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She left the bed and walked into her office, switched on the Tiffany lamp once more. In her coat closet she found a wrap sweater and pulled it on to keep her warm while she worked. She took the wine bottle she’d tossed into the wastepaper basket, uncorked it and dumped the fragments of the white card onto the desk. In her desk drawer she found tape. For the next hour she set about putting the pieces of the white card back together. The ragged tears and porous paper made the task maddeningly difficult but she didn’t stop, not even when Tou-Tou jumped on the desk and scattered some of the pieces. She didn’t know why she did it, only that she had to get a message to Malcolm. How he saw her, she didn’t know. How he watched her, how he seemingly knew she’d gone out with Sebastian to the exhibit…all mysteries. But he watched her, that much she knew. He saw what she did and who she did it with…and he’d see hermessage.
She had to havehimback.
Finally, it was finished. Every piece back in place, taped down so that it looked like a Frankenstein card. She found her clothes and put them on, picked up Tou-Tou and put him in the large leather handbag that doubled as his carrier. She left the card on the bed and went home to herapartment.
There was nothing left to do but waitforhim.
That night she dreamt ofThe Bleeding Managain. In the second dream he died while inside of her and the red was everywhere, on her hands and on her chest and on her mouth as she drank the blood straight from hisheart.
RomanCharity
On the Ides of March,Malcolm finally made contact with heragain.
She’d just closed the gallery for the evening, which entailed nothing more than drawing the red velvet curtains behind the front windows, flipping the OPEN sign around, and locking the door. Upon returning to her office to fetch Tou-Tou from his basket, she found a book of art lying open on her desk. It had been so long since she’d seen Malcolm, she’d almost given up hope he’d ever return to her. She glanced around the office, sniffing the air, hoping to catch any glimpse of him, any trace of his scent. Her body came alive merely at the possibility of Malcolm. As ecstatic as she was that he wanted to see her again, she feared to open the book. What did he want with her this time? What would he make her do? What would he do to her? What would he make her enjoy him doingtoher?
She sat in her desk chair slowly and told herself she was doing it for the money. For the money she would see Malcolm again. For the money she would submit to his sexual demands. For the money she would openthebook.
But it wasn’t for themoney.
She opened the bookanyway.
The red velvet cord marked a page near the back. On it was a painting calledRoman Charity, dated 1767 by the artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze. She’d never seen the painting before or heard the phrase "Roman charity.” It meant nothing to her, but the scene was clear enough. A thin old man languished in a prison cell and a young woman in a voluminous dress offered him her breast to suckle. A prostitute visiting a prisoner? Seemed like a logical explanation for the scene. It was tame enough. Bare breasts hardly shocked her. After the Minotaur nothing couldshockher.
In her head she heard Malcolm’s voicetauntingher.
Don’t say things like that. Men like me take statements such as that as achallenge.
Mona still didn’t know what had happened the night with the Minotaur. Had he drugged her with an untraceable drug? Or had the wine been potent enough to daze her into seeing the back room as the meeting place for ancient Athenian priestesses and the Minotaur they served? Or was there another possibility far more terrifying than being drugged orgoingmad?
What if—somehow, some way, some impossible way—it had allbeenreal?
Mona knew that question would plague her the rest of her life if she never learned the answer, and she would never learn the answer if she never saw Malcolm again. Reason told her to run, to escape this dangerous game she was playing with this dangerous man. But she was past reason now. She’d had the strongest orgasm of her life while chained to a boulder with a half-man, half-beast inside her. There was no going back after that. She could only goforward.
After gathering Tou-Tou in his carrier, she went to her apartment. She had some of her mother’s old gala dresses hanging in the closet. One was blood purple with bell sleeves and full skirts with gold braiding on the bodice. It looked like something from a late Renaissance painting. As soon as she put it on and stepped in front of the mirror, Mona felt an overwhelming compulsion to return to the gallery that very night. She tried to ignore the compulsion, but it grew stronger when she unbuttoned the back of her dress. It felt like an itch, only inside her brain where she could never reach it. Quickly she buttoned the dress again and the itch lessened. She took a step toward the door and it lessened more. She walked away from the door and sat on her bed and the itch grew so strong she wanted to beat her head into her hands. There was nothing for it. She hadtogo.
The streets were almost empty at this late hour, yet she still received her fair share of strange glances in her dress with the skirts so flowing she had to hold them up to avoid tripping over the hem as she half-walked, half-ran back toTheRed.
She entered by the side door and didn’t hesitate a second before slipping through the door into thebackroom.
But the back room she knewwasgone.
"Malcolm…what have you done?” she whispered as she the door closedbehindher.
For surely Malcolm had done this deed. But how? The wood flooring was gone, replaced by hard stone. The walls were stone as well. Flaming torches lined the stone walls and the smell of burning wood pricked at her nostrils. She could see the dark night sky through a square, iron-barred window chiseled in the stone. She pressed her back to the wall when she saw two men approaching. They were carrying bronze helmets under their arms, and wore dull white tunics and leather sandals. They looked like how she’d always pictured ancient Romansoldiers.
"You there,” one said to her. "Coming orgoing?”
She panicked. "Coming,” she said. "But Idon’t—”
"Cimon’s girl,” the other said. "Let her pass. He’s not long for theworld.”
"I’ll search her. You know ourorders.”
She shrank from his hands when they reached for her but she knew she must not fight as her body was bent over and searched. Searched for what? For weapons? Her? She had nothing. The soldier ran his hands all over her body and through her clothes. The two soldiers smiled at each other as the one lingered longer than necessary under her skirts where she was bare and naked. Mona warmed to his touch. Malcolm had trained her to enjoy being violated and this man was certainly violating her. He cupped her bottom, rubbed it, slid his hand between her thighs and pushed one fingerintoher.
"I don’t have anything,” she said as he stuck in a second finger and stroked her inner walls. "I swear Idon’t.”
"Let her pass,” the older soldier said. "We have to finish ourrounds.”
