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The first time they made love Coulter was away, “being self-important,” she said, with a laugh. They went to his house, as luxurious and impersonal as a hotel, lying naked together between the silk sheets of Coulter’s own bed, feeling deliciously sinful, their daemons tussling on the floor beside his slippers.
They forgot to turn the lights on when the day slipped into night, but it was ok. They were both monsters. They were not afraid of the dark. They belonged in it.
“You're not like any woman I’ve met,” he said after the act, which had been more violent than gentle, more lust than love, their daemons biting at each other and Asriel himself leaving imprints in Marisa’s smooth shoulder.
She just laughed. “How many men have told me that,” she said lazily, stretching.
“Do you think Coulter will find out?” He asked her, just to see how she would react. If she would care. He wanted to gauge her, see if all she felt for him was a passion that would soon burn out, or if he was more than that to her. He quite liked the idea of being her weakness. He smiled, placing his hand on the small of her back.
She scoffed. “Edward? He’s a fool. He’d believe whatever I told him just because I’m a woman.” She rolled over and took his hand in hers, and raised it to her mouth, as if to kiss it. Instead, eyes glittering, she bit into his index finger.
He exhaled sharply and jerked back, Stelmaria hissing, and brought his hand to his chest. It was bleeding, and there was blood on the white sheets, blood on Marisa’s lips. She still had that devil’s gleam in her eyes.
“Don’t ever let yourself fall under the misconception that you in any way own me, Asriel. I am no one’s but my own.” She sat up sharply, dark curls falling into her face, leaning towards him, as if for a kiss, but her voice hissed venom. “Don’t ever rest your hand on me like I’m your bitch, sitting faithfully at your side. My loyalties lie only with myself, and I will always do what’s best for me. I think of you as my equal, and maybe that’s the closest to love I’ll ever get, but I wouldn’t hesitate to stab you, right,” her hands circled round his back to touch a spot between his shoulder blades, “There.”
Any other man would have flinched. Asriel waited.
She licked the blood from her lips. “Now, I’ll bandage that for you, shall I?” Her voice all at once was sugary sweet. He could almost taste it.
She started to get up but he grabbed her wrist, with his injured hand, to show her that she could not so easily faze him. “If you don’t want to be treated like a pet, then the one thing you need to know about me is that I never let anyone do anything for me.” He stood and walked across the plush carpet to the adjoining bathroom, digging through the drawers and cupboards until he found some bandages and antiseptic. He’d had worse - the evidence littered his body, puckered scar tissue and criss crossed lines which Marisa would later love to trace with the tip of her nail, as if she were imagining herself creating them, slicing into his flesh.
When he reentered the bedroom she had put on a cream-coloured silk robe but left it untied, and had set out a bottle of white wine and two glasses on the dresser. The golden monkey was sitting on her shoulder, watching him. She looked like a white rose, gleaming with morning dew, but he knew better. She was a snake.
“Drink?”
“I’d prefer tokay,” he said, still half annoyed at her for biting him, like a wild animal. But at the same time it had stirred something animalistic inside him. He felt disgusted with himself for, in some way, enjoying it. And for feeling such an attachment to this mad woman.
“Well, all the more for me,” she said, sipping at her glass, smirking, although the monkey was frowning at him.
Silently, he put on his clothes. He could feel this evening ending. A familiar restlessness was tugging at him, as it always did when he stayed in one place for two long.
“When shall we meet again?” She asked, as if there was no question about whether they would or not.
“I’ll contact you,” he said gruffly.
She narrowed her eyes. “What if I want to contact you? I only like things being so one-sided if they’re on my side. I thought we’d reached an understanding.”
“Fine. Whatever.” He pulled on his jacket. Stelmaria’s tail was swishing back and forth.
She walked with him through the vast, echoing halls to the front door, her robe still open, uncaring.
As he turned to leave she asked teasingly, “What, no goodbye kiss?” She came towards him and took his face in her hands, digging her fingers into his cheeks, her lips gnawing hungrily at his, and he couldn’t help but get lost in it, in her. He leaned into her, pulling her hair, and it probably hurt, but she never showed anything but intense passion. It was not a kiss; it was something more, a religious act, or maybe more appropriately, a sacrilegious one.
He left the house feeling unusually shaken. He ran a hand through his hair, and then, by instinct, turned to see her watching him from the window, a satisfied smile on her face, her naked body on full view inside her open robe.
He strode away, trying to gain some distance from the house, and some of his usual confidence.
“She’s really got you,” said Stelmaria in a low voice.
“Shut up.”