#inticing

At the first taste of her, he paused, glanced up at her with a somewhat surprised expression and returned to press his lips back to her weeping cunt as her manicured nails dug into his scalp and tugged him closer to where she reclined on the fainting couch.

She was sensitive, came with a strangled gasp far sooner than either of them expected.

He nuzzled his face against her soft inner thigh for a moment, deep in thought, before pressing upwards, lips brushing a soft kiss just below her belly button, ‘how have you been?’

She snorted, carded her fingers through his hair and shook her head, ‘perfectly pleasant. And your trip?’

‘Hmm. I am both satisfied and not with how I feel it went.’

They left conversation at that, and she lay back as he explored her body, reacquainted himself with her. He was ravenous, pouring himself over her and into her, more urgent than he’d felt in a long time.

When they were residents, surgeons training together, they had a very honest conversation, late at night as they stood next to one another scrubbing blood from their palms. They’d been quizzing one another on the reproductive organs when she’d sighed wearily, ‘I hate the weakness I feel every time I bleed.’

‘Many women find it empowering. The proof they can give life.’

‘I only feel the flaws of the female body. Did you know that only fifteen other mammals menstruate? Nine other primates, four of species of bat, the elephant shrew and the spiny mouse?’

‘And you think that makes it a weakness?’

‘You don’t?’

He cocked his head and shrugged.

‘I’ve stopped mine, though. The pill,’ she’d reached for the paper towels and patted her hands and forearms dry.

He understood her, of course. The sense of control she got. Taking away something from nature. It wasn’t something she would relinquish easily.

But he knew, he was sure he knew. She tasted different. A little more salty than normal, a little more metallic.

He left her sleeping, went to the all-night pharmacy. Walked past the aisle three times before he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the box.

She was snoring when he returned, sprawled out on silk sheets, hair a mess. When awake she was pristine, always perfectly coiffured and set, showing weakness only when it was to her advantage. Never a hair or button out of place. But then she slept, and the chaos that she fought from her waking hours entangled her.

He rather liked it when she was asleep. It reminded him how human she was, how fragile and breakable. But now there was something more. She felt more alive than ever as he settled into the chair in the corner of the room, watching her as she moaned softly and rolled over.

He didn’t sleep as he kept vigil, every movement of hers clocked. He wondered if she knew; if she even had a suspicion. Surely she must?

The scent of the wisteria and night-blooming jasmine that draped like fine silk from the wrought-iron balustrade that wrapped around the balcony permeated the air, with the almondy-vanilla of the night phlox in her treasured window boxes adding a subtle undertone. She, like her flowers, seemed to bloom in the warmer, dryer clime of Florence in comparison to Baltimore’s cold winters and humid, hazy summers.

Dawn broke, warming the room through the balcony doors, a crown of gold glowing upon her head. She didn’t stir for a long time, her body sunken in deep, heavy exhaustion; a sleep so deep there were moments when he was certain she’d stopped breathing.

But as the city awoke around them, car horns and the loud chatter of people down on the streets below, she moaned, rolled to her side and fluttered her eyelashes in the bright morning light diffused by the voiles fluttering over the open balcony doors. She luxuriated in Egyptian cotton and Italian sunlight until something alerted her to his presence in the corner of the room and she startled, bolting upright.

A question in his name, her voice husky from sleep.

A question about how she slept, how she felt.

An offhand comment about needing coffee.

He remained where he was when she rolled out of bed, studied the way she yawned, the way she walked through to the bathroom, stayed silent and motionless as she clattered about. Only stood when her movements stilled.

Her voice, trembling, ‘Hannibal?’

He leant against the doorframe, lithe, as she turned the box over in her hands, shaking her head.

‘What...what is this doing here?’

‘Take it.’

‘No.’

‘Bedelia.’

Her shoulders tensed, jaw clenched, ‘I don’t need to. I’m not pregnant, Hannibal.’

‘Then prove it.’

‘No, I-‘

‘You taste different.’

That stopped her, and the part of him that enjoyed the scent of her fear pricked up as she swallowed, something subtle in her expression changing, not much, but enough to compare her to a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

‘No. No, you’re-‘

‘Wrong? How often am I wrong, my dear?’

An hour filled the space of three minutes, the only noise the rhythmic drip of the bathtub faucet.

Two lines.

A death sentence.

He didn’t need to look at the little fortune teller to know her fate, her wavering body gave it all away.

‘We should talk about this.’

The concrete walls she constructed about herself fell into place as she looked up at him with a glare, ‘there’s nothing to talk about.’

‘Well, I’d say there is quite a lot to talk about. Doctors’ appointments. Our parenting styles. Our beliefs.’

She scoffed, a crack in her exterior, ‘I am not keeping it. The only thing we need to talk about is how far along I am in order to procure an abortion.’