Author's note: This one's for Fabiana Walles.
Silence had installed itself comfortably between the two lovers on the hotel room terrace, the penthouse of course. Verily the only thing between them as they were both buck naked, and it allowed the couple to hear Buenos Aires from below. They found the noise never ceased in this city. This city, too, never slept. Its continuous groans and sighs meant never ending opportunities to blend in with the crowd, if needed, because most often they simply enjoyed the multitude of possibilities in entertainment and culinary delights but sometimes they couldn't afford their actions to attract attention.
Hannibal's hand slowly crossed the distance to his lover's, his fingers moving like a crawfish's legs, until Clarice caught it with her own and smiled while her eyes took in his hand, his wrist, his elbow. She wondered how his skin and muscles belied his actual age. Just like the number of scars he carried belied his nature, the ones on his torso being the only serious ones. She'd spent many thoughts on how she felt about Will's current state, until she realized it didn't matter for anyone but herself. Things are what they are and people are what they are.
Her eyes continued their walk. His belly, moving with each slow, deep breath. His manhood, now at rest. His legs, one tucked under the other. His feet.
Hannibal watched Clarice scrutinize his body. It was a rare occasion that she did. Not that she didn't care about appearance - heaven forbid! - but he'd noticed from the start she looked for more than the mere visual; her eyes tried to dig beyond the skin. She rarely looked at someone for the mere sake of looking. He learned she, too, was looking for drive. And he still delighted she had understood, and accepted, his.
When her eyes wandered back up again, he waited for them to reach his before he smiled. He gently squeezed her hand.
"Tell me something," he said.
Clarice tilted her head slightly.
"Tell you something? Why not ask you something?"
She immediately registered the surprise in him.
"Ask me something?"
"Yes. Sort of 'quid pro quo'. With all the conversations we had I told you more than enough about me, while you told me strictly enough to get to know you. But now I want more. I want to know something about you that... that doesn't affect me, or us. Something trivial."
"I wouldn't want to bore you with something trivial, my love. I could try with something else, though."
"Whether I'm bored or not is not for you to predict. Try me. Something ultimately trivial."
"Hm..."
Hannibal scratched his chin.
"Completely irrelevant, void of any meaning," Clarice warned.
"I think I have something..."
"Okay, go ahead. What is it?"
" Mischa once gave me a notebook. Well, my parents bought it for her, of course, but she gave it to me."
Clarice looked at him expectantly. Hannibal shrugged.
"You wanted something trivial. This is it. She gave me a notebook."
"What did it look like?"
"It had a dark brown cover and brown unruled pages."
"Anything on the cover?"
"Yes. The drawing of a paperclip holding a note. On the note a few words."
"What did it say?"
"Just wish. But one letter was crossed out and replaced by another, changing the meaning of the words to just do."
"So, what did you do with it?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"No. I never wrote a word in it, or a letter. Not even my name."
"Why not?"
Hannibal smiled.
"My mother told me I could use it to write down quotes and aphorisms I liked. Commemorable words."
"I'm sure you came across something you could have noted for later reference. You didn't need the book?"
"Correct, but that's not why I didn't."
Clarice sighed when he didn't explain.
"All right. Why?"
"You do realize you asked for a trivial fact, and now you're asking why?"
"Do you realize the fact you had a reason not to write anything in it, tells me it wasn't a triviality?"
"So we both failed the test."
"Flunked it! Now tell me."
"All right. I didn't write anything in it because that would restrict me. Had I filled it with quotes, aphorisms and pensées from cover to cover, no matter how wise, it would only direct me to the past. It would merely point at what I had already learned. I wanted the opposite. If I kept the notebook empty, all options for the future would remain open. I would keep my future open."
Clarice had to chew on that briefly.
"Not even your name?"
"No. Even that would have limited the options for the future. If you're not going to write down anything, then don't write down anything. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence."
"So the notebook wasn't a trivial item."
"Nothing's ever trivial. Everything matters. Every action has an effect, no matter how small at first. The turn of a page moves air. Your acumen moved me."
Clarice lifted her free hand, turned the palm up, closed all her fingers but her index finger and moved it back and forth.
"Chaos theory. The movement of my finger causes a storm in you."
"I believe in chaos. It's true, my love," Hannibal spoke, and he approached her passionately.
"Oh my God..."