Page 22 of Sin of Love
11
CAPTIVITY - DAY 38
Gideon sits beside me on the couch, his nose buried in a book—the Stephen King compilation I gave him a few Christmases ago. There’s a fire crackling merrily in the white-brick fireplace, and above the mantel hangs a painting.
Bold. Abstract. Shocking. I’ve never seen it before, which doesn’t make sense… but the discordant thought fades as I continue to stare at the canvas. Faintly repulsive, inexplicably sensual, it depicts a naked woman with my face and body giving birth to the world on a bed of broken glass.
“Which one is it?” I ask, nudging his leg with my sock-clad foot.
“Hmm?” Gideon glances up and sees where I’m looking. “Oh, the painting? Come now, you know which one it is, mon bijou.”
I should know, but I don’t.
“Is it Pride? Because she thinks the whole world comes out of her?”
Gideon closes his book, eyes laughing as they lift to my face. “What if she’s not giving birth to the world but swallowing it?”
My nose instantly wrinkles. “With her vagina? Gross, Gideon.”
He chuckles. “Well, what then?”
I look back at the painting. Take in the ferocity and ecstasy of her/my expression.
And I finally see it.
“Gluttony.”
Gideon hums agreement. “She consumes everything and is never satisfied, never sated, until at last the whole world becomes victim to her appetite.”
The fire dims. The air grows cold. I reach for him, but my arm won’t move off the couch. No longer smiling, Gideon’s eyes are confused and sad.
“Is that me?” I ask him. “Is that what you think I did to you?”
He stares and stares and finally asks, “What do you think?”
What do you think…
…what
do you
think—
* * *
“Deirdre! Are you listening to me?”
I jolt violently and almost slip off my chair, at the last second grabbing the edge of the desk to steady myself.
A woman glowers down at me with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s young, beautiful… and a delusional, hateful bitch.
“What?” I snap.
Maggie sniffs in annoyance. “I asked you what you thought about Julep’s proposition, but you were clearly daydreaming. Typical disrespect.”
Blinking away the odd sense of losing time, I look down at the cup of tea on the desk. Was I daydreaming? It didn’t feel that way—the fantasy too vivid. It’s more likely I fell asleep sitting at my desk with my eyes open.
I don’t remember Maggie coming into my cell; nor do I remember drinking my oh-so-special tea. But the cup is empty.
