Under Cupid's Contract (Love Under Lockdown)

“What do you think?

He might as well have asked how many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie-Pop. How the fuck was I supposed to answer that question? I couldn’t without the risk of hurting him even more.

“Luminous,” I hedged, going for the nicest descriptor to hand, “like your earlier work but also stands alone. There is a new - maturity.

I did my best not to make it sound like a question. There was maturity to be sure. As well as the stinging, lashing wages of hard experience. One came more readily to mind than the other. It took some quick thinking to come up with a compromise, ‘maturity’ not the first descriptor that came to mind.

“Thank you. I really wasn’t sure it was, you know, any good. I only started working on it again a couple years ago. Perhaps I’d lost my touch.

I wanted to reassure him. Quote what Harlan Ellison said about how writers get to a level below which they did not sink. It seemed inappropriate, considering all the new blood, metaphorical and apparently literal, that had gone into the new manuscript. If the foreshadowing was anything to go by. He would hate the comparison but Hugo really did have a mystery writer’s sense of structure. Nothing came out of nowhere. Each element present, sometimes very subtly, to the end. It was unlikely he’d have read Sherlock Holmes as a boy, but there was more than one French-language equivalent.

The beast grumbled, Hugo’s joining in chorus. Their urgency clear as it was undeniable. Hunger was becoming of paramount focus.

We had already eaten lunch, some kind soul leaving a tray outside the office door. Predicting we wouldn’t be making it to the dining room. I thought of the woman who’d taken me to him and wondered how much staff he still had that I hadn’t seen, especially for the actual vineyard. There were no grapes on the plants that I could see, alhough that could have been a seasonal thing, unless he specialized in ice wine. In which case things had gone very badly indeed.

Stuck in the void between lunchtime and dinner, which was always served at eight, we were left to our own devices.

“I’m not sure what to make but –

“I do.”

“Oh?”

“Show me to the pans and cutlery and then stand back,” I told him confidently.

“…Right.”

Despite its size, the kitchen was easy to move in. Everything set up with perfect logic once you learned the system. The selection of food was fairly random, but I’d gotten used to improvising.

I’d never seen Grandma meet an ingredient she couldn’t work in somehow. Even ghost pepper on one memorable occasion. I wasn’t quite at her level of skill, lacking about fifty years of practice, but still did my best. Pulling together a serviceable fry up. “I wish you’ve let me help,” Hugo said, as I brought the plates to the table.

“You’d have been taking your life in your hands. I move fast, and often with sharp objects.”

“Even so,” he protested, “I like to feel useful.”

“Even at the risk of your life?” I challenged.

“Apparently, given recent history.”

Temptation burned. Threatening to slide the flesh from my bones. Yet, I remained silent. There were some things it was best not to probe. It would have been a reasonable question, had I asked it.

I just wanted Hugo to tell me in his own time, if at all. I had wondered at his mild nature. How it could cohabitate with such darkness as I’d already found in his pages. I didn’t want to upset that balance.

“Sit, dishes are my domain,” he ordered, gathering the cutlery on to the already stacked plates.

“Yes, sir.”

But as he walked from the room, a childish fear overtook me and I didn’t want to be in the dining room alone. I’d somehow developed an isolation anxiety, despite having no idea how.

Entering the kitchen as quietly as I could, I watched in silence as Hugo cleaned, dried and put away. The silverware was already drying on the tea towel set under the dish rack. I couldn’t help but observe how the muscles moved under his Oxford cloth shirt. So neatly tucked into charcoal gray Perry Ellis slacks.

He wasn’t really dressed up, but always managed to look incredibly good with what he wore. I would have to get him to teach me sometime.

He turned to face me. Making it clear he’d known I was there all along. Not much got past him really.

“What would you like for dessert?”

“I have a few ideas.”

Crossing the gap in what seemed like nanoseconds, I had my hands in his hair and my tongue in his mouth. Standing on my tip-toes, cold stone under my bare feet, so I could reach him. As the hunger in my belly was sated, another arose, making equally powerful demands.

Hugo, my hero, answered the call. Taking me into his arms, to carry me up to our bed chamber. Like something from a Romance novel. A fun one with a painted cover featuring Fabio.