𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐁𝐀𝐋 𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐉𝐄𝐙𝐄𝐁𝐄𝐋

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   Black was bold. A color befit for a king. It was always one's duty to dress their best for company. Hannibal Lecter could only hope that his guest for the evening would find it favorable, with scarlet-stitched pinstriping accentuating the charcoal checkered print he picked for his undershirt. Buttons made of mother-of-pearl lined down the center and at each carefully placed cuff. Topping off his three-piece of perfection was the tie, tucked flamboyantly with an array of coal, ivory, and ruby red jacquard weaves and vest to match. 

   The mirror reflected the stern stare of self-reflection. One hand came up, capturing the hint of cologne wafting from his wrist with notes of nectarine and smoked cedar while prying his eyes. A single drop of saline solution softly struck his right eye, then the other, dismissing any signs of strains. He had unique eyes, or so his mother declared, but the sunburst of maroon needed a flawless white to compliment them adequately. 

   Some found eye drops displeasing, even painful– though if there were a time discomfort never merited reward, he would have died satisfied long ago. For a man like Hannibal, one is never satisfied. Not for all the pain and punishment in the world. A preen of his blazer, a fresh comb to touch up, perfecting the part at his crown. Gel helped subdue the stubborn blonde strands, darkening them to his charming color choices. 

   Hannibal hummed to the tune of Mozart's Requiem. The night he prepared most certainly called for the mood. Music was the melody for the wordless– so he told himself when turning on the faucet. 

   All that was left was a fresh evening shave. Many men had high regard for disposable triple-bladed heads or electric ones. Hannibal, however, had a love of a straight razor. There was beauty in it, the craftsmanship of chrome so pristine and sharp it could strip the skin in open-heart surgery. It was a danger that gave him chills even to this day, at the age of fifty-five as it shaved along life's vital freeways in long, slow strokes.

   Fingers strolled the smoothness of his dampened flesh. He turned his cheek, checking for any imperfections. When there was nothing left to clean or critique, the madman smiled at his reflection. It was charming at first, growing more cheshire the longer he stared into his soul. Teeth peered beneath the blankets of smooth, soft lips, then lightly chomped.

   With a flip of a light switch, he was finished. 

   “My sincere apologies, Jezebel.” Hannibal played plummy, somewhat strangled at first sight of her. “I hope I haven't kept you long. They say patience is a virtue. One I hope to see you through.”

   Devilish digits skirted the seams of his dinner jacket, preening perfect folds. Despite the black, the charcoal checkered print purred to life by a lick of candle fire. His complexion – cool and collected – coalesced a radiance of freshly lotioned shimmer. He smiled, that slow slither of a tempting snake. 

   “Tell me, Jezebel–” Her name punched from his breath, strolling off his lips like steamy sex. A lovely name that could never tame his silver tongue. “How are we feeling this evening?”

 Hannibal slowly sauntered, this gentlemanly gait of a predator inching closer to its helpless prey. There was evil in his eyes, an eerie playfulness that'd send shivers down the most stoic of sadists' spines. His tongue trailed his lower lip, attempting not to bite the tender tissue in anticipation of the unquenchable appetite he shared. 

   “Perhaps the Propofol was a bit too much to mix with Ketamine.” He exclaimed, drawing one hand to rest below her chin, clearing the slight shimmer of drool that dared escape. There was something exquisite in her somniferous eyes. Her head craned, administering the two black holes of Dracula's drug-like lovebite, strolling a thumb along the soft strawberry lumps. “I hope it has not interfered with your appetite.”

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

"...Will it hurt…?"
"No, my dear. Now close your eyes and imagine something pleasant. Perhaps the contentment of biting into ripened fruit? You know that feeling, don't you? The tasteful delicacy? Revisit that. And before you know what's happening… it'll all be over."

Stationed at one end of an oblong table was a peculiar sight. A damsel in distress, imprisoned and propped up for presentation. Head loose on the shoulders and wrists fastened to the armrests by twine and barbed wire, she appeared frozen in time. Her gown was formal—champagne, slim-skirted and half-sleeved in sheer, floral fabric with an illusion neckline to accentuate virtue. The appliqué patterns swept across her bosom, creeping upward before ceasing at the midpoint of her neck in a tantalizing display.

Even her hair, which would—on normal occasion—kiss the backs of her elbows, held a degree of sophistication. Excluding the bangs, it cleared her face, each wavy strand pinned back in a braided halo—a boho updo fit for classic tastes.

As for who she was… well…
The girl's name carried its fair share of stigmatized criticism. But to understand even a sliver of its past required patience and an open mind. Neither of which most possessed.

For starters: Of the two most prominent figures in Jezebel's life, both were men. However, one withheld a deeper, more intimate bond than the other.
Known as the famous Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the psychiatrist developed an interest in the priest’s daughter right around her sixth birthday. Father Gabriel, the second prominent figure, never expressed why that came to be the way it was, but more pieces fell into place as years progressed. And by the time she'd reached womanhood, it was apparent that Gabriel’s prize, a girl with pale skin, blue eyes and hair the color of pearl, wasn't the same as any average passerby. But, rather something far more extraordinary.

For Jezebel, the awareness of being different haunted her. It unearthed an age during the earliest consultations with Dr. Hannibal and how frequently he’d pick her brain, trying to understand the subject in front of him. The memories of those days would often resurface. Sometimes during solitude and other times during supervised visits to her study. They lingered throughout Father Gabriel's sermons and reappeared as faces in dreams. Or as projected forms in her artwork where convoluted textures often masked the tragic meaning hidden beneath.

A seemingly innocent layer of grandeur did well to disguise the ugly. And tonight was no exception.

From the next room, high crescendos billowed in a familiar, classical melody. Its complex structure crackled over large speakers, weaving throughout the dining room in a mixture of dramatic and depressed notes. Loud enough to rouse Hannibal's new guest from the deathbed of her sleep.
"F-f…ather?" cried the lass in a raspy, feeble voice, easily smothered by the rich background choir. It was all she could manage, earning her the attention of something ill-placed and unexpected.

Jezebel couldn’t hear, let alone recognize the Host’s voice before his hand dipped below her chin to capture the saliva she hadn't realized was accumulating. The inappropriate gesture sent her nerves screaming in a fit of panic, begging to recoil. Nails–short, plain, and manicured–gnawed the wooden armrests. Her hips squirmed, bunching the fabric of her dress between her legs, and her arms tugged weakly, senses floundering.

As her heart rate elevated, symptoms increased. Darkness teased the edges of her vision in wave after wave of drowsiness, but determination fought the assault in a desperate fight-or-flight response.

Her limbs, however, didn’t have that same option. Lethargic, the weight of her head slumped against her captor's caress, battling the heaviness of exhaustion.

Eyes lacking their usual luster reflected helplessness while her breath shuddered with a fear she had yet to comprehend. Though what proved more dreadful than that—more traumatizing than being trapped in a drug-induced body—was the level of betrayal upon realizing who had done this to her.

Imagine something pleasant, urged the ghost of a memory. And before you know what's happening, it'll all be over.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   There was so much to behold in the wake of her silence. He searched the beautifully blue-tinted windows, peering into her soul. The traces of her tranquility turned terror were evident the moment those dark, dilated pupils shifted from drug-induced pins to stretched saucers. 

   “I know, Jezebel. You feel betrayed, don't you? It truly pains me to see that disapproving look on your face.” Lips tightened into a thin frown. He lifted his hand to hover beside his belt.  “Even when you were a small child I found that glare gutting.”

   Words are a weapon. As Hannibal would say, they were alive. They not only have souls but character and personality. There was meaning, intent, even the subtle silence when he paused to allow them to bask in her beautiful brain. He was choosing them carefully, allowing them to take root before continuing:

   “I hope this doesn't mean we can't still be friends. As you and I both very well know, I have quite a fondness for you…” He presented his most grimacing grin. “A rather hopelessly unhealthy obsession– I must confess.”

   Hannibal made his way around the dinner table, stopping short where Mozart's tempo thrummed. A finger lightly skirted the old chestnut of a vintage vinyl cabinet. He opened the clear face, pulling the needle off the track. Those careful digits plucked a new record from the sheath, the compositions of Beethoven. Violin Romance #2 began to softly serenade from the speakers. One hand lifted a single digit dancing to the gentle rise of the romantic riff. 

  “There. That's better, now isn't it, Jezebel?” He turned, a grueling grin stretched wide. “If my recollection recalls, this is one that's been your favorite ever since you were a wee little thing. Why yes– I remember it now just like it was yesterday.’’

   Dr. Lectar began painting a picture with his pose. His palms were waist-high, folded upwards in ballroom fashion. Those rutilant red orbs softly sealed, drifting to the requiem of lost, living dreams. Back to the days when she was six, those lithe little dainty digits resting upon his trained talons. It was so vivid that he could remember a particular dress, those shiny black dress shoes, and stockings as she stood on the ends of his toes. His feet started to sidestep, then twirl. 

   “You remember–” His swaying slowly stopped, those familiar frightening eyes fixated on her. “Don't you, Jezebel?”

   It was a trap set by a skillful hunter. With the anesthesia, the careful wording, and the serenades of her favorite symphony, building up the blocks before abruptly changing course to her father. He knew it was a fresh nerve, raising his voice to match the pace and tempo of Father Gabriel when scolding her:

   “The calm before the storm before your father would push through the chamber door and remind you, you are just a child.”

   At the center of the dining room table sat a sterling silver platter, its contents unseen beneath a Victorian-age dome. Etched at the front facing her was the armorial crest – a red dragon – carefully crafted by a renowned English silversmith. His hand rested upon the fleur-de-lis handle, lifting the cover as steam flowed out, revealing the dish he had prepared.

   “Or was it something else?” He tested, licking his lips in suspense. Shivering to the scent of scorched, smoky skin.  “Ahh, yes. I remember now. That you, my old friend, are nothing more than a demon.”

   Crystal eyes, caked in white, its once blue color cooked. The prominent pompadour hairline of a priest. It was a countenance cruelly captured in her cranium– that of a disapproving father. At times the man looked at her as if she were a witch, captured now for Dr. Lecter in his final, frightening moments. Dried lips wrapped around a Fuji apple, appearing like a ball gag to silence the words that could escape the dead.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

The depth of her gaze was enough to disarm and leave most squandering. Like submerging a hand into brackish water, uncertain of what lurked beneath, it proved a fool’s errand for the imprudent and the key to transcendence for those who sought immortality.
But to Hannibal, those silver-blue irises were significant in a different way, often serving as the fertile soil in which he sowed seeds of doubt. A place where he governed the effects of her madness in a peculiar stroke of luck: Immunity.
The realization that he had a gift of his own—that he could face her demons without risk of mental catastrophe—came early on when Dr. Lecter eased her into maintaining eye contact, telling her it was okay to explore her interests. And that peering into the windows of her soul allowed him to ‘fix what was broken.'

That was the first time she’d ever felt seen and heard, reminded of it by the way his eyes now captured hers.

Reality plucked the threads of Jezebel's consciousness, coaxing her out of her trance as Hannibal flashed a grin and drifted from one side of the table to the other. Much like the influence of his gaze, his voice played the role of Puppeteer–veering her emotions in one direction and then another. High and low, left, right, and upside down. At which rate, the poor girl couldn't tell which way she was facing, let alone determine where her dizziness originated.

So silently, she watched as Hannibal sifted through his collection for a particular record, and the moment he turned, her upper body lurched forward. Barbs jabbed the more she leaned, pulled, and twisted, threatening to puncture delicate layers of flesh. Tugging at the restraints was taxing, but with increasing desperation, the efforts paid off. Even the physical discomfort didn't seem to register, granting her the opportunity she needed until, with a slip of the wrist, she was one step closer to freedom.

Before she could work her other arm loose, however, another familiar melody serenaded. This one far more sentimental, provoking a vivid recollection of events that transformed the entire room.

The paint began to recede, exposing a different color underneath. The ceiling rose higher, revealing a beautiful display of embellished architecture, and the dining room stretched into a larger, more comfortable space. Furniture faded, replaced by fittings, decor, and other paraphernalia one might expect to encounter in a private study. Beethoven’s “Violin Romance” transitioned from one setting to another–to a time of innocence and bliss, narrated and reenacted with disturbing accuracy.

Jezebel’s eyes trailed after a younger version of herself as she was swept away on Lecter's feet, their dance enlivened by joyous giggles and suppressed laughs. Merriment painted their expressions in a kaleidoscopic array of vitality as the pair set themselves adrift. A step here, another there… all precise movements to match the fluidity of each violin riff as Dr. Lecter held small hands within his carefully trained grasp.

The current Jezebel, the one bound to a chair, reached for them as pain and longing dampened pale lashes. And when the little girl turned to look, fear overshadowing her doll-like features, her eyes went straight through. Unseeing and unaware.

Abruptly, the scene flashed to another—a similar screenplay of the previous one playing like a live cinema. She couldn't have been any older than eleven this time. Huddled against Dr. Lecter's side, wearing her hand-knitted vintage dress and little black shoes, the same panic from before seeped across her features. Father Gabriel stood at the entrance to the study, irate and disgruntled. His mouth opened to speak, but it was Hannibal's voice that cut through the fabric of her recollection, piercing her psyche in a fashion that mimicked the priest’s.
"The calm before the storm before your father would push through the chamber door and remind you, you are just a child."

Unable to handle additional injury to her clouded mind, Jezebel whimpered, banishing the memories like they were malevolent spirits. He was breaking her, over and over again, and all she could do was revert to that same girl who used to cower beneath the blanket when monsters appeared in the closet.

For an indiscernible amount of time, that’s how she stayed, head bowed and eyes shut tight. Her shoulders quivered, each drawn upward with a tenseness that, no doubt, made her vulnerable. Not simply because she appeared so, but because she knew Hannibal was watching.

A gentle clang rang in her ears, metal against metal, as the scent of seasoned, smoked flesh wafted throughout the dining area. The new smell hadn’t initially garnered her attention, but when it finally did, the room grew deathly still.

One second passed. Then another. And another… All while she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

It’s an interesting thing to ponder, isn’t it? How people think they’d act in circumstances like these. One might consider Jezebel foolish to have gotten herself into this situation in the first place, yawning on and on about the course of action they’d take—why they wouldn’t do this, why they wouldn’t do that. But, truth is, no one knows the choices they’d make until they were face-to-face with the lion’s den. Not even Jezebel, herself.

So when time slammed to a halt and adrenaline clouded her judgment, the stage was set.

With one kick, Hannibal’s guest sent her chair thrown backward, the impact splintering wood and sending debris skirting across the floor like shrapnel. It was enough to knock the air from her lungs, though only for a fraction of a second before the next impulse backfired.

Amidst her terror and without forethought, she yanked her left wrist free, shredding skin and exposing tendons in a mess of pulpy, red tissue. Blood gushed, cascading down her forearm, and with it, white-hot agony.
The scream, the shrill cry that followed, quickly turned guttural as Jezebel bit back her tongue and forced focus on the nearest escape route.

With self-preservation on the forefront of her mind, she maneuvered off of the chair, onto her side, and drove it away with her foot, knocking the piece of furniture against a table leg. Silverware rattled—forks, knives and other cutlery all falling within proximity of her reach.

A perfect recipe for the perfect disaster.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   Teeth gnashed, ears tuning to the clattering of finely picked china. Anger attacked at his alluring aplomb, reticence ready to correct his pleasantly polite poise. He canted his head, turning an ear away as the room rang.

    "Jezebel…" 

   Everyone had triggers, pet peeves that attempt to strip off the layers of skin to any reserve. For him, abrupt noises, the cracking of glass, brought back terrorizing thoughts, flashing in front of his face as swiftly as its sound shrieked. Even someone with his evil evaluation can develop post-traumatic stress disorder from the hidden demons of memory.

   It was hard to tell when Hannibal was irritated, much less angered, strolling closer in a soft, stoic stare. The trick, however, that he inclined to remind his patience of was one of which he practiced often. A simple method, really: take a couple of steps and count backward from one hundred.

    "Are you alright?" 

   Amber orbs strolled along the traumatized, the same compassion in his countenance void in his hues. Frayed flesh flooded from a beautiful bite of barbed wire that once wrapped her wrist and was worn like a pearl bracelet now pooling blood over an authentic red Persian rug. He marveled at the morbid maquillage mottling a pale, pinkish profile and soft stippling of scarlet stretching her gorgeous gown. How any man could breathe at such wonder had far exceeded him. She was simply gorgeous gleaming in gore.

  Hannibal bit back his tongue, tirelessly tempting to scold her. His lips formed a soft smile, slowly squatting down beside her body. He took one arm, elevating it upright as the crimson cascaded down her lithe limb. Her head lay against his thigh, propped toward the dining room table. A cold compress from a silk royal crimson table napkin entwined over her wrist, his grip cutting the circulation up to her dainty digits. 

 "You typically enjoy my roasted pig, Jezebel. Though, as time serves, tastes can change. My apologies." Hannibal turned to look back at the table. The sight of the roasted pig plugged at the mouth with an apple. Those once white-cooked eyes now have two beady black holes, replacing a familiar nose with the snout of a slow-smoked swine. "By that look in your eye, I presume you were poisoned before arriving – perhaps psilocybin?"

   He touched her gently along her hairline, admiring the knitted halo of white hair she wore as a crown. It felt sinful to touch her, much less hold her in this gentle embrace. Fireworks fluttered the ends of his frightening feelers. Hannibal didn't believe in dogmas or angels, but she was the closest to a goddess or Nephilim that he'd ever encountered. Even how she rested against him as if having fallen from the ceiling in unworldly, mesmerizing beauty. 

   "Can you tell me what it is you see?" Hannibal half-cocked a curious smirk. There was no hiding the cruelty on his complexion. Eyes were hard to hide, something sinister shimmering out vibrant, vampiric hues.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

Roasted pig?
A surge of guilt overcame her, and with it, a soft sob, knowing what she'd done and the discomfort she had caused him. But somehow, the look of disappointment and shame in his eyes was all the focus Jezebel needed. It served as an anchor to quieten the chaos, telling her to let go of the knife she desperately clutched within her right hand.
After all, it would've proven useless anyway, more likely to be used as a scare tactic to keep him from approaching.
Yet that didn't work either…

Closing her eyes, the lass expelled a shuddered sigh as if something so simple would make the disaster disappear. In her mind, it did. At least long enough for Jezebel to enter a state of calm–a disciplined behavior Lecter had taught her over the years.

There was an uncomfortably lengthy pause, tears slipping from the corners of Jezebel's lashes as her fingertips flexed within his, trying to encourage circulation. Her wrist, the back of her hand, was entirely marred, chewed up like she'd stepped into the forest to pet an angry bear.
A pitiful chuckle escaped her at the thought.
At least there was one positive out of all of this. She hadn't worn makeup today.

When Jezebel finally inhaled, she was flooded by the subtle pleasantry of Hannibal's cologne, further stimulating focus and repose. "I'm a terrible guest, aren't I? Even the remnants of my sanity tell me so..." Wincing, Jezebel's shoulders tensed, her upper back arching slightly in search of a comfortable position. After a failed attempt, she settled again, her neck easing back against Hannibal's thigh.
"Self-medicated," she uttered, correcting his presumption. "Though poisoned seems fitting, doesn't it?" At least, that's what it felt like at this point. Like she'd poisoned herself in an ironic endeavor to stave off frequent nightmares, only to make her hallucinations worse. The humor of that notion was dark. And in a situation so dire, humor was often used as a coping mechanism.
For Jezebel, it took away the pain, the humiliation…
But, more than that, it took away the fear of confronting him.

"I'll pretend my instability is why you restrained me to the dining room chair." The delicacy of her voice had grown grim, her eyes now open–glassy with the fogginess of drug-laced veins. Still, the look she gave was one of knowing—a look bolstered by bravery and intoxication.

With measured motion, Jezebel's free hand gripped his, pulling it away from her hairline and tucking it against her beating sternum. Her cold touch formed a loose shackle around Hannibal's wrist, not nearly tight enough to stop him if he tried something. She knew he could strangle her if he wanted to, but something told her he wouldn't. Not because he'd think it wasteful but because beyond the void of his gaze, something in his eyes possessed more compassion than that. As if he wouldn't want her to feel while he was killing her. Or so she thought.

Jezebel's teeth clenched, her breath trembling with the uncertainty of what she was about to say.
"I see you, Dr. Lecter... I see the very man father tried to warn me about…"

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   Hannibal was taken aback by her words. Jezebel was far from a terrible guest. Shattered porcelain could always be replaced, a table reset. She wasn't the first nor the last to lay half-dead on the floor, either, not if he had a say in the matter. Quite the contrary, she was a spring rain on a simmering summer day.

   "You are my favorite guest. Far more priceless than a forty-year-old Dalmore, and all the more savoring." He assured while analyzing his utmost, beloved patient. A curious brow rose, half-cocking his stoic smile while remembering the words of Mark Twain: "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination to achieve, Jezebel." 

Self-medicated. 

   Now that took him by surprise, even more than shattered glass and scattered silverware. His eyes twinkled with a touch of curiosity, growing almost in shock. He never knew of her more reckless side, wondering what her father would say about his beloved beast.

   "Quite unorthodox." He tightened his grip against the gore gushing between the creases in his fingers. His sights took notice of her dainty digits starting to sting and swell, desperate to feel anything other than the needling numbness. Lips parted, gently blowing against them. "In my years, I've learned that success and the unorthodox go hand in hand."

   Those amber eyes retreated, turning toward the toppled chair. He gave a faint chuckle, noticing the bloody chords that couldn't keep her controlled. Jezebel, though, was correct. The shackles were only a means to prevent any sporadic self-inflicting injuries. Despite the dreary circumstances, however, he found it as amusing as it was applauding. 

   "Pretend?" He tsked, then teased: "I must confess, I have a deeper fascination for rigor mortis than I have the rigor for ropes."

   Then it came – the coldest of tender touches. Observing orbs slowly peered down as her dainty digits enveloped his wrist, drawing it down to the valley of her breast. He could feel his breath start to cool through his nose, his heart beating in both ears to the sound of war drums. It was intimate, perverting the purity in his years of abstinence. Cheeks tinted, turning tanned leather porcelain pale profile.

‘‘ I see you, Dr. Lecter… ’’

‘‘ I see the very man father tried to warn me about.. ’’ 

   Time had come to a freeze, hell froze over in his eyes. It was always hard to peel away the mask Hannibal handsomely wore, but it was fraying off him like worn wallpaper. One could almost envision the evil, trapped in the windows of his somber, sickening soul. A devil holding back the lives he had taken, caged behind dilating pupils. He was hungry, an apex predator on an empty stomach. This long stagnant silence between them was utterly trapped, broken only by the charming, Cheshire smile that said all that needed to be said: Checkmate.

   He leaned closer, gently scooping her soul in one deep inhale. Jezebel's nervousness, that essence of fear, was better than any wine bouquet. She smelt appetizing, cherishing her sweet soul shivering beneath his black shadow. Lips lightly came within centimeters from hers, Blu Atlas aftershave steaming from his collar. His breath beat against her, demanding them to part for a kiss that would never come. 

   "Tell me, Jezebel–" Hannibal purred, pressing harder against her heart. To him, it felt like two hummingbirds startled behind the confines of her chest cavity, caged behind the brittle bone. 

   From the corner of her eye, she could notice his shadow painted along the wall. Coalesced with the deer mount, the long ten-point antlers were perfectly positioned in such a way that he resembled a demon. The very personification of his psychotic pathos peering over. There was no denying the devil hiding behind the mask– the danger that hung in the air, attempting to smother every breath. 

   "Do you like what it is that you two see?"

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

Nervous would've been an acceptable term for her demeanor, yet even that came up short-handed.
More accurately, Jezebel looked like a trapped mouse, too panicked to keep still but too terrified to run as she watched Hannibal's profile take on an ominous form. His lips peeled from his teeth in a slow, frightening grin. And though his gaze remained mostly indecipherable, Jezebel sensed his awareness burrowing behind her eyes.
Like a voice, it whispered:

"Ah, my little Bella. There's nowhere for you to hide."

As Hannibal came within breathing distance, the minister’s daughter reacted in a way she hadn't expected. She didn't turn away or sink into temptation but rather intervened—the middle and index finger of her right hand claiming his lips in place of her own. It was a stand-off. One with a pleasant smell as the citrus and woody notes of aftershave intertwined with a more subtle fragrance stemming from sensitive pulse points behind both ears and at the base of Jezebel's throat. She smelled of fresh fruit and blooms, uniquely formulated by Dossier.

During the unusual kiss, a shadow played in her peripheral, its large antlers not unlike the gnarled hands of a corpse, reaching from the opposite wall. And though Jezebel's expression brimmed with terror, begging to look away, she kept her gaze glued to the very man stained with her blood.

Words struggled to breach the disorderly static of her mind, the tenseness between them amplified by a ticking clock.
But when her mouth parted to speak, she was immediately interrupted by three knocks against a glass-paned door nearest their position.

Again, tears welled up. She could cry for help, though the thought of jeopardizing two lives aside from her own was a burden too much to bear. And she suspected that for Hannibal, that was yet another gambit in their game of chess.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   The anticipation was a pillow suffocating him. It was moments like these that were magic– unpredictable. The second before being devoured into the belly of the beast. His eyes searched her once more, eyeing any imperfections of a perfect pause.

   She smelled sweet. Her blood was as beautiful as the bouquet of French fragrance fuming from her vitals. Most stunk of scorched steel, however, the crimson coursing out of her veins was diluted of iron, enriched with casual chianti. 

  Hannibal had a keen, almost superhuman sense of smell. He had already detected an autoimmune disease in a patient, matching with the same sweating sweetness. But this wasn't encephalitis– no, it was far more mild. Far less of the earth and distinctly divine. 

   All time had frozen, on pause for the pecking that purred into the stillness of the room. His heart jumped, hitched in his throat, but that stoic stare stayed. Not even an eye batted toward the silhouette captured in the flashes of quiet thunder. Instead, they shifted from rutilant reds to coal. 

   ‘‘No matter how long it seems we've known each other, my dear friend—’’ Hannibal withdrew, easing up to neatly fold the bloodstained napkin before batting the blood stippled along his cheekbone. ‘‘—there are many mysteries left to be discovered.’’ 

   He didn't get to the details of her hidden diagnosis, interrupted instead by the intruder. If there were one pet peeve that purred through his cringing corpse it was the never-ending rudeness of humans and their need for their many unplanned visitations. His stare shifted with the shadows of suspicion. Nobody followed him, nor did many know the whereabouts of the madman's manor. 

   ‘‘Company of yours, I presume, Jezebel?’’ 

   The napkin rested gently on the table. Hannibal turned to capture the sight of the stranger coalesced upon the cloudy glass door, flickering like a phantom seeking shelter from the silent storm. He reasoned with cruelty and chivalry; weighing the outcomes of helping her to the couch or staying sprawled out like roadkill on his dining room floor. Choosing the latter, he began to move toward the side door leading out to his garden. His hand gently rested on the knob, ready to peel back the persistence of human pestilence.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

The sight of death saddens me, though I cannot quite articulate why. When I look at you, looking at me, with your deep, burrowing gaze–in fleeting moments, death is all that I can see.

The thought came to her, amplified by delirium. It was Hannibal's eyes, how he stared: hungry and intrigued. She could have sworn she saw something writhe behind his retina, glowing black in the firelight, its many limbs twitching like fine, stringy vessels. And when he withdrew, abandoning her like a broken doll on the dining room floor, it was gone, reminding her again of the all-but-intolerable pain shooting across her damaged extremity.

"Don't," she implored, her voice barely exceeding a whisper as she pulled herself into a sitting position. "Don't open it."
But why? Why feel the need to protect him?
He had hurt her. Bound her to a chair for reasons unknown.
What if she hadn't woken?
What would he have done?

Jezebel's attention settled on the thin barrier between them and whatever else lingered on the other side. Subtle raps became a barrage of heavy-handed knocking, beating against the door's framework with an urgency that disrupted an entire quarter of the manor's expanse. Glassy reflections rippled in protest, mirroring the angry canvas of the fireplace's incandescent oranges. Steady streams of rainwater broke from their beaded formations, sliding down the smooth surface of the threshold. The commotion shouldn't have frightened her, but it did.

However, what may have seemed a significant threat at first was quickly contradicted by singular stature alone.

"Mr. Lecter! Oh, thank heavens you're here!"
Standing at Hannibal's doorstep, little less than an arm's length away, was fifty-eight-year-old Adalina Lacrosse, a caretaker of the De Russo ménage. She'd been hired to move to the States as a family-trusted warden shortly after Gabriel had adopted Jezebel. A year later, she and Dr. Lecter had the pleasure of meeting, introduced to each other during a brilliant soirée one winter eve. The food was exceptional, and many other prominent guests, such as the Chief of FBI, Dean Crowley, had joined in on the merriment.
Back then, the woman's hair was coal black, her complexion a smooth olive, and eyes an amber brown. Now, streaks of silver-mottled locks barely clung to her scalp, deflecting light beneath a thundering, moonlit sky. Her skin had grown dark and papery with liver spots. Even wrinkles and blemishes tarnished what was once a comely visage.

Time seemed unkind, yet still, Adalina carried the momentum she always had. Her voice was no exception.
"Sir Gabriel mi consiglia di venire da voi. I can't find Jezebel, and he's worried himself sick."

A flash of lighting arced just above the manor, spawning shadows that appeared as monsters lurking behind hedges. The older woman shivered with sudden cold, huddled inside her cardigan as if to disguise any distress regarding what punishment might await her after she’d neglected her duties as Jezebel's caretaker. But when a familiar voice, soft with underlying unease, chimed "Je suis ici, madame Lacrosse," from within the maw of Hannibal’s dwelling, Adalina’s expression shifted.

Worry became relief, and relief gave way to suspicion as the silence between herself and Hannibal Lecter grew bitterly unpleasant.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

   Due to the stress of the situation, Hannibal's complex countenance began to peel. Seeing Adalina Lacrosse standing at the door was an annoyance, but far from the mayhem in which he foresaw. A flickering flash of white lightning tore the sky, sinking the same sensation of bright SWAT lights preparing for an ambush that never came. His dark eyes dared not stray from the challenge of their stare-down, staying solely fixed to study the concern in the woman. 

Je suis ici, madame Lacrosse…

   As a man born of prominent Lithuanian lineage, the choir of Italian and French clattering the air around him was a welcomed gift. It was a far cry from the shouting of sharp-dressed swine suggesting he freeze and not move a muscle. Because of his upbringing and love of culture understood clearly the coded words. 

   ‘‘Per favore–’’ Hannibal cocked a slow, crooked smile. His subtle sarcasm was silent in the sweet softness of a South Neapolitan dialect. Swiveling on one heel, he chaperoned one arm into the low-lit lair. ‘‘Casa mia è casa tua, Signorina Lacrosse.’’

   He waited for her to enter before closing and locking the door behind the woman. To retain her from darting off anywhere she didn't belong, it was best to keep her talking until escorted: ‘‘As you've gathered, Jezebel is here and safe. However, not in the best of shape.’’

   A glance over his shoulder caught the caregiver searching the room, using this time to note the baseball-sized black skull decorating the nearest shelving. The thought of taking and hitting the hag over the head had certainly crossed his mind. She turned to meet his eyes, and he envisioned the skull-stone fraying her flesh down the center of her forehead. At this distance, her gore would gush like a geyser against his face and speckle him like a sudden, strong, uncovered sneeze. He could create the sound, that hollow knock that rasped his chamber door until it rendered nothing more than an endless swathing of a wet mop. 

   ‘‘Most of which seem self-inflicted. A few lacerations on her wrist. She sustained heavy blood loss but will recover. As her therapist, I must address that this is far more than another emotional breakdown.’’ His faint grin wavered. ‘‘Hallucinations, lethargy, a complete lucid state since she arrived. Has she taken any new medications recently to cause this reaction?’’

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

Though the delusions were gradually subsiding, it felt as if Jezebel's brain was being stretched, hyperextended, pulled into two different directions. She was weary. Angered, even. Not nearly on the edge of blind rage, but close enough for it to be considered comparable.
Tolerating Hannibal's continual dishonesty without speaking against it was humiliating, but what was there to do about it? Physically, he'd overpower her, especially in her feeble state. Mentally, however, his corruption transcended beyond that. This wasn't the first time he'd governed her—sculpting her into a precious marionette. And despite any conflicting emotions, she often seemed to acquiesce in the decisions made by her puppeteer.

If only she knew why.

Jezebel watched as Adalina crept into the limelight before her attention flitted to Hannibal. She could feel his gaze on the old woman, crawling like painful, probing fingers. Predatory, as he twisted the deadbolt once she stepped toward the center of the room.

Shadows danced along the walls, encouraged by the fire-breathing hearth. A dissonant crackling played over mounted speakers, and a large fare beckoned with decorative persuasion. Aside from a bloodstained Persian rug, some misplaced cutlery, and an overturned chair, everything remained unsullied. But the imperfections were enough to provoke Adalina's disdain.

"A few lacerations?" The woman's hand gestured to the dark red mess on the floor, disbelieving. "Tell me where she is."
"Here," Jezebel said weakly, cringing at the command in Lacrosse's voice. It'd been years since she had heard her this upset.

Dark eyes settled on a corner opposite the door, completely enveloped in blackness. Upon closer inspection, Adalina could make out a faint silhouette huddled on a Chesterfield sofa. With an accusing glare, the warden approached in earnest.

"Darling, are you alright? Where does it hurt?"
Rough, calloused hands—overworked from hours of housekeeping—cupped the perimeter of Jezebel's face, tilting her chin upward to inspect one side of her profile and then the other. Too fatigued to disallow the examination, Jezebel clutched the same bloodied serviette Hannibal had used as a compress. Her injury had nearly ceased its bleeding, though the pain lingered, sending trembling waves up her entire forearm.

When no answer came, Ms. Lacrosse's impatience swelled.

Carefully, her thumb traced the length of Jezebel's neck, venturing toward the dip where the young girl’s shoulder connected. Analyzing until two parallel lumps, unseen but felt, throbbed beneath Adalina's touch, each topped with a tiny pinprick.

Edited August 22, 2023 by 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

    You can see, can't you, Ms. Lacrosse?

      The preposterous notion that this nanny of a woman knew more than he in medical practice and the state of Jezebel's well-being was laughable at best. She couldn't smell the Golden Cap spores that stained her lips, nor the sweet odor of diluted blood lacking iron. All she saw was the gore staining his Persian rug, avoiding the inevitable question that loomed in secret: Jezebel's autoimmune disease, more commonly called Anemia. Had it even been a paper cut, she would be bleeding like a stuffed pig. 

     But why the secrecy? 

    There was no doubt why this woman had been picked to replace Hannibal, and it wasn't her long list of decorated doctorates. No, it was the way her eyes looked down upon Jezebel, without any lust or desire to see her happy. Not every problem is curable with a pill. Happiness was the real remedy for a stressful, broken home and lost childhood. A childhood ripped away from the hands of the only man willing to preserve innocence.

    ‘‘Two, to be exact,” He bared a coy grin, effectively concealing the way he sharpened his molars. He knew it was a terrible habit – that, but it calmed the ferocious feigning feeling fuming inside him. His ominous amber orbs ogled Adalina before breaking towards Jezebel, admiring the gore globbed along her lithe limbs. "Self-inflicted. Along both wrists, as you can see..’’

   In his line of work aiding the FBI, he had seen it all. Durma drizzled like morbid marmalade, skull caps rendered open bread bowls, those tediously impaled together a totem pole, people's flesh flayed out to form angel wings, a corpse-crafted cello to even a marvelous mosaic of bodies used to paint the enlightened eye of God. Not many had the gift to see the beauty in death; those still, soft lips and dead-doe eyes, or how flesh faded into a diminished blue. 

    Jezebel, however, was no Jane Doe, nor another cute corpse with a tag on her toe. The way gore colored her was cruelly captivating and downright distracting. That torturing woman who knew him best could see the fierce frustration branding both flustered cheeks as he passed and might mistaken it for anger. One hand slipped into the side of his slacks, another coming up to loosen the noose of his necktie, doing his best to keep from making eye contact. 

  From the corner of his eye, he witnessed the wretch work her hands around Jezebel's neck. If it wasn't her condescending tone, it was the jealousy that cringed him to his core. To assume there was something sexual would be silly – naive – but he loathed anyone who dared to touch her in his presence, if ever at all.  She was his, a porcelain doll of paralyzing perfection ever since his eyes were cursed to meet hers so many years ago. Strange the conditions of unconditional love at first sight. Even more so when those eyes are big, bright, and at the age of eight. Though she was older now, a woman with a strict sense of fashion, he will always remember those long Lolita doll dresses, dressed in faux gems, and milky white stockings that accentuated every curve of her long, lithe legs. It was the curse that killed him the most when his eyes would close before bed.

  ‘‘What have you found, Ms. Lacrosse?’’ He gave a grimacing grin. Guilt glued to his cruel countenance while peering down to see the fresh serpent-like bites of a syringe.

   The back of the couch concealed him mid-stomach down, positioning himself to disguise the deeds done, as a small vial of ketamine came out, along with the same syringe that stuck Jezebel. When filled, he simply brought his hands around his back and continued to move back around to Adalina. As she passed, Jezebel could see the shimmer of medical steel, forced to watch as a predator crept closer to its prey. There was no denying what was to happen next. Her caretaker was at the wrong place at the wrong time, carelessly putting her nose where it didn't belong. Even she had to know the trap she stumbled into, walking down the road of no return as his shadow encased her. 

   ‘‘It is a shame to see such suffering.’’ Hannibal refused to look into Jezebel's eyes as the caregiver slowly craned her head back to stare into the eyes of a devil revealing his shadow self. ‘‘Blessed are those who are merciful to end it. If only we close our eyes and think of a better time. Before we realize what is happening… it'll all be over soon.’’

This was his design.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

Jezebel disliked the scrutiny of palpating fingers. It reminded her too much of the inappropriate curiosities her father exhibited once she'd reached womanhood and each menstrual cycle succeeding it. Or when he'd invite strange men to the house and do nothing as they stared with hollow eyes and grinning teeth, forcing her to fend off palms too eager to crawl up her gown. Adalina's touch felt uneasily similar to the rough, covetous hands of church men skirting across her outer thigh, so when the point of contact idled too long against her neck, the lass's modest demeanor succumbed to interjection, and quickly, she eased the woman's arm away.

"Call father and tell him I've returned home safe. You’ll do that for me, won't you?”
"You’re far from safe, child. Look at this mess! You can’t even hold your head up straight, and you expect me to spit lies?!"
A sadness Jezebel couldn't explain poured through her. That's the sole reason she'd thought to beckon the family caretaker in the first place. Right? Knowing Gabriel would be fuming had she not returned home after her piano lesson. Knowing that untruth might curb disaster if she caught Ms. Lacrosse before the news was delivered that his daughter was somewhere she shouldn’t be.

Or maybe Jezebel hadn't had any forethought at all and acted on pure, anesthetized disorientation. Or worse, on instinct and self-preservation.

Adalina leaned close, her voice a whisper between them. "Mia cara, we need to go. He's flying back from Venice as we speak."
“N-no. I can’t let him suspect Hannibal is the cause of this. He’ll—"

Hannibal's inquiry cut through their dialog—an intrusion considered highly ill-mannered by the dark-skinned nanny. Ada's expression pickled, glare sour, as her neck twisted to stalk the psychiatrist's approach. But unlike his client on the couch, she couldn't see what gleamed against the atmospheric obscurity.

The surge of panic did nothing to assuage an overwhelming sense of anxiety as the shimmer of a syringe snared Jezebel's attention.
Those tantalizing blues and knitted brows, the plush, parted lips perfectly matching an exsanguinated, doll-like complexion, and how she helplessly watched as Dr. Lecter crept toward his target…
She could see death in the way he denied her his eyes–how guilt captured each feature of his prepossessing countenance. It loomed within the tenseness of his jaw, the stillness of his elbows hooked behind his back, and each calculated step as he positioned himself behind the troubled crone, weapon drawn and ready.

However, what drew the scythe ever closer was an encrypted command strung upon his breath. It feathered across Jezebel's skin as if he sat right next to her, breathing down her neck, along her jawline, into her lungs. Corrupting, changing, consuming.
"It'll all be over soon," it said, resounding throughout each layer of fear inhabiting her thoughts. Until fear faded, and only the heat of his demand guided against paralyzing darkness.

Jezebel couldn't be sure how much time had passed or if time had moved at all. The denseness of her lashes had fallen heavy, and her silver-blue hues resigned to a dull gray, overcome by hypnosis. Unseen claws shackled her limbs and pulled her from her body like a ghost stripped from its shell, hijacked and powerless.

This was their design.

At some point, Adalina began a barrage of insults, shouting something in Hannibal's face, arms waving frantically. However, his little marionette couldn't hear the words. She couldn't feel her back stiffen or her fingertips carve imprints into her knees, nor could she feel her shaking thighs and quivering stomach. Submerged in a murky haze, begging to regain control of her body, she could only watch from a faraway window outside of herself as both hands and mouth no longer hers seized Ms. Lacrosse and tore a generous bite from her jugular.

Edited August 29, 2023 by 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

  

      Gore gushed, globbing against Hannibal's lap like a wet whip of washed hair. The blood beaded into dreary black dollops upon the charcoal-checkered pleats of his silk suit. As the streak of scarlet splattered, he felt the cruel constriction of his finely crafted clothes. He hardly had time to bask in the beauty in the brutality before blood began to boil.

    Hannibal hid his envious, evil eyes. The moment was perfect. An earworm of a crisp apple crunching before a blood-curdling shriek. He knew it wasn't logical to hear the hag's skin ripping slowly as if it was sandpaper torn down the center. Nor the snapping sinews that came in serenading surrender. That cruel crunch was the crescendo captivating his cold core, humming hard into his hollow heart. 

   The syringe thudded to the ground, staking into the floor with its sharp point. 

  “Jezebel–” He went to speak but was immediately choked. Opening his eyes to witness the wake of her wrath hadn't helped. There was so much beauty to behold in the way Jezebel clung to her caregiver, feasting like a fucking vampire. A pinch at his thigh reminded him it wasn't a dream, all while he adjusted himself, shifting his body weight in a subtle squirm.

   In some strange sense, he could feel the way her lithe limbs would squeeze him. If she knew the power that was in her arms, the angelic touch of a living angel, perhaps she wouldn't have cursed him all these years. It was his imagination though, that rested her lips hot against his neck, even had it been so vicious. Before he could compose himself, Hannibal fell victim to the torture with an unquenchable desire. 

  Down on his knees, Hannibal wrapped around Jezebel, pinning Ms. Lacrosse tightly between them. Devilish digits dashed diagonally down her spine, the other confidently clutching one ass cheek, as he reared his head and gnashed his teeth. He could no longer keep composed, the sight alone the key that uncaged the animal trapped inside. The wretched witch was now caught in the mauling maws of a lion and his lioness.

  For a cannibal, Hannibal had never consumed someone without the tedious preparation within his kitchen. But there was a first for everything. There was a pleasant pop in the puncture, one he never anticipated to be so satisfying. He felt the coppery cells spray warmly upon his pallet, enjoying the gentle glide of teeth running along the smooth bone. It was like tearing off the other end of a turkey wing, this shared, living cuisine. 

  “Mmm–” The sadistic soul savored. The hand that raked down Jezebel's back returned to cradle her head. Nails scratched at her scalp, feeling the silky strands of soft snowy hair while massaging her mind. Against her ample ass, his nails carved crescents.

    As life drained into their mouths, so came the requiem of revenge. The day that Hannibal failed his beloved little Jezebel. In the grimacing grip, Ms. Lacrosse felt the nuzzle of a familiar muscle, harder than she could ever horrify: All he had to do was control himself, not surrender to the sensation of her warm mouth bobbing between his knees to see Jezebel go free. The most shameful wasn't the dignity lost from a dirty dare, but how the sensation of soft suckling sent him into the precipice of pleasure the moment he mistakenly laid eyes across the room. They dressed his beautiful little Bella like a bride, raped before a willing groom. That's what sealed his doom, in a dark dungeon beneath a harvest moon.

     This was their design. 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by cruel.

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡]

Time hadn’t been kind to Adalina. Her weak legs, decrepit and unreliable, had been her undoing. All it took was an ill-placed step and a twisted ankle before jaws welcomed her at the end of a backward fall.

Witnessing the bloodshed, the slaughter, Jezebel's ghost doubled over and wept in devastation. Her ear-shattering cries transcended the astral plane, felt through her physical body, as tears brimmed the surface of her vision before descending against the collar of the deceased. With each mindless morsel, skin popped around her teeth as if she'd bitten into an underripe apple, arterial spray squirting against the back of her throat in ropes of warm, pungent fluid. Dead eyes peered straight through, and cold lips embraced saturated flesh like a newborn would a wet nurse. Adalina's shrieks and thrashing torso had since tapered into a cacophony of gurgling gags, her corpse convulsing, as precious Bella chewed one side of her neck–masticating muscle and tendon until she reduced the entire structure to minced meat.

It should've stopped at that, but it didn't. He wouldn't let it.

A tangle of emotions stifled Jezebel's apparition, feeding off her dismay as she watched Hannibal's knees buckle. Watched as her body reciprocated his touch, spine curved, hips arching forward, pressing Ms. Lacrosse ever-closer between them. His mouth tore shreds from the woman who helped raise her and something similar to relief flooded each fissure of his guise.
The sight was vile. And soon, that vileness stirred. Darker than blood and thicker than oil, it moved within the vessel of her spirit, its whip-like appendages slithering inside her abdomen. Blindly, it prodded her pallid, see-through frame, probing outward, retreating inward, before spreading its mass throughout her entire soul. Corrupting, changing, consuming.

A sharp pain jolts from Jezebel's ankles to her temples, piercing her navel along the way. It stirs her from her stupor for only an instant. And in that moment of transience, Hannibal's hand is in her hair—loosening the pins from her kempt coiffure, spilling it in waves against her back. She can't speak. She can't even move as the image of his profile molds into that of her father amidst their frightening feast.

Through the haze of her exhaustion–through a memory she can't be sure is her own–Jezebel is deposited into an unfamiliar room, bare and broken, one leg lifted, and one arm pinned to the fire screen of a burning hearth. Gabriel's eyes hover above, his breath heavy. Sweat shines across his broad, exposed shoulders, his straining muscles, glistening down the length of his spine and the peaks of his undulating pelvis. Pushing, withdrawing, and pushing again.
Like a wound healed over, it opens once more, infecting her mind and existence.
Heat sears vine-like shapes into her back. She can feel his fingers coiling against her thigh as he thrusts her against the fire, reassuring her that it wouldn't last too much longer, that the pain would all be over soon. It is within these words that she feels his desolation. And in his shuddering movements, he buries himself in a body that is not his. All she can do is stare, shoved against the fireplace screen, hips tilted, eyes peering over Gabriel’s shoulder to settle across the room. Seeing nothing as a sheen clouds her gaze—not with terror or agony, but incurable resignation—a terrifying acceptance of the inevitable.

...He'll come back for you. He always does.

Faintly, the hybridization of a groan and a murmur croons up Jezebel's throat. Her soul snaps into her body like a rubber band that'd been pulled too tight, awakening her to a spectacle most alarming. At some point during her recollective blackout, a skirmish ensued, apparent by the way Hannibal had her bruised beneath him on the Chesterfield cushions, her bodice torn and threadbare across her ribs, and the needle-like end of a hairpin trained directly at his right eye. Her pulse shimmers with the living remnants of their kill, biofluids marinating the slender column of her neck and the dip that valleys into a v against her velvet bones. Had Hannibal’s hand not restrained her, Jezebel’s wrist might’ve plunged forth, and with it, the shaft of a particularly unpleasant point.

Edited September 3, 2023 by 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡

[𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙈𝙖𝙣]

 

      "If it is by my right eye that I must sacrifice, Jezebel, by all means, pluck it out and spare me this misery." Deliberately derived from the book of Matthew, her Devil dared.

   His rutilant reds never waver to see the blurry tip sharpen in focus. It was a mild discomfort to the ache of desire. Instead, they stayed fixed, locked into her soul, searching the shards revealed by her suffering. He knew that familiar freight, a hell frozen in her eyes and always to her father's delight.

    "But I must confess, dear Jezebel:" His words welted the soft, snowy skin, attempting to dry the crimson that caked those tender loving lips. He was in her mind, moving things around like an intruder inside her home. "I'll come back for you."

   With a lick of his bottom lip, Hannibal strolled his eyes down her core. That hairpin was still stuck and set to pluck. She looked feral down the barrel of a beautiful needle, with gore glossing those gorgeous lips and the softest crimson chin. The way it rolled down her neck, with the engorged veins from her strained, stuttering breath and persistent struggle, was inviting, even more than the beating bloom of her bust plucking the strings of a bludgeoned bodice. How it mixed with the feverish fear beaded on her body like morning dew.  

   It brought a beautiful bouquet of her heavenly body and blood that would attract any animal for miles. Hannibal found it fascinating how some smells can trigger a memory, as one hand positioned pervertedly upon her knee. Pheromones. It took him back to when she was far too fresh from her mother's oven, tempting him with her cherry tart, too hot to savor genuinely, and had now settled at the perfect temp. And at the very moment, Hannibal's eyes dilated into the darkness. 

   When they returned, he pressed firmly between her thighs, revealing the ravenous appetite in his arousal. He inched forward, feeling the needle etch over each long lash, then torture a sharp tingle into one tear duct. Her love spell only cured employing lobotomy– this, he was certain. Only by her will would she allow it. Eyeless or not, a gentle peck tapped the corner of her lips teasingly, displayed by a coyish yet cocky grin. She could see his gaze back to her lips while biting at his own, almost ready to read them as his breath went to kiss hers in unison: 

"I always do."

     Another alluring peck proceeded to the other corner of her lips, waiting for desire to deflate the distress. Soon after, another tenderly touched her cheek. These soft strokes of affection were the shield in his fight. Lightly, more fluttered down the nape of her neck– sometimes skirting skin to slather her shoulder length. Teeth rooted at the pressure point central to her right clavicle, hoping it would force her to brush the warmth of her womanhood against him. He suckled softly for some time. However, it wasn't in Hannibal's nature to come bearing only a simple shield. 

     Fire licked the inside of her thigh, but it hadn't come from the morbid memory of being brutally mounted to a cruel chimney mantle. It was the burning of a blade, the tip trudging against the grain with an itch that'd drive anyone insane. Moreover, the weapon he waged upon Jezebel was confiscated from her very clothing. A gift given years ago by him was a small steel talon with a lightweight wooden handle, designed like a single claw to stick out between her middle and ring finger. It was swift and deadly like Jezebel – a weapon easily hidden within plain sight, yet no match to his keen eyes.

   Targeting the length of her femoral artery, it traced from the back of her thigh, curling to the groin joint. The hem of her panties caught the curved edge, that cold steel staining her femininity like ice melting upon her swelted skin. A needling feeling pierced through her pelvis, but Hannibal had not pricked her as it grudgingly glided over her hood. In one steady stride, with the talon tucked around the crotch, he began to tug them down.

    As her garments glided across her lithe legs, so had Hannibal's mouth mauled down her body. Bloody lipstick tattooed his lips upon her through the tears of the bodice. His mouth cupped her skin as if her flesh was French vanilla mousse inhaled off a spoon. Only hot hesitation whipped over both breasts, tempting those tender teats to tighten amidst his tease. It was a shared torture that made a single bead of sweat trickle out from his temple. 

     "Tell me, Jezebel–" He dabbed one cufflink against his mouth, staining the white with scarlet. When it moved away, that charming grin grew, a familiar characteristic often accompanied when having a friend for dinner, and neatly tucked beneath two hungry eyes: "Does your body mourn as much as these lips have yearned?"

    A kiss bruised a lower rib. "Here?" He taunted, then targeted her sternum as it tightened: "Or here?" The cool air cupped around her exposed cunt, his hot breath a cyclone upon her core. Hannibal kissed both above and below her navel, repeating his words: "Here— or here?"

   From there, he veered to the crease of that throbbing femoral pulp pulsing between the pit of her thigh and pelvis. It was tender, precarious in the way his teeth taunted her lifeline. His repeated words were like a whip beating her body into shivering submission. For a second, their eyes met, and he lowered to his knees in the pose for knighting. He didn't need to say here again, ringing into her conditioned subconscious. Instead, the bastard bit his lips, his eyes even hungrier as he left her inner thigh.

    "—or here?" While trapped in his deadly game, he spoke for the first time before kissing. Lips lovingly wrapped her vulva, mounting her with his bloody maw. Teeth sunk into the tender tissue. His lust-filled eyes never left hers, peeking between the branches and foliage of womanhood with tortured tiger eyes— even as he started to suckle the nectar from her feminine fruit. 

   "Mmmm–" He moaned, the hard hum thrumming through her tummy. Vibrations raunchily reverberated across her vulva, an acoustic that could nearly shatter glass in an opera house. The numbing note grew with his suction, sharpening its sting. His lips loudly popped off the pulp in a chef's kiss.

   Hannibal licked his lips, tasting the tang of twat mixed with the bitter bite of blood. It was the calm before the cannibalistic storm. His appetite was far from fulfilled. He loathed the rude, despising the methods of every man before him. She will either give herself to him or, like anyone else who stood in his way, will find herself forcefully marinating in his mouth. Those luciferous lanterns lustfully leered, watching Jezebel dangling on the edges of cruelty or consent. 

   "May I?"

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by cruel.