Ch 33

Wheels turned, apparatuses within my soul that had never moved, had been turned into motion. I sat as still as I could, unable to breath, unwilling to open my eyes. She had kissed me. Not on the lips, no, not on the lips but on the cheek. But it was a kiss. It was a kiss on my face. My face. The right side of my face, no less, that not even I wanted to touch. She had touched her lips to my flesh. She had kissed me. She had done it. A kiss. A kiss from Julia to me.

She had given me life, existence I had never known.

The spot where her lips had touched my face was still warm after she had pulled away. My mind wrapped around the sensation, tracing the spot where my nerves were aflame with disbelief. She had kissed me. She had kissed my face.

"Why?" I asked in a hollow whisper. My fingers pressed over my cheek as though somehow it would compress the memory of her touch farther into my mind. My eyes opened at last and we regarded one another with curious expressions.

Her fingers lingered over mine. The sensation of her skin against mine was unbearably comforting. No one had touched me. Not like this. It was strange and beautiful, and suddenly Julia became a stranger to me, something that I had thought I had known, like a box with a secret compartment I had suddenly found. There was so much more to be known, so much more that I had never seen.

"This is the first time in five years that you have bothered to care for anything outside of your own gratification."

It was then that I realized I had started to weep in pure joy.

Julia draped her arms around my neck and pressed my face into her shoulder, muffling the moaning sounds drifting past my lips. A fortress had been torn down, a disease cured by something profound. An army of disgust and loathing disbanded at her touch. A touch, a simple gesture none would find monumental aside from me, a wretched creature who so long had lurked in shadows, a beast, a corpse, a deadened thing roaming the night.

For the first time, really, I felt something. Human, I felt human. At long last I had experienced something that elicited pure delight. Better, so much better, than rutting. A whore would lie down, but just a kiss, a simple kiss? No, a whore would not offer a kiss. No, this was compassion, this was something….indeed, this was something.

She had kissed me.

And she hadn't recoiled.

No, she hadn't drawn away or shrieked. She had stayed, perched on the bedside. And she held me to her afterwards when I broke into a thousand pathetic pieces of bliss and terror and disbelief. My hands lifted, one then the other, and I embraced her as well. It struck me then, as I felt her heartbeat against my palms, that I had never held her before. Slept with her, yes, I had taken her to bed. But it was nothing, it meant nothing. Our time was gratification after short conversations. Our time was a prelude to a brief moment where I would dress and she would talk about the art museum she had gone to, or the new herbs she had planted. Her words rarely reached my ears. I had what I wanted, what I thought I had wanted, and the rest was inconsequential. Anything else would mean there was potential for something more. I feared potential.

I feared the rejection that came with potential. I didn't deserve anything that was not rejection.

My head lifted from her shoulder once I found control of my emotions. I looked into her face. Her hair, which had dried, hung against her forehead, partially obscuring her left eye. Slowly, as if I would break her if I touched her too hard; I lifted the dark blonde strand and moved it behind her ear.

Then I noticed a scar. Had she always had a scar? No, I would have noticed it, this little white, triangular imperfection at the outside corner of her eye. My thumb ran over the mark, tracing it.

"When Lisette was born," Julia said. Her voice was so low I could barely hear her. "Louis threw a vase of flowers at me."

My eyes met hers, silently demanding an answer. She looked away from me. In the back of my mind I prayed to God to resurrect that man so that I could kill him again. I would have drawn him with a butter knife and quartered him with chariots of the slowest horses.

"He wanted a boy, Erik," she replied.

From the scar I moved down along her cheek, to her jaw, then swept over towards her lips. My eyes met hers and I silently asked for permission to touch her lips with my finger.

A smile played at the corner of her mouth.

Damn it if the doorbell didn't ring. I nearly poked her in the eye when I flinched at the sound. We both turned away at once as though we had been caught doing something inappropriate. Exhaling, I thought of every curse I had ever heard. Damn damn damn!

Julia sighed and rose from the bed with dignity, smoothing her hands over her dress. She fixed her hair and looked at me as though nothing had happened, nothing of which should have caused my stomach to flip over half a hundred times.

She cleared her throat. "There is someone at the door."

Which, of course, I assumed by the door bell. Strange that she mentioned it. Perhaps she was flustered as well.

"Don't be roaming about, do you hear me?" she said with a shake of her finger before she left.

On my life I swore not to move again. I had no intention of leaving her home. None at all.

I couldn't be away from her. I couldn't bear the thought of solitude, and being parted from Julia, from Alexandre as well, would have been the deepest pit of seclusion.

"Who is it, Lisette?" Julia asked as she marched across the hall.

"There is a woman at the door, mama," Lisette said.

"Of course, my dear, you know Madame Giry."

Good, I thought, Madeline was here. I had wanted to speak with her about the vicomte stopping by for a visit. And I wanted to tell her to bring the dog over so that I could make sure someone was feeding her.

"No, mama, it isn't Madame Giry. I've never seen this woman before."

Oh God in Heaven…Why do You allow Hell to return?