hands

Her hand had been well-tended, was slender, beautiful in age with its careful veins arching gracefully over the standing tendons. Diamonds hung loosely in the worn metal of their settings. They drifted around the slimness of her fingers in circles of endearment that young lovers could not possibly know.

His fingers were softened with age, but they were still squared with his ambition, still strong enough to clasp a mistress. Still greedy enough to ruin other men's reputations, ruin lives with no more thought than they would swat a mosquito. Perhaps less.