Taste
She'd always wanted him to taste her. She had just never realised how much. All of the therapy sessions they had sat through, never had Bedelia realised quite how intensely she had watched her patient's lips as he spoke. How often she thought about his hands on her skin as he ran a long finger around the rim of his wine glass. How curious she was if a kiss would silence him as he spoke at her for a long hour, uncaring as to whether she responded or not.
Curious. How the word had come to haunt Bedelia. How unable she seemed to be to satisfy such a base emotion. At one time or another, too long ago to remember, she imagined she satisfied curiosity by simply putting new objects into her mouth and sucking. How unfair that such a simple action was no longer enough. How unfair, in fact, that there comes an age when putting something into your mouth and sucking often satisfies others far more than it does yourself.
And so Bedelia had grown curious. Everything around her had proved intriguing. Everything warranted exploring. Not that she had ever been an adventuring child. No, she was a voyeur. An observer. When she was very young, she remembered a cat that she would watch hunt in the garden. She would watch it stalk its prey, she would watch as it pounced. She would sit still some distance away as it toyed with the animal in its claws, before slinking away, bored with its prize. And then Bedelia would move closer, close enough to watch the wounded animal's laboured breathing. And then, out of curiosity, she would watch as it fought and then succumbed to death. Never would she herself have committed such an act of violence. But she could never interfere. Bedelia was a victim to her own curiosity.
Her adulthood had provided her with a stability strong enough to fight her curiosity. She had saved patients when her curiosity screamed at her to observe their deaths. Yet, it seemed she was still too fragile to resist Hannibal Lecter.
Bedelia Du Maurier had wanted few men in her life. Few women also. Even the most complex, those who intrigued her impossibly, could often be read within hours, and she would return home alone, reminded of the simplicity that the majority aspired for. And yet, Hannibal was different. It helped, perhaps, that he was also a psychiatrist. It helped, perhaps, that he was highly cultured. But it was the suit that helped most of all. The person-suit. The feeling he gave her that he was not fully human. That as hard as he tried, as many instruments he learnt and as many dishes he cooked, he could only ever pass for half-human. What lurked beneath Hannibal Lecter's exterior was not human simplicity, but an otherworldly danger that both simultaneously scared and aroused his psychiatrist. In her most passionate dreams, she felt his hands on her neck, tender yet choking. His mouth on hers, her own blood on her tongue as he bit her lips.
She wanted to say she had been forced to Florence, yet if that was true, it was by no-one but herself. She could not let Hannibal leave without sating her curiosity. Who was he, really? What did he truly want? She needed other needs sating also. Would a kiss silence him? How would his lips feel pressed against her neck? Would his touch burn as badly as she wanted it too? How would he say she tasted?
She kissed him many times in Florence, and indeed it did seem to silence him. He pressed his lips to her neck firmly every night, in the grip of forceful passion. His fingers felt every inch of her being, their marks she felt permanently burnt into her skin. And he tasted her again and again.
But never did Bedelia think the last time would be on the end of his fork.