Commentary for Need

[krazykitkat]

As requested by mandysbitch.

I've been reading other people's commentaries, and this is kindergarten in comparison. I can't analyse anything to save my life, I'll never be accused of being deep and meaningful, and I wouldn't know a literary device or convention if I tripped over one. Most of the time I'm not really thinking about why I'm writing what I'm writing. It just happens. I'm sorry I couldn't produce something interesting or illuminating.


TITLE: Need

Me and titles…I hope one day to come up with an amazing title. For now I just try to find something that fits, usually I pull something from the story (hence the ground breaking “Fish, Flies and Showerheads”, but that’s another story).

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This idea has been in my brain for quite a while, lines floating around. Finally pulled it together.
THANKS: To Luna and Angie for editing and support.
SUMMARY: Paper and pen last longer than flesh or mind.

Same with summaries.


She knocks on his door twenty minutes after her father forgets to breathe.

This line floated around in my head for a very long time and I do love it, especially the Alzheimer reference (though I’m never sure whether my allusions stick out like the proverbial sore thumb). I knew that it would be the first line of a story that involved angsty sex, and had some of the images involving Toby’s way of preserving her. But I procrastinated (what a shock!). Until the twins arrived on screen and then it all came together. I suck at analysis. And I really should write more present tense.

The daughter needs to be remembered.

Her words stumble over her lips in their rush to explain and he catches them with his mouth.

She needs a writer to preserve her language.

These lines bug me but I don’t know why (witness the analysis suckage). Particularly ‘catches them with his mouth’. Maybe because it implies that she’s babbling, which to my mind doesn’t really then segue into the roughness.

Hands undo buttons and zippers and pull material up and off and down. Could I get another ‘and’ in that sentence? He raises his hand to slow her, but she's blind. He raises his voice and she stops just long enough for him to guide her to his bed.

She bristles at his attempt to soothe with gentle touches and endearments. He gets the message after a couple of bites and scratches.

Her nails dig into his shoulders and his fingers bruise her ass as she rides him, hard. Tears scald his chest as her mouth contorts in pain.

I seem to have this thing with writing CJ a little rough.

It's been too long and too rough and he comes before she's ready. He bites his tongue, but it isn't enough to cope with her treatment. Throwing her off-balance, he rolls them, pinning her with his weight.

And I do like the more realistic sex.

Her lips curl in frustration and anger, baring her gritted teeth. He presses his fingers hard against her clit and lowers his mouth to her smaller, more sensitive right breast.

I am strangely proud of that reference to her breast.

Working her until her body goes lax, he raises his head and for a moment worries he's killed her. *inappropriate laughter* Her face is blank, her eyes closed.

He only breathes again when her forehead furrows. Her lips form words with no sound.

"What?" he whispers.

Her eyes open, but he knows she doesn't see him. "I'm an orphan."

That came from my mother. When her father died, an aunt mentioned to her that she was now an orphan. We seem to always equate orphans with children. I liked the thought.

He almost smiles at the incongruous image of little orphan CJ. But as he looks down, trying to find her beneath the layer of mourning, he realizes she is smaller somehow.

Maybe her father took a part of her with him when he slipped away.

Maybe she was taller when her mother was alive.

I have no memory of how this came about. It obviously grew from the little orphan CJ image, but I don’t recall whether I struggled with it or it just flowed. Which probably suggests that it more flowed. But that last sentence kills me.

***

He has a metal lock-box in the safe in his home office.

It contains the twins' hats and a lock of Molly's hair (Andi has Huck's; having so little hair to begin with, plus his family history of baldness, he thought it wise they only clip one lock apiece).

The cuteness! And I like the sharing.

And four books of archive-quality acid-proof paper.

One each for the twins and one for Andi, because she is their mother and she was his life once.

I felt a book for Andi/y was important.

CJ will need a second one of her own before too long.

He started writing after her father forgot her name. If the man who was there when she came into the world and watched her grow couldn't remember her, what chance does he have?

That sentence is a bit long and clumsy and probably breaks all sorts of grammatical rules. Talking about rules, I use ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘because’ way too much to start sentences.

So he records memories and conversations and looks and touches on whatever's handy and then transcribes them into the books in indelible ink.

I have a thing for ‘indelible’. Dates back to a forensic science doco, ‘Indelible Evidence’, shown by Quantum when I was in my late teens. Fell in love with the word.

Preserving her and them.

He knows it's an imperfect plan.

So much can't be conveyed through words. And even videotape, photos and flesh couldn't return her to her father's mind.

But it's the little things he's trying to capture: the personal incidences that only mean something to them but are part of their existence.

Because if he doesn't record them and then he forgets or genetics claims her, she'll become a little smaller and she'll eventually slip through his fingers.

Paper and pen last longer than flesh or mind.

I love that section. That’s the crux of the story (and maybe of life).

A whimper pulls his attention back to her body.

Words have always been his chosen medium, but it's times like these he wishes he could draw.

He was also thinking of photographing her, but then realised it could cause a problem when he tried to get the film developed.

Half on her side, half on her stomach, one arm curled under her body and the other reaching. That's the way I usually sleep, except for the reaching. Sometimes for him, other times for something only she knows is missing. Her hair curtaining her face, which he always brushes back behind her ear, so he can see her soft expressions.

But tonight her lips are twitching and her forehead is furrowed. And the skin is pulled tight over her cheekbones.

I’m terrible at writing description or setting a scene. But I like those two paragraphs.

When Huck is restless, he puts his palm on the side of his tiny face.

My mum’s hand on my cheek. Even in more recent times I’ve found it comforting.

Her cheek isn't as smooth or small but his hand is large enough. The death mask smooths out under his touch and her searching fingers locate his heartbeat. And he whispers that he'll never leave her.

I like that first sentence, and the father theme. Not so sure about the death mask.

His index finger and thumb rub together, itching for a pen. But she needs him more.

***

"You called Leo." She's standing in the doorway of his home office, wearing her jeans and one of his dress shirts unbuttoned over her camisole.

Women wearing men’s dress shirts (would've been even nicer without the jeans) - *happy sigh*

He closes her book, hoping the ink doesn't smudge. "We've got a flight at two-thirty."

Her teeth worry her bottom lip and he waits for the yelling.

Kat cliché: lips everywhere demand that some other body part be worried.

"He's letting us both go?"

Leo had surprised him a little, suggesting he go with her before he could say he was taking leave. "Apparently we don't have any more elections to win."

"He does realize that leaves him alone with Josh and the President?" Her fingers play with his shirt cuffs.

"He'll survive."

"But will the country?"

And he knows what she's not saying and he's not biting. "Deal with it."

Her chin drops and her shoulders slump and he's a little scared by the speed of her capitulation. He won't record this moment.

He slides her book under a folder, walks across and leans against the doorframe. She's close enough for him to reach out and touch--her hand, her face.

But he won't.

They don't.

I like this starting from the “Deal with it”. I hope it illustrates their relationship (or at least my vision).

"We'll probably have to share a bedroom." She looks down, pulling at the bottom shirt button. This was the point I got very stuck and Angie had to talk me through it. "Though Hogan might want to share so I don't know--"

"I'll get a motel room." He needs to see her eyes, to make certain she's still there.

"No. Not a motel." The idea sparks surprising fury.

*cringe* Rather unsubtle reference to Marco. Don’t know what I was thinking. And this scene contains nearly all the dialogue in the story and yet it’s mostly inane chatter.

He winces as a thread loosens and places his hand over hers.

She unravels.

More Kat cliché: unravelling, loose threads (and buttons). Probably not surprising that I suck at sewing.

He doesn't have the strength to keep her standing and they slide to the floor, limbs tangling. Her head falls onto his shoulder and her shudders echo through his chest. He's not sure what to do until her first tears soak into his shirt.

He presses his lips against her hair and his palm against her cheek. Rubbing her back in a slow circular motion, he notes the prominence of her spine even through the two layers of material.

I find writing movement extremely difficult (I’d happily just write dialogue), and it always reads as clumsy to me.

She nestles closer, her arms wrapping around him, as her plaintive sobs become audible. He rocks her back and forth and she's never been so delicate. Yet, he knows in a short while she'll stand on her own again. Her resilience has never been in doubt, but he will stay beside her.

Eh. Took a bit of rewriting and I still think it’s rather bad.

And he hopes that someone will catch Molly when she inevitably falls.

But I love the last line, the bookends of fathers and daughters.