|
|
After Dinner on the Chesapeake
copyright 1999, by Running With Deer
Disclaimer:
The characters Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling were created by Thomas
Harris. They are used herein without permission, but in the spirit of
admiration and respect. No infringement of copyright is intended, and no
profit, of any kind, is made by the creator, maintainer or contributors to this
site.
1 of 5 | 2 of 5 | 3 of 5 | 4 of 5 | 5 of 5
PART 2
Ever fastidious, he did not wish to let the silk gown drop and remain on the drawing room rug, so with one smooth motion he lifted her in his arms and proceeded down the hall to the bedroom, while she nuzzled his neck and stroked his hair.
This, he knew, would be the last stop for Clarice tonight. After they finished, she would be spent, sleepy, but he would need to leave her for awhile to attend to some chores. Krendler’s body remained inert in the kitchen; he did not wish to encounter it in the morning, and certainly did not want Starling to see it. The tool shed some one hundred fifty yards from the house would serve well for cold storage until he had the opportunity to properly dispose of their dinner guest.
He brought her to the side of the bed and stood her there, she charmingly disheveled, with the gown askew. She looked more alert now, gazing directly into his eyes. He briefly caressed her face, offering her a smile, then flicked the straps of the gown at her shoulders and let it fall. He caught it before it went all the way to the floor, and she stepped out for him. She would expect him to admire her naked body now, but he did not want to ogle her as she stood in the slightly chilly air. There would be time enough for that. He placed the dress over the back of a chair, reached past Clarice and drew back the covers.
“Go on, get warm,” he urged her quietly. She complied, rolling to just past the center of the bed, making room for him, keeping the covers over her. On the sheets, he smelled the bath oil she had been using during her days as his guest.
Her eyes never left him, and he felt grateful for the minimal light in the room. The winter half-moon shone in through the tops of the windows, but not enough to show detail. Dr. Lecter had spent his youth under the teachings of the European church, and modesty was a principle he had chosen not to reject in adulthood. So far, he had gauged her accurately and saw no reason to think she might not stay for some time. He greatly wanted their encounters to move at a stately pace.
He hoped she would not say “I love you” tonight.
In the faint light, he expertly removed cufflinks, ascot, shoes, socks, shirt, trousers—he, also, had not bothered with underwear and often did not—and casually arranged them on the chair over Clarice’s gown. He drew back the covers again and lay down beside her. As he settled back against the pillow, he caught a scent coming from himself—the subtle sachet he used to line the dresser drawers—and found himself hoping that she approved.
Now he turned to her, anticipating an encore of what had gone before in the drawing room. This time, he thought, he might be even more in control, and able to achieve on a corporal plane what he had already accomplished in her mind.
He propped himself on an elbow and gazed down at her. She was very alert now, too intent, looking as scared as a recital student. He wished to calm her, bring her away from her edge, back a bit to her more pliable dream state. Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips and traced the knuckles with a feather-touch of his tongue, holding her gaze all the while. Immediately, she moved closer to him. He felt her hip touching his, so warm, and acknowledged his own mostly involuntary response. This was not difficult, he reflected, and would not have been, even without a week of hypnosis, drugs, isolation and enforced psychological intimacy. The principal effect of all his ministrations had been to sow trust and mutual understanding…and of course, to free Clarice from her stultifying inhibitions. For this phase of their relationship, no manipulation was ever really required. The knowledge gave him an exhilarating sense of freedom and satisfaction with her.
She, too, seemed to be holding back, letting it happen slowly, wanting to savor their time. Her hands were on him, that light, light touch again. Her fingertip found his left nipple, darker than its mate, where Mason’s caregiver had thrust the red-hot poker. He welcomed her touch there, never having felt any real pain from Cordell’s pathetic attack, yet responding to her efforts to heal and soothe. He closed his eyes momentarily, but soon resumed the enjoyment of her face. Her eyes were moist and large in the moonlight: she was clearly craving his kiss. His objective was to bring her to a peak of anticipation, but not to tease, and so he carefully moved himself into position astride her. She drew a hot, longing breath and raised herself toward him on her elbows. He lowered his mouth once more to her nipples and caught the other fragrance that now wafted irresistibly from her. He filed it away for later in the evening; then he shifted, so that her knees were on either side of his, and ran his tongue in a zigzag from her nipple to the depression under her ear, where he whispered her name again. She cried out then, and clenched her teeth. Her arms and legs came around him simultaneously.
“Yes…yes,” he heard himself murmur, “Mmm.” One hand behind her neck, the other stroking the front of her thigh, moving upward slowly, allowing his hips to find the place where they most properly belonged. Dr. Lecter marveled at the engineered precision of the human body during intercourse. It was one of the very few occasions when one could detach from the considerations of the cerebral cortex and allow the limbic system to run riot, however briefly. Courting and foreplay often required planning, caution, even deviousness, but once past the final threshold, one could obtain a kind of consent from the self; boundaries and limits retired, for a time, to their corners.
He felt her wet heat, and all at once had to forcibly shift his thoughts away from this time and place, lest his body betray him at the last. He summoned the smell of automobile tires in the rain, scuffed linoleum flooring in a convenience store, the telephone directory’s meaningless blur of redundant surnames, the snap of tasteless bubble gum between the teeth of a tourist. He stayed back at a distance, but close enough to hear Clarice’s high-register sobs of pleasure. Then, concentrating on the rhythm of his own breathing, he gradually allowed himself to return. He noted the hint of blue as her eyes glimpsed him through closing lids and teardrops spilled from the corners, down onto the pillow. He felt the smooth skin of her feet against his, caught the scent of the wine in the gusts of her breath.
Clarice looked fully into his eyes then, and he tacitly gave himself permission. Their bodies rocked together, almost violently. He knew this would be ending soon; the momentum was too strong to delay it much more. He derived tremendous gratification from the knowledge that she felt safer, here and now, than at any time since her infancy. For a few precious seconds, he surrendered, pushed aside his own fear, and allowed her to show him her haven. His hands cradled her head, and finally, he brought his mouth to hers.
It was as he had expected, and again, he congratulated himself on his forethought. Her hunger reached a peak when she tasted his lips and tongue, and she gave a shriek that he muted for her. He had more than five decades’ experience in taking his pleasures with absolute silence, but in tribute to Clarice Starling, he allowed a quavering baritone growl to sound in his throat as her flesh convulsed around him again, and again.
Fin
Part 2 of 5