Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
Oh, dear God!
I felt the room shift. An
explosion of sensations greeted the touch of his lips against my bare skin, and
the shock seemed to bring me to the surface of the warm, gentle liquid of my
new existence, and I breathed. My long,
shuddering breath was loud in the silence, and I desperately tried to keep my
body from tensing, but I could not. I
waited, but he merely continued suckling, and I had just begun to believe it
had escaped his notice when he suddenly lifted to me a frighteningly unreadable
expression.
I could not look into his eyes, or he would surely see my hesitation, and then all would be lost, no matter that I had partaken of the flesh—a singular communion—with this…man. With a composure borrowed from the powerful narcotics stampeding my discretion, I dropped my gaze to his lips, dark and swollen from activity. It seemed to me they moved with mesmerizing perfection.
"Clarice." His voice seemed to echo tightly around me, as if from a distance in a tunnel. I moved away from it, receding into the darkness, instinctively seeking safety even in my watery state of mind. Another voice chased me back out with the horror of truth nipping at my heels like a vicious black dog in a big pink bow:
--And the crack in the teacup opensA lane to the land of the dead.
Time. I needed time.
Slowly, I leaned back in my chair. My gaze on the fire, I grasped Lecter's head between my hands and guided him back to my breast. The dancing flames seemed to burn their way into me, lapping at my farthest nerve endings with an unbearable heat. I somehow believe, even now, that looking away might have stayed my immolation. But I could not.
* * *
Self-awareness had not been lost, though I had been. I mean that I was very much aware of liking things, disliking things, of wanting a cup of coffee, black, or to go for a run, or to feel him powerfully riding my body to rapturous fulfillment, but I had no conception of whom I was. Dr. Lecter had kept me in this way for two weeks, throughout which I had lost all sense of time and could not have guessed at the duration to save my life.
Then, I experienced something of a visitation. It was as if I was privy to the thoughts in another woman's head. Odd that this occurred whilst I was enshrouded in the densest fog of surrealism: we'd checked in at the gate, and the airline attendant had addressed me as Mrs. Cowled. And something had happened.
Every step down the long walkway seemed to jar another memory loose, and my steps grew hesitant. This woman's voice demanded my attention, forcing me to focus on the knowledge that I was leaving the country. A warning chill shivered down my spine, and the man with his hand at the small of my back didn't miss a beat as he guided me to my seat.
A pinprick, and it was over.
* * *
I recall nothing of the remainder of our flight, nor how we arrived at the house by the sea—truly, other than this particular detail, and that the sun set behind the sea, I knew not where I was.
My first lucid moment in that house was under the fiercely fucking body of Hannibal Lecter.
* * *
Under pain, pleasure,--
Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
To the borders of day.
The light came and went, and I counted: one day. The night brought another fierce round of nocturnal activity. The sex was so rigorous it felt like a punishment. The days I spent alone, as usual, but when dark befell my sphere, he always returned. I did not understand until the third night what was happening.
I awoke from a brief respite due to a sense of falling—I have a memory of learning this happens when one falls asleep after excessive exhaustion…there is another memory…it eludes me—and I saw him beside me, propped up on one arm and watching me with an unnatural intensity. He lifted my shoulder until I, too, was on my side, his hand slipping to trace the exaggerated curve of my waist. A spasm, a harsh grip on my flesh, and it became clear there was to be no rest after all.
"I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing," he whispers the intoxicating words of another genius.
"I like your body. I like what it does, I like its how's." His hand roams the planes of my back, his slowly enunciated words smooth accompaniment: "I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones, and the trembling, firm, smoothness," he leans down and presses his lips to my shoulder, his hand cupping my arched hip, "which I will again," he presses me onto my back and his lips graze my breast, "and again," his tongue dips into my navel, "and again…kiss. I like kissing this and that of you. I like slowly stroking the shocking fuzz of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes over parting flesh…and eyes big love-crumbs."
And indeed I felt my eyes widen as he skillfully triggered an orgasm with a simple touch deep within. His ability to command my body so effortlessly is still beyond my comprehension.
"And possibly I like the thrill—of…under…me…you…so…quite…new…" His voice broke at this, and he covered me, pressing his lips against mine, but not moving. He was still for so long I felt suffocated by his dead weight. And that was when I finally understood:
He was savoring me, stockpiling sensations for the future—a future without me.
And I woke up.
* * *