No.
There’snoway.
I quickly shoot a look at Zoey, but she’s enraptured. She doesn’t notice me looking at her. I look back to The Director and study him.
Tall, thin, but well-muscled. I can’t see his whole face, but that voice draws something unexpected out of me. I take an involuntary step forward, unintentionally moving into the light of the chandelier, and the motion catches his attention. His face snaps to mine.
The second his eyes meet mine, mask to mask, I know.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, the shock rolling through me as my body heats. “This can’t be happening.”
“Shh!” someone whispers from next to me. The man looks away. It’s as if someone slapped me, and my cheeks burn. He saw me. He saw me and turned away, with zero reaction.
Benedict.
Flesh of my Flesh
Evelyn Snow
Oxford,Present
“What is wrong with you?” hisses Zoey, tugging me back to where I was standing in the darkness.
“I know The Director. He saved me. From… well, you know,” I say slowly, my tongue heavy.
Zoey’s mouth falls open. “Oh, shit.” She watches him as he speaks.
“Hands up to the goddess,” Benedict says, his voice low. I’d forgotten how thick his accent was. How deep his voice was. It had been years since I’d seen him. “The pillars of this house will set us free.”
“The pillars of this house will set us free,” the crowd repeats, startling us.
The audience quiets. Benedict laughs, light and lilting. He brushes his lips with his thumb and index finger.
“Hayes, pick one.”
The tattooed man saunters over to the crowd, plucking two people from the audience. A man and a woman. They don’t fight it. They bow to Benedict, excited. Then, to my horror, they both undress.
“We invite you into this season of joy,” Benedict says, walking around them slowly. “The sky above is sown with stars, with the moon. The forest ground is ripe with fragrant fruit, with earth. The kiss of the wind is your embrace. The glow of the fire, and the rebirth of the rosy dawn. It is all yours, if you want it.”
Hayes lays a thick blanket out, and scatters something all around it. The man and woman lay down next to each other, not touching except for their joined hands. No one else seems to care that they’re naked.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Zoey murmurs.
“The pillars of this house will set us free,” Benedict repeats.
“The pillars of this house will set us free,”we all say, and this time, I join in. Zoey turns to glare at me, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. I smile and shrug.
“I come before you to bow before life everlasting. I kneel to nature. Together, we turn our eyes to one another, the goddess surrounding all of us here tonight. Nature is a refuge for the weary heart. A balm to our bruised breasts. Her hands will cool your fevered brow and offer gentle silence for the troubled soul.”
And then he turns his head slowly, his eyes landing on mine as the man and woman start to writhe on the floor.
I stop breathing. There’s absolutely no airflow in here, and my face burns.
He looks exactly the same… and yet, he doesn’t. I haven’t seen him since my first year in London. He was there with me every step of the way. He walked me home. He followed me to my appointments. Eventually, I stopped going as often. My mind began unraveling bit by bit, and I began truly processing what happened to me. That’s when the reckless behavior began. I pushed him away time after time after time, until eventually he stopped showing up.
And now? He’s exactly the same, but older. Wiser. More distinguished. Was his jaw always so defined? We’re his eyes always so mercurial? He never left my side that first month. That firstyear, really. I don’t remember admiring how his hair fell in front of his face, or how straight and white his teeth were. His long, straight nose, cheekbones for days, deep eyes, black irises. His face is smooth, his jaw angular. And his lips… the top lip was slightly fuller than his bottom lip, making him seem pouty.Sultry.
It was like I was seeing him for the first time again.
