Messina hit her with his gun.Tension crackles in my limbs, violence with nowhere to go.I crack my knuckles, watching her but not seeing her, seeinghim, though I don’t even know what he looks like.Seeing him raise a gun, seeing him bring it down on her.I’m going to pull out his guts and shred them like fucking confetti.I’m going to make him drink acid.I’m going to-
“I’m going to take a shower.”Aurora straightens up, clearly having come to a decision.She leaves the kitchen, heading for the grand marble staircase that ascends from the house’s front entryway.When she notices I’m following one silent step behind her, she stops halfway up the stairs.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she says.Even like this, with me on the step below her, I tower over her.“You let me wander around the house and shower on my own in Montreal, remember?”
But I didn’t lose her in Montreal.I lost her in Toronto.Things have fucking changed.
Besides, this house is at least four times the size of my place in Montreal.I don’t want her getting too physically far from me, even if we’re still technically in the same building.
“You don’t even know where the bathrooms are in this place,” I tell her.
“I have eyes,” she says, rolling them now.Silver-flecked ocean waves cresting beneath her lashes, then falling.“I’m sure I’ll be able to find one.”
With that, she turns primly around and begins stomping determinedly up the stairs once more.I’m used to Zizi and Valentina going up and down these stairs, the movements accompanied by the sounds of clacking high heels.Aurora is only wearing socks, her footfalls quiet, wrapped in cashmere.
Her feet are so small like this, in nothing but their soft socks.Strangely vulnerable.Just looking at them now as she walks makes something close to agony rip open in my chest.I remember her without her socks in Taormina.Pale toes wiggling in the golden sand, or balancing carefully on seaside rocks as she called to me, beaming beneath the sun.
Cristo santo.I’ve got her hips, her ass, the luscious lines of her legs in front of me, clad in those skin-tight leggings, and all I can do is ruminate on the shape of her fucking toes.The rise of her arches.The rounded fall of her heels.All I can do is stare after each step she takes, because something about the tender twining of the bones there feels like it’s enough to ruin me.
A stupid thought, maybe.Because if there was ever anything inside me good enough to ruin, it disappeared a long fucking time ago.
Aurora alights on the top step and keeps going.She ducks into one of the first bathrooms on the second floor, but then turns around and leaves it immediately.
“That one only has a bathtub,” she says in response to my questioning look.“I don’t like taking baths.”
“Why not?”
Valentina has always seemed to like baths.Same with Elio’s wife, Deirdre.
“I don’t like lying there all…” Her eyes flick to mine, then away.“I just don’t like lying there like that,” she says quickly, like she’s cutting herself off.Then, her expression sours.“Plus, it feels like I’m just bathing in my own filth.”
“Filth?”My eyebrows twitch upwards.Filth is about the last word I ever would have expected to come out of her mouth, the last word I’d ever expect anyone to associate with her, let alone Aurora herself.
“Yes,” she replies at once.“Filth.I don’t want to just lie there stewing in it.I want to get clean.As clean as possible for me, anyway.”
She says it like she doesn’t think she ever could be clean again.Not really.Like there will always be some shameful smear of dirt on her somewhere.It makes no fucking sense.
Until I remember the train car.Until I remember jamming myself inside her.And not just that.Coming in her.
My spine seizes with the thought that maybe I have done this to her.Contaminated her.
Just like I knew I fucking would.
But as she spins into motion once more, turning away and walking down the hall to poke her head through another door, I think about her in Montreal.She never used the bathtub there, either.Only showered.And she showered a lot.In fact, there was at least one day where she showered twice, even though she hadn’t done anything to get dirty or sweaty in between.
So maybe I can’t take all the credit for this particular preference of hers.
Even so, I mull on it as I follow her, watching her stubbornly continue on in her search for a shower.She seems content to pretend that I’m not here now, or maybe she’s forgotten me entirely.Finally successful in her search, pulling open the door to one of the other guest bathrooms upstairs, she steps through without a glance my way.When she tries to close the door behind her, though, my hand is there, gripping the side of it, preventing her.I’m still shaky after all the shit that tore through my system last night, but even so, she’s nowhere near strong enough to slam the door on me now that I’ve grabbed hold of it.
Her eyes flare when she registers that I’ve followed her this far.
“Look,” she says, gesturing impatiently to the shower, “I found it all on my own.Why don’t you go eat or lie down or something?”Some of the irritation fades from her face, misting now with something softer, something featherlight and absolutely fucking fatal.“You’re clearly better than last night.But you still look a bit pale.”
“A bit pale” is one hell of a euphemism.I know I look like fucking shit.I feel like shit, too.It’s why we’re hunkering down today instead of leaving as soon as possible.It’s a chance for both of us to rest.To make sure my head is clear.So I don’t make any more mistakes.
“I’m fine,” I say.“I ate this morning.”
“Oh yeah?”She lets go of the door and crosses her arms.“Ate what?Because I just had a look in that fridge, and it was completely empty.No one’s been living here or keeping the kitchen stocked.You just sent that soldier out for supplies because there’s nothing here.And I highly doubt you had bacon and eggs or some fast-food breakfast burrito delivered here while I was sleeping.”
