Gabriel's Inferno

Another was of a woman’s back and a pair of man’s hands, one of which embraced her middle back and the other cupping her bottom. A tattoo ran across her right hip, but the writing was in Arabic, Julia surmised, so she couldn’t read it.

But it was the two larger photos that hung over the bed that caught her attention.

One of them depicted a woman lying on her stomach. A man’s form floated over hers, almost like a dark angel, pressing a kiss to a shoulder blade and splaying his left hand across her lower back. It reminded Julia of Rodin’s sculpture, The Angel’s Kiss, so she wondered if the photographer had been inspired by that work.

The other photo took Julia’s breath away, for it was the most overtly erotic, and she was instantly repulsed by its rawness and aggression. It was the side view of a woman lying on her stomach, with only her length from mid-torso to knee visible. Hovering above her was part of a male form. His hand was planted white-knuckled on her left hip and bottom cheek, his hips pressed tightly against the curve of her backside. The man had an attractive gluteus maximus in profile and long, elegant fingers. Julia was disturbed by the photo and immediately looked away in embarrassment.

Why would someone have a photo of that hanging on his wall? She shook her head. From gazing at the photographs, one point was abundantly clear: Professor Emerson is a back man.

Given his decor and his choice of artwork, Gabriel’s bedroom appeared to have one purpose and one purpose only, and that was to serve as a cauldron of seething lust. She knew based upon what she’d observed, that he must have intended it to be so, despite its obvious and palpable coldness — a coldness that was in keeping with the overall glacial atmosphere of his entire apartment. In this taupe-walled space, a chill emanated from the photographs, the ice-blue silk of his bed coverings and curtains, and the sparseness of the all-black furniture of the room, dominated by an over-sized bed with an ornately carved and high-posted headboard and a low and equally intricate footboard.

Medieval, thought Julia. How fitting.

But the photographs were soon supplanted in her attention by something else, something even more surprising. She stared in shock at the painting on the far wall, her jaw dropping open.

On the wall opposite Gabriel’s large and medieval bed, and strangely out of place amongst the black-and- white erotica, was a Pre-Raphaelite oil painting in brilliant and glorious color. It was a full scale reproduction of Henry Holiday’s painting of Dante and Beatrice, the same painting that hung over her own bed.

Julia’s eyes darted from the painting, to Gabriel, and back to the painting again. He could see the painting from his bed. She imagined him falling asleep at night, every night, looking at Beatrice’s face. It was the last thing he would see at night and the first thing he would see in the morning.

Julia hadn’t known that he owned that painting. He was the reason why she owned it; was she, by any chance, the reason why he did?

She began to tremble at the thought. No matter who came into his bedroom, no matter which girl Gabriel brought home to warm his bed, Beatrice was always there. Beatrice was ever present.

But he didn’t remember that she was Beatrice.

Julia shook her head to suppress those thoughts and gently persuaded Gabriel to lie down. She covered him with the sheet and the silk duvet, tucking the edges under his arms, across his chest. She sat down on the bed next to him, watching him as he looked at her.

“I was listening to music,” he whispered, as if he was continuing a conversation.

She frowned in confusion. “What kind of music?”

“Hurt. Johnny Cash. Over and over.”

“Why do you listen to that?”

“To remember.”

“Oh, Gabriel. Why?” Julia blinked back tears, for that was the one Trent Reznor song she could listen to without heaving, but it always made her weep.

He didn’t answer.

She leaned over him. “Gabriel? Sweetheart, don’t listen to that kind of music anymore, okay? No more Lacrimosa or Nine Inch Nails. Walk out of the darkness and toward the light.”

“Where’s the light?” he mumbled.

Julia exhaled deeply. “Why do you drink so much?”

“To forget,” he said, closing his eyes and resting back on the pillow.

With his eyes closed, she was able to admire him. She surmised that he would have been sweet-looking as a teenager — all big sapphire eyes and kissable lips and sexy brown hair. He might have been shy instead of angry or sad. He might have been noble and good. If Julia and he had been closer in age, he might have kissed her on her father’s porch, taken her to the prom, and made love to her for the first time on a blanket under the stars, in the old orchard behind his parents’ house. She might have been his first, in some more perfect universe.

Julia contemplated how much pain a human soul, her soul, could bear without shriveling completely, and she turned to go. A warm hand darted out to catch her.

“Don’t leave me,” he breathed. His eyes were only half open, and they pleaded with her. “Please, Julianne.”

He knew who she was, but somehow he still wanted her to stay. And the way his eyes and his voice grew desperate…she could not deny him when he looked like that.

She wrapped her hand in his and sat beside him again. “I’m not going to leave you. Just sleep now. There’s light all around you. So much light.”

A smiled played on his perfect lips, and she heard him sigh; the grip with which he held her hand loosened. She took a deep breath, held it, and ghosted a finger over his eyebrows. When he didn’t flinch or open his eyes, she softly stroked them, one by one. Her mother had done this when Julia wasn’t able to sleep as a child. But that was ever so long ago, long before her mother neglected her in order to pursue other, more important interests.

Gabriel was still smiling, and so Julia bravely moved her hand to his hair. Feeling the unruly strands running though her fingers reminded her of a day she’d spent on a farm in Tuscany during her year abroad. An Italian boy had taken her out to a field, and they had walked together, her hand floating over the tops of the grasses. Gabriel’s hair was feather light and soft against her hand, like the whispering Italian grass.

She began to stroke his hair, the way Grace must have done at one time. He allowed her fingertips to trail down the side of his face, tracing his angular jaw and rubbing gently against his stubble. She touched the merest hint of a dimple in his chin and began to move the back of her hand against his high and noble cheekbones. She would never again be this close to him; if he were awake, he wouldn’t let her. He’d have bitten her hand, she was sure, and gone for her throat.

His perfect chest rose and fell with his now regular breathing. He seemed to have fallen asleep.

She stared at his neck, the muscles in his shoulders and the tops of his arms, his collarbone, and the tops of his pectorals. If he had been pale, he would have looked like a Roman statue carved in cold, white marble.

But the merest hint of a tan left over from the summer made his skin glow almost gold in the lamplight.

Julia pressed a kiss against two of her fingers and placed those fingers tenderly against his slightly parted lips. “Ti amo, Dante. Eccomi Beatrice. I love you, Dante. Here I am, Beatrice.”

Just then, Gabriel’s telephone rang.

She jumped in surprise. The phone was ringing very loudly. Gabriel was beginning to move, the horrible noise piercing his rest. So Julia answered it.

“Hello?”

“Who the hell is this?” a woman’s voice, shocked and shrill, demanded.

“This is Gabriel Emerson’s residence. Who is this?”

“This is Paulina. Put Gabriel on the phone!”

Julia’s heart thudded twice and skipped a beat before beginning to race. She stood up, taking the cordless receiver with her, and walked into the bathroom, closing the door.

“He can’t come to the phone right now. Is it an emergency?”

“What do you mean he can’t? Tell him it’s Paulina and I want to speak to him.”

“Um, he’s indisposed.”