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But I'm not thinking about the women. They're gone, back to whatever village they came from, and I'll never see them again.
It's not them. It's me. It's the fact that I just came apart again and again on a grave in a public cemetery and screamed loud enough to send three strangers running. I let him talk me into every one of my orgasms. More than that, I begged. I don't beg. I'm the hard-headed one. I'm the one who stays level-headed and reasonable in a trauma bay with someone's heart failing under my hands. I don't do this. I've never once in my life done anything remotely like this.
And the worst part that actually makes my stomach drop is that I'd do it again in a heartbeat if he asked.
"They’ll be fine. We just made their lives that much more exciting, I bet." He rises to his feet in one fluid movement, his wits about him, and pulls me up after him as though we've simply concluded a pleasant morning walk. "We're married. On our own land that we let the church use, visiting our own future accommodation." He drapes his coat around my shoulders and folds it shut over me with those lovely hands. "If anything, we're the most respectable couple in this cemetery. Everyone else here is dead and doing nothing productive with the space."
A laugh punches out of me before I can stop it, half horror and half delight. Damn.
This isn't me, I think, and then, right behind it, unbidden and horribly honest: But it was the best sex of my life.
That's the thought that scares me. What he's turning me into, one grave at a time.
"Come," he says softly. "You're blue. You'll make yourself ill, then I'll have to nurse you, and I'm extremely bad at being told what to do by your immune system."
* * *
The house—which is very much like a cute, comfortable cottage—is nice and cozy and wholesome looking, which, after having sex in the graveyard feels like a culture shock. We’re both batshit crazy and besides, I'll be very surprised if we both don't come down with the flu. This was outrageous and ridiculous, and yet I can't help but smile.
Laszlo doesn't let me lift a finger. He steers me straight to the black and white bathroom, where he runs the bath, testing the water with the back of his wrist the way you would for an infant, adjusting the taps by tiny degrees until it's at the temperature he's decided I need.
Peeling the coat off my shoulders, then the rest of my clothing, he assesses me. Every mark, every graze, and looks at me with a mix of something like pride and guilt.
"In," he says.
I obey him this time without a word. The heat envelops me as I sit in the water, and a sound escapes me that's embarrassingly close to a sob. He kneels beside the bath and proceeds to wash the grass and dirt out of my hair, his movements slow and gentle. His hands, which have done unspeakable things to the living and tender things to the dead, are gentle on me now, and I decide not to think about how much I enjoy this.
Then he leaves me alone for a while, and by the time I'm clean and pink and half-melted, I can smell food.
It's official that my husband has cooked a meal. I can hear the sound of him moving around the kitchen, and when I come through wrapped in fresh underwear, shirt and leggings from my bag that he somehow managed to produce and place by the sink, hair damp against my back, there's a plate waiting for me. Real food. Scrambled eggs and buttered toast, something simple that my body needs, adorned with a sprig of parsley and arranged with the same care and order that he lives by.
"Sit," he says, pulling out the chair. "Eat. All of it." He sets the plate down. "You've burned about four thousand calories being stupid in those temperatures with me, and I'd rather not have you fainting at my table. Bad for business. A Novak, no less, losing a body indoors, over breakfast," he says with a wink. "People would talk."
And here's the thing that frightens me most: I like it. Not just the sex—though God, the sex—but this. The caring, the attention, the emotions, the frustrations, the funny bits… I was brought here into his world out of necessity, and here I am now, cozy and sore and comfortable in his kitchen. Deep down, I don’t want this to end but this feeling terrifies me. He's so much easier to hate when he's insufferable or cruel, but here’s the thing: he’s never been cruel to me. His cruelty is all born out of a need to protect me.
"Stop looking at me like that," I mutter into my eggs.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm a body you did particularly good work on."
He considers this over the rim of his coffee. "That's the highest compliment I've ever got from you, Manon. You should write it down somewhere."
I laugh before I can stop myself. He salutes me by raising his mug, pleased with himself, and I'm still laughing when somebody knocks on the door.
We both turn in the direction of the sound. Laszlo frowns. He doesn't look alarmed, but I don't think he's told anyone our new location, has he? He does look puzzled. Setting down the coffee, he goes to answer it.
Two police officers stand on the step. The one in front looks young—pink face, crisp uniform, very green as he’s clearly unable to hide his nerves. Behind him stands an older one, gray at the temples, heavyset, with the flat unbothered stare of a man who's basically seen it all.
"Morning, sir. Sorry to bother you." The young one has a notepad in his hand and looks like he'd rather be somewhere else. "We've, ah, we've had a report. About the cemetery, just up the lane."
"Oh?" Laszlo says.
"They heard…" the young one swallows "...screaming. The caller was fairly certain someone was being … that a woman sounded like she was being … murdered."
The words barely make it out of him. His ears are going pink to match the rest of his face, and I want to hide under the table. This isn't happening.
"They said it sounded like a woman being tortured." He glances down at his notebook, then makes a face as though he wishes he hadn't. "So we're just following it up. Making sure there's been no incident."
