The heavy wood door of the tower swings open. "Your beloved…king is asleep."
He does not look at her. It is as if he thinks that if he does not see her, then she does not exist, then he is not to blame. The papers on his desk receive a shuffling sort of straightening. He adjusts the glassware on the bench littered with vials, stands and a brazier. He swallows like a man facing his doom.
"Come here."
She does not move, just taunts, "He was sated. I made his sleep peaceful."
"Come here." This time, he commands. Demands.
He stands stock still, forcing the tousled young woman to walk closer. The corner of her bruised mouth lifts sardonically, as she tilts her head back to stare into his frozen face, his cold blue eyes. His knuckles wipe the smear off her lower lip, tugging slightly. Her triumph twists across her face into something mocking and derisive.
Disgust writhes up from his gut. Loathing crawls across his shoulders and neck. "Slut," growls up out of his chest. It catches in his throat. Like it hurts.
One slim brow arches towards her ebony curls. "I'm merely as I was made. As you made me." A pink tongue wets her rosebud mouth.
She stiffens. His elegant fingertips sink into the clear, white, beard-roughened flesh of her breast. He trembles; she trembles. A heartbeat thrums through them. They sway together. Leaning into each other. Seeking.
They sway apart. The tension snaps.
She slumps. She falls.
He stumbles back and back and back. Pain, from the stone wall he finds behind him, courses across his skull and down his back. His struggle for escape ends.
His fingers convulse around a glass globe. Inside, red, red fluid sloshes, swirls. He shakes. Knuckles whiten. He presses the sphere to his mouth. He shudders.
He cannot stop the tears that roll down his cheeks. They seep into the corners of his lips. The sweet saltiness tastes strange with the bile welling up in his throat. Guilt and ecstasy uncomfortably roil together in his belly. The heat they create knifes through that most traitorous of organs. His shattered, hopeless heart breaks and remakes itself once again.
The only witness stares up at the ceiling; lying in a heap of midnight velvet, tangled yarn hair and gleaming, beautifully varnished maple limbs. Her eyes, cabochon cut sapphires, stay dry.
