Title : IrresistibleAuthor : Marie Noire, letter by Lisa PlattSummary : Clarice Starling receives a disconcerting letter.
Her hands trembled as she saw the handwriting on the thick envelope, a copperplate hand she had seen only once before… on the map depicting Buffalo Bill’s exploits. The freakishly even handwriting… the mere sight of it made her heartbeat double in intensity despite the hour run she had just completed… She glanced around furtively, although she already knew no one was awake at that hour of the morning. With a shaky swallow, she let herself into her side of the duplex and all but ran into her room, locking the door. Ardelia wasn’t even home… but the measure made her feel more secure… far more secure than finding a letter from Doctor Lecter in her mailbox, without the benefit of a stamp.
She opened the letter carefully, deciding against the protocol that would entail calling Jack right away and having a bomb squad descend upon her and the letter en masse.
Dear Clarice
You never did respond to my question, about the lambs. Or is there something more haunting your dreams in your dreams now? Has there been for some time? Even now, as you read the words the answer comes to you, something that makes your heart thunder in the night, waking with wide eyes in the dark, searching the shadows for that phantom presence.
Do I haunt your dreams every night? I think not, bit more often than you would wish… too often you hear my voice. Hear it now, take your mind back to the dungeon, hear the words as you read them.
Hear… and now feel.
She dropped the letter with a shaking breath, looking away guiltily… her cheeks flaming as surely as he had written they would. Dammit! Damn him and his extreme intuition! How did he know? Had he been following her? Peeking in her window like some two-bit peeping tom? How could he?
No, she decided… that was not the doctor’s style. He just knew. Just as he “just knew” when she was bleeding… and “just knew” about her origins from the very first.
Dammit.
She picked the letter back up, taking a deep breath to steady herself.
These are not dreams borne of fear that wake you in the deep of the night. When my voice sounds in these visions it is in a rush of heated breath against your ear. Feel it now, the words against your ear… that is what haunts you, the phantom touch in your dreams. It was in your eyes when our fingers touched in Tennessee, beyond that earnest expression, behind the eyes of the eager little detective. Past all of that there was connection, as out minds had touched, so briefly, did our flesh.
You are angry now, but with whom? Am I the target, the messenger? Or is your irritation directed at yourself? I would not be surprised if it is both. For a moment you will convince yourself that it is simply a great manipulative ego speaking, that I assume too much in self-flattery. Yet if you consider for more than a moment you will know that only the truth is written here.
Anger indeed… it clogged her throat as tears gathered behind her eyes. But she would not let them fall. But not as he assumed at both of them… only at herself… at her weakness in feeling such things for a murderer… a madman. A brilliant and unprecedented mind, a literary and artistic genius… but a madman nonetheless.
Have you felt all of this? The brush of lips and hot breath as it was all urgently whispered against your ear? Can you feel the graze of teeth over the flesh beneath your ear? The more soothing pass of lips and tongue over your pulse? Does the sensation of my hands on your flesh drive you panting from your sleep? Or is it more? Have you been teased more carefully from your rest, every ounce of heated flesh tasted?
She shivered and had to stop reading, her hands supporting her as she slipped from the bed to the floor, her knees suddenly weak. She could hear his voice so strongly in her head… forming those heady words so that her heart trembled with every frantic beat.
No… why was he doing this to her? Why did he delight in torturing her… now in daylight as well as in darkness? He was nearby… he had to be… perhaps watching her even as she read his letter. And probably laughing his head off at her…
Tell me what disturbs you more, Clarice. Is it the slow, gentle couplings you have envisioned, or is it the frantic and demanding? Is the secret shame of wanting more than just a vision flushing your cheeks even now?
I do not expect an answer. What I do expect is for you to think of what you have been trying to hide from yourself.
Think on it, Special Agent Starling. Give it a long moment, for after you do, you have a decision to make.
Now you must ask yourself, before you reach for the phone to tell old Jacky-Boy who wrote you today, what will happen when you do? How will they look at you then? Will they smirk, wondering if it is true. Making inane jokes? Will they turn on you? Will you become bait and nothing more to them? Will their laughing glances cost you more sleep than any dream of me?
They offered you up as a sacrifice before… will you allow them to do it again?
Often our minds hide the truth from us, truths that are free only in our dreams. Sleep on it well, Clarice, discover the truth you need.
Hannibal Lecter
She leaned her head against the coverlet of her bed, her head pounding with her heart as two tears painfully clawed their way past her eyes. God, it wasn’t fair! By all accounts, she should be one of the sanest people in existence? Why did the words of a serial killer make her long for him? Why were his truths so close to hers?
She was so caught up in her existential dilemma that she nearly missed the post-script at the end of his letter.
PS – When they put you on the hook, leave you out in the open for the monster they hope to snare… I must admit, I am not certain I will be able to resist.
Her breath stopped, her eyes hovering fixed on that single sentence. What was he suggesting? That he would somehow risk his freedom if the FBI did use her as bait?
He couldn’t resist her… that’s what he’d said… plain as day.
Why else would he be in Virginia? So close to FBI quarters? Contacting her? His most viable threat?
Because he couldn’t resist her… any more than she could resist him.
For once, she felt she just might have read Hannibal Lecter correctly. And for once… she liked what she had come up with. Her phone remained untouched for the rest of the day… the letter safely burned on the grill outside along with the charcoal. She felt eyes on her all day, although whether they were the fascinating maroon ones of Hannibal… she could not tell.
But she hoped.
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