Re: the thin and red/the actress
He took her by the hand and stood with her, and he walked. His fingers were cool. An expression of quiet pleasure ripples across his face when she acquiesced. She was coming with him, which was good. This might have been a much more difficult train ride, otherwise, and a very complex exit at the station.
It wasn't difficult to find an empty train berth with everyone out of their seats and milling in the public spaces. He slid the door open and tugged her inside.
The door slid closed behind them.
There was something cold in his eyes, but there was kindness as well. He was not a good man, but not a cruel one. He took no pleasure in pain or suffering, though he did what he felt was necessary without qualm. His world was an empty one, so much emptier this past year, so much more deathly and quiet.
The door closed, he spoke at last, a rich murmur. "You have such fine skin," he said. He removed a glove, and he brushed the underside of her chin with the edge of his thumb. He was very close to her now. He smelled like the warm breath of something animal, alive with adrenaline in a cold forest on a dark night. "Such beautiful red lips. You can act. I suspect you can charm. How would you like a new occupation?" His eyes were deep. Looking at them too long began to have a quieting effect. Like a nice cup of tea, or a long, heavy drink, or a nice, strong draught of laudanum on an icy winter evening. It was soporific and sweet. It drizzled into the muscles like molten lead.
He did not touch her, hold her, or press her body against his. He let her stand at the door, where she might exit any time. "You will be richly compensated," he said. "Take this opportunity, and you will be as you are now, unchanging. Every actress has a nemesis - age. Withering. You could always be Juliet. Always." He looked at her mouth, at the dip of her neck that had caught his eye when he first spotted her.
"All you need to do is be still," he said. "It is only the work of a moment."