Beast (45 page)

He cleared his throat. "I went to Paris and bought this." he said, "before we were married, thinking I was about to become your lover, something I wanted very much. Something I still want—" He waved this away, not what he wished to speak of.

He said, "But I would like to give this to you now because I have become something else that I never imagined to become: your friend. We are real friends. Dear friends, I think. And so, because I have had a hundred lovers, yet seem to have acquired only one dearest friend, I would like to present you with"—he laughed a little bleakly—"a wedding gift." He offered the box out with a huge exhalation of relief, ordeal ended.

The box was covered in midnight blue velvet, silk velvet, Louise realized, as she took it into her hands.

"Oh, Charles," she said. Jewelry or not, she felt pleased by the gesture. "Charles, you don't need to do this—"

"Open it." He smiled widely.

The hinge was sprung, the lid rimmed in etched silver. The box opened easily with a twist of the fingers.

It contained—

Black pearls. Louise stared at them. They were rather like her black pearls that lay broken. A string of them having snapped then bounced all over a ship's deck… one single pearl rolled on her cheek, eaten off fingers… then looping and rolling across a tilting floor…

Indeed, the floor beneath Louise's feet seemed to tip.

"Here. Let me put them on for you," he said.

"But—How—How could you know?" she asked.

"Know what?"

"That, that I love—oh, God—miss—"

"You wore black pearls in the photograph your father sent me and in the painting they have of you at their house in New York. I decided you would like these. So I bought them."

Yes. Yes, this made sense. "No." she said, which did not. She backed up.

Charles came forward, lifting the box away from her. A moment later she felt the weight—not ounces, more like pounds—of hundreds of black pearls hitting her chest. Multiple strands that started high at her throat, looping down over the front of her dressing gown past her waist.

"Oh, Charles, this is so kind of you. They are so—" Heavy. Cold. The higher strands at the base of her throat fell down into the front of her gown. Then, each time she moved, these pulled another strand in; the tiers were interconnected by tiny platinum bars. Meanwhile, Charles kept fastening, his arms blocking her vision, the smell of him up against her. A citrusy musk with—she recognized the scent now—rich amber notes. So unlike her husband, so like—God, was it possible that he had somehow bought, used her lover's soap or aftershave? She reached over her shoulders to grab round back of her neck, making the pearls down inside bobble and roll over the tops of her breasts. "I—" She couldn't speak.

He said, "I'm glad you like them. Here, let me. I'll do it; move your hands. You're just getting your hair tangled into the clasp." He pushed her hands out of the way, clicked three or four things down the back of her neck, then said, "There," and stood back.

More pearls fell into the front of the dressing gown, a bizarre and awful sensation. Louise raised her arms again. Behind her, she couldn't find the clasp immediately under her hair. She wasn't sure she wanted them off. She was trying to like them. Trying to.

Then suddenly, quite emphatically, she couldn't like them at all.

She found the clasp only to discover the fastenings to be multiple and unbelievably complicated.

Frustration mounted. She gave a twist, elbows in the air. "Oh, Charles, help. Take them off." She shook them. More pearls fell down inside the gown, heavy, clacking.

Then with her next jerk, the last of them were drawn inside and, with a
click
and
tappety-clatter
all swung forward and out between the lapels, parting the dressing gown. This pulled the sash, which did a slow, drooping untie. It dropped down. The dressing gown opened completely.

With Louise wishing for nothing but the damnable black pearls off her body. They swung against her, rolling over her breasts as she wrestled with the clasp.

They caught on one nipple, then, when she shook herself to loosen the strand it swung wildly, banging then rolling across her chest to catch on the other. "Help me." She looked at Charles, pleading.

The necklace felt eerie, terrible. The embodiment of the obstacles—this other man, her own fears, her own uncontrolled, sometimes mean spirit. "Please." she said.

He just stood there. "Good God." His mouth hung open a moment. He closed it. He licked his lips. He stared. "You—your skin is the color of ivory—And—and—" His attention tried to avoid dropping downward, scanning for a safe spot to look, then gave up. He fixed his gaze on the last place he should.

"And you're blond. The color of the sand at Antibes."

Damn him. "Charles, I can't undo it." Louise's fingers felt fat, stupid. "You put it on! Take it off!"

"Take it off?" he murmured, as if she were talking about something else.

The necklace's miserable clasp had eighty-seven pieces to it. It was hard and sharp-edged and tiny. Her blasted hair was everywhere, in the way, snarling through a pearl-strung nightmare. A heavy, slithering strand parted over one breast, a cord that swayed, as slick as glass, all but alive, licking, flicker-tongued, to her waist, looping.

Louise shuddered. Her whole body had begun to shake with an urgency. "Charles—" she begged.

"Please." Tiers of miserable pearls attacked. Tiers—

Tears. Oh, no, not tears. Yet the more distraught she became, the more her throat tightened, her eyes stung.

While the wretched man stood there, immobile, staring her up then down, covering her body that stood exposed in the shadows of lavender flaps. His breathing became audible, while he kept his mouth clamped tightly as if by sheer will he might regulate what could not be controlled. "God's mercy," he let out in a breath, then couldn't seem to get air.

"Damn you, Charles. Here." She turned around, so he could see her problem. "Undo this."

Behind her, he said, "Louise, if I come near you, the only thing undone will be me. And you. I would—"

"Will you help me, please?" She rattled the clasp that wouldn't give, the heavy necklace
clack-clack-clacketing
as it beat between her breasts and whipped her stomach. She grabbed the thing in her fists. She would break it—

"Stop." Charles. He came up behind her. Warm, tall, solid Charles took hold of the clasp.

The desire to cry eased, though there was somewhere more anxiety. For what? She realized he was trying to help. While he was also drawing her backward into him, up against him. He batted her fingers out of the way, separating hair from pearls. In the midst of this, he bent his head and kissed the curve of her neck.

It was a strong, biting kiss, warm and sharp. It left her hands out, grasping nothing. Then he took hold of her with a force that drove her forward into the wall, her palms and cheek against the wallpaper. He wrapped himself around her, one hand pressing a breastful of pearls, flat-palmed, to rub them round and around as if slowly polishing her chest, the other descending boldly between her legs to mold and cup against her.

Like this, he pulled her into him, his hips from behind pushing against her. Pulled back. Pushed forward.

Caught in a strong opposition he held taut. At her buttocks his movement was small, tight, a grind—as he let out a long, slow, satisfied groan, then more intelligibly, "Oh, Go-o-o-d" in a whisper near her ear.

Dieu-u-u-u. Mon Dieu-u-u
.

Oh, God
was right. He clutched her and shoved her, holding himself to her, and the pleasure, oh, the pleasure of him. More than strong, more than eerie; more than healthy, she was sure. A sweet suffocation. She slid an inch up the wall then back, chafing her cheek as his movement lifted her up onto her toes then let her down. His hand between her legs stroked, rocking, firm contact, while his hand above kept rolling what was strung round her neck, some of the beads smooth round pearls, some angularly cut, all balls rotating on string.
Yes. Oh, yes
. Her husband. She wanted this. She would not think. She would just let it happen.
Yes. Charles, hold me. Love me. Take me as close as you can to
you
.

"Turn around," he murmured.

She didn't. She clung, hands flat. He remained behind, while she was hardly able to breathe from the sweet smothering closeness of him pressing her to wallpaper and wainscoting.

"Turn around, Louise."

Such a commotion rose up inside her. Something felt terribly wrong. "Take—" she said, then her voice caught. It had to do with the pearls. "Take the necklace off for me, please."

Charles kept her pinned against the wall, even as he reached up under her hair, nimble lingers that knew what the clasps were all about. She felt the pearls drop down between her and the wall, cupped heavily into the valley of her bosom pressed there.

"Let me up," she said.

She felt him ease back. The pearls fell, rolling over, between, and down the curves of her body—as he turned her by her shoulders.

He pinned her back again, shoulder blades to the wall, as he slipped his arms inside her dressing gown, his palms against the indention of her waist. Then these warm hands slid around to her back and down to her buttocks. He caught her there solidly, lifting. He bent, pulling her forward, naked, into him, pressing forward into her. Effectively sandwiching her between himself and the wail, he kissed her like this.

The kiss was something close to insanity. Hungry. Unleashed. Unhinged. The power of it was knee-bending one minute—a swift, ecstatic ascent straight up into melting carnal sensation—then disturbing, then slightly horrifying, then out and out terrible. The sense of wrongness magnified.
His
mouth.
His
body. While lust, longing, repugnance, attraction, pearls in the dark… these mingled in Louise's mind and body with spectral force… He smelled of her other Charles. He felt like her other Charles. He even kissed like him, moved like him. If he put himself inside her, he would feel exactly—Oh, dear Mother Mary—

No. Impossible. Her wonderful, loyal husband would not do such a thing.

Yet when her husband delved his tongue deep into her mouth, a voice said.
No, he is not similar: He is
identical, the lover on the ship. This
is
he
.

No—Why? To what purpose? No!

Louise began to struggle, a physical corollary to her internal turmoil. "Charles, let go." She shoved and floundered.

"What?" he murmured. A rude, blunt
Quoi
? "What is it, Louise?" The low, deep voice of her Charleses—both of them.

No. Her husband, she said quite firmly to herself. And her own vivid imagination. "Get off me," she said.

"Please, Charles—" then for a confusing moment was unsure whom she was speaking to. It didn't matter.

"Please. Stop," she said. "Leave me alone. I don't feel well."

An understatement. The walls wavered. The floor seemed to gyrate. Her legs were shaking.

"Lulu?" she heard distantly. She felt cool air up the front of her.

"Go," she commanded. She opened her eyes, slits. Her husband backed away, strictly her husband.

From several feet, Charles Harcourt stared at her as if she were certifiably insane. "Go!" she said more emphatically.

He backed toward the doorway, his odd gaze riveted to her. She pulled her gown around her, then crossed her arms over herself. When he stepped back once more, into the sitting room, she walked forward, full of slow, conscious dignity. She closed her bedroom door, closing out this alarming man.

She pressed the final click of the latch by leaning her shoulder against the dark panels.

And Louise couldn't explain what came next.

She began to slide down the length of the door—as a deep wave of despair rose up like a storm swell, then came down crashing on top of her. It beat her, dragging her down till she sat huddled at the foot of