Episode 21
If ten times was not enough, he repeated it twenty times; if twenty was not enough, thirty. It was a number of times sufficient to transfer it onto canvas with his eyes closed—had he been a painter. Of course, he was no painter, so he merely engraved the woman’s face into his mind, but at this point, it could be called an obsession he would never forget until the day he died.
In a way, it was amusing. Ordinarily, one would not review even a loved one’s face so repeatedly.
Abundant chestnut hair, hazel eyes faintly tinged with olive, a bewildered expression, slightly parted lips…….
The pulse ticked steadily. Like the pendulum of a hypnotic technique used to induce a half-conscious state.
He blinked.
The woman’s face, always vivid and clear, was now blurry as if shrouded in fog. It felt different from usual. Of course, he knew all too well what the hazily blurred parts looked like. Even so, an inexplicable anxiety fanned his compulsion.
He had to see from closer up.
His clothes soaked in cold sweat were already the least of his concerns. Ezekiel writhed across the bed. After wandering in the dark, bumping into things here and there, and collapsing, he finally managed to find a glass bottle and clamped his mouth around the opening. Since he was in no condition to hold it and drink properly, he collapsed with the bottle. The recoil splashed a few gulps of liquid across his tongue.
“……Damn it.”
As his sense of taste was stimulated, his mind suddenly returned.
He simply could not acknowledge himself losing his reason like that in an instant. He could not even properly recall the process of putting the bottle in his mouth and swallowing. It felt as though a demon had briefly seized control of his body.
He did not commit the same mistake twice. That momentary awakening fanned his anger.
He swept his arm wide across the table. The glass bottles struck by his forearm flew off somewhere.
The senses throughout his body rampaged wildly. Thirst burned his throat. His body temperature had dropped even further than before. The chill simply would not subside. His entrails throbbed as if they would snap.
Now he even doubted whether his mind was sound.
Had he gone mad?
This was not pain. Pain hurts for a reason. But this body, without any cause whatsoever…….
It was broken.
Yes, “broken” was the more accurate word. Something deep inside him was firmly broken. It could not be otherwise.
Feeling a cold that did not exist,
Feeling pain without reason,
His mind clouded over at random, wandering in and out of the half-conscious world as it pleased. Not a single part of him was intact.
“Don’t worry. There was nothing in this room. I secretly put everything away. What you drank, Major, was sleeping tea.”
Rose’s voice filtered into his hazy consciousness. But it offered little comfort. Taking solace in the fact that he had not drunk the laudanum was impossible, for the signs of illness he felt in his body grew increasingly ominous. Now it felt so cold that even his veins seemed to freeze over. There was a frozen kingdom inside his body. His heart, steeped in cold, throbbed.
Ah, if only there were a handful of warmth, he would gladly embrace it.
“I’m not doing this with strange intentions. It’s because of hypothermia. You’re a soldier too, Major…… so you know well.”
It seemed there truly was a God in this world.
“It’ll be quick. Just a moment.”
It was the first time. The first day she felt warm.
It was the warmth he had longed for so desperately. It was no different from the touch of God. The urgency that he must not miss this opportunity impelled him.
Ezekiel threw himself without hesitation, snatching the warmth, immediately pushing it beneath his own body and embracing it. Here was a comfort that no warm compress could compare to.
As their bodies pressed together without gap, it grew warmer. He buried his face deep in her nape and breathed in her warmth.
The woman trapped in his arms squirmed briefly. But it was resistance at best on the level of ticklishness. Even that soon subsided, as if she had raised the white flag to his persistence.
He felt like he would live.
He thought he had never been this warm in all earnestness.
Even if this warmth made his body burn up and turn to ash, he felt it would be fine.
❖ ❖ ❖
“Urk…….”
A massive pressure crushing her entire body cut off her breath. The weight of the man who had fallen upon her unwittingly was far too heavy for her to bear. It was only because his condition was so terrible that he could not use his full strength; had he pressed down on her with all his might, her ribs would surely have broken. Rose barely swallowed a scream.
“……Major?”
She spoke up tentatively. Instead of an answer, a low groan returned.
Even then, the man persistently rubbed his body against hers. Their skin friction gradually generated heat. Though his consciousness was not intact enough to answer even when his name was called, his ailing body seemed to know instinctively what it needed most.
Rose painstakingly extracted her pinned arm and wrapped it around his back, patting him. She stroked down along his spine, offering what little body heat she had.
“It’s okay.”
She whispered softly.
“You can do this. It’s okay.”
You can do anything to me, and it’s okay.
If even this lukewarm temperature helps, a little pain is fine.
Even knowing he would not hear the words, she wanted to offer that comfort.
Instead of pushing away the man desperately entwining his body with hers, Rose pulled him in with all her strength. He buried his face in her shoulder and exhaled rapidly.
While rubbing Ezekiel’s body here and there to raise his temperature as he suffered from severe chills, Rose finished removing his pants. The wet clinging fabric around his legs disappeared, making things somewhat better. She then reached for his underwear, when Rose flinched briefly.
In early childhood, when they knew no better, they could strip naked and splash around together without any sense of shame, but now they had adult bodies. While she felt she should not worry about propriety with a sick person, the mass pressing firmly beneath his thighs required considerable resolve.
She had wondered if it was a misconception, but the long, thick volume pressing heavily between his thigh and calf was not something that could possibly be mistaken. It was unbelievable.
Trying hard not to acknowledge it, Rose squeezed her eyes shut and pulled down even his underwear.
To make matters worse, as he thrashed about, the hem of her skirt rolled up. She urgently grabbed the fabric and tried to pull it down, but it was futile. Rather, her struggling only resulted in the space between their legs pressing closer. A sensation soft on the surface yet hard at the core—a strange and unfamiliar feeling—jabbed at the inside of her thigh.
Rose stopped all movement and froze stiff.
What should I do? Can I push this away with my hand? ……Can I?
The man, unaware of the state of his own lower body, only wrapped around her more tightly like a vine. The space was so narrow that it was impossible to move her legs far apart.
Not wanting to stimulate him, Rose simply controlled her breathing and kept still.
It was then.
“Rose, Rose? Are you inside? Didn’t you hear something breaking just now?”
She jumped once more.
It was Madam Serva. The lady, who stayed on the first floor due to her bad knee, seemed to have been awakened by the commotion that shattered the silence, just as Rose had.
Rose answered quickly.
“Yes, yes. I’m here.”
“What on earth is happening at this hour? Why is the door locked?”
“Ah…….”
“Rose, are you listening? Open the door.”
“No! Stay there. That is…… it’s dangerous.”
She hurriedly surveyed her position with Ezekiel. Clothes strewn on the floor, her own appearance clearly lying beneath a naked man, the regular rise and fall undulating like waves as they rubbed their bodies together to raise body heat, the man’s rough breathing from hyperventilation……. To anyone who looked, this was exactly that—a man and woman in the act of love.
Madam Serva was the one who oversaw all matters of the mansion; though there should be no secrets under this roof that she did not know, she could not be allowed to discover such a shameful scene. Now even Rose began breaking into a cold sweat. She urgently came up with a clumsy excuse.
“The floor is…… completely wet and slippery right now. You might fall, so please don’t come in.”
She wanted to keep her voice as calm as possible, pretending nothing was wrong, but the contact bordering on caress kept disrupting her reason. Her chest, pressed down by his weight, softened and yielded, giving rise to strange sensations.
“What did you say? What happened?”
“It’s nothing. It seems…… he threw a bottle in his sleep…… and has just fallen back asleep. He usually has trouble…… sleeping, so I was going to clean it up quietly later. ……Nothing is wrong. Don’t worry.”
To hide her trembling voice, she continued speaking in an even lower tone than usual, stammering. Praying that it would appear she was merely lowering her voice so as not to wake the man.
Rose deliberately slipped in mention of Ezekiel’s chronic insomnia. Madam Serva knew well how rare and precious the nights when this man slept comfortably were. She calculated that the lady would not insist and disturb his sleep.
Had it worked?
She tried to strain her ears for Madam Serva’s reaction. But with the man’s mountainous frame atop hers, it was not easy.
“……Ah, is that so? I understand. You’re working hard, Rose. Please take care of the rest.”
After a brief silence, Madam Serva’s answer came.
Had it worked?
Rose quietly swallowed a breath of relief. Even so, she could not fully relax until the sound of the cane lingering at the doorway had completely faded away.
Ezekiel showed no sign of noticing even though Madam Serva had come right up to the bedroom door. Or perhaps he was so preoccupied with seeking her body heat that he had no mind to care who came or went.
Alcohol and medicine had so ruined this man’s acute senses.
“I suppose medicine and poison are ultimately but a hair’s breadth apart.”
In small amounts it was medicine; in large amounts it became poison. While taken steadily it was medicine; without it, it became illness. That was addiction.
Rose closed her eyes and surrendered her body to his movements.
Sweat of unknown origin began to dampen even her bedding. She trembled slightly at the chill in her wet clothes. If she was this cold, it would be even more dangerous for the man presently suffering from hypothermia. She could not let the body temperature she had barely raised be stolen back.
Rose bit her lip hard. The fact that this was already her second experience, so it was not entirely unfamiliar, was small comfort.
Her decision was swift. She pulled off her clothes in one go.