Page 31 of Petrify

This song is not just for me. It’s hers, too.

The boy gets her undivided attention in the morning. Maybe foolishly, I hope she will spend the afternoon filling the house with music, but she curls up in a window to read instead—a book borrowed from the family’s library, likely the first time it’s been read.

I can be patient.

She’s there for over an hour, almost two, her nose buried between the pages, and only when the dreary winter sun begins to set does she stand to resume her duties. Then she glances about the hall.

She must feel me.

She must know I am here.

My dick jumps at the thought.

So close. I amsoclose.

She watches over the boy again until he’s dragged away for dinner. She doesn’t follow, doesn’t make her way to the kitchens. She just waits at the Steinway.

For me.

“You haven't eaten,” I say by way of greeting her.

She jumps, the movement almost imperceptible, whirling around.

When her gaze lands on me, my lungs constrict.

“You…”

“Have a name,” I finish for her.

She purses her lips, almost frowning. “What do you want me to call you?”

Strange girl. She’s considerate. “Whatever you want.”

She seems to think for a moment. Maybe she knows this is a test of sorts—who does she see standing before her?

“Menace?”

For the first time in years, a laugh almost bursts from me. “Not inaccurate, I suppose.”

“Bastien.”

And suddenly she’s peering behind the mask, stripping me down to the bone, with one single word.

My name.

Almost forgotten to time. Part of me believed that onlyIwould remember my own true identity.

My throat is thick with some emotion, and I find it too uncomfortable, especially when she’s looking at me with those deep brown eyes.

“You didn’t play today,” I say.

That rosy pink color brightens her cheeks and I want so badly to feel the warmth of her blush under my hands. “I was about to begin practicing, I just…” She glances away.

“What?”

“I… feel your eyes on me, all day. While I am with Henri. When I do play. It’s… distracting.”

“Distracting?” Do I take up all her thoughts as she does for me?