SERAPHINA
Eighteen Years Later
It’s almost night. Anticipation bubbles up in my belly; he’ll be here soon.
I have to be ready. Everything has to be ready. Everything has to be perfect. My skin is soft and creamy from the moisturizer he brought me; my pussy bare from where he shaved me last night. Every inch of me is silky and smooth and smelling of coconut.
I would usually be ravenous by now; my days have a very particular routine. I wake up with a sliver of the sun, peeking through the tiny crack in the boards that cover my windows to keep me safe. I read; I drink water by the gallon to quell the hunger pangs in my belly; I paint with the watercolors he left for me. I sleep, because I’m so weak from the lack of food. When I sleep, I dream of the same angel; the man made of midnight, with the kind eyes and the wide smile. I think about my small hand tucked in to his, his earthy smell, the way I am so sure he is real. The first time I saw him, his tender words. “I’ll get you out of here, sweetheart.”
He can’t be real, because he never came back. Not after I fell out of the window, fresh blood still running down my thighs from what Ignacio had done to me. “You’re a woman, now,” he had whispered, and then he had turned from my father to a monster, right before my eyes.
But mostly, I wait.
My pulse quickens as I hear his car pull up. I’ve never been in a car before. I wonder if it feels like flying along the dirt roads, engine purring. Not that I can fly, either.
I hurry to my spot on the bed that takes up the center of my circular room; on my hands and knees, facing away from the door, trying to still my breathing.
I hear the hard soles of his shoes as he ascends the stairs: clackclackclack. His keychain jangles. The key inserts into the locking mechanism and turns.
I break out into a cold sweat, which is so unlike me. I am always full of anticipation, excitement to see him after a long day by myself. But this night, something is wrong. My skin is clammy, oscillating between hot and cold, and I want to throw up.
The door closes again, locked tight to keep me safe. Those same shoes clack across concrete floors to the bed, to where I wait, ass in the air, naked as the day I was born into Ignacio’s arms in this exact spot.
He stops at the end of the bed. I feel the mattress dip as he climbs on to the bed behind me, already hard as he takes my hips in cold, rough palms and pulls me in to him. He plants a single kiss on my tailbone. “Did you miss me, Seraphina?”
My eyes fill with tears. “Yes, papi.” It’s true, I always miss him so much. He’s my entire world. Without him, this room stays dark and it’s just me, touching myself under my panties until my skin is raw and my fingers are soaked.
“Your hair is wrong,” he growls. Fear spikes in my belly, alongside the dull ache that has been in my side all day. I’ve never forgotten to arrange my hair just the way he likes it. He prefers it loose, so he can wrap it around his hands while he drives himself into me. Today I forgot. It’s the pain. The pain in my side. It’s been plaguing me for days; making me forget things.
I open my mouth to apologize, but my platitudes are drowned out by a sharp smack to my rear. And another. And another. It hurts. I grip handfuls of the snow-white sheets in front of me, barely visible in the fading light. Sometimes I think he visits me at dusk so that he doesn’t have to see me properly.
He stops striking me; my skin stings from the sudden assault. But it’s nothing compared to the sharp throb in my right side.
“Let down your hair,” Ignacio snaps over the sound of a zipper, and I sit back on my heels, fumbling with the long braid that reaches almost to my knees, combing the weaves out so that it hangs loose. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m – oh…”
Without any warning, he’s pushing inside me. I make small noises as he fills me up with himself, feeling myself contract around him. He brings one hand around to my front and strokes the tiny bundle of nerves between my legs that makes me arch my back like a cat in heat.
“Baby likes that?” he asks, nibbling on my ear. He never stays angry for more than a moment. He says it’s because he’s besotted by me. I think it’s because my pussy is clenching around his cock and making his mind blurry with lust.
He is not my father, but he is like a father to me, sometimes. And other times, like now, he is my lover. Like his lust-filled mind, sometimes the lines of what we are to each other blur until they run into one another.
My legs start to shake as his finger moves faster between my legs, circling me to the brink and then backing off. My stomach drops as he takes his fingers from my pussy and slides them into my mouth. “Suck.”
I open my mouth and taste myself on his skin. But my mind is somewhere else. It’s wondering if this pain in my side might kill me. It feels like it might. I feel as if somebody has taken the fire poker from the corner, the one I use to stoke the coals on cold winter nights, and rammed it into my stomach.
I start to shake harder. It’s no longer pleasure driving me to such dizzying heights; it’s knowing that I will pass out. Black bites at the edges of my vision as I struggle to breathe. I gasp as Ignacio pulls on my hair, pulling himself deeper inside me, swelling inside me as he lets go and I feel his warm seed spurt deep inside me.
He lets go of my hips and I collapse on my front. He will be angry. I’m supposed to turn around and lick him clean. This is our routine, the same thing, every night.
“Seraphina?” he says quietly, in a tone that suggests he knows something is not right. He pulls out of me, sticky semen seeping out of me, quickly growing cold on my thighs. He gets off the end of the bed and circles around to the head, kneeling beside my face.
It’s the first time I have seen him all day; his short stubble, his dark eyes, soothe me. I am not alone. “Bambina, what’s wrong?” he asks.
“My stomach hurts,” I whisper.
“I would feed you more,” he says, stroking my cheek affectionately, “but we need to keep you small. You understand?”
I nod through the hunger that pulses in me; it is always there, an omnipotent beast that eats me from the inside out. I am always starving. I am always weak.
But this feeling isn’t hunger.
Ignacio senses it, too, I think. I feel his body tense under me as he brings the back of his hand up to my forehead. It is like ice to my fire; he sucks in a breath.
“You’re burning up, little bird,” he says, concern thick in his voice. He gets back on to the bed, pulling me into his lap so that my back is against his chest. On reflex I part my legs, and his fingers find the spot where they fit so well.
“Let me make you feel better, precious girl,” he says, his tongue on my neck, his fingers bringing me ever closer to the edge. I raise my hips greedily, wanting more, wanting relief and release. He starts to fuck me with his other hand, two fingers inside me, then three, the other hand circling my bud until I’m moaning loudly.
There are times I could almost believe that he is my father, except for times like this, the way I’m naked in his lap, my legs spread wide, my head resting back against his shoulder as his rough fingers stroke the wet spot between my legs. In the books I read, stained with mildew and covered in layers of dust, fathers do not do these things. He kisses my neck tenderly, rubbing me between my legs until they start to shake. “This will help you forget,” he breathes, his words warm on my neck.
Stars burst behind my eyelids as my orgasm finally arrives; and for a precious moment, with Ignacio’s fingers buried deep inside me, with his teeth biting softly at my neck, the pain goes away and everything is pure white light inside me.
But then he takes his fingers away, pushes me to the edge of the bed, to my feet, cold fluid running down the insides of my legs as he guides me gently to the small bathroom. “Clean yourself,” he says, turning on the faucet and filling the tiny shower cubicle with steam. “I’ll get you food, and some medicine.” I nod, not bothering to twist my hair up onto the top of my head like I normally would. I put my palms on the tiled wall and shuffle underneath the water.
“Phina?” Ignacio’s voice sounds like it is a million miles away. That’s impossible; I’ve never left this tower since the day I was born, unless you count the time I accidentally fell out of the window when I was a child. No, I could never be a million miles away from my dark love; he’s never more than a few feet away.
“Seraphina?!” More insistent this time. I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. I can’t see. I can’t hear. There is a brief pain in my temple as my head hits hard tile, and then nothing.