A/N: To see a version of the painting this chapter refers to, check out my profile. I have put it up there.
"Good." said the impostor Doom. "Come here." He had summoned me to the castle's art gallery, and now beckoned me to look at a particular painting. "I had been wondering why you seemed familiar to me somehow, when I knew I had never seen or met you, and this is the answer. You remind me of her."
I knew the painting. I ought to know it; it hung over the bedroom safe in my suite back in our reality. The painting showed a young woman with a storm-cloud of dark hair wearing a dress of pale blue-green. I had thought the painting had been chosen because her dress matched the silk damask wall-coverings, but perhaps I reminded the real Victor of her, too.
The only item in the picture that identified her was the pomegranate in her hand. She was Proserpine, or Persephone, to give her Roman name, the goddess of Spring—the daughter of Demeter, goddess of grain and fertility. One day she was abducted—and married—by Hades, the darkly forbidding lord of Hell. Her mother grieved, and stopped every food crop from growing, bringing perpetual winter to the earth while she hunted for her daughter.
Eventually the other gods staged an intervention, and told Hades he had to send her back home. He agreed, but before he let the girl go, he offered her a pomegranate. She ate a few of its seeds, and for each seed she ate, she had to return for one month out of the year.
Rosetti had made it quite clear that the forbidden fruit she ate of was purely metaphoric. The cut in the skin of the pomegranate which revealed the glistening red juicy interior, was distinctly vulva-shaped. She was going to have to return to Hades because she had sex with him.
That set my mind straying to…other things. Such as how Victor had woken me up that morning…
I had thought I was having an extremely erotic dream—and woke to find out I wasn't dreaming.
I felt cool air stirring on my naked upper body. My lower half, though equally naked, was quite warm. Victor was making sure of that. The first two fingers of one hand were smoothly and rhythmically stroking me, the other hand was holding my folds apart, and his tongue…
Was flicking back and forth on the most sensitive part of me as lightly and carefully as if he were doing his best to pet a butterfly's delicate wings without damaging them.
I only gasped once, and then I had to be absolutely silent, because it just felt so wonderful. Fingers bringing me to orgasm were nothing new. I mean I had fingers, and that was how I had survived without going insane with frustration. Victor's fingers were better, true, but what he was doing with his tongue—.
It felt so good I almost didn't want to come…
"Are you feeling all right?" asked the impostor. "You look somewhat…feverish."
"What?" I asked, startled out of a much happier place. "No—I'm fine. I felt a little dizzy for a moment, that's all."
"Do you need to sit down?" he asked, concerned. "I have not forgotten what you said yesterday. Your possible condition…Forgive me, but have you been tested yet?"
"No, but it is rather soon. It would be best to wait a few more weeks, to be more certain of an accurate result." I drew his attention back to the painting. "Dante Gabriel Rosetti" I identified the artist. "Proserpine—but it's really a portrait of Jane Morris."
"You know your Pre-Raphaelites." commented the impostor. "You and she are not exactly alike in terms of features—but the hair is the same, the eyebrows, something about the nose—Your forehead is higher, your lips less full, your eyes a different color—but you and she could be sisters."
"Do you consider her beautiful?" I asked.
"Very. Or else I would not own her."
"You don't own her. You're just looking after her for the future." I said. "Art belongs to Time, not to people."
"I beg to differ." He said. "I own three Renoirs—I once owned four, but I ordered one burned."
"Really?" I asked. Victor actually had done that, before I entered his service. It was one of the most deplorable things he had ever done, in my opinion. "Why?"
"Because it displeased me." he said.
"I'm glad I'm not married to you, then. If you would do that to a painting for which you must have paid thousands, if not millions, what would you do to a wife? Was it from his impressionistic days, or that later, candy-box-pearly-pretty period?" I asked.
"It was a syrupy interior of two girl-children at a piano."
"Well, I don't blame you for being displeased with it, then. But could you not have donated it or sold it rather than had it burned?"
"I could have—but it gave me a feeling of satisfaction to have it burned." He caught sight of himself in a mirror and did that preening thing again.
"You know the famous English Regency style-setter Beau Brummell—who I consider one of history's great humanitarians because he advocated frequent bathing for both sexes, and that men should wear clean shirts and underwear every single day—used to spend several hours every day in front of a mirror, before he would even leave his rooms. He made sure that every hair was in place, every fold in his cravat was just right, that his jackets had not one wrinkle or speck of lint on them. Once he left his rooms, however, he never even glanced in a mirror or any other reflective surface. It just wasn't done."
"Why do you say this to me?" he asked.
"Because in the short time that I've known you, twice I've seen you look at yourself in the mirror and do that something which greatly reduces your attractions. You are a very good-looking man, but you ought not to make it obvious that you know it." I knew I was safe in saying this to him, because this man was thinking about making a baby with me. Besides, I had just said he was very good-looking. He liked that.
"Was that a reproof?" he asked.
"You must take it in whatever sense you will." I replied.
"Your fiancé—what sort of man is he?" the impostor Doom asked next.
"I'm not sure if I can answer you. To me he stands so tall above all other men that his shadow blots them all out—but then I love him. Someone else might say he was a man like any other." I smiled, but not at him.
"How tall is he, in a purely physical sense?"
"About your height, or perhaps a little taller." I looked him up and down and frowned slightly.
"How old is he?" asked the impostor.
"Thirty-seven." I answered.
"That is my age also."
"Is it?" I asked, unconcerned.
"Is he good-looking?—as handsome as I a—as handsome as you find me?" he pressed.
"Nice catch there." I said. "I think I've already established that my judgment is not to be trusted where he is concerned. I know my heart and spirits lift whenever I see him."
"What is his name?"
"There you have the one thing I cannot tell you about him. He would forgive my giving away the ring he gave me, but he would never forgive me for putting myself in danger on his account." I replied.
"Would you be in danger if you were to tell me his name?"
"I might. But come, my lord. You must have summoned me here to some purpose, and not just to exchange pleasantries."
"As it so happens I have. You are a calligrapher, and I understand that you gave an impromptu demonstration of your skills yesterday, down in Doomstadt."
"I did, while I was buying supplies." I had known I was going to be followed.
"I might have a commission for you. My mother knows many old songs and folktales of our country—I would like to see them written down. I want you to work with her to create a hand-made book of her stories, one where they are illustrated and illuminated like a medieval Book of Hours."
"Something along the lines of The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, you mean?"
I countered.
"Yes. I would like you to meet my mother first, for without her approval, the project will go nowhere."
"As you would have it, my lord." I said in reply, blandly. I knew this was going to happen…