She finally looks at him, her eyes a helpless, turbulent dark green.
“Because his needs are simple, and you give in to them every time you go down to his lair,” Guy says softly, trying desperately to keep his voice steady. “He needs you, the sight of you and the scent of you, weak and faltering and silent. No ring on your finger, even if it was put there by me, his detested son, is going to diminish his pleasure with your weakness. Or at least not until he has proof that you’ve conquered it.”
“No no no,” she whispers. “I can’t do that.”
“I’ve not asked you to do anything,” Guy replies, his voice stronger. “Have I? Although I am your husband, I would never dare to presume to tell you what to do.”
If she could speak, she would. She opens her mouth, but no sound comes out.
“He has no clue what your name is, that it is Belladonna,” he presses on, feeling bolder with every word. “He has no clue what you’ve become, because you haven’t got the strength to show him. Is that why you brought him here? To torture yourself for as long as he’s alive? To destroy everyone who loves you? To be afraid?”
Her head starts that awful slow turning again.
Guy sighs deeply, then pulls a small unwrapped box out of his pocket. “They asked me to give you this. It’s meant for both of us. A wedding present. Take it.”
He presses it into her hands. She sits staring at it, not knowing what to do, so he sighs again in exasperation and opens the box for her, taking out a small white jar. Her face blanches when she sees it.
“Where did they get this?” she whispers, her voice cracking.
“Matteo told me they made it after reading through Pompadour’s gardening books.”
She holds the jar in her hands, then slowly unscrews the top and takes a whiff. The expression on her face changes abruptly, and she starts to laugh wildly, near hysteria, her chest heaving so that it almost seems that she’s sobbing. She hasn’t laughed in a very long time, Guy realizes. There is no place for laughter in her any longer.
“Have they tried it yet?” she manages to ask, still laughing madly. “Tomasino and Matteo, of all people. The eunuchs.”
Weeks fly by and nothing changes, except that the mauve circles under Belladonna’s eyes deepen into violet smudges. I tell Matteo to stay in New York until I summon him back, and he agrees without too much persuasion. I wake up and realize one day that Bryony’s school is nearly out, and Guy will be taking her to a riding camp, driving up to the Poconos and then, he not quite truthfully telling her, getting on a plane in Philadelphia that’ll take him to London for business. It can’t be helped, he explained; he must go back. I think Bryony’s relieved to get away from her pale, sick mother, poor darling, and is comforted by Guy’s swearing on all the wags of Basilico’s tail that he’ll be back for visitors’ day. That no, of course he will not go to Ceylon, where there are nasty mosquitoes full of dengue fever; and yes, of course he’ll pick her up at the end of camp and drive her home again, too, because her mother’s probably not going to be well enough to travel then, either.
He’s already written out fifty-six postcards addressed to his scrumptious little poppet, one for every day of camp, and shipped them off to the Pritch’s office. They’ll mail them special delivery air mail every day, and Bryony can boast to all the little girls about her dashing uncle Guy in London while she counts the days till he returns.
When Guy and Bryony drive off, I am alone in the house with her, as unearthly as a ghost, and him, silent tormentor.
I can’t ask her what she’s going to do. She doesn’t want to talk to me anymore, me, her devoted Tomasino, her masterpiece of ruined civilization. All I can do is try to stay out of her way.
I sit dozing on the veranda, moping with the unfairness of it all, and wake when I hear the ice cubes of a mint julep swirling in a cup near my elbow. Guy smiles wearily when I open my eyes.
“Yours are far superior, you know,” he says.
“I’ll make you another,” I say, brightening instantly. “Is Bryony settled?”
“I suppose,” Guy replies, “although I miss her fearfully already. Where’s Belladonna?”
“I wish I knew,” I reply. Guy nods, then goes up to bed. I stay out a while longer, listening to the crickets.
Every night is like the last; every day, every week a monotony of waiting and wondering. Guy goes to see Bryony for visitors’ day and comes back again. We sit and drink juleps, or wander aimlessly around the plantation, where the mist is growing thicker and thicker around me.
Until one day when she is sitting on her little stool, asking him the same question she fears he will never answer, no matter how long she keeps him.
Where’s my baby?
Even His Lordship is starting to look as awful as she does. Captivity takes a fearsome toll on a body, doesn’t it? That, His Lordship ought to know.
Where’s my baby?
“Is that all you can ask?” he sneers. “I shouldn’t wonder that you’d come to me for advice about your unseemly lapse of judgment. No, the married states does not suit you. No doubt because you have already had a very particular kind of marriage, one far more suitable for your particular, though limited, talents.” It is the first time he has alluded to the ring on her finger, and her heart starts thumping wildly at the sound of his asking questions she finally realizes he wants desperately to have answered. “Although I can’t own to being surprised at your silence, considering the man you have had the misfortune to marry.”
“You’re jealous,” she whispers.
He laughs. “Are you mad? Even if you were fool enough to marry my pathetic son, we both know that you cannot ever bear to have him come near you. The only man who can touch you is your lord and master. Surely such a well-trained specimen as yourself understands that.” His voice thickens and he stands up and comes close to her. She shies away, and he laughs again.
“Even if you give yourself to him, you still belong to me,” he says. “You are mine. You’ll always be mine. Say it. Say you are mine. Say it! Who are you?”
“No,” she says, whimpering, “no"”
“Your life is nothing,” he goes on, his horrible voice filling her ears as he strains to get closer to her. “Without me, you are nothing. Nothing but what I made of you. Mine to possess. I own you. I shall always own you. You are mine. Say it.”
“I won’t,” she says fiercely, finding her voice at last.
“Say it!” he shouts at her. “Say it!”
“No no no!” she shouts back as she turns and runs out of the dungeon and up the stairs, into the kitchen and then upstairs to her room, slamming the door so hard it wakes me from a fitful nap.
I lie in bed, not knowing what to do, until I hear a sharp knock a few minutes later and, to my surprise, Belladonna herself hurries into my room. She is wearing a white chenille bathrobe, which puzzles me because it is so hot. She kneels down near my face, her hair wild and her cheeks flushed and her eyes dazzling emeralds of panic as she steadies herself on the side of the bed.
“Tomasino,” she says, her voice a low beseeching, “Narcissus.”
Me, Narcissus? What is she talking about? My eyes fill with tears, not only at her distress and her insult but, I must say, at the marvelous sound of my very own darling begging me for help. “What?” I say quickly. “What is it? What can I do?”
Her hands are trembling violently, I notice, as she hands me a heavy brown grocery bag that clanks in my hands. I spill out the contents on my bed and see four long chains, with leather cuffs attached to both ends, clasped with cunning little locks. There are also several long pieces of narrow black silk, and the little white jar, our wedding present I have no idea how she’s gotten these horrible chains, I tell myself wildly, even as my stomach lurches and I put everything back into the bag and fold the top so I won’t have to look at what’s inside. I know what she wants me to do.
She wants me to set it up.
Don’t do this; it’s not supposed to be t
his way, I want to say to her, but I quickly get up and run to the Narcissus Room, mirrored and golden. She has already heaped a pile of pillows on the floor. I tumble them up onto the bed, then attach the chains to each of the four posts, leaving them in neat coils. I place the white jar by the side of the bed, next to the silk blindfolds, and then wonder what to do next I turn to survey the room and nearly jump out of my skin when I see her standing, wraithlike, in the door.
“Where’s Guy?” I ask, trying to keep my voice conversational.
“I can’t,” she says. “I can’t I can’t I can’t"” She turns and runs to her room, and I hear her turn the lock. I stand there for a minute, helpless yet again, then leave, shutting and locking this door as she had just done to her own.
She stays in her room all the rest of mat day, and the next. When I bring her meals on a tray, as I used to do, I hear the voices on her radio, and see her pacing, back and forth, back and forth. She doesn’t look at me; she doesn’t speak and barely touches her food.
“You must accept the possibility that your plans may not end as you might wish them to,” Leandro said.
The Narcissus Room is still locked, its chains untouched.
“Guy will take my place,” the Pritch said. “You need to let him help you.” She never told the Pritch she would when he said that, I remember. But now she must. She must. It is unendurable. No one can live through this and stay sane. Please, I beg you, please"
Belladonna goes to her closet as the sky begins to lighten, pulls out a box, and something inside of her snaps. She closes her eyes; she knows what she must do, can do it by touch alone. She picks up the gold brocade corset and places it around her waist, fastening it as tightly as she can without someone there to pull the laces taut. She runs her fingers over a pair of sheer silk stockings and steps into them, then slides on a pair of golden garters to hold them up. She feels for the thick white chenille bathrobe and puts it on, then opens her eyes, and the door to her room.
I hear her run down the hall, down the stairs, down to His Lordship.
Shoot steady. Aim for his heart.
She bangs on his bars to awaken him, and he sits up with a start. She opens her robe and lets it fall to the floor.
“Look at me,” she orders, her voice ragged and breathless, “look at me! Fill your eyes with the sight of it, you bastard, because this is the last time you’ll ever see it. I’m going to him now, your detested son; I’m going to him because I want to.” Her voice is rising into near hysteria. “Do you hear me? I want to and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Who are you?” he says viciously, even as his eyes feast on the splendid sight of the body he’d been dreaming about every night of his life since he’d been forced to leave her. “I forbid you, do you hear me?”
“You can’t forbid me,” she says savagely. “I forbid you. He belongs to me now. You have nothing. You are nothing.”
“You whore! Impossible! You cannot. You cannot do this. You belong to me, and me alone!” he shouts, furious. “You are mine. Say it. Say it.”
“I’ll never say that to you again,” she shouts back. “Never never never"”
“You are here to serve me,” he is screaming. “You are mine!”
She lets him shout and swear, eyeing him coldly and willing her breathing to slow so she can stand without wavering, until he stops abruptly. He’s afraid of me now, she realizes in amazement. He’s afraid of me. She pulls up her robe and steps closer to him, but even as he stretches out his hands to grab her she is beyond his reach.
“Open your mouth,” she says in a loud, fierce whisper. “Open your mouth and I’ll let you touch me.”
He closes his eyes and opens his mouth, but she is already gone.
Guy wakes and senses that something is odd in his room. He opens his eyes and sits up, and thinks he is dreaming when he sees Belladonna sitting hunched in the chair and staring at him, wearing a thick bathrobe even though it is warm and sultry.
“What’s wrong?” he asks in a panic.
She stares at him, and Guy’s heart starts beating so fast he fears he will choke. He waits for her. He will always be waiting.
“Do you …” she manages to ask. “Do you love me?”
“Yes,” he says soberly. “I do. I do love you.”
“Why?”
“How can you ask me that?” he says to her with a vehement passion. “Why shouldn’t I love you, as impossible as you’ve become? I do love you, that’s all. I can’t help it. I can’t help believing in you.”
It is what Leandro said to her, once upon a time.
“How can you?” she cries now, as she did then. “I’m not a woman.”
“That’s not true!” Guy cries. “Why are you torturing me?”
She doesn’t answer, just bites her lip as she looks down at her hands trembling in her lap, at the rings on her finger. Then she stands up, wavering. “The Narcissus Room. In five minutes,” she says, her voice cracking as she runs out the door.
Guy looks at his watch until three minutes tick by, the longest three minutes of his life.
Three little minutes. Three little words.
Who are you? Where’s my baby? He’s my father.
No no no"
Let me in. I love you.
Guy gets out of bed and hurries to the Narcissus Room, waiting another minute before opening the door and locking it behind him. The shutters and curtains are drawn, and the room is nearly pitch-black. As his eyes adjust to the tight, he sees a lump of white on one of the chairs"her bathrobe. Then thinks he sees her on the bed, something gleaming near her wrists and ankles.
What has she done to herself? he wonders, then steps closer to the bed. She is lying on a mound of pillows; she has wound the long black silk blindfold around her eyes; she has attached the chains to her ankles and wrists.
No no no"
“Do it, Guy,” she whispers, and he hears the pleading and the panic in her voice. “Do it quick.”
“Not like this. Not like him,” he whispers back. “I can’t do this to you. This is not the way it should be"”
“You must,” she says, twisting her head from side to side. “You must you must you must"”
He moves closer and carefully sits next to her on the bed; he can’t help himself. He leans closer to her face, close enough to kiss her, but he doesn’t yet dare. Then he sees tears coursing slowly down her cheeks from under the blindfold. Belladonna, his most truly beloved, in tears. She, who never cried, weeping, imprisoned.
“I love you,” he whispers, leaning over so that his lips can brush away the tears glistening on her cheeks. “I love you.”
“Please,” she says. “Say it, please.”
Say what? Guy nearly cries, but he knows instead what she needs to hear.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“I am yours, my"” she says, her voice trembling, but stops when Guy puts his fingers gently on her lips.
“Never say ‘my lord’ again,” Guy tells her, his voice soft as he keeps kissing away her tears. “I am not your lord and master, and never will be. I am your husband, and you are my wife. Now, I shall ask you again. Who are you?”
“I am yours,” she says.
“Why are you here?”
“To do your bidding.”
“What shall you do?”
“Whatever you desire.”
“I desire you,” Guy says, his voice choking as he thrills to the sound of her voice, the scent of her, her body so close to his. She won’t say it; she won’t say “my lord,” not ever again. He can’t stop kissing her neck, the swell of her breasts, the tip of her nose, her lips. He is kissing her, and she is kissing him back, deeply, as if she can somehow inhale the very life out of him so she can breathe again.
“Stop,” she cries out suddenly, and Guy pulls away, terrified she will ask him to leave.
Not now, oh please, I beg you, not now when you’re so close, oh please, don’t stop"
“Open it,” she mu
rmurs, and he looks over to the table beside the bed, where he sees a small white jar.
“Is this what you want?” He thinks he sees her nod. “I won’t hurt you,” he says with the utmost tenderness. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
He scoops out a bit of the cream and touches her where he knows she wants it, where no man has touched her since"
He sits beside her, waiting. He still hasn’t taken off his pajamas. The room is stifling, but he is frozen, waiting. Waiting, Please, oh please"
“Guy,” she says after a few minutes, and he sees her arch up, her legs moving closer together. “Guy.”
“What do you want, my darling?” he whispers.
“You,” she says, “I want you.”
I bring their meals on trays and leave them outside the door, so Guy can pick them up. I stay out of sight, but I am in a much more pleasant state of mind than I’ve been in a long, long time.
Every day, Guy uses less and less of the cream. Gradually, he unfastens the chains, one by one; then he removes her blindfold, and, slowly, opens the shutters and pulls back the curtains.
His Lordship is in a fearsome state, and I call my brother, telling him everything, and he promises to get on a plane as soon as he possibly can.
The mist is starting to clear from my eyes. Especially when Matteo arrives and insists on preparing His Lordship’s meals himself. We don’t discuss what he’s doing. I can’t say I’m glad, exactly, but this saga must come to an end at some point, don’t you agree?
Guy tears himself away from Belladonna only long enough to drive up to the Poconos to pick up Bryony, as he’d promised.
“Mommy’s better, isn’t she?” Bryony announces when she flings herself into Guy’s arms and takes a good look at his face. “I can tell.”
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