When I woke, Laurent was there. In that dark room, he stayed with me. Sometimes, when I could open my eyes, I saw a child there, and his eyes would search me. He never said anything. I wanted to speak with him, tell him that I loved him, because in his eyes there was a great sadness. Other times, the grey-eyed one would be there, and I would cry out, and he would leave. When I couldn't breathe, or I felt the coughing would break me apart, Laurent held me very tightly, with my arms over my head, and when it was alright again, he would kiss my neck and tell me beautiful things. If blood came out of my mouth, he would help me spit it into a shallow silver bowl, and the grey-eyed one would take it quickly away. He told me the dark one's name was "Dasius" and that it was not my burden to forgive him, because for what he had done to me, there was no forgiveness.

Sometimes I would cry to him in the dark that Dasius had killed my mother, because I had come back to Paris as a young man to care for her and to be near her until God felt it well to take her. I told him that I never knew my father, and that my mother had sacrificed for me and that I had been willing to sacrifice my life for her, because I knew what would happen to me if I wiped the blood from her mouth and slept near her in her sick room, and washed my hands in bloody water. By the time I woke, I knew that she was dead, alone in our house, and I cried by his throat that she thought me brutally murdered by some stranger.

Oh, he would kiss me here, right here, on this hollow on my neck, and tell me that it would be alright. He would sit beside me in bed and hum wordless stories to me, singing old songs to himself. If the moon was high and full, he would shut the curtains and climb my body, sit on my hips, and whisper in my ear, and he would run his fingernails up my stomach, just lightly, and listen to my hitching and my gasping. He drove me absolutely mad, breathing in my ear. If I tried to speak to him, he would turn my face away by the chin, and hum into my ear until offending words were quieted, and turn me back to him again, until I had no thoughts left at all. You knew him as he was. I asked him for a rosary. I whispered that I had money, because I wanted to count my prayers, and ask mercy from the Virgin for leaving my mother. And I asked him if he would put a denier in the collection box for her, and light a candle, because I could not walk.

He said that he would, and he brought the rosary to me, made of wood and olive seeds strung on soft silk, and kissed me. Then he produced from his pocket a golden Louis d'or coin, which was more money than I had ever dreamed of in my life, and he said that when I could walk, he would take me to Lourdes to give it to the nuns for the Virgin, and her poor pilgrims, and I said that I would go with him if he prayed the rosary with me. So we sat together in the moonlight and whispered the decades, and he announced the mysteries for us, in his Latin, and in his voice, I was much comforted for my mother, who I hoped our parish priest had found and buried, and I asked the Virgin to tell her not to worry for me, because I was much protected and loved. Ah, how young I was, that I believed every word he said.

"It's nearly the holiday now," Laurent said to me, some days later. "You have been here nearly a month." He spoke softly, as if I were a broken china doll, stroking my hair back from my forehead. He kissed me between my eyes. 

I had the Louis d'or in my hand, cool, pure gold. I held it out to him and asked him to keep it safe, as he kept me safe, and he took it. "If it's almost Christmas," I said, "I'll be twenty-eight years old soon."

"No, my beauty," he said, kissing my ear. "You are no age now."

I shuddered under his pink lips, which worked their way from my earlobe, past the shell. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe shallowly, but through my macerated airway, my breath came as a strangled purr. "Do you think me beautiful?" I asked him. "My hair grew long. I had no time for grooming of any kind." When he breathed onto my wet skin, it sent screaming tingles through my head of pleasure, which made me gasp.

"Beauty is savage," he said. "It knows no reigning in. This hair is lovely. These eyebrows are lovely. These ears are the most beautiful ears. Have no cares at all for beauty, my blond, your long neck and long body, your soft thigh and narrow feet, your aquiline nose has no curve, and your narrow eyes seduce me well, so blue and so unknowing of love." 

I clutched him by the white cotton of his robe.

"Purring like a kitten. My God, has there ever been anything more perfect than you? Poor, crushed orchid."

"The Lord's name in vain," I whispered, made shy by my shaking voice.

"Between us, you are the more sinful, sweet kitten. What words did you say while you were drinking my blood? Do you remember? I would have you do it again, only to listen."

I took his face in my hands so I could look on him. There was a candle lit on the bedside table again, but it didn't bother me so much anymore. His warm, brown eyes seemed soft, looking on me as a lover. I drew him to me again, kissing his straight brow and the mole beneath his lip, which stood out against his skin like Cupid's brand. He sighed and asked me if I felt strong enough to come out of bed. I asked him if there really was a child, saying that I had seen him sometimes.

He looked a little sad. "Nicky has gone away. Don't trouble yourself. He has a jealous nature."

"Is he dead as well?"

"Couer en sucre, if you think you are dead, how can I make you sigh with a touch?" He rose and extended his arm to me, and I swung my legs over the side of bed, sliding down the yellow damask coverlet. Though I am taller than him, he held me steadily, with unwavering strength. 

The wooden floor was cold under my feet. He put his hand at the small of my back, as if to waltz, and he walked me slowly through the bedroom door, into a wide room. I noted its appointments in passing, and felt embarrassed that I'd asked him if he could spare a denier or two, because it seemed obvious that I was living in a palace of sorts now, though I saw also that it was covered in dust, and in a style made already antique by the death of Louis Quatorze. I wondered how old Laurent was, but the thought fluttered through my mind and flew away as quickly as it came.

I turned my head at the sound of clicking heels on the floor, and I saw Dasius, and it was like I went blind. Laurent must have felt me tense in his arms then because he tried to whisper a comforting word, but it was as if a wolf had coiled itself on its haunches inside of me, and a sound came from my throat like the wail of wind breaking itself against the coast, and I sprung on him with a new nature, and a new strength, which power seemed unlimited, pushing him to the floor, and it occured to me to use my teeth to rip his throat out, as he had done to me, and I did. I tucked my head down by his collarbones and sunk my teeth into his flesh, and pulled as hard as I could. 

He had been calling Laurent's name, plaintive, pleading, and his voice went to a low, strangled gurgle, and I beat his head against the floor, just as he had done when he had broken my skull against the concrete. And then I felt Laurent's hand go across my mouth, pulling me away, and I bit at his fingers, which made him wrench me backwards by the neck, blocking my airway. I spit blood and cried out that it wasn't over. "Laurent, what he's done, Laurent, let me finish it," sobbing, crying to the Virgin about my mother and my life.

He whispered, "You will beat no apology out of him. He is cold. Do not make me punish you, beloved. It is over," and he dragged me back into the bedroom, because I wouldn't stand, wouldn't walk away from a fight I knew was righteous. And it was some time before I realized that Dasius had let me do it, and hadn't raised a finger to fight me back, and that since the moment Laurent made me, until now, he has loved me, and been sorry. But though I know it now, I have never forgiven him.