Chapter 10

For the whole of the ensuing week, Olivia gazed upon him strangely, as if she was aware of what happened with Lisette. For the first two days, the great albino feinted illness and kept to his room, reading novel after novel that he surreptitiously stole from the shelves of the lounge library while Olivia and Laroux were at work in the vineyard. He did not want her to catch sight of him for fear that he would involuntarily give his betrayals away with a slight gesture, comment or look. On one of his trips to the lounge Laroux caught sight of him and smiled knowingly before, like a ghost, he drifted back into the protection of his room. It was one more time when he willed himself transparent.

During his unwarranted time off, he sneaked out at night to the fig tree where he engaged in lustfull acts that would infuriate Olivia’s god. Leaving Goliath in the barn, he chose to walk bare chested and barefoot to the secret spot, hoping that by doing so he would acquire a true sickness so he wouldn’t need to lie to Olivia any more. Each time he orgasmed he was uncertain if he was thinking of Lisette or Olivia or some incorporation of both women. Always afterwards he held a sense of self loathing in his heart, not for the act of solitary pleasure but for misleading Olivia.

Yet the deceit escalated rather than waned untill he found himself in a tangled mess he was confident Olivia would no longer forgive him for. The first evening he stayed in sick she came to retrieve him for supper after sundown but he explained he was too weak to join her. She catered his meal to him on a tray with an aspirin to relieve any fever or body aches he might have felt if he actually was sick. She returned to fetch his dirty dishes and to check on his health an hour later then left him with the promise of breakfast in bed the next day.

The cycle repeated with the promised breakfast and when she caught him creeping into the kitchen later for a snack she suggested that he would feel better if he joined her for supper on the porch that evening. Fresh air would do him a wealth of good, she reasoned, so he agreed and she went on her merry way. He finished reading the book he had with him that day but he couldn’t recall how the story ended or even what it was about in the first place. Annoyed at his self-made predicament he angrily threw the book across the room to hit the wall where the crucifix once hung.

When evening descended he imagined Olivia cooking supper and his stomach growled at the heady tendrils of aroma he was convinced reached him from the kitchen. If it was all in his head or not he didn’t know but eventually Olivia knocked on his door and announced that it was ready and out on the porch waiting so he should join her before it got cold. She shuffled away, out to her meal for two out on the porch, but he never arrived. Instead, he thought of her sitting alone on the porch, picking at her food and waiting for his appearance.

He wanted to meet her but he felt too unworthy to do so because of his misrepresentations, resulting in his continuance to lie in bed, choosing to read and wallow in his self-pity. She would be disappointed, he knew, but she would get over it. Perhaps Laroux himself replaced him at the table that night.

Later his body tensed with anticipation when he heard Olivia’s footsteps in the hallway, probably going to turn in for the night. She stopped outside his room and he began to sweat as he willed her to leave without bothering him. Tension thickened the gap between the bed and the door and the albino swore he heard her softly mutter a good night before going about her business. Her secret acknowledgement he wasn’t meant to hear supplemented his guilt.

An hour later when his stomach growled to be fed, he slinked into the dimly lit kitchen in search of something to eat. The first place he looked, of course, was the refrigerator but there was nothing appetising. He opted for a few pieces of fruit from the bowl kept on the counter but when he went to make his selection his eyes fell upon a plate covered in tin foil, a note next to it.

She saved supper for me!

Picking up the note, he read her tight, pretty script:

Sorry you couldn’t join me. You were greatly missed. Hope you at least eat the food I saved for you because you’ll need your strength.

Sitting at the table, he devoured the meal left for him, guilt seeping deeper into his heart. He loved her. He appreciated her. But he lied to her. Repetitively. For sure his visit to the fig tree that night incurred fantasies of his one true beloved.

On the third morning he bit the bullet and got up for work. Tired from his antics at the fig tree the night prior, he didn’t bother to snap on the light in the bathroom or close the door while he was there. He lathered his muscular body languidly in the shower and rinsed off for several long minutes before leaving the cascading water to stand in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection sans towel. A startled cry from the doorway made him turn and come face to face with a wild eyed and red faced Olivia.

“Oh my god!” she exclaimed, trying with difficulty to prescind her attention from his groin to his eyes. “Why didn’t you shut the door?!”

He shrugged without care, not bothering to cover himself. He knew that his well defined physique contrasted enough with the darkness to allow her to make out the details of his milky flesh. Let my transgressions be bared to her! he thought cagily.

“Showering,” he replied nonchalantly, hoping his errant ways were exposed enough for her to see.

“Not that I’m complaining about…” she sighed, “the view, but for the preservation of your own privacy just shut the door.”

She turned to walk off, disappointing him that he wasn’t as transparent as his father accused him of being.

“I am sorry to offend you,” he offered, hoping his subliminal confession reached her.

“Believe me, no offence is taken.” She paused, her brow furrowed in thought, then added: “What happened last night? You weren’t feeling up to supper?”

His head bowed in shame.

“Non, mon amour, je suis très désolé. It was so unintentional.”

He cringed inside at his telling of another falsehood.

Hesitantly, she stepped into the bathroom and unexpectedly placed a cool hand upon his face, startling him.

“You don’t seem warm today,” she informed. “Perhaps the aspirin broke your fever.”

He nodded ever so slightly. “Oui, perhaps.”

She abruptly grew embarrassed yet again and backed out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” she amended, “I’m being rude! You’re…unclothed…and I still stand here as if I see you…nude…every day…”

Her voice trailled off sotto voce and she turned to face the direction in which she planned to retreat.

“Hurry into the kitchen,” she maintained. “Étienne will arrive shortly.”

“As you wish,” he returned softly.

Then Olivia was gone.

Not the least bit mortified but rather quite proud of herself, Olivia dashed from the bathroom and down the hallway to the kitchen, trying her damnedest to suppress a smug smile from spreading across her face.

The early bird got the worm this morning! Oh! Wait! I should rephrase that one! The early bird got the bird’s eye view sounds better!

So heated was she, Olivia seated herself at the table in the nook for a moment, trying to gather herself and stop smiling. It was a scene she wouldn’t mind waking up to every morning, she admitted. He was sinewy and toned; it was plain ridiculous that women couldn’t look beyond the preternatural alabaster colour of his flesh to actually enjoy peering upon that flesh.

I have my own private David!

She sighed to herself and got up to begin preparing breakfast.

Throughout the day she found herself staring at him intermittently like she did during his first few days under her employment. She couldn’t help it. Hell, she even fantasised of them picking grapes by moonlight so that his tender flesh would not burn when he, for some unexplained reason, removed his clothing and worked in the buff.

She became aware of the way Étienne occasionally passed his own gazes at the albino. It seemed as if the two men shared some affable secret that she was not privy to. Perhaps they felt more comfortable around each other now and worked through the albino’s feeling of inferiority long enough to become friends. She smiled at the prospect of their possible friendship. He was in need of a male confidante and she was glad that he seemed to have it. The albino had nobody else except her…unless Étienne was right that he was carrying on an undisclosed love affair behind her back.

This notion made her quickly frown. She didn’t want that to be their secret. She had to inquire about the matter to Étienne. He would tell her the truth if he knew it. Selfishly, she wanted the albino for herself. No matter how hard she tried to conceal her want of him from herself she could not hide from it. It lurked in the shadows at the back of her mind like a demon that sprung to light whenever she was alone. It assaulted her in dreams and vicious thoughts as it did now. She wanted to know who it was that he was sneaking off to spend time with and confront the slag. She wanted to claw the bitch’s eyes out. Worse, it troubled her because she didn’t like it when she thought that way. But she could not help it. It was as if this unseen woman was stealing away something she, untill now, believed she had an unspoken exclusive claim to.

Is God going to forgive me for thinking this way? she wondered.

She hoped so, because before the story concluded she knew she would be worse for wear in the eyes of the Lord.

Why is Olivia staring at me? the albino pondered while the three of them plucked grape clusters from the vines and placed them in baskets strapped to either side of Goliath and the other vineyard horse. It was harvest time and there were many things that needed to be done so there was no time for frivolous and petty behaviour but he could not get passed the single thought of: She is looking at me because she knows! She can still see the scratch marks!

He tried to eject the thoughts from his mind just like he did when he initially started work on the vineyard and noticed the pretty woman watching him then. But this time was different. He knew that all the passed hours she spent looking his way was for another reason from the one she looked at him for presently. In the past she was merely curious but the curiosity and slight prejudice she may have held for him at that time should have been evaporated by now. They’d slept in each other’s arms since, after all. That theory left only the scratches as an excuse.

She keeps looking at my arm! She knows!

When he caught her gawking, she smiled and paid mind to her work again. Laroux detected the game the pair was playing and gently nudged the albino’s arm, offering a knowing Pecksniffian grin. This made the albino grow unbearably uncomfortable.

Each day of the remainder of the week went by with long, laborious hours in the vineyard so that he found himself collapsing into bed and falling into deep sleep directly after eating. No reading, no conversing with Olivia, not a thing other than sleeping occupied his free time. He knew Olivia was tired too and she excused her silence with exhaustion which he quietly accepted. During each meal he longed to take her hand and simply hold it for console of her presence and to display some form of affection. Alas, he never acted upon his own desires for her and retired to bed with a terrible feelling of loss in the pit of his stomach.

Every night that fell brought with it erotic dreams of a certain woman. Too drained from working to visit the fig tree, he stayed in his room and lazily wanked off before falling asleep or after waking from such dirty dreams. The only plus was that at least the cursed crucifix was behind his closet door with its fixated Armageddon eyes elsewhere. If it hadn’t been Olivia’s property he would’ve gladly placed it upon a pyre somewhere. It was creepy.

Staying inside his room to masturbate and going to sleep earlier than usual without reading actually helped his body to rejuvenate in a progressively slow amount of time. When Sunday finally came upon them, he was surprised to find himself peculiarly spry and reinvigorated. As for the taunting dreams that he suffered from on a nightly basis, he knew of only one cure for them, a cure he intended on taking care of as soon as he was able. That was why when Sunday morning came he was up earlier than Olivia, even after a restless night of contemplation on whether or not he was going to do the right thing. He showered and dressed quickly, fearing that the apprehensive Olivia would be up early enough to catch him.

Taking care to shut the door quietly behind him, he all but ran from the house to escape any possible prying eyes. Upon reaching the dusty road leading away, he nervously turned back to check; he found nobody there, at least for as much as he could tell.

This particular walk into town was different than the last one. He had a greater purpose this time and sustained a one-track mind. As usual, a few villagers were milling about, some in their Sunday best and on their way to the local church. Even their disgruntled peering went ignored, not because they no longer bothered him but rather because he was deep in concentration about the business he aimed on tending to with this trip. His good spirits briefly went acidic when he considered how surprising it was that Olivia never got up to attend service, being that she was God’s ever-devoted disciple. The villagers, especially the ones going to church, still gave him glares of disgust or terror as he walked among them but this time he did not care. The business he had removed him from them; for this particular trip he was beyond their pettiness.

Rather than masking his destination as he had before, he indomitably stepped beyond the gate, through the garden and up to the doorstep of Lisette. Knocking firmly, he waited with impatience.

The door opened and he inhaled the feminine scent the prostitute carried. She was positively indecent, still wearing her negligee as he evidently awakened her from sleep. In his eyes she didn’t look like someone who’d just woken up but more like someone who’d just had a good, hard fuck. She appeared merely half-surprised as she greeted him.

He did not reply. Not with words. Instead he shoved passed her to enter the house, slamming the door shut behind him. This outraged the woman who spewed a cascade of curses at him. Paying no heed to her, he drew her supple body against his wiry one and pressed a heated kiss to her mouth. At first she did not know how she should react but when he snaked a hand down her midriff and to her nether region she readily acquiesced to his demand. Sliding his hand into her knickers, she whimpered against his mouth as he located the correct spot on her anatomy.

No longer needing to hold her into place, he released her wrist long enough to unfasten his jeans and shove them to the floor. As he stepped out of them, the fingers in her knickers wound around the flimsy article of clothing and easily ripped it from her body. Lust unbound, he lifted her up and she innately wrapped her legs tightly about his waist, her arms around his neck. Still kissing fervently, he carried her to the settee but even before he laid her down onto its plush cushions, he was already buried deep inside her.

As large as his member was, her body was eager and moist enough to not hinder penetration or the desperate, bestial thrusting that followed. He was being rough but she accepted each deep movement he made inside her, inspiring him to push into her harder, faster. So strong were his thrusts that he needed to keep one foot on the floor for leverage to prevent the other end of the settee from rising up and banging against the floor. Grunting in pleasure, he kept at her with the prowess of a horny young bull, enjoying the warm wetness tightly wrapped around him. Her body grew rigid beneath him and she cried out, arching her back to press up against him, her body gripping his manliness even tighter. She burst out loudly with a barrage of French curses, struck his shoulder with the base of her hand then sank her fingernails deep into his back, raking his sweaty, pallid flesh.

Still he did not relent. As she descended from her climax, he noticed that her body was even slicker and tighter around him, if that was possible. It drove him mad with need and he pounded into her frantically, knowing he was about to come. He held on to her hips and plunged deeper still, the friction maddening. Anchoring himself as far inside her as he possibly could, he came like a cannon, his head thrown back and eyes closed tight as he growled something so bestial that he himself was unclear of what it was he said. It had been so long since he had true intercourse that his orgasm sent his entire body into quivering tremors.

After he was completely spent, he disengaged from her and flopped backwards on the other side of the settee, trying to catch his breath. He felt spectacular; better than following a hard day’s work with a shower. His pasty flesh was coated in sweat from the strenuous activity in the morning humidity but they both were in the same condition. Wiping the perspiration from his face, he saw that he’d torn most of Lisette’s negligee from her body and she was trying to arrange what was left of it in a cheapened effort at modesty.

“I knew you would have a change of heart,” she told him. “But I didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

“I needed it,” he responded simply.

“Yes, I know. I’ve been trying to tell you that.”

She moved from her end of the settee and crawled up his body to nestle against him, giving his pectoral a quick kiss and his nipple a playfull lick before placing her head on his chest.

“Would you like another go?” she inquired.

He discovered satisfactorily that indeed his long neglected erection was growing again.

“If you want me to be Olivia,” Lisette continued, “I’ll play along.”

The albino’s brow furrowed with confusion.

“Why would I want you to be Olivia?”

She passed him a baffled look of her own.

“Because you called out to her when you came.”

So that was what he said! “I did?”

“I’ll be anyone you want me to be.”

Lisette’s hand climbed the inside of his thigh to cup his genitals in her palm and gently massage them. Opening his legs for her as wantonly as she had for him he closed his eyes to enjoy her touch. It had been so long…too long…

“Relax,” Lisette muttered in his ear. “I’ll take good care of you.”

She slithered down his body and her hand was replaced by her mouth, taking him completely to the base. Instinctively, his hips bucked up but she carefully forced them back down so she could do her work and prime him for more intercourse. After a few moments of sucking him off, he felt her straddle and impale herself upon him. Placing her hands over his bulging pecs, she started her ride.

Thinking of Olivia, he concentrated with closed eyes as Lisette pleasured him in reckless aggression. Her hands took his, drawing them to where her wetness and his hardness met, then up a little higher. She brushed his fingers over the special spot nestled within her slick flesh and moved them in a circular motion upon it, causing her to gasp and moan louder.

He did not know when he started to say such things but an endless tirade of explicit profanity flowed from his mouth. At first he was unaware that he was making such statements; all he could feel was the erotic friction in his pelvic region while all he saw was Olivia’s face on the backs of his eyelids.

With a final thrust deep inside his new lover and eyes clenched tighter still, he came harder than he did the first time with the image of his beloved etched clearly into his mind. After he finished, he was disappointed to find upon reopening his eyes that the woman above him wasn’t Olivia but Lisette and remorse pained him.

Lisette’s smile was as vibrant as radioactivity as she leant down and coaxed him into an unyielding kiss. Stretching her body down over his in a way that kept them joined, she sighed contentedly. At first he was irresolute on where to place his hands but when his fingertips touched her flesh he trailed them down her backside to cup her bum firmly.

Horrible remorse for what took place plagued him but a guilty conscious did not prevent him from taking her several more times between cat naps and snacks. He took her on the kitchen counter, the dining room table, on the stairwell, in the shower and eventually in the bed. She was greatly impressed by his virile stamina, proclaiming that she never before had a lover as capable as he was. That day she schooled him in the fine art of lovemaking and they practised assorted techniques and positions which were all awkward for him with his sole prior sexual experience being when the prostitute took his virginity quite some time ago. But he was a fast learner which further impressed her. When he noticed twilight darkening the sky beyond her bedroom window pane he muttered in her dozing ear that he needed to leave. She placidly complained but let him leave, too sated to put up much of a protest.

Leaving the house wearing the stench of sex like a thick perfume, he found himself a different person from the one who arrived earlier. There was an energised spring in his step that had not been there before, a step which carried him home much faster. The villagers, their numbers increased since he’d walked into town that morning, still gave him their cruel looks and mocking remarks but things were changed. He walked with his head higher, his piercing eyes gazing at them as if he were a god handing down their sentences. It felt wonderfull to not be concerned about their opinions. He imagined that each venture into town from here forward would be a changed experience for him.

So altered was his disposition that when he reached home he was not offended by Olivia’s apathetic curtness when he greeted her in the lounge. She was reading, as expected, The Holy Bible. His stomach wretched in contrasting how she spent her day and how he spent his. Entering the room just to say good night to her, he retired to his room and shut out her pious absurdity with the bedroom door.

It was then when a terribly facetious idea popped into his mind. Feelling completely wicked and still stinking of his sinfull tryst, he retrieved the wooden crucifix from its closet prison and affixed it back in place on the wall. He stared at it with an insolent grin, his hand cupping himself between the legs. Massaging his sore but restive, adamantine manhood back to life untill he urgently unfastened his jeans and dropped them to his ankles, he stabilised himself against the wall with an extended arm and began to stroke himself. Although his eyes were deviously fixated on the crucifix, his thoughts brought back the sweet recent memory of squeaking bedsprings, the pound of flesh against flesh and the shrill cries of the woman beneath him. It did not take long for him to climax with weakened knees and a stifled cry.

Feeling particularly fatigued, he felt like a young lion that, after overthrowing the leader of the pride, spent his day emptying himself inside the females of the group, and was ready to rest for the night. First he cleaned up at the basin then stripped naked before inserting himself between the cool bed sheets.

Although he emoted a scramble of feelings toward Olivia and what he did with Lisette, he felt most of all particularly satisfied with himself. Why should he allow his youthfull prowess to waste away in frustrated celibacy? It was Olivia’s choice to not partake in such decadent acts of passion with him. Why should he suffer when someone was willing to share lustfull bliss with him? Just because he lived with her did not mean that he was a dedicated acolyte to her disappointing god.

You had your chance with me when I was a child, he thought as he gazed upon the wooden Christ. You failled far too often for me to align myself with you. Maybe someday Olivia will see what kind of a failure you are too.

In the morning as Olivia lie in bed she found herself incapable of keeping her thoughts from the meaning for his existence on the vineyard. Was he some heathen from Hell coming to test the strength of her convictions? Often Hell disguises itself as something beautifull, pure and angelic in order to tempt the righteous. Did the albino not personify these very things with his physique alone? He was a striking creature of peculiar beauty with a kind disposition. His tragic past had made him amoral in his beliefs, however, and this was something that could influence her if she allowed it.

Already he meddled with her emotions and she loathed that. It was evident she held sentiments of the passionate nature for him and that was what she feared. She felt too much for a man who didn’t even so much as share her faith. They had absolutely nothing in common except the work on this vineyard and that was it. The sole explanation that she continued to come up with was that he had that more sinister reason of persuade her away from the Lord. A black demon painted in white skin; he would be her spiritual death. Were they a match made in Heaven or a rivalry made in Hell?

Yet she could not find it in her heart to cast him back out on the streets. If someone had shown him such compassion when he was a child then perhaps he wouldn’t be the godless heathen he presently was. She needed to learn to separate work from personal; he was there to work and nothing more. She would continue to provide him with meals and board, of course, as well as minimal mutual conversation but beyond that nothing more. No more touching heart-to-hearts over wine and books.

For the sole purpose of keeping the peace because she needed a strong man like him to help with the approaching harvest she knew it wise to keep things to a bare bones minimum. She would learn to resist and to turn the other way when he did something out of line. He was his own person and she was hers. Nothing would change that no matter how badly she wanted him to change. She knew her place and she needed to learn to stay there. With these new ground rules things should be better and the tension between them she believed herself to be the one who owed the albino atonement for her recent harshness.

She got up to make breakfast like she usually did then after the table was ready she went to wake him up herself. Groggy but seemingly anxious to begin the day, he all but leapt from his bed to shower. It was odd, his behaviour, and she just wrote it off as a male thing. She would never understand how men operate, she decided as she went back to the kitchen.

That day he appeared to be in a wonderfull mood and Étienne noticed the queer glances Olivia continually gave the albino. He took an opportunity to sidle next to her and mutter in her ear that it was apparent that he kept disappearing because he had a woman on the side. Olivia frowned, not understanding why the thought of the albino with another woman hurt her so much. Annoyed with herself that she became so petty, she transplanted herself to do work elsewhere in the vineyard where she could not see either man.

Two days passed without incident despite the semi-cold shoulder the albino and the mistress of the manor were still giving each other. They just simply stayed out of each other’s way and because she wanted to spend time outside in hopes of deepening her tan further before the winter she sent the albino to work in the wine cellar. In pent-up perturbed infuriation she wanted him out of her sight as often as possible.

She and Laroux worked equally fast without him, reminiscing about their childhood together, how the wine business was, gossip about people who used to be in their lives or a handfull who still were. They discussed everyone with no mention of the albino working diligently in the cellar and that pleased Olivia well. Occasionally the old friends slacked off by tossing grapes at or chasing each other through the rows of trellises. As the sun began to tuck into its horizon bed, they engaged in a frolicking game of hide and seek. Olivia dashed off in childish glee, imitating a game from so long ago when the sun hadn’t bothered her, she had scabs on scraped knees and her hair was in pig tails. Heart pounding madly, she escaped to hide around a tree behind the back row, believing that Laroux wouldn’t consider her leaving the confines of the vineyard. She waited with a smile, her heart pounding.

That was when she heard a strange sound, as if something heavy was moving through the foliage of the trellises. The framework shook and wavered, grabbing her imagination. Maybe it was Laroux stalking her. Maybe it was a large animal hunting her.

“Olivia!”

The sound of Laroux calling out to her jolted her back to her senses.

“Olivia! Help me!”

Étienne sounded desperate, overwrought and she followed his shouts back into the vineyard and to his location. Somehow, while she’d basked in her creative reverie, one of the trellises had fallen on top of him. Étienne was crouched beneath the framework, holding it up by an arm suspended above his head, a gash in his forearm bleeding rather profusely. What she pretended to be an animal coming after her had actually been a large portion of the trellis row toppling down upon her friend and it was too much for him to handle on his own.

“Help me!” he pleaded.

She rushed to his aid, trying to lift the heavy trellis from his body but found she could not do it. She told him to hold on while she went to find the massive albino for only he could raise the trellis off of Laroux. Carefull to gradually return the crushing pressure on her friend’s body, she then ran as fast as she could to fetch the albino, for only his sturdy strength would be able to free Étienne entirely.

She rushed off, calling him loudly as she ran with all of her might. As she hastened through the vineyard rows it felt as if she was running a marathon. It took an eternity before she entered the house through the back door, shouting for him. Not seeing him immediately, she opened the door to the cellar and yelled his name down the steps and got no response. Running like a lunatic through the rest of the house, she checked the kitchen, the lounge, the bathroom, then his bedroom but they were all empty. Every room was empty. He was not in the house at all.

Where was he?!

Wondering if, by some odd chance he was out front, she slammed open the door and stepped out on the porch. Then she stopped short.

There stood the albino beneath the olive tree. And he was not alone. A woman was with him. A woman. She couldn’t believe it! Étienne had been correct in his assumption! Squinting in the sunlight, she did her best to see what the woman looked like but she couldn’t see her face at all. The albino’s arm was snaked about her waist and he whirled her around to press her against the olive tree where he heatedly kissed her. Tears welled into her eyes, her throat and heart swelled in tight knots. The albino’s large hand brushed up the woman’s bare thigh as she cupped his genitals through his jeans and…

Étienne was in trouble and needs me to be coherent!

Upon recollecting the problem at hand, she snapped back to reality and bellowed the albino’s name. When he detached his mouth from his companion’s, he gazed over at Olivia with a fearfull expression, knowing that he was caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing.

Putting her rage aside, she told him: “Étienne needs your help! Hurry! It’s an emergency!”

She waited and watched as he spoke to the woman who nodded and started to stroll up the driveway, back to the road without bothering to look back. The albino broke into a run to reach the traduced lady of the house.

The scurry back into the vineyard was a longer eternity for Olivia, worsened by the albino bastard meeting her with dead silence. When Laroux’s solitary battle with the delinquent trellis was in full view, the albino raced over to help. Together the two men were able to rectify the wall of grape clusters after a few lengthy moments of struggling.

Olivia waited around long enough to make certain the trellis was secure and that Laroux was in the clear from harm. Before the men finished and turned around to say something to her, she was already gone from sight. She’d banished herself to her room to weep like the little girl she envisioned to be merely moments ago.

Author’s Note: I’m going to feel like I’ve won an Oscar in this AN, for I have loads of people to thank! First and foremost, I’d like to dedicate this latest chapter of Haunting a Ghost to my newest niece Emily Scarlet, born on 25 January 2007. I must confess that I took such a long hiatus because I seriously considered removing both HaG and OaW from FF.N but obviously opted not to. Instead I ended up adding two more stories to my list (My Brother’s Keeper has been selfishly monopolising my time from all other stories). Part of the inspiration to continue came from the return of an old family friend into our lives, courtesy of my brother. Jim Fullington, this chapter is as much yours as it is mine. And what would a chapter be without an acknowledgement to my LJ Chicks (you know who you are at this point!) Since some of you have made the suggestions to put translations at the end of the chapter because there’s too much French in this story, I will do that from here onward. My apologies for any inconvenience I’ve caused; I was simply trying to add a little wonder to the story because sometimes not knowing for certain adds to the thrill of everything. I had no idea you guys would actually want to know. Originally I was going to have a large portion of Silas speaking to Lisette very graphically but because I felt I made you wait long enough I censored that portion and forewent any needed translations for it just so I could update the story (been far too long!!) Hope you continue reading because I’ll continue writing. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.