Some things cannot be purchased with money. Grace, sophistication, elegance; while there are those who believe that such characteristics are the sole province of the wealthy, those who know are keenly aware that such belief is the product of a gauche misunderstanding of the meaning of the word class.
In cultural capitals the world over there exists a small, exclusive club of people who are possessed of both wealth and class. Pretenders claiming to have one or the other may attempt from time to time to enter those circles, but their desperation belies their unsuitability, and the doors of privilege never open to them. They remain locked outside, noses pressed to the glass, fogging up the windows like children peering into a bar they will forever be too young to enter. Buenos Aires, like London, and New York, and Paris, boasts such a club, people of taste and means who come from all over the world to soak in the good airs and enjoy the company of like-minded aficionados of music, and history, and theater, and dance. Here knowledge is more valuable than gold; the women clothe themselves in languages rather than diamonds. Oh, they have diamonds aplenty, but they know ostentation is the realm of the pretenders. Only the truly elegant can afford subtlety.
And in the upper echelons of the Argentine elite, there was no one who could match La Bella and the Dottore. They were the pinnacle of sophistication, and the world lay at their feet.
It was said he called her La Bella in homage to La Bella Farnese, the renowned beauty of fifteenth century Rome who had been mistress to one Pope and sister to another. The moniker was an homage to someone else, of course, but the truth remained a closely guarded mystery, and their peers enjoyed the whimsy of it, and did not question. Him they called Dottore, for it was well known that he was both Italian and a doctor, though no one knew where in Italy he hailed from or in what field he had studied, and he had never, to anyone's knowledge, been a practicing physician. What need did he have to work, when coins dripped from his fingertips like water from a spring, and his every need was provided for already? They were soft spoken and well educated, appeared at every gallery opening and symposium, and they threw the most lavish parties, though rarely. An invitation to the home of La Bell and the Dottore was more precious than diamonds, and dearly sought after by everyone who fancied themselves of any importance.
Everywhere they went they were recognized; while they did not dabble in anything so uncommon and undignified as politics they had over the course of their three year tenure in Buenos Aires become something akin to royalty. Crowds parted before them, and curious whispers followed after them, and their compatriots vied for proximity to the throne, seeking to gain power by association. La Bella and the Dottore paid very little attention to such matters; they had no need for such petty squabbles.
On the eighth of December, as was their custom, La Bella and Dottore threw open the doors of their manse and welcomed no less than one hundred of their closest friends to enjoy a veritable feast. The theme of the event, as it was every year, was The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why the pair should choose to so extravagantly celebrate a Catholic feast day when they did not appear to possess any faith and were only observed to enter churches under the guise of appreciating the artworks within was unknown, and unremarked upon by their guests, who were too delighted with the invitation to question its motives. Women in understated silk gowns and men in sharp black tuxedos roamed the downstairs of the palatial home, their eyes hardly knowing where to fall; the walls resembled nothing so much as an art gallery, paintings and portraiture hung at carefully selected intervals, rotated throughout the year so that each time the guests entered they were treated to a new collection of never before seen pieces. The floors were marble, the furniture exquisite, the conversation restrained and fascinating. Instruments of various kinds and origins were displayed with the same care as the paintings, and the draperies on the windows were heavy and ornate. Waiters in crisp uniforms danced almost invisibly through the throng, and no sooner had a glass been emptied than it was refilled with wine of the most remarkable vintage. And the food; oh, the food was glorious, a thing of beauty in itself, and the partygoers whispered that Dottore made it all himself, that his hand had touched each morsel before it was sent out to be devoured.
That year, as was the custom every year, Dottore led a small debate on the question of the immaculate nature of the conception; was the Blessed Mother herself, from the moment of conception, free from the stain of original sin?
"The Pope himself is infallible," Lilibet Dufrense began the argument, as she did every year, with a glass of wine in hand. La Bella and Dottore were standing with Mrs. Dufrense - the Countess Dufrense, as it happened, though it pleased the Countess to remain a continent away from the Count, and their holdings - and a small cluster of people had gathered round them, eager to hear the exchange. "Pope Pius IX declared the Blessed Mother's immaculate conception in an apostolic constitution, and so the church's stance on the matter is clear."
"No one could doubt the devotion of the church to the doctrine," Dottore said. He was smiling; he did so enjoy these little games. "But the question is not whether it is a matter of doctrine, but whether it ought to be."
"How could the child Christ, who is the son of God, be born of a vessel stained by original sin?" Lilibet countered. She was smiling, too, but only because she did not realize she had already lost the argument.
"If the child Christ is the son of God, how could he be stained by any vessel?" Dottore answered. "Unless, of course, original sin is transmitted through physical means, communicated through the sharing of blood between mother and child. And if original sin can be transferred in such a way, does logic not then dictate that other sins may be communicated in the same fashion? Were you to be transfused with the blood of an adulterer, would you be required to pay penance for their sins?"
"They would say yes, in the States," Richard DeBurges cut in, then. "Homosexual men are prohibited from donating blood, for fear that they carry AIDS." DeBurges was an author, and a poet, and an American, and a homosexual, and so Dottore deferred to him as an expert on such matters.
"The Blessed Mother was chosen as the vessel of the son of God, and blessed for having been chosen." The Countess did not entirely approve of DeBurges, and she shot him a withering look as she spoke.
"She was chosen, but she did not choose, did she?" this from La Bella; when she spoke in English her voice carried with it the faintest trace of a West Virginia coal mine, though her companions were not well-trained enough to place it. "God is said to have granted man free will, but was Mary given the chance to reject the Christ child? Or was she not simply informed, and forced to proceed?"
"Are you suggesting that God raped the Virgin Mary, La Bella?" DeBurges's eyes had gone wide; he had just found the subject of his next novel, delivered to him from a most unexpected source. He would thank her, in the introduction, years later; grazie, la bella, was all it said. The novel would become an international best seller.
"Did Mary not say I am the Lord's servant?" The Countess looked scandalized by the very suggestion. "Does that not indicate her agreement?"
"In the book of Matthew, Mary is found to be with child, and it is Joseph who receives a visit from the angel Gabriel, informing him that the child is the son of God. In the book of Luke, Gabriel visits Mary, and tells her she will conceive a son. Neither account asks for her agreement." Dottore was speaking to the Countess, but his eyes were on La Bella, and there was approval, and perhaps even appreciation in his gaze. The question of freewill, of self-determination, of choosing, was of particular interest to La Bella and the Dottore.
And so it went, throughout the evening; wine flowed like a river, and food of such quality and quantity as no one else had seen before was consumed with a careful sort of awe, and debates on the finer points of religion and philosophy were undertaken with an almost childlike glee until all the guests were stuffed to the gills with ideas as much as physical sustenance, and La Bella and Dottore ushered them out with handshakes and cheek-kisses and well wishes. When the last guest had departed the pair left the matter of cleanup in the hands of their capable servants, and retreated to their private domain upstairs.
"Fuck," Clarice whined.
He did so enjoy it when she lost all pretense of refinement, and redoubled his efforts with relish.
After the party, after watching her, beautiful and regal and shining brighter than the sun, there was nothing Hannibal wanted more than to consume her. What he had learned over the past three years, what she had taught him, was that consumption was not so black and white as eat or be eaten; there was more than one way to draw another into one's self, and they had discovered more pleasures in one another than he had ever found in the swallowing of another.
She lay stretched out on their bed, a vision, a goddess; her hair was black as night, now, dyed as part of the physical transformation she had undergone when she ceased to be Special Agent Starling and became instead La Bella. The mess of her curls lay stark and beautiful against white silk pillowcases, the tendons in her neck straining beneath the tension of her pleasure, her pale, lean arms flung above her head as she gave herself over to her ravishment. Still she wore her dress, silk of a deep aubergine color - she had long since learned her husband's preferences, and took pleasure in pleasing him - the fabric bunched around her hips, leaving her toned legs and glossy sex bare for his enjoyment.
And oh, but he was enjoying himself, dipping his tongue between her silken folds, teasing out her taste and the sound of her moans, conducting the symphony of their depravity with delight. His shirt had been lost in the teasing dance of kisses that led them from the staircase to their bedroom, his tie along with it, but he still wore his trousers, and within their confines his cock ached for want of her. Not yet, he told himself; he had always possessed an inhuman degree of self-restraint, and he employed it now, knowing that the end result would be all the sweeter, for having waited.
But he was also possessed of a preternatural ability to smell and to taste, his senses godlike and unparalleled, opening to him an experience of the world that lesser beings could not fathom. Over the years he had come to know her body, the sights, the smells, the tastes, the textures of her, committed every inch of her to his memory, and as his mouth played over her sex he was struck by the sudden realization that something was, not wrong, exactly, but certainly out of place.
"Clarice," his whispered her name against her folds and was rewarded with a soft mewl of pleasure, the result of his lips caressing her in a way that made her shudder. It was only here, in the sanctity of their private quarters, upstairs, away from servants and guests and the prying eyes of the world, that he felt safe enough to use her name, and the inherent vulnerability of the word had become erotic in itself.
"Tease," she gasped, for he had taken her nearly to the edge of bliss, and yet refused to let her fall. Perhaps she had not noticed the curiosity in his voice; denial was a favorite game of his, and perhaps she thought that was all that was afoot.
"My darling," he said, rising up above her, looking down on her as if the answer to his question could be found written on her skin. Her knees grasped at his hips, trying to pull him down into her, but he would not be deterred. "Something has changed."
Her eyes darkened, doubt gathering there; she did not understand him, yet.
"At the risk of sounding crass," he said, "you taste different."
Her cheeks colored. She was no longer what she had been when they first met, young and inexperienced and trying to make up for what she lacked with dogged determination. He thought of her as she had been, then, carrying her best handbag and yet wearing those terrible scuffed shoes, a little girl trying to be brave, and he smiled, to see what she had become, in her couture gown and her decadent dishabille.
"I mean no offense-"
"Is it...bad?" she asked, trying to close her thighs ineffectually, his bulk between her legs preventing the effort.
"No," he answered at once. Nothing about her had ever been bad. "There are many factors that might contribute to such a change, and you are as delicious now as you have ever been."
But you are not the same. He knew what it was; the knowing had settled in his chest heavy as a stone. She had changed; everything had changed. The only question that remained, to his mind, was how best to broach the topic, when he knew already that the very idea was unbearable to her. It would not do to distress her, when they were both so close to their pleasure already, but his cock had begun to deflate as his mind whirred restlessly within him, and he could see her own desire had begun to fade beneath her uncertainty.
To ask the question would be to open a door so long kept closed, would be to acknowledge the potential end of the life they had built together. The end of everything. And yet he knew he ignored it at his own peril; the words must be asked, the investigation begun, a plan of attack laid, and there would not be a better moment than this one.
"Clarice," he said her name again, feeling strangely formal despite their relative state of undress. "I think you may be pregnant."