22-Oct-2002
Title: Precious Things
Author: Em (lys_ap_adin@yahoo.com)
Genre: Horror/Drama
Warnings/Labels: Halloween fic, which may include anything that
applies, from creep factor to angst to death; het; AU; shoujo ai
implications
Note: This should seem a familiar story. ^_~
I cling to your hand, pressing the white fingers between my two palms. Our hands tremble together; it is not only my emotion but also yours that is making this parting so difficult. But you lift your head and whisper, "Nothing is changing for us, not really. I'll only be an hour's ride away."
"Of course." I can be proud of myself; I sound as brave as you for once. "Just an hour--that's nothing." But my eyes can't get enough of you and flash from detail to detail, trying to take photographs to treasure later. They want to remember. Everything jumbles together for me: your silk pumps, the edging of lace around your wrists, the pearls sewn at the heart of each embroidered flower on your bodice, the soft fall of blue-black hair beneath your veil, the shell-pink polish on your nails, and the band on your left hand.
You hug me suddenly, enveloping me with the scent of jasmine. "Come see me--come see me soon, Sally," you whisper into my ears, only for me.
"Of course I will," I promise, only to feel the tears pricking my eyes.
You release me with a smile, and we are interrupted by him. "Lucy, the car is ready," he says, and his eyes devour you. "It's time to go."
"I'm ready," you say, taking his arm and turning away from me. You look back over your shoulder. "Goodbye!"
I wave as you disappear into the car with its tinted windows; he gets in as well and the car drives away.
Six weeks later I attend your memorial service. You have drowned while swimming in the dangerous sea that pounds the rocky back yard of your new home. You had only returned from your honeymoon in Italy a fortnight before.
He is a pale ice statue, untouchable in his grief. He stands like a pillar with his long blond hair falling down his back in stark contrast to the black suit he wears. He sees nothing and hears no one, and I can't bring myself to approach him, though you were my best friend and he was your husband.
Later I go to the seashore, and let the wind tear at my hair and clothes, and pull the tears from my eyes. I take the bus ticket from my pocket and give it to the hungry waves; I would have come to visit you in less than a week. I would have tucked the ticket into your coffin, had the sea decided to give up its dead, but the water has claimed you and this is the best I can offer.
It is years later, and I see him again. He does not remember me--I suppose he wouldn't. When he plucked you from our undergraduate world of pizza and romantic dreams, I was the quiet one, with lank hair and study-shadowed eyes. You were the bright and beautiful one who laughed and shone enough for the both of us. He never saw me then--only you, a queen of hearts. He made you into the queen of diamonds.
I went to medical school as I told you I would, and the doctor he meets now is not the girl to whom you bid farewell.
They whisper about him, this pale tragic business sultan. He has married three times now, but his wives flee him all too soon for a darker husband. Time only polishes his beauty, and grief works like a master sculptor, etching fine lines into his face that enhance the azure of his eyes and the sensual lines of his mouth.
I do not remind him that we have already met when he comes to me from across the party to introduce himself. I was another person then, and will let the college girl rest along with you at the bottom of the sea.
He should be carved from ice, but his hand burns mine and his eyes remind me of the blue heart of a gas flame. We talk of small things, he of art and I of music, and he invites me to coffee with a quirk of the lips so that we can prove our mutual erudition with a discussion of literature.
I think of your love for poetry as I accept.
He takes me to China for our honeymoon, reasoning that I ought to see the land of my grandmother. He has never repeated a honeymoon. You saw Europe, Anne sunbathed in the Caribbean, and Cathrine snapped photographs of lions and cheetahs and jackals in Africa. Now he and I pose on the Great Wall and follow winding streets through crowded cities.
At night we burn together in the moonlight. Sometimes I smell jasmine, or freesia, or sandalwood, in the darkness. Through his whirlwind courtship of me, I never spoke to him of you or the others.
He never speaks of you or the others either. Of you I know enough to fill books, but Anne and Cathrine are strangers I know only through gossip. Anne was the English heiress who crashed the sports car that was his wedding gift to her a scant three months after the wedding. Cathrine was a photojournalist; she fell down a flight of stairs while he was gone on an overnight business trip. They say he was the one who found her; it was only days after they returned from Africa.
The maiden, the princess, the tomboy, and the professional. In the darkness, I feel his heat next to me and wonder whether he will burn me to ashes as well.
It has been many years since I promised to visit you in this home--I am now being carried over the threshold. He smiles, proud that there is still strength in his frame.
The servants bring in the luggage behind us. The house is old and dark with age, and as I enter the master bedroom, I can see you moving before me, touching the antique patina of the furniture with delighted eyes. We passed a library on the way in, and I can imagine your sigh of delight over the rows of leather-bound volumes.
I find the terrace that overlooks the sea where it pounds against the rocky shore. He follows me out, and wraps his arms around me. "Welcome home, precious," he says.
This is a lonely house. The servants live off the estate, in town, and go home every evening by eight. After night falls, it is home only to him and me and three ghosts.
I have been here for three weeks, but I have found no traces of you or Anne or Cathrine. Were it not for my concrete faith in your existence, I would believe myself his first bride, for he lavishes attention on me like a love struck schoolboy. He brings me choice flowers from the greenhouses, roses and orchids and lilies, and leads me through the loveliest rooms in the house, picking out the most beautiful of his possessions to lay in my lap. I rarely explore the warren of rooms myself, prevented by the cool eyes of the servants or his attentions.
He tells me he will show me the thing he prizes about all else, and wraps silk around my eyes before he leads me, stumbling, through halls and rooms. He positions me just so on a carpet so plush that I can feel its give through my shoes. He tells me to keep my eyes closed while he unwraps the silk; he fixes my hair like a doll's where it has been disarrayed. His fingers brush against my skin like sparks.
"Open your eyes, love," he commands.
I find myself looking into a mirror with an ornate gilt frame. He lays his hot cheek against mine and stares into the reflection of my eyes. "You are my most valuable possession," he whispers. "Promise me that you will never leave me, precious."
I close my eyes and shiver, and say "Yes" as he pulls me down to the carpet and we begin to make love.
He did not want me to continue my medical practice after the marriage, and I acquiesced to a leave of absence for the first two months--for the time that I felt it would take for me to get to know him. The time is drawing short. He does not like to share me, even with the servants, though he leaves daily to work in the corporate offices of his company. We argue over my practice, and reach no compromise before he is called away by a business trip planned before he met me again.
He is coaxing and a bit impatient about the subject as we say goodbye. "You don't *need* to work," he reminds me. "I can provide everything for you. Darling, remember, I want to pamper you as much as possible."
"We'll see," I tell him. "We'll see."
The night is dead silent after the last servant's taillights disappear down the drive. I am now more alone than I have been since my engagement.
It is comforting.
I stay up late reading, and fall asleep with my finger still holding my place. I take my meals alone, on the terrace, enjoying the mild air and the salt breeze from the sea. He calls nightly, and encourages me to call him at any time if I become lonely.
I never call him.
Instead I wander through the house at night, becoming acquainted with it for the first time. All the rooms I find are well appointed, if musty from disuse.
Several are locked. This stymies me at first, but I find the master set of keys in his desk. I do not mention this to him when he calls. It is pleasant to have this to myself. I also do not tell him that I have called my office to have my nurse begin scheduling appointments again.
The locked rooms are dusty--I spend my time sneezing and coughing, and the servants look at my filthy clothes with shuttered eyes. The closed rooms are shrines to you and our two sisters--stale jasmine fills some rooms, freesia others, and sandalwood still others. I find your notebooks and Anne's extravagant designer wardrobe and Cathrine's cameras, and a host of the ordinary paraphernalia of a life. Though dust coats it all, I can feel your and their presences in these things.
Business delays him past his expected return. He regrets it, and flowers and chocolates arrive as an apology.
I have exhausted most of the locked rooms, but there are keys I haven't used yet. I move up and down the halls, testing each door, but there are still keys that don't match any lock I've found. I question the servants in search of these locks.
I descend into the basement with a flashlight in case the light bulb doesn't work, and poke through forgotten pieces of broken furniture and racks of wine. Trunks are arrayed in one part of the basement, and to my delight, some of the keys fit. I find moldering clothes enough to dress a village. Some of the fashions date back a century.
I find you in a trunk hidden in a corner. Somehow the scent of jasmine rises thick around me as my stomach heaves and I vomit onto an antique lace dress. Your neck hangs at a fatal angle, and there are long strands of blond hair twined through your desiccated fingers.
He arrives without warning the next night, but I am waiting for him with a smile and a kiss. He joins me for dinner on the terrace, and indulges my desire to dismiss the servants early so we can be completely alone. My desire to have him completely to myself pleases him.
We enjoy the moonlight and the wine, and he asks me, "What did you do while I was gone, darling?"
I say nothing, but drop the ring of keys on the table between us.
He grows still and hard like marble, and his eyes glitter. "Where did you find those, my love?" His voice is rough.
"I went exploring, looking for more of your precious things," I say. "Some of the rooms were locked, but I opened them anyway."
He picks up the keys and weighs the ring in his palm. "There is one missing, my love."
"Yes, I know." I lay down the final key, the damning key. "Here it is."
"You should not have been so curious, my heart," he tells me, as he stands suddenly, overturning the table. China and the place settings and the crystal crash against the flagstones of the terrace.
We grapple, and he is stronger than I. The roar of the sea fills my ears, and I fight back against his grip. Jasmine surrounds me as he pushes me against the wall, and I kick his shin. Freesia buoys me even as he wrenches my wrist painfully. I bite him and twist out of his grip. He turns on me, and as sandalwood drifts across the salty breeze, my good hand finds the handle of the bread knife.
My hands are steady as I dial the police to report your murder. Outside, he stares up at the black sky, unmoving, as the puddle of his blood spreads across the flagstones.
-end
Feedback desperately wanted.
People/stories I ripped off: Bluebeard, Angela Carter's *The Bloody Chamber*, Charlotte Bronte's *Jane Eyre*, and Daphne DuMaurier's *Rebecca*.
(:./lys/precious)
