One showed a couple from the side, facing one another and straddling a bench of some kind. Their torsos were pressed together, his hands in her long, fair hair. Julia blushed as she wondered if the photo was taken before, during, or after the beautiful couple made love, for she couldn’t tell.
Another was of a woman’s back and a pair of man’s hands, one of which embraced her middle back and the other cupping her bottom. A tattoo ran across her right hip, but the writing was in Arabic, Julia surmised, so she couldn’t read it.
But it was the two larger photos that hung over the bed that caught her attention.
One of them depicted a woman lying on her stomach. A man’s form floated over hers, almost like a dark angel, pressing a kiss to a shoulder blade and splaying his left hand across her lower back. It reminded Julia of Rodin’s sculpture, The Angel’s Kiss, so she wondered if the photographer had been inspired by that work.
The other photo took Julia’s breath away, for it was the most overtly erotic, and she was instantly repulsed by its rawness and aggression. It was the side view of a woman lying on her stomach, with only her length from mid-torso to knee visible. Hovering above her was part of a male form. His hand was planted white-knuckled on her left hip and bottom cheek, his hips pressed tightly against the curve of her backside. The man had an attractive gluteus maximus in profile and long, elegant fingers. Julia was disturbed by the photo and immediately looked away in embarrassment.
Why would someone have a photo of that hanging on his wall? She shook her head. From gazing at the photographs, one point was abundantly clear: Professor Emerson is a back man.
Given his décor and his choice of artwork, Gabriel’s bedroom appeared to have one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to serve as a cauldron of seething lust. She knew based upon what she’d observed, that he must have intended it to be so, despite its obvious and palpable coldness—a coldness that was in keeping with the overall glacial atmosphere of his entire apartment. In this taupe-walled space, a chill emanated from the photographs, the ice-blue silk of his bed coverings and curtains, and the sparseness of the all-black furniture of the room, dominated by an over-sized bed with an ornately carved and high-posted headboard and a low and equally intricate footboard.
Medieval, thought Julia. How fitting.
But the photographs were soon supplanted in her attention by something else, something even more surprising. She stared in shock at the painting on the far wall, her jaw dropping open.
On the wall opposite Gabriel’s large and medieval bed, and strangely out of place amongst the black-and-white erotica, was a Pre-Raphaelite oil painting in brilliant and glorious color. It was a full scale reproduction of Henry Holiday’s painting of Dante and Beatrice, the same painting that hung over her own bed.
Julia’s eyes darted from the painting, to Gabriel, and back to the painting again. He could see the painting from his bed. She imagined him falling asleep at night, every night, looking at Beatrice’s face. It was the last thing he would see at night and the first thing he would see in the morning. Julia hadn’t known that he owned that painting. He was the reason why she owned it; was she, by any chance, the reason why he did?
She began to tremble at the thought. No matter who came into his bedroom, no matter which girl Gabriel brought home to warm his bed, Beatrice was always there. Beatrice was ever present.
But he didn’t remember that she was Beatrice.
Julia shook her head to suppress those thoughts and gently persuaded Gabriel to lie down. She covered him with the sheet and the silk duvet, tucking the edges under his arms, across his chest. She sat down on the bed next to him, watching him as he looked at her.
“I was listening to music,” he whispered, as if he was continuing a conversation.
She frowned in confusion. “What kind of music?”
“Hurt. Johnny Cash. Over and over.”
“Why do you listen to that?”
“To remember.”
“Oh, Gabriel. Why?” Julia blinked back tears, for that was the one Trent Reznor song she could listen to without heaving, but it always made her weep.
He didn’t answer.
She leaned over him. “Gabriel? Sweetheart, don’t listen to that kind of music anymore, okay? No more Lacrimosa or Nine Inch Nails. Walk out of the darkness and toward the light.”
“Where’s the light?” he mumbled.
Julia exhaled deeply. “Why do you drink so much?”
“To forget,” he said, closing his eyes and resting back on the pillow.
With his eyes closed, she was able to admire him. She surmised that he would have been sweet-looking as a teenager—all big sapphire eyes and kissable lips and sexy brown hair. He might have been shy instead of angry or sad. He might have been noble and good. If Julia and he had been closer in age, he might have kissed her on her father’s porch, taken her to the prom, and made love to her for the first time on a blanket under the stars, in the old orchard behind his parents’ house. She might have been his first, in some more perfect universe.
Julia contemplated how much pain a human soul, her soul, could bear without shriveling completely, and she turned to go. A warm hand darted out to catch her.
“Don’t leave me,” he breathed. His eyes were only half open, and they pleaded with her. “Please, Julianne.”
He knew who she was, but somehow he still wanted her to stay. And the way his eyes and his voice grew desperate…she could not deny him when he looked like that.
She wrapped her hand in his and sat beside him again. “I’m not going to leave you. Just sleep now. There’s light all around you. So much light.”
A smiled played on his perfect lips, and she heard him sigh; the grip with which he held her hand loosened. She took a deep breath, held it, and ghosted a finger over his eyebrows. When he didn’t flinch or open his eyes, she softly stroked them, one by one. Her mother had done this when Julia wasn’t able to sleep as a child. But that was ever so long ago, long before her mother neglected her in order to pursue other, more important interests.
Gabriel was still smiling, and so Julia bravely moved her hand to his hair. Feeling the unruly strands running though her fingers reminded her of a day she’d spent on a farm in Tuscany during her year abroad. An Italian boy had taken her out to a field, and they had walked together, her hand floating over the tops of the grasses. Gabriel’s hair was feather light and soft against her hand, like the whispering Italian grass.
She began to stroke his hair, the way Grace must have done at one time. He allowed her fingertips to trail down the side of his face, tracing his angular jaw and rubbing gently against his stubble. She touched the merest hint of a dimple in his chin and began to move the back of her hand against his high and noble cheekbones. She would never again be this close to him; if he were awake, he wouldn’t let her. He’d have bitten her hand, she was sure, and gone for her throat.
His perfect chest rose and fell with his now regular breathing. He seemed to have fallen asleep.
She stared at his neck, the muscles in his shoulders and the tops of his arms, his collarbone, and the tops of his pectorals. If he had been pale, he would have looked like a Roman statue carved in cold, white marble. But the merest hint of a tan left over from the summer made his skin glow almost gold in the lamplight.
Julia pressed a kiss against two of her fingers and placed those fingers tenderly against his slightly parted lips. “Ti amo, Dante. Eccomi Beatrice. I love you, Dante. Here I am, Beatrice.”
Just then, Gabriel’s telephone rang.
She jumped in surprise. The phone was ringing very loudly. Gabriel was beginning to move, the horrible noise piercing his rest. So Julia answered it.
“Hello?”
“Who the hell is this?” a woman’s voice, shocked and shrill, demanded.
“This is Gabriel Emerson’s residence. Who is this?”
“This is Paulina. Put Gabriel on the phone!”
Julia’s heart thudded twice and skippe
d a beat before beginning to race. She stood up, taking the cordless receiver with her, and walked into the bathroom, closing the door.
“He can’t come to the phone right now. Is it an emergency?”
“What do you mean he can’t? Tell him it’s Paulina and I want to speak to him.”
“Um, he’s indisposed.”
“Indisposed? Listen, you little slut, roll Gabriel over and put the phone in his hand. I’m calling from the—”
“He can’t talk to you right now. Please call back tomorrow.” Julia pressed the end button, interrupting Paulina’s torrent of furious words, feeling thoroughly disgusted.
She’s more demanding than a casual lover. She must be his mistress—and she’s going to be pissed that I answered the phone. Maybe she’ll be so pissed she’ll break up with him.
Julia cringed at her continued misfortune and removed the towel from her hair, hanging it up to dry. She returned to the bedroom and placed the telephone on its cradle. She intended to leave Gabriel to his dreams and sleep in the guest room, because she’d promised that she wouldn’t abandon him.
Suddenly, two blue eyes opened wide and began to stare right through her.
“Beatrice,” he whispered, reaching out his hand.
Julia shuddered convulsively.
“Beatrice,” he whispered again, gazing into her eyes with unblinking recognition.
“Gabriel?” She stifled a sob.
Chapter 14
His eyes closed, but only for a second, and a slow, sweet smile spread across his face. His eyes grew soft and very warm. “You found me.”
Julia chewed at the inside of her cheek, willing herself not to burst into tears at the sound of his voice. This was the voice she remembered. And she’d waited to hear it for so long. She had waited for him to return to her for so, so long.
“Beatrice.” He clasped her wrist, pulling her toward him. He shifted slightly on the bed to accommodate her, enveloping her in his arms as she rested her head on his naked chest. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”
“Never,” she choked out as the tears began to flow uncontrollably. “I thought of you every day.”
“Don’t cry. You found me.”
Gabriel closed his eyes and turned his head, his breathing beginning to regulate again. Julia lay very still, not wanting her sobs to disturb him, trying desperately not to shake the bed as she let her grief and relief wash over her. Tears traveled in small rivers down her pale cheeks and onto the expanse of tanned and tattooed skin that lay beneath her head.
Her Gabriel had remembered her. Her Gabriel had finally returned.
“Beatrice,” his arm tightened around her waist as he moved to whisper against her hair, still damp from the shower. “Don’t cry.” With his brilliant blue eyes closed, Gabriel pressed his lips to her forehead, once, twice, thrice.
“I missed you. So much,” she whispered, her lips moving against his tattoo.
“You found me,” he murmured. “I should have waited. I love you.”
Now Julia wept harder, clinging to him as if she were drowning and he was her savior. She kissed the skin of his chest lightly and ran her fingers up and down his abdomen.
In response, Gabriel’s fingertips traced the goose-pimpled flesh of her arms before slipping under the loose fabric of her T-shirt. He feathered his fingers across her skin until his hand finally stilled against her lower back. He sighed deeply and seemed to pass into his dreamland once again.
“I love you, Gabriel. So much it hurts,” she said, her hand coming to rest over his gently beating heart. She whispered Dante’s own words back to him, somewhat changed:
Love hath so long possess’d me for his own
And made his lordship so familiar
That he, who at first irk’d me, is now grown
Unto my heart as its best secrets are.
And thus, when he in such sore wise doth mar
My life that all its strength seems gone from it.
Mine inmost being then feels thoroughly quit
Of anguish, and all evil keeps afar.
Love also gathers to such power in me
That my sighs speak, each one a grievous thing.
Always soliciting
My Gabriel’s salutation piteously.
Whenever he beholds me, it is so,
Who is more sweet than any words can show.
When all her tears were dry, Julia placed a few tentative kisses against Gabriel’s stilled, soft lips and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep in the arms of her beloved.
***
When she awoke, it was shortly past seven in the morning. Gabriel was still sound asleep. In fact, he was snoring, and from the looks of it neither of them had moved all night. It was probably the most peaceful sleep she’d ever had, but one.
She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to be separated from him, not by one inch. She wanted to lie in his arms forever and pretend as if they had never been apart.
He recognized me. He loves me. Finally.
She had never felt loved before. Not really. Oh he had mumbled it, and her mother had shouted it but only when drunk, so the words never entered Julia’s consciousness. Or heart. She never believed them because their actions had showed their words to be false. But she believed Gabriel.
So on this morning, the first morning ever, Julia felt loved. She smiled so widely she thought her face would break. She pressed her lips to Gabriel’s neck and nuzzled against his stubbled skin. He moaned softly and his arm tightened against her, but his regular and deep breathing told her that he was still very much asleep.
Julia had enough experience with alcoholics to know that Gabriel would be hungover and probably cranky when he woke up. So she wasn’t in a hurry to wake him. She was silently grateful that last night, at least, Gabriel had been a harmless, flirtatious drunk. That kind of drunk she could handle. It was the other kind that frightened her.
She spent about an hour drinking in his scent and his warmth, reveling in their closeness, skimming her hands tentatively over his upper body. Apart from the evening she spent with him in the woods, these moments were the happiest of her life. But eventually, she had to get up.
She stealthily crawled out from under his arm and padded to the master bathroom, closing the door behind her. She noticed a bottle of Aramis cologne sitting on his vanity. She picked it up, opened it, and sniffed. It wasn’t the scent that she remembered from the orchard. His scent then had been more natural, wilder even.
This is the new scent of Gabriel. And just like him—it’s breathtaking. And now he’s mine…
She brushed her teeth, twisted her now curly hair up into a messy knot, and walked into the kitchen to find a rubber band or a pencil with which to hold it. Her hair thus affixed, she floated into the laundry room and transferred the clean but damp clothes to the dryer. She couldn’t go home until her clothes were dry. But she had no intention of leaving now that he remembered her.
What about Paulina? Or m.a.i.a.? Julia pushed those questions aside, simply because they were irrelevant. Gabriel loved her. Of course, he would let Paulina go.
What about the fact that he’s my Professor? And what if he’s an alcoholic?
She had promised herself long ago that she would never get involved with an alcoholic. But rather than face that possibility head on, she actively suppressed all the little, niggling doubts that were bubbling to the surface, for truly, she wanted to believe that their love would conquer all.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” she thought, citing Shakespeare as a talisman against her fears. She believed Gabriel’s vices were borne out of loneliness and despair. But now that they had found each other once again, their love would be enough to rescue both of them from their respective darknesses. Together they would be far stronger and far healthier than they had been separately.
As Julia pondered these things in her heart, she went through the cupboards of Gabriel’s excellently stocked kitchen. She was
n’t sure if he would want breakfast, given his hangover. Sharon had always eschewed food in favor of a breakfast libation such as a Seabreeze, which Julia had (sadly) learned to make with aplomb at age eight. Nevertheless, after she finished her own breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and coffee, she prepared the same for Gabriel.
Not knowing if he would need the hair of the dog that bit him, but wanting to give him that option, she made him a Walters cocktail. She found the recipe in his bartender’s guide, having chosen (she hoped correctly) the decanter on top of the sideboard that held his least favorite Scotch, not wanting to sully his finest single malt with juice.
In sum, Julia was ecstatic at having the opportunity to spoil Gabriel a little, and so she took extra care as she prepared his breakfast tray. She clipped a few small sprigs of parsley from his countertop herb garden for a garnish, which she placed alongside the orange sections that she’d cut up and fanned next to the bacon. She even wrapped his silverware in a linen napkin, which she folded somewhat clumsily into the shape of a pocket. She wished she was clever enough to make something more substantial than a pocket, a peacock perhaps, or a fan, and she decided to investigate those options the next time she was on her computer. Martha Stewart would know. Martha Stewart always knew.
Then Julia bravely walked into Gabriel’s study and found a pad of paper and a fountain pen on top of his large, wooden desk. She wrote a note:
October 2009
Dear Gabriel,
I’d given up hope,
until you looked into my eyes last night
and finally saw me.
Apparuit iam beatitudo vestra.
Now your blessedness appears.
Your Beatrice
Julia propped the note up against the wine glass she used for his orange juice. Not willing to wake him just yet, she placed the entire tray, cocktail and all, in his large and half-empty refrigerator. Then she leaned up against its door and sighed with satisfaction.