Chapter Two : Preparation
Corinne
The conservatory felt different - it was as if the very air around the room had shifted, accommodating the loss of Arlo. This was his place as much as it was now mine, only it wasn’t really mine.
I had no idea what I was doing here. All I knew was that I had successfully delayed the inevitable because, at some point, I needed to return back home - back to my mother’s stylishly clinical home - back to my father’s expectations - back to that wispy nothingness of a person I became in their presence. I deliberately shrank myself to accommodate that world.
And somehow, I didn’t have to do that here - not in Dimitri’s home. Which had been freeing in a way I didn’t even know I had craved. It would be difficult to bottle myself up - meld my way back into a form that would be more easily accommodated in my mother’s world.
And therein lay the problem: I didn’t want to leave.
I knew what that said about me - knew that I couldn’t simply stay in Dimitri’s home indefinitely, despite the shift between us. Because although we held a united front in his warehouse the day that Arlo died, we hadn’t spoken about us since. And I hated this feeling - hated the fact that I was questioning where I stood with him.
There hadn’t been a night that went by since he claimed me for the first time that I wasn’t in his bed, and yet I still felt like this wanton, needy little creature, offering myself up to him at every turn - and I hated what I had become - hated that I needed him, craved him, even.
I didn’t want to become this girl - the one that needed to label and clarify her relationship, but the truth was - I wasn’t even sure we were in a relationship. Did Dimitri even do relationships? My fingers curled against my palms, the nails dug in, creating neat little crescent indents that made me want to howl at the moon out of pure frustration.
But appearances were important - I knew that better than anyone else. So, even in the quiet of the conservatory, I swallowed down my angst and frustration, wrangling my emotions into some semblance of control.
My eyes skated along my bare thighs, the hem of my jean shorts rough and frayed. In the last few weeks since I’d been here, I had picked up an eclectic wardrobe - grabbing band shirts and thrift items from various stores in the French Quarter. It was not appropriate for my mother’s company, but Dimitri didn’t seem to mind. In fact, a few days ago he walked into the kitchen and found me buttering some toast, dressed in a similar state.
He hadn’t minded that I was dressed like a college student. Instead, he had pressed my face against the cool marble countertop and pulled my ass against him. Dimitri was meticulous when it came to undressing me - he had managed to slip my shorts down my legs at an agonizingly slow pace, and only once he had folded them neatly and placed them next to me on the counter did he line himself up and sink into me.
It was a welcoming - a rejoicing of bodies and experiences, and it was nothing like I imagined it would be. And yet, it was still shrouded in guilt and grief - because to deny such a presence would be an outright lie. I wondered if men long passed had overcome their grief through the act of connection, because each time Dimitri sank into me, thrusting back and forth, the tension and melancholy that plagued his body seemed to subside. And when I was done gasping and writhing beneath him, and his own frantic movements had stilled, he always seemed calmer afterwards. I knew that despite my own trepidation, what we were doing was soothing him - healing him in a way that words failed to do.
But this was not my world - no matter how much I might have wanted it to be, I didn’t belong here. Even without Dimitri telling me, he had made that clear. As things currently stood - even if his actions hadn’t shown me otherwise, I wasn’t certain that I could fully adapt to this lifestyle.
The solitude had been a boon in the beginning - a blessing that I used fully, melting down candles, incorporating spells into my housework attempts and everyday hearth work - something that I had never been able to do because of my mother’s ever watchful eye. But soon that solitude seemed to press against me, clawing at my skin, throwing up thoughts of inadequacy centered on the very idea of belonging.
Dimitri left early each day, and most nights, by the time he came home, I was already in bed. I had tried going to sleep in my room only once, and when Dimitri arrived home, he had promptly thrown back the covers, picked me up, and marched me to his room where he slid into me, ensuring that I understood that when he came home, it was his bed he wanted to find me in.
I hated my traitorous heart for fluttering at the thought of him wanting me there - as if that were indeed my place.
My phone flashed against the cool metal of the table. The interwoven image of the dragon that had been pressed into the surface illuminated the beast's eyes in a way that had me simultaneously fascinated, and terrified.
Dad: All set up and waiting for you.
My father had always been relentless in his aspirations, so I wasn’t sure why I had thought that when it came to me it would be any different. Because to him, I was an extension of himself - a representative of the family.
He followed up his text with a picture of an office - presumably my office. A dark mahogany desk with a deep green leather inlay, crowded by dark bookshelves behind it, and a matching swivel chair stared back at me. It was almost enough for me to storm out and demand Dimitri tell me where we stood - beg for him to let me stay. Because even if this wasn’t going to work, I couldn’t go back to that.
My lungs filled with air, burning in their wake as I took deep, gulping breaths in an effort to soothe my soul. The sound of the water trickling behind me from a small fountain in the conservatory helped me focus my breathing as I spiraled back down into myself, willing calmness to enter into my body and settle in my bones.
Water always seemed to dip into my very being like no other element could, as if my own body recognised and welcomed it.
I needed to organize and prepare a family dinner - and therein lay yet another problem, because who was the family exactly?
Ravi and Stepen - obviously, but who else? And what did it mean that I was the one organizing this, while Dimitri was -
What did he do each day?
I imagined a hulking Dimitri pushing person after person into the darkness of the grain silo. A shiver snaked up my spine, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end, only for the shiver to rescind it’s path, retreating back down, leaving me cold and breathless.
The feeling reminded me of another pressing matter - one that hadn’t shown himself since I committed to a bargain that I inherently knew was a mistake, and yet I did it anyway. The deal with Solomon was as much for Dimitri as it was for myself.
I owed him, but he also had yet to prove himself, and so it was such between myself and the Demon summoner.
My exhale was quick and noisy, and even that breath seemed somehow too much for this space. In every facet of the house I found Arlo’s handiwork - his particular brand of classical lines, and love of architecture and art. The house was not Dimitri’s design - and while Dimitri may have picked out some of the furnishings, almost every time I touched an item of furniture or a simple decoration, it was Arlo’s essence that I felt - connected with.