She eventually looks back at me and nods, reaching her open mouth forward until I drop the pill in her mouth. “You’ll reach your goal like this, Alice,” I muse, tipping my martini to her lips and watching her swallow. “We’ll search together. See what we can find.” Whatever that goal is, it isn’t the orgasm. She knows that as well as I do. It’s more than likely me she’s after in some way.
Perhaps I’m her penance.
A way of her forgiving herself for the life she’s come from before hiding and running.
Crossing the room, I retrieve the blade she dropped and take it back to her tied hands. She grasps hold of it, strong fingers holding firmly. “Keep it. You can cut your way out and run, or stab me with it. I’ll leave that choice to you.” She blinks as I come around in front of her again, seeming confused with that offer. “Maybe you can decide if I should live or die for a while.”
She’s confounding really. My looks aren’t enough for her, and I doubt my money and power are important either. She would rather live with nothing than bow for wealth alone. I should thank the pills she ingested originally, the same ones still fucking with her moral compass, because even she doesn’t know where her goal is yet, and neither do I.
I’m about to begin investigating that quandary when I hear the trip of light footsteps in the hallway outside. My head snaps up from looking at her, quick movements taking me to the door to grab the robe. It’s draped on her frame and then I’m standing to shield her before the body turns into the room. “Stay down. Stay quiet.”
The eventual sight of Faith turning into the room, of her precision and poise, makes fury boil through my veins. This isn’t wanted. Not now. I was changing, becoming something I’d left behind, and now she’s here again to fuck that up.
She looks around me at Alice on the floor, both her eyes trained on the kneeling form as if a new game just presented itself. It didn’t as far as I’m concerned. Little Alice isn’t a game anymore at all. She’s more than that now, more relevant to my being.
“Who is this?” she asks, making her way across to me.
The green dress sways with her, matching nails highlighting an envy that could cause more problems than I’ve considered.
“No one. An amusement.”
“Up here? And like this? She should be running, not kneeling.” She gets closer and flicks her gaze between me and Alice, eventually snagging my chin in her fingers to look into my eyes. “And no pills, Malachi? Nothing’s amusing for you without pills.”
“This one is. Gray harassed me into civility for a while. I’ve been reprimanded for overuse.” She giggles and wanders around me, picking up the spare martini in the room and drinking. Not for the first time, I consider the wish that it was poisoned.
“He’s such a brute. No fun at all. I thought he’d be better now with his little Hannah in tow. Is he still being obtuse?” she asks, circling until she’s looking at Alice again.
I move to pick up my own drink, ignoring the kneeling form. “Yes. I’m glad you’re here to temper his monotony. Why don’t you go and find him?”
“So quick to get rid of me, husband?”
I smile and pull her to me, light lips kissing her briefly, and then start leading her from the room. “I’d rather you were dead, as you well know, but if you must be here perhaps you could deal with his simple-minded behaviour. I’m sure you can wind him up successfully. He’s pissed me off and I’m brooding about it.”
“Brooding?” She snorts and looks back at Alice. “I haven’t known you brood for years? One might think you’re in love with him.”
I chuckle, oddly bereft at the thought of not being gay. “Love is hardly a consideration in anything. Certainly not for me. Another thing you know well.”
Finally exiting the room, we walk the corridor back to the lounge, both as comfortable in our pretence of care as we’ve always been. She’s not really interested in Alice, she’s interested in me and how to taunt and play if I am interested in Alice.
Games, all games.
Who will win, who will lose.
A sigh drops from me as we turn into the room, as if pretending to be as bored as I normally am. For once, I’m not. But my wife isn’t welcome where Alice is concerned. No one is.
And I need to deal with that before I dare set a hand on her again.
“I’m surprised you’re here,” I say, refilling my drink.
“Manhattan is repetitive without you in it.”
I snarl at the thought, back turned to her. “Nothing to irritate?”
“Nothing to keep up with.”
That’s true enough. For her, at least. For me it’s never ending, constantly towing me back to responsibilities and obligations. Here is usually my respite from that, my relief to let loose or fall into my own hole of depression and woes. But now it’s become as confusing in some ways. I’m lost in a melee of real thought and anything but responsibilities to others. Too many people down there, and now my wife up here, too. That room with Alice in it, that space we were creating from all the noise, was solace for me. It was becoming peace and sanctuary. Silence, but for the sound of a new song whispering. Like my Grandfathers rooms – like his voice whispering to me.
“Who’s the girl?” she asks.
