27
KRUM
Bulgaria, nineteen years earlier.
Dad is very happy. I'm happy to see him smiling so much today; finally he's earned a lot money. Lately he has earned more and more, but today it's really a lot. I cannot count well. I don’t go to school and dad doesn’t want to teach me. But when the man dressed in black says: “Here, Botev, it's six thousand lev.” I repeat in my head that sum of money because it's really impressive.
I've never seen so much money and maybe I’ll never see it again.
“Well, well, well…” Dad wets his fingers and counts it many times, as if he too was incredulous. “Krum, get your bag.”
“What bag?” I don’t understand.
“The only one you have. Get it and put your stuff in it.”
“Why?”
“You must go with this gentleman.”
“I am not going with the gentleman. I am not doing that thing again!”
I've begged Dad to let me go only with women, because I cannot do it with men. He accepted it and after that time only women used to come home.
“Go and take your bag, Krum. I don't want to repeat it.”
I do as he says and I get my bag, the backpack mom had bought me to go to school, only I haven't seen mom since that day, not even the school.
I put something in it, without looking at what. Actually, I have nothing.
When I go back to my dad, he and the gentleman are drinking rakiya. When dad drinks rakiya, he does bad things.
I let the backpack fall to the ground and they notice me. I stare at that man as if I wanted to tell him not to touch me. If he tries this time I'll run away and I won’t come back anymore.
The man gets up, finishes his glass and shakes dad's hand.
“It's a pleasure to do business with you, Botev. You'll receive more money later.”
“It's more than I expected.” Dad shakes his hand and then approaches me, bending over and putting his hands on my shoulders. “Now you'll go with him. Behave well and do what I've taught you.”
“Where do I have to go?”
“This gentleman will take you where there are other children.”
“To school?”
“Also.”
“You said I should do what you've taught me.” I look at the man and say: “I do it only with women.” The man laughs, he has an ugly and wry laugh. I don’t want to go with this man. “Dad, tell him that I only do it with women.”
“Yes, of course.” Daddy is weird, he has red eyes and he's trembling. Maybe he drank too much.
“When can I come back?”
“You won’t come back, Krum. You are useless to me. Go with the gentleman.”
I cannot move.
Dad said I'm useless.
Dad said "go with the gentleman".
Daddy repeats it.
“You have no reason to stay here. You are useless. Now, go.”
He doesn’t look at me anymore, turns and pours more liquor into the glass.
“Come on, Krum. I paid your father well, he will be ok. Come on,” he says.
I'm confused. My backpack is lightweight and I hold it on my shoulder. I turn around and look for my dad.
Dad is turned around. Dad drinks and doesn’t look at me.
Dad takes the money in his hands again.
The gentleman paid Dad and I have to go with the gentleman.
I'm angry with Dad, so I don’t even greet him. He doesn’t even look at me.
* * *
You are useless.
Those words hurt more than before. Hearing them from her is worse than hearing them coming from my dad's mouth. That abominable being was scum. She is my angel, she cannot hurt me so badly.
My condemnation seems to have just begun. Never, never, would I have imagined to feel this way looking at her eyes as she says she regretted everything I gave her. The cruelty of this woman is limitless, the effect of her words on me is incomparable to anything. I feel lost, empty. It's as if I suddenly lost my eyesight, hearing and speech. She deprived me of oxygen, took vital parts from my body and crushed them under her feet with no pity.
She is merciless.
I drag her along the corridor, her shrilling voice fills the space, hearing her shouting feeds the sadism I'm proud of, I don’t hide it and I feed her fear.
“Go ahead. Scream, bitch!”
“Let me go!” She bites the palm of my hand that is clutching her wrist, I feel her blood vessels pumping against my skin.
“Crap!” I tug her, she has very nasty teeth. I grab her arms and throw her up against the wall. “Shout, shout for me, bitch! You know I like to hear you screaming…”
“W-what do you want to do?”
“I'll refresh your memory. I'll remind you of exactly what you've regretted.”
I continue dragging her by the wrist, straight to the corridor leading to the wing of the five senses.
I'll fuck her as if it were the last thing I do in my life and she will realize that repenting to be mine was the worst mistake she could make.
“Krum, please!” Now I'm getting fed up. If she keeps opposing, I'll carry her on my shoulders. “What makes you so angry? I don’t understand, why do you care so much about what I say to you?”
My head turns furiously toward her.
“You don’t understand, do you? Don’t you understand?”
She denies shocked. Her eyes blind me. It's as if I was looking at two small spheres created to burn my soul.
I swallow. Being in her eyes is like walking around in paradise, but realizing to be in hell instead.
“What should I understand? Explain it to me!”
“Do you want me to explain it to you?” She nods, but I understand that she just wants to control me.
I continue dragging her around the hallways and this time she collaborates, desperately trying to take my hand off her wrist.
“Please Krum, you're hurting me!”
I stop and my eyes catch sight of my grip on her that begins to redden. I realize that I've lost control again; I'm facing the result of my anger, again. She gazes at me as if she hates me, again.
My fingers slide over her skin and look for hers. I intertwine her index, her middle finger and the rest. I grasp her hand and she responds to the grip; inside me a train is passing, trampling every fragment of my soul. I feel like a piece of shit like every time I touch her, like every time I take her, like every time I cannot be her well-being.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Do you trust me?” I ask calmly.
“No,” I increase the hold on her hand and pull it to my chest, she puffs and seems to fall into my arms.
Although I am exactly what she says, a beast, I now feel completely devoted to her; I feel totally hers and if she was to ask me something, anything, I would do it as the last act of my life. But she doesn’t know it, and I'm not gonna tell her. She wouldn't understand, she would have just more material to cover me with insults.
“Krum,” she sighs, as I press her against me and I feel my body in a turmoil just at the touch of her skin.
“Ambra.” My other hand is wandering, moves up and rests on her face, I hope she doesn't refuse me. When I see that she closes her eyes and her cheek drops into my palm, I feel my heart regenerate and keep throbbing for this woman who has the power to crush it whenever she likes. “Ambra.”
She opens her eyes and looks at me.
“Why are you like this?”
“I don’t know how to be any other way,” I whisper so quietly that I almost don’t want her to hear me.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I've always been this way.”
I can understand that she is fine because the color of her face and her breathing are changing and I feel her more relaxed in my arms.
Her hand rests on my chest, slowly climbing my body until it reaches my cheek. She is caressing me and it's like being touched by a non-human entity, made of light and heat.
“Have you ever been caressed?” I blink, confused by her question. I think seriously and answer.
“Yes, you are doing it to me now.”
She looks at my lips and touches them with her small fingers, but they have an immense power: they make me feel alive, desired, considered and unique.
“Why do you do this to me?” she whispers.
“I cannot control myself when I'm with you.”
“I mean… this,” she puts my hand on her chest. “It's exploding, Krum. Listen.”
Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.
It's an uninterrupted explosion.
I put my forehead on hers and she sighs. I press on her and show her that she, too, owns my body in an absolutely overwhelming way. My erection doesn't intimidate her, instead, attracts her to me making her hungry. The situation makes me very proud.
“Are you afraid?” I ask. Her forehead rubs on me because she is nodding. “Are you afraid of me or of what you feel?”
“I'm afraid of myself.”
“Don’t you want to experience what you feel?”
“No.”
“But you are in my arms, you are caressing me, letting me touch you and…” I rub my erection searching for her bud. “You love being touched by me.”
“I am not able to do without.”
I would kiss her because she's just admitted that she cannot live without me. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. She's the only person in the world who says she needs me. She's the only one who could want me and keep me, she's the only one who would never sell me, who wouldn't let me go as if I were an object, as they all have always done.
I close my eyes and enjoy the moment caressing her mouth and her nose, then her lips. I have stopped holding her imprisoned because now she is the one who wants to stick to my body. Her hands are behind my neck and mine are on her hips. I dare not kiss her, I don’t want to go beyond, I don’t wanna be the usual man who expects everything, I have already asked too much of her. Her soft mouth, searching for mine, is becoming a delicious torture, impossible to ignore.
“Do you feel it in the air?” I ask. “Do you feel it?”
“Electricity.”
I smile because we understand each other, we speak the same language.
“It's everywhere when you're with me, when I touch you,” a hand slides to her butt, I hold it possessively. It's mine. “When I see you,” I'm searching for her eyes. “When I feel you,” I take her hand and bring it to my pump. She grasps it and a series of pins pierce me everywhere. “It's so powerful, inebriating, destructive.”
“Powerful,” she whispers on my lips. “Inebriating,” she smells my neck. “Destructive,” she massages me decisively.
I'm in ecstasy.
I'm in delirium.
“Do you trust me?”
“I'd like to.”
“Trust me.”
“If I do, you'll hurt me again.”
I cling her closer to me, my lips are on her neck that smells of purity. She is so pure that I'm afraid of contaminating her.
“I'm trying, Ambra. I'm trying to make you feel good,” I hide my head in her hair, she caresses my back, she is so sweet that I don’t think I deserve it.
“Why did you treat me that way this morning?”
“Because you hurt me.”
“Couldn't we talk about it instead of running away?” She's trying to pull my face away from her neck, but I counterforce it. I want to stay here forever. When she understands that I don’t want to move away, she begins to caress my head and I swear to the God, of whom I'm starting to believe in, that I have never felt as safe as in this moment.
“I'm always afraid to go wrong with you, so I do the only thing I am able to do.”
“What?”
“Hurt you.”
I am deeply ashamed of the words I'm saying and holding her in my arms, continuing to hide in her hair, is the only thing I can do, the only circumstance that allows me to open up. She is understanding it and goes on talking while her hand keeps going down and caressing my head.
“And me, Krum? Do I hurt you?”
I am surprised by the question. If I say yes, she'll understand that I am not indifferent about her, but probably my behavior has already made my feelings clear enough. I've also told her that she hurts me and considering that I am disgustingly vulnerable, I reply sincerely.
“You are the only one able to kill me with a single word.”
I feel her take a long breath, her chest swells and her breasts press on me, making me impatient. I'm always so damned rigid when she touches me and it is becoming exhausting.
“Krum,” she shakes me a bit, hoping that I remove my head from my new favorite hideout.
“No.”
“Don’t you want to move away?”
“If I move away, I won't be able to get closer anymore.”
“What makes you think so?”
“I don’t deserve it, so I'm enjoying the moment.” To loosen the tension, my hands grasp her butt and fondle it. “I take advantage of it till I can,” I joke, but in the meantime I touch her everywhere, as if she could vanish from one moment to the next.
She laughs out loud and I start feeling safer, especially when I feel her lips on my neck, so hot, so soft and so intimate.
“What do you say if we talk a bit?” she asks. I shake my head like a naughty baby, continuing to breathe the scent of her hair. “I'm sure you are able to have a civil conversation.”
I move away from her, because I'm really risking to suffocate being buried in her hair. The light blinds me and I realize it was nice to be in the dark on her, I was... in peace.
I take her face in my hands and I have a different woman in front of me. She is not the one who was insulting me a few minutes ago or the one who was screaming to let her go. In front of me I have a woman whose body is crying out in desire, from every corner. Her eyes are gazing at me, her lips are wet and her tongue doesn’t hide desire, her eager breathing inflates her chest in an unmistakable request. She wants me. I want her. I'm telling her, fuck it!
“Later we can talk, now I want you.”
“And if we first talk and then… well…”
“Absolutely not!”
“Can't you let me win just once?”
“And do you think it's a victory for you not to have me?”
She looks at me from head to toe as if she was plotting the dirtiest scenes that her mind has ever imagined.
“Is it a victory for you to have me?” she says sweetly, stealing the little space that separates us. “Am I a prize?” She heads to my lips and I feel her teeth grasp what they want. I let her bite my lips and I close my eyes, imagining her mouth elsewhere. “Answer, Krum! Am I prize, am I your object? Am I the desire of a moment, a problem to solve?”
She manipulates the mind so well. She wants to violate my brain.
Okay baby!
I turn her, in a fast move that makes her gasp. My hand reaches that beating flower that, I know for sure, will be soaked. I caress her bud and I am shocked to feel that she wants me shamelessly.
“You're already inundated. I feel it through the jeans.”
She's utterly scorching and damp.
She pushes her ass up against my erection that - I'm sure - is ready to explode.
“Answer, Krum!” she insists panting. “Am I a prize? Am I just a whim?”
“I've told you before!” My hoarse voice vibrates on her lobe. Her head is abandoned on my chest. My fingers are massaging her, succeeding in penetrating her jeans and finding the right spots. “I've told you that you are all for me,” I repeat.
“And what do you want?”
“Everything!” I cannot resist anymore. “I want it all!”