Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, I woke before the sun. I disentangled myself from Vic’s slackened, sleeping form and slipped from the room. In the hallway, I retrieved the knife and keys and returned to my bedroom. I switched on the light and carefully replaced the weapon and keyring beneath the dresser.
I thought about staying in my room, but decided to go back to Vic’s. Before returning, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I had no makeup and no clothing, but I fixed my hair and did my best to appear attractive.
Back in Vic’s room, I tucked my naked form against him, pulling his arm over me. His breathing became a little deeper as he nestled me to his body.
“How’d you get in here?” he whispered in my ear.
I didn’t answer at first, just enjoying the rise and fall of his chest against my shoulder blades. The scent of the man, earth and amber, swamped my senses, and I didn’t want to do or say anything that would destroy this perfect moment.
“I’ll marry you,” I whispered, tears already streaking my cheeks at the words.
He inhaled deeply against the back of my neck.
“You’ve made me so happy,” he said.
It was still dark outside. There was no clock in the room, but I guessed that it must have been around five o’clock in the morning. A silence stretched between us, until I could wait no longer.
“How did you get involved with Matthew?” I asked. If I was going to be his wife, I figured I was owed something resembling an explanation.
He chuckled. “So, you’re just leveraging your acceptance.” He pressed a kiss against my cheek. “Alright, what’s mine is yours, or will be soon, and that might as well include stories.”
I switched on the lamp and sat up against the headboard, while Vic stretched himself out across the length of the bed. He put his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, a slight smile on his face.
“We met in Pennsylvania, where he was a medical student,” he said.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah, he really was a third-year medical student, though that’s as far as he ever got. Apparently, he started doing some extra-curricular research on patients in the teaching hospital. He had developed a formula which could induce a hypnotic, servile, state in an unwilling participant. Unfortunately, there was one significant side effect.”
Here, Vic paused, as though giving me room to guess.
“What was it?” I asked.
“Rage.”
I thought back to the way Edith had attacked me in the basement, and the fight between myself and Margaret, where neither of us seemed to be acting according to our natures.
“I don’t understand how you got involved,” I said.
Vic slapped my thigh lightly. “Sweetheart, have a little patience. As I was saying, when the experiments were uncovered, Matthew was expelled. The only reason heavier charges weren’t levied against him was because the entire premise seemed so fantastical that they couldn’t believe a man had accomplished a state of inducted hypnosis, like the mesmerism you read about in old books.”
“So, he got away with a clean record,” I said.
“Not exactly. He got in trouble for the overstep, and for performing procedures to which the patient had not consented. It was about all they could do without accepting the impossible.”
“Got it,” I said.
Vic stretched out his back, and I watched the ripple of his muscles under taut skin. He seemed to enjoy that his body was clearly taking my attention away from the story, and he waited a moment before continuing, savoring my gaze on his nakedness.
“About a week before Matthew’s expulsion, I was in a car accident. I had a bad concussion and ended up at the same hospital. They wanted to keep me overnight, and it just so happened that I was sharing a room with one of Matthew’s trial patients. I heard him come into the room late at night, after his shift was already officially over. Pretending to be asleep on my side, I watched his reflection in the window. I saw him administer the tincture, and begin his physical manipulation of the patient’s body. I heard the low spoken series of simple commands, each of which was obeyed without hesitation.”
Vic grabbed my knees, and pulled me down to half the length of the bed. He pressed his hand to my stomach, pushing down hard but not painfully so. He placed his other hand over my eyes, massaging his fingers in small semicircles over the lower hemisphere of my closed eyelid, which fluttered under the light pressure.
He then moved his hand from my stomach to my pelvis, and pressed down harder. His other hand shifted its attention from my eyelids to my temples, tracing semicircles with his thumb and middle fingers.
He then pulled his hands back. “I’m no expert,” he said with a laugh. “But that’s about how it looked.”
“Did you tell him you saw what he did?” I asked.
He propped himself up on his side, and rested his hand against my stomach. This time, he traced a small design on the skin, seemingly taken in by a memory.
“No. I had no reason to,” he said. “It wasn’t until half an hour later, when this man got up and attacked a nurse that I understood better. He had nearly choked her to death by the time the other staff interceded.”
“Did you try to stop him?” I asked.
Vic smiled. His hand moved down my stomach and between my legs. He continued to trace a design on the skin, his light touch stirring me almost immediately.
“No,” he said. “I just watched closely as he grabbed the nurse by her hair, dragged her to the ground, and wrapped his hands around her neck, sticking his knee right into her solar plexus. I thought she was passed out, given how she stopped struggling, but she was right back on her feet the second the patient was pulled off of her. Her hair was all mussed up, some of it had been ripped out, and the dark imprint of his hands on her throat didn’t go away.”
He gave my inner thigh a sharp pinch.
“I heard about Matthew’s expulsion, and set out to find him. It wasn’t too hard to track him down. For a man involved in something so illicit, he didn’t exactly cover his tracks. I thought he was trying to turn people into mindless attack dogs, but it turns out that was just the one kink he couldn’t work out.”
Vic paused before continuing.
“He required a patient to test his new formula out on, someone who wouldn’t be able to get outside help while he made adjustments, and I suggested my mother. I think he needed someone looking out for him. He’s highly intelligent, but sometimes that isn’t enough.”
“So, you’re like his patron?” I asked.
“Sure, it’s something like that,” he said. “With my help, he kept working on his formula. I can’t say he’s perfected it, exactly. It takes a longer time to see the change, and the side effect of rage hasn’t been completely eliminated, but I think Margaret’s death is an impressive result.”
“But there’s something you did differently, when it came to me,” I said, remembering how baffled Matthew had been by Vic’s success.
“Yes,” he said.
There was one other question I wanted to ask. I was sure by this point that Vic wouldn’t lie to me. After all, he had just confided in me that he had signed his own mother up for experimentation.
“Who attacked Theresa?” I asked.
“Who do you think?” he responded.
I swallowed hard. “I think it was you. She had told me about you coming into her room drunk and crying about Edith’s death before it had even happened.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t exactly let that stand,” he laughed. “We thought about using Margaret, but the rage state is unpredictable and hard to direct in any meaningful way. At the end of the day, I had to roll up my sleeves and get her to where she could barely breathe, let alone speak.”
“And you killed Edith?” I asked.
Vic nodded. “Matthew actually offered. It was just a case of pushing her down the stairs, but I didn’t mind doing it. Matthew may be callous, but he’s always reluctant to get his hands dirty, and we couldn’t risk him balking at a time like that.”
“So, again, that’s where you come in,” I said.
He flashed me a wide grin, and I felt his fingers move up my leg, pressing inside of me.
“You got it. I’ve never minded being a little more hands on. Then again, I’m not the guy who has to write it all up.”
His fingers slid in and out of me, almost as though he was becoming bored with the story and was using my body as a way to keep himself occupied while he answered questions. I found myself instinctively tilting my pelvis to allow him greater access.
“You’ve thought about killing me,” I said, trying to control the tremor in my voice as he continued to expertly work my body, seeming to have shifted his attention to his newest invasion.
“I have,” he said smoothly.
“Do you still think about it?” I asked, biting off a small moan.
“Sure,” he said, picking up his pace. “I think about it, but I’d rather you and I lived out our natural lives together. I’ve already told you as much.” He smiled. “Besides, I remember you telling me you planned to kill me.”
There was nothing for me to say, as his thrusting became more aggressive, jostling my entire body against the bed, causing my breasts to jog with every motion.
“Is that what the knife under the dresser is for?” he asked, slamming his hand against me again.
I nodded, not trusting myself to form a coherent sentence as my entire body became seized with the tremor that had started in my voice. I could feel my muscles tightening around him and, based on the way his smile grew, he could feel it too.
He shifted his body, so that he was partially on top of me. He put his free hand on my shoulder, steadying my body so that every rough thrust of his fingers met me with full force. I put my hands over my mouth as I came.
“Maybe I should go get that knife right now,” he whispered into my ear, pulling himself from me.
The threat apparently made in vain, he settled back down beside me on the bed. Perhaps sensing my lingering trepidation, he pulled me back against him.
“What if I promise I won’t hurt you,” he said.
“Or kill me,” I added, sensing a need for perfect clarity.
“I promise, on my own life, that I will do nothing to harm or kill you. All I want from you is love and loyalty.”
“I want to give you everything,” I said, cupping his jaw in my palm.
He kissed me hard, his mouth bruising my lips.
I wanted to stay in this embrace forever. The scent of his skin mingled with that of my own, and I relaxed against him, breathing deeply as my mind drifted.