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The Mathematics of Love copyright 2001, by Glimmerdark
Part 1 The room was darker now, quiet and still. Only the soft
whisper of Clarice’s breathing betrayed the fact that she was still
alive. A single white candle on either side of the four-poster mahogany
bed illuminated the ethereal scene: Clarice Starling, at rest. Gone were
the shadows of anger that had hovered around her mouth, gone the lines
of tension etched across her forehead, gone the staring intensity of her
wide-open eyes. Covered in only a light silk sheet, she was ageless,
timeless, and supremely beautiful.
From the velvet armchair in the dim corner, Hannibal
Lecter’s eyes never moved from her motionless form. His body was a
statue, the picture of implacable control. But while a part of his brain
registered every detail of her condition, monitored the nuances of every
breath, and waited for the first signs of the stirring of consciousness,
another part focused on relaxing his own strain, the muscles of his body
aching from the hours of crucifixion, bound in unnatural pose. It had
been long indeed since his body had been subjected to that kind of
treatment, and he ached all over. He tensed and released every muscle
separately, willing himself to release the aftermath of the struggle, to
return his body to the readiness that might be required at any moment.
He laughed then, soundlessly, only the hint of a smile playing on his
face. It would do no good to relax his body if he could not master his
mind. In the heat of action, Lecter had forced his brain down
familiar avenues of control. He recalled holding Starling’s body
against his while the pigs roared around his feet. The only portion of
the adventure worth calling to mind, he thought, playing the scene over
and over in the cinema of his memory palace. He remembered the
machinelike ticking of his thought: this action now, that action then,
watch for this, remember that. The gorgeous order of a computer program
had usurped the power of the flooding images, scents, sounds…… only
the smell of Starling’s hair in his nostrils had caused a moment’s
wave of passion. Even the dripping wound on her shoulder had not
affected him so. Not until he had her safe, back at the house on the
Chesapeake, and had laid her unconscious body on the butcher-block
island in the kitchen. He gathered his equipment swiftly and turned on
the harsh spotlight he had installed over his impromptu operating
theatre, then cut away the remnants of her shirt, exposing the bloody
mess. With water first, then Betadine, he had scrubbed her skin clean,
prepping her for surgery. He froze as he gazed at the hole in her flesh.
In that moment, it looked like a stigmata.
A torrent of thought, symbol, image and emotion threatened to
engulf him. An impulse to put his mouth to the wound tore at his
self-control. A vision of Clarice falling at his feet in the filthy pig
barn, her eyes meeting his as she fell, burned behind his eyes. He
braced his arms on the table, his head dropped down and he inhaled
deeply, steadying himself as the world shook under his feet. With a
scream like a whiplash he called himself back to order, shouting in the
vaulted chambers of his mind. Instantly, his head snapped back and he
became once more the icy Doctor of his infallible reputation. With the
bolt shot tight on the doors of the palace, he carefully, delicately
inserted an IV line. He slid an airway in her mouth, tilted her head
back and propped a towel under her neck. Almost gratefully he hid her
face under an oxygen mask and lightly anesthetized her, just deep enough
to keep her unconscious. With a small forceps he probed her shoulder
cautiously, removing the bullet while keeping damage to nerve and muscle
fiber at a minimum. He looked at the blood-coated lump of metal a
fraction of a second too long, then threw it violently off into the
corner of the kitchen. As he irrigated the wound and packed it with antibiotic
powder he recited chemical formulas and algebraic theorems to keep his
thoughts at bay. While stitching the lips of the gash together he
demanded perfection of himself in every motion. He placed each suture
precisely, deftly, to minimize the detrimental cosmetic effect of
the…… Fool, snarled a harsh, raspy voice from the back of the
palace. Do you think this is the scar she will mind?
His hands almost shook as he finished the neat row of
stitches, did shake as he dropped the suture needle into the steel basin
on the counter. The critical actions taken, her life relatively safe
now, he had longed to release the lock on his emotions, his fear, and
the unfaced conflict taking place behind the doors. A soft moan jolted
him back to himself and his cool demeanor surfaced once again. Reaching
for a vial of Versed, he drew up a milligram and gently pushed it
through her IV. So attuned was he that he could actually feel her
slipping down, away, into the nothingness of oblivion.
Only then did he allow himself to really see her, to capture
in his mind the dirt caked in her auburn locks, the foul mud crusting
her khaki cargo pants, the bruises flowering on her paper-thin, pale
skin. He placed one hand softly on her sternum, between the swelling
mounds of her breasts, and felt the rhythm of her breath. He inspected
her lips, took her hand and examined her nail beds. Only a part of him
thrilled at the intimacy implicit in the contact. Only a part of him
remembered the first time their fingers had touched, and the electric
shock of that unforgettable moment. That touch had been both theme and
counterpoint in his dreams ever since, endless variations playing on his
mind like quills on the strings of a harpsichord. But the Doctor was in
control now, keeping cool, keeping clinical, coldly judging if she would
be able to tolerate the stress of a bath.
The voice from the back of the palace hissed again in his
mind. If you are so calm, Doctor, so cold, from whence comes the heat in
your loins? From whence the hammering of your heart? It’s ticking
away, you know, at a rate more like one-eighty-five.
Looking at Clarice, concentrating on her hurts, her needs,
Lecter had been able to ignore the voice. He took off the oxygen mask,
withdrew the airway from her mouth, and removed the saline drip but left
the capped IV line in place, in case she would need more sedation or
hydration. With a bandage scissors he cut off the rest of her soiled
clothing and tossed it into the fireplace. Gathering her naked body into
his arms, he took a deep, steadying breath and moved carefully toward
the staircase and up to the master suite. FIN Part 1 of 2 1 of 2 | 2 of 2 copyright 2001, by Glimmerdark |