you're too young & eager to love

Last of the responses to the warm-ups, and first of the Monday writing session responses!

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For reference: https://dresslikeaparisian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Victorian-collar.jpg

“Hunger
stays with me
but it is not original with me.
Hunger sleeps in all things mysteriously.”
- Decreation, Anne Carson



It is her slender neck he thinks of, how he’d like to see it bound by a high lace collar with delicate mother of pearl buttons running down it, traversing the entire length of her spine. He imagines opening those buttons, exposing the untouched skin inch by inch, peeling away the fabric to study the constellation of freckles across her shoulders before sinking his teeth into the pulse point at her throat. She’s as pure as the winter snow, he knows, unspoiled by the needs of the flesh or the desires of man—he can smell that on her always, an untainted lily-and-sunlight freshness, the kind that most children have, a scent that’s light and desirable and rare.

He’d been hard with her earlier, he knew, using words like barbs to gauge her reaction. How many months had it been though since he’d befriended her now, since he’d put on his congenial mask? How many nights of quiet stalking from the shadows? Of intolerable banter and exhaustive theological debate as she swept the church stairs or lit the candles for evening Mass or spoke in her pleasant, thoughtful way or smiled her kind, amused smile? The nun was insufferably passive, imperturbable even, as full of grace as the saints she prayed to. And all the while, he could hear the rhythm of her heart, could smell her sweat, could see when the color rose to her cheeks.

Gideon was not unaware of his own charm. He knew how boyish he could seem still, especially when his hair, kept longer on top, fell forward into his eyes. Despite the width of his shoulders, the strength of his body, and his height, he could play the gentleman instead of the predator easily enough. He could bow and kiss the backs of women’s hands and dazzle with his humor and intellect. His smile was wide too, with lips that were full, plump, bee-stung almost, nearly womanly; the whores in Blackhaven love him for his mouth (until it’s red with their blood). Even his eyes, bright in their blueness, can be playful if he wants them to be, if he minds his temper and shields his impatience.

Women of the cloth were not immune to him. Before Philomena, he had sampled a number of Ravenstone’s supposedly pious Sisters with little to no coercion required. They fell into his arms like lamb to the slaughter, but they often tasted hollow, as empty as their convictions. He’d wanted one that would provide a challenge, wanted one to test, to torment, to mold.

Perhaps he had simply played too long at kindness, and the creature inside of him grew tired of the charade, or maybe Philomena’s offering of barley bread had infuriated him for its simplicity: a gift it was, without preamble, without expectation, so humble but made with care, shaped by her own hands and effort. The bread had still been warm, wrapped in wax paper and kept in a tin, only she’d dropped it hadn’t she? Dropped it when he’d pushed into her space and startled her with his viciousness, with his snide comments. She’d nicked herself on broken glass in her hurry to pick up the loaf and avoid the threat of his body; he’d smelled the blood like a shark then, even though she’d bled such a small amount, and he’d had to fight to keep his fangs from protracting.

Had it been the barley bread that made him think of Laith? His anger had gotten the better of him because of it. No, certainly not the bread, but the biblical stories of their namesakes. Sycophants, like his younger brother, undoubtedly nursing at Hadassa’s breast even now, with his skeletal fingers clinging to her and his devotion as palpable as the stench of the city factories.

Gideon rubs his knuckles against his eyes, groaning. The night sky is damp with chill, but it’s black as pitch; he still has time before dawn.

Basque caws at him irritably, sensing his longing, and paces back and forth against the broken window of the abandoned row house. His claws click against the crumbling exposed brick, and Gideon scatters a handful of corn across the windowsill for him to pick at before ducking under the sagging doorway and out into the street. He takes the path through the cemetery, following the train tracks, until he can smell the rot of Linemell, and then he follows the sound of Ravenstone’s bells all the way to the cathedral.

The main doors are always open for those seeking the solace of prayer or some respite from the winter wind, and it’s such an easy thing to slip in with the darkness, to be unseen in the shadows, to make his steps as quiet as the grave. When he finds the kitchen, it’s cold, the fires from the stoves long since extinguished. The basket of bread for the needy is on the main butcher table, the loaves covered with a cotton towel embroidered with golden crosses, and beside it is Philomena’s tin, the wax paper torn from where it had fallen earlier onto the floor.

Gideon rips the paper away and presses the loaf to his face, inhaling.

He can smell the yeast and the baked flour, the salt, and the honey. There, too, on the top left is where he finds her blood. He holds the bread between his palms and breathes deeply—smells a freshness like strawberries, a tart acidity like white wine, and something rich, something almost feverish. With his eyes closed, he runs his tongue across the top of the bread, slow like a cat licking cream.

He gets a flash of her then. Just a brief imprint of her on the backs of his eyelids. Dressed in lace and pale blue, her hands skimming the tops of wildflowers and grass as she walks through a field, her hair the red of the evening sun.

It’s gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Gideon feels his anger like a torch inside of him, an impossible ache that scorches, and he digs his fingers into the loaf, splitting it. The right side crumbles between his palms. He steps on the crumbs, smearing the bread into the cracks of the old floor. Crouching in the dark of the kitchen now, half-hidden by the length of the butcher table, he bites into the remaining part of the loaf.

The bread is like desert sand in his mouth. He wants to reject it immediately, and the need to spit it out almost overwhelms him. How long has it been since he’s tasted human food? Nearly three hundred years?

He does not swallow, but he lets the bread sit on his tongue, until he can taste the blood soaked inside of it.

Without knowing it, he moans, the sound pitched-low in his belly.

He sees her again, the blood-walking almost instantaneous, sparking a burst of images in the darkness of his mind, a rapid-fire succession of photographs caught in the wind. Philomena as a child, her freckled face bright with laughter, Philomena kneeling to take the holy sacrament, Philomena’s mouth wind-chapped and hair tousled as she helps to build a fence in a village he does not recognize, Philomena’s hands skimming the pages of a book.

The memories are miniscule, and then they are gone. It infuriates him all over again. He slams his fist onto the counter, and the nearby glasses rattle from the force.

Gideon spits the bread from his mouth, and in the morning the cook will wonder about rats.