which Cordelia carelessly squeezed in her hand, dug her right under the skin. It was terribly painful, and the bird seemed to laugh. Flapping with wings, it flew off the window. It seems that it was a black raven. Cordelia seen how they nest on the roofs. But never one of them was knock at the window.
Blood ran out of the finger. The injection turned out to be much more deeply than she decided at the beginning. It was worth looking for a handkerchief or some kind of rag so that nothing would be swollen, but it was too late. Blood droplets fell on a wedding dress and diverged on a white atlas with brightly aluminum spots. As if bloody flowers were bloomed. Red on white. This is no longer dismissed and not washed away. Cordelia was afraid. What she did.
And at this very moment, someone intercepted her hand. Cordelia strained. Someone’s fingers kept her gently and tightly just over her wrist. And the blood continued to drip out of the wound down on a beautiful white fabric.
«I am glad to meet Mademoiselle,» a pleasant velvety voice said.
Cordelia watched and could not take eye. She has never seen such a beautiful face. A man next to her really reminded of an angel. Beautiful, blonde, with pleasant features of the face and gently outlined mouth. The blue eyes slightly shone and, it seemed that you were drowning in them, like while flying to heaven. And he was luxuriously dressed. Aristocrat, not servant. She wonder how many seamstresses worked the nights after nights over his rolling and short cloak? But Cordelia looked only on his face. How is he beautiful! He must be the owner of the house. Judging by the description, yes.
He looked at her as intently as she was on him. And, despite the sharp pain in the finger, this moment seemed to her magic.
«I am Donatien,» she already knew his name.
«Cordelia.»
«How beautiful it sounds!»
Beautifully, like blood on a wedding dress, flashed in thoughts from Cordelia, and he suddenly raised her hand to his lips and kissed. No one did not do that. Cordelia is not accustomed to the fact that they cared for her. She was born not in a society where exquisite manners were taken, but he looked at her as if she was higher than others, but not lower. As if she was a princess here, and not he is the owner of the house.
He as if he did not notice the wound on her finger, although slightly smeared his lips with blood. He was too pale, and the smear of blood on the lips gave his appearance a little brightness. Cordelia looked at his reddened lips, and for some reason, a comparison with an crushed rose came to mind. She suddenly realized that she would like to kiss these lips at least just to test the taste of blood and fallen pink petals.
Anatomy of pain
Claire woke up, as if from sleep. For a few moments, she blinked and confused on the ranks of books on the shelves. Where did she read all this? When? What for? From the story she was drowning with gravestone cold, blood and aroma of cemetery roses. She did not want to remember this. The cold statues in the crypt, the gondola is on the cold water of the canal. There is a kissing couple in the gondola, the lady gives her hand to a man, he cuts her palm with stiletto, and immediately kissed the wound.
All this nonsense in the style of Marquis de Sad or Lord Bairon, who became a vampire. So why is it disturbing all this? Why strange plots pursue her like hallucinations? After all, no one ordered her drawings to such stories. Otherwise, she would certainly remember.
Claire treated the cut with iodine, but it still hurt himself. Blood stained her favorite top. On the skin there was a slim scar a little higher wrist. Scars it is so ugly. The cut can be sealed with a plaster, but the curved white strip on the site of a crushed wound will look very unattractive. It seems that Shanna said something about the fact that the scars can be easily removed by a laser. She herself withdrawn only boring tattoos, but it seems to be successful. Claire carefully looked at the ugly strip with torn edges.
How the flesh is vulnerable! How easy to disobey it with a touch of blades. Even if a person is perfect, as a statue, in contrast to the statue, he is so definitely. It is enough just to take the blade on the skin, and there will be no trace of beauty.
Perhaps the creature in the mirror was right. You should cherish your beauty, as some fragile jewel, which is very easy to destroy. When the beauty is, it is not too appreciated, because it is used to it, but the threat of what you can lose it, suddenly leads to a panic. Only in this case you realize how it is important to you. Beauty face. Beauty body. The beauty of untouched flesh.
A disheveled creature in the mirror of all this was completely devoid. If it existed at all. Suddenly the burnt and rugged face is just the fruit of a rich fantasy of Claire. And what about the pleasant youthful person, which sometimes looked at her from the same mirror. It seemed to be the hostage of another ugly creating. It manifes and waited.
Claire suddenly remembered the story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Can beauty and ugliness be only two sides of the same creation? In English literature, yes. But in life. Rather, in troubled visions.
Claire put into a pink cosmetic bag her brushes and pencils and suddenly noticed the sharp object that flashed among them. Blade! Where is it here? She did not remember that ever in life had something like that. This is a completely sharp knife. Thin sharpened stylet with carved handle. In life, Clare saw something similar for the first time, but in dreams…
She took out the object from the handbag carefully as if it was a living snake.
The thing was clearly old as an exhibit or relic, borrowed from a museum. Only it is surprisingly well preserved. Stiletto was even newer and cleaner than the goods just received from the store. Claire involuntarily was captivated by her reflection in the sparkling blade. How beautiful! And how easily the same blade can destroy all the beauty.
Her suddenly pierced a strange perverse desire. To cut down! Just take the blade on the skin so that blood performed. It was terribly unpleasant and at the same time incredibly seductive. Again feel the hipping burning in the skin. Again to see how the blood droplets perform that the dew on the flower. The desire was so passionate that Clair was barely kept.
It seems to be burned from the inside. The idea is to inflict some kind of wound or injury, has become almost marked.
Claire seemed to sleep. Can it be a reasonable person to come on such thoughts. We must think rationally. In the end, she is an adult with refined taste and pleasant manners. So where did this craving for blood come from in her, to death, to violence? And most importantly to self-dispersion. Why the thought that herself began to seem much more seductive than to draw something with a brush on canvas.
All this was so unusual. Claire felt like in a dream. So she brought the blade to her own skin slightly lowering the elbow and gently spent them a thin line across the hand. The pain immediately defended how the coals were smoldering on the hand, but the feeling still was somehow fascinating. The blade drained a thin neat drawing. This could not be repeated on paper or canvas. This art required an extremely live flesh as a canvas. Unique art. Claire could not tear the eye from a thin wound, immediately pouring scarlet color. This cut was like a line of perfection. Absolutely perfect feature on the perfect canvas of its lily skin.
This time the cut did not seem to her dropping like greedy lips. It was like a straight road, carrying her into the labyrinth of memories. Claire saw bleeding black candles, knives, dead female bodies on the table and someone standing on them, someone in a coat. She saw her own palms, pricked by spiked roses, and folds of her own wedding dress. She heard the question:
«Why
