The Shape of Night(70)

“Whore.”

I snap rigid at the sound of his voice. He stands over my bed, his face hidden, only his silhouette visible in the darkness.

“I know what you have done.”

“You aren’t real,” I whisper. “You don’t exist.”

“I am what you seek. I am what you deserve.” I cannot see his expression, but I hear the judgment in his voice and I know what lies in store for me tonight. Here in my house, what you seek is what you will find, he once told me. What I seek is penance, to wash away my sins. To make me clean again.

I gasp as he wrenches me to my feet. At his touch, the room whirls around me in a kaleidoscope of firelight and velvet. In an instant I am swept out of my own time, into his. A time when this is his house, his kingdom, and I am at his command. I look down and see that tonight I am not wearing a dress of silk or velvet, but merely a nightgown of cotton so sheer that I can see my own silhouette, shamefully exposed through the gossamer fabric. The whore, her sins revealed to all.

He leads me from the bedroom, into the hall. The wood floor is warm beneath my bare feet. The door to the turret gives a warning creak as it swings open and we start up the staircase. In the doorway above, firelight glows a lurid red, as if hell awaits me above, not below, and I am ascending to my just punishment. My gown is whisper-thin, but I do not feel the night’s chill. Instead my skin is feverishly hot, as if I am approaching the heat of brimstone. Two steps from the top I halt, suddenly fearful of stepping through the doorway. I have known both pain and pleasure in his turret. What punishment lies in store tonight?

    “I’m afraid,” I murmur.

“You have already agreed.” His smile chills me. “Is it not why you have summoned me again?”

“I? Summoned you?”

His hand is crushing mine; I cannot resist, cannot fight him as he drags me up the last two steps into the turret. There, in the hellish firelight, I behold what has been awaiting me.

Captain Brodie has brought an audience.

He pushes me forward, into the circle of men. There is no place to retreat to, no place to hide. Twelve men surround me, staring from every direction as I stand pitifully exposed to their gazes. The room is warm but I am shaking. Like the captain, their faces are sunburned and their clothes are ripe with the scent of the sea, but these men are rough and unshaven, their shirts frayed and dirt-streaked.

His crew. A jury of twelve.

Brodie seizes me by the shoulders and slowly walks me around the circle, as if I am a prize calf for sale. “Gentlemen, witness the accused!” he announces. “It is up to you to pass judgment.”

“No.” In terror, I try to pull away but his grip is too firm. “No.”

“Confess, Ava. Tell them your crime.” He walks me around the circle again, forcing me to stare each man in the eyes. “Let them look deep into your soul and see what you are guilty of.” He thrusts me toward one of the sailors, who stares at me with black and bottomless eyes.

    “You said no harm would come to me!”

“Is this not what you seek? Punishment?” He pushes me forward and I stumble to my knees. As I cower there, in that circle of men, he paces around me. “Here you see the accused for what she truly is. You need feel no pity.” He turns and points to me like a judge condemning a prisoner. “Confess, Ava.”

“Confess!” one of the men calls out. The others join in, a chorus that grows ever louder until the chant is deafening. “Confess! Confess!”

Brodie drags me back to my feet. “Tell them what you did,” he orders.

“Stop. Please.”

“Tell them.”

“Make them stop!”

“Tell them who you fucked!”

I sink back to my knees. “My sister’s husband,” I whisper.



* * *



—

In an instant, it all comes back. The clink of champagne glasses. The clatter of oyster shells. New Year’s Eve. The last guest gone, Lucy off to the hospital to see a patient.

Nick and me, alone in my apartment.

I remember how unsteady we both were as we gathered up the dirty dishes and carried them to the sink. I remember the two of us standing in the kitchen, giggling as we emptied the last of the champagne into our flutes. Outside, snowflakes tumbled down and settled onto the windowsill as we clinked glasses. I remember thinking how blue his eyes were, and how much I’d always liked his smile, and why couldn’t I be as fortunate as my sister, who is cleverer than I am, kinder than I am, and far, far luckier in love than I will ever be. Why couldn’t I have what she had?

We didn’t plan it. We never expected what happened next.

I was unsteady, and as I turned to the sink, I stumbled. In an instant he was beside me. That was Nick, always there to lend a hand, always quick to make me laugh. He pulled me to my feet, and in that wobbly, alcohol-drenched state, I tottered against him. Our bodies pressed together and the inevitable happened. I felt his arousal, and suddenly there it was between us, as explosive as a flame dipped in gasoline. I was just as frantic, just as guilty as he was, clawing at his shirt just as he was hiking up my dress. Then I was lying on the cold tiles beneath him, gasping with his every thrust. Loving it, needing it. I just wanted to be fucked and he was there, and that poisonous champagne had stripped away all our self-control. We were two mindless beasts rutting and grunting, heedless of the consequences.