Chapter 9:
Lecter eased across the screened porch and retrieved the sponge from atop the washing machine. Keeping his gaze at her eye level, he offered it to Clarice. She was making no move to shield her nude body, but he gave her privacy nonetheless.
Instead of taking the sponge, she raised her nearly empty tumbler. "You're a damn good barkeep, Doc."
"Perhaps you should eat something before having more," he suggested as he moved behind the tub, dropping the sponge in as he passed.
"I bet you never been drunk in all your days," she said, blinking like an owl.
He pulled a stool over and sat down behind her. Taking the glass from her slack hand, he placed it on the floor.
"No, I have not. That holds no appeal for me."
He began to pin up her damp hair. It was growing longer and lush, repairing the damage she'd brutally done.
"Never let loose, eh?" she said.
He grabbed a towel from the dryer and folded it.
"Although we have not-what is the term? Hung out? -I do not imagine you are the life of the party either."
He nudged her shoulder and she leaned forward obediently so he could tuck the makeshift pillow behind her back.
"First off, you're the one who mixed the drink," she said. "And second, I've just got a little buzz on. It'll wear off in a bit."
His mouth was hovering at the nape of her neck. "Damn," he murmured.
Shifting, she winced. "Damn is right. I'm gonna have quite the bruise on my hip."
"Please allow me." He held out his hand for the sponge.
She was clenching it rhythmically as she would squeeze a hard rubber ball for hand-strengthening exercises. He waited. The dark blue dusk waned and blackness washed over the yard outside the porch. A flicker of white, like torn rice paper, then another, as though floating on a breeze, appeared. Wings battered against the screens, trying to get at the candles' flames. Her breathing picked up slightly.
"What is it?" he asked.
She handed him the sponge. "Oh, I'm just being stupid."
"Tell me."
"Chasing Gumb around his dungeon left me with only one fear. I hear or see a moth and I-" She shuddered.
He smoothed her tight shoulders with the sponge, careful not to touch her skin with his fingertips. "Everyone has something. There's no shame in it."
"Sure...right. Fine with the likes of Hannibal Lecter sponging off my back, but a moth, shakin' like a leaf," she said drowsily.
"Sounds right to me," he said.
Changing subjects, she mused, "I need to find a farrier for Boudica. Her feet are too long and got some cracks. If only-" She stopped abruptly.
"If only?" he finally prompted.
"I knew a horse shoer-before. But I won't be calling him."
She motioned for her drink and he handed it to her.
"An odd friendship for an FBI agent with few friends."
She drained the glass of its sweet, strong dregs. "Are you cataloguing every man I've ever known?"
"I'm simply interested in how you form relationships."
"Sure...right." She licked the glass's rim, finding that last tang of lemon taste. "Mike is-was, John's brother."
"John Bringham?"
"Yep."
"Stands to reason."
"Why?" she challenged.
"Am I allowed to say his name?"
"Yeah, yeah," she said.
"This Bringham fellow seemed like a village blacksmith sort. Descended from a long line of hardworking smithies, banging on their anvil-"
"Yes, we're all just our roots, aren't we? Education, nutrition doesn't matter. It's who we've been through all time. Being back here in the hills has reminded me very strongly exactly who I am."
"And who I am?"
She swirled the water with fingers. "You're the patron," she said, rolling her 'r.' "Sitting in your manor house, perhaps summoning the village wench up for some slap and tickle when you need amusement."
With a light touch, he brushed a tiny bruise that had risen on the point of her shoulder blade as if he could wipe it away.
"But the village wench would resist, staying true to her values," he suggested. "You said before that you feel a thousand years old. Perhaps what you sense is that you were born in the wrong time. These complex modern mating rituals must bore you. I see you simply walking up to our simple smithy, looking him over, and saying, this I want. Marry me."
"You have quite the imagination but it's dead wrong," she said. "I couldn't-"
"Couldn't?"
"Wouldn't," she conceded. "You'd be surprised to know you and John shared one quality- an over-inflation of my worth. I had to straighten him out on that."
Lecter sat back on his stool, holding back every word that hovered on his lips. He unfurled his tight fist, making his hand gently pluck away her empty glass.
"Allow me to refresh your drink," he said and was gone.
She picked up the floating sea sponge and rubbed its rough surface over her calves and did a quick if hazy check-in.
Scared yet?
Nope.
She should leap up and lock the door behind him; that's what any sane woman would do.
She shrugged. To have he walk around and stare at her through the screens, joining the moths?
Do you covet what you see?
After the events at Paul Krendler's house, people had asked her over and over, in one way or another, how she felt knowing that Hannibal Lecter had seen her nude; had touched her body. She had deflected any questioning. None of them would understand that the doctor had seen another type of nakedness years before, and the flesh had been one more layer-and perhaps easier for her expose.
So tonight he was seeing her conscious and naked. Just another layer peeled back...And she was finally feeling something. It nibbled at her edges, tingling her skin like the invigorating herbs steeping in the hot water. Only, it had been so long since she'd felt scared that she wasn't sure if this was her missing emotion.
The doctor returned with a refilled tumbler and a plate of blood orange segments. "We must get something inside you." He sipped the drink, testing it, and his eyes widened.
She chuckled at the sight. "You can't beat 'em, join 'em."
He preferred wine over spirits and remembered why. The drink's power swarmed to his head. Sitting rather abruptly back on the stool, he offered her a section of orange. Her sharp teeth grabbed it from his fingers and she slurped it into her mouth. He held out another as one would feed a bird. She swallowed that as well, then leaned back on the towel. With his thumb, he chased a dark drop of juice running down her chin, catching it just in time. He licked his finger dry.
Still light-headed, he suggested, "Perhaps I could download instructions in horseshoeing online. I seem to be picking up these skills quickly."
She snorted undignifiedly into her drink.
Since she was making no move to shield herself, apparently giving her permission, the doctor finally allowed himself to gaze upon her naked form. Her breasts were bisected by the water's level. Beneath it, her pale torso wavered, blurry and misshapen. Her elongated legs lazily swam as an octopus' tentacles reaches for purchase. Firm half-breasts seemed to float on the steaming water. This surreal form intrigued him. He preferred realistic imagery, but perhaps he could try to capture this moment for the remaining empty space on his bedroom walls.
Lecter decided he must concentrate on something else. He filled the sponge with water, and wrung it out over her shoulders.
She tipped forward with a murmur: "Feels good."
He followed the riverlets with his tongue tentatively, but gained no reaction. Did she believe it was the water she felt gliding down her spine? As her head tipped to the side to offer him better access-or was she just unsteady? He was emboldened, daring to nip at the hard tendon connecting her neck to shoulder. His mouth stilled on her warm skin and he could almost taste her blood, moving like rushing streams so close underneath. He inhaled, the suction melding them. He yearned to swim in those red, warm waters, finally one with her.
"I thought I was the one who needed something in my stomach," she said blearily. His beard was soft as swan's down on her damp neck. She made her next words ring cold sober: "Are you trying to seduce me, Doctor?"
He lifted his head just enough to speak. "That is a very complicated question."
"I dunno. In the end, everyone does it the same way."
"Fucking, perhaps, but not seductions. What entices me may not intrigue another man, and as for you-"
"Yes?" Deftly, she pulled the plug with her toe and leaned forward to turn on the hot water tap.
He braced on the tub's smooth white rim, stopping himself from reaching for her. "I'm not certain what would satisfy you, not yet at least."
She wedged the plug in before settling back with a contented sigh. "So you're just fumbling around, seeing if you get any hits?"
Rebuked, he said, "My goodness, Clarice, your matter of fact assessment could tear the veil from any seduction."
"Now, now, you were doing fine," she said, sipping her drink.
The familiar tinkle of his long-ago phrase amused the doctor. "Thank you," he said with a nod of acknowledgement.
"You come with references, you know." She splashed the rising water, startling him.
He stilled her hand with his own. Mumbling against the curtain of her loosening hair, he said, "What do you mean?"
She studied their arms balanced together on the tub's edge. The crisp folds of his black linen shirtsleeve contrasted with his work-corded forearm and strong hand. His wedding ring glinted, and he rolled her own ring, loose from the hot water, around her finger. In theory, they only needed to wear the rings when they went out, but he never removed his and she didn't want to appear the coward by taking hers off.
What had she been talking about?
She shook her head and returned to the topic: "In the course of my investigations, it was necessary for me to interview your known acquaintances."
"I see," he said, his attention back on the conversation.
"Exactly," she said and turned the faucets off with her toe. "And you know what?"
He licked a drop of sweat from her earlobe. "What?"
"None of them would talk to me, at all. Only Mrs. Rosencrantz. The former Rachel DeBarry."
"Ah, yes, a delightful woman."
"She was a hoot," Clarice agreed.
"She liked you, didn't she?"
"I think so. She offered me some love life advice."
He raised an eyebrow at that thought.
"And she admitted freely to enjoying your company, but was very coy as to what activities that included. From that conversation, I developed a theory."
"Please share, Clarice."
"I think that means you were good in bed. Why else would they not talk? If you'd been impotent, or cried for your Mommy, or beat them, they could tell me that freely. But if you gave them pleasure, what does that say about them? They're disgusted and horrified with themselves, so they remained silent."
He tipped his head to meet her gaze.
"You are..." Speech was a burr caught in his throat. They were snared, as they'd been on the riverbank. Their mouths were close, her lips slightly parted. He breathed her air, she breathed his, but she didn't move, so he couldn't either. "...a dedicated investigator."
She simply nodded with a ghost smile.
If he couldn't find a new focus, he'd fall into the abyss. He touched her gunshot scar lightly, counting the stitch marks. Twelve, for the Apostles. "I hate any mark on your flesh, yet this is my mark, so I find it beautiful."
She melted back against the towel, her eyelids drifting shut. Was she his at that moment, like each little pucker left by his stitches?
Daring, his hands slid up her damp arms and he grazed her breasts with his thumbs. She only gave a deep sigh as a reaction. He finally gave in to temptation-he wanted to see her run, after all. He cradled her breasts as he would delicate antique alabaster cups.
Her breathing changed to a hum at the back of her throat, but she still didn't stop him. The most surprising sensation overcame him. He felt close to losing consciousness and found himself tipping forward. Once again, her neck was there for refuge, and he nestled in.
"I can make you feel so good," he murmured, his usually smooth voice oddly roughened.
At his words, he felt the slightest tension in Clarice, like the moment when a piano's hammer struck an over-tightened string, telling him the instrument was out of tune.
He changed it to, "You could make me feel so good," and she relaxed again. Yes, Clarice Starling could not accept any pleasure given to her but must please others.
His lips lightly traced her jawline and he smelled the sour and sweet of her drink as her mouth came to his brow. His hands slid from her breasts, diving underwater to stroke across her warm stomach, drenching his sleeves. His goal waved like red seagrass in the lapping bathwater.
His washcloth-covered hands had coaxed her thighs apart, wiping sweat and dirt from her pale skin. Routine hygiene care warred with concern over her perceiving a violation. He had looked up to check her response and her half-opened, drugged eyes had been watching him. No fear, no hate, no desire. He had rocked back, properly chastised. But he had sighted a pearl in its shell, glowing pink in the half-light.
He just wanted to look again-all he wanted to do this night was look-record for future consideration-perhaps touch briefly this time- not as a doctor...
Her lips whispered at his cheekbone, "Doctor."
"Yes, Clarice?" he asked, even though he knew what she was going to say.
Solemn gray eyes met his. "I should dry off."
"Of course. We must eat." He sat back on his stool, instantly cold and bereft at the loss of her heat. He breathed in and out, returning to his own body.
She pulled the plug out again.
"Allow me to help," he said when she stood.
Her firm voice said, "I'm fine," as she stepped over the tub's rim, ignoring his offered hand of support.
She slipped on her robe. "You know, I'm not really hungry. I'll head to bed."
She concentrated on not looking at him. As cowardly as that tactic was, she needed to put the barriers back up long enough to figure out what the hell had just happened.
"I understand," he said slowly. "But are you certain that I can't make you at least a light supper. No payment expected," he said, trying to return to their light teasing. He had enjoyed these past few minutes, their long-standing tension banished for an evening.
She squinted at him like an indignant little girl. "That's okay, I think you've done enough tonight."
"Have I?" he murmured. "It's your choice, you know."
"Really?" She leaned against the washing machine. "Do I have any choice in this?"
Puzzled, he asked, "What do you mean? I'm the one who was abducted. You're in charge here."
She gave a humorless laugh at his gall. "I don't mean you're controlling me or this situation. I just mean-" She watched the moths beat against the screens and he waited. Low, she finished, "I'm not in control either."
"Would that be such a bad thing?" he murmured.
"You're the last one who should be asking the question," she said. "Have you ever not been in control?"
"What do the psychological evaluations in my file say? Aren't I a crazed monster, tearing off body parts of those who step too close?"
"No, I think tearing off body parts gives you control. Or playing with people's minds. Or-"
She started to leave and he held her back. He prompted her, "Or?"
She raised her chin. "Seducing women."
He chuckled with the well-modulated tone of a sophisticate and she waited for him to call her a rube.
Instead, he shook his head ruefully. "Me, seduce you? What will make you even blink, Clarice?"
"Is that your objective? I mean, other than getting laid," she replied with a sneer.
"Don't denigrate what we do to each other," he ground out.
She shrugged, now on familiar ground.
"And don't dismiss yourself," he said, his earlier anger burning bright again. "I despise when you do that."
When she dropped her head again, the hair clips slipped loose. "I don't," she insisted petulantly, grabbing up her hair in white-knuckled fistfuls. "But I can't-"
He twisted away. "I know you can't. You think I don't understand? I don't feel the same way? Why would I want to feel as I do?" His eyes glowed. "If ever you needed to feel concern for your life, it would be because of that; that I would need to remove a troublesome distraction."
She grinned, an evil sight. "Right back atcha, Doctor."
Their standoff lasted for several long moments, then she said, "All right, I gotta get to bed," and turned away.
He slapped his hands on the washing machine in disgust.
"But-"
He peered over his shoulder, suddenly exhausted. "Yes?"
She quickly kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you for Bodie. She's the nicest present anyone's ever given me."
With a swish of silk, she was gone before he could react to her kiss or the bastardization of the mare's name.
She did not go out onto the new sleeping porch. Instead her footfall padded into her bedroom, and for the first time, he heard the door close.
She was right. Some privacy was necessary to sort through the evening's events. After changing out of his wet shirt and finding his cigar case and lighter, Lecter took off across the dark backyard, following the path lit by the half moon's beam.
Clarice watched his familiar set of shoulders be swallowed into the night from her bedroom window. Once he'd disappeared, she opened the sash to catch what breeze she could. Lying on the bed, she began her evening ritual to try to sleep, ignoring her jumbled thoughts and thrumming body.
That often meant planning her next garden project. But no even rows of waving green fronds came to her mind.
Her mind swarmed with memories of a sophisticated man in an expensive suit, wearing a heavy gold watch on his strong wrist. His drawling, educated voice. Pale eyes always watching her.
The newly minted F.B.I. badge was still burning fresh in her ill-fitting blazer's pocket. Tad Chambers had made her feel that she was something more than her deep roots in hard shale. And he promised her career would grow and flourish with his help from the Justice Department.
Her already flushed face went hotter in the dark, sweaty bedroom, remembering her ambition. Which blinded her to obvious questions like, why a Deputy Assistant Attorney General would be attracted to this raw-boned girl. And why she was drawn to that type of man.
Another dark night, another humid bedroom. Her limited sexual experience making her limbs tight with nervousness. Not wanting to disappoint him-
"What does he like?" Tad had demanded, his voice hoarse.
She'd literally looked around the room. "Who?"
"Come on, Clarice, show me what he likes," Tad had repeated, anger in his words.
As Tad had pinned her hands above her head, his superior weight pressing down, she had suddenly known. Remembered that Tad's friend at the Justice Department, Paul Krendler, had worked with Doctor Chilton to get Lecter out of his dungeon. Even then, she'd suspected that Chilton had somehow watched her and Lecter together. In a quick flash, she'd seen these men standing at urinals with their dicks in their hands, talking about her and the doctor.
She'd had to hurt Tad to get loose, humiliating him. God knows what he'd told Paul, but she figured that's what started the other man's pursuit of her; not desire, but disgust and the need to fuck the dirty bitch.
Tad Chambers hadn't been her last date fascinated with Hannibal Lecter. So she'd turned to fellow agents and cops for companionship, only to spend her free time talking about cases past and present. Those relationships had been simple sexual release, going nowhere but to eventual irritation, boredom, and the "It's not you; it's me," moment.
She was getting some excitement now. And finally finding out what Hannibal Lecter liked. Not the violence and domination those other men imagined but a fatal gentleness and reverence, his snare made of silk cords. Was he waiting for her to come to him, like he did with Pazzi? Would a sweet kiss become a knife blade's prick opening her skin? She'd watch her intestines fall out like a red waterfall and finally feel her blessed fear.
Her rusty laugh rattled around the confining bedroom. Lecter had pegged her fear of humiliation once. She knew that she wouldn't feel fear if he gutted her out-she'd only be pissed at herself. If he didn't kill her though...What option did that leave? So intent on recapturing one emotion, she had opened the door to others, possibly much more painful-fear was returning, but not in the way she intended. She has to step back and lock herself away in a dungeon for the time being.
She rolled on the bed, wiggling the wedding ring off her finger. Ten years of entwined with the doctor had left her the monster's bride in men's minds, but not tonight.
Laying it beside her handgun on the bedside table, she forced her fluttering eyelids to shut, and began listing what chores that she needed to do in the vegetable garden. Pull down the spent pea vines, weed the corn rows, put hay under the growing melons so they didn't bruise...
Under the dark trees, Lecter sat beside a large fallen log. He drew deeply from his cigar, replaying the feel of Clarice's skin under his touch and mouth, tasting his arousal more than the costly tobacco. Desire thudded in his bloodstream but he was glad that she had put a stop to it. Seduction was yet another act of control for him; she'd called him on that. This tremor in his hand as he lifted the cigar to his lips revealed how close to losing it that he'd come.
He was physically tired from a long day of work but unaccustomed, rapid thoughts darted around his skull like the bats in the branches far above.
Always before, even if it were solely sex that he needed, he took time with the exercise, creating an experience on par with one of his fine meals rather than some quick fuck on the level with a fast-food cheeseburger. He also always took great care to avoid emotional encumbrances. This situation with Clarice threatened to lead into an entanglement tighter than the kudzu vines swaying from the trees.
It was easy enough to say that he wanted to possess Clarice Starling. But he'd only made love to women under a guise; they never knew what he was. She did. Rejection would require a reaction and he didn't want to be forced into that corner. But what would capitulation-if it did ever come-demand?
He looked back toward the house. A few guttering candles flickered from the back porch. The rest of the house remained dark.
"You've spent a lifetime rejecting the love of good men," he said to the night. "Perhaps it's time to accept it from a bad man."
Still feeling a bit drunk from a long since swallowed sip of her drink, his hand ghosted across his thigh, but it didn't rest. He thought of the desecrated cat remains that they'd discovered nearby and could only chuckle at the thought of joining that low-life creature, furtively expelling his needs in the woods.
Pushing up to stand, he decided on another release.
Inside the house, he slipped by Clarice's closed door and entered his room. Flipping on the lights, he quickly gathered his sketching charcoals, already staring at the clean wall over his head. He'd make love to Clarice Starling tonight, his chalk stroking the smooth plaster surface, so like her now familiar skin.
Her face, filled with ecstasy and wonder; that was first image to appear. To watch him caress his canvas. Her nudity was chastely shielded by the wide span of a powerful cob's wings, but he had to add those long legs of hers, open and welcoming the bird's arching body.
Dawn lighted his windows by the time that he was finished. Standing back, his vision bleary, he admired his work. Glancing over his shoulder at the doorway, he realized that Clarice would not share his pleasure. Finding tacks and a sheet, he covered the drawing. It would have to remain for his soul enjoyment.
xox
After a stilted breakfast where neither looked at the other, they drove into town to pick up supplies for the mare. The doctor stayed in the truck when Clarice refused his help. She also waved aside the clerk's offer, and tossing a grain sack over her shoulder to bring it outside. Lecter had been waiting with the truck backed up to the store's deck. He jumped out to drop the tailgate.
She flipped the bag into the bed and told him, "I've just got a few more things; I won't be a minute."
Before going back through the door, she lingered at the bulletin board, checking the ads for farriers. He watched passersbyes look her over. She wore a tank top and shorts in the smoldering humidity and the bruises from the previous day's ride stood out in sharp relief against her white skin. His two marks, the old stitches and hickey, bracketed her collarbone. He knew what these folks, God-fearing church ladies and shiftless teen boys alike, were thinking about them. He visualized a scenario-then forced the cheap porn image from his mind.
Abruptly, he turned his back to her and stared full into the blazing sun until he was blinded. His jumbled thoughts of the night became as clear as the daylight. After passing over sixty years on Earth, was he finally yearning for a life mate? Was he building an intricately woven nest in these Virginia backwoods?
If so, Clarice Starling was not a good match. It was as ridiculous as suggesting the coupling of a jackal and a giraffe. If he were to quantify their attributes, nothing matched, neither age, background, nor interests. He had quickly discovered she would listen to his suggestions but heed very few. He doubted he could mold her willfully into that unusual creature that could be his equal. Or had he been defining his equal as a clone? Perhaps equality meant some quite different creature.
He should fuck her, kill her, flee across the world...
...Woo her, make love to her, see her reluctant smile once in awhile, give her safe haven for the rest of their days...a vision as bright and burning as the sun.
"You need anything?" she said behind him.
He blinked, regaining focus. He smelled molasses and cracked dry corn, pure, earthy odors, dark sweetness and plain starchy strength. He knew they came from the grain sack, but decided they'd be the smell of Clarice. He shook his head. "I can't think of anything-for now."
End - Chapter Nine
