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Hannibal knows that the secret nature of life is that it is a performance. It is a dance, from the electrons up to the lumbering elephant every rhythm and a-rhythm is part of the choreography between infernal and divine. The more levels of life we uncover, the scientific discoveries that unlock the universe, the secret histories published and peer reviewed, the closer humanity gets to anticipating the places our feet will ultimately lead us.
For this specific evening, the food is exquisite, naturally. Florence is the perfect city for the gourmand. The dynamic between Dr and Mrs Jakov is perfectly predictable. Academic husbands who love the classics and cheat on their wives through lofty and misguided beliefs about what a classical education entails are one of the easiest dances to learn. Hannibal only wishes he had the time to grow the beard the role deserves. There is more grey in his hair these last few months, and the beard might grow out to be quite distinguished.
Bedelia is beautiful and terrified. She is a passable actress, but especially bad at improvisation. Their guest is disgustingly pleased with himself and watches her choke down oysters like a hawk, and makes a comment about the farming practices of Ancient Romans.
Since they started this journey together, Hannibal has not been surprised by Bedelia. She does surprise him then, when she makes a lewd reply that, by her face, even she wasn’t expecting to make.
He smiles at her when their guest asks if it is that kind of party.
“What if it was?” Hannibal says, more to Bedelia than their guest. She nods, very slightly.
“If so, I’d like an oyster” their guest replies silkily, “I wouldn’t want to let the side down on the taste front.”
As they walk to the bedroom (the master bedroom is Bedelia’s, out of Hannibal’s sense of chivalry. He has the slightly less opulent one, needing less sleep these days. He doesn’t like to disturb her escape), he leans close to her and whispers “Will you participate or observe, my dear?”. It has become what he feels is a private joke between them now. He kills far fewer times in Europe than in the States, but it still is something he asks her before every act. He wants her to consent.
“Participate”, Bedelia murmurs, and squeezes his hand.
Dimmond does not like to be called by his last name in bed, insisting on Anthony. He looks calm and cool, but smells like excitement. Hannibal suspects this is the first time he has shared a bed with a married couple, and also that he is primarily homosexual, and attracted to Hannibal. From the first time Dimmond spoke to him there was the palpable sense that he was being cruised. It was likely his fault, he reflects. One does not wear leathers to a cocktail party without attracting some kind of attention.
Dimmond rolls his eyes at what he perceives as their reluctance, and kisses Hannibal. He is a fine kisser, confident in his attractiveness and also understanding of how sex, like everything, is better with an audience.
“What do you want” Hannibal says into Dimmond’s pouting, luscious mouth, loud enough to let Bedelia hear them. She has removed her jewelry and let down her hair, but her dress and heels are still in place.
“I want to taste your wife, Doctor Jakov. I want to try the results of your culinary methodology.”
Bedelia shivers.
“Let me show you” Hannibal says. “She has come to expect something of a high standard of gastronomy.”
It has been months since they fled the United States, but although they have lived the fiction of man and wife for that time, it was an unconsummated fiction. She is beautiful, and dances with him in all dances but in this one. In fact, the first time she had made any reference to carnality was during that night’s dinner.
Her bed is enormous and heavily gilded. There is a tale wrought into the wood, one of magic and sweet dreams, carved many hundreds of years ago as the marriage bed of an unremarkable Duke and his lady wife.
He has always loved this, even before he started to actually eat people having a woman’s pleasure lie heavy on your tongue is intoxicating. It is something to savour, to really enjoy. Killing will always be his prime source of pleasure, but there is something to pleasure without adrenaline, a sleepy kind, something to really take your time with.
Bedelia has loosened the discreet side zip of her dress, and the straps are beginning to slide off her shoulders. Hannibal cannot be sure what she is thinking, but he goes to kiss the path of the straps down her shoulder. The dress slides off with barely a suggestion (she has grown thin of late), and he presses her back, carefully, keeping his touches light and letting her take him down into the deep plush of the down filled bed.
She is wet at least, but he doesn’t want to test the extent of it just yet. He looks first, then kisses her thighs, testing the various textures available to him without using his hands to determine his approach, the scrape of his stubble, the hot and cool exhalations of breath, the vaguely psuedophallic push of the cartilage of his nose.
A hand touches his shoulder, and then the light to his right is blocked out as Dimmond knees next to him to observe his work. Dimmond is obviously a tactile man, and strokes Hannibal’s sides, cups his buttocks, but stays away from the rest of Hannibal’s anatomy. He obviously understands that Hannibal needs his full concentration.
The first touch of his tongue to the smooth, sensitive area beneath her clitoris brings a high, reedy touch to her voice. She is very wet now, and there is a primitive part of him that wants to reach inside her and feel the way her pleasure opens her up, but he refrains. He clasps his hands behind his back and leans into her. His mouth is watering at her taste. For all she was speaking flippantly to protect him, she was right. She is delicious on this diet.
He gently, wetly cups his lips delicately around the whole of her clit and sucks. Bedelia pants, and clutches at her breasts as she writhes on his tongue. His right side brightens and there is a creak as Dimmond climbs onto the bed and, from the sounds of it, applies himself to Bedelia’s breasts with enthusiasm.
She is close, he can feel it in the fluttering of her thighs. She isn’t holding back, instead relaxing into her orgasm, letting Hannibal eat her. When she comes, her thighs come up around his head and press him into her cunt with a strength he didn’t realise she had.
She relaxes bit by bit, and when he raises his head Dimmond and Bedelia are kissing, him ravenous, trousers distorted by the impressive swelling of his erection, her lazy and sated, looking Happy, the way she does when she is drugged.
Climbing onto the bed himself, Hannibal positions himself behind Dimmond to speak directly in his ear.
“Would you like to fuck my wife, Doctor Dimmond, or would you like me to fuck you?”
Dimmond groans like he is on the edge and squeezes his cock once, sharp. Hannibal chuckles. “Such a lack of self control. Make your mind up or I will make it up for you.”
“Can I have both?” Dimmond asks, still oozing sardonic charm despite his near orgasm.
“Of course” Hannibal replies. “You are our guest. You only needed to ask. As with dinner parties, guests may have both desserts.”
Dimmond clambers up and over Bedelia and kisses her hard, grabbing her breasts hard in both hands. He stands and disrobes, and his prick is as impressive as Hannibal had thought. He looks beautiful, dark curls and a fine figure, and he wastes no time sliding into Bedelia raw, just once, one single thrust, before dropping to his knees and applying himself to her cunt with face and hands.
“Careful” Hannibal warns. “She isn’t partial to beard burn.”
Bedelia tangles her fingers in his, and turns her head to look at him, smiling. Hannibal is still fully dressed. Her eyes flicker closed for a second, obviously Dimmond is a fast learner. Hannibal nudges him with one toe, still in its leather shoe, and hands him a condom he found in the nightstand. Dimmond grins, and surprises Hannibal by licking a broad stripe on his shoe before beginning the unerotic task of putting on a condom.
He thrusts back into Bedelia, and Hannibal is momentarily taken with the motion of her breasts as she is fucked. It is a unique angle. She has stopped looking at him, and so Hannibal allows him to watch Dimmond. His back is half curved over, hips pistoning and he looks so much like Hannibal’s most forbidden fantasies that he wants to go and snap Dimmond’s neck right then and there.
Dimmond barely lasts, but that is fine. He makes the most ugly noises when he ejaculates, his face a half-hidden rictus, but is at least polite and finishes in the condom rather than making some kind of pornographic display with his semen. He collapses next to them, on Hannibal’s side, and snuggles in.
Bedelia stretches and smiles widely at Hannibal. She kisses his cheek, murmurs “enjoy”, and then gets up and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. A moment later the shower starts up, and Hannibal turns over to look at his prize.
His prize is napping, looking blissfully like he has no care in the world. Hannibal wishes for the first time in his life that he had less than perfect vision, so that he could remove his glasses and let the world blur into a fantasy for just a moment. He shakes Dimmond by the shoulder. Dimmond opens his eyes sleepily, and smiles. “Is it time for second dessert?”
Hannibal kisses him, and instructs him to get on his hands and knees. There are a plethora of pillows on Bedelia’s bed, and Dimmond organises them for his comfort as Hannibal disrobes. When he is finished, Dimmond is propped and presented, ass high up in the air and face buried in his folded arms, dark curls the only thing Hannibal can see down the strong line of his back. Dimmond has obviously done this before, and his cock is even starting to thicken again, which is pleasing.
There is another condom and some lubricant in the same place he had found the first condom. Hannibal wants desperately not to have to use them, but does so for the appearances of things. Dimmond smells strongly of sweet musk, nauseatingly so, but not of disease, but that is no reason not to be as safe as politeness dictates.
Hannibal can’t help himself, and really, he deserves a treat, and so he begins not with the lubricant, but with his tongue. Dimmond is tight, and his taste is unremarkable, but Hannibal still enjoys it, though not as much as Dimmond, who responds to being eaten with near howls of pleasure and a full erection that drips pre-ejaculate onto the pillows. He loosens up quickly, and it takes little time for him to be ready, and before he even realises it, Hannibal is sinking down into Dimmond’s ass like he was made to be there. It is impressive how this man is made for fucking, and so Hannibal waits no time in doing so.
There is something in this position, and at this perspective, and feels dangerous. Dimmond does look so much like Will, the obvious difference in their heights and builds erased at this extreme angle. Hannibal braces a hand on Dimmond’s shoulder for leverege, and gives in to the niggling fantasies in the depths of his brain. There were so many, so many times he could have pushed Will Graham’s damaged psyche to accept this, how under other circumstances it would be Doctor and Mr Jakov entertaining Doctor Dimmond in their bed tonight in Florence. How Will would be delicious, be the taste that Hannibal had always yearned for, his holy grail. How it would be Will’s hand stroking himself to a second orgasm as Hannibal screwed right into his prostate and made him scream.
Hannibal bent down and came with Will’s name on his lips, thankfully muffled by Dimmond’s own climax and the meat of his back.
Dimmond looked like he wanted an invitation to stay, but Hannibal firmly insisted on him leaving them. When he closed the door Bedelia was waiting for him. She looked soft, face scrubbed clean of makeup and with a silk robe tied loosely round his shoulders.
“I’m surprised you let him live” she says.
“It wouldn’t do be rude”, he replies. “He was a very accommodating guest.”
Bedelia smiles her first sincere smile in a long time.
“Goodnight, Hannibal.”
“Goodnight, Bedelia.”