(London – Kate and Angel Wentworth)
(…)
“You’re home now,” he comforted me as he sprawled across the sofa, as if to further emphasize the familiarity of our surroundings.
He seemed much more at ease in my drawing room that I myself did. He seemed at ease everywhere.
“This is not my home,” I mumbled and sat beside him.
He smiled, his curiosity undoubtedly stirred. He was leaning half towards me, improperly close. His hair smelled of rain and spiced tobacco.
“Where is your heart, little Ginny?”
Outside, the downpour had turned into a drizzle, thick and monotonous, tapping like children’s little fingers on the wide windowpanes. The sky spread infinite and gray over stark-looking buildings and nothing moved against the lifeless backdrop but the trees – wailing and quivering, with twisted bodies and fretting black leaves.
“There’s this house I like, near Harold Hill,” I started saying.
He raised an eyebrow in disdain.
“What house could one possibly like near Harold Hill?”
“We may not share the same tastes, my dear sir.”
“We both like me,” he suggested and began searching his pockets for his cigarette case.
“Yet I’m well aware that you wouldn’t appreciate this house.”
I paused, looking at my hands and counting the little stones that glittered on the rings.
“I like it a lot, though,” I continued after a while. “It’s small, yes, with its one solitary gable, its unkempt garden and dumpy walls that may look coarse and unpolished. But – and I realize it might sound ridiculous to you – it’s an earnest house. And I think it’s beautiful.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” I repeated, fighting a growing lump at the bottom of my throat. “It has bronze roof tiles and yellow paint and shrubs of wild red roses… And, when the sun shines down on it, I swear it looks almost bejeweled.”
It felt strange talking about it out loud, as if I was confiding a large piece of my soul – hidden in a random story, like a gem wrapped tightly in a newspaper.
“Sometimes it may seem defenseless because its green fence is missing so many pickets, and the remaining ones are black with rot and half eaten by caries. But then there are the two large chestnuts out front – standing side by side with widespread branches that cover half the lawn – and they don’t look defenseless at all. They’re tall and strong like guardians, towering over everything – house and garden and man alike – and yet they seem proud to find themselves right where they are.
“It makes me happy to just look at them.”
He was silent. He’d lit his cigarette during my monologue and was puffing in silence, staring intently at the side of my head. Shortly, I started feeling self-conscious.
“Have you ever seen molten lava, Ginny?” he inquired after a few endless moments.
I sighed, wondering where exactly I’d lost him – probably around the very beginning.
“Noticed how it’s so destructive yet so incredibly spellbinding?” he went on. “Liquid fire with pure gold at its core – it blinds you and frightens you, yet you can’t take your eyes off of it.”
I moved closer and borrowed a smoke from his cigarette.
“Where have you ever seen molten lava, my dear sir?”
He grinned and tilted his head. His gaze followed a damp hair strand from my temple and all the way down over my breast.
“Why, I’m looking at it right now.”
***
The air was balmy now, as I walked my regular path towards the asylum, a lukewarm sun glowing over my head through menacing rainclouds. There were no sounds on my street other than a scattered twittering of birds and my own heels tapping on the pavement – a loud testimony of the intimacy that I was sharing with my surroundings. I wasn’t hurrying to see Charlie, although I knew he was eager and impatient to see me. But then again, he was perpetually eager and impatient, whereas I was growing more tired with every visit.
Soon enough I could see my twin chestnuts, looming above rooftops and smaller trees, waving their branches like a silent hello. They looked glorious even from a distance, lofty and lavish, rising like royalty over the entire neighborhood. They weren’t truly mine – I knew that, of course. Stranded on someone else’s turf, on the other side of a toothless fence, they belonged to a random stranger. Or – judging by the looks of the place – they probably didn’t belong to anyone in particular. And yet the fence still stood between us, crippled as it was, allowing me to walk past it but always reminding me that I shouldn’t be there.
“One day, I’ll have my own tree,” I promised them as I reached the green pickets and trespassed into the shadow.
But I wasn’t alone. Interestingly enough, Angel Wentworth was sitting out in the sunlight, on the small flight of stairs that led to the porch, smoking his clove cigarette as nonchalantly as if he were in his own bedroom.
“And here I thought you never listen when I speak,” I teased when I got near enough. “Did you come to see the house?”
He moved sluggishly, no doubt mellowed out by the sickly heat. His hair shone sandy blond as he glanced around the yard with his typical tedium.
“I came to assess it,” he said.
“Oh.”
I gazed up at the familiar structure, the midday sun blinding me in my appraisal. Most of the roses had withered these days and the whole house looked small and meager with him sitting on its porch steps.
“How much do you think it’s worth?”
“Certainly less than what I paid for it,” he casually confessed.
I faltered.
A soft wind swept through blades of grass and raised a few dead leaves into a small, whispering whirlwind. The chestnuts whispered back, sagely, and then everything was silent again, with noting but our movements to create sound and overwhelming closeness – our movements and the sweet creaking of floorboards. There was a faint smile spreading over his lips, so faint I wondered if it was truly there at all. He’d bought my house.
I didn’t say anything – there was nothing to say. Instead, I climbed past him and walked inside, into the cool, dark lobby.
The dwelling seemed even smaller on the inside, with tiny, half-furnished rooms and foot-long cracks in the wallboards. Its small windows didn’t allow much light to pierce through the grimy panes and, in its entirety, it reeked of dust and mold. The room corners were packed with red poisoned wheat, as to wipe out even the last of its inhabitants. One of the largest chambers held a fireplace and a chair; the other one held a bed.
I could hear his heavy footsteps as he followed me from one side to another, observing my reactions with silent curiosity. I paused in the middle of the bedroom and turned to him. The stuffy odor that came off the walls took me back to a different place, one of shelves and heavy tomes and a small window with trees peaking through.
I unbuttoned my shirt and let it fall to the floor with a swift movement. It was made of a velvety black fabric and I knew would gather onto its soft surface all the filth of the flooring, but I welcomed that with a sort of sadistic pleasure.
He’d leaned against the door entrance, only halfway in the room, and was watching with piercing eyes as I peeled layers of clothing off my body. His fingers were twitching and I knew he needed another cigarette but he wouldn’t light one. Perhaps it was his attempt at not altering the romantically musty scent of the room, or perhaps he wanted all of his senses alert and clear for what was to follow. Black garments kept being shed invariably in front of him – a narrow skirt, two long strips of silk stockings, a thin corset with port-jarretières.
As the last of my undergarments left my skin, he drew nearer.
He touched my waist with steady fingers and his nostrils flared. A familiar burning lit up instantly in his eyes but none of that translated into his gestures. He was assessing me, just as he’d presumably done with the house, trying to determine my value, my true worth, with slow, calculated movements. His soft kiss on my mouth wasn’t meant to savor, yet to sample. And it was strange to see him like this, because I knew precisely how much more there was to show. He’d wanted this. He’d waited for this. And it was crawling under his skin, aching terribly in his muscles, but he gave me none of it.
“You’re a fool,” I whispered. “Buying me a house…”
“I didn’t buy it for you,” he corrected, sliding his hands down my back. “I bought it for myself.”
His breath was hot over my lips and it shattered into short, fitful sobs.
“Then use it well.”
His body hardened, fervent and alert underneath his costly fabrics. He discarded them slowly, ceremoniously, holding my gaze as he did. The clothes fell over my own, unveiling him in the dim light, making room for the hungry stroke of my palms. The sight of him was intoxicating. He laid me on the bed and I smiled widely, pressed under his bare skin, my back against the rough bedspread.
“You’re not a woman,” he said. “You’re the devil.”
And then his shield broke at last and his entire being inflicted itself upon me, forcefully, beautifully, just like I’d craved. His hands pinned me down and his wide chest rose above mine, daunting and splendidly merciless, his force, his passion crashing over me, delivered with a baleful grace that both enraptured and overpowered. It was so easy to give in, as he broke into me like a king into a fortress, it felt so blissful, so effortless to close my eyes and let him rule at his will. But I wouldn’t have that and, in the midst of his conquest, I began fighting hard and strong to conquer him instead. He laughed, a shaken laughter, trough deep grunts and moans, when he felt me resist and heatedly press back. My strength surprised and thrilled him and he keenly played into my game. He would pounce like a tiger, and I’d coil and strike like a serpent; he’d hurt my wrists and grip tightly at my legs, and I’d bite and scratch his naked body. The pain was exhilarating and the heavenly way in which we moved together made my mind grow weak – it made his mind grow weak and seep into my own, confusing our senses into a single vast flame. At last, after a magnificent struggle, I yielded before him and welcomed him to collapse as well, convulsively, inside my embrace. He’d won.
Panting, his muscles still twitching after the long wrestle, he laid his back on the dusty covers, grinning with eyes closed. He, too, was well aware of his victory.
“What color of walls would you prefer?” he asked, moments later, while tracing beads of sweat with his forefinger over my stomach.
“I’ll only answer if you paint them yourself.”
“What color?” he resumed after a short musing.
“Red.”
He chuckled and drew me under him, wrapping one of my legs around his waist.
“The devil…” he murmured with certainty into my hair.
(…)
