“Here,” he says.“I’m going to rinse off while you do this.”He tilts his head towards the bathtub and shower.“Do I need to remind you of the rule?”
“The rule about staying here while you shower?”
“Yes.”His gaze holds mine.Empty gravity I cannot pull away from.“You stay here.Or I will come for you.And find you.”
“I’ll stay,” I say.I don’t have the energy to fight with him or run from him.And we both know what happened on the train, the last time I was out of his sight for any significant period of time.
He seems satisfied with that, striding to the shower curtain and pulling it aside.He removes his underwear, folding it and putting it neatly on the floor before stepping into the bathtub and turning on the water.I don’t know why he bothered to warn me about not leaving the bathroom.He takes less than a minute to wash the stink of my vomit off of his body.I’m still running the foamy bristles over my teeth when he emerges, naked and dripping.There’s no towel for him in here.The one I used earlier – the one I stained earlier – got dumped into what I assumed was a laundry basket after I put on my clothes this morning.
I’m not even sure he notices.Water drips into his eyes as he watches me, and he doesn’t even bother to blink it away.
I twist away from him, bending at the waist to spit into the sink I’m still seated beside.I rinse my toothbrush, doing everything I can not to stare at the dark marvel of his naked body.But when my gaze snags on him in the mirror, I can’t tear it away.My breath stalls, my eyes stuck on the thick, long organ between his legs, the black hair surrounding it, the tattoos on his abdomen and thighs.
His is the only cock I’ve ever seen.I never saw Carlo’s – or if I did, I’ve buried the memory of it so deep that I don’t even know how I’d dig it up now.Furtively, I allow myself this moment to study him in the mirror.By only looking at his reflection, it feels just ever-so-slightly less real.Less…invasive.
But if Curse feels invaded, he certainly doesn’t show it.There’s no hint of modesty or embarrassment.He stands here, still and patient, letting me look at his bare body the same way he lets me look at his face.
He must know what I’m looking at.He must be able to tell, based on the angle of my eyes in the mirror, exactly what it is I’m focused on.And then, as if my gaze is a stroke along his skin, his cock gives a visible throb.Finally, I avert my gaze.It shoots upwards to meet his in the mirror.
“You,” he murmurs, “and those fucking eyes.”He gives his head a tiny shake, more a twitch than anything.Then, he fishes out a toothbrush from beneath the sink, a spare one wrapped in the original packaging.He tears it open, wets it, then squeezes the toothpaste on it.
Curse brushes his teeth the way he does most other mundane tasks, like eating or dressing or washing.Every movement defined by cold and meticulous efficiency.If he weren’t so strangely graceful, it would almost seem robotic.
As he finishes up, I slide unsteadily off the counter and return to my suitcase, closing it up so I can bring it with me into the bedroom for the night.Curse takes it from me, leading me out of the bathroom and down the darkened hall.His room is the last one.It’s a neat, bare-looking room, with its own bathroom attached.
“There’s barely anything in here.You’re quite the minimalist,” I say.There’s a bed, a bedside table, a lamp and…that’s it.Even in Montreal, Curse said that all the house’s cozy furnishings had come with the place, and that he hadn’t seen the point in changing any of it.
“Thought you liked empty places.”
“Pardon?”I turn to look at him where he’s setting the suitcase down beside the bed, but he’s still fucking naked, so I turn my attention to the ceiling instead.
“You told me that,” he replies.“In Montreal.”
Confusion pulls my brows together.
“I told you that I liked empty places?”
“Yes.Or, rather, your exact words were that you liked ‘abandoned places.’”
It takes me a moment to absorb what he’s saying, but then it hits me.He’s not talking about Montreal from a few days ago.He’s talking about Montreal from twelve years ago.When my sixteen-year-old-self in my fancy dress and shoes stumbled upon him in that warehouse.
I’ll never forget that first flash of Curse, after ten long years without him.The flawless, shadowy violence of his profile.The power of his hands wrapped around another man’s throat.
I knew it was him at once.I think that’s part of the reason I’ve had such trouble accepting that this Curse is not the Accursio I knew.
Because, before I even saw his whole face, before I heard his voice, before I could make sense of the murder I’d just witnessed, I knew him.Recognized him the way I’d recognize my own hand, if it were to somehow become separated from my arm.
Like a song whose notes are forever embedded in my bones, a dream that lives in vivid colour in my soul, I knew him.Immediately, and without doubt.
And yet didn’t I tell him today that I don’t know him?
Clearly, he still knows me.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” I say at length.I don’t know how else to respond.He’d seemed so angry with me that night.Like my showing up was nothing but a burden.Like he couldn’t wait to be rid of me.
He cracks his knuckles.
“I remember everything, Aurora.Everything that concerns you, that is.”
