Palvine Part 16

by  Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

ruby wine 

Sylvester played the piano for the next hour or so. I wondered what thoughts must be going through his mind. I wondered how he felt. And most of all I wondered if he loved Camille. I looked at him for a time. He was a man who let nothing on. It scared me to think he didn’t tell me thing, for – if truth be told – what did I really know about him? 

Nothing.

We truly knew nothing about each other. He suddenly stopped playing piano and whispered to me that he wanted me. Whom else did he want? I tried to wipe all such thoughts from my mind but it did not work. We kissed gently that night and I wondered how I would sleep tonight. As we kissed deeper and deeper and more and more passionately, he took off his shirt and one thing led to another. 

It felt different. Somehow, on the night of the 3rd of November, Sylvester Spence Palvine made love to me far more gently and sensitively. I wondered if that was Camille’s influence. After, we walked together – hand in hand – to the window and looked out over the streets. It was still outside. Too still. Perhaps it was the chilled feel of the first whispers of winter in the air or perhaps it was something else. Something darker -darker than the coldest winter. 

I turned to Sylvester and watched him out of the corner of my eye as he looked out of the city – his home. It was then that I found myself reminded of who he was. He was the man I had first heard of in Rita’s cream room in the Lilac House; he was the name I first learnt in the same breath as murder. In my eyes only a year ago, he was a murderer. I was making love with a murderer. And I didn’t mind. 

It was then that I took a moment to wonder what had happened to them. What had happened to Rita; had she stayed in the Lilac House? Had she been arrested? Did anyone else even know thatshe was the one who killed Miles, Clara and kidnapped a child. I thought for a moment – I didn’t even know what the child’s name was.