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It’s their first sit-down dinner in their new abode.
All the move-in workers have left and Bedelia finished unpacking her little slice of personal belongings. She set up the bathroom to her liking, at least on her side of the sink. There were two sinks, one for Hannibal and one for… her. The bathroom was definitely bigger, definitely the master bedroom’s bathroom and definitely suited for someone with Hannibal’s aesthetics. She grounded herself in realty with the small task of setting up her make-up and skin care products on the sink and in the cabinets underneath. She also organized her clothes, trying to avoid interacting with any of the workers. Her Italian wasn’t the best to say the least. Hannibal only trained her to say what she needed to say to get him groceries at the local market.
She didn’t want to speak to them anyway. Bedelia felt their eyes on her the entire time they went in and out of the rooms. The men were seemingly always sweaty and continuously had the energy to lift things that weighed twice as much as herself. She didn’t know how they managed and wasn’t curious to find out. There were much more pressing things to think and wonder, specifically things surrounding their first meal. Hannibal only made hints, but now she understands what he meant.
He gives her no explanation, just drops her down a plate.
“Get used to this. Soon it will take over your being, but for now it’s only dinners. The kitchen door will be locked at all times, from now on you eat when I tell you to,” he tells her, preparing his own meal. A much more different and varied main course than hers.
“Why?” she asks calmly. If she could get anything from him she would try, even if it’s just an insight into his mind. Bedelia knows she’s in danger constantly, yet it hasn’t affected her being. Hannibal is always up for a kill, yet she is calm.
Bedelia looks up at him with puppy dog eyes and eyebrows creased upwards to elicit sympathy, but he gives none.
“Do drink the wine,” he ignores her question completely. Hannibal sits up to subtly intimidate her with his stature. Bedelia does as he says, taking the hint. She stares him down as she takes a swig, watching his eyes to gauge if he has any reaction to her submission.
What Bedelia didn’t know is that he’d spiked her wine. If anything, it would help her sleep that night. He mainly wanted to be alone, though, with his own thoughts and ideas. Her presence tainted his flow of consciousness. She was, in Hannibal’s mind, not up to par with his mental capacities. Truthfully, not many were. She at least could provide some visual and physical stimulation when necessary. Hannibal did originally plan to bring Will, but Bedelia would do just as good. If anything she would do better, because he could easily pass her off as his wife and live with her without question.
As they eat dinner, Hannibal watches Bedelia’s reaction to the drug.
She’s not budging , he thinks, confused. Bedelia felt and looked completely fine throughout the dinner, and she seems to be the same even though they’re now almost done with their meals. Why wasn’t she slowing down? She had drunk the wine, even asking for a second glass. He spiked that one, too.
Her odd and unnatural tolerance for simple and plain Benadryl throws Hannibal through a loop. He doesn’t show his confusion, quickly theorizing that she was an avid user at home to put her to sleep. He had said her insomnia was bad, but Benadryl? Maybe she was immune to melatonin?
Hannibal scoures for an answer, getting lost in his thoughts, and Bedelia finishes her meal. Hannibal’s got cold, and Bedelia’s odd dish of oysters, acorns, and Marsala settles in her stomach oddly.
At least I’m being fed , she thinks. She gets up to bring her plate to the kitchen when Hannibal stops her, “no, I’ve got it. Just get out of my way,” he says with a strange attitude. She doesn’t argue, leaving to go sit on the couch. He finishes his dinner and then clamers with the dishes.
Bedelia, with an iPad that has no data or Wi-Fi connection, plays Candy Crush alone on the couch. She lounges as he cleans up and rattles around in the kitchen for a syringe. Bedelia is too invested in her game and too wanting an escape from reality to investigate Hannibal or what he may be doing.
Hannibal, done with his clean up and drug selection, comes up behind Bedelia and gently brushes her hair to the side, leaving her neck exposed. Bedelia doesn’t move or suspect anything, as his touch is gentle and soft as ever. A searing pain in her neck causes her to drop the iPad and reevaluate her entire life. Within a few seconds of a cold liquid infesting and crawling through her veins, she passes out. Her last sight a blurry view of Hannibal’s unenthused face, and her last conscious noise a violent gasp in surprise and fear.
Finally she drops limp, and he scoops her up. Toward the bedroom he goes, dragging her along with him. While she is being carried bridal style, a heel falls off halfway to their destination. Hannibal notices but leaves it, thinking of it as cute decor. He can’t wait for her to see it tomorrow and remember what he did and who’s in charge. These next months she will get increasingly weaker and more frail. Under his professional supervision she will still survive and look normal, but she will know her new and lesser limits. Yes, he could and does easily overpower her currently, but he wants to deteriorate her from the inside out. He wants to watch the strong headed, independent, and professional woman he once knew change into what he sees her as: meat.
He lays her on the bed and undresses her for sleep. He hangs up her dress, a tight wrap dress that makes him feel like he’s unwrapping a gift when he takes it off her. He leaves her in her underwear, just sleek and black and made for invisibility. It’s as if she didn’t want them to be acknowledged or viewed. They were just cogs in a machine, yet Hannibal is deconstructing her. He is seeing the parts of her that made up her slick and perfect exterior.
Realizing that she has make-up on, he now has to search through her stuff to find a make-up wipe or remover.
Dammit, he thinks, trying to avoid going through her stuff. It was the whole reason he didn’t try to put her in pajamas.
So, he walks himself into the bathroom and prepares for the worst. Luckily she is an organized individual, but there are still five drawers of beauty products to be looked through. He sighs and gets to work.
A solid half hour later he finally stumbles across some wipes and heads back into the room. He feels like he just explored the vast expanses of Vatican City again. He gets the wipes and stretches his tired knees before going back to the bed. She technically does have nothing but time, and no other hobbies seem to be as suitable for this situation than something solitary and artistic. Hannibal starts to think about Bedelia as a human for just a second, but then he immediately stops.
What? Hannibal exclaims in his mind. Bedelia is gone from the bed. With more confusion than worry, Hannibal sets off to find her.
She couldn’t have gone far, he thinks and starts checking everywhere possible. In the closet, under tables, behind and under furniture, walking by the dropped heel on the ground at least ten times while going back and forth. Hannibal looks behind and under all furniture other than the original bed he had her sleeping in.
Bedelia had slipped under the bed when Hannibal was in the bathroom. She woke up from her drug induced sleep in a haze, but nonetheless woke up. Her movements were clunky, but Hannibal’s digging in her product-filled drawers kept the psychopathic man occupied.
She realizes immediately upon waking up that her clothes had been taken. Never having taken Hannibal for the sexual assault type, she becomes quite upset and startled. What did he plan to do with her? She doesn’t know, and she won’t until it happens.
Her breaths had been the only thing keeping her company for a few minutes after Hannibal stopped shoveling around in her stuff. She stays quiet under the bed frame until she hears him finally go father around the penthouse. Hannibal calls out her name a few times, the sounds from his mouth only getting more distant. Bedelia takes this time to maneuver her way out and fidget with the nightstand beside the bed. She remembers seeing him put a gun inside the top drawer of the dark wooden piece. Her plan starts to unfold, while Hannibal looks on.
As the killer stalks his prey, he gets more and more suspicious. He grabs a dart gun just in case she finds, or had already found, the gun in the bedside nightstand. Though it wasn’t loaded, it was still a weapon for Bedelia to use. He just didn’t want to deal with her temper and any other emotions that would lead to her muddying his plan. She was always so emotional… at least compared to him she was. He truly does not have time for such petty and childish emotions right now.
Hannibal stalks back to the bedroom immediately upon hearing a squeak in the hardwood flooring. Though in the bedroom Bedelia immediately stills, she knows it’s too late. He’s got her now.
She readies the gun as he enters the room, holding it like she did not even a week ago before she left with him. Except, this time her body is exposed. She feels so vulnerable and doesn’t know where her clothes are. Her demeanor is the opposite of his when she held the gun up to him in her house.
Why must he do this to her? Revenge? Curiosity? She’s his own little experiment. Just a toy to mind fuck all day and night.
“Bedelia, it’s not loaded.”
Click.
“Told you.”
She instantly retreats to the bathroom, trying to outrun him. He’s quick on his feet and light like a cat. But she’s sloppy and scared, and, if she were the inelegant dog in this situation, her tail would be cowering between her legs.
It’s a two second chase, really. The fancy apartment is not particularly massive by any means. It’s just a normal master bedroom size with the en-suite bathroom, so their run isn’t vigorous or long.
She gets to the bathroom and swings the door around, but not before Hannibal is able to stop it closing completely with his forearm and fist laying against it. He pushes through the door by making himself into a human barricade, reminiscent of the one Jack endured.
This, though, is much less forceful. He knows she’s not as well endowed as he is, or even close for that matter. She’s much smaller than him. Plus, he knows what she’s done all day for the past several days and what and when she has eaten. He controls her entire being now. She’s surely not going to have an average woman her size’s strength, which still is nothing compared to his own. Bedelia is a non-threat, yet she manages to make everything just a tad more difficult than planned. Her unpredictability is fun, but sometimes Hannibal just wants to get to the main event.
His beautiful main course stumbles back and falls to the tile bathroom floor. It’s a mildly spacious bathroom, but nonetheless still a bathroom.
“There’s nowhere to run or hide, my dear. We can do this the easy way or the hard. Your choice.”
On the ground, Bedelia curls up into a ball to hide herself.
“I don’t understand. Where is my dress? Why am I in just underclothes?” she clamors out, trying to avoid words that acknowledge her female sex. He bends down to her level and looks faux-sympathetically into her eyes.
“My house, my rules. Once again, easy or hard way, I don’t care. I just need you on that bed.”
“What are you going to do to me?” she asks. She’s curious and terrified, but there’s also a hint of something else within her.
Fear and excitement stem from the same seed , she tells herself.
It can’t be, it just can’t.
“I’m going to tie you to the bed….” Hannibal starts. Bedelia tenses. Her pulse quickens. She licks her lips.
They’re dry. I’m dehydrated; that is all.
“I never thought of you as one of such sexual deviancy,” she says in an almost disappointed manner. As if she was a mother talking to her son and saying ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed.’ She feels oddly righteous in her disdain for him. She would never do such a thing such as this & stoop to his level.
“… and I’m going to draw you,” he finishes.
She goes silent, and her brow raises in confusion.
“I thought you were going to…” she trails off.
“I can do that as well, if you so desire. You seem keen on bringing it up in the first place... Now, what’s that all about?” Hannibal asks Bedelia, seemingly just to make her squirm, “ hm ?” he further pushes, raising his eyebrows in impatient curiosity.
This inquiry will be the death of me, she unconsciously perceives, not willing to let it come with words comprehensively strung together in the forefront of her mind. She will not admit to herself her attraction to danger. And dangerous men. And, in particular, one dangerous man.
“Hannibal,” she lets out warily, “please…”
“What?” He says sharply, “I’m done with delays. You either come with me now or I inject you with a sedative. I am flexible either way,” he speaks while taking out and readying the injection. The threat and the drugs he has to back it up get Bedelia up and out. Hannibal grabs her upper arm and drags her with him. His grasp is tight, and her arm is in an uncomfortably high position because of their height difference. Bedelia stumbles around as Hannibal manhandles her.
- ••
After successfully securing her to the bed, Hannibal forgoes his original plan to have alone time without her. He instead draws her form. His work takes hours, with him only letting her get up and stretch for a bathroom break a few times. She feels so exposed to Hannibal as he observes every inch of her. Bedelia is put on display for Hannibal’s own private viewing.
It’s strange being objectified and inspected. She lays there, and after a good amount of time, she gets used to her position. Her body relaxes and sleep dares to overcome her.
When he is done, he lets her free from her binds. She is barely awake by hour four, especially since it’s now deep into the night, so his ministrations on her sore wrists barely register in her mind. All Bedelia longs for is sleep. She burrows deep into the blankets on the bed, messing up the pristine nature of the white, wrinkleless sheets.
He agrees with her: time for bed. While changing into more comfortable clothes, consisting of just pajama pants, he reflects on his and Bedelia’s power play.
Hannibal has always been aware of Bedelia’s small stature. He is attracted to their power dynamic as psychiatrist and patient, with her supposedly having the upper hand in the relationship. The fact that he could break her like a stick was always lurking in his mind during therapy. Yet she still supposedly had the upper hand.
Why?
Purely because, to become people, humans—the homo sapien species—have to ignore their primal understanding of survival and take on a cloak of civility. This complicated social cat-and-mouse game that flips survival of the fittest on its head. And therefore, somehow, a woman who is a foot shorter than him and almost half his weight manages to be unanimously agreed upon to have the power imbalance be skewed in her favor. Purely because of social contacts and masks molded to the suffocated beast that is the domesticated homo sapien.
Hannibal gently strokes Bedelia’s hair until she falls into a deep sleep. A sleep deep enough for him to get into bed with her without her noticing. He puts his arm around her under the sheets and, for a few seconds, blissfully cuddles her like they’re a normal married couple.
He then massages her breasts for his own pleasure, unhooking her bra to properly feel her. She knows what he’s doing and decides sleep is more important.
It will all be over soon, just rest.
…
Bedelia wakes up in the morning after Hannibal does. After putting on a robe, she scouts him out. She finds him in the kitchen, cooking per usual.
The conversation needs to happen, so she starts it.
“Did you fuck me?”
Hannibal scoffs and takes a sip of his coffee, “well, good morning to you, too…”
“ Did you fuck me ?” Bedelia persists.
He looks at her with a subtle ‘bitch , please’ type of face, unamused by her rousings.
“You really do need medication. And here I thought it was all just a ploy to get out of my spider’s web unscathed.”
“My God, just answer the question. Did you or did you not?” she says with exasperation lacing her every word. She’s trying to keep her cool, but she can’t. Remaining in control over oneself is nearly impossible under Hannibal’s “care”.
“Why would you even think to accuse me of such a grotesque crime?” Hannibal feigns surprise and offense.
“I wonder ,” she says, now thoroughly unamused by his rousings, “you murder and eat people, but you’re above rape? Is that how we are going to play this?”
“Woah, my apologies if I didn’t make myself clear, but you , especially out of everyone in this world, could never say I… did that.” He dares not to say the potent word.
“I can and I will.”
“True. But you’d be lying.”
“How is saying that you had sex with me without my consent lying when you did exactly that?”
“Exactly.”
“ What ?” She snaps impatiently. She’s losing it.
“You want it. You’ve always wanted it, and you will always want it. Even if I did have sex with you last night—which I didn’t—you’d be thankful for it.”
“You disgust me,” she deadpans.
“Then why would you, on your own volition, come with me to an entirely different continent just to live with me?” He smiles in victory.
“You smug bastard.”
“Ouch. Why then, if you think I’m so nefarious, do you insult me to my face? If I’m as bad as you say, why poke the beast?”
A thick silence lingers potently between them. Bedelia doesn’t have the words to properly describe her feelings.
“I would never be a willing participant in your acts.”
“Yet you did it to Neal… and Professor Solgiato.”
“Not those acts.”
Hannibal understands immediately and takes a sip of his coffee again. He’s mildly amused, and a smirk dares to cross his face again,
“If that’s how it’s going to be, then fine. You can be as stubborn as you want. I don’t mind.”
“Stop playing games, Hannibal.”
“Less of a game, more of foreplay. This long dance between us that leaves you utterly desperate for more,” he gives in this time and deviantly smiles, his sharp shark teeth coming out to play for a titillating moment’s notice.
Her eyes go wide at his subtle assertion. Her body tenses, and she can’t tell the difference between fear and excitement for the second time in less than 24 hours.
“It’s ok, my dear. Clench your thighs together. I know you need it,” he says, referencing her tensing demeanor.
Bedelia, eyes wide in anger but also mortification, immediately turns around and goes back to her room at the comment.
Bastard.