25. RELEASE
SILVINA
“Strip.”
I hate that word.
“Now.” His voice is a whip. He’s not happy anymore, and I’ve done nothing to deserve his mood change. He’s belying the green calm of the wallpaper. He should have picked a wild red instead, something to reflect his erratic behavior.
John’s leeches are in the bedroom too. Leech number one is chewing on a pepperoni stick. He has a bag of them, and he’s been stinking up the room for the last half hour. The air is full of stale pepperoni, pine needles, and pending violence.
I have to be fast. Only, I can’t get out of these clothes on my own. I’ve been wearing his Halloween queen getup for the last nine hours, ever since we went to breakfast at his mother’s. I’d like to wiggle it around to get a hold of the ropes on my back, but I’m laced up too tightly. I still try, wring my healthy arm behind me in an effort to reach it.
John waits. Arms crossed, he waits with steel eyes narrowed into slits. He doesn’t say anything, just watches until my lip trembles and I have to bite down on my panic.
“For the love of God,” he barks. “Mazzi. Go to her. What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you just ask for help?” He throws his hands up. “I have to do everything, don’t I, even guess your thoughts?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
For one moment, I hear myself from the outside, a long-ago me who can’t fathom what I’ve become. How did this happen so fast? Three nights I’ve been here, only three, and I’m a cowering mess.
Mazzi’s pepperoni fingers slide down the knobs of my spine until they find the lacing. He gets to work on it. The pressure lightens over my ribs, giving my lungs a freedom they haven’t had since this morning. He can’t deal with the clasps at the bottom and rips them open with a grunt. The dry little snap makes me shudder.
Rough hands move up, grabbing the fabric from my shoulders. Instinctively, I want to push them away, but think better of it and let him drop the heavy heap of brocade to the ground.
So here I am again, shivering in front of John Ulrich Himmel. The hungry stares of his leeches mean nothing anymore, not when he’s destruction incarnate. Regal and omniscient, he waves me forward. I walk toward him on bare feet and with my breath hitching.
When I halt in front of him, I don’t cover my breasts because that could kill this truce. But I entwine my hands in front of me in a partial veiling of my core.
“Hot damn,” leech number two mutters from the door.
It wakes John from his icy examination. “Guys: leave. Wait outside.”
Zetticci suppresses his groan in time, but Mazzi does not. His disappointment is audible and causes John to whirl around. “What was that?”
“Nothing, sir. We’ll be in the kitchen.”
“That’s right. You will.”
Then, we’re alone.
“Come here, pretty Silvina,” John almost purrs. “We’re going to shower.”
I wish he couldn’t fit us in his shower.
Unabashed, he’s naked with me. Smooth and unharmed by fists and sharp-heeled shoes, he cranks the stream, letting it rush hard. He fills this cubicle with ice.
He’s calm as he regulates the temperature until it’s how he wants it; he doesn’t want it cold. He doesn’t want me to step underneath it until the temperature is how it’s supposed to be.
The width of his shoulders makes skin glide against skin when he turns for the shampoo. He pours a generous amount into his hands before he lathers it over my breasts and works his way downward. I don’t interrupt, don’t tell him he should’ve used the shower gel. His focus is good. It’s good.
He exhales small complaints as he cleanses my bruises. I flinch when he reaches wounds that are open. He zooms to my face, then, stares in alarm, while I hold my breath. I avoid his gaze.
“Turn around.”
I do.
“Lean your arms on the wall and spread your legs.” I’m in jail and he’s some warden. “Widen your stance. Up on your toes.” His voice is serene. I don’t tell him shampoo should never go inside of a woman. He rinses me well. Just, now he’s been everywhere, and I just lost another piece of me.
When he turns me toward him, I tip my face against the water so he can’t see my tears. He tilts me back, wanting me to face him. Of course, I obey.
He makes me open my eyes.
Body well kempt, he’s unmarred by the violence he doles out to others. Light hair gleams on his chest, darker and thicker in a path down to his cock.
Finally, I do it. I risk a glance at the reason for his latest violence, and I can barely hold back my gasp. I’m not an expert on the male anatomy, but I’ve never seen someone with an appendix like John’s.
What I’m looking at is a shriveled pocket of skin. It looks utterly harmless, and so unfinished I can’t even imagine it erect. Shapeless, it rests above a pair of testicles that look paradoxically heavy. Surrounded by a shock of black hair, the pink color is what makes his member stand out.
I shut my eyes, letting the water rush over my face again while he focuses on my boobs. He kneads them slowly but not cautiously enough. Bolts of pain shoot up as he massages. I end up letting out a whimper, which he interprets as pleasure.
“I’ll sleep with you tonight, my pet. This morning was a fluke. I was just tired.” He finds my mouth, rubbing his lips over mine under the warm water. “And don’t worry. As soon as I do, you’re finally mine. No one will dispute our relationship after that.” He adds a puff of amusement to his kiss. “Not even your cousin.”
While he leads me to bed, my brain races with thwarted concerns: I’m worried he won’t get hard; I’m worried he can’t sleep with me the way he has planned.
“I’ll make you come too,” he promises, and it’s another thing to worry about. I’ll have to fake it. “Then, we’ll meet up with your cousin again tomorrow.”
Elation flares up and dies in my chest. Why? Does he want to break Gioele too?
He lays me out on the bed, limbs spread wide. I tell myself a truth; the leeches aren’t here—it’s good—it’s good. Only one man I despise is staring at me. Only one man is touching me. Their fingers would have smelled of sweaty pepperoni. Sweaty pepperoni is worse than too-sharp cologne.
His hand goes to my sex, and I stop myself from flinching. He rubs me there, back and forth, a mechanical move while he scans my face for a reaction. The urge to slink away becomes unbearable when he eases a finger inside of me.
I will murder you.
I peek out from under my lashes, finding his penis in the same state it was in the shower. Shriveled and unenthused, it’s just a little dick meant for urinating. It should’ve been a relief. But for my life, I don’t want to experience his reaction if he can’t manage this for a second time in a row.
“It’s my turn,” I say while he’s still touching me. “Let me make you feel good.”
His hands freeze while he considers. “But I want you to come.”
“Afterward?” I whisper.
He lets a hand fall, the slap against his thigh making me jump.
“Okay. Suck me, then.”
“I have something better for you.”
“Like what?” His eyes narrow with suspicion.
“Let me show you.” My tone is little-girl light. It’s a pleading whine that doesn’t sound like me. Even less am I me, when my voice adds, “You trust your girlfriend, right?”
He sets his shoulders in answer.
“We need to trust each other. It goes both ways. That’s how… love is.” Slowly, so as not to set him off, I sit up and fold my legs to the side. “I’ll grab the baby oil from the bathroom. Just lay back and relax in the meantime.”
He’s still on his knees when I come back, so I nod toward the pillow with a lip-stretch I hope resembles a smile. My lungs feel raw, like I’ve been running in the cold. What if I pull it off? What if I don’t…
He lowers himself on an elbow and turns on the bed, gaze disturbingly shrewd. Stretching out, he leaves his arms along his sides. It’s as if he’s on lit de parade, and God, I wish that he was.
It’s clear that he doesn’t feel comfortable. I run my stare over him, over a beautiful body lost to the ugliest of souls. My heart bubbles out a growing rhythm at the perversity of the situation; I’m choking intense, natural aversion so I can make his pores contract in pleasure.
His hand suddenly rests over his penis. It’s a shift meant to appear accidental, but I understand what he’s doing. In this moment, John is vulnerable. He’s afraid of my judgment. But it takes him mere seconds to retrieve his air of cruel invincibility, and when he does, he drops his cover, leaving himself fully exposed. With glacial eyes, he dares me to address what I see.
I drip oil on his stomach. In small circles, I rub it in. He breathes under me, and I can’t take it. Even his breathing makes me taste bile.
This isn’t my captor. He’s not my tormentor or every misery of every minute. He’s just a person, just warm skin, a man, someone wanting to feel good. It’s what I tell myself. I do it over and over, until I realize that I’m okay.
I’m the one hovering over him now. I have him beneath me. I trigger his nerves and control each ending. I tap around his nipples, rubbing there too, moving down along the sides of his ribs until I reach his waist. There, I create wings with my hands, and I use them to feather inward until his navel disappears beneath my fingers. He sucks in his stomach, an involuntary ripple.
“Is it nice?” I make myself whisper, and it’s not hard to do at all.
John doesn’t answer, but his eyes have fallen shut. His member reacts when I pour more oil into my hands and shift downward. Slickness meets the coarseness of hair where his hips become thighs. Firm, his balls seem to have drawn up in enjoyment.
He doesn’t mean to groan, and that’s my victory. The longer he lets me touch him, the longer I’m on top. My smile feels more genuine. In a few words, I praise him, only a few, so his focus can’t move elsewhere.
John spreads his legs, cooperating while I grip the muscle of his inner thigh. I rub it, glide over it, watching his head dip back into the pillow.
I shift to the other, my fingernails scraping over hair and skin, causing him to shudder. I suppress my relief at how he doesn’t instruct my moves.
He opens his eyes, arms going behind his head. He’s the classic man being pleased by a woman and wanting to watch her in the act. I move upward until I’m stroking along his partly swollen member.
I take the oil again and drip a thin stripe along its center. It’s cold, a small satisfaction when he draws a sharp breath.
“Shh,” I say. “I’ll make you feel good.”
I don’t grip it at first. Instinct tells me to let it grow naturally, so I stroke, applying smooth friction from its base, past the crown, and around its bulb.
Just a man. I force myself to meet his eyes. There’s desire in his. That little smile still plays on my mouth. It’s not hard when you think of love.
“God, I love you. You’re everything. Do you know how everything you are to me?” Gioele would have cupped my face and pulled me down to him. He’d have play-groaned of how he couldn’t take more of my teasing. Slowly, deeply, he’d enter me, mouth to my mouth, lips and teeth meeting through puffs of warm air. We’d breathe each other until his desire was mine and mine was his. Soldered, our embrace would be tight, trembling with energy and lust and love. And if only for those moments, we’d be eternal. “I want to live in you.”
I’ve awakened John. Eyes murky, the desire in his gaze is thicker. Intently, he studies me. This love isn’t for him, but I’m brimming with it, and I don’t stop it from spilling over my features.
He’s hard under my fingers. When I form my fist around it, he lets out an appreciative grunt. I lean on his thigh, shifting closer to him. Blowing on its head, I pump up and down, my grip around him growing faster.
John’s butt bends off the mattress. He has a command on his lips, and my heart speeds up. Fear. Uncertainty. I know what he’s about to say, and I don’t want to hear it.
“Silvina…” He exhales in erratic shoves. Fisting the sheets, muscles taut with concentration. “Get. On. Me.”
Never.
“Does this feel amazing?”
He opens his eyes, a small wrinkle appearing between his brows.
“Yes.” He hisses it out. I keep working, my arm turning leaden.
He tenses suddenly, grabs my arms, and for one terrible moment, I think this is it, that he’s dragging me down to him, that he’s going to take me, and it will be worse than anything, than being beaten, than having every crevice invaded by him as he scrubbed me clean.
I pump him faster. Harder. Fiercely.
I’m desperate.
Cursing, he lets out a guttural groan. Nails digging into my arms, he isn’t trying to pull me down anymore. He’s riding his orgasm—that’s what he’s doing—until globs of warm liquid jet from my hand, fly past his stomach, and land beneath his collarbone.
A deep sigh shudders out of him. I’m not sure if it’s exhaustion or relief that makes my hands shake as I let go and pat his harmless beast. I watch it shrivel so much quicker than it grew. The way it rests in a mass of sticky hair brings my nausea back.
John’s eyes are closed. His breathing takes a moment to slow down, chest heaving with the impact of the last minutes. I’m disgusted by him, and I am scared of him. But my nausea retreats at his expression, at the slackness of formerly taut muscle that starts at his neck and extends down his legs. It’s biology’s fault. It craves me, now, wants me included in some perverse, post-coital closeness, and all because I’ve given him what lovers give lovers.
“You tricked me,” he breathes.
Uneasy, I wait while his eyelids lift. They take a moment to respond.
“What do you mean?”
A smile curls his lips, and it’s beautiful in its faintness. “I’m saying you tricked me. I was going to make love to you, but you made me feel too good. I’m sorry, my pet. I couldn’t hold it any longer. It’s been a long time.”
I want to sob with relief.
“Come here,” he whispers, and now his eyes are molten with love for me. There is no urge to hurt me. No need to make me submit to him. What I see is him wanting me at his side. It’s messed up when I want it. It’s messed up when I lower myself on his arm and he nuzzles me like a true love.
“Let me make it up to you.” A gentle hand moves over my hip, dipping forward while he kisses my cheek. “I’ll give you an orgasm now. It’s only fair.”
No.
“Didn’t you notice?” I say in my softest voice.
“Notice what, my pet?”
“I came while you came. I couldn’t take it any longer.”
His eyes widen. “You came without being touched?”
“Yes, you were too hot to watch.” Discreetly, I run my oiled hand over my seam. Survival makes me bring his hand down there next. “Feel this.”
There’s wonder in his gaze when it meets mine. “Wow, you came a lot, huh?”
“Totally.”
“Not as much as me, though. I’ve got shit everywhere.” He chuckles quietly. “You know how many babies this could’ve been?”
I swallow another ripple of nausea. “Tons of babies.”
“I’ll give them to you later. Come here. Come sleep next to your boyfriend.”
He does what he did the other night. He shifts my back to his front, ladling me sideways against him, and I know that for now I have calmed the monster. Tonight, there’s no more fear.