With Impunity

With Impunity – Part 7: Separación (span. for separation)

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He knew he was going to lose her. They had spent the last two weeks together, talking and discussing whatever sprang to mind, but he never touched her again, he had waited for her to make the next move, which she didn’t. He had tried to make her understand his actions and she seemed to understand, but she just was not happy. She missed her friends and her life. He just knew that sooner or later she would leave him. Maybe it was better anyway, she represented a great danger for his freedom, even if she probably never was going to tell anyone about anything that had happened the last weeks, at least not about the part concerning him. She somehow respected him enough to know that she wasn’t in danger to be killed by him. At least of that he could persuade her. Everything else hadn’t worked out the way he had hoped it would, but she seemed not to hate him now. Lecter sighed and looked at her. Clarice sat opposite to him at the breakfast table.

She read the paper a deep frown on her forehead. Hannibal chuckled slightly – that was his girl.

"Anything interesting in the paper, Clarice?"

Clarice didn’t even look up when she was answering.

"No, just the usual stuff!" there was something in her voice that made him listen more closely. He narrowed his eyes.

"Don’t lie Clarice, or I’ll know!"

Her big blues were directed at him now.

"Do you really want to know, Doctor? They are saying something about the two of us! They call me a traitor and "Bride of the Monster". Also they are saying that I must have been in contact with you all these years and must have had a deal with you since the day you broke out of jail in Memphis. All very nice things, don’t you think? I really like to be called such nice names! I know that this is only yellow press and that the FBI doesn’t believe it, but I still don’t have to like it! The worst is that yellow press is right all the way, because I AM A TRAITOR; I know where you are and still haven’t called them to come and get you! I am a federal agent and am supposed to act like one, and why don’t I do it, why? Tell me why Doctor?"

"You tell me Clarice!"

"Well I can’t, because I don’t know, and you - it isn’t working … this isn’t right! I don’t belong here and you know that! I have to get back home!" she said that without looking at him, a wistful look on her face.

"You know, my dear, I knew that you were going to say that, and it’s your decision. You are free to stay or to go. Whatever is fine with me. You know that I’d be more than deliriof yof you stayed. I just want to tell you something before you go: I will never come after you, not even if you’ll some day decide to tell my friends of the FBI where I am and what really happened. You are safe!"
Clarice stood up and went to her room to put on her clothing. There was nothing to say. She would return home and forget about everything that she had experienced the last weeks.

Why did she feel so miserable then? She didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore, there were so many personal barriers and principles that she had broken the last weeks that the line between good and bad and right and wrong has dissolved, turned and vanished into nothing.

How could she possibly think about a life with a mass murderer. Clarice smirked:* Just because he has given you the most incredible orgasm, you don’t have to go crazy all over him and be putty in his hands!* she thought to herself. He still was a murderer.
Clarice turned one last time to take a last look at the room in which she had spent the last three weeks. She shrugged and sighed deeply, then turned back and went out to go back into the kitchen.

"Dr. Lecter? Are you there?"

"I am here Clarice, come over here!"

The voice came from one of the dark huge rooms on the left which she had never dared to enter without his knowledge. Lecter stood there hol som something in his hand a gentle smile on his face. She walked over to him. He hold out his hand to place something into hers. It was a small figurine made from jade. It was polished with such expert hands that it glittered even in the dark light of this room in different shades of light green and white.

Clarice looked up from the elegant beauty of the little statue and up into Lecter’s eyes. He still smiled a little dreamily now.

"Clarice, this is something I have bought some time ago, and it reminded me of natural beauty. I have to admit that I thought of you when I first touched it and now I want you to have it and hope that you will love as much as I have and always will!"

"Doctor, I couldn’t possibly, this is too ……!" before she could finish her sentence he said.

"Please Clarice, I want you to take it, don’t think of money, I don’t!"

So she took it into both her small hands and nodded. The ringing sound of the doorbell startled them both out of their silence. It was the man who provided withwith a rental car, as in this area it was nearly an impossibility to get a cab. Hannibal had taken care of everything by telephone so that she didn’t have to even say one word.

When she opened the door she just saw him leaving with another guy in another car. Everything seemed to be so easy for the Doctor.

Clarice noticed that he hadn’t followed her out of the house. So this was it, she tht. Nt. No good-bye - no nothing, but what did she expect. Clarice opened the door to the old Ford and sat down. She placed the little figurine carefully on the passenger seat and closed the door beside her. The air was hot inside the car, no air-conditioning, so she scrolled down the windows. Clarice started the car and with one last look at the big, majestic house she drove off.

"Good-bye my love…." Hannibas sas standing at one the huge venetian window and watched how the one woman he truly loved left his life.

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The END