Iron Behind the Velvet - Chapter 9

* 

In the Earth of Your Soul, In the Cross of Your Arms 1

(a short passage of moderate adult content at the end of the chapter)

Catherine released the latch that secreted the door to their rooms and passed through to the small chamber behind the stained glass window. Long burning candles glimmered, their attendance a gift from Mary or perhaps from Jamie – a welcome to her.

Darkness, pushed back by love.


The rooms were hushed; the pipes and their messaging ended at the main entryway. This had been for years, for Vincent, and was now for the two of them, truly a place of refuge. She marveled again at the strange slant of light that even at this late hour offered a flicker of illumination to the atrium floor. Here, it was never deepest dark.

She lit the large torches at the gallery walls and at the base of the curved stairs and those flanking the archway to the bath and to the library. In the bathing chamber, there were oversized pillar candles, new ones, gifts from Rebecca, scented with patchouli and sandalwood and stained a deep black pearl. The tall flame, the scent, wild and sensuous ... brought a vision of Vincent fully before her. Her heart quickened and she felt a flush at her breast, a rhythmic pounding in her blood, and a feeling of breathlessness as if she had run a great distance. The suddenness of it, the heat of the accompanying desire, stunned her.

“He's ... coming back?” She rushed out into the atrium, wishing, fully expecting to see him there. She bent forward, her hand on her heart to still it, and slowed her breathing. A brightness bloomed behind her eyelids – their bond, like the sun, a thousand rays in her soul. Yet the exhilaration of it was too short. She felt his presence drawing nearer, heard the echo of thudding footfalls in a distant corridor ... And then ... a descent, a sense of resignation, and she knew his frustration as her own.

____________

"What? What is it, Mouse?" He fought to keep exasperation from his voice.

"Kanin. Needs you."

"Did he send you for me?"

"Better come."

Vincent felt the fire in his spirit, in his loins, fall. One deep breath in ... and out ... He made the turn to go back, through the darkened tunnels toward the light of camp. He could not let Kanin ... go.


“Tell me, Mouse. What has happened?” Vincent’s stride was long and emphatic, such that his companion was forced to scurry to keep up, and there was no mistaking the tone of his question.

“Sorry, Vincent.” Mouse was meek. “Had to find you.”

"It is...no matter. Just tell me.”

“Kanin and Damien. Started yelling.”

“About what?”

“About the plans. About where to make the rockfall. About ... everything.”

“And could they not settle their differences on their own?”

“Damien walked away. Kanin kept yelling. Stomped off.”

“Where is Kanin now? Do you know?”

“Not sure. He said, manage by ourselves.”

Vincent slowed his steps and fought for focus. He should find Kanin, talk with him, make him see ... all that he had in his possession, all he stood to lose. He clenched a mental fist around the shirttails of his patience. Afterward, there might still be time ...

____________

All were still awake at camp. The week had been long, everyone with an ache or contusion to nurse, each missing their own beds and more satisfying meals. Vincent crouched by the fire to listen to the rumblings and retellings.

The farthest-flung sentries had sent word of a skulking midnight foray by three strangers, across the boundary and past the most northwestern junction of upper-level tunnels. The three had left painted marks at each turn to guide themselves out ... or in again ... and had been overheard speaking of a deeper exploration with 'others'. The sentries had tried to smear the markings out but found them too dry, and instead they chipped away several of the blazes to confuse the men should they return. After hearing this report, many of the crew felt their next efforts must necessarily and immediately address that intrusion.

Damien had suggested they drop a temporary rockfall at the next work site and move west toward the riverside tunnels, a proposal out of sequence in Kanin’s carefully mapped-out plans. Calmly enough at first, Kanin had protested, and Damien had tried to reason with him, retrieving the maps, laying them flat and moving stones like chess pieces over the drawings. But as others took up the idea, Kanin lost his temper and lectured them until they felt like chastised children and began to turn away from him. The silence sent Kanin marching into the tunnel, and he had not yet returned.

Vincent studied the plans and considered the possible changes.

“I agree. We should rework the junction nearest the encroachments first, but I feel we must move more quickly with the entire project. We’ll need two crews, one to work west and another to move north into the park and then east along the border. That will mean ...”

“We know,” Esther said. “We’ve been talking about that and we all agree. When the relief crew gets here, we’ll divide up. We’re all staying.”

Vincent stared at the ground, contemplating the alternatives. Then, raising his head, looking each crew member in the eye, he searched their spirits. They were all tired after just one week. It was very different work for many of them, but everyone was determined and stoic, even if downcast. It was necessary to push on, to push themselves.

He nodded and rose. “You should rest now, all of you. I’ll find Kanin, tell him what we have decided ... and bring him back.”

The crew, almost as one, sighed in relief and exhaustion. No one argued for late night storytelling or hot tea or for excursions Up Top. Bedrolls were unfurled; sweaters bunched as pillows. In minutes, only the two on first watch were left awake. Vincent went to the nearest pipe to tap out his questions for the sentries and soon, he had his answer. Kanin had not ventured far. He sat, the sentry said, just outside an entrance within Woodlawn Cemetery, on the steps of a great mausoleum, his head bowed into his hands ...

_____________

Kanin was close enough, yet as Vincent set off to find him, the distance snagged at his feet. He stumbled more than once, thumping his already bruised shoulders on rocky points. His vision, usually brilliant and sharp, blurred with each impact. Struggling to surmount his physical exhaustion, to bring forth a last energy for this talk with Kanin, he made the climb to the upper level and through the secret doorway out. He could see Kanin across the way, slumped against a tall pillar, all but lost in the shadows.

Vincent stood in a deeper shadow. His thoughts, undeniable, were of himself, of his head cradled against Catherine’s soft breast, of her gentle hand stroking his hair, of his ragged breath evened with hers in sleep ... And then he thought of Olivia, home, no doubt rocking Luke to sleep with stories of his father in his ear, of a tiny daughter as yet unfamiliar with Kanin’s strong and comforting hand. Vincent had no sure words, but he would try once more – and again and again, if necessary – to bring Kanin home.

At the slight clanging-close of the secret door, Kanin raised his head, unsurprised, and watched Vincent’s approach with narrowed eyes. Vincent could sense Kanin’s braced demeanor, but in silent stride, he swept across the damp, spring-soft lawn, up the ledge-stone steps to deep within the pillared loggia, to stand inside a niche flanked by scuplted figures of angels.

“Have you come to deliver a sermon, Vincent?” Kanin gestured toward the statues and his hiding place with disdain.

“No sermon. An offer to listen. Perhaps some words of truth. A friend, always, Kanin.”

“A friend. Right. I’m running short of those lately.”

“By your choosing.”

“Some of your ... words of truth, Vincent?”

“What is it that you want, Kanin?”

“What do I want? What do I want? What I want, I can never have again.”

Vincent was silent, hoping that Kanin would continue, but he did not.

“You should go home, home to Olivia, home to your son and to your daughter. Be with your wife. We can manage here.”

“Of course you can  ... manage. I’m not necessary to you ... or to ... them.”

“That is not true, Kanin. I watched Olivia grieve for you, long for you. I heard her tell Luke stories of the day he was born, how you held him first against your heart, about the games you played together and of the adventures you will have. You are ... more than necessary. Go home.”

“How can I ... How can she bear to even look at me? Can you understand that, Vincent?”

The words coiled in the air, a serpent of doubt. The hiss of vile memory filled his thoughts, and images swirled unbidden, fanged and ugly.

“Yes. I can ... understand.” He said, barely at a whisper, his voice clotted with his own pain.

Kanin’s head snapped up at the change in tone. The tension grew in the blackness; the minutes passed ...

“What ... who do you think she sees when she looks at you?” Vincent asked.

“You mean, beyond the face of a killer?” Kanin shook his head in self-recrimination. The moonlight mocked his features, a strobe through the trees and spires and pillars that accentuated the sorrows of his face. “What she sees ... is a liar. Every morning, I woke up and ... chose ... to lie to her, day after day. How can she have faith in me, how can she count on me ... ever again? And without that ... how can I live?”

“Olivia has forgiven you, Kanin, for what you did ... to her. The boy’s mother has forgiven you for what you took from her. We hoped ... you would forgive yourself.”

“Don’t you see, Vincent! I don’t want to be that kind of man ... a man ... who needs ... that much forgiving!”

Vincent came out of the shadows to Kanin’s side. He sat near him on the steps, his posture a mirror, his head bowed over his clasped hands, his elbows on his knees and when he spoke, it was in his lowest timbre and velvet.

“How can we be ... any other way?”

“Why should she have to bear that ... for the love of me? How can I ask her to do it?”

“You do not ask; you can only accept. Because she is the woman who knows you. She is the woman who nourishes your daughter at her breast, who sings your son to sleep at night. Do you not sense the iron of her spine, in the ribs that shelter her great heart? She did not break, Kanin. She grew stronger.”

Kanin’s shoulders heaved and there was a strangled, guttural sound, a man’s uncommon tears, years of them.

Clouds moved in, scattering the moonlight, masking the hour. At length, Vincent placed his hand on Kanin’s shoulder with warmth and pressure enough to bring him up from his own nameless river. The winds quickened, even as Kanin’s breathing calmed, and there was a flash of lightning and its close-following thunder.

“We should get Below,” Kanin said. “It’s late and tomorrow ...”

“Damien’s idea is a good one, to move west immediately,” Vincent interjected.

“It is. I was ...”

“It doesn’t matter. Everyone understands.”

“I can’t rely on all that understanding forever, Vincent. One day, I’ll go too far ...”

“Yes, you will ... if that is your plan.”

“Plans ... What’s that old saying? It’s an ill plan that cannot weather change.”

The lightning flashed again and thunder rattled the tree limbs. A soft rain began, gentle droplets spattering in the new leaves, barely felt on the skin.

“Speaking of weather ...” Kanin gestured toward the old stone hut which harbored the tunnel entrance.

“You should go home tonight, Kanin.”

“There’s too much work. I can’t.”

“You can. This site will be finished tomorrow and everyone has agreed to stay on after the relief arrives. We’ll split into two crews, work both locations. Damien can lead the work tomorrow. Tonight, you will do more good ... at home.”

“I have to stay. I have to ... protect them. I have to do this, at least.” Kanin’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Besides, it’s late. What is it, midnight?

“You could take the subway. I’ll go with you. We’ll walk back together early tomorrow morning.”

“The subway?” Kanin laughed. “How ... ? You’re serious? Aren’t you getting a little old for that?”

“I want to go home. I would appreciate your company on the journey.”

“You’d be making sure I went all the way home.” Kanin stared at his shoe tips. “I don’t know what to say to her, how to ... explain myself.”

“Then say nothing.”

“Nothing?” Kanin looked hard at Vincent, fighting back a retort. Then he nodded. “All right.” He nodded again. “All right.”

_______________

Nearer the station, Vincent veered down a narrow passage, leaving his companion to walk on alone. From his hidden, high vantage point further down the tracks, he watched Kanin enter a car, watched the door slide shut, and he began the count that would mark the proper time to jump ...

_______________

He left Kanin at the junction and entered their private rooms through the deeper tunnels. He was dusty and bruised and bone tired. Draping his cloak over a chair in the atrium, he contemplated his next move. Inside the mirrored room, she was perhaps deep within a dream of her life Above. Her presence was a beacon to him. He should shower first, but there was so little time, only these few precious hours stolen from duty. He removed his boots and unfastened his leather jerkin and stole to her bedside.

She slept, curled around a pillow. On the table, a single fat candle burned low, casting flickering shadows on his gift, the smoky crystalline castle, and on her face. He sat on the bed, sinking into the down, working to still his sudden uneven breath. She stirred, a slight shift of shoulder, the heavy covers slipping down. Her bare skin glowed in the candlelight, and he fought an urge to gather the quilts in his fist and pull them lower. Instead, he reached to brush an errant strand of hair from her eyes.

She woke, not with a start, but with a gentle coming awareness. “Vincent. You’re home. I thought you might come.”

“I didn’t want to wake you, Catherine.”

“You didn’t?” she asked, smiling the slow smile he loved.

“It’s late.”

She said nothing in answer but kept her eyes on his.

“I brought Kanin home.”

“That’s good.”

“Catherine, I sensed such ... joy in you today ...anticipation.” He looked down. “I wanted to share it.”

“And I want to tell you ... but it is late.”

She reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his. The sight of it, of their joining, his peculiarities, her sureness, held him spellbound for a time.

“I ... I should bathe. You need ... to sleep.”

As he started to rise from the bed, she sat up. The bedclothes fell to her waist and he saw that she was naked.

“Don’t go.” She swiveled to her knees and pulled him to her, fitting herself to his back with her cheek on his shoulder. She pushed aside his hair and then her mouth was hot on his neck, behind his ear. “Don’t go.”

She moved her hands down his arms and under them, over his ribs to his chest, and lower, down his taut stomach and onto his thighs. Through his layered clothing, he could feel the heat from her body and he could smell her. With her hands and her breath and with her voice, a delicious cooing sound at his ear, a murmur of delight, she lulled him into a kind of trance. She tasted the skin of his throat. A shuddery breath released ... his grip on the quilts loosened. She pulled the hem of his sweater up and stripped him of it and reached again for his undershirt. And then her breasts were warm against his back and her hands brushed the silky hair of his abdomen.

“Catherine ...”

“Say nothing, Vincent. Nothing.”

She trailed her fingers along his shoulder blades, wincing when she saw the marks, mottled and dark beneath his rose-gold color. Her lips sorrowed each bruise.

“You have to be careful, Vincent. I need you.”

The pitch of her voice made him gasp as if struck again with an errant beam or a falling rock. “Catherine ...”

“Say nothing.”

She pulled away from him, but took his arm, tugging him with her into the pillows. His eyes traveled her body, his hungry gaze lodging in her most intimate hollows. “Careful ... careful ...” he cautioned his wild blood, his dark internal river. He stretched out beside her and turned to her, but she urged him instead onto his back. Rising to her knees again, she pushed gently at his shoulders, held him still without words until she felt him acquiesce. Her eyes, riveted to his, pinned him with her will and she held him until the rigidity left his limbs, until his doubts subsided ... and he was hers, stunned again by her acceptance, by her approval.

“You’re so tired, Vincent. I can see it. Don’t worry. Don’t think.”

Brushing the hair from his face, she began the tenderest massage – light touches at his temples, circles of pressure at the hinge of his jaw and behind his ears. Gentle strokes eased the tendons in his neck and the scent of lavender and mint, stirred from the bedding, cleared the ache behind his eyes. The flats of her hands moved smoothly over his collarbone. Her fingertips were strong into the muscles of his shoulders. He closed his eyes as she kneaded the tension from his forearm and from his hand. The stroke and pressure to his roughened palm and then to each of his fingers soothed him, and he sank into pure sensation. She cared for him, smoothing the jagged and the sharp, turning his sinewed, solid core into supple clay. A simple miracle, her reverent touch to his body, his shame and fears pushed back, his humanness soaring, the circle whole ...

With her, he felt beautiful.

Her lips touched his, first with a gentle brush. His response, a sharp intake of breath, parted the seam of his mouth. Her tongue traced inside his lower lip and touched his sharpest teeth and withdrew, and teased the cleft and withdrew. Her next kiss was deeper and his tongue began to parry hers in growing urgency until she broke from him again.

She leaned back, kneeling beside him still. She moved her thumbs across his mouth and her fingers down his throat and over the muscles of his chest to the buttons of his pants. She unfastened them slowly and inched the fabric down over his hips and down his legs. He was erect and golden, and there was an earthy, salty scent to him, one of earnest toil and labored efforts. She unfolded along his body, straddling him, supporting herself above him, until he held her ... entered her in one slow, exquisite motion. His hands on her hips ... forward and back, and forward again ... Arching toward her, his breath guttural and rattling deep in his throat, he drew her down with a growling imperative.

In the deepest reach of his conscious, her mind brushed his as a fluttering of wings, the tickling of a feather. A light brightened behind his eyes that sharpened his vision and his hearing. Everything was brilliant and clear, rhythmic and loud. He could see the shimmer of heat from their bodies, hot rubied sparks at the indent of his fingertips; he could hear their two raging hearts find the pace of one. At this zenith, more than crest or crown or culmination, he willed the bond between them more fully open, and there was a coalescence, a melding of spirit, and finally a collapse into sleep safeguarded by angels.

_______________

In the morning when she awoke, he was gone. But it had not been a dream, for there was a newly lit candle at her bedside and a folded note in the hollow of his pillow.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms. 2

____________

1. Pablo Neruda. A Song of Despair. 1924
2. Ibid.


click HERE for Chapter 10.