As the door thudded shut, the silence of the empty house was crushing in its intensity- the first silence either of the dishevelled parties had experienced in a great deal of time. Neither seemed willing to break it, nor even look at each other. They simply stood in the hall, dripping and panting until Clarice dropped her soaked jacket onto the floor in a sodden heap and upped the stairs three at a time. Hannibal Lecter stayed where he was, face deathly pale in the gloom and eyes fixed on Clarice's path, a crease of concern parting them.
After some time, he shed his wet clothing until he stood in nothing but shirt and trousers and slowly took the stairs in the manner of one with a great weight upon him. Reaching the landing, he followed the damp scent of rain and sweat that had dissolved that of Clarice into its musky tones until he came upon the guest bedroom. Against the bruised sky that lay beyond the large window he saw her framed, head down and arms braced against a dressing table. Her breathing had calmed. He knew it would be foolish to assume she had too. With a deep inhalation, he padded forwards and sat slowly on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed upon her back warily.
"No, this is wrong. I was wrong and you were right all along. I should have listened." Her tone was flat, thick with sorrow. It hurt him to hear her talk as such; his Clarice who had once represented all that was innocent and unmarred by this turbulent society. Now she was yet another of its victims in the veterans hospital of middle age.
"Clarice, I…"
"Why did I ever try and fool myself that I could have a happy ending; that I could live with my child like just another mother, like every other mother in America. To just live and never have to worry over anything more significant than whether organic baby food is really worth that extra dollar or what to wear on parent teacher night."
She was talking to herself more than him, and he dutifully declined comment although this new dead note in her voice was killing him.
"I shouldn't have let it get to this stage," She turned and he noted her hands curved over her now sizable bump in a natural gesture of doting protection that stirred something deep inside the doctor. He moved to stand- he wanted to comfort her, to hold her when she looked so frail and distant but she flinched and he sat again swiftly.
"I love this child. I love her- it's a little girl, did I tell you? …more than life itself, but I can see now that with you there can't ever be a life for either her or us. The danger, the need for constant vigilance, the endless worry, the chance every single day of my daughter's life that she may not survive to see the next, or have to see the rest of her days without her mother." She looked at him for the first time, tears held in her eyes and deep, dark anger replacing her weary misery.
"Or father." She whispered turning her head with a small, unsteady shake in her breathing.
"I can't do this, I couldn't do that. I'm not strong enough. I could not bear to curse this innocent baby with all this… this shit that seems to follow me."
The single curse seemed to snap something inside of her, and her harsh monologue ended in a choked gasp. She sank to the floor and wiped slowly at her eyes with the sleeves of her jumper and he chanced another attempt to move to her. This time she accepted him and did not flinch- he settled a respectful distance from her.
They sat in silence for perhaps five long minutes before she pushed herself shakily to her feet.
"What can I do? What should I do?" He was unsure as to which of them she was addressing. He stood as well but stayed a slight distance again- he was unnerved by this mood she was in- frightened even. He couldn't read her, couldn't predict her in the slightest. He reached out a hand to her shoulder but she shrugged it off irritably.
"Clarice, please…"
With a noise of purest feral fury she turned on him, knocking him off balance so he toppled down onto the bed. Pinning him with surprising strength by his shoulders she shook him, her face almost directly above his- still achingly beautiful an all its anger and despair.
"All I wanted was to live with her, with my child- what was so wrong with that? For God's sake, what!"
Any answer he may have offered was blocked by her hand enclosing the bottom of his face, fingers resting just under his nose and digging in quite severely and she tried to push it away. She moved so her chin was resting on his shoulder, her mouth by his ear.
"Me. I am what is wrong with such a pathetic notion. I, who would see this child inside me killed. I love her, Hannibal, I do."
She broke off and rose her face to look into his eyes, his remarkable eyes that had pierced her soul all those years ago from behind a wall of bars. And she found the strength to tell him.
"But I love you more. And that is my fault, that is why I do not deserve this child."
His cautious struggles stopped abruptly, but her hand stayed over his mouth, her eyes boring into his which were no doubt a mirror to the cocktail of shock, guilt, anger and predominantly- at least in his being, he doubted if eyes were capable of showing such a power- love. The latter shook his mental foundations until the dust of readjustment on a colossal scale coated everything but he could accept it, because it was true, and no less true than before her admission was whispered into his ear.
Her weight was suddenly gone as she rolled off his prone form to sit on the edge of the bed once more. Her back to him, she continued but the anger was gone, at least from her voice.
"Tonight I killed for you and if I ever had to I would do it again a hundred times over, but in making me what I always feared in you, you have pushed us into plane of existence too similar to ever co-ordinate. I hope you can understand this is why I can never see you again. Love is not love if it must cancel another to survive. So goodbye."
She rose, and this time he was quick to follow, grabbing her elbow and swinging her round.
"It doesn't have to be this way, do you not trust that I will take every precaution to ensure our complete concealment and..."
"You could take every precaution five times over and I would still feel like some trapped rat whose survival relies on the decision between an absolute end or to simply cut and run and leave everything behind in a squalid timeframe that you can crush to the back of your mind so many times it eventually leaves you and I can't live like that! I couldn't bear it; I'm just not strong enough!"
She twisted in his grip but he was unrelenting.
"Events like this you cannot simply forget and expect it to all float away, they poison your mind, stain parts that once were innocent and unblemished, eat away at you until you must accept that yes, it happened and maybe it wasn't how it should have happened but it did, and for that reason alone you must respect them, Clarice. Please try and trust this, I know, I tried to hide something that pained me so greatly I questioned the merit of living at all but that is no solution, it simply gives it power, gives it precedence over the good and pure memories. I can help you; I promise I will help you. I love you."
She let him move into her, to wrap his arms around her and for a moment felt her resolve weakening so great was the temptation to simply melt into his arms and warmth and let him take all this away. But she couldn't, she owed her daughter that much. One love should never, never cancel another.
She tried to pull away again, going stiff in his embrace but she wouldn't allow her, he whispered words of calming promise into her ear and in that moment, torn between her two and only loves she felt such a monumental surge of anger it scared her, shook her to her core and she was happy to let it take over her weary body.
With an awesome force, she broke his grip and a shove sent him backwards until he landed splay-legged on the arm of a large armchair. On him in a flash she had him by the elbows and felt no resistance, this display of self assured arrogance fed the flaming pit of anger in her belly. Some part of her, some rational part not swamped with this emotional breakdown was telling her this anger was not for him, but for her but she couldn't- didn't want to listen. She wanted some sort of retribution, some balm to ease this great ache deep in her being and this was the only way she could see to get it.
"Why can't you ever leave something unspoilt? Why does simple minded innocence evoke such contempt inside your twisted soul that you relish it being raped of its purity?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Clarice." He snarled, writhing against her weight.
"I am ridiculous. I am utterly and inexcusably ridiculous for ever believing loving you would come without a high price, a devastating price that makes me chose between my daughter or you- the man I love more than any other merit of living and being at all. I need to do this, I need to have this. Please God understand."
Her voice held notes of conflicting hysteria and rational reasoning but before he could answer in any manner he felt her fingers dip to his waist and felt a sharp tug at the band of his trousers.
"Clarice, what…"
"No. Please." she hissed eyes ablaze and held down his restraining hands, moving her hands over his in soft strokes that seemed alien compared to the animal passion unleashed but a moment ago. Her face was rich with desperation mingled with passion and anxiety, her voice breathless but forceful- thick with meaning.
"I'm addicted to this destruction; I'm hooked on the complete and utter desecration of myself. I'm stained in you, and I welcome it every step of the way."
Pulling his head forwards to hers, her mouth sought his lips and quelled the stream of protests that were annulled by the heat between his thighs. The kiss tasted of the fury, love and misery that tethered them together in this world of norms and etiquette and committed both to this act of ownership and devotion- of leaving and finding you can't le go. Working his clothing off his body in jerky, shaking movements, Clarice pulled back to look down on him, sitting astride the wine red chair so similar to his eyes, eyes that stared into hers with a lusty intensity that thrilled her fundamentally.
"You're beautiful." She breathed, moving back to her conquest with a questing mouth and hands harsh with lust, softened with love. She stilled his hands when they teased the zipper on her skirt and straddled both the arm of the chair and his thighs in one fluid motion, remaining fully dressed.
"I need this" She breathed into his ear, as she saw confused resentment flash across his pale but increasingly flushed features. "I need this to be on my terms. I need my anchor."
She pressed her lips to his and he yielded again after several seconds of her doting caresses. She pressed him back so his head rested against the padded back of the chair and his hips were elevated against her own. Her fingers were restless, moving from his dusky nipples down to grip his waist then back again to stoke along his jaw line. Finally she sensed he was growing impatient and standing on the one leg resting on the floor, she sank down again this time taking him inside her, thighs tensing as the merits of their position proved themselves.
His hips bucked gently and a small gasp escaped his flushed lips. Moving forwards so that his mouth was beside her ear, she began to rock gently, having total control over him in this rather awkward position, every lusty catch of breath and soft, whining cries were uttered with his warm breath carrying them to her ear, his sounds of pleasure healing her raw and tattered nerves, this new feeling of giving to receive thrilling and addictive. As his breath began to hiss in gasps across her ear and his soft sounds of pleasure turn to breathless moans, she caught his lips up in a series of short, intense kisses- each having to break apart at frequent intervals as mutual arousal stole each new breath from their lips as they spiralled closer and closer.
She sensed her own physical, as well as emotional climax approaching much sooner than planned but welcomed it, his increasing volume suggesting he was equally as close, and as she fell to his shoulder, teeth sinking into his soft, pale flesh she felt her mind wipe blank- all of the knots and tangles of this ridiculously complicated relationship smoothed out as pure, raw pleasure swept her body. She was barely aware of him following her to his climax, so intense the emotional, as well as physical release.
She went limp as the sheer force of her climax left her weakened and slipped gracefully into the chair, pulling her lover with her until they huddled in the wide, plush chair together, lips capturing one another for a long, slow kiss that seemed to seal the deed and their futures respectively.