Chapter IV. Labyrinthine #3
“Even Genebra and Augusto thought we were imagining things.” He paused to find an ashtray, but ended up dropping the ashes on a napkin.
“Said we were bickering about politics, like we simply resented him for treating us as representatives of the Eastern Bloc. Like the problem was him saying that communists had no place in Brazil, instead of the clues that he was involved in something questionable.”
“With Dami?o.”
“See, Ariadne, it’s shameful to admit this, but most guls have preferences in their eating habits.
My father only ate eunuchs. Genebra went from elderly Portuguese duchesses to equally elderly modern friends.
Others like certain body parts. The list goes on.
” His lips curled in disgust. “Minotauro and Dami?o never had any qualms admitting that they preferred human children. Now, eating children is not exactly taboo among guls. It’s mostly the kind of thing we agree you should not look for. ”
“But the others didn’t care when they did?”
“It could have been just boasting. Dami?o, in particular, is very fast, but physically weak. A vulture. Some men like to prove themselves, especially in the company of one another. But then Erik heard them speak about a ‘restaurant’ they owned. This is where the situation becomes disturbing.”
Ariadne nodded.
“We envisioned this plan where we would go to Minotauro’s house when he least expected it.
Dami?o was out of the country. My mother always said that the big ones fall the hardest, and I thought that, maybe, I could take him down on my own if he attacked us.
” Quaint let out a strangled laugh. “We thought they were just eating children. I didn’t expect what we were going to find there. Never, never, never…”
“Did you kill him?”
Ariadne wanted to get up to take off his glasses just to see the look in his eyes when he said yes or no. More than anything, she needed a confession and a reason, and she hoped that the right answer would soothe her heart.
The smoke escaped from the corner of his lips as more ashes fell on the napkin. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Don’t be scared of me, please. I would never…”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t accept that someone like him existed. Because I was afraid of what he could keep doing if he stayed alive. Because there is no punishment for guls. Because I still can’t stand to think of what I saw.”
Ariadne processed the words slowly, thinking: I want to leave. I want to stay. I want to leave …
“Erik said something about it, didn’t he?
” Quaint massaged his temples. “He never agreed with what I did, if that’s what you’re wondering, but he didn’t stop me either.
I was consumed by my rage, and even though he knew what I would do, he closed the door, waited outside, and pretended not to hear a thing. ”
Ariadne could imagine that scene. The two men in the photograph, dressed in their fine suits, one entering the master bedroom on the upper floor of the yellow house, the other locking the door and closing his eyes. It was just like Erik, wasn’t it?
Ariadne got up and looked at Quaint, feeling like she was seeing him for the first time.
His dark hair had fallen out of its pompadour, his wide shoulders were stiff with tension, his mouth was projected forward to keep the cigarette in place.
When Ariadne didn’t answer, Quaint raised his chin, and she saw his eyes, too, black like hers.
“That’s what I wanted to know.” Ariadne began unbuttoning her cardigan. “How I would feel about it.”
“What?”
“If I would be glad or if I would hate it.” She dropped the cardigan onto the floor, her arms visible under the cap sleeves of her blouse. “If I would feel avenged. If I would be sad. I guess I don’t feel any of those things.”
“Ariadne…?”
“I can’t do it faster.” Ariadne extended her arm, finding the line where the synthetic fiber touched her scarred stump. She unrolled the skin carefully, exposing the bionic arm underneath. “You have to take it off slowly, or the sensors might break.”
His eyes were fixed on her, and Quaint was no longer a predator, but a fellow person.
Vulnerable, uncertain, confused—all feelings she had as well.
Ariadne walked up to him, feeling no shame when her fingers trembled and he held her hand, putting out the cigarette to help her remove the soft layer covering her limbs.
“Is it strange? That I’m not satisfied by his death?” Ariadne continued under his mesmerized gaze. “I didn’t want you, of all people, to carry this weight. And, at the same time, childishly, selfishly … I wanted someone to end things. To be angry for me. To care.”
Ariadne bent over to pull down her pantyhose, peeling the tights and the synthetic skin of her legs. When she finished, she was only wearing the skirt and the blouse, exposing the robotic limbs willingly for the first time.
“Funny to think I resented whoever killed him for not killing me as well. I don’t resent you anymore.
” Ariadne seized Quaint’s glasses by the bridge, closing the arms and leaving them on top of one of the journals.
“Why the face? You’d eventually find out.
Erik would tell you, so what’s the use in hiding? ”
Ariadne knew the answer to her own question: it was the same reason that made her wake up earlier in the day, flushed and gasping for air, with the images of the dream still drilled into her head.
It was the kind of reason that made her hate herself, that took her to a dangerous mental space, one where she missed what Minotauro did because at least he wanted her; at least in his eyes, she was something that could exist, a marionette coming alive under her puppeteer’s touch.
Usually, that would be sufficient to fill her with dread and disgust, but this time, she felt an almost ethereal relief, like Minotauro had never existed in the first place.
It was as if she had stood in front of him many times and done the same thing, recognizing that expression, that person, that moment.
If she closed her eyes, Ariadne would see Quaint when he was not yet Quaint, but a smiling boy called by another name.
First, with long hair tied in a bun and smoky quartz glasses, swearing they would always be together.
Second, his chest against her then-flat chest, lying on a wooden floor, saying they should run away.
Third, with a hasty glance from afar, betraying the kindness of a long-forgotten husband.
If she opened her eyes again, the present Quaint would be there, but it was still the same man.
“I’m at a loss,” he admitted.
Ariadne smiled.
“I like leaving guls speechless. Might make it a habit.”
Quaint smiled back and touched her face.
Ariadne rubbed her cheek against his hand, feeling the lines of his palm, the cold metal of the rings, the subtle salience of the peony tattoo on the back.
She kissed the tips of each finger, the nails, the knuckles, the little white scar.
She looked at him to see if he would reject her, and when he didn’t, Ariadne covered his index and middle fingers with her mouth.
A low sound came from the bottom of his throat. His nails touched the roof of her mouth, and her lips went up and down, leaving a trail of saliva on his skin. She looked down, an old fear still fluttering in her stomach:
“Am I disgusting?”
Am I disgusting? The same question, a different time.
Erik had held her by the shoulders, gently stopping her after an awkward attempt at a kiss.
His shaking hands patted her neck, like saying sorry, like it was hard to do that, like he found her too vile to bear.
She had never been so ashamed of being so ugly, so despicable, so insignificant.
No one will ever want me again. Not with that body, not with that past. Only Minotauro could have wanted something like her.
I know you’re trying to hurt yourself, Erik had said, covering her with his own coat.
He had explained that while he was flattered, he was too old, and she was still recovering. Don’t cry, don’t cry …
“Nothing about you is disgusting.” Quaint wrapped his arms around her narrow waist, burying his face in her belly. “I just need to know if you’re doing this to hurt yourself.”
“I’ll hurt myself if I pretend I don’t want you inside of me right now.” Ariadne ran her fingers through his hair, dissolving what was left of his hairstyle. The shame returned, poison spreading through her veins, but this time it was much harder to walk away. “I’m sorry. I thought…”
“You thought right.” Quaint lifted her like she weighed nothing, and Ariadne placed her knees on the sofa, sitting on his thighs. “I’m not denying you in any way. I just don’t want to take advantage of your pain.”
Her body trembled with anticipation, feeling the fabric of her skirt lifting itself around the width of her hips.
I want, I want, I want, and everything else disappeared under his touch.
There was no yellow house or the memories hidden inside of it; there was no Minotauro or the abrasions left by his hands; there was no clinic, no Erik or the thoughts that had haunted her every day since she woke up.
Then, and just then, there was only him and her.