Work Text:
Wil can’t remember the last time she wore make-up or a dress or shaved her legs or did anything with her hair beyond a simple ponytail. She thinks that maybe, just maybe, she wore a dress to the last Easter Mass she attended with her father, which would be over twelve years. She’s shaved her legs since then. Her legs are shaking now, cold as she waits outside of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Or maybe it’s the heels. Or maybe it’s the dozens of people walking past her on the stairs. All of them, dressed to the nines. Women in six-inch stillettos and ballgowns who walk as naturally as she would on Warlock Duramax diesel on the Gulf in the wake of a hurricane.
There’s a breeze passing by, drafting up her skirt. She shivers again and squeezes her legs together. Maybe she should have worn underwear after all. She wraps her arms around herself. The black wool trench coat Alana lent her is keeping her warm, at least, warmer than if she hadn’t swallowed her pride. The women walking by her aren’t wearing coats. They have sweaters and shawls: delicate, lacy things draped over their shoulders, held together by strategically placed hands and pins. They aren’t being kept warm, but they smile and walk like nymphs through a forest of willows. She looks at the sky. It’s nearly black and a voice at the back of her mind asks her, What are you doing here?
“Wil?”
At the accented bass, she looks down. Hannibal is standing at the bottom corner of the steps, approaching her from Charles Street. He, as she expected, is a stunning example of easy sophistication. He is wearing a tailored black suit and a black bow tie and that’s all Wil could see of his clothing. She notices, rather, the broadness of his relaxed shoulders, the aristocratic angles of his pale face, the depthless comfort of eyes that betray no white. She sees that those eyes are focused intently on her and her guts jump from a wholly different breed of anxiety. He is smiling at her. She, in response, smiles as well.
“You’re here earlier than I expected,” he says.
Wil shrugs. “I was eager.” She puts her hands in her pockets. “You are a strange and mysterious man, Dr. Lecter. I’ll take any chance I can to get to know you better."
She is nearly as tall as him, and tonight she's wearing the two-inch heels that the shop girl recommended for her, but when he's in front of her, a step below her, he seems towering. Perhaps it's the trick of his tux melding in with the shadows of nearby trees and the color of the sky, or maybe it's her anxiety making him seem more massive and foreboding than normal. It has something to do with his eyes, she thinks. Always her downfall, but there’s something specific about Hannibal’s eyes. The way they pierce and examine, perhaps, while simultaneously being too dark to penetrate. Inspiring intimacy, but preventing anything from escaping. When she focuses on something else--the bridge of his narrow nose, the quirk in his lips--he becomes mortal.
"As you should," he says. "So few have been offered the opportunity." She thinks he’s going to kiss her. Instead, he holds his arm out. "Shall we go in?" She wraps her fingers around his bicep and lets him guide her.
He takes her coat when they're inside. She's never been to the BMA and it's much like she expects of an art museum. The floors are a hard, dark marble and the walls are impeccably white. There is a shop in the visitor’s entrance and stanchions across closed doors and a large stairwell leading up to where the art is displayed and the event is taking place.
Hannibal lays a hand on her back. He leans in close to her. He smells like basil and cinnamon, like a warm body. "You look stunning," he says. She is wearing a floor-length dark blue dress with a square neckline and gold lace back and capped sleeve. Wil had told the shopgirl that she wanted something that showed off her breasts and her back. The bodice was tighter than she had imagined, so her breast were straining against the low neckline. When she saw it, she worried about the appropriateness, then she remembered the way Hannibal's lips had wrapped around her nipple, how he sucked like a starving child and his teeth had grazed lightly over the flat tip.
She can feel his attraction. His breath graces over her ear, tangling in the recalcitrant threads of hair that have been tickling her ears for hours. The heat of his palm recalls the way his trimmed nails dragged down her skin as she ground into his pelvis. Her mouth quirks into a toothy quasi-smile. She turns to look at him, eyes settling at the square between his eyebrows.
"Thanks," she says. "I had a bit of a Moonstruck moment this afternoon."
His right eyebrow rises. "Moonstruck?"
"It's a movie. With Cher.” She moves her hands to put them in her pockets, only to remember that she doesn’t have them and ends up running her hands up and down her hips like her palms are sweating. “She goes to the opera with the brother of her fianceé and she spends the afternoon getting ready? Do you know who Cher is?”
His hand moves to the top of her back, just under her neck, and lays a soft pressure that starts her slow and careful walking towards the stairs. “You’re nervous,” he states.
“Could you tell?”
“There’s no reason for you to be anxious,” Hannibal says. “There are no killers here for you to understand. Tonight is a night off.” She stumbles a little on the stairs, but Hannibal’s hands are firm on her back and bicep. She lays a hand on the one holding her arm and it slips away.
"There are other people," she slowly says.
"You do not have to talk to them." Wil catches the corner of his smile. "I barely want to talk to them."
“Are you trying to avoid the phrase 'just relax'?”
“Would it help you if I told you to?”
They reach the top of the stairs. The gallery that they’ve entered is all white walls and colorful, messy art. To her right is an auditorium blocked with more red stanchions. Up here, people have started to clique off into groups of threes and fives. The individuals who came alone are moving smoothly from couple to couple, refusing to settle until they've found a cluster of fellows who will help them forget their aloneness. One in particular catches her attention: a short and overweight man in what she assumes is his best tuxedo, talking animatedly to a very, very bored black man. His desperation tastes like pity.
“It wouldn’t,” she admits. She bends her arm and takes Hannibal by the elbow. He lays a hand over hers.
“Would a little self-medication help?” Hannibal asks.
A smile tugs at Wil’s mouth. She looks at Hannibal’s lips and sees that light, teasing smile. “I believe that would.”
They spend the next half-hour drinking very expensive champagne out of a delicate crystal flute while Hannibal walks them around the accessible galleries, giving her a private tour of the old masters. She keeps a hand firmly wrapped around his elbow and thinks of one of her dogs tied to the posts on her porch so he won't run into the woods. They're left alone, but when she finds herself overwhelmed by Hannibal's voice and the lean streak of body that inches centimeter by centimeter closer, she looks away and sees the quick turn of heads. When the show is about to start, they follow the crowd into a just-opened room. The seating is set up in one of the newly renovated wings. It's all white walls and dark floors, just like the rest of the building, but she can still smell the drywall dust and paint. Behind the stage is an opening to the next gallery in the wing, sectioned off with red ribbon. It repeats, like two mirrors are being held up and the ribbon was caught in the middle.
"This seems pretty low-key for an opera," she says as they sit down. He is on the aisle, about halfway to the front, and she sits to his left.
"If we are being particular, we are not going to see an opera," Hannibal explains. "Baltimore, unfortunately, no longer has an independent opera company. What we are about to watch is the Concert Opera. It involves far less pageantry.”
She smirks and looks at the top corner of his cheekbone. “If you say that with any more contempt I’m gonna start to wonder why you brought me here.”
He is careful to meet the corner of her gaze as he answers, “I like simple things, Wil. If you pair a honed talent with a timeless composition, you will have a good thing. Over-complication runs the risk of souring your experience. Your pleasure.”
Wil looks down at her hands. "If you like simple things, then why bring me. I'm not exactly uncomplicated, Doctor."
He smiles another teasing smile, but this time it feels like mockery. "I like my pleasures simple. You are not a pleasure."
The lights start to dim as she says, "Well, thank you for the insult."
He doesn't respond. A spotlight focuses on the stage. The maestro enters the light, and the concert begins.
The first performance is a countertenor. He's around Wil's age, probably younger, with a cherubic cheeks and small eyes. His back is straight and his shoulders are drawn back, making him look squarer than he should. She finds herself mirroring him. Halfway through his performance she realizes that her back is painfully straight and her shoulders are tauter than a bowstring. She doesn't know what to expect from him, but the first notes he sings, some two minutes after the music has started playing, were beyond her imagination. His voice is high. It trembles as he sings, and it may be her, with her sparse knowledge of classical music, but she thinks that he struggles with sustaining notes. It may be her, but she does not hear words or lyrics, but syllables and notes. Long black dots drawn across parchment. But there is an eagerness to his singing. He leans forward, as if he expects his voice to be corporeal, solid enough to lean on and rest against. The music becomes livelier, and the singer increases his tempo, and finally his notes connect, his loosely tied syllables becoming a recognizable song. The performance is about ten minutes long, and the last five minutes are the only ones she truly enjoys.
The second singer is a mezzo-soprano. She is older, possibly in her late thirties, and sings with character. She moves in all the ways the boy before her didn't. She raises her arms, lowers her eyebrows, smiles, turns on her hips like a hula doll. She sings like she knows what she's saying. This puts Wil at ease. With her back relaxed against the back of the chair, she begins to enjoy herself.
After the mezzo-soprano is a duet with a baritone, who shortly after is given his own ten minutes on stage. After him is a tenor. The tenor pairs with a soprano. Wil finds herself lulled into a hypnotic peace. She feels like the half of her brain that buzzes with analyzation and extrapolation, the side that weeps for monsters, has been turned off. The sensation she is left with is partly euphoric, mostly drunken.
Every so often Hannibal leans down to her to explain something. The context of the song or something about the singer or the composition. She finds it hard to recognize what he's saying. His words are fractured syllables wrapped in an accent that feels like warm water running down her shoulders. She wants to rest in it, but fears what would happen if she could not fight it. At the thought, she feels the water rush up to her face, filling her nose, muffling the current duet. Her heart is beating in her head. She smells rubber and sugar burning together. She reaches out for Hannibal's hand. Her palm cups his knuckles. The warm water rushes down her gullet and feathery darkness begins to approach from her peripheries. The tender hand underneath hers turns. She holds her breath and feels the engine of her heart begin to short-circuit. Air rushes from her confused lungs. Fingers slip between hears and a voice, the same voice that started the ache in her flooded chest, mutters, "I am here." The water rushes away from her mouth and nose. The burning smell disappears and she breathes easily once again, though the ache remains in the muscles of her breast. They hold hands, her knuckles white and her nails cutting into him, until the song ends and they are prompted to applaud.
The final singer is the soprano who had appeared earlier. She is a lovely woman: red hair, red dress, and red lipstick, all against a bloodless face. Wil doesn't think she is the best of the acts tonight, though she does seem the most popular and Wil can understand why she is the final act. But Wil finds that the interest and peace of mind she had experienced earlier has been shaken off during the episode. Her mind and eyes start to wander.
There is a man two rows ahead of them who is attending the event with his mistress, though he still loves his wife and won't be leaving her. There is a woman two seats to her left who is about to go bankrupt. The maestro is an alcoholic and the tenor is a recovering cocaine addict. There is a cancer patient in the top left corner of the audience. Her attention drifts from person to person, until it finally rounds back to Hannibal. His eyes glisten with tears that edge the limits of his swollen, red eyelids. His face is tipped into a firm, worshipful frown, his chest stiff with the breath he's locking into himself.
Her bottom lips falls open, silent and awed. That is what he sees when he glaces over to check her. He smiles, blinks his tears dry. Lifts their conjoined hands--when did they come back together?--and kisses her knuckles. She sighs and feels a desire she had never felt before. It’s cold and curled placidly between her lungs, humming in eager content. If she were to faint into Hannibal’s arms, she thinks she would be okay with it.
The song comes to a glorious end. Hannibal immediately rises to his feet and fervently applauds. Wil rises sheepishly next to him and a smattering of other audience members stand as well. The soprano bows. The maestro shoos her from the stage and brings the show to a close.
They remain seated for a few minutes after the show has officially ended. Wil thinks she should thank Hannibal for calming her down during the show. That would be the polite thing. But their fingers are still intertwined and the happy, slumbering desire makes her think that it’s fine. She’s fine. Hannibal asks, “How did you feel about the show?”
“I liked it,” she says, smiling. She feels euphoric still and dizzily thinks that if she speaks slowly, that euphoria will remain. “I really liked the second duet. And the first song with the tenor. What was that from, again?”
“L’elisir d’amore,” Hannibal answers.
“Which in English means...?”
“The Elixir of Love by Donizetti. The company in Wilmington is going to put on a production if you’re interested.”
She chuckles nervously, tips her head towards him. “Asking someone out on a second date before the first ends reeks of desperation.” She brushes a thread of curly hair behind her ear. "Makes a girl wonder what you've got planned for her."
Hannibal leans forward as well. His head is tipped to mirror Wil, but her coy smile is replaced with that thin, charming one. “I assure you, my plans are entirely foul.”
She laughs again, with more freedom and light. The room is nearly empty. Like a teenager with a secret, she leans forward and kisses him chastely. His lips seek hers, but she pulls away too soon. Their eyes meet and she holds his burgundy gaze long enough to see the blood shine in his eyes. "We have to go and be sociable."
A muscle jumps in Wil's cheek. "You don't have to talk to everyone," Hannibal continues, "but there will be more than a few curious people."
"Don't bring guests to a lot of these things?"
"As I said earlier, you should feel privileged to see so many sides of me." He raises their linked fingers. "Shall we join them?"
Wil smiles nervously and nods. They rise together and she feels the tepid comfort of her sleeping desire drag and fall from her chest. She is left empty and hungry and far too warm.
She keeps her eyes forward, unsure whether it is time or eye contact that spurs the attack. Hannibal is careful not to approach, to keep moving, to run his thumb along her white knuckles. Wil remembers to breathe, deeply in and deeply out. She counts her breaths and ducks her head. They survive until Hannibal has secured two more flutes of champagne and Wil has breathed two and a half dozen times. Then, like clock work vultures, they descend.
"Hannibal!"
The voice is nearly jarring in its whimsical childishness. The mature face that is paired with it makes it even more shocking.
"Mrs. Komeda." Hannibal smoothly leans in to kiss the older woman on the cheek. "It's a pleasure to see you again." He wraps a possessive right arm around Wil’s waist. "This is my personal friend Wilhelmina Graham."
"This is?" Komeda says, her painted red lips tipping into an interested, teasing smile. As if she knew Wil personally.
Wil nods. She sticks out a stiff arm, the fingers of her hand splayed open. Komeda doesn't hide her shocked flinch. "Wil," she says. It sounds like a hiccup. The older woman takes her hand and shakes it weakly. Wil flushes when Komeda lets go and squeezes closer to Hannibal. She thinks she notices a circle of people surrounding them now.
"It's nice to meet you Wil," Komeda says. She puts her gloved hands on her hips. "You know, you're the first 'personal friend' of Hannibal's that I've met. And I've known him for a very long time."
"Oh?"
"Mrs. Komeda was my sponsor when I first came to Baltimore," Hannibal explains. "She very graciously let me stay in her guest house for the first year of my residency, free of charge."
"Oh."
Komeda waves him off. "Letting you stay with me was the least I could do. And you paid more than your fair share with all that food you made." Komeda touches Wil's arm and politely ignores her flinch. "Has he cooked for you yet?"
Wil nods. "Yes. He's made me breakfast a few times.” She realizes how that sounds as she says it, and clumsily follows it up with, “And...and sausages, he's given me his sausages. And...other...things." Wil’s lips find her flute’s lips and she silences herself with champagne.
"I can't imagine that he hasn't." Komeda lifts her chin to Hannibal. “He likes to show off his talent.”
“Is it showing off if it’s for my friends?” Hannibal cheekily asks.
“Yes.” Komeda returns her sharp gaze to Wil. “Have you ever watched him cook? It’s an entire performance! And you should’ve seen the exquisite dinner parties he used to throw. You heard me,” Komeda says to Hannibal, who has enough pride and decency to look mildly hurt. Wil can’t suppress a chuckle. “Used to.”
“And I will again, once inspiration strikes,” he promises. Komeda’s smile is a tight-lipped ‘V’ that speaks to her excitement, but the suggestive move of her hips belies disbelief. As if she has heard it a dozen times before. Hannibal responds to her, but speaks more to Wil. “I cannot force a feast. A feast must present itself.”
“It’s a dinner party not a unicorn,” Komeda argues.
“No, but the feast is life. You put a life in your belly and you live.”
Wil smiles into her flute. It’s highly poetic, dramatically so, but the warmth and tenderness in his words and the way Hannibal is rubbing the small of her back, where the two fabrics of her dress intersect, is seeping into her abdomen.
Komeda’s voice rings through her thoughts. “I believe this young man is trying to get your attention.”
Wil and Hannibal both turn their heads to find the fat man Wil had seen earlier in the night. He is still accompanied by the bored black man, but his reeking desperation and bright, naïve smile has been refocused on Hannibal. The soothing rubbing stops and the warmth dissipates immediately.
Hannibal moves his glass from one hand to the other, leaving Wil’s back cold and wanting. He shakes the new man’s hand and offers a stiff and polite hello. The fat man looks like his mother has just given him a plate of his favorite cookies. “Hi, so good to see you. This is my friend, Tobias.” The man smiles humbly at Wil and holds his hand out. “Hi, I’m Franklin Froideveaux.”
“Hi. Wil Graham,” she says as she shakes Franklin’s hand. It’s clammy and a little too firm. Wil thinks this man’s hunger for attention and approval is unbefitting for a colleague. He must be a patient, then. Probably for basic neuroses, or perhaps anxiety regarding his sexuality if the way his friend is eyeing Hannibal is any clue. Which would explain his desire to introduce his friend to his therapist. “I’m sorry, but Hannibal’s pretty tight-lipped on his friends. How do you know each other?”
“There should remain some mystery to my life,” Hannibal says. His glass switches hands once again. His right hand returns to its rightful place.
Komeda makes a haughty noise in the back of her throat. Wil catches her sharp smile and quick glance to her. Franklin looks mildly panicked and says, “I’m one of his patients.” He smiles like he’s better--like he’s righteous for his honesty.
Wil finds herself caught between disgust and pity for Franklin. He so clearly adores his therapist, probably sees him as a sturdy tree in a tsunami. But there is something about his desperation. It’s ingrained; it’s second nature for him to focus on someone else, someone stronger than him, someone who could nurture and call him special. Issues with his parents, though nothing the next person he speaks to wouldn’t sympathize with and understand. He is basic and uncomfortable. She wants to think his repugnance has something to do with his bourgeois baseness, but it may be closer to a territorial protectiveness. He is another patient in want of Hannibal’s attention; a relationship that tests the definition of “ethical boundaries”.
Hannibal gets rid of Franklin and his friend as quickly as possible. He’s still stiff as he paints a smile on his face and turns to ask Wil and Komeda whether they’re hungry. Wil is starving. She skipped lunch to get some extra paperwork done so that she could spend the afternoon getting ready for the event. Komeda declines. She has seen another friend and wants to greet him as well before getting something to eat. They depart and are alone once again.
“I apologize for that interruption,” Hannibal says.
“The thing with your patient?” Wil asks. She shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like patients always approach you when you’re outside of your office, right?” Wil asks.
“No, not often.” Hannibal pauses for effect. “And not with as much...zeal.”
Wil sips from her drink. “Maybe,” she says after swallowing, “you’re just a magnet for inappropriate patient relationships.”
He stops their progress to the buffet table and turns her to face him with a flick of his wrist. “Tonight you are not my patient. Neither are you my colleague or, by some definitions, my friend.”
“Well,” she says, looking over his shoulder, “if I’m none of those and I’m not a pleasure, then what am I?”
Hannibal runs a thumb down the side of her face. He’s considering and exact. He always has the right word, the right tone, and his current silence, its introspective feel, makes her uncomfortable. He kisses her on the forehead and mutters something foreign. Then he turns her around again and they continue on to the food.
"I don't think I've ever seen you eat food you haven't prepared yourself," she remarks casually as he spreads sofrito on to a small square of Edam.
"I told you, when we were in Minnesota, that I am very careful with what I put into my body. I need to trust that the food I am consuming is the best for me. Cooking it all myself makes the process easier.”
“So that’s your qualification?” she asks. “You don’t eat anything you don’t trust?”
Hannibal meets her gaze as he puts the cheese-and-spread in his mouth. A hint of tongue between his fingers makes her shiver.
“Dr. Lecter!”
A man approaches them from behind Hannibal. He is in his forties, with rough brown hair and silvery gray threads at his temples. He wears a suit, slightly grayer than the others she has seen tonight, and he smiles too widely for his mouth. The man claps Hannibal--who winces at the contact but his standard polite and pleasant smile quickly reclaims his face--on the shoulder and curves around to create a triangle.
“Mr. Dogherty,” Hannibal says. “Good evening.” They shake hands. “This is Wilhelmina Graham.” Wil extends her hand, expecting a shake, so when Dogherty takes her hand between his thumb and index finger and brings her knuckles to his mouth for a wet kiss, she stutters and drags her hand away from him. Dogherty laughs.
“Long time no see, huh?” he says, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets. He is looking at Hannibal, but his body is pointed obtrusively towards Wil. “You haven’t invited anyone ‘round to your house in, what, two years?”
“Yes, I was just speaking to Mrs. Komeda about my recent lack of parties,” he said. “She insists that I change that soon.”
“You should,” Dogherty agrees. He looks at Wil. “Has he cooked for you yet? It’s phenomenal. And you’re especially lucky. He always gives the girls the best of his meats.”
Wil nods and smiles politely. She doesn’t say anything. A quick glance at Hannibal tells her that his bountiful politeness has quickly been sapped, leaving him hard and unforgiving.
“That reminds me,” Hannibal tersely says, “how is your wife?” Dogherty flinches away from Wil. “I rarely see you two apart.”
“Unfortunate news about that,” Dogherty admits. “She, uh, she left me. For some Castilian guy we met on our last trip abroad.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Dogherty shakes his head. He strokes his pocked chin and manages to look a little genuine as he says, “Nah, there’s no need to be. We had a good run. It’s just a shame, y’know, that she didn’t even want to come home before filing for divorce. But, y’know, I can understand. Work and all that. Besides,” he gestures and speaks directly to Wil, “how can I compare to some big, high-classed European guy, right? You know what I’m talking about.” He points to Hannibal. “I bet he didn’t even have to cook you dinner.”
Dogherty laughs, but Wil doesn’t understand the joke. She feels unsettled and angry, flushed and ashamed but she doesn’t see a reason for her reaction. Her stomach rolls with the uncertainty. She excuses herself to the bathroom. The pitiful gaze that follows her as she moves uncomfortably through the room burns on her back. She dips her head forward and feels her brain slosh forward. Advil. She needs Advil. Advil is in her coat pocket. Shit.
In the bathroom she turns on a sink and bends over the rushing water. She avoids herself in the mirror and tries, instead, to focus on the high pitch of the water running out of the tap, down the drain, through a far-reaching sewage system and then back to the Chesapeake Bay. She cups her hands to catch the water and brings it to her mouth. She breathes again. From the Bay the water will evaporate and drift high, high, high into the air where it will chill and freeze and come together into a cloud that will deliver the rain somewhere else. Maybe over the Pacific or France or to a reservoir just outside of Baltimore where it will be taken by drains and buckets and delivered to this same bathroom. She drinks another cupful of water. Is she embarrassing him by running away?
No, she can’t think.
She can’t think of him turning his head away, disappointment shading his opinion. She can't think of him saying this was a mistake, an error in judgement. She can't think of how things would return to normal and he would be the odd, brilliant psychiatrist and she would be the morbid girl with an empathy disorder. How he’d talk to her like a friend, like her only friend. Like he never touched her like no one ever has. Like he never carried her to his bed and kissed her until she couldn’t speak. Like he never lulled her to sleep with the cage of his arms and the hum of a foreign lullaby. She can’t think.
“Wil?”
She jumps and stumbles along the bank of sinks. Komeda is standing at the doorway, her fingers laced together, stern but softer than she appeared before.
“Are you okay?”
She nods and swallows. “Yeah.” She touches the braids tightly plaited around her head. “I, uh, I just needed to use the bathroom. And I’ve used it now.”
Komeda doesn’t look convinced. “Do you want to fix your mascara?”
Wil’s brow bunches. She looks in the mirror. There are rivulets of coagulated black and dark gray running down her cheeks. She wipes her hand across her face and makes it worse.
“I don’t have any mascara.”
Komeda approaches with her sharp, inverted triangle of a smile and pulls a small tube from her long black glove. “It’s a good thing I always carry some on me. Clean your face, dear.”
Wil nods. She pulls a few paper towels from the dispenser and gets them wet with the still-running tap. She is wiping harshly at her face when Komeda asks, “I didn’t get to ask you about yourself when we first met.”
“There’s really not much to me,” Wil says, not wanting a conversation and certainly not one like what Komeda is digging for.
“Do you have a job?” the older woman tries.
“I work for the FBI,” she says. When she sees Komeda tip her head, she adds, “I’m a teacher at the Academy. And I occasionally work in the field as a profiler.”
“And how did you meet Hannibal?” Komeda takes a step closer. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t seem to be the kind of woman who he--”
“Normally dates?” Wil offers. She smiles wanly. “To be honest, I’m not even sure we are dating. I don’t know what I am to him. When we met, I was a patient and I was still a patient when I fucked him in his office and I’m still his patient even though he took me on a date.” Wil balls the wet used towels and presses it into the countertop. “And when I asked him what I am to him, whether I’m a fuck or someone special, he gave me the most obscure answer. So...so no, I’m not the kind of woman he normally dates.” And she would bet her right hand that the moment that woman walks by, he wouldn’t dump her. As much as he would want to, as much as she would want him to, they would limp along, with him becoming more and more the cripple’s abused crutch. She is--as much as she would like to deny it--unstable. And he wants her to be stable. Because he cares.
Komeda is rolling her mascara between her fingers. She looks at Wil contemplatively. There’s something matronly about her. A woman who always wanted kids but didn’t get the chance. She could’ve been looking for the right man, the right financial situation, the right house, and when she had all of those things it was too late. So she’s kind, instead, housing foreign surgical students and listening to their maybe-girlfriends unload in museum bathrooms. But generosity and patience do not make up for a genuine lack of experience.
“I was going to say,” Komeda says, “that you are not the kind of girl who normally shows interest in the things Hannibal is interested in.” Komeda looks away. “To be honest I’ve never seen him with another woman. He lived at my house, on my property, for over a year and I never saw him with a woman. Or a friend, for that matter.” Komeda looks at the little tube in her hands. She unscrews the top and approaches Wil slowly. Like she’s approaching a wild animal, the mascara offered like food. “Do you still want the mascara?”
Wil shrugs. “I don’t really know...”
“I can help you.”
Wil blinks rapidly before turning around. Komeda smiles and stands directly in front of her. “You’re going to want to blink, but just keep your eyes open,” she says. Wil swallows as Komeda’s black hand comes towards her eye.
“I used to think,” Komeda says, “that Hannibal was made out of sadness. All those years ago, he had that sombre youthfulness, and it just struck me how much he was like Lord Ruthven or Don Juan or those other Byronic heroes. As time passed, the glamor started to wear off and he just came off as being...lonely.”
Komeda moves on to the next eye. “I don’t know much about you, Wil, but I know that Hannibal is a smart man. He's a picky man and will not suffer for fools.” The older woman takes a step back, finished and pleased. “You’re not what I expected, but maybe you’re what he needs.”
Wil nods and blinks. Her eyelashes are heavy and her eyes are dry.
“I also saw that Tim Dogherty caught you and Hannibal,” Komeda comments lightly. “I would’ve come and rescued you, but I try not to catch his fleas.”
Wil laughs and wipes her nose. “He was pretty rude,” she agrees.
Komeda makes a dismissive gesture. “Don’t be nice about him. He’s a pig and his ex-wife deserves a nice Spaniard after having him run around on her.” She pouts disapprovingly and Wil laughs again, this time more brightly. “Do you want to go back out? I’m sure Hannibal would like to know that you’re okay.”
Wil nods and, arms linked, they leave the bathroom.
Komeda leads her back to Hannibal, who is speaking to a different man. This one is nearly as tall as Hannibal, bird-like and jowly with hair in the final stages of graying. They are deep in their conversation, but when Hannibal looks up and sees her and her trembling smile, a warm white light flushes through him. He shakes the stranger’s hand before approaching her and Komeda.
“You’ve returned,” he says gently. “I was beginning to worry.”
“You should worry,” Komeda says, grinning smartly. “You let her that close to such an awful man. I’m surprised she didn’t leave the party completely.”
“I’m fine,” Wil says quickly. She smiles to the bridge of his nose.
He nods. There is a soft and pleasant smile and she feels like leaning into him. “I’m happy to hear that.” He pulls back his jacket sleeve and looks at his watch. “Unfortunately, it is getting late and I have an early session tomorrow.”
She creases her brow in disbelief, but doesn’t question him until they have both said goodbye and he is leading her down the stairs. Even then, she waits until he has returned with her coat before saying, “It’s not that late, you know. We could still stay.”
“We could,” he agrees. “But I still need to wake up early tomorrow. And I was presuming that you were coming home with me. Was I wrong?” Wil shakes her head, smirking slightly. “Then you have an early morning as well.” He offers his arm. She accepts with a shy and growing smile.
“I still want to ask you something,” she says as they exit the museum. “Am I your girlfriend?”
He stares ahead of them and remains quiet. She puts her hand on his bicep and continues speaking. “I’m asking you because, right now, I’m the little complication in your simple life.”
“My life is not as simple as you think it is,” he defends. The tone isn’t harsh, but it feels as close to reprimand as he will ever approach with her. They are outside, on the stairs, and the sky is still pitch black and the only light is streaming through the bare branches of the trees. He stops and turns towards her. “I understand your anxiety, Wil. Letting someone into your life is a difficult decision, especially if this person is a potential intimate. And I admit that I have been avoiding your questions.” He gazes off towards the tree line. “I fear that if I do answer your questions and I answer them honestly, I will scare you away.”
“How?”
He tips his head down to the ground. He shrinks down, and though his shoulders are still broad and his legs still stiff and supportive, he collapses into himself. She realizes that this is vulnerability. “Because," he says, "my feelings for you are...intense. We have not know each other for very long. Such intensity of emotion can be confusing and even frightening."
She wonders, Are you afraid? She stares at him, his bent neck and loose blond hair, as she says, "I'm not china, Hannibal."
He lifts his head and there is a fond smile across his face. "No. You are my mongoose."
She decides that it's enough. It's enough for her to know that he is as uncertain as she is. That a sad boy from across the ocean could be as lost in himself as she is in herself. It's enough that they lean in for a kiss that's tender and heated. That makes her form to him, arms wrapping around his shoulders and torso pressed in line with him. She is held together with hands on her back and a mouth breathing air into hers. And that, for now, has to be enough.