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His arms cross to create a pillow for his head. Peter reclines on the expensive hotel bed and examines the gilded plaster on the ceiling. Elias’ mouth works between his legs, but more satisfying than the physical manifestation of pleasure is the cool waves of Loneliness that roll off the other man, waves tossed up by the tempests of Peter’s neglect. So rare. Jonah Magnus, James Wright, Elias Bouchard has had three lifetimes to accustom himself to Loneliness, to exorcise the Fear and inoculate himself against the machinations of the Lukas family. Yet here he is, drowning deliciously at Peter’s attentions that are enough to entice, but calculating in falling short of satisfaction. Peter will never give himself over to the Eye, resolved to be a lover cold as fog.
He wants to dampen Elias, to shatter the porcelain mind glazed with ambition and scatter the pieces off the edge of the Tundra. It is an impossible dream, he knows, but in these infrequent dalliances he can see slivers of a world in which he wins. When his mind is brimming with such fantasies, he can bear the discomfort of the Eye if only to give Elias visions of his own demise. The Head of the Magnus Institute buckles down on his task, attempting to assert his position with his tongue and his power. Peter does not resist being Compelled as static memories appear on the canvas of his consciousness. In one he is burning bags of mail so that their senders feel rejected, their recipients abandoned. The second, his wife who embraced him with joy on their wedding day, unaware of the heartbreak he would purposefully inflict upon her with his absence. She still resides at the Lukas mansion, but with each visit he sees her wither like a flower placed in water, the demise of vivacity predetermined and inevitable. The last vision Elias sends him is a collage of the faces of all those he sacrificed to the Loneliness out on sea. The Fear of loved ones cowering in their empty beds, wailing or in silent terror carried him home, to this hotel room. This is his light in the window.
Peter is removed from his body and mind, the building of tension in his thighs and the miniscule filaments of shame Elias tugs out of him are animal reflexes not to be dwelled upon. Elias has lost this battle as the more he makes himself feverish with Desperation to Dominate, the more the Fear of Loneliness flares up stronger. Elias is sick with the prospect of his insignificance in the face of a victorious Lonely. Peter is delighted.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks as Elias chokes around him.
Elias raises his head, obscene line of saliva running down his chin. He massages his jaw with one manicured hand and fruitlessly tries to look Peter in the eyes. “You know I am not.”
“Good.”
Elias growls, which makes Peter laugh a deep hearty chuckle and acknowledge his partner with a condescending pat on head. Elias smacks his head away.
“I’ll leave you unfinished, you brute.”
“That seems for the best. What time is it? You do require at least two hours to prepare your wardrobe for these things if I recall.”
“It does not matter. I intend to arrive fashionably late.”
“I suppose I’ll leave you to your powdering then. While your Loneliness is always a feast, like the rarest pheasant, sometimes one must top a meal off with some common social anxiety.”
“Haven’t I fed you enough?”
“You and I both know it is never enough for us.”
* * * * *
“And now a word from the Head of the Magnus Institute.”
Elias can be dazzling when he wants to be. Hair tinged an elegant salt and pepper, body identifiably trim underneath his fitted suit, and a discerning gaze that exhilarated. Fear, when unidentifiable, could often be mistaken for excitement. There are audible gasps from the audience, younger voices who knew the Magnus Institute as a stuffy facility of esoterica, who came to this gala out of morbid curiosity. Elias would strip them of their inheritances before the night was out, the way he had stripped Peter when he was young and impressionable. Peter did not regret it; he had not ruined his family only limited his share to that necessary for the continuous travels of his ship. Elias could have it. Elias could have more if he asked. Except he never asked. Elias only knew how to take.
When the speeches and dinner were concluded Peter sidles up to his host.
“You look handsome.”
“You do not.”
“Strange commentary from a man who only a few hours thought at least one part of me was handsome enough for his attention.”
“Do shut up, Peter, I’m working. I only invited you here so I might kill two birds with one stone.” Elias scans the room. “As many birds as possible with one stone. Don’t hover you’ll ruin the mood. I can’t have them all quaking with Fear; as lovely as it is, it does not open chequebooks.”
“Is my chequebook not enough for you?”
“Your chequebook is as underwhelming as your personality. You keep giving it all to Maxwell and Simon anyway. So, I have to make do with this.” Elias gestured disdainfully at the assemblage.
“That’s my family’s money. You know what I do with myself. You know me at least better than anyone.”
“What an honor,” Elias sneers, but Peter can see the hint of a blush on his cheeks. Or is it a trick of the light? The Loneliness of the uncertainty sits in his chest, familiar and tender. Perhaps he has deluded himself. Perhaps he means absolutely nothing to Elias Bouchard and he is a convenient accessory in the same way Elias courts the other Avatars into his schemes. The absolute Loneliness of that possibility is an alternate ecstasy. When Elias does this, wounds with his callous words, is it for the benefit of Peter’s Patron? Or is it simply a defensive parrying blow to Peter’s own cruelty. He does not know.
Peter finds the light alcohol barely registers on his tongue as he watches Elias slide up to a lithe young socialite. This was how it was with them, a game of push and pull. I need you. I don’t need you. Pride stopped their mouths, but in hearts was a Fear independent of both their Entities. If they ever were to meet in the center they could walk a path of unlikely equilibrium, uncharted territory. Neither dares looking inward enough to find it.
* * * * *
“You’re a human man, Peter. Or once were. Tell me, do you think you’ve been in love?
They stroll down the street where others rush, eager to be home and out of the heavy snow that darkens the sky so that time is indeterminate. If a gloved hand is wrapped in another gloved hand it is only to keep each other tethered from slipping. A natural consideration.
“I may have been in love once or twice. I am not sure if you had the same experience in the 19th century, but we are raised to believe that love is this undying desire to be with someone else. Ghastly! Avatars of the Lonely do not feel such compulsions, but maybe that is not all there is to love. Who knows?”
“Do you love me?”
Peter turns on his heel and Elias is gifted with a treasure rarer than the gems of the deepest mines. Peter’s eyes are piercing as a fluorescent spotlight in an abandoned parking lot.
“Oh.” Elias shivers as the Beholding feeds, hungry and desperate. He will not, cannot release this banquet of his own volition. If only time would stop and Peter would be chained here forever. “Oh, thank you.”
A gust of wind and with another flurry of snow their contact is broken. Elias is suddenly alone on the pavement, the space once occupied by a man now free of substance.
Peter does not return to London for a decade.