Black Marion

28

In the autumn of his fiftieth year, Vaughn Scio knew beauty to be the sight of Alex undressed above his dinner table, the dusk light painting the curves of her body, the liquid of a spilled vase drenching the ends of her soft hair, the strewn magnolia flowers accenting the vulnerable hue of her skin. It was a picture he had imagined vagaries of in his darkest dreams, and in life, the poignancy of the details drove him mad. He worshiped his beautiful lover, of course, kissed the offering of her delicate bones, inhaled every breath of her sugared gasps. Took all the pleasure from her body without reservation, and loved her.

Until the sun whittled below the horizon and he remembered that this wasn't love. Not real love. Not even a shade of what it used to be—was meant to be.

The truth was that something had been lost about the purity of what he felt toward Alex in March of '85. And he would have called it pure, his love: it had felt consuming but soft, gentle, truly considerate and capable of selflessness. Envy colored it sometimes, dark and cold and furious. Bitterness gnawed at it in secret. Lust scratched at its boundaries, an animalistic desire to possess something so precious and daunting. Heartache crushed it between two furious palms, and despair pricked a million holes. But still it persisted to be love, and he didn't know why, he didn't know how—he only knew that when it shattered, it shattered beneath all the weight of the universe.

Sometimes, when he slept, he dreamed of waking up from a nightmare. And in his dreams, he'd rush over to see Alex and find her body still untouched, her smile still true. His own mind, still whole. Then he would wake up, and the world would just feel—broken.

Like in the moment of this aftermath, his lover curling on the smeared glass table. Alex pushed upright as if the motion pained her, but when she looked up, her eyes were unaccusing. Waiting to see if Vaughn wanted any more from her. She never complained. Never cried, or acted the victim, no matter how degrading or how harsh the act. Sometimes, in desperate moments, Vaughn wondered if it was because Alex's gentle tolerance was a shred of the love he'd longed for—but he always shut that thought down.

How could a woman love someone who bought her body? Who held her life and all that she cared about over her head?

It was all a masterful act, to keep Vaughn sold, to keep his eyes turned. But it worked. Yes—he loved Alex so much, that even with his heart corroded, with the integrity of that love shattered, he still wanted desperately to keep her close. It was shameful. It was paradoxical, impossible, cruel, and it tore his sanity apart.

"Vaughn?"

He had been staring for too long.

He touched the plump of those soft lips. How often he had claimed them. He could taste the intricacies of their flavor now, merely by the graze of his fingertips. Ah, how lucky he was. The most fortunate man in the world, to be loved by...

He blinked. Dropped his hand. Stepped back.

Cold and toneless, he said, "Clean this up. I have work to do."

---

In time, a stasis came over their twisted relationship. It was not happy, but it was reliable enough that Vaughn could find moments of artificial satisfaction. Making dinner for Alex was nice. Watching the gaunt of her cheeks fill was nice. Holding her in bed was nice. Having her soft and unquestioning compliance was lovely.

So he told himself.

In fact, Vaughn was so desperate to believe that this was enough for them that he had forgotten about the one thing he had wanted from the beginning, more than anything else. 2586 came like a cut through his lungs when he was reminded of it.