So when a few days later, as Juliette was mixing ingredients in a bowl, preparing her cakes for that night’s delivery to the twenty-first floor, she felt the sudden sensation of a body pressed up against her back, she was taken completely by surprise. She then felt the pressure of hands sliding down her arms, and joining her own hands in the bowl. Instead of being frightened, she felt instant relief. Her first thought was, It is real. It’s not my imagination. He really is here with me. Thank God. And then she closed her eyes and relaxed into the sensation, because it was so familiar and comforting.
Danny had always loved the way Juliette liked to mix with her bare hands. Back then, she hadn’t baked nearly as much as she did now. It was more of a hobby that she partook in every now and then – certainly not the obsession it had become for her now. He liked to appear behind her while she mixed. First his arms would circle her waist, then his body would press up against hers and his hands would plunge into the mixture, as he pushed his fingers between hers, his lips on the back of her neck. The tart or pie she was preparing would be quickly abandoned, as he pulled her away from the bench top and led her to the bedroom, or maybe even just the rug on the living-room floor. He wouldn’t let her clean her hands, preferring to lick the mixture from her fingers as they made love.
Now, as Juliette stood in the kitchen, wishing that she could turn around in his arms and kiss his warm lips, she opened her mouth and spoke in whisper. ‘Danny?’ She asked, ‘Where have you been baby?’
But there was no response and gradually, the sensation faded away to nothing. Juliette slowly sank down onto the kitchen floor and began to cry.
‘Come back, Danny, come back,’ she said in a small, sad voice through her tears.
For the rest of the day, Juliette wandered slowly from room to room in her apartment. Each time she entered a new room, she would stand still, close her eyes and focus in on her other senses. She was trying to find him. She wanted to prove to herself that she wasn’t going crazy, that this truly was happening. She wanted to find a way to pin him down. To hold him tight so he couldn’t escape again. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make him manifest once more. On the odd occasion, she thought she smelt his aftershave, or heard the rustle of movement, but each time it vanished when she tried to pinpoint its location. There was even one instance when she was passing the hall mirror, and as she caught a glimpse of her reflection– her long, dark hair gathered in a loose pony tail – she thought she saw the edge of something behind her, something that shouldn’t have been there. But when she spun around there was nothing, and when she looked back at the mirror again, her eyes straining as she searched the glass, whatever it was, it was gone.
Eventually, she gave up and completed her baking. Then she waited impatiently for darkness to come. When the day turned to dusk and the sun began to set, Juliette wandered out onto her balcony to watch the ocean. She kept her gaze on the water as the dying rays of the sun behind her turned the water from deep blue to glossy orange, and then eventually, black.
Then she turned back inside to wait for midnight to pass, so that she could creep out into the hall and drop off the delivery to the floor above hers. It didn’t feel as thrilling as normal though, and she realised why as she made her way along the halls. It was because she was grieving again. It felt as though she was constantly having to start her grieving process, over and over. Every time she felt Danny’s presence, her heart jumped with excitement – but each time he vanished again, she was left devastated, desperate for just one more touch. She needed to figure out how she could get him to come back again, how she could make him stay.
As she headed back to her apartment, having distributed her baked offerings, she tried to think her problem through logically. What had she been doing on each previous occasion when he had appeared? As she listed off each incident in her mind, she eventually came to a conclusion. Each time she had been distracted by something else. The first time she had been in the shower, and although, admittedly, she had been thinking of Danny, she had been busy pleasuring herself. And then she had been speaking with Chris, when the book delivery arrived. After that, there were all of those weird things that had happened while she been sick. And then, most recently, she had been baking. So, she concluded, she’d been going about solving this puzzle the wrong way. She shouldn’t have been seeking Danny out – she needed to do the opposite, to occupy her mind. She needed to take her focus elsewhere, and allow him to come to her.
Juliette let herself in through her front door and hurried down the hall and into the kitchen, dropping her empty basket on the island bench on her way past. In the living room, she snatched up the novel she had started to read the other week, when Chris had brought back the correct delivery with her, and then she carried it with her to the bedroom, where she changed quickly and then climbed into bed, sitting up against the headboard, with the pillows piled up behind her. Okay, Juliette, focus, she told herself, then she breathed in and out slowly to calm herself before she opened the book and began to read.
At first her eyes were simply roving back and forth across the page, her brain barely taking in the words, her hands turning the pages mechanically, fraudulently – but after a little while, she sank into the story and forgot about her hopeful expectations. Which is why she didn’t react when it first happened. She had become so engrossed in her story that the sense that a hand was gently massaging her neck and shoulders as she read just enhanced her relaxed state. In fact, the sensation was so real that Juliette almost forgot that Danny wasn’t actually there – in the normal sense – and she absent-mindedly turned to thank him for the massage. That’s when it all clicked into place and she remembered: No, Danny is not really here. Danny died six months ago. And maybe it is a part of him that’s here rubbing your neck – but even if it is, you can’t have a conversation with him and you can’t grab him and you can’t pull him to you.
Once again, Juliette wanted to burst into tears as the devastation of the truth hit her. But as she closed the book and turned out her bedside lamp, ready to curl up on her side and sob herself to sleep – she realised something. He hadn’t vanished this time. Instead, the sense that his hands were still on her skin felt more real than ever. Carefully, she lay down on her back and closed her eyes, offering him the opportunity to continue caressing her skin. Slowly, gently, his touch became more sensual, his hands sliding down her arms, over her hips, gliding up her stomach, circling her breasts. In the darkness, her heart thumped in her chest and her breath quickened.
‘I love you Danny,’ she whispered into the dark, empty room, and in response she felt his touch on her face, as though his thumb was gently stroking her cheek, wiping away the tears that had begun to fall again without her even realising it.
Chapter Seven
Juliette was on her knees in front of the liquor cabinet. It was dusk and a pink-orange glow had settled on the apartment. Today had been long, hot and confusing. When she had woken that morning the heat was the first thing that had struck her. When she looked across at her bedside clock and saw that it was only 9 am, she realised that today was going to be sweltering. At least forty degrees, she suspected. Then she sat up and begun to wonder about her air con – hadn’t she left it on before going to bed last night? Why wasn’t her bedroom cool?
It turned out the air conditioner wasn’t working. All day, she put off phoning the building’s maintenance guy to see about having it fixed. First it was going to be after her shower. Then after she had made herself a small breakfast –for some reason she couldn’t stomach anything more than few pieces of chopped fruit, a slightly sick feeling had gathered in her stomach today. Then, as the day continued on, she continued to avoid making the phone call.
Why? she wondered now, as she searched through the liquor cabinet for something appealing. Something to take the edge off her mood. Why hadn’t she made the call? What was it that she was afraid of? The more she thought about it though, the more it made sense. The last time she had
spoken with someone, it had been when Chris had brought the correct book order back to her apartment, about a week ago. When she had finally left her sanctuary and found out the world was still wrong. To her memory it was almost hostile out there, a place that she was no longer supposed to be a part of. Since then, she had been avoiding contact with the outside world more and more. Her last few grocery orders had been left at her front door. When the phone rang she purposefully meandered her way towards it, stopping to open the oven and check on a cake that was baking inside or glancing needlessly in the mirror. Anything to ensure the phone would ring out before she could answer the call. And each time she heard the musical tones cut out, she would notice that a breath would be expelled from her lungs, a breath that she hadn’t even been aware that she had been holding onto.
What has changed? she wondered. Spending more and more time indoors since Danny’s death had been one thing, but what had happened to make her become so reclusive that she didn’t even want to speak to anyone? So introverted that she was afraid to make a simple phone call. As she finally placed her hand on the perfect bottle and pulled it out, she sat back to lean against the kitchen cupboards and thought about it. She supposed that if she was honest, she knew the answer. She was avoiding contact with the outside world because she was afraid of its influence on Danny’s existence. Each time that Danny had appeared to her, it had felt as though she was being transported to another world. As though it was just the two of them again, drawn together out of space and time. And when she felt him with her, everything suddenly seemed so much sharper, so much clearer. And more and more it was the outside world that felt strange – unreal.
Right now, though, more than anything, she just wanted to get drunk. There had been no more visits from Danny today – not since she had fallen asleep with his touch on her skin the previous night. And the agony of waiting for him all day was tearing at her insides. She needed something to numb the pain. Something to dull her senses. And she had the perfect solution in her hands. A bottle of absinthe, imported directly from the Czech Republic. The last time she had drunk this alcohol had been with Danny, in the small European town of Ceský Krumlov. It had been snowing outside, so they were huddled together in a cosy underground bar. The two of them shared shots of absinthe followed by spoonfuls of sugar set alight with a pack of matches borrowed from the bartender. By the end of that night, Juliette was the drunkest she had ever been. Together, they had stumbled through the snow back to their hotel, and then had the most intense sex she had ever experienced. It had lasted for hours – hours of slow, sensual, rhythmic rocking as they lost themselves in one another’s eyes; as they succumbed to pleasures she hadn’t known were possible.
Back in the present, she unscrewed the bottle and paused to consider what she was doing – she’d barely eaten today, she was hot, she was tired and she was about to drink alone – but then she shrugged and lifted the bottle to her lips.
It didn’t take long for the effect of the alcohol to hit. She stayed on the kitchen floor for the first few swigs, enjoying the burning sensation in her throat as she swallowed. Eventually, as her head began to spin, she reached one arm up to grasp the kitchen bench, pulled herself onto her knees and then stood, legs shaky. The instant buzz felt good. The slowly darkening room and the stifling heat felt right. The trickle of sweat down her back and the blurring at the edges of her senses. It was all as she wanted it to be.
Carefully, she felt her way around her apartment, still taking great gulps from the bottle, and collected all the candles she could find – the vanilla-scented ones she kept by her bed, the lavender ones from the bathroom and a handful of tea-light candles from a drawer in the study. She found incense too, musk and honey.
Out in the lounge room, she closed all the windows and doors and drew the curtains, increasing the heat and humidity. She lit the candles and placed them around the room, then the incense. The room was becoming more and more unbearable, dense with the combination of heavy, sweet scents and the weight of the heat on her body. She turned on the stereo – flicked through the attached iPod to her favourite Portishead album and then spun the volume dial until it was so loud that she could feel the music rumbling in the floor beneath her. It was hard to tell at this point whether it was the bass or the effects of the alcohol that made it feel as though the room was moving.
Finally, she began to dance. She moved around in the stifling room, swaying her body, still lifting the bottle to her lips, breathing in the hot air and the sickening combination of flavours that wound their way through the space. It was when she lifted the bottle to her mouth one more time and discovered that it was empty that the full extent of just how intoxicated she was hit her. She held it up to the flickering light, peered through the empty glass and thought, Fuck.
Then she collapsed onto the floor. ‘Danny,’ she cried out as she rolled onto her back and dug her fingers into the deep-red rug beneath her, holding on tight as the room continued to spin and twist around her – afraid that she might go flying from the floor, become caught up in the strange whirling world that her apartment had become.
‘Danny, where are you? I need you. Please Danny, please.’
An increase in the light to her left made her turn her head and she frowned as she tried to understand why one of the flickering candle flames had suddenly become so much brighter – and then she understood. In her drunken state she had placed one of the candles on the floor by the curtains, and the bottom corner had caught alight. She watched the flames with indifference for a moment. Would it be so bad, she wondered, if my apartment was engulfed in flames, if my lungs were filled with smoke, if my body was caressed by tongues of fire?
But here another voice entered her consciousness. It was sharp, clear and angry.
Juliette, you need to get water. Juliette! Get up. Get up now!
She tried to turn away from the voice, tried to block it out. She found its commanding tone too aggressive, its intrusion too much to handle. Her body was too heavy, anyway. She couldn’t do what it asked.
Juliette, GET UP NOW.
‘No,’ she mumbled to the room. ‘I don’t want to.’ Her voice was small, petulant.
Yes, you do. If you want to be with me, Juliette, this is what you have to do.
Juliette hesitated, fighting through the confusion and fog. ‘Danny?’ she asked.
Yes.
Juliette nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said, because fighting this voice was too hard, anyway. Because following instructions felt right, now that she knew it was him. She gathered all of her strength and lifted her head up off the rug, then rolled over and pushed herself onto her hands and knees. As she stood, a strange sensation washed over her. A new resolve, despite her state of extreme intoxication. She tried to keep her composure, concentrating hard on not falling forwards as the world tumbled around her and her vision continued to swim. She started for the kitchen but Danny’s voice spoke again.
The flames are getting bigger, it’s too late to use water. Go out into the corridor. Get the fire extinguisher.
She made her way down the hall, her hands pressing against the wall for support along the way. She reached out a hand to the door knob, and the door swung open on its own before she’d barely even grasped the cool metal of the handle. She stumbled forward, out of her apartment and Danny’s voice spoke again, guiding her. She swung her body to the left and lurched towards the place where the fire extinguisher was attached to the slowly tilting wall, her whole body feeling sluggish and heavy as she did so.
It took all of her strength to take hold of the extinguisher and pull it from the wall. She turned and stumbled back into her apartment, gripping the doorframe on the way back in. Down the hall, entering the lounge room, she paused when she saw the flames again. They had grown, and a spike of adrenalin gave her fuel, switched her body into instinct mode. She moved in closer, her head temporarily clear as she held the extinguisher out in front and pressed down on the lever. The foamy liquid shot forwards, and she syste
matically moved it back and forth, dowsing the flames, covering the entire curtain in seconds.
It was over, the fire was out. But now the gravity of what had just passed, of what she had almost allowed to happen, started to bubble up inside of Juliette.
‘What did I do?’ she whispered. She dropped the red, metal can to the floor and then stumbled around the room, blowing out each and every candle that was still flickering. The music had been pounding throughout the entire ordeal, and now she jabbed at the stereo to turn it off. She snatched up the still smoking sticks of incense and tossed them all into the kitchen sink and turned on the tap, ensuring everything was sodden before she moved away. She stopped at the doorway to the lounge room, and looked in at the ragged curtain and the blackened patch of carpet beneath it. She ran from the room and just barely made it to the toilet before she started to throw up. Before she began to purge her body of its severe alcohol poisoning.
Afterwards, when the fire extinguisher had been returned to the hallway, her apartment door was closed and her windows were all open, allowing a southerly breeze to come through and cleanse the room of its heady, musky scents, she flung her exhausted body onto herbed.
‘Danny,’ she said, her voice hoarse with nerves, her body shaking. ‘Danny, are you still there? Please, come to me.’
Lights were beginning to dance across her vision and the world was starting to fade around her; she realised that she was going to pass out. But just before she did, the following words came to her, as though they were being whispered in her ear. Or perhaps as though they were simply thoughts of her own. I’m here Juliette, it’s okay, baby, I’m here … and then the world blacked out. And Juliette slept.
Captivation Page 4
