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The wood stretching at the ceiling of their first floor held a mellow brick-red color. Her mouth curled at the edge at the sight, aware of how it matched the spice-brown from their floorboards.
“I have a question,” announced Ardelia, the rhythmic rasping of her umber feet approached the FBI agent resting on the floor. “And I want you to bear with me for a second.”
Starling scoffed, her gaze darting to her friend. Mapp showed her familiar beam, still, gut feeling informed the West Virginian something was coming her way, and it could be something . “Nothing after the third glass of moonshine can be good,” she declared, cheek touching the cool ground when she turned her head.
Ardelia wet her lips. She folded her legs, sitting beside Starling’s head, and tipped her own at her friend. “ If ,” she said, “your good doctor wasn’t…”
Called it . Mapp wasn’t one to ask about Lecter, but alcohol brought out courage. And curiosity. Questions she might have never voiced while sober, questions she might not want answered. “A cannibalistic serial killer?” Clarice swallowed her drawl when she heard it, choked on it, and heard the doctor’s mocking for it.
Ardelia nodded, half shrugging before she sipped from her cup. The glass still held the droplets from being recently washed. Starling wondered if Mapp had caught the taste of its novelty. “Would you have gone on a date with him?”
A sudden, dry chuckle. Clarice faced their ceiling, basking in the warmth of the brick shade. At the back of her mind, Hannibal Lecter approved of it. She swallowed. “Yes,” her voice was unfamiliar. At the edge of her sight, Ardelia might have tensed, but her smile grew. “He’s interesting, cultured… I like his taste,” she said. Her gaze darted to her friend’s features. “He’s better behaved than many we’ve met at the Academy.”
Mapp sipped, smacked her lips. “Which already makes him a promising specimen.”
“Not sure if I could do it, though.” Clarice frowned. “He’s… A Count. An aristocrat. Bred from a noble family. His taste is expensive, he can be hedonistic,” she turned to face Ardelia and found her eyes. “He’d want a wife to spoil.”
The black woman raised a thin eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”
Starling’s grin widened. “Not really,” she said.
“ But …” the other prompted.
Clarice’s chest sank as she sighed, brick red brought quietness to her mind. “It is what it is.”
Ardelia blinked fast and shifted on her seat as if the floorboard had poked her. “You almost sound sad.”
Clear cobalt irises found Mapp’s. “Wouldn’t you like to be spoiled a little?”
The phantom of a different question hung in the back of the black woman’s mind, uttered in her friend’s voice, in a hushed whisper, in a tone filled with what could only be lust and longing. Whatever the Clarice in her mind asked made her shiver inside, and cracked her smiling façade on the outside. She rose her eyes to the ceiling, finding comfort in the warm reddish-brown, warmer than Starling’s gaze, livelier than her countenance.
A flash behind her eyes. Starling naked, with Lecter between her legs, and heavy panting out of her mouth.
Mapp pressed her lips closed tight, then traced imaginary shapes on the wood with her mind. “Ain’t nothing wrong with wanting a guy who could treat you right,” she said, in an attempt to convince one of them. Not Starling. She shifted, emptied her glass. “Well, Mrs. Lecter, I’m off,” she stood. “Wanna get up early tomorrow to try and end those boxes. Unfortunately, you let your best sugar daddy option run off and eat his patients, now we have to live like mortals.” She blinked, gaze lingering on her friend’s face. “Next time consider putting him on a leash.”
Clarice smirked. “Chilton tried a muzzle,” she said, “didn’t end well for him.”
Ardelia choked on a gasp.