The Key (Sanguinem Emere)

by Taxer, Carmen

  Pulling rank on me? I figured he’d do so eventually. But I his curiosity really on the books? I can see the way his eyes are gleaming along with the story I’m telling. It doesn’t embarrass or surprise me.

  Fine.

  “My brother brought them for me.”

  “Alex. I’ve spoken with him. He cares a lot for you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you love your family?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “How does that feel?”

  “Like I would do anything to protect them, they’re in me.”

  “And you’re in them.”

  “Yes.”

  He smiles patronisingly at me and I glower at him with impassive eyes, “Yes, Doctor Shane, I know what it feels like to love another person. And yes, I do love Dimitri.”

  “Did love him.”

  “Do.”

  “Very well, Eva. Let’s move on. Your brother and I also had a little talk about this affair and he theorised that perhaps you allowed your previous love disappointments to influence your imagination-”

  “No.”

  “All girls wish they could be romanced by a millionaire, don’t-”

  “No.

  He watches me with hesitant eyes.

  “I love Dimitri Kron.”

  “Feeling subservient to a man is not the same as loving-”

  “I know that!”

  Slowly the woman – Saskia – steps away from me, her fingers stroking my cheek as she retreats. On her face there is no smile now, just an intent look that almost matches the one on Dimitri’s visage.

  She turns and lifts a long satin gown from the floor behind the chaise. I can’t see the colour but I am briefly reminded of something tropical as she dons the gown and leaves discreetly through a door near the greatest bookcase. I hadn’t seen the door before now.

  It’s a brief few seconds before I realise I’ve been left alone with Dimitri. And I have nothing to say. The anger has dissipated, leaving behind it nothing but the raging disappointment, the terrible hurt. I can’t even bring myself to feel guilt for having spied on my master. And the fact that my mind does not balk at the word which automatically slipped into my thoughts is less upsetting than it should be.

  That, in and of itself, upsets me more; that the word no longer bothers me.

  Dimitri sighs and turns on one of the tiffanies, immediately dimming its effect as my eyes adjust weirdly. He seats himself on the red suede chaise lounge that so recently housed the item of my distress and lounges upon it. His nudity has not been taken into consideration and it distracts me, but not so much with lust as with more plaguing thoughts of him with other women. That all those luscious parts of him have touched others, loved girls that were not me.

  His movements seem so natural suddenly, so human. And it strikes me that until now I’ve been seeing him as an irretrievable chalice, a holy grail, not a man. Now his personal humility shines through.

  It’s possible that this sudden new vision of him strikes harder at me than before. I’m not sure what’s worse. Believing him to be unattainable. Or believing him to be unattainable to me.

  He glances up at me from slightly hidden eyes, his hair falling into his face and holds out his hand which glows gold in the flattering lamp-light. His entire being is a shade of seduction.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.” He sounds genuine in his intention, but I can’t bring myself to believe it. Or to forgive him or myself for criticising him. But his eyes have grown soft as he looks at me.

  I say nothing, my voice too treacherous to trust, and look down, unable to obfuscate the frown that creases my forehead, trying desperately to stop my tears from falling. Trying fervently not to be bewildered by his naked body and brooding eyes.

  He clicks his tongue and a gentle laugh rumbles through him as I hear him shift his position, standing from the couch and walking to me. His fingers lift my chin, a mimicry of Saskia’s actions of a moment ago and he smiles as I look into his face.

  I snake my head from his grasp, suddenly filled to bursting with distaste at his mannerisms and attempts to placate me, “Don’t.”

  There’s warning in my tone and his eyes flicker oddly, I’d like to think taken-aback, but I can never tell with him. “Don’t pretend you have nothing to be sorry for.” I can’t stop my flashing accusations from slipping out, the words tumble and lash at him.

  The smile vanishes and his eyes stream intensity into me. In spite of myself, my body warms slowly, like a flickering candle growing in strength as his sweat-dampened, cold skin is pressed up against the front of my dress. He twines his fingers through mine and gently pulls me, insisting even though my mind stubbornly refuses to cave to him. But my feet follow and I bite back the snide remarks clambering through me as he pushes me down onto the chaise, his hands stroking me, placating me.

  His mouth seeks mine out and vertigo buzzes like a phone ringing through my skull as my hips rise to his hands lifting my skirt, laying me bare, removing unnecessary obstacles. Brief thoughts of shame knock to gain my mind’s advantage, but then he touches me again and his tongue strokes mine and such thoughts are outnumbered by mental cries of pleasure.

  No, real moans; I feel them vibrate into my fingers which knead at his skin.

  For the first time since the night we spent together in Delilah’s apartment, he’s really mine again. He isn’t holding ownership over me, he isn’t expecting anything of me. This is a simple enjoyment of one another.

  He lays his hips between my thighs and slides into me like there was never a question. We fit. We are. I am here. The doubts crawl out of me like rats abandoning a sinking ship as he delves into me, lessening my pain with every movement until there is nothing left but the sight of him holding my gaze with his.

  I arch my spine and my head falls back as the pressure builds far too quickly. His lips move to my neck, the same spot Saskia located and it seems my voice cries for him as the feel of his tongue sends sparks into my abdomen.

  And it’s too late. I climax with a spasm around him, unable to control myself at the lightest of his touches.

  But as always its over too soon for me as the warm glow of orgasm is replaced by the cold breeze of reality.

  It’s over. Too soon for me, as the coldness that I knew had been waiting for this moment to pass, grumbles inside me. Any moment now the disappointment in him will return, the loneliness of being outside of his special sphere, his golden glow.

  He pulls back from my throat, his breathing heavy, his eyes lidded, lazily half-closed, like a cat.

  Tenderly he bends his head to my breast and kisses it before he lays his chin on my chest and looks up into my eyes.

  The slumberous gaze he bestows on me makes my body ache to have him again but I look away, content to have had him, but becoming hounded once more by petty doubts and fears. Things I have never been prone to in my life.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Lamb,” He whispers as his hand starts to move once more up my leg, gauging my body’s keening correctly “You are my favourite. Always.”

  FRIDAY 22 November 2008… 01:47

  “I am sending back the key

  That let me into Bluebeard’s study.

  Because he would make love to me

  I am sending back the key.

  In his eye’s darkroom I can see

  My x-rayed heart, dissected body.

  I am sending back the key

  That let me into Bluebeard’s study.”

  Sylvia Plath, Bluebeard

  It feels like I’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours, my body thrumming from contact with him.

  But everything is different, slightly off.

  The comforting buzz of conversation and tender music has died away.

  The room is dark. No soft, welcoming glow cradles the deep shadows in the corners. The place is steeped in night.

  And a chill raises the finest of hairs on my bare skin. My thighs. My breasts. But that may not have anything t
o do with the temperature in here.

  It’s eerie. One moment I could have sworn everything was perfect. Exactly as it should be. I had Dimitri and the pleasant sounds of a gathering of a large crowd of people cradled my fears and rocked them into a gentle slumber. And instantly, like a bulb shattering from too much power, I’m here in the dark of the library with my dress pulled askew so as to hang about my middle like a pimping belt in a whore-house, and silence surrounding me.

  Nothing but a soft, scraping noise sounding somewhere far off.

  I lift my head and pull my dress up and down, rearranging it to cover my humiliation. My first raging thought is “How could he leave me like this?” Has this entire thing become some sick joke to him? Am I a jester for his amusement?

  I can’t even bear to go over the details, to try and think through the extent of my rage. All I can do is seethe a little, wish I could rip him a new one for all of this. And then bemoan my thoughts. Wonder why I can’t just accept him as he is? I mean, after all, he has accepted me as I am. Lavished in my faults and stoked my goodness. And then I’m angry all over again at him for making me angry at myself for being angry at him. And so on and on and on…

  Frustrating. All of this.

  My perplexity gives me pause as I sit in the dark trying to piece together the end of our encounter. But my thoughts just come up blank.

  It all seemed perfectly natural and safe up to now. We were here on the sofa. The extent of… Everything… Had been too intense, too much. He’d taken me again and again after that first time.

  My body had given into his attentions three times and he still continued to take advantage of my desire for him, which seemed unwilling to bend regardless of the constant give. By the fourth time I caved to his caresses and writhed in his arms, screaming myself hoarse, wondering what the memorial guests must have thought (a shudder of shame trickles into me), my body had begun to hurt, the pleasure was laced with intense pain. I had begged him to stop, not sure I believed what I was saying. He apparently had not believed it.

  I was raw. It was excruciating bliss as his lips had sucked at my neck, lavishing me in kisses. Sapping my energy to resist him, my will to say no.

  The weakness in my thighs had spread everywhere. I could barely keep my eyes open despite the waves of pleasure washing over me.

  And then suddenly, without warning, feeling had returned to me and my mind had almost reconnected, as if something had been missing.

  I came into the knowledge that everything is quiet and dark. And I am alone.

  Sitting up, a chill takes me and my head spins with residual alcoholism, though I only had two glasses of wine. This place is not quite as friendly looking without him. He beams like a torch in the dark and the dark is that much darker when he isn’t with me.

  I stand quickly and slip out of the library, clinging to the wall for support as my dizziness takes hold with a vengeance. My assumptions are correct. The party has ended and the house is in complete quiet. No people, no unseen musicians and no light to drive away the seeping darkness.

  The pictures of that Fleur girl are still sitting in their position displayed around the entrance hall like silent sentinels. The walls blur slightly in and out of focus as I try to strain my eyes to concentrate. I can’t believe I let myself get this hammered. Then again, in all honesty, I can’t believe I let about eighty per cent of what happened over the last twenty-four hours occur. Levi. Dimitri – at the memorial of a girl who killed herself. I’m losing my grip. Just as I imagined.

  Of course, I could always leave – that would at least solve quite a few of my current misguided problems. The thought keens from some slipping blackness in me and my fingers sting at the notion. Leave Dimitri? After what just happened?

  I can’t. It feels impossible.

  He gave himself to me. He lavished in me. And he let me do the same. The pain is good, even though it still throbs and my human is tired and drained.

  My head pounds slightly as I stumble towards the staircase. Entirely off-balance both physically and emotionally. This can’t just be the alcohol.

  I don’t even have it in me to be afraid of the dark encroaching on me though the thought does brand a sampling of the fear into me. But the dark looks hazy to my confused sight.

  At the staircase I pause again as a sound catches my hearing. A scratching sound. The sound of nails landing on a surface… Stone? Wood? And then slowly drawing down said surface. I glance down the strange passage to the strange little door at the very end. I can barely make out its outline in the dimness in here, the gloom that my eyes seem entirely unwilling to adjust themselves to. But it’s there. The lights are off now, just as with everywhere else in the house, but the door is definitely closed.

  Again the scratching ricochets down the passage to whisper to me and my hands automatically reach to me neck. Where the key hangs. He must have slipped back over my shoulders while I slept. Or passed out. Or whatever the hell happened in that library.

  For the briefest of moments I consider letting my curiosity lead me by the nose again but flashes of Levi leaning over me make my stomach churn in response. I can’t do this. Not now. Vertigo strikes me again and I snatch at the staircase railing, holding on for dear equilibrium.

  This is absurd. All of this.

  I pull myself up the stairs, blatantly ignoring the incessant scratching which sounds to me like an invitation. Or a dare.

  I grit my teeth and trudge on.

  My bedroom door stands ajar and the light inside flickers slightly as something moves across its comforting glow, almost warming my skin like the sun. Usually I would care about someone in my space. I mean, his space. The space he gave me? But my body is screaming with the effort of dragging myself here. My head hurts and the nausea permeating my system punctuates my discomfort. The dizziness, of course, does not help and all I can think of is falling into those perfectly soft covers and wishing away the last few days with dreams, siphoning off all the bad until all that is left in my head is Dimitri and his soothing voice.

  Delilah’s head whips to the door as I walk in.

  Her usual smile, edged with relief starts up on her beautiful face but then her expression crumbles as she looks me over.

  “You were with him tonight?” Her voice is verging on cold and I flinch away from it. It’s bad enough that my own guilt is hounding me, now I have to face the betrayal in her eyes. My feelings at finding him with that other woman – Saskia – reflected right back at me. I can almost see the pain-spun well opening up in her abdomen, just like it did in mine.

  A single tear drips from her eye as she hurriedly wipes it away.

  “D,” I try to keep my voice from betraying my worn body, “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” She stoically draws herself up to her full height and slaps a smile back on her features, making sure to allow it reach to her eyes so that there is no uncertainty. My sleeping with Dimitri does not bother her. Yeah, right. “We’re sisters in this. Partners.”

  Sisters. I haven’t seen Cecily. She must be just as angry with me as Delilah. Though I can’t really say that. If I’ve learnt one thing at all in the last few days, it is that Cecily is far more intuitive and in control than I’ve ever given her credit for.

  I peer at Delilah through slightly hazed eyes, “How can you be so blasé about this?”

  She feigns confusion for my sake. “It isn’t being blasé, pet. It’s the way it is. He loves me. But he also loves you. And Cecily. And even Melinda if you can believe that.”

  She smirks.

  A part of me wants to get what she’s saying and kind of does. A snide comment of “And Addison?” lays itself upon my lips but I choke it down. Then that hint of cultism comes swarming back over me, that we’re all toys to satiate his masculine needs. Can’t let her see it.

  I shrug. “Whatever.”

  My body leads itself to the bed. That’s all I can describe it as, as I fall onto the softness of it, the opulence just as I pictured it when I wa
s trying to will myself up the staircase. The bed beside me shifts as Delilah’s minimal weight is added to the entire affair and her warm hand brushes my bare skin between my shoulder blades.

  The touch is reminiscent of Saskia and I freeze, afraid to move lest I let my friend in on my shame of the past few hours. Of my sudden slutdom. My inability to maintain control of myself around Dimitri and the people he calls acquaintances.

  Her hand however moves in rhythmic patterns, painfully like what I experienced earlier. She lets her fingers move to undo the lace binding my chest tightly and slips her hand beneath the fabric, pulling it loose as she slowly exposes my back. I roll over and she smiles at me. Her face illuminated by the lamp-light in her hair as if she’s encased in a glowing golden halo.

  She does looks shockingly like an angel in this light.

  “What are you doing?” I can’t seem to find the need in me to get away. I know how this will play out. I know this look. I’ve seen it on countless faces. Hers included. But I can’t remove myself from the situation.

  I’m just too damn tired.

  Though I know the repercussions will be severe.

  Her fingers touch my throat. “He really took it out of you, didn’t he?” She says as her eyes focus just below my face.

  “What?” My bemusement makes her smile.

  “You know, ‘it’.” She whispers as she leans closer to me and brushes my lips with hers. Her breath is sweet. “And what’s this?” She tugs at something around my neck, pulling an object loose from between my breasts.

  Shit! The key!

  “Nothing,” I hedge as I hurriedly pry it from her fingers and clutch it in my hand. Unsure what to do with it, I can’t let it just lie around where she can pick it up again.

  If Dimitri finds that I’ve let it slip into someone else’s hands, he’ll be mad. I don’t want that. I just want more of those kisses. The ones made of fire. The ones that circle around me and make me forget that I am just another girl to him, like all the others.