i
01: in which prey crumbles
"we loved with a love that was more than love."
-edgar allan poe
THERE WAS SOMETHING in the way he uttered my name that sent shivers down my spine.
Something so hard, the way it rolled off his tongue and slipped into the air with such harsh, such take me as I am meticulousness. As if he were intentionally tasting my name, toying with it even. Toying with me perhaps. Experimenting in the way it would fall upon our ears with carefully articulated carelessness. He said it once, then twice, and then by the third, the haunting grip of his voice had rippled a wave of unease through my body.
It was rather peculiar when a stranger could effect you so much. The way his eyes bore into mine, and once paired with the sharp knife of my name, there was a flicker of creeping danger that followed the uneasiness as I shifted in my seat. It should have been warning enough to run away.
To say thanks but no to the offering of his knowledge unto me. Or, it wasn't really an offer. It had the front of one, this interview, the perfect facade to find his next victim. But it was never an offer. Once in his presence, the very gift he granted to so little, you were trapped. It was a command, an arrogant and domineering command to be one of his students as though he were the greatest pianist in the world. The greatest teacher. And perhaps he was, but the way he made my fingers tremble and heart race, I should have turned to my mother and begged her to take me far, far away and never think back to that day.
However, even if I cried and sobbed on my knees to my mother, I doubt she would have turned him down. No, my mother was infatuated with the man. Not in the way a young school girl gets a crush on a boy she cant have. But in the very way he had intended for me to feel. The fascinated, captivated kind of way that attracts a bee to a vibrant flower. His unspoken charisma that oozed from his poised, near silent nature. It wrapped around my mother with an invisible chain, I could hear the clinking of metal somewhere in the distance, I could see the blush of her cheeks as he ever so slightly tightened the chain around her throat. I bet she could feel it too. Slightly. The way she leaned forward whenever he spoke, his voice tugging on that chain until she was giving him peak attentiveness. Ever so easily fooled, he had, without any effort at all, convinced my mother to make the biggest mistake of her adult life.
Though, I suppose it never really effected her. No, all she did was drop me off and pick me up. She'd ask how well my lessons went while the man's come still dripped from between my legs, and, when I'd refuse to answer, the ghost of his fingers holding my lips shut, she'd assume it was me with the problem.
Perhaps it was arrogant of me to assume the way in which the man corrupted me would effect her in any way. Maybe she did know. Maybe she could smell the intermingled, undeniable scent of sex that traveled from my skin. The way our sweat, spit, come, and blood traveled from one body to the next, blending in ways only two lovers could blend and combine into one being. Maybe after all this time, all this secrecy, she knew the whole time. Maybe she just didn't care.
No, she had to have known. A vibe at least from that very first meeting. The way he stared at me, only flickering his gaze to her for mere seconds when she spoke, and then, as if his eyes were tied to mine, he'd return his stare like he never left. There was heat trapped in his eyes, and it traveled, with great intensity, and stained my cheeks with the deepest of pinks. Perhaps she thought it was a mindless crush, the talented Nikolas Fioré giving the mediocre Evelyn Channing any minuscule gram of attention, who wouldn't be flushed?
By the end of the half hour, my lips were pressed and my tongue was dry and heavy. As if I'd stuffed cotton balls deep into my mouth to avoid speaking. When he stood, and we still sat, his hands finally unlocking for only a moment, only a second to reveal the bluish hue to his knuckles, before he crossed them behind his back, I felt it deep within my belly. Fear. I was afraid of this man while my mother looked as though she were contemplating her divorce to my step father.
Quickly, how quickly she stood up to meet his height. She was a tall women, towering over her husband, but in front of the man she were mere centimeters shorter. From the right angle however, she was still probably taller.
But still, he looked at me as I sat, gingerly folding my own hands, twisting my fingers until a splash of pain subdued the rising anxiety. My mother looked down at me as well, following where the man's gaze had been locked. And as all mothers do best, she gave me eyes that dug even deeper into my bones with the warning of you better give this man respect before I get pissed.
I quickly stood up as well.
There was a moment of silence that enveloped us. At the time, it had felt like years as he observed me over. Eyes trailing over my face, slipping lower and lower until they traced down my folded together arms. My mother stood silently as well, looking around his office with feigned interest as so to distract herself from the awkward atmosphere. And then, after what could only have been thirty seconds, he asked to see my hands.
He had looped around his, what I later learned, safe haven, when he first stood, half sitting on the corner of the large dark stained, executive desk. When he had asked, he held his own hands out expectantly.
I looked towards my mother, silently asking, better yet, begging for help once more but she nodded her head towards the man with equally apparent expectancy.
And, with a tightening stomach, I floated my hands out towards him, not daring to rest them in his waiting, eager grip. He paused for a moment, eyebrows tilting up, almost challenging me, daring me, to move them closer and rest them on his own but I didn't. I thought we would have stood there, inches between our fingertips, close enough I could almost feel the graze of his skin to mine, for ages. Until he finally, with a sigh, closed the gap and brought my fingers up to examine closely.
His fingers were long as they caressed my palms. With the appearance so soft, as though it were the warm, longing embrace of two withheld lovers finally meeting, his hand beneath mine, middle finger at the base of my wrist and thumb rubbing small, delicate circles with velvety gentleness. But what one couldn't see, was the crescent moon of his nails digging into my skin. The rigid hold of his index finger and ring as they clamped, like a snake, to hold my hand in place. If I struggled a moment, it would show my hesitation, and I didn't want to hand over that power so easily. So naïvely withholding my fear from him.
His glasses were resting on the edge of his nose, from a distance they looked brown but up close, they were a rich gold, muted with age. I was afraid he could sense the trembling of my fingertips, desperate to appear as collected as he did, and when I forced myself to remain still, I only trembled worse. He sensed this immediately, showing this by, not removing his gaze from my hands but rather, a small, barely noticeable smirk tilting his lips.
It was gone in seconds.
"You have beautiful hands, Miss Channing. Long. A musician's hands." He finally spoke, dropping my hands instantly with his words. Though they grazed his with methodical warning. As if to say how easy it would be to capture you. And, though I hate to admit it, my fingers itched to be back in the warmth of his palm. The heat still lingering. Again, he noticed this within me, though this time he didn't smirk, didn't smile, didn't give any notion but the stick of his stare.
"I'll see you Thursday at four."
With finality rigid in his tone, he turned his back to my mother and I, and not a second later, his secretary opened the door from the outside as though she could hear every inch of our interaction.
Taking one final look at him, a sprout of sorrow borrowed into my stomach.
I didn't know it then, I could sense it, his predatory gaze, the way I felt, much to my chagrin, so eerily similar to prey beneath his presence. But I didn't know just how right the chilled sense of danger that loomed in my stomach was.
