We lost ourselves a little then, too esurient to be meek.
“Vincent,” I said in a ragged breath and tore my mouth away. Despite the blood loss, there was one area where I felt overfull. You broke suction from my skin and retrieved two pills.
“Open,” you said.
“What are these?”
“Supplements.”
“Where did you get them?”
“The same place I got the chair and shower curtain.” The staff here were altogether too accommodating. I swallowed mine, and you offered me a long draught of bottled blood to wash it down. “This is your one and only chance to earn back my trust,” you warned. “Don’t hide anything from me.”
“I won’t.”
You reclined my chair, then draped yourself on top of me, but you didn’t release me from my bonds.
“Ad perpetuam memoriam Orlando,” you chanted. It was an expression used at funerals, when we wished to remember our loved ones beyond their existence on earth. I drowsed to the regular rise and fall of your voice, until a thick, dense slumber overcame me.
When I regained my awareness, we were no longer in our hotel room, but drifting through the brumous mists of the dream realm.
“Take my hand,” you called from some distance. I saw your fingers stretched toward me through the fog and clumsily grabbed for them. “Show me where we first met.”
It had been decades since that day, but even still, I conjured the playground in Imperial Palms where I’d idled my time with you that first summer. Your own memories of that age were dim, so I colored your sketches with glimpses of the human child you’d once been—charming and vivacious with a shining optimism despite your circumstance—much as you were as a godling.
“There’s something you’re not showing me,” you said. We were in your mother’s apartment where your own memories concentrated. “Something bad happened here.”
I surely didn’t want you to have to relive it, but I’d sworn transparency, so I illustrated Roger’s abuse, enough for you to get a more complete picture. And then, for the first time, I showed you his demise.
“You did that?” you asked. We were voyeurs in your old life, painting the canvas together, stroke by stroke. When you looked at me, your visage blurred so that you resembled both selves, until the blend made it impossible for me to distinguish between then and now.
“I interfered,” I said.
“And then you left,” you said forlornly. “I was lonely then, without you. Did you know that?”
“It wasn’t by choice. They hid you from me.” I didn’t need to mention Santiago’s role in that debacle. Surely, the order didn’t come from him anyway.
You showed me flashes of your time spent in Madame Lavoie’s studio when your talent for dance first began to emerge, the refuge you’d found in her strict tutelage and the stability those classes provided. I showed you glimpses of our reunion, the very first time you’d demonstrated your abilities and bewitched me with your body.
“I was talented,” you said.
“You were a beautiful dancer,” I said with more than a little sorrow. “And a very hard worker. You pushed yourself to the limit, past pain and fatigue, where others would have been defeated. Your singular devotion to your study unnerved me at times.”
“Why’s that?”
“I worried you’d injure yourself and cut your career short.”
But no, it was me who’d done that.
I conjured the scene in the alleyway where I’d amputated Derek’s finger, the games we played when I was courting you, our search for a vessel to make our union complete. I showed you Bruno, the academy, your performances, and the countless hours you spent in the dance studio perfecting your technique.
“Have you had enough?” I asked. I didn’t want to overwhelm you.
“How does Papa fit into all this?” you asked.
“He was an escort to the gods. He availed his body to me, so that I might be with you in a corporeal way. Will it disturb you to see it?”
“I’ve seen it already. I want to experience it in context.”
So, I showed you our intimate moments, how tentative you were at first and how you flourished over time. The pleasure we drew from each other in our insatiable pursuits.
“I miss that,” you said with a longing I shared.
“We have time.”
“Why did you leave me?” you asked, still struggling to understand.
“Azrael issued a prophecy that I would bleed you to death, and I heeded his warning.”
I showed you my meeting with the Angel of Death, our tearful separation, your destructive spiral into the arms of your