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Her dress is lovely. A boatneck pomegranate satin cocktail dress, tailored with folds that give the illusion of a smaller waist or wider hips. Loose at the top to compensate for her breasts. Tight at the bottom to accentuate her thighs. They’re pale and hairless--she’s never kept her legs this clean for this long.
She is lovely. Her lips are the same shade of red-purple as her dress. Her lashes look thick as fans and the foundation and blush she’s wearing helps make her look well-rested and healthy. She hasn’t been sleeping again. Even with the tempo of Hannibal’s breathing on her neck, which just a week ago was the key to a night’s rest, she can’t close her eyes and let go.
She pulls on her hair. Her own errant, hateful curls tamed to tumble like water over her shoulder. Styled to be relaxed. An asymmetrical frame for her neck. She fought for this hairstyle. Fought for the dress and the makeup as well. She knew there was a dress code. She knew she would have to get a new dress, which is fine, she was willing to spend more money to make Hannibal happy, but there was nothing but bitter anger and childish resistance when Hannibal insisted on styling her whole, dress to makeup.
They compromised: as long as he could buy it, she could wear whatever she wanted. And she chose this. She likes it. He likes it. His friends will like it. There is nothing to worry about.
She takes a deep breath and leaves the bedroom. Simple red heels click down the grand staircase. Her approach echoes. At the bottom of the stairs--the ridiculous stairs--she hears the kitchen two rooms away. She hears the clangs of pots, the tings of silverware and glass, but they're muffled, like they're miles away. She can smell everything. Meat browned and spiced, rubbed down with flour, herbs, black cracked pepper, vegetables simmered, cut fresh, wine, bread. She closes her eyes. In an hour, this house she is still orienting herself in will be full of strangers. People who don’t know her as anything more than Hannibal’s girlfriend. A gangling colt dressed as a bud of opportunity. But she will have Hannibal. She will have Alana. She can make it through this.
She turns into the hall and turns again into the vivid kitchen. The heart of Hannibal’s home, always grandly lit and warm, now decently populated with hired hands, all in white, and Hannibal, who elegantly stands out in expensive metal-toned burnt umber dress shirt and slate waistcoat. He has an apron tied around his waist and his back turned to her.
He pulses the food processor three times before pouring a small amount of clear liquid into a metal bowl. He talks about sow's blood and plasma and tomatoes and how the latter tastes better with the former. She's only moderately interested until Hannibal raises his head, scans her, and smiles. “You are lovely.”
She smiles slowly. Looks away. “Thanks. You look nice, too.” She looks back to see him beckon her with a quick nod and moving fingers. She walks over to him, gets caught in the curl of his arm as he brings her in for a kiss.
He hums. “I would take you upstairs and ravage you if there were enough time.”
“We still have an hour,” she says. Her fingers play with the smooth edges of one of his buttons. Eyes pointed down. Eyelids lowered to accentuate the lashes. “I think that’s enough time.”
He sighs. “In any other circumstance.” She looks up. “The kitchen is behind. Something went wrong with one of the dishes, so there needed to be improvisation.” He touches her cheek. “We will not be having tongue tonight.”
“That skewered heart is still okay, right?” she asks. She had glimpsed it earlier. Wrapped in bacon, stuffed with breadcrumbs and starch vegetables. Her mouth waters thinking about it.
He smiles and runs a crooked knuckle down her cheek. “It has been cut and covered, ready to be eaten.” He looks just to the right of her head. “Would you like a hand in preparations?”
She lifts her eyebrows. He turns her around at the shoulders and walks her to the edge of the counter. “You can help make the sauce,” he says. His hands slide down her arms, catching her skin and setting off sparks down her spine.
She stands a bit straighter. Smiles brightly and says, "You don’t like me boiling water in here.”
“Tea water must be raised to a precise temperature,” he says. His chest aligns with her back. The fabrics of their clothing shffs. He runs big, square hands with pale, practiced fingers over her elbows, down the bottoms of her arms. Covers her right hand with his and guides it to a ladle. "I'll show you."
She breathes out. Takes the ladle and the handle of the pan and pushes the peeled, soft little bodies around. He puffs little orders. Gently. Not too quickly. You’ll pop one of the fruits. Yes. That's perfect. She relaxes her head against his shoulder. Breathes again; closes her eyes and recalls a false memory of her mother teaching her how to cook, a stupid lie she had told kids who had mothers and whole sneakers.
"You changed your perfume," he says.
"You kept complaining about it," she responds.
"I like this," he says. She hears his deep inhale. Feels the tickle of air and slight hairs floating around her ear. "Magnolias and oranges and sandalwood: it suits you."
She bites her bottom lip to temper her smile. “I don’t smell like an old lady anymore?”
“You smell like you care for yourself,” he says, then kisses her on the cheek. He removes his arms from hers and wraps them around her waist. “Pay attention.”
She opens her eyes. Looks down at the pan. The tip of the ladle is hovering several centimeters above the bottom of the bowl. She has nearly caught one tomato, nearly crushed another. She stares at the little thing--it would be so easy to crush, she thinks--as she carries it from the pan to the bowl with the cloudy liquid. The plasma or the egg whites or the water, whatever Hannibal called it. She drops it in, and then moves to catch more tomatoes.
“Do you know what happened to Devon Silvestri’s donor?” Hannibal asks.
She scoops several tomatoes this time. She supposes all of them have to go into the liquid. “You saved his life.” She feels his fingers twitch against her stomach.
“It’s been a while since I’ve used a scalpel on anything other than a pencil.” He pulls her back a little, palms flat, fingers splayed out. "Once you've put all of the tomatoes in the bowl, I want you to crush them."
She nods. He kisses her neck as she begins pressing the broad underside of the spoon's bowl. "When you are done this," he says, "I want you to take the Cabernet Sauvingnon I opened and pour yourself a very generous amount." She laughs. Reaches, and puts her hand in his smooth hair. He tips his head into her fingers and brushes his cheek against her hair, careful not to disturb it. She crushes the rest of the tomatoes quickly. The sauce is a deep, fresh red when he tells her she can stop. She removes herself from between Hannibal and the counter and fetches the bottle he had indicated.
"Would you like some?" she asks.
"I would, thank you."
She refreshes his glass first, filling it just under half-way. She has yet to master the timing and agility necessary for a dripless pour, so when she pulls away a single red drop tumbles down the bottle's neck. It’s stopped by her fingers at the root. Is it rude to lick your fingers? Hannibal probably won’t mind. The familiar tension of his stare follows the bend of her wrist as the wine flows out in a single gulp. When her glass is nearly half-full, she sets the bottle down and runs her tongue down the length of her finger. She looks up. Hannibal smiles calmly and offers her a toast. She mirrors him and his ritual of smell, memorize, appreciate. She takes a very large gulp.
“I talked to Alana before I came over,” Wil says.
Hannibal returns the majority of his focus to preparing the meal. “And how is Alana?”
“She’s good. She said she would be coming early.”
“How early?”
Wil shrugs. “She wasn’t sure.”
“If she arrives fifteen minutes early,” Hannibal says as he whisks this sauce, “I imagine that I will be able to join you two in pre-dinner drinks. More than that, and I will hand over hosting duties to your capable hands.”
Wil scoffs. “It’s not really hosting if it’s one person.”
“Of course it is,” he says. “Any number of guests in your house makes you a host.”
“This isn't my house,” she says.
Hannibal huffs in conspicuous, disapproving frustration. She looks at her wine. "Pretend," he says, flat. "If this were your house, what would you do? How would you greet her?"
She doesn't say anything. Assumes the question is rhetorical until the pressure of his stare starts to unsettle her. She looks at his face--dark eyes and a dark mouth and pale, pale skin--before speaking to his hands. "I would invite her in. Offer her something to drink. Talk to her." And wait with bitter anxiety until Alana tells her whatever news or warning brings her to Wil's porch. There might be an apology for the dog smell. It depends on her mood.
She risks a look at Hannibal again. He is smiling now. Her stomach churns and bubbles. Hungry nausea--she hadn't eaten much in anticipation for the meal tonight. Only a granola bar and a couple cups of break room machine coffee. Drinking will make it worse, but she still takes another mouthful of wine.
She remains in the kitchen, watching Hannibal as he finishes the sauce and starts instructing the hired crew on plating, presentation, and the time schedule for the meal. She follows the outline of his voice, but the details, the words themselves, his syntax and his connotations, are absorbed into the larger picture. His grace evolves from a pensive waltz to a smooth lyrical. Curling, cupping lines outlining someone alive and burning bright as hot coal. She wants to swallow that bright rock and hold it in her stomach as the poison of its warmth flows through her arms, hands, fingers, hair. That pain would be worth it, she thinks.
The doorbell rings. Hannibal checks his watch.
"That must be Alana," she says.
"She is very early," he says.
"I'll let her in." She turns and leaves the room, placing her wine down as she slowly walks to the door.
When she opens the front door, Alana is there, watching expectantly. She smiles when she says, “Hi."
She is especially beautiful tonight, though Wil isn’t sure what, if anything, has changed. Context? Does Alana come alive at night in ways that make her pearlesque skin glow more radiantly than in blanching sunlight? Or has she simply made herself her best tonight? Little changes to make up and posture and the part in her hair that make her all the more stunning. She’s wearing red as well. Wil tries to mirror the easy cut of her mouth. She isn’t sure how successful she is. “Hi,” she says. She steps aside, nearly concealing herself completely behind the door. It’s when Alana comes in that she notices the silver bag that Alana is holding.
“What’s that?”
Alana looks at her hand, then raises the bag slightly. “This? It’s champagne. For later. Or for whenever Hannibal wants to use it.”
“Thanks,” Wil says, unsure if she has the right. She closes the door and gestures vaguely into the house. “I can take it to the kitchen. You can take your coat off.”
Alana nods. “Thanks.”
“Do you want anything to drink?”
“Beer, please,” Alana says. She strips herself of her coat as Wil leaves.
Hannibal is still describing dessert details to his sous chef when Wil comes in. “Alana brought champagne,” she says.
Hannibal stops his line of conversation and looks up. “That is very generous of her. If you leave it on the counter I will have someone put it in the chiller.”
She puts the bag down on the counter next to her glass. “And she wants beer.”
“If she doesn’t mind waiting, someone will be out with a glass momentarily,” he says. “You should go out and join her.”
Wil nods. She picks up her wine glass as she leaves.
Alana is in the living room, sitting on the couch, her coat on her lap, when Wil returns. She tips her head to the side when she sees Wil with only one glass in her hands. “No beer?” she teasingly asks.
Wil shakes her head. “In a moment. I think everyone has officially been banned from the kitchen." She sits down next to Alana. She is partially turned towards her, drinking from her wine glass, debating whether she should make eye contact. "How was your day?" she tries lamely.
"It was good," Alana says. "Nothing much has happened since I saw you earlier. I saw Abigail."
Wil's heart lurches. "How is she?"
"Coping," Alana says. "She still refuses to open up to her support groups and she's still getting visits from Freddie Lounds." Wil sneers. Alana shrugs. "I don't like it either. But there's virtually nothing we can do."
"I know," Wil grumbles. A waiter approaches them, balancing a tray with a glass of beer on top. Alana accepts the beer with a quiet "thank you" and a romantic smile. Wil dips her head slightly, avoids looking at the smile and the stranger. Alana's coat is taken to be hung up in a closet and they're alone again.
"Have you ever tried this?" Alana asks. Wil shakes her head. "It's so good. Would you like some?" Wil nods. They trade glasses. Wil sniffs the head, still foaming, before drinking what may be a little too generous a tasting. It's mild, but deep, with musky, bitter honey tones deep in the color. It settles in her stomach, calming the churned acids inside of her.
She hands the glass back. "That is good," Wil says.
Alana nods. "I keep trying to figure out what he put in here," she says. "You wouldn't be against a little spying, would you?"
Wil shakes her head. "Are you going to try to make it yourself?"
"I've thought about it. Keep going back and forth between making my own and letting Hannibal do all the work." She smiles. Looks into her glass. "How is he?"
"He's fine," Wil says. "I would say he's very excited for tonight."
"I'm not surprised. He loves to entertain." She looks at Wil. "And how are you feeling?"
The left corner of Wil's mouth wrinkles up. It's a simple, empty motion. "I can't say I'm over the moon. But. It's important." Wil looks away from Alana and her tender hearted, analytical stare. "I got to see some of the food earlier."
"Oh?"
"It looked really good," Wil says. "It smelled really good as well."
"So you know what's on the menu. Have you been sworn to secrecy, or can you give me a preview?"
"I haven't been sworn to anything. Maybe I can give you a hint," Wil says.
"What kind of hint?" Alana asks. "Do I have to guess first?"
"You can guess all you want. I really don't know much," Wil says. "Do you know who's going to be here?"
Alana shrugs. "I don't, actually." Wil can see, out of the corner of her eye, Alana's gaze as it darts, up and down. "Normally the people who come are nice, and some are very interesting. Mostly stuffy, but nice. Harmless."
"Hope no one recognizes me," Wil bites. Hannibal's first dinner party in years, and she is certain that some trash-minded socialite will approach and ask her if she is that Wil Graham. The one on TattleCrime.com. And then she will say the wrong thing. Tip her toe over some obscure bourgeois boundary and offend half the party without knowing. "I want to make a good impression."
"You will," comes Hannibal's suave rumble. Wil looks behind her and sees him, redressed in a white shirt and black suit coat and pants. His tie is dark green with a gold curling pattern. He leans down and kisses Alana's cheek, greeting her with a quiet "good evening". Then, he angles himself for a soft kiss on Wil's mouth. She smiles as he pulls away. "You will charm everyone you meet tonight."
"I was just about to say the same thing," Alana says. She stands. "I haven't seen you since I helped you cut carrots."
"I know. I'm sorry I've all but disappeared," he says. He holds a hand out to Wil and helps her stand. An arm slides around her waist. Alana's eyes jump down to where Hannibal's hand rests on her side. "We have been busy the past few days. How have you been?"
"Very well. You know, a lot of the same stuff. I saw Abigail today. She's talking to Freddie Lounds and jumping fences and I can't stop her."
"What is Freddie Lounds offering her?" Hannibal asks.
"A chance to tell her side of the Minnesota Shrike case and a portion of the proceeds," Alana says. "I can't say I don't see the appeal, but I wish this wasn't happening now. Abigail isn't ready to publicize her life just yet. I've advised that she wait until she's further along in the healing process, but she insists that there's nothing wrong with her." She pushes a lock of hair behind her shoulder. "Sorry to bring the mood down..."
"Don't be," Hannibal says. "There are some subjects that can't avoid affecting the mood. If you want, we can embargo all talk of work for the night."
“I wouldn’t be against that.” She tilts her head towards Wil. “What do you think? Does that sound good?”
Wil nods. “Yeah. Sounds fine.”
Hannibal gazes at her and she feels aware of the creaking, settling foundation as the light in his eyes soften. He turns back to Alana. “Is there anyone joining you this evening, Alana?”
Alana shakes her head. “No.” She waits for a moment, staring right into Hannibal’s amber eyes, and Wil can see rushing, electric heat. Hannibal can’t not see it, can’t not feel it, but he doesn’t change. “Congratulations on your relationship, by the way. Wil told me about it the other day.”
“Thank you,” Hannibal says. He lays his hand on Wil's upper back. Wil smiles at him, convincingly relaxed. "It's relieving to know our friends support us."
"It's quite unorthodox," Alana starts. Wil feels the words leap from her stomach registering them only as she's saying, "Plenty of couples meet in unorthodox ways."
Alana swallows. Her lips are a straight, lax line. Her eyes shiver with surprise. Wil holds her breath as Alana says, "You're right. People meet in different ways. Hannibal, I was wondering who was going to be here."
“There won’t be too many people,” Hannibal says. “Only ten or so, including you two. You’ve met most of them, Alana." He says to Wil, "Mrs. Komeda is going to be here, but I don't believe you've met anyone else.”
“When will dinner be served?" Alana asks.
"Dinner starts at nine o'clock precisely," Hannibal answers. "Hors d'oeuvres will be served from eight o'clock until ten minutes before dinner."
"Any chance at seeing a menu before then?"
Hannibal smirks. "I'm afraid there isn't. Anticipation whets the appetite." He raises his hand and strokes Wil's hair. "Would you mind if I stole Wil away from you for a few moments?"
"Not at all," Alana says. She smiles and tucks her arm around her waist. "I'll be right here."
He smiles again and guides Wil away. "We shall be back very shortly."
"Take your time," Alana says.
He walks her into another room, a spare office or a small store room, and spins her around to hold her against him. Her fingers twitch against his suit jacket. He squeezes her hip as she takes a deep breath.
"You're being very touchy," Wil says dazedly. Why? He's never not touching her. She’s never mentioned it before.
"You shouldn't be nervous," he says.
She steps away from him, begins to turn away. It's a sparse room, with several half-empty bookshelves, a roll top desk, and a cabinet with closed doors. "Why shouldn't I?" she asks. "Being social is not one of my finest aspects."
"I understand," Hannibal says. He places his hands on her shoulders. "I am very grateful that you've come. This might be very difficult night for you. So, let me offer you a bargain: you can leave the party whenever you want, no questions or reasons necessary. I will understand. In return, I ask that you try to stay for as long as you can."
She touches the knuckles of his left hand with the tips of her fingers. His hands move. They run up and down her arms. They raise the hairs on her forearms. "What sort of music should we play?" Hannibal asks.
"Brahms?" she suggests.
He tilts his head like her dogs when they've heard the sound of kibble sloshing in its bag. He steps away from her, towards the cabinet, opens it and reveals the hub of an extensive sound system. The bottom shelves are stacked with CDs and cassettes and the top two are dammed with three different music players. One for cassettes, one for CDs, the last for an absent iPod. "It may take me some time to find it," he says. "You can go back to Alana if you want."
"I will," she says. "How much longer until people start showing up?"
"Perhaps another twenty-five minutes," he says.
She nods and runs her hand down his arm. He turns his head to watch it. She marvels at how soft his face can be in profile. She's measured the crests and crevices of his face, his age lines, the scar on his nose. With the right talent, she imagines she could recreate his face from any angle without reference. And yet, she always finds herself stunned by what he can do with a smallest tightening of muscle, or the right frame of light. She leans up and kisses him on the cheek. There's a ghost of her lipstick left on his skin which she thumbs away. Her fingertips linger before turning and walking away.
In the sitting room, Alana is on the couch, beer in one hand, the other hovering in the air, open with a square sitting placidly in the center of her palm. As Wil comes closer, and as Alana looks up to acknowledge her, she sees the brand name on the wrapper. Wil feels her stomach implode. Alana holds the condom out.
"I think," Alana says, "this is yours?"
Wil takes it from her. There is a scrape of blunt fingernails on porcelain palm. She doesn't know what to do with it, so her fingers curl around it. The wrapper protests with a shrill crinkle and the little rubber barrier inside accedes to her force.
"Is this a subject you would be comfortable with me broaching?" Alana asks.
Wil wonders which subject Alana is referring to: her sex life, or the relationship Wil has with Hannibal. Aren't they the same thing? The former, she presumes, suggests a thing that had existed before while the latter would be the specificity if this incident, this very moment of time. Definitions don’t help. There's an undercurrent of anger in her shock. She's not sure if it's towards Alana, prying for information that she'll use to condemn, or her normally fastidious boyfriend leaving a condom somewhere someone could find it. She takes the rest of her wine in a single gulp and places the empty glass on a leather-topped side table. "Is there any way to avoid this subject?"
"Well," Alana says, "you can always tell me 'no'."
A grim smile pulls at Wil's lips, though they refuse to give. She crosses her arms and sits down next to Alana. "You can ask questions." She stares ahead of her, preparing for whatever soft attack Alana is preparing for her.
Alana is quiet for three seconds exactly before she asks, "Did you bring that condom?"
Yes. Weeks ago, after their first dinner after their first full night together, when Hannibal's seduction was appearing more romantic than sexual. He left her on the couch to pour them a pair of after-dinner drinks and returned to see her naked and shivering for him. She had brought the condom then, had held it between cold, tense fingers as he returned to the room. He didn’t show any shock or wonder at the tableau, merely stopped at looked curiously at her. He just placed the drinks down and leaned over her, silent as ice, and kissed her, indecently chaste. She must've dropped it between their kissing on the couch and falling on his bed.
"Yes," Wil says. "Better to be safe than sorry."
"It's good to know you're taking precaution." A few moments of silence. Wil can feel Alana's questions. They climb her arms like moss. "Do you think you're ready for it?"
She chuckles. “Think I'm too broken to have sex?"
"No," Alana says, "I think sex puts both participants in a vulnerable situation and if one participant is not in the right headspace--"
"So I should wait?"
"You know Hannibal in a certain capacity. It might be helpful to you both if you do wait, so you can understand him in a different one."
Wil looks up at her. Alana's hands are pressed suppliantly together, fingertips pointed to a far corner. Her head is tilted down, her eyes tilted up, and she glows with unobtrusive pleading. It irritates her. She wants to tell Alana that they have had sex each and every night for the past four days and sometimes once more in the mornings and once on the table they are going to eat from tonight, just to see that patronizing, clinical blue gaze break.
"Maybe," she says, "I know him better than you think I do. That's my pathology, right? Knowing how people work."
Something, then, happened, and the infinite gentle warmth in her eyes goes out. With no change in tone, she says, "He has the habit of surprising you."
Wil looks away. The muscles in her throat seize and she feels like suffocating. “I trust him. I’ll make this,” she holds up the condom briefly, “decision when I’m ready.”
She doesn’t need to know when “when” was, she thinks, as a graceful hand reaches over and sits on her exposed, freckled arm. Alana’s approval. Soon, a man comes by and asks if they want more to drink and Brahms spins down from the rafters. Wil tucks the condom into her bra when Alana isn't looking. Hannibal returns seconds after that and lifts her up with the feather-light pressure of his palm under hers.
Wil is halfway through her second glass of wine when guests start turning up. First, a couple of psychiatrist colleagues, a man and a woman. He runs the non-violent, low-risk adolescent wing of Sheppard Pratt. She is a family therapist. He lingers near Alana. She smiles so widely that it loses all sense of actual emotion and traipses into desperate ingenuousness. Wil suspects they are harmless, though, and puts on her best smile and shakes their hands. After them is the musical director from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and her partner. The partner wears a suit that must have come from the same tailor as Hannibal’s wardrobe. It is the same combination of old-fashioned fabric and outdated textures that, somehow, doesn’t work as well on a skinny, gray-haired man in his fifties as it does on Hannibal. After them is an old surgeon friend, tanned with bleached teeth and rough hands, Komeda--who gives Wil such an emphatic kiss on the cheek when she sees her that Wil can’t help but yelp, and then chuckle, encouraging Komeda to do it again--and her husband.
“You look even more gorgeous than the last time I saw you,” Komeda says. She turns to her husband. “Isn’t she magnificent, Marcus?”
Her husband, a swarthy man with thick salt-and-pepper hair that tips to the left, nods before leaning forward and giving Wil another peck on the cheek. Komeda leans in again and asks, gesturing up and down at Wil, “Where did you get this?”
“Oh, just a boutique in the city. I don't remember the name."
"Tell me when you do," she says. "I'll have to look them up, see if there's a dress like this in my size."
A waiter comes by, offering drinks and heart tartare on flaky pastry, decorated with either kiwi or the jelly seeds of fresh tomatoes. Wil accepts one of each before Hannibal coaxes her into the conversation he is having with his surgeon friend.
"Wil is a dedicated outdoors woman," he says, apropos and introduction into the conversation Wil is being dragged into. She feels queasy as she stares down the bright-toothed stranger. Some of his teeth are crooked and his gums are a dull pink that transitions too naturally into his ivory teeth. She closes her eyes. Hannibal's fingertips press into her side. A silver pendulum, left, right. She breathes, opens her eyes, smiles, and says, "I can't help it. I grew up on the water."
"Really? That sounds wonderful! I always enjoyed summers I spent with my cousins on Lake Michigan. Where did you say you grew up?" he asked.
"My father repaired boat motors, so we moved between the Mississippi Delta and the Great Lakes. Where on Michigan were your cousins?" That starts a conversation about fishing, sailing, lures, and where along the Potomac and the Bay they preferred. Hannibal lingers silently, stroking her back until his attention is drawn to the psychiatric couple and a playful argument they're having with Alana. He leaves her with a kiss on the cheek. She watches him walk away, and catches part of Alana's shrinking smile before turning her full attention back on her conversation partner.
Wil just finishes her third glass of wine and she finds herself smiling with more ease, speaking more confidently, accepting the conversations of guests who come in and out of her attention like shades and pleasant memories, when Hannibal announces that it’s time to move to the dining room. The surgeon, he insists that she call him Ted, Ted holds his hand out and offers to guide her into the next room. Before she answers, Komeda curves around her and hooks their arms together at the elbow. No, no, she’ll accompany Wil into the next room. Wil attempts a confused look, but it must be read as more pleasantly wistful, because Komeda rubs her elbow and begins to lead her forward. She whispers dramatically, “You don’t want Hannibal to get too jealous do you?”
She scoffs and rolls her head away from Komeda. The older woman coos and taps her arm. “Jealousy keeps their blood moving, Wil. They have to keep impressing us to keep us.”
The dining room table is elegantly unfinished. The plates are simple china, ecru with silver finishes that match their utensils and full glasses of red wine, poured and ventilated and deep rose red. She thinks she should be careful. Her hand is trembling and the white tablecloth is too fine for her to stain. Her polished seashell nails find the groove on the edge of the table and pulls along the cloth until she stops behind a seat, the one to the right of the head. She mentions aloud that there is no food, and Komeda chuckles and pats her arm. Of course there isn’t. Here, the food is more important than the people, left to squabble and maneuver themselves around the anonymous seating while the food, the brief stars that will grace this table like virgin sacrifices graced in flowers, wait in the wings. She thinks of these people eating: putting food in their mouths, teeth pulling at soft brown flesh, drool and juice flowing from their mouths, their fingers greasy, their stomachs distended, and their eyes glazed and vapid as more and more tumbles down their throats. She shudders. How could Hannibal enjoy watching people eat?
Hannibal has not assumed his position, hasn't even entered the room, but the first chair can't be anyone's but his. No one has gone near it and, she assumes, these are all experienced guests of his. They know where he belongs. Komeda is sits to her right, but Wil stays standing, holding on to the back of her chair, waiting only a few more breaths before Alana and Hannibal come into the room. Alana is first, stern and half-turned to Hannibal. She's vicious when she’s upset, but she's biting her tongue. She has her sense of propriety. Hannibal is nonplussed. Whatever she said to him, if she said anything at all, doesn’t matter at the moment.
The path he takes guides him behind Wil. He runs his hand across her shoulders as he moves behind her. The hand stays as he turns the corner. She smiles. “What do you think about the night so far?” he whispers. There’s a rasp to it, like it’s coming from low in his throat. She steps closer to him, unable to stop smiling, and she thinks that unabated joy transfers to him. He runs his fingertips down the side of her face, resting them on her jaw.
“‘m having a lot of fun,” she mumbles. Her eyes jump around his face. “Have I ever told you how handsome you are?”
His mouth slides into a smile. “Not in those exact words.”
“Well,” she says, moving in closely, “you are. Very. Very. Handsome.” She kisses his smile and wishes that there weren’t so many people here. She could wrap herself in his arms, then, and lock them there so he would never let go.
He lays his cheek on hers and whispers, “Don’t tempt me,” with breathless, desperate aggression.
“Or what?” she asks, realizing as she says it that her wine-soaked stomach is affecting her brain. What Hannibal said could’ve been a genuine threat to remove her from the party. She feels a suggestion of his nails as he runs his hand down her arm, towards an elbow he could easily use for leverage to drag her away from the table and the food she’s been eager for and the people she has finally adapted to. And then what? He pulls away and she sees large, glinting brown eyes. There's a slight flush that sits on his high cheeks and gives his eyes the look of an oak smoldering in fire. Her shoulders relax. She’s fine. Maybe he had been thinking about the other night, with her on the table and him behind her, pulling and angling and, finally, making her come with a choked whimper.
She kisses him, because that's all she can do right now with everyone here and she thinks This is the first time Alana has seen me kiss him. She can feel the spidery itch of stares in the middle of her back. She forces herself to pull away.
Hannibal pulls her seat out. She sits down and smooths her skirt, touches her hair and leans into Hannibal’s hand as she feels it settle briefly on her nape. He kisses her on the back of her head and says he’ll be back in a few moments. She looks down the table when he makes his way to the kitchen. The maestra and her partner are failing to inconspicuously coo over her and Hannibal. Komeda and her husband are whispering playfully. The female psychiatrist looks down at Wil, her husband is fiddling with his phone. She sweeps her head up the table and sees Alana, across from her, touching the silverware, avoiding Wil.
Komeda lays a hand on her arm and starts talking about how lovely the room is, how excited she is that they’re having this dinner, how thankful she is that Wil is here, for finally getting Hannibal to move.
“This was your idea,” she says, turning from Alana to Komeda’s china.
“I’ve tempted him with a hundred different ideas,” Komeda says, lifting her chin and smirking. “He does what he wants when he wants. He hasn’t been with anyone for a couple of years, hasn’t had a dinner party in a couple of years, and then you come along--”
“His last girlfriend was two years ago?” she asks.
“Yes. Actually, Marcus and I were talking about it and--”
“Did you meet her?” Her thumb runs across her index finger, over and over again.
“No,” Komeda says with a sigh. “He never had her with him at any of the events we were at. I was spending most of my time in Boston that year, so I couldn’t be around for everything, but he mentioned that she was a psychiatrist as well. Or maybe a psychologist. I’m not entirely sure now, but whenever I asked him to introduce us to her, he said he would check with her. She was very busy, apparently, and let me tell you, I knew from the start that it wouldn’t work in the end. Not that there’s anything wrong with just having fun, but it was so obvious that he was smitten with her and upset that she wouldn’t be with him in front of his friends.” She lays her hand on Wil’s arm. “You’ll introduce him to your friends, won’t you?”
“I don’t have a lot of friends,” she says.
“But you’ll introduce him to them, right?” Komeda insists.
Her thumb stops on the side of her index, near the pad. The nail cuts into the blade of her finger. She thinks, Of course, and, You’re the one who’s here right now that’s all that matters, and when she looks up, Alana is staring her down with gut-ripping sympathy.
Hannibal returns to the dining room just as Wil starts feeling sick. He stands at the head of the table and silences the room with a cough. The guests are breathlessly captivated; she hears the talking, the breathing, their hearts, turn off with a hiss. He looks at them all, one at a time, with a remote smile, until their eyes meet and the razor-thin smile shines as it grows into abundance. He begins his speech.
“First, I must thank all of my friends for their attendance here tonight. I know that the invitation was not so long ago, and you are all busy people. You all have my humblest gratitude for making the effort to come. In a moment, this table will be decorated with what I hope you all find to be a satisfying and nutritious meal, but before it comes out I would like to say one brief thing: wine and patience are not the only things that improve taste. Friends make the bitterest foods taste as sweet as honey. And so, without further ado...” He gestures to the doorway leading to the kitchen. Wil turns and sees several men and women in white chef’s outfits walking out with large circular and rectangular white plates. They file in and stand along the sides of the room, waiting for their cues. She can see that several of the plates are rimmed with the tartare in puffed pastry. She wonders how much Hannibal expects them to eat.
“For your tasting pleasure, we have charcuterie platters featuring blood sausage, head cheese, and soprano ham.” Two plates, one in front of the male psychiatrist and one between Alana and Ted, are set on the table. The head cheese is a ridiculous mountain, crowned with kiwis and surrounded by bright fruits that clash with its drab gray-brown color.
“Next is a chicken liver pate flavored with black peppercorns and served on a wine gelée.” These plates, filled only with the triangles of puréed meat, are placed in front of Wil and between Mr. Komeda and the female psychiatrist.
“We also have carpaccio topped with parmesan cheese, olive oil, capers, and frisé.” Tissue-thin cold meats are tabled in front of Komeda, whose eyes widen and shoulders pull close to her neck in childlike excitement, and the maestra’s partner.
“There is galantine, which is pork stuffed with pistachios, cranberries, and chicken forcemeat, with skewers of asparagus in the center.” The galantine, which smells like her grandmother’s sweet Thanksgiving stuffings, is placed in front of Hannibal, directly between Wil and Alana, and down between the maestra and her partner.
“And finally, we have our main attraction: skewered hearts, wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with herbed breading.” The final plate, the largest, is placed at the center of the table. Wil hears Komeda gasp in delight and everyone in her peripheral vision--Ted, the maestra and her partner--all look impressed or starved as the hearts, medium well and brimming with moist stuffing and glistening with its own juices, are placed in the middle of the table.
The hired chefs begin to leave, and the guests start clapping, for the show, for the food, for their help in creating the sumptuous feast in front of them and, most importantly, for Hannibal, who easily absorbs the praise and redirects it to illuminate his skin. He raises a hand and, once again, the clapping stops. “Before we begin, I must warn you. Nothing here is vegetarian.” He smiles and several of the guests chuckle politely. He takes his glass and lifts it in toast. Wil lifts her glass when she sees that Alana has. Hannibal does another scan of the table, but he is looking directly at Wil as he says, “Bon appetit.” He drinks, and the rest of the table joins him.
She takes small tastes of the proffered dishes. The paté, smooth as velvet and warm as it melts on her tongue and makes her toes tingle and curl underneath her. The galantine is cool and firm, sweet and tart. The meat itself as a dried, cured taste that the accents complicate into a layered bite that she is instantly addicted to. She wants more of it, wants that taste to linger in her mouth, to store it in a pocket at the back of her mouth for her own use. It sets her blood bubbling, making her face and shoulders blush. She follows it with the carpaccio, which has to be much simpler than the galantine. It’s layered like ribbons on her plate. Salty and slick and smoky from the olive oil and parmesan. The meats from the charcuterie plate, head cheese and sausages of coyly disguised origin, are buttery, deep, warm and so filling that she begins to feel a little sleepy.
There’s conversation happening around her, which she catches bits and pieces of, but most of it float over her head. She is firmly tucked in her corner, taking bite after bites which tumble down to her stomach, relaxed and happy for every morsel. The last offering is the skewered heart. It’s soft and warm and she pushes it against the roof of her mouth, testing its resistance before chewing. It must have been slow-baked, because it’s juicy and practically squirts like a grapefruit when her teeth carve into it. The fat has melted around the heart, infusing every crevice with ambrosial undertones that make her swoon. She can’t help but sigh after her first bite.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Hannibal asks, bringing her back to the present.
She nods. “Sorry, but this meal is amazing.”
He smiles. "Please, don't apologize." Under the table, his foot hooks under her ankle and pulls it closer. Wil fails to hide her smile and runs her foot up and down his calf. He reaches for Wil’s hand, still holding her knife. His fingers search for the pulse in her wrist and rubs against what he finds. She drops the knife. He raises her hand for a kiss on the knuckles. There are a few appreciative noises from some of the women in the room. Wil hides her face.
“You two are almost too painful to watch,” the maestra says.
Ted asks, “How did you two meet?” Wil’s stomach tightens and her carmine face turns clammy and cold. She eyes Hannibal, but he is still calm and drunk from witnessing his friends eat his lavish food and watch him romance his girlfriend. She would think that the heavy food itself would have a sedative effect on him, but nothing so mortal as a good meal could slow Hannibal.
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Wil works for the FBI and we were asked to consult together on a case.” He turns her hand in his and runs his thumb up and down her lifeline. “I was instantly fascinated and she…” He trails off, smiling bashfully. “She needed some time to come around.”
The table laughs. Wil has to agree with them, Hannibal’s attempt at modesty is hilarious. Her fingers wrap around his thumb and squeezes it lightly.
“Maybe I was only interested after I saw how you took care of six dogs for a weekend,” she said, almost completely honest. The table laughs again, and she hears someone at the end say “six…”
"What did convince you, dear?" Komeda asks.
Wil's fingertips run over the heel of Hannibal's hand. She stares at the cuff and remembers the tousled blond hair, the gray along his part reflecting the early morning light, as Hannibal invited her into his house the morning after her first sleepwalking incident. He didn't question her, didn't even hesitate before asking if she wanted to have coffee with him that morning. And, without asking, he made her coffee just the way she likes it. Two spoons of sugars. No milk. And she just started noticing him. His flushed lips, the stubble along his jaw at the end of the day, the way his suit jackets sometimes pull against his stomach, and the way his eyes glowed at sundown.
"He made my coffee the right way," she says.
Hannibal squeezes her hand gently. He doesn’t join in the tittering laughs behind her. He says, “Though, none of this could have happened without Alana.” He turns to look at Alana, who looks startled at having the room’s attention turn suddenly on her. “If she hadn’t referred the FBI to me, Wil and I perhaps would never have met.”
Alana smiles politely, but Wil can see it ignited by a twitch of resentment. She runs her fingertip up and down the stem of her wine glass. "It was nothing," she insists. "I was only doing what I thought was best at the time. What Jack, the man who runs the Behavioral Science Unit, was asking for was out of my depth. I had to recommend a more seasoned and specialized profiler or else it would've been inappropriate."
That’s it. “Inappropriate”. That’s the word that she’s been biting back. Not appropriate. Timed to be the most innocuously painful; a paper cut just before a swim in the sea. Not right. Alana stares her down and she feels the anger she’s sucking from that tight-lipped faux-smile fill her nose like pollen. It makes her heart thud against her ribcage, battering against the bones until it’s bruised and sore. She numbs it with her fourth glass of wine. The wine shakes onto her palate.
Her glass is refilled with a dry Riesling just before desert, which is a sweet pear and cream dish that she doesn’t have the appetite for, but forces down out of a sense of social responsibility. Her fifth wine glass is gone long before the pear desert is, and she is definitely sure that she has made a miscalculation in the ratio of alcohol volume to food consumed. She stays stationary while the room begins to tip, taps her fingers against the table until Hannibal puts his hand on top of hers again, smiles politely, laughs at the right moments when she’s being spoken to. Too soon, however, she is expected to stand up and leave the dining room so the hired help can come in and take away the china and the remains of food.
Hannibal is by her side to help her, but pride and anger and disappointment and betrayal all sizzle in her bones and she insists that thank you, but she’s fine. She just needs to use the bathroom. She can help herself. Thank you thank you. She thinks she manages to make it to his powder room in a straight line but, oh, who cares at this point. She can't be the only one drunk. She covers her face and leans her back against the door and tells herself that they'll know if she cried, she can't fix her make-up.
She gasps and presses a first to her forehead. Why did Hannibal call Alana out like that? She knows, she knows and he made her lie about them. Why? She has to put two and two together, she has to know that the timelines don’t add up. And then…
She can’t imagine what would happen after that. Alana isn’t vindictive enough to ruin Hannibal’s reputation as a psychiatrist. Alana cares too much about her friendship with Wil to potentially get her suspended from field work and risk her trust. But she can’t not do something about what she’s found out. Alana is too embedded in her sense of right and wrong to not say something, but what and to whom? When, however, is not tonight, the end of which is within Wil’s grasp. Alana has been on her best behavior. Wil has to be on hers as well.
She breathes in deeply, catches her reflection in the mirror. No tear stains. She adjusts her hair, back to near-perfection, and then lifts her skirt and uses the toilet. She needs to continue to be sociable. She's been doing well and if she ignores Alana and if she keeps acting like Hannibal's loving, appropriate, ethically obtained girlfriend, the night can still be redeemed.
She flushes the toilet, washes her hands, and makes one last makeup check, and leaves.
The powder room is between the sitting room and the dining room. Wil can hear voices coming from both ends of the hall. She stands there, hearing the laughter and the music, the soft chatter and the hurried steps, and the tail of Alana’s bitter anger.
“...do that?” she hisses.
“It was not intentional--” Hannibal defends sheepishly. Alana must be a site. Back straight, anger radiating from her like light from a candle. She has her chin raised, arms akimbo, deciding whether Hannibal has the right to apologize, whether his meek attempts are worth her time or satisfying enough to let him pass without harm.
“Of course not,” she says, mocking and upset.
They’re quiet. The hired help have moved on. The guests have momentarily gotten quieter. Maybe they’ve noticed their host has disappeared.
Alana says, “I’m going to say good-bye to Wil.”
“You’re leaving?” Hannibal asks.
“Yes.”
“Do you have an early appointment tomorrow?”
“No.”
Alana walks out of a room about five feet away from Wil. It’s across the hall from the sitting room, where Hannibal has set up the hub of his stereo system. She appears stricken when she sees how close Wil is. Wil, though, smiles, or she thinks she does. She hopes it’s a gesture of comfort and understanding, but that’s been one of her failures as a woman. Empathy, she’s found, doesn’t translate into comfort. She uses the wall as crutch and guide to Alana.
“You’re leaving?” Wil asks.
“You overheard?” she asks.
Wil has made it to her friend. She wraps her arms around Alana and rests her chin on her shoulder. “Thank you for coming,” she says.
Alana holds her. Not as tightly as Wil’s own flaccid arms, but with so much affection and unspoken clemency that Wil feels a rush of tears. They swell the walls of her throat and she starts to choke. Alana lets her go and leaves.
Hannibal exits the spare room and puts a hand on Wil’s shoulder.
“Wil?” he says. She gasps. Her mouth is dry and breathing is a practice in drowning. “Meilužė?”
She gasps again. Lays her hand on top of his. Hannibal wraps his free arm around her waist and butts up against her back.
“You’ve done so well tonight, meilužė.” He kisses the back of her head.
Wil fights to swallow, and takes the fact that she can as evidence that she can safely speak. It’s low, but manages to convey her unauthored hurt and disappointment. “Am I being dismissed?”
“Do you think you need to be?” he asks.
Her convulsive arms reach around herself for him. A hand clasps his jacket sleeve. “I don’t want to leave before them. I want to see this night out.”
She feels Hannibal nod. “I will make sure,” he says, “that you do.”
He kisses her nape and pulls away slowly. A panicked horse, she thinks, as he keeps his hands on her stomach, her flank, her lower back. Then, he leads her back to the guests, to those loud and vapid people, where she smiles and laughs and doesn’t let go of him.
Eventually, they leave. Komeda and her husband are the last. Just before she walks out, she kisses Wil's cheek and makes her promise to let her know where the dress came from, and gives her one last, tight hug. Wil sighs when the door closes. She walks over to the sitting room couch and deflates into the cushions. Her heels are kicked across the room. They hit the floor with hollow thmps. She lost some of the feeling in her feet halfway through her night, and when they wake back up she’s going to regret those awful things. But she’s not going to think of that now. She closes her eyes and relaxes her neck, letting it loll and direct the heavy pool of blood thrumming between her eyes towards the back of her skull.
"Feeling tired, are we?" Hannibal asks.
One eye creaks open. Hannibal is holding two glasses of port. She groan and turns her head away.
"I don't feel like it," she groans. She hears him chuckle. The couch molds to him. She turns her face to him, keeps her eyes shut.
"You deserve to celebrate," he says. "You were unforgettable."
Her eyebrows shift up her forehead. "Good unforgettable or bad?"
"The kind of unforgettable that ends in requests for your presence at other events." Wil opens her eyes and stares at him. He is holding one of the snifters and gazing at her. She sees the amused tilt of his chin, but can't find the inspiration to match it. She looks at his fingers.
"Really?" she asks. Her limp hand raises slowly and traces the perimeters of his knuckles.
"Theodore was enchanted by your skills with boat motors," he says matter-of-factly. "He asked me if we were interested in joining him and some other close friends on a fishing trip to the Poconos in March."
Wil bursts out in bubbling laughter. She covers her forehead and shakes her head. She can see it already: Hannibal in waders and one of his expensive shirts and a paisley tie, trying to bait a hook. He would catch himself before he would catch a fish. Probably, he would ask something or move too much and scare away the fish. He’d be banned to land before the sun rose. What would his face even be if she made him pick up a worm? She looks at him and shakes her head. "I'm sorry, but have you ever fished before?"
He pouts. "I am an adaptive student." He tips his cheek into the back of the couch. "As long as I have the right teacher," he adds. "March is far away. There is plenty of time for me to practice."
Wil's laughter stops. Her smile grows wider. "You would go fishing with me?"
Hannibal's free hand cups her's, still tracing the lines in his knuckles. "If you'll have me," he says.
Her smile deflates with a breath. She nods and leans in to kiss him on the cheek. She lingers there, eyes closed, breathing him in. The hand of his that cups hers spins tight circles on her wrist. Her forehead lowers to rest on his temple. Her eyes are still screwed shut, but she can see his thoughtful smile as he stares at their layered hands. The muscles in his cheek pull indolently at his mouth. She withdraws from him, then swiftly throws a leg over his lap and settles on top of him. Her arms frame his neck. She pushes her hips forward in playful greeting.
He scans her appreciatively. “I was thinking about the other night,” he admits. Takes a sip from his glass. Puts it on the table.
She chuffs. Pecks his lips. Shifts and presses her entire body against his. Rests her cheek against his. “I was too.”
She kisses his jaw. His dick rests between their thighs. It moves as he sighs and places his hands on her waist. She kisses a little higher, just by his ear, and his hands slip up the slick fabric. She pulls back just enough to see his nose. “Why don’t I take this off?” she suggests, one of her hands coming to rest on her skirt.
Hannibal covers her hand with his. A corner of his palm finds the skin that borders her red satin. He looks her in the eye and says, “Because I want to.”
She breathes in, quavering, excited. Her fingers adjust his. They slip just under her hem. He soothes her thighs with his hands, fingers spread wide and moving higher and higher with every stroke. She feels a cool puff of breath when she kisses the shell of his ear. She squeezes his shoulder. Swallows while considering her next words. Wonders if he’ll like them and decides a psychiatrist who serves a feast on the surface he fucked one of his former patients on would like to hear, “While they were eating, I kept thinking.” Pause for breath, for the hands rucking her skirt higher, the pressure of a face against her neck. “They didn’t know at all. They’d never be able to guess. Our little secret.”
She’s not sure of the noise he makes. It’s a sigh or an abbreviated moan or chuckle. But there’s a hand traveling up her back, up her side, sliding her zipper down while fingers massage the left hillock of her ass and a mouth is playing at the juncture of her neck. She feels him straining for her, and humors the reaction by opening her legs wider, resting her warmth on his desire. She feels the ridges of his teeth on the raw spot he’s made. Cants her hips forward. He must be uncomfortable in his pants. His erection slots into her groove. She purrs and he single-handedly unclips her bra.
Wil pulls back. Slides her hands down his chest. Pushes them back up to unknot his tie, which she drops dismissively next to them on the couch. He never looks away from her. His lips have a spit-shine to them and his mouth hangs open in a smile forced open for a pant. Her fingers fan out against his collarbones, up, and around the sides of his neck. Her thumbs prop his chin, keeping him focused on her. Her make-up must be clownish by now. The slim form of her dress has to be disrupted. But he still stares like she’s art, like she’s something treasurable, desirable, edible and maybe, just maybe, if she tightened her hands he’ll always look like that.
Her hands fly away and his smile starts to disintegrate. Her heart leaps, and she quickly opens the neck of her dress and thrusts a hand into her bra. She snatches the condom just before it falls from her cup and pulls it out.
“Found this earlier,” she says.
He looks wicked. She pulls his shirt collar open and lowers a kiss onto the trunk of his neck. The hand on her back pulls out and wraps around the fingers offering the condom. They hover there, as her lips move up to dance with his.
There’s an uncomfortable cough on the other side of the room. Wil looks over her shoulder and sees one of the hired help standing there, fist to mouth, and glaring.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but my manager needs to have a conversation with Mr. Lecter. It's important.”
Hannibal sighs. “Please give us a few moments.”
The chef nods and walks away, a beady stink eye lingering on the two of them until he leaves. Wil grimaces as she gets up from Hannibal's lap. Hannibal stays there, watching her disgruntledly as she pulls her skirt down and adjusts the neck of her dress. She can see his erection, anxiously tenting his trousers.
"Are you going to do anything about that before you go and try to have a grown up conversation?"
He stands, eyebrows raising as well as his body. He buttons up his shirt and picks up his tie. "My pleasure can wait until there are no more possible distractions." He glances up and down her disheveled form, resigned. "Unless you think we can both find completion in a matter of minutes?"
Wil smirks. "I can wait upstairs." She rubs the wrapper of the condom between her fingers. "I'll be taking my own dress off, though."
Hannibal pouts playfully. "Such a shame. I wondered how that dress would look like hanging off of you."
She runs her hands down her skirt. She leans in and whispers, "I guess you'll never know."
He strokes her face. Tips his head and stares at her lips. "You," he says, "are very naughty."
Wil smiles. "You can do something about that upstairs. When we're all alone again."
"Promise," he says. He takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over his arm, which he holds in front of his stomach. Wil continues to smile as she makes her way to the bedroom. She steps out of her dress there, leaving it pooled next to the walk-in closet, washes off her make-up, and climbs into the King-sized bed where she waits, naked and warm, for Hannibal to return.