Chapter 11: Morning Rites
Jess sat up in bed, her back against the cool plaster wall, and tried to steady her breathing. The echo of the slammed door still vibrated in the silence.Five minutes. The threat hung in the air, a tangible thing. She should get up. Lock the door.Call someone. But who? And say what? My fascinating, terrifying neighbor borrowed my underwear and knows I dreamt about her?
A hysterical laugh caught in her throat. She ran both hands through her hair, tugging at the roots, the sharp pain a grounding counterpoint to the spiralling panic. The honey-toned waves were tangled from fitful sleep. She blinked, trying to clear the residue of the clay-dream and the surreal violation of waking. Sunlight had moved across the floor, the golden fingers now stroking the dust-covered toes of her unfinished cityscape. The normalcy of the light felt like a mockery.
She heard the handle turn.
The door swung open silently. No knock. Elise stood framed in the doorway, holding two mugs. Steam curled from them in the slanting light. She’d changed into a clean, gray linen shirt, the sleeves rolled to her elbows, revealing forearms corded with lean muscle and dotted with pale, healed burns and nicks.
“You haven’t gotten up,” Elise observed, stepping inside and pushing the door shut with her hip. Her tone was almost conversational, as if commenting on a minor forgetfulness.
Jess said nothing. She just watched, her body tensing under the thin sheet.
Elise crossed the room and sat on the edge of the mattress, the springs complaining softly under her weight. She held out one of the mugs. It was a plain, chipped white ceramic thing. “I made tea. You look like you need it.”
Jess stared at the offering. The steam carried a scent that was herbal, but underneath it was something else. Earthy. Sharp, like turned soil after rain, or the inside of a copper pipe.
“Ready to tell me that dream?” Elise asked.She wasn’t smiling. Her gray eyes were fixed on Jess’s face, watching, cataloging every micro-expression with the intensity of a sculptor eyeing a fresh block of marble.
“No,” Jess whispered. Her voice was rust.
“Drink first,” Elise said, nudging the mug closer. “It’ll help with the shock.”
Hesitantly, Jess took the mug. Her fingers brushed Elise’s. The skin was warm, dry. She brought the cup to her face, inhaling. The strange, metallic undertone was stronger now, mixed with a faint floral note that didn’t quite disguise it. She glanced at Elise over the rim.
Elise simply raised her own mug and took a slow sip, her eyes never leaving Jess’s. A challenge. A dare.
It’s just tea, Jess told herself. What’s she going to do, poison you in broad daylight? The logic was thin, but it was all she had. She took a small, hesitant sip.
The taste was not unpleasant, but deeply foreign. The initial hit was of mint and chamomile, but it quickly gave way to that distinct, minerally tang, like licking a wet stone. It coated her tongue, the back of her throat.
“It’s… different,” Jess managed, trying to hide her distaste.
“It’s an old blend,” Elise said, watching her intently. “Local herbs. Good for clarity. For perception.” She took another sip of her own.“Drink. It’s better warm.”
Under that unwavering gaze, Jess drank again. A larger swallow this time. The warmth spread through her chest, but a peculiar warmth. It felt focused, a slow diffusion that seemed to circle her heart before spreading outwards along her veins. She drank slowly, the silence stretching between them, punctuated only by the distant hum of the city.
“The dream,” Elise prompted, her voice soft. “It started in the gallery, didn’t it? With the new piece. The one you touched.”
Jess felt a jolt. She hadn’t mentioned touching it. She’d only looked. But in the dream… in the dream, she had pressed her whole body against the cold marble. She took another sip, the tea’s strange taste now a familiar discomfort. Her thoughts began to feel soft at the edges. The fear was still there, but it was banked, observed from a slight distance. “How do you know what I dream?”
“I told you. I tasted it.” Elise set her own mug on the floor. She shifted on the bed, turning to face Jess more fully. “Dreams are just unprocessed truth. They’re more honest than anything you’ll ever say to me awake. Now.The gallery. My hands were on you. And then?”
The tea was half gone. Jess’s head felt light, but her body felt heavy, rooted to the bed. The memory of the dream, vivid and cloaked in a sensual terror, surged forward, made bold by the warmth in her blood and the laser focus of Elise’s attention. “It wasn’t the gallery anymore,” she heard herself say, her voice detached, as if listening to someone else. “It was here. The floorboards were open.Like earth. And you were… shaping something. From the clay. You used my hands. You said they were the right tools.”
Elise’s eyes darkened, a storm moving in. “And?”
“And it was me.” The admission slipped out, lubricated by the tea and an exhaustion so deep it felt like truth.“The clay. You were shaping it into me. Or… shaping me out of it. I couldn’t tell.”
A slow, genuine smile touched Elise’s lips. It wasn’t kind. It was a smile of profound recognition. “Yes.” The word was a sigh of satisfaction. She reached out and took the now-empty mug from Jess’s limp hands, setting it aside.
Then she moved.
In one fluid motion, she swung a leg over Jess’s thighs, straddling her, pinning her lower body beneath the sheet. The weight of her was immediate, anchoring. Jess gasped, the fuzzy warmth in her head sharpening into a spike of adrenaline. She tried to shift, but Elise settled her weight, trapping her.
“Elise—”
“Every sip,” Elise murmured, leaning forward. She brought her hands up, not to hurt, but to frame Jess’s face. Her thumbs stroked the high bones of her cheeks. Her gray eyes were fathomless, absorbing. “Is another hour you’ll spend trembling beneath my hands today.”
The words weren’t a threat. They were a prophecy.A promise. Jess could feel the truth of them in the lingering, metallic taste on her tongue, in the heavy warmth now pooling in her limbs, making resistance seem like a distant, theoretical concept. The tremble began deep in her core, a vibration of pure, undiluted fear and a terrifying, exhilarating surrender.
Elise felt it. She smiled again, a hunter’s smile. “There it is,” she whispered.
Elise’s hands left her face, the absence of touch feeling colder than the grip. She slid off Jess’s thighs, her movements fluid and purposeful.
Jess watched her, the world softening at its edges like wet paper. A deep, languid warmth was seeping into her bones, quieting the tremor, making even her fear feel like a distant radio broadcast. She looked at the empty white mug on her nightstand.
Her eyelids were slabs of concrete. She blinked slowly, each movement requiring monumental effort. The pattern of cracks in the plaster ceiling above her seemed to breathe.
“Don’t worry,” Elise whispered. The sound came from near her easel. “I’ll be gentle.”
Jess turned her head, a slow, heavy pivot on the pillow. Elise was standing by the window, the morning light carving her sharp profile. She pulled a large, leather-bound sketchbook from a battered portfolio case Jess hadn’t noticed before.
She also retrieved a single charcoal pencil, black and severe.
The scrape of the wooden chair leg on the floorboards was a shockwave in the thick silence. Elise placed it a few feet from the bed and sat, crossing her legs. She opened the book, its spine cracking like a small gunshot.
She began to draw without looking at the page.
Her eyes were fixed on Jess, scanning, measuring, consuming. The pencil moved in swift, sure strokes. The only sounds were the whisper of graphite on paper and Jess’s own slowing breath.
A strange calm settled over Jess, a fish-eye lens distortion of the situation. The violation was still present, a fact solid as stone in the room. Yet her body, softened by the tea, refused to muster the panic. A disconnected thought floated to the surface, voiced in a slur she barely recognized as her own.
“You don’t have to drug me to draw me,” Jess managed. The words felt thick. “I’ll sit still for you if you ask.”
The pencil stopped mid-stroke.
Elise looked down at her drawing, then back at Jess. A faint, almost imperceptible line appeared between her brows. She placed the pencil carefully on the open book.
“It’s not about the drug,” she said, her voice low and even. “It’s about comfort. Your comfort.” She leaned forward slightly, elbows on her knees. “Your guard is made of wire and scrap. It’s fascinating, but it’s in the way.”
She gestured loosely at Jess’s form under the sheet. “Tired isn’t sedated. Tired is relaxed. It’s raw. The truth doesn’t have to fight its way out. It just… seeps.”
Jess wanted to argue, to point out the fundamental wrongness. But the warmth in her veins was a compelling counter-argument. It felt easier to let her eyes drift closed for a moment.
She heard the chair creak, then felt the weight settle on the edge of the mattress again. Elise’s fingers brushed her forehead, pushing the tousled hair back. The touch was feather-light, almost clinical.
The fingers trailed down, tracing the shell of her ear, then the line of her jaw, coming to rest on the pulse point at the base of her throat. Jess’s heartbeat thudded against the cool touch.
“There’s no fear here now,” Elise murmured, her voice a soft hum. “Just a beautiful, surrendering shape. The line of this shoulder is a perfect curve. The dip of your collarbone could hold moonlight.”
Her praises were specific, technical, yet uttered with a reverent softness that poured over Jess like warm syrup. Each word seemed to pull her deeper into a warm, dark well. The metallic taste was gone, replaced by a velvety nothingness.
“Such softness,” Elise whispered, her hand now resting on Jess’s shoulder, a steady, warm weight. “Such pliant, honest material.”
The room dissolved into a blur of gold and gray. Jess felt herself sinking, not into sleep, but into a profound and passive waking stillness. Her last conscious thought was a vague awareness of being rearranged.
The sheet was adjusted. A pillow was gently shifted.
Then strong arms slid under her, lifting her just enough to reposition her weight. Jess’s head lolled against a solid shoulder that smelled of clay and clean linen. A soft sound escaped her, a sigh of pure, helpless exhaustion.
Elise settled back against the headboard, pulling Jess’s limp body snug against her own. One arm encircled her shoulders, holding her in place. The other hand came up, fingers carding slowly through her honey-toned waves.
Jess was gone, lost in a chemical tide.
In the quiet loft, Elise simply held her muse, listening to the deep, even breaths. She stared at the far wall, at the shadow of the easel, her gray eyes wide, alert, and utterly victorious.