Chapter Seven
That morning, when I went into the kitchen, Margaret was sitting at the table. Her fingers were steepled at the edge, and when she looked up, she seemed surprised to find me there.
“About yesterday,” I began. “I know you don’t like Vic, or maybe you don’t trust him, but—”
“Nadia, sit down,” she said shortly.
I sat down at the opposite side of the table. Today, I was wearing a plaid dress which hugged my body almost possessively. The fabric was uncomfortably restrictive around my legs, but I felt this was for the best. The way the dress’ skirt forced my thighs together might prove useful the next time I saw Vic. Maybe it would exert control, should my own fail.
Margaret glanced me over, before returning her attention to her own interlaced fingers.
“There’s something wrong with him,” she said. “I don’t want you to develop feelings for someone like him: someone with his temperament.”
“What do you mean?” I pressed.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing I can explain, just a feeling that he’s up to something. I think it’s best you keep your distance from now on.”
Margaret almost sounded jealous, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. I hadn’t seen anything from Vic which would make me think there was something wrong with him. But maybe, for Margaret, the only thing wrong with him was his romantic interest in me.
“Thank you, but I can take care of myself,” I said. As cliché as it sounded, it would allow us to both escape this conversation with dignity.
“He’s not the one for you,” Margaret said, sounding defeated.
I felt sorry for her.
“I think I saw Theresa last night,” I said. “I was in the backyard, and it looked like she was pacing in front of the window. I waved, but she just stared through the glass.”
Margaret nodded. “She looks out that window often.”
There was something nagging at me, and it was a thread I felt my fingers itching to pull.
“Can I go talk to her?” I asked. “She might appreciate some company.”
“She doesn’t speak much,” Margaret said.
I shrugged.
Margaret sighed, gently tapping her knuckles against the tabletop as though between my burgeoning relationship with Vic and my inquiries into the hidden tenant of the house, I had worn her patience to the raw, bloody bone.
“I was going to bring her breakfast now. If you want to meet her, you’re welcome to take it up yourself.”
That Margaret was uninterested in accompanying me, or even checking in on her patient spoke volumes, further eroding whatever credibility she might have once had in my mind.
“Thanks,” I said, forcing a bright smile to my lips.
Margaret prepared a tray with a breakfast of tea and toast, hesitating only a moment before handing it over to me. I walked up the steps, trying and failing to keep the tea from sloshing over the side and forming a small puddle on the wooden tray.
I opened the door at the end of the upper hallway, and was met by a set of stairs carpeted in a more outdated material than was seen in the rest of the immaculately furnished house. It seemed to be rusty colored, polyester, high pile carpeting.
The only lighting was natural, reflected off of the wall behind me, and the smell of the attic was that of cedar and dust.
“Theresa?” I said. I could hear an unfortunate waver in my voice, and promptly cleared my throat. “Theresa, I’m bringing your breakfast up.”
I emerged from the dimly lit stairs into a wide room. The ceiling was very low, only around seven feet above the floor at its highest point. There was a small, fourposter bed in the corner, and a small room closed off. I assumed that was the bathroom.
Theresa sat in a rocking chair on the opposite side of the room from the bed. Her back was to me, and she was looking out of the window. The sill was level with her shoulder, and I could see an unconscious craning of her neck so that she could see outside more fully.
“You’re the one who was watching me last night,” she said without turning around.
Though she couldn’t have known my voice, she knew I wasn’t Margaret. I supposed it was a reasonable guess.
“I am. My name’s Nadia. I’m the new resident.”
Theresa chuckled. “The new resident.”
She stood up, the rocking chair rolling back and forth behind her, before finding its equilibrium. She looked a little like Edith, but her body was smaller, her features more compressed. She lacked her sister’s apparent former power, but had a balance to her nature which made one forget that she must have been the older of the two.
“What’s for breakfast?” she asked. “I’d imagine it’s more of the same. That nurse never cooks up the kind of sustenance you need to keep you going in these cooler spring days.”
The heat in the attic was overpowering, the dry air causing my throat to immediately become parched. I had trouble imagining that the freshness of spring could touch her, where she existed so far above the ground.
“I’d imagine this does get boring,” I said, looking down at the pitiful breakfast. I tried to gently maneuver to the reason for my visit. “I suppose Margaret’s got you both on the same diet. Does Vic ever bring you food?” I asked.
“Vic!” Theresa nearly spat out the name. “He hasn’t set foot in this attic since he came back. I see him sometimes, crossing the backyard. He never even looks at the window. It’s like he deliberately turns his face from me, though I can only imagine why.”
“Are you close?” I asked.
“Once we were far closer than he and Edith,” Theresa picked up the tea cup and offered me a seat. She sat down in the rocking chair, and I pulled up the nearby chair.
“Why was that?” I asked.
“When Edith was too busy for the child, I practically raised him,” Theresa said, gently touching her chest. “During those days, Edith might not have been able to tell you his age, his school grade, or even the color of his eyes. But I…I was like a mother to him.”
I said nothing, watching her mutely as her eyes filled with tears that spilled out over her hollow cheeks.
“And it’s her he comes back for. Edith’s health fails, and within weeks he’s under this roof, doubtless playing the doting son. I just wish I could see him again, and not through this glass,” she said, waving in the direction of the window.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Theresa wiped the tears from her eyes. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. My condition is stable, and she is his mother, after all. It’s only the old fool in me speaking.”
I placed my hand over hers and she turned her palm upward to clasp mine.
“Why do you think he hasn’t visited you yet?” I asked. I didn’t want to tell her that he had barely seen Edith, based on what Margaret had told me. My perspective had been tainted by the bitter nurse, and I needed the viewpoint of someone who could not possibly be harboring romantic intentions toward Vic.
She shrugged, and disentangled her hand from mine. “He never visited us after moving away, so many years ago. Maybe he’s ashamed for turning his back on me. When he was young, he loved me the way a boy should love his mother. I would forgive him everything in an instant, if he would say one word.”
She stared into her tea, and her thin lips drew together in a trembling line.
There was nothing more I could say, so I bid goodbye to Theresa, assuring her that I would visit her again very soon.
She thanked me but, as she watched me leave, I knew she was busy wishing that I were another.
I wondered why Vic was avoiding the woman who had practically raised him.
I went back to my bedroom and opened the bedside drawer. This was where I had stored the vial taken from Matthew’s room. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, only that it had seemed so important.
I don’t know why I did it, but I opened the vial, covered the entrance with my index finger and turned it upside down. I set the vial back on the table, and studied the droplet left on my skin. It was a golden colored liquid. I put my finger to my tongue, and reeled at the sharp, metallic taste which filled my mouth.
A knock came at the door, and I tucked the vial back in the drawer before answering.
Vic stood in the doorway, a half-smile spreading across his lips. Before I could say anything, he walked past me into the room.
I cast a quick glance into the hallway to make sure Margaret was nowhere to be found, before closing the door.
Vic leaned himself against the door, his hands on either side of my body. He reached down and turned the lock.
“I don’t want anyone disturbing us this time,” he growled against my neck.
He reached down and ran his hand up, between my legs. Based on the murmur of appreciation he breathed against my collarbone, I guessed that the way the tight dress pressed my thighs together was something he enjoyed. He lifted me into his arms.
Vic carried me to the bed and dropped me down on the blanket. He unzipped my dress, before slipping my bra and panties from me, leaving me entirely naked on the bed.
I took in the vulnerability of my nude state, looking up at this fully clothed man. I stared at the way the t-shirt and jeans showed off his broad, solid form, while still leaving almost everything to the imagination. When I finally met his eyes, I found they were fixed on me with a kind of aching hunger.
“You have the most incredible body,” he said.
I felt a blush rising to my cheeks and I turned away.
Not one to be stopped, Vic straddled me on the bed and ran his hands along the curves of my naked body, with all the care of a sculptor gauging his own work. When I tried to cover myself with the sheets, he interlaced his fingers with mine, and stretched his arms, pulling my hands up above my head. He pressed a deep, passionate kiss to my lips, before pulling back. He kept my arms pinned above my head, while he gazed over my naked form.
“If it were up to me,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you wear any clothes. I’d take every garment you have and burn it, just so I could see this all the time.”
He moved his head down, gripping both of my elbows in one palm.
“These breasts,” he said. He drew my nipple into his mouth sucking and then biting lightly. I gasped at the pinching sensation of my nipple between his teeth. He smiled against my skin, before moving to the other nipple and doing the same.
He trailed kisses down my stomach, releasing his hold on my elbows. Despite my instinct to cover myself, I kept my arms above my head, knowing that Vic wanted to see my naked body fully on display.
He reached his hands between my thighs, and drew them apart, splaying me. He moved to kneel on the floor at the foot of the bed, grabbed my hips, and yanked me to the edge, so that my sex was directly in front of his face.
I shrank internally, a flush of embarrassment rising at the thought of being so completely exhibited before him. However, he left me no time to process this self-consciousness, pressing his mouth against me, and tracing circles over my clitoris with his tongue. I felt my stomach muscles tense at the sensation and, no sooner had I gotten used to the feel of his mouth than he was gone.
There was a momentary absence, and then the feel of his tongue plunging inside of me. I could feel my wetness against his mouth, and soon he was back to drawing his tongue over me. He slipped one finger, then two, inside, still working me with his tongue. The dual sensations caused a heady pulse of pleasure to run through me, and I felt almost embarrassed to have the extent of my arousal so clear to him.
He began thrusting his fingers in and out, establishing a gentle rhythm, and I was soon pressing my pelvis against him, hoping that he could drive deeper into me. I wanted to take whatever he could give me. I had never been so completely aroused by a man in my life.
When I came, a chill ran the length of my body, but Vic kept his movement going, until I finally stilled.
“You’re so beautiful when you come,” he said.
He got into the bed, and pulled me to him. “I could watch you twist with pleasure around my fingers every day,” he said.
I said nothing, still beyond words in the afterglow of the orgasm. I didn’t even try to speak or answer him, and by the look on his face, I could tell he enjoyed seeing me rendered speechless by his mouth.