Lily
She touched each glass bottle as it glowed in the afternoon sunlight. Victor watched as her fingertip rubbed and stroked each oblong oval and each extended neck, each bottle, one after the other.
Methodical, he thought, fighting to suppress a pleased grin.
She wants to understand everything. She, his Lily, wanted to know everything there was to know. He could image her head bent in concentration as she assisted him with one of his experiments.
Her name in his mouth was a pledge, and when her mouth parted in charming mimicry to repeat it he felt himself come undone. His heart was beating like a bell tolling in a belfry.
Victor can see the cracks of recollection cloud her present mind. "Is this how you remember me?" she asks, her crooked grin hypnotizing him. "Did we grow up together? Were we close?"
"The closest of comrades," he tells her. He does not have to imagine hard to conjure the past he tells her they shared. He can see her hair long and flaxen, curled like a ribbon down her back as they chased each other across a vast expanse of green grass. Her white dress already badly stained, and his knees scrapped raw.
"We were pirates on the Spanish Main," he continues, watching as her eyebrow curves up above the shell of her closed eyelid. "Conquistadors exploring the New World."
"Chasing savages across an open prairie?" She inquires. Victor can see the spark of something familiar breaking into her curiosity. He can see the memory of Ethan Chandler sparking somewhere deep in her mind, and he steers the conversation in a different direction.
"There were thunderstorms." His hands brush across the rope of her wet hair; his fingertips grazing the hairline where her silken skin begins along her forehead. "You were always afraid." She tugs at his hand to keep it cupped against the side of her face. "You used to come to my room… climb into my bed." She moves his hand farther across her own face, letting him map her, and takes his thumb into her mouth. "We clung together," his words come out as hissing breaths, "All night. The sky at once… deep black… and then… filled with light... such brilliant light."
"You didn't let me go?" She confirms, the memory as new to her as it is to him.
"Never," he tells her. He moves from behind her when she takes his hand to slide it down her neck. His palm grazing the incision scar across her chest before she pulls it under her shirt to let him cup her breast.
"Tell me more?" She begs.
Suddenly he's uncertain. "Lily…"
She holds his hand tightly against her. Out of sight, but under his hand he can feel her nipple harden.
"You love me." She is staring deep into his eyes now.
She stands, startling him. "Lily…"
"I remember," she pleads. He stiffens. "I remember loving you." Her smile is wistful. "But I think," she raises herself on tip toe to kiss him softly against his jaw line, "that you were the one scared of the thunderstorms."
Victor laughs, despite himself. His hands go to her shoulders, at once holding her close and pulling her back. "We need to finish. Your hair is wet, you'll catch a chill."
"Tell me more?" Her mouth moves to his chin, her tongue trailing tiny circles until her mouth reaches his earlobe.
He cannot stop his hand from going to her hip, feeling that soft forbidden curve of a woman's body that he has never touched.
Victor wonders how much of her actions are a ghost of her former life. Did she kiss other men like this in dark alleys? Did she speak so softly into other ears?
"You were so incurable," he goes on, trying to form her character in the hazy muddling that she was causing in his brain. She giggles, huskily, repeating the newness of another word. "You would…" his sigh turns to a hiss as her mouth moves to his neck. "…Steal pies from the window sill as they cooled… and—oh god— catch frogs and garden snakes… put them… in… dresser drawers or… under pillows."
She kneels before him, rubbing her cheek against his visible erection. "Tell me more?" She whispers. Her fingers nimbly peel away the buttons that separate his body from hers.
"Lily… We have to stop."
She opens her mouth and takes the tip of his penis between her lips. Victor shutters and has to fight to brace himself or else fall over. She pulls him into her mouth deeper, and he gasps. "Lily…" His hand cups the back of her head as she pulls back, releasing his erection to squirm plaintively against her neck.
"Did we do this before the accident?"
"No," he says desperately.
She appeases him and takes him back into her burning mouth.
He can feel her pout from his silence and he tries with great concentration and difficulty to tell her the details that she so desperately wants.
"You were so… charming—oh—that all of mothers friends—oh god—couldn't help but love you, even—huuh—when you were… acting… horrible." He grips the back of her neck harder. "I remember you—oh—got away with everything no matter—oh—how—oh—terrible it—oh—was." Her tongue circles the throbbing head of his erection. "Fuck!" he yelps. "Lily—I—can't." He shivers. His whole body breaking out into gooseflesh as he releases himself into her mouth. He can feel the redness creep up against his face in shame. "I…" She stops him with her smile against his skin.
"I feel safe with you," she confesses. "I remember feeling safe with you. I know you won't hurt me."