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Brighton is not nearly as nice as Paris, but then again very few things are. What matters is that Eve likes this city, and Villanelle likes giving Eve the things she likes. If Eve likes the cold slap of the ocean against the shore, and if Eve likes the stinking buses and the bumpy cobbled hills and the neon sizzle of the lights, she’ll get it. Villanelle will buy it for her and wrap it up with a beautiful bow.
The cobblestones click under her heels.
Villanelle is walking through the streets to their (!) apartment, which is tucked away far from the center of town like a tooth in a gum. She is carrying a plastic bag; the bag is carrying a white box; the contents of the box are a surprise for Eve. The surprise is not for any of the men who look at Villanelle as she walks by – so she ignores them. She would do more, but she’s promised Eve she’ll be nice. And she likes giving Eve the things she likes.
The sky is muddy grey and the air smells like salt water. Villanelle lets herself into their (!) building, clatters up the stairs. Her heels click nicely on the staircase. They’re good heels. They’re Paul Andrew, black, and they match the dark blue lace overlay of her white Miu Miu dress. Also, they sound nice on the pavement. Good heels. The other night she was wearing them when Eve said “come here” and—
She lets herself into the apartment. It’s cozy in here – filled with blankets and rugs and pretty books and glass edges that catch the light. Also it is decorated with Eve’s enormous spiderweb, photographs and names all stitched together with pieces of string. It’s very boring so Villanelle doesn’t pay much attention to it. Instead she finds Eve: hunched over her laptop, hair up in a ponytail, eyes narrowed. She looks tired. Villanelle slams Eve’s laptop shut with one hand and drops the bag on top of it.
“I brought you breakfast,” she says.
Eve blinks at the laptop, hands spasming for a keyboard that’s disappeared, and then looks at Villanelle.
“What?” she says. She’s so cute. Like a little mole, or a baby bird that’s startled by the sun.
Villanelle points to the bag. “Breakfast!” she says. “From the French pastry shop.” She drags up a chair, straddles it backwards and rests her head on the back of it. “Eat it,” she says.
“I,” Eve says, still blinking. She sighs through her teeth; her hands flutter up to check her ponytail. “I don’t have time for this, Villanelle. We don’t have long before we’re going to have to go on the move again—”
“I know,” Villanelle says. “Eat anyways.”
Eve opens the bag with her beautiful hands. Villanelle lets her eyelids droop, enjoys the picture of it: Eve opening the box to reveal the fruit tarts in jewel-shades of red and yellow and green. They look like stained glass. Someday Villanelle is going to take Eve to Notre Dame, get down on her knees for Eve in front of the windows. That will be nice. For now she’s content with this – Eve opening the box slowly, picking up a tart, biting into it. Crumbs scatter around her. Villanelle holds her breath, listens for the tiny tiny mmn Eve makes when she’s tasting good food for the first time.
There it is. Mmn. Then Eve’s eyes snap open and she shifts the tart to one hand, reaches for her laptop with the other. She’s chewing like it’s nothing, leftovers maybe, food moving in her hamster-cheek as she flips the laptop open and starts typing away.
Villanelle slams the lid shut on Eve’s hand. Eve makes a loud squawk of pain that ripples all through Villanelle; she pulls her hand back. “Hey!” she yells. “Thank you for the food, okay? But seriously, Villanelle, our window is closing. There are only six of them left, don’t you want to—”
Agonizingly bored, Villanelle leans forward and kisses her. Eve’s mouth is full of crumbs, but it tastes like fruit and syrup and that’s good. Villanelle pecks at Eve’s lips a few times and then bites off one perfect strawberry from the tart before she leans back and licks her lips. “I want you to eat,” she says, widening her eyes and batting her eyelashes for effect. “You work too much. You have to take care of your body.”
Eve puts down the tart on the table, reaches forward and pets Villanelle’s upper arm – slowly, like she’s petting a wild cat. “I will,” she says. “Just give me a minute. Okay?”
“Okay,” Villanelle says. Eve sighs, opens up her laptop and starts typing away at security logs or travel dates or whatever she’s doing. Villanelle looks at Eve for a while – it never gets boring, especially when Eve is wearing clothes that Villanelle bought her. Today she’s wearing a soft grey sweater and tight black pants and Villanelle could eat her up like a tart. She’d be delicious. Eve bites her lip, gropes for the tart and eats more of it; crumbs go cascading down her chest. She pulls her hair out of its ponytail holder. She drives Villanelle insane.
Villanelle is very patient: she waits until the tart is half-gone before she pulls Eve’s chair back and straddles Eve’s lap.
“It’s been a minute,” she says. “Eat, Eve.”
“Villanelle,” Eve says. She sounds embarrassed and pained and annoyed and pleased. Villanelle shifts in Eve’s lap, so her skirt rides up just a little higher. Eve’s eyes dart down to Villanelle’s bare thigh and then back up and Villanelle lets her lower lip jut out and whispers: “Please.”
Eve shakes her head; it’s dazed. She reaches up and touches Villanelle’s hair, tucks strands of it behind Villanelle’s ear. Her other hand lands on Villanelle’s thigh and slides up her skirt, just a little. Villanelle makes a pleased sound to encourage good behavior.
“You don’t even care about any of this,” Eve whispers. “Bringing down the Twelve. Saving the world. You don’t care.”
Villanelle shakes her head. “No,” she whispers back. She smiles.
“What do you care about, Villanelle?” Eve sounds wrecked, which is good.
“You,” Villanelle says obediently. She leans forward and kisses Eve. With tongue, this time. She grabs Eve’s face in her hands and she kisses her.
Eve makes an anguished sound and kisses Villanelle back; her nails dig into Villanelle’s thighs, almost hard enough to make Villanelle bleed. She trills into Eve’s mouth. She’d lie, if Eve wanted her to, if it made Eve break Villanelle’s skin. Villanelle would say: yes, I care about the Twelve. Thankfully Eve isn’t boring – she doesn’t want Villanelle to lie to her.
Villanelle really doesn’t care. She’ll kill the Twelve because she likes killing, and she likes Eve, and she likes giving Eve the things she likes. Maybe she’s angry at them for what they did to her, but that’s not nearly as important as the way Eve kisses blood off of all of Villanelle’s fingers and looks horribly guilty every time. Villanelle would kill anyone and everyone to make Eve look at Villanelle like Villanelle is a bird Eve is smashing up against a window. She’d do anything.
For now she settles for kissing Eve’s throat. Eve has her hands all the way up Villanelle’s skirt and is petting her thighs in a sort of daze; Villanelle shifts her weight a little, trying to encourage Eve’s hands to move. Mostly they don’t. Villanelle kisses Eve’s neck and Eve’s collarbones and then lets her hands dance to the bottom of Eve’s sweater so she can tug at it.
Eve’s hand grab Villanelle’s hands: electric shock. Villanelle doesn’t move. There are nine – ten – eleven different ways she could kill Eve without moving from Eve’s lap and without using her hands. She wants Eve to touch her everywhere, she’s dying with it.
She lifts her head up from Eve’s chest and looks at her, slowly. Eve is looking back with wide eyes. She licks her lips, which is mean, because Villanelle wants to lick Eve’s lips for her. Eve says: “Don’t.” She says it like a question.
“Okay,” Villanelle says. “I’m sorry, Eve.”
“You’re sorry.”
“Yes,” Villanelle says. “Very sorry.” She fights to keep from smiling.
Eve lets Villanelle’s hands go and Villanelle leaves them where they are, unmoving, trembling with the urge to peel Eve’s sweater up and bare Eve’s skin for biting. Eve reaches around her – she’s so close – Villanelle can smell her own perfume – and then she leans back, holding the tart. “Open,” she says. Villanelle – delirious – does. She takes a bite: sugar, juice. The crust is perfectly cooked. She wants to tie Eve to a bed and feed her sashimi and escargot and flowers by individual petal. She wants to lock Eve in this room and do nothing but feed her beautiful food for the rest of their lives. She wants Eve to let Villanelle touch her.
Eve takes a bite of tart. She punctures a berry with her teeth and fruit juice soaks into her lip. She holds the tart up and Villanelle takes a bite and then – bad – sucks at Eve’s finger.
Eve startles, and drops the tart. It hits the floor – Villanelle kisses her. Both of their mouths taste like dizzying ripeness, the sort of sweet that leaves bees honey-drunk. When Villanelle bites Eve’s lip, the blood tastes sugary. Like eating candy while it’s still in the wrapper: perfect.
Villanelle kisses the soft skin behind Eve’s ear, leaving a small bloom of Eve’s blood. She kisses Eve’s earlobe, pulls it into her mouth, sucks it. She lets her hands tiptoe back to Eve’s sweater. “Please,” she whispers to Eve’s perfect and breakable ear.
“God,” Eve sighs out, like the word is choking her. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
Villanelle hums and pulls Eve’s sweater up, runs her hot hands along the skin of Eve’s stomach. Below them, on the ground, the smashed fruit of the tart is already beginning to rot.