"You shouldn't let your mind get between you and what your body wants," she said. She took her hand from her breast. The nipple stood hard beneath the light fabric.
"I know what my body wants."
"Really?" she said, sounding genuinely surprised at the claim. "You know what it wants deep down? All the way down to the very darkest place?"
He didn't reply.
She reached out and took gentle hold of his hand. Her fingers were cold and dry; his were clammy.
"What are you afraid of?" she said. "Not me, surely."
"I'm not afraid," he said.
"Then come to me," she told him, softly. "I'll find out what you want." He let her draw him closer to her; let her hands move up over his chest toward his face.
"You're a big man," she murmured.
Her fingers were at his neck now. Whatever she was promising about discovering his desires, he knew what she wanted; she wanted to see his face. And though there was a part of his mind that resisted the idea, there was a greater part that wanted her to see him, for better or worse. He let her hands go up to his jawline; let her fingers rest on the adhesive tape that held the mask of gauze against his wound.
"May I . . . ?" she asked him.
"Is this what you came here to do?"
She made a small, totally ambiguous smile. Then she pulled at the tape. It came away with a gentle tug. He felt the gauze loosen. He stared down into her face, wondering—in this long moment before it was done and beyond saving—if she would reject him when she saw the scars and the swelling. A scene from that same silent horror movie he'd seen in his mind's eye many times since Burrows had done his brutal work flickered in his head: Katya as the appalled heroine, reeling away in disgust at what her curiosity had uncovered. He the monster, enraged at her revulsion and murderous in his self-contempt.
It was too late to stop it now. She was pulling at the gauze, coaxing it away from the hurts it concealed.
He felt the cool air upon his wounds, and cooler still, her scrutiny. The gauze dropped to the floor between them. He stood there before her, more naked than he'd ever been in his life—even in nightmares of nakedness, more naked—awaiting judgment.
She wasn't horrified. She wasn't screaming, wasn't flinching. She simply looked at him, without any interpretable expression on her face.
"Well?" he said.
"He made a mess of you, no doubt about that. But it's healing. And if my opinion is worth anything to you, I'd say you're going to be fine. Better than fine."
She took a moment to assess him further. To trace the line of his jaw, the curve of his temple.
"But it's never going to be perfect," she said.
His stomach lurched. Here was the heart of it: the bitter part nobody had wanted to admit to him; not even himself. He was spoiled. Perhaps just a little, but a little was all it would take to shake him from his high perch. His precious face, his golden face, the beauty that had made him the idol of millions, had been irreparably damaged.
"I know," Katya said, "you're thinking your life won't be worth living. But that's just not true."
"How the hell do you know?" he said, smarting from the truth, angered by her honesty.
"Because I knew all the great stars, in the silent days. And believe me, the smart ones—when they weren't making the money any longer—just shrugged and said okay, I've had my time."
"What did they do then?"
"Listen to yourself! There's life after fame. Sure, it'll take some getting used to, but people have perfectly good lives—"
"I don't want a perfectly good life. I want the life I had."
"Well you can't have it," she said, very simply.
It was a long time since somebody had told Todd Pickett that he couldn't have something, and he didn't like it. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face. A quick fury had risen in him. He wanted to strike at her, knock her stupid words out of her mouth.
"You know, you are crazy," he said.
"Didn't I tell you?" she said, making no attempt to touch him again. "Some nights I'm so crazy I'm ready to hang myself. But I don't. You know why? I made this hell for myself, so it's up to me to live in it, isn't it?"
He didn't respond to her; he was still in a filthy rage about what she'd said.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"I think I've had it with your advice for the night," he said, "so why don't you just go back wherever you came from—"
In mid-sentence he heard Marco calling.
"Boss? Are you okay? Where the hell are you?"
He looked toward the door, half-expecting to see Marco already standing there. He wasn't. Todd then looked back at Katya, or whoever the hell she was. The woman was retreating from him, shaking her head as if to say: don't tell.
"It's okay!" he yelled to Marco.
"Where are you?"
"I'm fine. Go make me a drink. I'll meet you in the kitchen!"
Katya had already retreated to the far end of the room, where the shadows from which she had originally emerged were enclosing her.
"Wait!" Todd said, his fury not yet completely abated.
He wanted to make sure the woman didn't leave thinking she would be allowed to come back, come stalking him while he slept, damn her. But she had turned her back on him now, ignoring his instruction. So he went after her.
A door opened in the darkness ahead of him, and he felt a wave of night-air, cool and fragrant, come in against his face. He hadn't known that there was a door to the outside of the house at the far end of the Casino, but she was out through it in a heartbeat (he saw her silhouette as she flitted away along a starlit path), and by the time he reached the door she was gone, leaving the shrubs she'd brushed as she ran shaking.
He stepped over the threshold, and looked around, attempting to orient himself. The path Katya had taken led up the hill, winding as it went. Back to the guest-house, no doubt. That was where the crazy lady was in residence. She'd made herself a nice little nest in the guest-house. Well, that was easily fixed. He'd just send Marco up there tomorrow to evict her.
"Boss?"
He walked back into the Casino and stared down at the expanse of floor where she'd had him picturing her making love. He'd believed her, too; a little. At least his dick had.
Marco was at the other end of the room.
"What the hell's going on?" he said.
Todd was about to tell him there and then—about to send him up the hill to oust the trespasser—but Marco was bending down to gingerly pick something up from the ground. It was Todd's discarded bandages.
"You took 'em off," he said.
"Yeah."
The rage he'd felt started to seep out of him now, as he remembered the tender way she'd looked at him. Not judging him, simply looking.
"What happened, Boss?"
"I found another door," he said rather lamely.
"Was there somebody here?" Marco said.
"I don't know," he said. "Maybe. I was just wandering around, and I came down here . . ."
"The door was open?"
"No, no," Todd said. He closed the door with a solid slam. "I just tried it and it was unlocked."
"It needs a new lock then," Marco said, his tone uncertain, as though he was suspicious of what he was being told, but playing along.
"Yes, it needs a new lock."
"Okay."
They stood for a moment at opposite ends of the room, in silence.
"Are you all right?" Marco said after a pause.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"You know pills 'n' liquor'll be the death of you."
"I'm hopin'," Todd replied, his joviality as forced as Marco's.