At his palatial home in Roland Park, Hannibal examines his face in the mirror above the marble wash basin. Plumes of fragrant steam lick at the lower edge of the glass; the water within the basin is scented with tincture of Provence lavender and eucalyptus.
He runs a hand smoothed with oil over the stubble that emerges on his chin and cheeks. He's whetted the straight razor, shined it on a leather strop that now swings from the basin, lending its dark scent to the ambient fragrance of the room.
Breathing in deeply, he poises the razor's edge parallel to the line of his cheekbone. Hannibal has not cut himself while shaving in two decades.
Today: the third appointment with his Nameless Man. Despite an earnest line of questioning during their first session, he doesn't care about Francis Dolarhyde's grandmother. She is artifice. Had Dolarhyde come in with her overreaching shadow as the primary complaint, Hannibal would have been tempted to write him off the typical garden-variety mistreated child. The ill-favored get of yet another holy-rolling sexual sadist.
Tedious.
And Freudian, Heaven help them both. Were Hannibal capable of embarrassment, he might have been humiliated by proxy at the clunking, indelicate lump of a dream that Dolarhyde had brought to him during their last meeting. Therein, as expected, had been laid bare by almost all measures an elementary, dissectible subconscious. The nurturing/tormenting mother figure as the whip under which he trembles. The unattainable, in the form of the beautiful woman. Simplistic to the point of engendering boredom.
(If Hannibal dreams, he does not remember them.)
And yet with Dolarhyde there had been a sort of dark shifting—some surreptitious rearrangement—around the appearance of the co-worker in the dream. He had said that the co-worker had fallen again while his dream-self watched, and had appeared almost glad at succumbing to the fall. Then, the treading on human heads rising from the blood-gorged stream. Something was inverted there, a manipulation of guilt the outline of which Hannibal was beginning to pick out. It all led back to the nebulous reason why Dolarhyde was drawn to contact him in the first place.
Perhaps this time he will pry for further details of the accident. Should he judge Dolarhyde unready, he may ask him to speculate on the role of the dragon-mountain in his dream.
Hannibal runs the bright blade through the water in the basin. Dark hairs fall away and settle at its nadir.
This morning: it is time he sees his own psychiatrist, Dr. Bedelia DuMaurier. She is indulgent to a point, allowing him to talk of difficult patients under the aegis of her sworn clinical silence. Bedelia: born in Connecticut to old money, with the sometimes pandering stoicism of the rich. She has no need to do the job she does, but she does it well. In the fissures between talk of patients, she is able to tease out aspects of Hannibal's underlayer. He does not deny her this gift.
However, she does remain segregated in a suite of rooms in his mind palace. She may come and go in comfort with the illusion of liberty. Comfort, for most, serves as a viable substitute for freedom.
Over a breakfast of savory kidney slices on good ciabatta, Hannibal reads the Baltimore Sun on his iPad Air. His lips compress into a tight line when he comes across an editorial written by Samy Prashad. The brash freshman city council member had based his campaign the prior year upon slashing the city's cultural arts budget in favor of funneling money toward the police force, and is still declaiming as loudly as ever on the subject. Hannibal frowns and clicks the screen over to black.
In an acknowledgement of professional equality (Hannibal assumes), unlike her other patients he meets Bedelia at her home, a stately Colonial just past the Beltway in Towson.
She greets him at the door with a demure, "Good morning, Hannibal."
A smile twitches in the corner of Hannibal's mouth. Bedelia DuMaurier is anything but demure. It is her front, or at least the most evolved of many. Hannibal delights in evoking her more obscure personae. He suspects strongly that there is no "real" Bedelia—only a choreographed aggregation of shifting masks. Learned behavior, less so for men than for women, who are taught to conceal desire and distaste with equal effort.
It is such that Hannibal knows: somewhere within her matrix Bedelia despises him. She is victim, predator, child, benefactor...but never fool.
It is also such that he might pity her, had he a sense of what pity is beyond its social construct. Still, it is an abstraction he wields deftly enough as to make it indistinguishable from truth. That which is superficial is rendered foundational by the standards of politeness, which is why Hannibal and Bedelia are able to continue their cordial probing. Whether or not he was at this very point last week slicing the lids from the eyes of an insolent tailor's apprentice is irrelevant.
That gives Hannibal comfort. He can, such as it is, be himself.
I am that I am.
He smiles without showing his teeth. "Good morning, Bedelia."
"Will you have coffee?" she asks.
"Please." He seats himself in the chair she typically occupies during their sessions, just to gauge her reaction. Predictably, there isn't one.
She sets the coffee on the table between them, sits, and inclines her head. "During our last session, we spoke about constancy. Not in the sense of that which is faithful, but that which is enduring."
"Specifically," Hannibal says, "the semantic difference between endurance and stasis."
"Only semantic?" Bedelia asks. "You didn't seem to think so last week."
"Theologically speaking, yes. From the Neo-Christian point of view, certainly."
"I didn't peg you for the peace-and-love type, Hannibal."
"Progressive religion is faith at its most insidious," says Hannibal, baiting.
Bedelia plays her part. "Do tell."
"The faithful expect constancy from their god, who expects constancy of them."
"Not of action, surely," says Bedelia.
"No, our little congregants have evolved long past that," Hannibal says. "They expect only constancy of attention. The universe need only be as responsive as it always has been."
"Which is to say 'not at all?'"
Hannibal smiles. "Who am I to pass judgment on the miraculous?"
"You are someone who doesn't believe in the miraculous."
"Miracles are change writ large."
"So they violate constancy."
"And by that logic change is a vice and stasis a virtue," Hannibal says.
"Only if you consider stasis and endurance interchangeable."
"In order to have faith, you must," he says.
Bedelia holds her coffee cup so the rim rests just below her lower lip. "So the constancy which God expects from us is itself constantly being violated."
"Which," Hannibal says, "by definition makes us miraculous."
"You have no interest in change," Bedelia says.
"As a psychotherapist, I have an interest in engendering change."
"At least you're not playing God."
"I am playing nothing."
Bedelia only shakes her head. "You're always playing something."
"I can only be that which is my essence," he tells her.
"Is this therapy or philosophy, Hannibal?"
"The two are indistinguishable."
"No," says Bedelia. "One involves truth."
Later, at the end of the session, as Hannibal is donning his overcoat, he asks Bedelia, "I wonder if you would accompany me to the Symphony Gala tomorrow evening." He is not, of course, speaking of the public gala, which takes place each October. This is a much more intimate affair, open only to top-echelon donors. White tie, four thousand dollars per plate, no media allowed. Silent auction items often include Harry Winston jewelry, Maserati coupes. A couple of years ago, the proprietorship of an entire hotel was on offer. As Hannibal recalls, a hedge fund manager picked it up for a thrifty fourteen million.
He knows she will decline, but he asks in any case. Bedelia is a beautiful woman, and Hannibal likes to surround himself with beautiful things.
As expected, she says, "I don't think that's a good idea."
He cannot help but goad her just a little. "Are you afraid it will test the boundaries of our patient-psychiatrist relationship?"
"Those boundaries are already tenuous. I'd rather they weren't more so."
"I understand."
"Do you?" she asks.
Hannibal leaves it at that, tipping the brim of his wool felt hat at Bedelia as she closes the door behind him.
Because of the nature of their relationship, he does not see her demurral as rejection, though he does field a polite rejection of any offer as he would anything else: with grace and deference. Truth be told, he would have been disappointed had Bedelia accepted. The dynamics of their interactions are too rarefied to be spoiled by any other brand of intimacy.
A chill is in the air as he opens the door to his dark blue Bentley Mulsanne and settles into the cool leather seat. He flips on the warming function. Hannibal is a man who dislikes discomfort, though he will, on occasion, suffer it for the sake of interest. He has just enough time to take an early lunch at home before Dolarhyde's therapy session at one o'clock.
He parks in the small private drive behind his home on Asphodel Street then removes his driving gloves and replaces them with slick navy kidskin. Hannibal eschews early-generation biometrics and instead has a keypad at his door. Five numbers: the birth date of his sister, Mischa.
The heavy iron AGA has already warmed the kitchen when he arrives. He has hung his coat and hat in the discreet closet by the door. From the stainless steel refrigerator he removes half of a rump roast studded with spiny cloves. The skin has crackled and pulled away like a dry creekbed, revealing the succulent fat underneath. Fat is the source of all flavor for meat, and those who pare it away do a disservice to the taste, in Hannibal's eminently informed opinion.
With a carving knife finer-edged than his shaving razor, he cuts two thick slices to pan-fry, rendering some of the fat and lending a bit of browning to the rare heart of the meat. He's prepared a brandy-lingonberry sauce and will have his meal served over charred endive.
The roast is, of course, the last vestige of the tailor's apprentice, who was taken without much fuss from the street near his unsavory studio flat after having twice intentionally foisted off poor stitching on Hannibal. There would not be a third time. The boy had no reverence for his handiwork, and was therefore given a demonstration of a craft well executed. The eyelids went first, not to force him to see but to blind in a wash of blood, as he had already witnessed his own inattention to detail and had chosen to ignore it. Twice.
After that, the fingers, each by turn. Hannibal will admit a certain affinity for the dramatic, and though a butcher's cleaver would have lent a certain panache to the removal, he often finds joy in the understated efficiency of a good pair of gardener's shears. He'd also intended to take the tongue, but the boy bit half of it off in the process.
Replete with the memory of the kill as well as its savory result, Hannibal guides the Bentley back to his office in Bolton Hill. He has given himself a half hour to look over his notes before Dolarhyde arrives. This patient, at least, is always punctual—something that Hannibal appreciates.
He seats himself at the desk with his notebook in front of him, paring paper-thin slivers from the point of a graphite drawing pencil with the AliMed titanium scalpel he keeps in his first desk drawer. From the lower drawer, he draws out a Waterford faceted decanter half-filled with Warre's Tercentenary port wine, 1970 vintage, and pours two fingers.
At the click of a button on a small remote at his left hand, the first vocal strains of Thomas Tallis's Dum transisset sabbatum rise from the Blaupunkt sound system, identical to that which Hannibal has installed in his home. The acoustics of his office lend themselves to vocal pieces, polyphony especially—deep basso profundo roiling like a miasma at his feet; the bell-clear bulge of tenor and alto straining against the walls, drawing his attention upward to the library level, where soprano and countertenor conduct their reedy courting. The sound cradles him by its avoidance of his body, skirting him, encapsulating him. Those who observe him, in whatever rudimentary manner they may have opportunity to do, would say that Hannibal is a creature of mind. More content to walk the halls of his own inner chateau than he truly is to poke around in the limited domiciles of others, whatever his business cards may say. This is not an untruth. Not necessarily.
But he is Epicurean in the truest sense and therefore also firmly grounded in the physical. Just as he sits in the womb of the music, so he also sits in his own flesh, feeling the pressure of one knee against the opposite calf where his legs are crossed. Feeling the leather of his chair bearing him up, pressing the fine scratch of good merino through the silk lining of his trousers and into his skin. The cool, diamond-shaped grit of the scalpel handle between his thumb and forefinger. Crisp Egyptian combed cotton at his cuffs, the intrusion of the cufflinks against the tender nock below the heel of his hand.
As the voices shudder and soar, as his waistcoat buttons creak, Hannibal executes within his mind an anatomical study of Francis Dolarhyde.
He is typically uninterested in the travails of those who are superficially scarred. In these cases the flesh informs the personality. It is mundane at best, puerile at worst. He puts much more stake in how the mind of the disfigured has informed his body.
Here, the obvious pursuit of physical perfection to spite a wounded face. And not only of physical but of masculine perfection as compensatory reaction to belittlement on the part of the formative female authority figure.
Hannibal pictures Dolarhyde laid out in repose, as if sleeping. Not dead—that is a different sort of aesthetic. For the sake of the mental exercise, Hannibal prefers to imagine his chest gently rising and falling, the air around him blood-warm so as not to raise even a prickle of gooseflesh.
He is, for all intents and purposes, a slab of muscle. Rounded biceps shot through with visible veinwork, taut abdominals and strung trapezius. The feet are broad but high-arched, almost certainly the product of having been shoved into too-small shoes as a child. His hair is lighter, so the down that covers his lower legs is not wiry, dense, or dark.
The same is not so for his pubic hair. Hannibal, clinically but not with disinterest, wonders how many hands—including Dolarhyde's own—have held the heavy penis that rests now against the muscled thigh. Dolarhyde is circumcised, but of course he would be. Anything else would be unclean. Certainly the grandmother's hands are among those that have touched him; during their last session, Dolarhyde divulged (not without a great deal of muttering and picking at the skin of his fingers, dry scraps of which fell into the creases of his plain work trousers) that once when he was a child she had threatened to cut it off with a pair of sewing scissors.
That, Hannibal can affirm, is something that he has never done to any one of his victims. The ancient Chinese ate hŭ biān, tiger's penis, for its supposed medicinal effects, but he himself has no interest in the organ as a gastronomical delicacy. He much prefers to enjoy it intact.
As part of his thought experiment, Hannibal imagines there, at the juncture of Dolarhyde's legs, the musk of the male sex. He imbues the conjured scent with the olfactory profile he had made of Dolarhyde when he first entered his office. It is a satisfactory fit. In his mind's eye, Hannibal traces the ridges of the hip bones, the narrow waist, the rapid broadening of the chest, lightly furred, not bare like a youth's.
The hands are capable, if somewhat rough. Hannibal envisions the neck, the strong jaw, and then...ah, yes. His shame. The still-angry hue of the perpendicular scar, set askance from the philtrum, interrupting the line of the lip at its lower border. It gives Dolarhyde a permanent sneer, something that is belied by the almost cherubic cast of the remainder of his face. At least now, as he rests. There is something of the feminine in it, though Dolarhyde would likely object violently to the comparison: darkly cleft, vulvar, obscene. That is not Hannibal's intent, nor is it his true perception as someone who is patently unaccustomed to associating femininity with weakness or profligacy.
Now, pinned to this mental display board, Dolarhyde cannot raise his broad hand to hide his scar. Hannibal traces the dusky line of it, feels the saliva-limned edge of one of the resin teeth of his bridge, probes the knotted trail where the ruptured halves of the palate are joined.
Cherubini's Requiem in C minor begins, the voices soft.
Satisfied as he is with his presence in his own body and the inherent falsehood of a mental-physical dichotomy, Hannibal does not need to try to divorce himself from the sensation of exploring Francis Dolarhyde's body. It brings him intellectual pleasure; it brings him physical pleasure. The eidolon of Dolarhyde he now looks at rests on its stomach, head turned to one side, only the whole and uninterrupted portion of the mouth showing. Hannibal shifts in his chair, uncrossing his legs.
He goes on to examine the whorls of hair below the ears, the long, black lashes. He scents the axilla, picking up the chemical smells of cheap antiperspirant, but is on the whole unbothered by the discovery. This Dolarhyde, his face half-hidden in the crook of his arm, looks contented.
Hannibal on principle refuses to conjure any salacious telltales of abuse on Dolarhyde's bare skin—whip-marks, cigarette burns—regardless of whether or not they exist. For now his back is broad and unblemished. In his mind, Hannibal elongates the shadows below his scapulae into baroque and bruise-dark swirls. A pattern of emergent inner torment rather than outer. The tenebrae take on shapes of wings, of horns, cupping the lines of muscle—deltoid, teres major, latissimus dorsi, gluteus.—as might a hand. Gentle, guiding, paving the way for deeper prodding.
A body, a mind: cut from quite the same cloth.
His reverie is interrupted by the buzz of the intercom. Hannibal reaches for the glass at his right hand to find it untouched; the meniscus of the amber liquid quavers with his movement.
He touches a button underneath the desk. "Just a moment, Mr. Dolarhyde, if you please."
When Dolarhyde comes in, he stoops, as if being taller in Hannibal's presence is an embarrassment. "I'm early. I didn't know whether you had another patient before…" he trails off.
"As luck would have it, you're my only patient today."
Dolarhyde nods. He looks past Hannibal's shoulder to see the decanter and the glass on the desk.
"Do you drink, Mr. Dolarhyde?"
"Not really." His brow is furrowed; he clutches his hat.
"I don't mean to imply anything," Hannibal says. "I was partaking when you came in. It appears you've caught me out."
"I can come back…"
"I'd like to invite you to join me."
Dolarhyde blinks in shock.
"We'll call it 'therapeutic,'" Hannibal says.
"No, thank you," Dolarhyde says. Then, abashed, he adds, "I'm going to work."
"Of course." He gestures to the chair, and they take their accustomed places. Hannibal fields a small frisson of pleasure in remembering having taken Bedelia's chair earlier that morning. It is not quite time to subject Dolarhyde to that peculiar uncertainty, though Hannibal will not brook much more talk of the grandmother. "So you do drink on occasion?" he asks.
"Yes," says Dolarhyde. He pauses. "Wine."
"Do you remember what we spoke about last session?"
"My dream."
"Have you dreamed since?"
There is a slight but detectable hesitation. "No."
"Have you heard anything more with regard to you co-worker? Andy?"
Dolarhyde looks at the floor. "He's still in a coma."
"Do you think he'll wake?" Hannibal asks.
"I don't know."
"What will happen when he does?"
Now, there—the panicked look.
"What will you feel?" Hannibal asks.
"Happy for his family."
"His family," Hannibal echoes. "But you don't have a family, do you, Mr. Dolarhyde?"
"Grandmother—"
"No." Hannibal cuts him off. "We won't talk about your grandmother today."
Dolarhyde looks chastened.
Hannibal changes tack, softens his tone. "I would rather talk about you. You without her."
"I am no one. In my head." It is said with a dolorous matter-of-factness, yet even within it there is a sort of half-accusation, a callback.
Hannibal suppresses a smile. Dolarhyde is not incapable of turning Hannibal's words around to suit his own ends. "I suggest, rather, that you are many things," he says.
Dolarhyde gives no response.
"You read philosophy, don't you, Mr. Dolarhyde?"
"Some."
"Do you know the work of Ibn-Sinā, called Avicenna?"
Dolarhyde shakes his head.
"His inquiry, as is the wont of any human mind, was made into the nature and question of existence. Avicenna put forth that there are three types of being: the impossible, the contingent, and the necessary. The impossible being is that which cannot exist. The necessary being is that which exists by its own virtue, or due to itself as a cause. The contingent being, however, before actuation, is in a state of potentiality. That is to say, it can either be or not be, dependent on inner or outer forces. Do you understand?"
Dolarhyde nods.
Though he is not certain of comprehension, Hannibal continues. "He used the idea of the necessary being, as something that causes cause, in his argument for a creator god. I would prefer to use it to refer to the self. When I said during our first session that you were no one, I meant—" he stops to allow Dolarhyde to expound.
The pause is excruciating, almost tempting Hannibal to change tack again.
Then, Dolarhyde speaks. "You meant...I was no one yet."
"Just so," says Hannibal. "You are that contingent being. Able to exist entirely through outside forces and entirely through inner forces without contradiction."
"There is…" Dolarhyde pauses to sound out the word, "contradiction."
"Yes, for now. Beyond the dependence of infancy, self as we know it is a choice. Not to choose is to be buffeted by many winds, endlessly."
"What am I choosing?" There is hope in the tone.
"The necessary being," Hannibal says. "The benefit of infancy is also blamelessness. The contingent being does not have that advantage, whether he makes a choice or not. The uncommitted are punished for their indecision simply by virtue of leaving infancy. Do you understand?"
"I think so."
"Choice entails the possibility for both active virtue and active sin. Do you believe in sin, Mr. Dolarhyde?"
Dolarhyde only avoids Hannibal's eyes.
"Do you believe in God?"
"No."
"Good. Nor do I," says Hannibal. "Of course, if we are still evoking Avicenna's worldview, the highest virtue is that which is closest to the necessary being, that is to say: God himself. But, as you well know, God isn't very kind, and that is—suffice to say—the least of his deficits."
"He isn't just?" Dolarhyde asks.
"He isn't consistent," counters Hannibal. "Delivers his people unto freedom one day only to lead them to slaughter the next. What does that suggest?"
"There is no God."
"Or, alternately, that he is a morally inferior model for high virtue. So, in a godless world, what would be the superior model for virtue?"
Dolarhyde blinks.
Once again, as Hannibal is on the cusp of disappointment, Dolarhyde speaks.
"Myself," he says.
Hannibal smiles, indulgent. "The self. Of course."
"But I don't know who that is."
"Let's look at your dream. All of those images, let's assume that each is a part of you. Which one would you call the impossible being?"
Dolarhyde answers right away. "The woman."
Hannibal shakes his head. "Your grandmother. She has already existed and has ceased to do so. She is impossible."
Before him, Dolarhyde clenches his fists.
"We know that you are the contingent being. Now: which is the necessary being?" Hannibal sits back, fingers steepled, waiting. He is pleased to see the daybreak of comprehension across Dolarhyde's face.
"The...dragon?"
Hannibal nods. "That which exists due only to itself. Before me you rightly tremble."
"I understand," says Dolarhyde.
"And who is Andy? Your co-worker?"
Dolarhyde's eyes go wide.
"He is merely the catalyst," Hannibal says, giving the words a soothing tone. Another day, then. They have so much time.
"And the woman? Who is she?" asks Dolarhyde. His expression is earnest to the point of pleading.
"You tell me."
Very quietly, his eyes clouded with nascent tears, Dolarhyde says, "Hope."
As they stand following the end of the session, Hannibal says, "Until you decide what you'd prefer, I'd like to call you 'Francis.' Would you allow that?"
A nod.
"I'd also like you to call me 'Hannibal,' if you can."
Francis nods again.
"Very well, then. I'll see you next week, Francis."
Nodding a third time, he steps outside and pulls the door closed behind him.
Moving soundlessly on the carpet, Hannibal walks to his desk. A tap of the remote button and Allegri's Miserere filters into the cool silence. Evaporation has left a thin crust of port wine sugar around the inner rim of the glass. Hannibal picks it up, swirls the liquid, and sips. Leaving it uncovered, exposed to the charged air of his office, has brought out notes of cherry and of hardwood that splash across his palate. His senses are full of the wine. His hand, though they never touched, smells to him like Francis's skin.
The young valet at the Armoury takes Hannibal's key with polite efficiency. Quiet, dependable, discreet staff is a prerequisite at the club, considering its typical clientele. Tonight, the neo-Medieval structure plays host to the Donors' Society Symphony Ball.
Before the open gates, on the finial pedestals of which sit stone lions each bearing a shield embossed with the Cross of St. George, Hannibal adjusts his cuffs, his white silk bow tie. He has chosen the tatsu cufflinks tonight—engraved white gold—which belonged to his uncle.
The ring-shaped forecourt has at its center a marble fountain with the Tree of Life as its motif. The water still burbles over carven leaves as the temperature has not yet dipped below freezing this autumn.
Another tacit attendant takes Hannibal's overcoat of slate-gray virgin wool as he enters what used to be an estate gifted to a son-by-marriage of the famed Carroll family. It boasts the requisite two-story entryway, graced with a Schonbek La Scala crystal chandelier. A woman in her forties wearing a strapless green gown looks him over and then turns away to speak to her dinner companion, a portly, bearded man in a tailcoat. Hannibal is mildly surprised to see that the woman sports a small tattoo on her left shoulder blade.
He takes a flute of champagne from a butler's enameled tray and walks behind the Grand Staircase to the ballroom beyond, from which emerges a tapestry of voices as understated as the noise of the fountain. As he is customarily early, Hannibal sees the ensemble is still getting settled. He is pleased to see that it is the premier chamber group from the Peabody School, called Orfeo, though one of the violists has been replaced by a woman he does not know.
"Dr. Lecter," comes a warm baritone from over his shoulder.
Hannibal turns to see Darius Paget, the president of the Donors' Society.
"So glad you were able to join us," says Paget, his bald pate shining in the golden light from the wall sconces.
"I wouldn't miss it," says Hannibal.
"And where is your date this evening?"
"My friend, unfortunately, had a prior commitment."
Paget claps him on the shoulder. "I quite liked the woman you brought last year. I assume it didn't work out."
Hannibal's date to the gala the prior year had been a visiting scholar to Johns Hopkins, lecturing in Near East politics. She had been as lively in the lecture hall as she had been unenthused and immobile in bed. Hannibal prefers his sexual partners be energetic and receptive. "She, alas, returned to her post in Toronto," he says.
Paget winks. "A shame. Well, perhaps you'll find some company here tonight." He turns to go.
"Just a moment," Hannibal says. "Can you tell me who the second violist is? I'm afraid I don't recognize her."
"I don't know her, either. Charlotte, I'm sad to say, was in a rather severe accident. They say she may never play again."
For no reason that he can name, Hannibal summons an image of Francis Dolarhyde's co-worker, lying in his hospital bed surrounded by beeps and clicks that sound like the music of madness. A rich C from the cello splits the air and words around the room falter for a moment, breaths held, expectant.
"I'm terribly sorry to hear that," Hannibal says.
Paget gestures toward a corner of the room with his meaty hand. "We're taking donations for her recovery fund, if you'd like to contribute."
"I certainly will."
Standing by the table indicated by Paget is a tall and very slim man. Instead of a bow tie he wears a thin silk scarf draped over the collar of his tuxedo jacket. Unlike most of the other men in the room, he has neglected to shave for the occasion, and sports a short salt-and-pepper scruff of beard. His hair is going gray in small, aristocratic wings at his temples. The man smiles slightly, inclining his head in Hannibal's direction.
Hannibal nods in return.
Paget has seen the look pass between them. He gives Hannibal a small salute and turns, melting into the growing crowd.
The musicians begin with Schubert's quintet in C. An interesting choice, Hannibal thinks. As it turns out, the new violist is quite the virtuoso, but she plays like a soloist rather than riding the currents of the ensemble. The effect is jarring to Hannibal's keen ear. He stands, brows furrowed, watching the girl's fingers travel over the strings just a split second in advance of those of her counterpart.
He has nearly finished his champagne when he catches a scent of cologne. If he is correct—and he is rarely mistaken—Annick Goutal's Eau d'Hadrien.
A voice, accented with the soft tones of southern central England, speaks next to his shoulder. "How do you get two violists to play in tune with one another?"
Hannibal turns to see the tall, slim man with whom he'd made eye contact earlier in the evening. He arches an eyebrow. "Kill one of them."
The man smiles. "Now, you see, you've spoiled my joke."
"Am I correct?"
"You are," he says, and puts out a long-fingered hand. "Anthony Dimmond."
Hannibal takes the hand, which is cool and dry, introducing himself. "Would that be the Anthony Dimmond of Dimmond and Wellesley?" he asks. Dimmond is half of a partnership that brokers fine art in the city. Hannibal has purchased two of the pieces he keeps in his home from Eugene Wellesley.
"The very same."
"So your artistic appreciation extends beyond the visual?"
"The arts are," Dimmond says, chuckling at his own joke, "best enjoyed in concert, I find. Though I couldn't tell you what they're playing. As you may be able to guess, I'm relatively new to the symphony scene."
"This is Mozart's quintet in D major," Hannibal says. "A popular piece."
"Perhaps you can be my guide through these uncharted waters."
"I do a good deal of guiding by profession."
"What do you do, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I am a psychiatrist."
"Oh, dear," says Dimmond. "Should I expect my brain to be picked apart mercilessly?"
"You'd have to see me during office hours," says Hannibal, giving a slim smile.
"Would you be so good as to join me in another drink?" Dimmond asks.
"Certainly."
From the bar, Hannibal orders the Pommery Cuvée Louise. Dimmond chooses a Macallan 25-year aged whiskey. The chamber ensemble has moved on to Bartók's String Quartet No. 5. Hannibal clicks the rim of his flute against Dimmond's tumbler.
"Is that Clive Christian you're wearing?" Dimmond asks.
"It is. I'm surprised you could make out the top notes over the Goutal."
Dimmond gives an embarrassed laugh, running his thumb over his bottom lip. "I do have a terrible habit of using more than is called for."
"Not at all," says Hannibal. "I merely have a sensitive nose."
"Eau d'Hadrien is quite...singular, I admit. I'd even say a bit brash."
"As was its namesake."
"Did you know," Dimmond says, "Hadrian had his lover, Antinous, deified following his death? He was said to have had the most beautiful buttocks in the kingdom."
Hannibal raises his eyebrows. His suspicion is more than confirmed; Dimmond is flirting. "Not that Hadrian was partial."
Dimmond raises his glass.
A smattering of laughter breaks out in the corner of the room, momentarily overpowering the low strains of the quintet.
Both Hannibal and Dimmond look over, but it is only Hannibal who recognizes the central figure of the group. Samy Prashad.
His eyes go hard; Dimmond must notice.
"Do you know him?"
"Not personally. If you'll excuse me for just a moment." Hannibal's rage is controlled—thin and white as a blade of light. He reins it, bends it, pulls it around him where it settles like a corona. "Councilman Prashad."
The man half-turns, looking over his shoulder. "That's right. And you are?"
"Dr. Hannibal Lecter." Neither Hannibal nor Prashad extends a hand. Hannibal continues. "I've been a longtime supporter of the symphony's cause. I had no idea you were of a similar mind, if you'll forgive me, especially owing to your public sentiment."
Prashad laughs. "Oh, you know how it is. You have to tell the voters what they want to hear. What I have in my personal interests and what I spend my personal money on has nothing to do with what I think is best for this city."
"Though the city pays your salary," Hannibal says.
"The city also subsidizes the symphony, though not to the extent you'd probably like. That's what donors like yourself are for. Am I right, Dr. Lecter?"
"And, apparently, yourself, Mr. Prashad."
"Something like that. If you'll excuse me, I was just offering this gentleman here my condolences on his marriage."
The man next to Prashad laughs.
Hannibal nods and crosses the floor once again.
"That looked tense," Dimmond says.
"The councilman and I have, to say the very least, differing viewpoints on the utility of the arts."
"Well, you won't get any disparagement from me," says Dimmond.
"I expect not."
Dimmond steps closer, his arm pressing against Hannibal's. Warm, firm. "If it makes you feel better, from my observations, I think Hadrian would approve."
Hannibal favors him with a genuine smile. He drains the champagne and sets it on the bar, then places his hand on Dimmond's neck, drawing him in. "I'd like very much to take you home," he says.
Later, Hannibal has Dimmond's long legs slung over his shoulders and is pushing into him with deep, full thrusts. His hair is loose and spills over his brow. He clutches Dimmond's hips, raising him from the bed.
For his part, Dimmond is pawing at the headboard, manicured nails scrabbling along the polished wood surface. His eyes are slitted and his mouth slack: total abandon. His rigid cock bobs against his abdomen with each thrust. Hannibal wraps strong fingers around it and Dimmond's eyes fly open.
"Yes," he says.
"'Yes?' Tell me what you'd like me to do."
"Keep touching me," Dimmond breathes.
Hannibal begins to stroke him slowly, in counterpoint with his thrusts.
Dimmond squeezes his eyes shut.
"Look at me," says Hannibal, thrusting deeply and angling his hips upward.
"Oh, God."
Hannibal goes still, reaches out with his unoccupied hand to run his forefinger over Dimmond's lips. "He is not here. I am. Tell me what you want."
Dimmond groans, his eyes wide. "Make me come." He grasps Hannibal's hand and takes the finger in his mouth.
Exhaling, Hannibal begins to stroke him again, this time with increased pressure and speed.
"Please," says Dimmond.
"'Please?'"
"Don't stop fucking me."
Obliging, Hannibal begins to move his hips once more, though slowly. He is unwilling to allow himself to orgasm before his partner does, as a courtesy.
By all appearances, however, Dimmond is close to his own precipice. He is grasping Hannibal's hand tight as Hannibal works him. Hannibal leans in, resting his torso on Dimmond's thighs. The added pressure pushes Dimmond over and he shouts into the silence of the room. Hannibal feels liquid warmth spill into his hand. "Soon, now," he cautions as Dimmond regains his breath.
Dimmond reaches up, draws Hannibal toward him with firm hands at his nape, kisses his lips. "Come inside me," he whispers against Hannibal's mouth.
"Yes," says Hannibal, and then it is all over in a wash, a torrent of sensation.
Later still, Dimmond rests his head on Hannibal's chest, playing slim fingers through the hair there.
"Tell me about your recent acquisitions," says Hannibal, stroking Dimmond's upper arm. He feels the smile the request prompts.
"I've just gotten a Schiele. Minor work, not a figure study. 'Chestnut Tree at Lake Constance.'"
"From what I recall, beautiful composition," Hannibal says.
"I take that to mean you're not interested."
"I tend to reserve interest for rather higher-stakes work."
Dimmond props himself up on one elbow. "Well, in that case, you're sworn to secrecy on this."
"You may depend on my discretion," Hannibal says.
"Gene and I believe we have a Blake. It's a sketch, of course, from a notebook—and God only knows where that was picked up—but it's a fairly complete early rendering of 'The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.'"
"Unlikely," Hannibal says, "but intriguing."
"That's what I said. But we're having it authenticated now. Shall I let you know how the tests turn out?"
Hannibal narrows his eyes. "I may want to see it before it goes to auction, if you would allow it."
"That's a tall order, sir," Dimmond says, "but possible. What can I expect in return?"
Hannibal exhales slowly through his nose. "What would you like?"
Kissing Hannibal's nipple, Dimmond reaches for his hand and guides it down to his groin once again.
"I see," Hannibal says. He takes Dimmond's wrists and instead rolls over and pins him on his back.
As Dimmond arches into his touch, Hannibal moves down his body, pressing his lips against Dimmond's hipbone before taking him in his mouth.
It is just as well, Hannibal reasons, that Dimmond did not choose to stay for breakfast. It is a simple affair: poached eggs with caper relish and Thai pink pepper.
Sitting at his table, he pulls up a photograph of the completed Blake painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun." It is staged so that the viewer cannot see any one of the Dragon's seven faces. Only its heavily muscled back and hindquarters, the tail curling between its legs to entrap the light-enrobed woman. As Hannibal recalls, in the book of Revelation the woman with the starry crown avoids the great tempter's clutches and flees into exile. Her escape, though, is temporary. The Great Red Dragon is a completist, an expert in finality. Much like Hannibal himself.
