I watch her worry her plush lower lip with her teeth. She’s terrified, but I can see her tits through her dress and her nipples are hard.
I get to my feet, bloody knife still in my hand. The girl’s pupils dilate, and I think of the unknowing deer drinking by the stream an hour ago. An innocent creature I killed because I could. Because I wanted to.
“You still scared of me?”
She shakes her head. Little liar.
The afternoon she tried to seduce me, she was terrified, too. The thought of it brings the scent of grappa and clean skin to my mind. We were in my bed, her body under mine, and she was panting and telling me to take her innocence. To rip it open and make it mine. And I wanted to, my cock was so hard it felt like the only real part of me, but I couldn’t. Couldn’t corrupt her. Couldn’t take something offered in desperation.
“Is your side feeling better?” she asks.
I continue drinking in the sight of her in the dappled afternoon sun. The most beautiful thing in my favorite place. January Whitehall.
In another life, we’re lovers. I’d lie back and tell her to hurt me. To use her fists and teeth and nails. To give me everything she has. I’d feel the stinging little blows and watch it dawn on her pretty face that she can never protect herself against me, but that I will never again use my strength to harm her. But that experience belongs to some other place and time. She’ll always be mine, but I gave up the pleasure to use her when I gave up my right to kill Zachery Parker. She belongs to Velvet House now.
“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Go back to the house.”
She stares at my middle and when I glance down, I see my T-shirt is covered in blood and hair. I look like an animal. A killer. Heat spreads across my face. I never realized how cold my baseline is until I see her and everything scorches hot. “Go.”
She doesn’t move. “You gave Zia’s daughters money.”
“I didn’t do it for you.” My voice is raspy from disuse. I clear my throat.
“I just wanted to say thanks. Zia’s daughters paid for a wonderful funeral and now they can put money aside for college funds or whatever they need. Their lives are changed forever because of you.”
“Their lives were already changed because of me.”
The girl’s face falls. “I hope you don’t blame yourself.”
I squat beside the deer, and resume cutting its abdomen.
“Mr. Parker was always going to punish me for ruining our wedding,” she says. “He told me in the limousine. Even if you hadn’t taken me to the hospital, he wouldn’t have let her survive.”
I cut away the hide, careful not to damage it. I don’t need Parker explained to me by a child. Especially since he’ll walk free now. Live a long, profitable life making hell for anyone who crosses his path.
“Adriano…?” Her voice is closer. She’s closer. “Can I help you?”
For a second I think she means emotionally, then I look at the knife in my hand. “Help cut up a dead deer?”
“Yes.”
I turn and look at her. I expect to see nervousness, but there’s just mild curiosity. “Why?”
“Butchering is an important part of the cooking process,” she says as though we’re in school and a teacher just called on her.
I look at the animal. The thing is half her size. “You’ll fuck up your dress.”
“I’m sure Eli will get me another one.”
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe some crazed loneliness, or her beauty, or just the cool clear afternoon. I turn the knife and hand it to her, handle first.
She takes it eagerly, crouching beside me. “What should I do?”
“Hold it firmly,” I hear myself say. “If you cut yourself, it’s your own fucking fault.”
She doesn’t flinch as I guide her hand, showing her how to slice upward through the hide so you don’t get hair on the meat and avoid the stomach and lower colon. She’s not strong enough to saw through the pelvic bone so I take over, slicing the deer wide and pulling the guts into a bucket to throw away. I cut out the heart and liver, tossing them onto a clean patch of grass. January watches in fascination as I wash the deer’s insides with river water then string it up along a tree branch.
“Aren’t you going to pull off all the hair and cut out the venison?” she asks.
