Barely a moment passes and I can feel sleep tugging at my skirts. Delilah didn’t undress me so I lie here in a red, satin dress; far too tight for my frame. At least I’m not wearing the heels. I can imagine what fun sleep would have with that.
I let my eyes slide closed and am unastonished to be greeted with darkness.
Grateful and content.
I cannot remember what I dreamed in the aeons that passed since I let my eyes shut themselves against the tribulations of a dismal Tuesday. But the sound of my door clicking closed has my senses snap back drastically, and I open my eyes in confusion. Didn’t she leave a while ago already?
How long have I been asleep?
To my intense mortification, Dimitri steps out of the darkness into the light emanating from the small, night light beside me. He seems a midnight messiah in the dichotomy of his appearance – His suit, a black and white affair reminiscent of the businessman I know him to be, while his curling black hair, melding into the bristles of his thick, silken beard, so dark as to almost be indigo, makes a Christ figure of him. He appears a part of the shadows, as though they hesitate to release him to the ravages of light. But a pity it would be. He was made to be seen.
His eyes gleam in the recesses of his face as his beard almost hides the gentle smile on his lips.
Not now, I can’t help thinking. Not like this with me lying here, rumpled and groggy, a knot of blood still stuck to my hair and what feels like crusted blood on my cheek. Why does he have to come to me now?
It’s a moment or two before I even remember why I was terrified to face him in the first place and when the memory hits me, my breathing turns laborious. I find it difficult to draw in oxygen in the face of my own shame.
I close my eyes again, hoping his appearance in my room is just a figment, a nightmare I have woken into; one of those layered sleep patterns, when you think you’ve woken up, but really your subconscious is just playing tricks on you.
But even as my eyes black out, I know I have just been deluding myself thinking he would allow Delilah to take the blame for my behaviour. I don’t need the definite, cool kiss he lays on my lips to encourage me to look at him and face my defeat. But it is appreciated. My heart slows its painful rhythm somewhat.
On his face there is a smile, but his eyes are far too intent to match it, as though he’s boring into me with a telepathy that leaves my thoughts bare and vulnerable for him. Hacking at the muck in my brain to get to the truth of how dismally I failed at the one thing he asked of me.
Or his mind is on other things entirely.
“How are you feeling?” He asks me kindly.
Of course, kindness is the last response I’ve been expecting and so my face crumbles, much to my horror, and even as I try to sniff them back, tears seep from the corners of my eyes, assuredly leaving my face in even more of a blotchy red mess than it was a moment ago.
Once more I’m reminded of what a pathetic mess I’ve become. This is not me. This has been me for almost a year now, but it isn’t me. I’m better than this crying, flushed, blotchy cow that sits in front of the one man I want to be better for.
I will not look at him, I think as I reach up to wipe them. Perhaps if I can remove the evidence and not witness the look of pity and embarrassment for me on his face, I can pretend for a moment longer that he did not see them.
But his fingers trace the edges of my face, wiping at the tears and grazing over one of the neglected, dried up blood trails. He sits back and thoughtfully places the now vermillion-stained fingers to his mouth. Almost absent-mindedly he lets the finger slide between his lips and sucks on it. His face shifts briefly to a look I cannot determine. A frustrating and humiliating thing for me. I have never encountered a facial expression I could not determine. But this one seems condensed; a ream of emotions at once. The most obvious one being lust. My heart thuds for a second until I realise my mistake. Not lust. Hunger? I can’t be certain. But not traditional lust as I know it.
Whatever the intention of the distant gaze clouding his sight, the vision of him leaning over me with that look on his face, that look torn between hunger and desire, that look of… passion? It makes my fingers ache to stroke his face, to graze over his skin and through his beard. It makes my skin languish for his.
I wish I could know what he’s feeling. If nothing else than to know what move to make next. Never have I felt this off-balance. This at odds with a man. Though, there have been so few.
I slide myself up against the wall behind me and lean back, trying not to jolt my body any more than is entirely necessary for the movement. Although I am inclined to shake myself from my appalling thoughts.
As quickly as the strange, indecipherable mask crosses Dimitri’s features it is gone. His face returns to the placid, almost cheerfully distracted intensity it struck me as before. A heart flutter I did not realise was being enticed in my chest settles down as he brushes his fingers across my hand.
“I hear you had quite the accident.”
“It’s not so bad,” I stammer. I feel like a foolish schoolgirl. He was always so easy to talk to before. Why do I feel now as though I should wait for his approval before speaking in his presence?
His smile slips away and a shadow of a glance, closer to what I had been fearing I would see on his face, deepens behind his eyes. Disappointment. His left eyebrow raises itself in question and the error of my statement becomes plain to me.
How could I be so stupid?
“…Master.”
The serene smile returns as though it was never wiped away and in its wake lies a hint of pained resignation. Almost a disappointment in my maddening response? I must have been imagining that. Everyone else in this house seems to believe that “Master” is the title he expects and approves of. Don’t they?
“Let me see.”
Obediently, I lean forward, exposing what feels like a tunnel toward the centre of the earth to him. His hands graze over the painful, bruised area surrounding it and he avoids touching the wound itself.
All I can think is that my gratitude could not be greater for the care he takes with it.
Eventually he ceases prodding at the injured tissue around the cavity and pushes me back to lean once again against the wall. He stands and walks over to a cabinet beside the armoire. A cabinet I had not taken note of really until now. My mind had been sincerely preoccupied.
With his back turned to me and his shape somewhat indeterminate in the night of the room, I can hear a gentle clinking and am consequently unsurprised when he turns back with a crystal glass in his hand, filled with a dark, thick textured drink. He glides back to the bed and offers me the beverage.
The smell overtakes me long before he reaches my bedside. The same drug Cecily fed me only last night.
Seeing the hesitation on my face, his smile wavers again, “Drink it, Eva. It will aid the healing process.”
I glance in consternation at the drink. Well, my mind interjects, unbidden, that would explain what the hell is wrong with me. I’m involved, as my beloved brother so eloquently put it, in some sort of hippie cult where the leader feeds the girls Rohypnol with the added benefit of a delightful smell and then takes advantage of them when they’re at their weakest.
My face heats up again.
I hate being me sometimes.
To avoid Dimitri paying too close attention to the blush varnishing my cheeks, I take the glass from his hand, intending to take just a sip.
Intentions, however, are brilliant in theory, but are very seldom carried out as planned.
Had my mother seen me drinking with such a lack of grace she would have inevitably uttered something akin to “You’ll never hang on to him with those table manners.”
Oddly though, no blush hovers beneath my skin this time, just gratification.
I can barely contain the purr.
Shane opens his mouth like a guppy fish and I pause in annoyance once more. A flush of pleasure has stolen across my face in the retelling. I can’
t help it. But sharing it with someone like this is almost sublime, getting to give the vitality – if that’s the right word – of Dimitri to another human being.
With a wretched sigh I look at Doctor Shane, waiting for the comment he is invariably going to interject. Now.
“You make frequent mention of this unnamed beverage, I noticed.”
“Yes, Doctor Shane.”
“Is it possible, perhaps that you are using this “liquid” as a symbol for something stronger? More relative to you?”
“You mean, was I drunk? Or abusing some other substance?”
Shane sighs with only a tiny hint of aggravation, “Come now, Eva. You must have some inclination of what was in those little mouthfuls of ambrosia?”
His eyes flirt with another of my scattered books, this one graced with a bemusing cover: a handsome man, his dark hair blowing in a hidden wind, embracing a brunette beauty, his face nuzzled close to her neck as he looks out at the reader. In the background, subtle behind the handsome couple at the forefront, is an old, overrun cemetery.
“I have my theories.”
Dimitri takes the glass from my hand and sets it down on the table beside me. “It is good you took my advice. Such an injury will take time to heal. And while it will not be debilitating, it will still be painful and uncomfortable for you.” He pauses a second before he strokes his beard thoughtfully and continues, “And I would not like you to encounter any more obstacles on the path to furthering my goals.”
The ice cube feeling I have been swallowing down all day rises like acid reflux from my stomach to my chest and my throat, settling like a coiled snake around my tongue.
He knows.
“Dimitri, I’m sorry.” I avoid the “Master” title. Even though it hangs on my tongue, traitorously tugging at my nerves. He doesn’t seem to notice, or care, or even flinch at what should be seen as a lack of respect. But only if you drive this entire affair of sordid sex, submission and love a few hundred years into the past.
I hang my head, pathetically, somehow imploringly. The best I can offer him now is apology.
“How will you make it up to me?”
I look up at him confused. I had thought he would have me shunned, removed from his home, punished. He is asking me what I think my penance should be?
“You’re going to let me stay?” I can hear the plea in my voice and its sounds pitiful to me, an instant reaction that makes me cringe. The fact that I am practically begging him to keep me around, telling him that I’ll do anything… It bothers me, but not as much as it should. Which is a deeply worrisome thought.
Although I can’t afford to be picky. He is paying me.
And I did kind of lose my job.
He doesn’t respond to my question. That hurts.
“A servant of mine,” He says, picking up the glass again and standing to replace it on the cabinet, “Recently passed away. Yes, yes,” He mutters in response to my concern, “It’s quite awful. However, this isn’t why I am telling you this. You see this servant was my caretaker and was the only one within these walls I trusted with the skeleton key.”
“A key to fit every lock in the house?”
“Precisely. You see, I cannot give this key to just anyone. There are rooms in this house which are out of bounds to staff and guests,” He smiles at me.
“And you would like me to find someone who can be trusted with this key?”
“I believe you can be trusted with this key.”
Another task? He’s giving me something new to focus on even though the last one has been such a complete disaster?
Is this his way of showing me he cares enough to keep me around?
The shame sits in me again as I look at his fist clenched around a small object. He is giving me the opportunity to redeem myself.
Why do I feel the need to second guess him when he has been so considerate of me?
“Thank you, Dimitri.”
“You do understand, don’t you, that this duty will require self-control on your behalf?”
I cannot disguise my bemusement.
“There is a room in this house that this key fits to as surely as it does any other. On the ground floor, behind the staircase is a corridor. At the end of this corridor there is a regular door standing alone from the rest of the house. It is the only room directed off of this corridor and it is to remain locked at all times. Do you understand me?”
I nod almost imperceptibly. The trap has been set.
“No one is to enter that room with the exception of myself. No one, Eva. Is that clear?”
I nod again. What could be lurking behind that door that Dimitri has to hide? What secrets as yet uncovered is he unwilling to have aired?
“Good,” The smile returns to his features, soft and tender, “I will come to you directly when I require an access to the room. You possess the only key. Be aware of it at all times. If it is lost, you will be responsible. If it is damaged, you will be responsible. If anyone enters without my permission, I will assume that you have not paid due caution to your task and will consequently hold you responsible.”
He opens his fist to reveal a small, iron key on a slim string of leather curled in his palm. Nothing stands out about the object. From the crescendo I had been expecting something intricately wrought and devilish in appearance, possibly glowing with necrotic promise. But this seems a simple, modern key, intended to open all rooms and be functional, not beautiful.
Shaking out the tether, he lays the band over my head, draping it around my neck and shoulders. The brush of his fingers almost goes unnoticed at the weight of responsibility.
Almost.
I still long to have his hands stray on their path away from me. However, it seems my crimes must still be punished. He allows the key to fall across my chest and sits back.
“Now, as to your failed task of earlier today,” His face holds none of the disappointment I saw in him moments ago when he broached the subject of me quitting my job, “You will continue in this endeavour. Of course, I will give you time to complete it. But by the end of the week, I expect results.”
With that he stands and leaves me to fondle the forbidden key around my neck and sit in shocked annoyance that I, once again, neglected to attain my damn story.
WEDNESDAY 19 November 2008… 11:15
I can’t recall sleeping, but I must have. When I opened my eyes again, a dim haze shone on my face from the daylight trying to eek its way through the thick, suffocating drapery. The panic from last night tried to sink in again, but when I braced myself for it I realised two things. Firstly, a week (touch wood) is more than enough time to attain the goals set for me, and secondly, my head doesn’t hurt at all.
When I reached up to touch the wound that I was so terrified of remembering, I felt nothing there. It didn’t sting, or throb, and after pulling out a clump of muck I would rather not try and register the origin of, my fingers found no scab or bleeding hole, just smooth, healed skin beneath my hair.
I do not like being proven wrong. It hurts my pride. But I have to admit that whatever drug Dimitri has been feeing us, it seems to be more effective as a tranquiliser, painkiller and healing balm than as a mind-altering substance.
As the day passed, however, I realised that my companions would not allow me to overexert myself as they were still afraid of some adverse effect connected with walloping my head on a marble counter.
When I wandered down to the kitchen, Delilah sent me upstairs with a stern, pointed finger and a comment about how there was nothing I could do anyway until I heard from Bordeaux. She had a point, I suppose, so I allowed myself to be chased from the kitchen and climbed the stairs, feeling as pointless as a slice of bread with a pasta dish.
When Cecily entered my room a while later on carting a sandwich, a bottle of wine, and a laptop, I was so excited that I completely forgot about the incident of last night with Levi. At least someone was thinking ahead, although that is supposed to be my job. I nodded emphatically when
she mentioned that she had thought perhaps I could begin with the barebones of an article to send to Bordeaux as a piece to whet their appetites. Why didn’t I think of it? Because my mind was too full of Dimitri. But I wouldn’t admit that to Cecily, I imagine that she already understood it anyway.
But she placed the laptop bag beside me without a comment about my lack of forethought.
It was only when she was on her way out the door again that I recalled her involvement in an argument with Levi, but when I tried to speak to her about it she blew me off and walked out, muttering something about work to do. Cecily doesn’t work, she’s never worked. Since she left school our parents have supported her through thick and thin, more so than they ever would have done for Alexander and I. Not that it concerns me, I enjoy making my own way and being free of obligations at day’s end. However, I am curious as to the work she is doing. For Dimitri. Social liaison? Could be. Like Delilah. But he has D, why would he need Cecily too?
Choice here is an infringement, none of us (that “us” feels strangely diluted) seems to choose what we do or how we do it. But I like that. And this is what’s bothering me. I shouldn’t be seeing myself as a part of this madness. Beautiful, epiphany-face and exquisite physique aside, Dimitri is just a man. My skin crawls at the relation, but I must try to think this through rationally. Yes, he astounded me in the short time we spent alone together before the last few whirlwind days. And yes, he is the most dichotomous man I have ever had the pleasure of engaging in conversation, with his striking appearance combined with his perfect articulation and bursting vault of knowledge, competing against his secrets, some dark enough that the thought of what they may be makes me shiver.
That right-hand-man of his alone is enough to make me run.
Levi. My skin tries to shiver off of my frame at the memory of how he touched me, unbidden. There have been stories of Dimitri and now I am beginning to feel the inclination towards belief. But strangely it intrigues more than it terrifies. I think I may want his darkness. I love him. I think I do, it’s the only explanation. But that in itself is an oddity. I’ve only known him for a brief time and I don’t do love. I do attachment. But this is breath-stealing, like leaving his house would be tantamount to death. This has to be love, right? But, goddammit! He’s just a man.
The Key (Sanguinem Emere) Page 10