Secret Souls (14 page)

There had never been the slightest possibility that Warren could ever express his true feelings about Chadwick to her or anyone else. Love for his father, being Hannibal’s closest confidant, and watching his father and Chadwick together, made him understand long before she had kidnapped Hannibal to the island that Warren would have to accept Chadwick as the love of his father’s life. He believed that as long as Hannibal was alive there could be no other man than him for Chadwick.

Warren had guessed, though he had not been expressly told, that the kidnap of Hannibal by Chadwick had been for seduction and sex. So the change of behaviour between Hannibal and Chadwick came as no surprise to him. He watched it and stood aside and bathed in the glow of the new light that came into the couple’s lives, and the house, and consequently the family. He suppressed his lust for Chadwick and accepted the inevitable with the charm and grace befitting a gentleman of his class and upbringing.

Hannibal and Chadwick started out as they meant to go on, obeying Hannibal’s ground rules and slowly easing Chadwick more and more into not only his private but his public life, until within the year she was seen to be the only woman he would take on his arm anywhere. To invite Hannibal Chase was to invite Chadwick too. Strangely people hardly talked in any negative fashion about them, they had, of course, known her since she had been adopted into the family, and her dramatic rescue of Hannibal was truly romantic, to be savoured and never forgotten. It added a dignity to their relationship that New York society could accept.
Hannibal’s impeccable credentials as a moral and honourable man, a great philanthropist and part-time academic, helped, as did his and Chadwick’s behaviour which was as intimates rather than lustful lovers. They became known as, if labelled anything, nothing more than ‘an odd couple’.

Of course they were more than just that. They had an active sex life together that had to be considered, at the very least, as adventurous. Chadwick went to University, she obeyed Hannibal’s wishes by having young, handsome studs for lovers, but they were in fact not her own wishes. As Hannibal had promised she learned first to accept the idea of other men, then to enjoy them for sex, even the odd flirtation. She acquiesced to his wishes even to the extent of trying to love one or two of her lovers but she never could enough to give up Hannibal. They travelled together to far and exciting places where erotic games entered their sex life. And always Chadwick obeyed Hannibal’s every wish. And why not? They made her happier than she had been, his demands invariably enriching her life just as they always had.

Money and power, a good and well-respected name, a conservative out-of-the-limelight lifestyle, being high in that magic closed circle of American high society, and not least, the discreet behaviour of Hannibal and Chadwick, were responsible for a lesser scandal than might have been expected and the ease with which Chadwick slipped into the role of Mrs Hannibal Chase.

The wedding was private with only Warren and Diana, Sam and Helen, Andrew and Claudia, as witnesses. It took place on a bright sunny day in June in the interior of a small, dark, ancient church in Venice made bright by a thousand fat white candles and white flowers: lilies and roses in draped garlands and arrangements. A small boy sang like an angel, three flautists played Vivaldi on their silver flutes and the ceremony was performed by an Archbishop from Rome assisted by a Cardinal. The sounds rang like clear drops of crystal among the ancient stones and fourteenth-century frescoes. There was an air of profound happiness about the couple taking their vows, but there was too
tremendous emotion for Hannibal, which he had not expected of himself.

When they had been declared man and wife until death do them part and kissed, Chadwick, screened by her wide-brimmed white organza hat with its one large and perfect white magnolia pinned against the crown, was able to hide from the guests the kisses that brushed away the tears from the corners of Hannibal’s eyes.

They had not been easy for him, these last two years of waiting for this day, abiding by the ground rules
he
had set. Only now, in his happiness that Chadwick was by law and the church his, did he realise how he had suffered for loving and wanting Chadwick. Love, lust and guilt had been burning a small hole in his heart. As they left the church and their romantic wedding ceremony to step into the bright sunshine and walk the few paces to the waiting gondolas bedecked with more white flowers, everyone laughing and cheering and throwing rose petals, Hannibal wanted to shout to the gods his grateful thanks that at last his suffering was over. Chadwick had chosen to marry him and be his for always. That was, in fact, what he had said. Not ‘Til death do us part’, but ‘For always’.

As for Chadwick, never had she looked lovelier, every inch the sophisticated, elegant beauty, as if she had been born and groomed to marry no one else but Hannibal Chase. For her this day and becoming Hannibal’s wife was the continuation of a love and lust she had always had for the man who had saved her, her prince, and now that love, that lust, was sanctified. She was incredibly happy, in love, and knowing how happy Hannibal was doubled her pleasure. How lovely, she thought, that I can keep adding to his life, that the family will always stay together.

Chadwick stepped into her role as Mrs Hannibal Chase just as Hannibal had planned. She had, after all, been moulded for the part. She was to a great extent protected by Hannibal, Warren and Diana as she had always been. But slowly they began to depend on her as the female head of the family, a role which she took on happily and played with charm and a certain subtlety that was admirable. In addition to being Hannibal’s wife, his lover, the mistress of his household and the confidant of his children, at
Hannibal’s insistence, during those first two years after their marriage, she finished Yale with a top degree.

It was then that Hannibal started cutting back on his workload so that he could spend most of his time with Chadwick. The most cultivated and interesting of men, he now had a companion to share his interests in the arts, history, philosophy and travel. Every year they were together was to the couple no more than a day. They had their public life: friends, society, charitable works, business for Hannibal. They had their family life: and it was by that they realised time; Warren married and fathered four children. It was not a happy marriage, his real happiness lay in being the right hand of his father in business and his confidant and friend, being close to Chadwick and loving her the only way possible. He saw a great deal of his father and Chadwick and on many occasions travelled with them, for their pleasure as well as his.

Chadwick saw Diana through several bad marriages and the birth of three children before she finally met and married the right man. She still idolised her father and was as obsessive about him as she had always been, and Hannibal and she still had an uneasy relationship. It was, as it had always been, Chadwick who was able to smooth out the problems that a rose between them. Through all the years Chadwick had not changed in her feelings towards Diana; she still loved her, kept her on a pedestal, most always took her side, and invariably helped her in her darkest moments. Chadwick had an enigmatic goodness that like so much about her was unfathomable.

The all-encompassing thing about Hannibal and Chadwick’s life together was the support they gave one another. When and how that support turned into enslavement neither of them knew nor could they understand. In time it simply became one of the facts of their life together. That it existed was known only to them. Chadwick absorbed it, transformed it into one of her secrets. Hannibal only rarely thought about it and chose both to love and hate their condition and never to speak about it.

Their sexual life remained as it had begun: somewhat bizarre. They were each other’s sexual slaves who still enjoyed driving
themselves into a sexual frenzy. Their life as husband and wife, their genuine love for each other, their individual needs, the adventurous sex life they indulged in, over the years forged a deep and brooding, not always happy, and sometimes dark alliance that trained Chadwick to obey Hannibal’s every wish. This dark side tortured Hannibal, but never troubled Chadwick. If she was ever unhappy it was because she sensed Hannibal’s anxiety over the lengths he would go to to achieve the ultimate thrill and adventure in orgasm for them. He demanded that every man he watched fucking Chadwick must kiss and caress her breasts, and incite a wild passion in her with raunchy talk, come inside her, fill her with warm and thrilling sperm. Give her the vaginal orgasm he himself refused her.

More often than not he would come in her mouth at the same time as the other man filled her cunt. At those times, Chadwick felt crazed with excitement. Her madness was infectious for Hannibal and usually the stranger as well. Sex, such as this, was the ultimate for libertines such as Chadwick and Hannibal. More and more often the participants could not stop there; Chadwick would take on both men with oral sex until they were rampant and ready for more. The stranger and Hannibal would change positions and eventually take turns penetrating and thrusting.

Hannibal was imaginative in his sexual-game playing and sometime dangerous: picking up strange men and women and bringing them to their bed, sometimes in discreet and not always elegant hotels. The dark side of sex was never brought into their own home. Part of Hannibal’s liking was of the dirty backstreet aspect of sex and Chadwick, too, found the danger and thrill of their libertine life seductive. But she was also aware that as dangerous as it might be, she was safe in Hannibal’s arms, he would always protect her. It was therefore so easy for her to give her life to Hannibal and experience sex for sex’s sake, to feed the libido.

Hannibal controlled her in many more ways and certainly one of those ways was to cultivate her in a sex life to satisfy both their lusty demands. Often he would create a sexual adventure for them that was too much even for them and so it was not repeated; as,
when in Morocco at a friend’s summer palace on the edge of the desert, Hannibal’s host, who had frequently experienced sexual scenes with Hannibal and Chadwick, produced nine men for Chadwick. Two Nubian servants, big, strapping, handsome black men, two elegant Egyptian diplomats, Four Moroccan young bisexual beauties, and one Englishman. Hannibal had watched Chadwick consumed by passion as each excited lover had taken her in turn. For hours she had been enveloped by lust and sperm and kisses, licked all over and caressed with scented oils. She had imbibed glasses of champagne, been fed white chocolates and strawberries, tied with silk scarves and whipped with a slim leather belt. Anything and everything had been used to excite her lust, to keep her and her studs on the edge, always ready to go that very next bit more for another moment of sexual bliss. Hannibal had, one by one, replaced her lovers with himself. When he recognised that Chadwick was no longer aroused he took her in his arms and kissed her and carried her to his bed and told her, ‘There are no other women in this world to match you in or out of your lust, I adore you.’

They lived in every moment of their life together for that moment and so the years seemed to fly by.

Hannibal had always combined his business acumen with his academic ambitions. Now, after many years he was getting international recognition for his rare appearances as a lecturer and as an author. They had come to Paris where he had been awarded a literary prize for his book
Existentialism in France and America.
That was how he and Chadwick happened to be sitting in the sunshine at the Café Flore.

The writing of the slim volume had been the culmination of a life-time of belief in a philosophy that he considered to be the most important of ideas in the history of twentieth-century thought. Though he most humbly accepted the prize he felt he was not very deserving of it. He had written the book for himself, to clarify the cultural differences in people’s approaches to Existentialism and where and how he fitted into those differences. Hannibal had wanted a better understanding of his subject and his way of life, having embraced the philosophy as
young man and lived by it always. His peers had laughed when in his acceptance speech he had told them, ‘For a man who has been considered a dilettante in the academic world and an academic in the business world, that I should win a prize for an anti-intellectualist philosophy of life that holds that man is free and responsible, based on the assumption that reality as existence can only be lived but can never become the object of thought, this is quite overwhelming.’

Those were the very words Hannibal was thinking about when the waiter brought him and Chadwick another Pernod. Hannibal added just the right amount of water to the yellow syrupy liquid in the bottom of the glass and then dropped in several cubes of ice. He did the same for Chadwick and then took a long and thoughtful gaze at her. How lovely she was in her cream coloured linen suit, the way the sunlight played on her fair skin and long silky hair. He watched people walking past them on the pavement and most every one of them, man and woman alike, gave her a second glance. He delighted in people’s admiration of Chadwick. He smiled at her and, taking her hand in his, lowered his head to kiss it. They had fulfilled each other’s lives, the bright and dark side of their natures, because they had never allowed themselves to become objects of thought but had rather chosen to take every chance they could to live where their hearts and minds took them. It suddenly occurred to Hannibal that there would come a day when he would wake up and be obliged to pare down his life; that he would lose his freedom to be and would only be able to think about life as he wanted to live it. Age and infirmity would exact that. He was appalled by the thought and saw himself as nothing more than a walking corpse.

‘Never!’ he said aloud, most emphatically.

Chadwick, who knew her husband so well, heard something she had never heard before: a hardness, anger, bitterness, shimmering in that one word.

‘Never what, Hannibal?’