that *Xena* was there first, a long time before *Gladiator*?"
"Yes, yes, but that doesn't change my point."
"What is your point, John?" cried Bernard.
"My point, Bern, my point is that TV makes a complete mockery of everything acting is and can be! TV-- and cinema, for that matter."
"And cinema, John? And cinema? So, why are you on this set, John? Just tell me that."
"Look, Bern, let's not get into that again." John swept his arm through the air, nearly upsetting one of the empty wine bottles in the process.
Karl rescued the bottle just in time. He lifted it, carefully licked the rim of the glass neck and then inserted his tongue into the opening. The droplets of cabernet produced an interesting sensation when infused into the lemon juice still embedded in his taste buds. He tried to stretch his tongue as far as he could into the neck, and it was only then that he noticed the silence.
Karl looked up, tongue still absurdly twisted into the bottle neck.
He saw two pairs of eyes fixed on him. One pair was passionately brooding, the other was piercing and intense.
"Ah, Karl," said Bernard and cleared his throat. "What are you doing there, lad?"
"Er," said Karl and hurriedly set the bottle down at the far end of the table. "Nothing."
"I see," said Bernard, and Karl noticed how Bernard's gaze flickered over to John and back. "Don't mind us, will you, Karl? Here, have another one." And he handed Karl the second empty wine bottle.
"No, no, haha." Karl vaguely waved his hand.
Bernard put the bottle down, looked over towards John again, then back at Karl and smiled a slow smile. "Pity," he said.
Karl wasn't sure what there was to pity. He was just beginning to feel uncomfortable under Bernard's prolonged and piercing gaze when John nodded, touched Bernard on the arm, and the two of them continued their dispute. Seemed to continue it, anyway. If Karl had listened more carefully, he might have detected a new note, a new undertone, creeping into Bernard and John's debate. He might have wondered why their eyes kept returning to him, why their voices became rough around the edges, why they smiled with the corners of their mouths turned down and their eyebrows arching.
Karl, though, noticed none of this. He seized the last wedge of taleggio from the cheese platter and popped it into his mouth. The taleggio was soft and springy, it tasted of goat's arse, and it half-resisted, half-yielded to Karl's teeth in a most satisfying way.
Eating the cheese reminded Karl of something. He closed his eyes for a minute, letting the viscous innards of the taleggio spread around his teeth, curling the tip of his tongue around the pliant, velveteen-like rind. He let his thoughts drift, and then he remembered what the cheese reminded him of. It was his first sexual experience. The taleggio reminded Karl of the night he had lost his virginity.
They'd been eating cheese that night, too; some sort of soft cheese, just like this one, hard outside, soft inside, just like his lover. They'd fed bite-sized chunks of the cheese to each other, inserting them into each other's wet mouths, fishing them out again with their tongues. His lover's skin under Karl's hands had felt like peach skin, or like the softly-furred rind of the taleggio. And their kisses had tasted of goat and cream and lust. And after the kissing, they had done something else. They had rubbed, yes what was it again? That's right-- they had rubbed vanilla custard onto each other's bellies and licked it off. Karl couldn't remember why or how they'd got hold of the custard, only its cool, glutinous texture and its sweet, spry taste.
"Karl? Karl! Isn't that right, Karl?" That was Bernard's voice.
"Sorry, what?" Karl opened his eyes and swallowed the cheese.
"Wouldn't you agree that multiple takes allow you to fine-tune a shot?"
Were they still going on about that? Karl had the vague feeling that he was being used as a counter in some on-going, private game between Bernard and John. However, at the moment he wasn't much bothered because he had spotted a limp rocket leaf on Bernard's plate and sneaked over two fingers to pinch it. Now the rocket added an intriguingly nutty note to the Port, lemon and cheese in his mouth but the chocolate flavour was rapidly disappearing so Karl leaned over and fished two more mints out of the box.
"Karl? Isn't that right?"
"Er, oh, yes, Bernard. With TV, you get a chance to perfect a particular shot."
"And that is just where TV goes wrong!" cried John. "Shots, perfecting, takes -- what garbage! A good actor doesn't need takes to perfect his role; he can do it first off! And a good actor shouldn't think in terms of 'shots', either, but in terms of the whole play, the whole performance in its entirety! Not just the bitty shots and crap you get in TV or cinema!"
"Prove it, John, prove it."
"No, you prove to me, Bern, how your takes and your scenes create that famous audience intimacy you're so fond of praising."
"All right, John. With pleasure, John. Come on, Karl, get up."
"Wha--?" Karl was still munching on a macadamia nut when he was unceremoniously pulled to his feet by his table neighbour.
"Think of a scene, John," urged Bernard. "Think of a scene, and Karl and I will show you what is meant by good screen acting."
"Er," said Karl.
"Don't be churlish, Karl," said Bernard. "You can do this, you've been in enough TV shows. And you love it, I've heard you go on about it. And, John, you know what, Karl here and I, we're going to convince you of screen intimacy. Aren't we, Karl?"
"This is going to be interesting," said John.
John was leaning against the back of the sofa, arms crossed. He had, Karl noticed, a decidedly wicked grin on his face. Not that Karl cared; he was trying to reach around behind Bernard's back and surreptitiously grab another handful of nuts. The nuts added not only a distinctive note to the taste melange in Karl's mouth but also had a crunchy texture which contrasted pleasantly with the limpness of the rocket leaf he'd just eaten.
"So," John went on. "How are we going to fabricate this intimacy then, Bern?"
"The intimacy, John," said Bernard, "arises out of the close-up. It's all very well to go on about using your body on stage but the beauty of screen acting is that the audience gets to see every tiny expression on your face, close up. You've got to activate every muscle, every nerve of your face. And you've got to be subtle about it."
"Let me see." John stroked his chin. "A close-up, eh? I know what. I think we should do a kissing scene. Don't you think we should do a kissing scene, Bern?"
"Kissing's good. Kissing works very well on the small screen. As it does on the big. Isn't that right, Karl?"
"What? We're going to kiss?" Karl was temporarily shocked out of his food reverie.
"Indeed we are, Karl. And Karl: do your best. We want to show this telly-sceptic what mettle we of the screen are made of."
"Did you say we're going to be kissing?"
"Yes, Karl. You've done a screen kiss before, haven't you?"
"Er, but..."
"Good, then. Now, John, you stand over there, in the position of the camera, and when you want us to start, just shout out 'Action'."
"Er," repeated Karl, feeling slightly at sea with the proceedings. He cast a longing glance at the table and moved his tongue nervously around his teeth. Grains of macadamia were still lodged between his molars. He wished for one last drink of Port but then John yelled, "Action!" Before Karl could even catch his breath, Bernard's mouth was on his.
Screen kiss, screen kiss, right. You sort of had to slant your head in a direction away from the camera and jut your chin out at an angle, and you didn't open your mouth, you just sort of sucked lips and moved your head about. He could do this, no sweat. And fucking hell, Bernard sure could. He had his hand at the back of Karl's skull, his eyes closed and his lips palpitating across Karl's. He was even making a low moaning sound in his chest; it was quite extraordinary. Not in a million years would Karl have imagined that an old guy like Bernard could give such an amazing screen kiss.
"Cut!" yelled John.
Bernard moved away. Karl felt almost disappointed. He had caught a faint taste of something on Bernard's lips, just a whiff of-- what? Cigar smoke? Artichoke heart? Karl licked his own lips.
"All right," said Bernard. "That was take one. And now, John, we'll do take two and we'll show you exactly how this can be perfected."
"Hang on," said John, and if Karl hadn't been distracted by the flavour of Bernard's lips quite so much, he might have noticed the lively glint in John's eyes. "Shouldn't you be directing this, Bernard? What's the point in me just standing here?"
"Excellent idea, John. You are right. It's you who's got to be convinced so you should stand here, in my place, and I'll go over there and direct."
Karl shook his head. How much wine had he drunk? Because what Bernard and John had just agreed on didn't seem to make sense to him at all. He opened his mouth to protest but nobody appeared to be very interested in his contribution to the debate so he shut it again. And before he could get his thoughts properly into gear, Bernard had yelled, "Action!" and John's mouth was on his.
Jesus.
"Cut, cut, cut! John, that was *not* a screen kiss! That was using tongues, wasn't it?"
"Sorry, Bern. How would I know? I don't know about the screen. Right, Karl?"
If there was a mocking note in John's voice, Karl wasn't hearing it. He felt vertiginous.
"Karl, you show him how it's done," said Bernard. "All right, everybody. Action!"
Right. Show John how it's done. The problem was that Karl's senses were still reeling from the last kiss. John's mouth had been a kaleidoscope of tastes, Port, of course, and rocket and lemon but also something else, salmon perhaps or olives in brine. Karl was desperate to get another taste of John's tongue. So when John kept his lips primly closed this time, Karl didn't hesitate to push his tongue between them into the delicious moist interior behind.
"Cut!" came Bernard's voice but Karl was so immersed in John's flavours that he didn't bother to stop, and John didn't either.
"Right." And this time Bernard's voice came from only a few inches away. Karl reluctantly pulled away. Hm, now he had a complex mixture of lemon, cheese, Port, nut, salmon and olive in his mouth. What he needed was another bite of those after-dinner mints because the chocolate taste was fading fast. He peered towards the table.
TBC here: http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=lobelia321&itemid=3089