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It starts with a bad day that cascades into a spate of misfortune, and ends with you scraping together the meagre remainder of your pay just to treat yourself to dinner after a series of stress-filled months and burnout.
Half-hoping to relax—for once—in a comfortable restaurant, eat good food, and stuff the splintering chasm inside yourself with Amritsari Kulcha, Papri Chaat, Biryani, and Salty Lassi—a bandaid over a sinkhole, really; but it's infinitely better than the microwave dinners and Pepsi you've been surviving on for the past few weeks.
Good food, after all, heals the soul.
But midway through dinner, you meet an older man when your fingers are dripping with the rich gravy from your Kadhai Paneer. He's ruggedly handsome—tall, broad shouldered; hairy (what winks out at you from the tugged collar of his red flannel button-down can only be described as fur)—and decidedly interested in you for some reason. Asks why you're alone. Why you're eating alone. Seems annoyed by the idea of it, as if you sitting at a small table, discreetly trying to wipe the sauce off your fingers (and secretly mourning not being able to just lick it off—a waste of such delicious, gingered gravy, really) was an affront.
You're not one to open up to strangers, but sometimes it's easier to talk to people you don't know than it is the ones you do, so when he pulls a chair over, it just—
It just pours out.
A deluge that leaves you trauma dumping over Samosa Chaat.
Opening up to a man, a stranger, this dangerously attractive is a new low—even for you—but you soothe the sting of humiliation when you reach the part about your recent performance review by clinging to the simple truth that you'll likely never see him again. And even if you could, you wouldn't—
Not after sheepishly admitting that you've been doing nothing except work, come home and slink into your depression roster of comfort shows (and trashy reality television when your patheticism reaches an all-time high and you need something, someone else, to soothe the burn of it), eat terrible food, and nap until your alarm goes off and you lay in bed staring at the waterlogged ceiling, contemplating the sheer relief you'd feel if you got into a minor accident—nothing major, you hastily tell him when those dark brows raise a touch; but you think it would be a little bit of a sweet reprieve to spend a few days in the hospital—before the sad realisation that no one else is around to pay the bills for you comes back, and you're forced to drag your limp, tired body out of sheets that reek of sleep and paste on some approximation of a friendly face before going out and getting chewed up by the gears of life that never stop turning.
(god, won't they ever stop turning?)
It's almost cathartic.
He listens, too. Quietly. Mullish. Almost impassively, you'd say, if you couldn't see the tick in his jaw beneath a dense layer of fur. It almost shames you. Almost because when he notices where your gaze drifts, and the slow, sudden diffident curling around your words, he pulls back. Reshapes himself with a single breath. Gone is the ire, the flare of anger. The tick of his jaw. All that remains is the tight, rhythmic clench of his fist pulling together so tightly, his knuckles bleach stark white beneath the gold glow of the overhead lights. The veins lacing his thick, hairy forearms bulge in a series of blue-green rivulets that disappear under the haphazard, uneven fold of his sleeves just beneath his elbow.
After a moment of silence, a brief interlude where you're not sure if you should start monologuing about your terrible apartment or your boss, he leans back in his chair, legs spread, splayed out until his knee knocks into your thigh, and huffs:
"sounds like you need a drink."
And it does. But you can't. Won't. "No," you etch out between slow, steady breaths. "That's a habit I don't want to get into."
He absorbs your words quietly, but looks—
annoyed.
"Sorry," you offer, but you're not sure why. "I just don't—"
"It's fine," he grunts, shaking his head. The tick is back. "How 'bout a coffee, then, mm? Tea?"
"Oh, um—"
Your hesitation brings out a strange rumble in his chest. A quiet, loose purr.
"My treat."
Rent, bills—phone, internet, insurance, monthly bus pass—and groceries have left you with nothing except one hundred and fifty until your next pay—a solid eighty of which are currently spread out before you (an optimal choice because it was buy one, get one free—even if you think the owner was just making it up because he felt bad—and you'll have leftovers for the next two days) and the rest will likely be spent on something else that pops up, like the slow coagulation of water and mould between the upper floor and your ceiling. Turning down a free coffee, or tea, isn't really something you want to do, even if the man offering makes you a little nervous, a little wary.
like a child, you think. He just has this air about him that reeks of authority. Of a hidden meanness that is one more no away from rearing its ugly head.
So you say yes—yes, sir, actually, and ignore the wicked flare in his blue eyes (a portend, perhaps; your mother always warned you about blue-eyed devils, after all)—and slowly start gathering your things while he flags down the only waitress in the restaurant, a young girl popping her gum behind the til and scrolling through tiktok on her phone. She brings takeout containers and the bill, and both of you ignore the perplexing pinch in his brow—because maybe he just doesn't understand that Indian food is amazing served hot and fresh, but somehow even better after it cools, after all the aromatic spices have a chance to soak into the gravy, to congeal and rest, elevating it into something godlike. You're taking it home. All of it.
And do, adding it to a small tote she pulls from behind the counter with their logo on it. nah, don't worry, she says when you ask her how much it is. it's on the house. a sweet gesture—until she adds: "you used to come here, like, every weekend, anyway. And we got worried when you didn't show. Had to talk my parents out of calling in a welfare check—but that's only because I saw you on the subway—"
The strangled thanks! makes him chuff. Thick arms folding over his broad chest as he taunts every weekend, mm? and you try to disappear into the crater of foam on the seat between the split in the pleather upholstery.
He shakes his head, almost fond; but something shifts across his face: a small frisson. A sudden wash of darkness after a thick, dense cloud drifts over the sun—
But it's gone in seconds. Tucked back inside deep, ragged canyons of blue that are a little darker now than they were earlier. Hidden behind a smile that creases his eyes until they, too, are almost gone.
"C'mon. Been itchin' for some good coffee all day—"
The girl leaves, throwing a loose grin over her shoulder. You make to call her back, you haven't paid, but his hand curls over the takeout tote, tugging. Don't worry about it is rasped out soft and low: I already got it.
But he didn't ask, and you're not sure if you would have said yes. Coffee is one thing. A—ninety-eight dollar—meal is another. You wonder if he knows you're not interested in—in hooking up. Not with a man old enough to be your father. Not with a man who reeks of barely leashed anger, and oozes a palpable sense of unflinching control. You have a life—however pathetic it is—and you're too young for—
for that.
for him.
(to be twisted up into a doll. a housewife. shelved until it's needed. collecting dust until he decides it's playtime. you like your independence. you want freedom, not a cage—)
So when he grunts, jerks his chin to the side, and says: "comin'?"
You say—
yes.
(you've always had a problem with speaking your mind and saying no—)
And this defect, this flaw, becomes apparent when he leaves the restaurant with just your things, and nothing of his own:
"You, uh, you weren't eating...?"
He slants a long look in your direction. Something like—like derision bubbles to the surface. "Nah," he evades, lips quirking up into a sly smirk. "Jus' pickin' somethin' up."
A noise grates in your ears. In your head. A whirring. A warning. The static, uneasy buzz of bees—soldiers fluttering around in uniform chaos; screaming about the threat looming closer to the hive, to the queen. You feel hot. Restless.
He nudges you into a small alcove, the bulk of his body sealing off every exit until all you can see, all you feel and smell is him. Spiced with bad choices; leather and ruin. Something metallic—
(later, you'll realise the stone-like scent is pure iron; but that'll only be after the cage doors snap shut.)
Heady. Masculine. The scent of him is unlike anything you've ever smelled before. Equal parts comfort and safety (palo santo, sun-scorched sand; tobacco and dark, aged whiskey; rotting paper—lignin, furfural—and a damp, old basement in a house you don't remember but could never forget) and fear (stagnant water, kelp: like rotting wood pulled from from the deep sea; fire, smoke; sulphur; something rotten—cadaverine, putrescine—and sweat). The sharp dichotomy is dizzying. Paralyzing.
he pulls you in closer. His breath carries the smell of the ocean: the seafloor. His mouth splits into a grin. "Don't worry, sweetheart; nothin' is gonna hurt you—"
is what he says, but what you hear is: except me.
You swallow so hard, it aches.
But the no never comes. The no never has a chance to claw out from the sediment before he's pulling you along, dragging you into a place that's not a cafe, but a club. Pushing you into a booth. Boxing you in with a grunt, a barking demand for two whiskeys, neat. And a bottle of spring water.
You want to say i'm not drinking but what comes out instead is thank you, sir.
"Call me John when we're in public, sweetheart—"
The rest is nestled into the gleam of his teeth when leans down, hand cradling a glass full of murky amber, urging you to drink. Easy. jus' a sip. There's a good girl—
Simple words that rewrite your evening with a rough, calloused hand, and worn knuckles that scrape against the too-soft skin of your cheekbone when he grazes them over your flesh as the world turns into a smear, a kaleidoscope, of colour and sounds.
One sip turns into three, six. Into a full glass (two fingers, he grunts into your ear, teeth grazing your heated, feverish skin; remember tha'; it's how I like my whiskey, sweetheart—), another. Another—
Between the third and fourth, his fingers slipped between your lips. You slurp and gag around the thick spread of them as he watches, leaning back. Legs kicked apart, thick thighs spread. His other hand cradles his own glass—two fingers is slurred out against blunt nails; good girl comes with a scrape against your tongue that makes you shiver. At perfect, unquestionable ease with his fingers in your mouth. In public—shush, baby, no one is watchin'—with a stranger.
But the world tilts before the panic has a chance to rise. The swirling, sickening spill of colour is awash with black ink, and the last thing you see is drenched knuckles pasted across the background of gleaming teeth wrapped around a cigar.
"'bout time it kicked in—"
and then nothing more.
Marred in hazy, fracturing images is the weight of a body over yours.
A man. Palo Santo and the deep sea. Held between the unforgiving heat of a big, thick body—all hard lines and dense fur—and the soft, dampening cushion of a mattress.
It's all muddled. Stumbling out of a club you didn't want to go to, ankles wobbling on the pavement. The taste of whiskey and ginger-kissed tomato gravy on your tongue. Soft murmurs into your temple. Plans forming between alleys and streets. Takin' you home. You're a good girl. The best. Gonna be such a good—
The press of wood against your back. Fingers slipping, skating over slick flesh. Peeling your clothes off until they're pooled at your feet, sitting on the floor like a distant, murky polaroid. Familiar—in a faded, muted way; like flipping through a photo album and finding yourself nestled between the pages. Recognising yourself, but not the place. The event. A birthday party, maybe; but it's all wrapped up in cling film. Remember that? but the answer is always no.
He feels like that. The thick, soft thigh sliding between your knees, wrenching them apart, is a memory you keep reaching for, but can never catch. The rasp of hair against sensitive skin. The flicker of heat pooling behind your navel when he blunts his thigh against your cunt.
The no, too, is a memory you keep reaching for, but can never catch.
Kisses cut like little knives across your skin, leaving shallow lines that weep with the red-hot ooze of blood cooling in the stagnant air of a bedroom you don't belong in.
He says mm, you feel so good—
And it makes you feel good, too. A pat on the head. A kiss on your forehead. good job wrapped up in a i'm proud of you and a i love you that normally never comes.
It's easy, then, to find some form of comfort in him—however twisted up and rotten it might be. A succor. A facsimile of softness, of care. Like the bed—
The bed is soft. His body is, too. Soft and furry and hot. A bracket above you. His arms a tight, inescapable parenthesis curled beside your temple. He looms, arched overhead like a tower; a monument. Each roll brings him closer to you, close enough to blunt his damp chin into your sweat-slicked forehead. Small kisses to soothe the ache below: a steady, unending pain that grows, that throbs, when he rocks into you, giving you that kiss.
Everything is wrapped up in a wet, syrupy heat. The slick, slippery drag of your inner thighs over his ribs, the backs glueing to the damp fur on his chest when he bends down, and folds you into a new, unfamiliar shape. Opening you up wider. The slick, tacky pressure between your legs, at the apex of your hips; a burn—like a stretch, like a tear. A trickling drip of molten tar that makes his eyes roll when he sees it, head dropping back between thick, meaty shoulders as the groan is ripped out of him. Spilling into the satin drape of midnight with an echo that shudders through your bones.
The blunt press of him between your legs, inside of you, shifts with it, dragging him—his cock—deeper; the angle changing, deepening. Fuck, good girl—it's too much; too much but he doesn't stop—that's it, open up for me, c'mon, lemme in—he won't.
Your arms are rendered into paste. Into liquid. You can't even clench your hands around the thick fingers he threads between yours much less gather the ooze of your melting bones into your hand, strengthening them to push at his shoulders, his gut—anything to try and get him off.
But he bends down further, smothering you in the thick bed of hair on his chest; drowning you in the pool of sweat on his skin; and he takes. Ruthlessly. Brutally. Snaps his jaws around your throat, anchors your wrists in his hands, and slakes that simmering, barely leashed fury you glimpsed earlier into your swollen, sore flesh. Pounding into you hard enough to make your head rock, tossed back from the force. Only the bulk of his body keeps you pinned in place.
A shrill keen buoys amid the rough seas, but it just makes him groan along with it. Echoing your begs for mercy with his own blood-drenched monologue: so tight, such a pretty thing, good girl—
You don't feel good. You feel sick.
Seasick.
Each thrust is hard enough, deep enough, to make you gag. Choke. The quick swell of a simmering hypoxia is almost a blessing: a respite. and when he crushes your chest beneath his to drag his tongue over your cheek, quenching his thirst on the smear of your misery, you give in to that sirens call, and let whatever it is tugging on your ankle drag you down—
Misery coagulates into a thick line cresting over your eyelids.
A seal, you think, and for a long stretch of time (through hypnopompia—cool, damp sheets against feverish, aching skin; but you're running: fleeting from a beast with blue eyes and a gleaming grin, one that doesn't speak, but rumbles, like the rasp of a rockslide; gravel shorn against pavement; a hand biting through charred cork bark; the crunch of scorched, burnt duff underfoot; a clawing hand that gets closer with each rumble—to cognizance—the shift of sheets, a body moving beside you; the creak of a bed, a jostle; the hush of a breath whispered over your skin, words drowned out by the feverish thud of your heart banging inside its primordial cage), you consider keeping it intact. Sinking into the abyss between states where you can pretend your alarm is due to go off any moment now, and this is just another game you play where you pray to a higher power that it never will. That you can laze in a cotton cocoon; drifting between hypnagogia. Or pretend that you're an arthropoda buried in the rhizosphere—still a cog in the neverending grind of a big machine, but one that isn't sore in places you shouldn't be. Can't feel the heat of a body beside you. Or the ooze of something leaking out from between swollen, sore flesh and sliding down the back of your thigh before soaking into the sheets—a something that makes you feel sick to think about. to feel. To know is there, on your skin, inside of you—
You know your body. Know what's supposed to be there, and what isn't. And that—this thick, warm sensation oozing out from deep within—is not.
The worst of it all is that you can still smell the rich, spiced gravy on your fingers—once a comfort, a constant; the only splurge in the rigid confines of your ascetic life that you could reasonably allow, not desecrated. Marred with the reminder of tobacco and palo santo. Hadal breath.
The no that refused to dig itself out of the muck in the benthic zone.
But no amount of pretend can shape the sudden grip on your jaw into something it isn't.
Red-rimmed, bloodshot, and raw—you pry your eyes open through the ache, struggling through the haze, the smear, of sleep and tears, to stare at the grizzled face of a man you would have said yes to under different circumstances. The anger of last night is tucked back into those canyons, the crevasses of sharp blue, but a jagged edge of it lingers, poking through the shadows.
The look on his face culls the scream before it forms, but the penknife tapping across your chin buries it deep.
"Look," he rasps, and you think of that dream; the rockslide that tried to drown you in rubble. "This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, but you—"
The grip lessens. Slacks into something soft. Tender.
You'd fall for it, you think—
if the bevelled edge of a small, sharp blade wasn't stinging your skin.
He huffs. The blanket shifts over his hips, and it's the draw of the abyss that makes you look, but instead of that ink black promise of nothing, you find thick, matted fur—
and his cock.
Half-hard in the hazy spill of dawn. Thick and fat, resting against his furried thigh. The sheen of it—his cum, you think, nauseous—is tinged pink. Your cunt clenches—a small, tremulous pulse, a throb, and you feel it, then. The sting. The burn. A pain sharp enough to make you drag in a noisy, screeching breath.
He follows your gaze. Hums, unbothered by the whimpered gasp, or the awful twitch of his bare cock. "Been a long time," he offers, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. "Might've torn you a bit—"
It makes you sick. All of it. The feeling. The pain. The bitter sting of anger—
The palpable helplessness of knowing there isn't anything you can do about it. A silent agony that carries the devastating awareness that he doesn't even need the knife to subdue you. To threaten. A thing that kills something inside of you. Runs it through with a knife, spilling abject misery into your guts.
"w—what do you want?" your throat hurts when you talk, and you wheeze the words out into the silt clotting across your vision.
He hums again, and presses his arm down into the sheets, elbow digging into the pillow before it lifts, filling the empty space between his shoulder and head. His chin resting in the crux of his palm as he stares down at you.
The look on his face is—
Primal. Predatory. Starved.
—contemplative.
But there's an animal quality to it. Something—not human. Not right.
And then it clicks: the look on his face reminds you of those grizzlies you saw at the zoo. Curious in the way an apex predator is when everything around it is potential food.
A sentiment made much worse when he simply states: "a wife."
You remember that uncanny sense of awareness about him from last night before the no began to rot in the back of your throat. When you looked at him, and recognised the look in his eye as a meticulous, unerring warden in search of a ward to shackle to his side. A toy. A playmate. A thing to shape into something new, something that preened under his commands, and begged for his authority. A passive, submissive pet in which he could permit to kneel between his feet.
A wife—in name only.
"A mother, too," he adds, and the bed jostles when he shrugs. "For my twins."
twins. You see it, then: etched into the emerald paint and soft copper trim is the smatterings of small handprints; the lingering marks of children tucked into neat, symmetrical lines. A small shirt thrown over the back of a chair. A dress folded on his dresser. The armoire door gapes open; in it, several suits hang on a rack—
Along with two little black dresses.
He cranes his head over his shoulder. Grunts. "Funeral," he rasps. "For their mother."
a sad thing, he adds, but there's no grief in his eyes. No pain. No approximation of loss or suffering—just want. A bleak, dark thread of intent as the knot begins to slowly unravel.
The penknife is pulled away with a quiet, rough better not do anythin' stupid trailing behind it. You're smart, though, soothes the sting, but only just because you soon discover that the knot is not a knot at all—
It's a web.
They lost their mother a year ago, he rumbles, and you stay as still as a ghost as he sits up, and pulls you into his lap. Smothering a wince of pain into the soft press of his tummy against your cheek. Going lax, docile, as he stretches his legs out beneath your body with a grunt. and now they need someone to take care of 'em. raise 'em.
The panic is nauseating. "What about my—my job—"
"Called 'em an hour ago and told 'em you quit."
"But—"
"Gonna lay some ground rules, mm?" his hand falls onto your crown, stroking you like a dog. "All kids need a mother—"
The soft touch firms: his fingers trail from the soothing stroke against your temple to dig into the seam of your lips, pressing in. Your mouth opens with a quiet, sticky sound and he groans at the easy, numbed obedience you offer, a hushed good girl whispered beneath the squelch of dry fingers on wet flesh. Nails grazing your tongue as he adds, darker, pulsing like a bruise:
"and every good man needs a good wife."
With his fingers buried in your mouth, you can't say anything at all—can only lay there, nursing on his knuckles as the threat of these hands, that knife, looms like a spectre in the background.
"and a good mother doesn't scream. doesn't yell. doesn't ignore her kids or try to run away—does she?" you shake your head, eyes wide. Burning. Stinging with unshed tears. "Good. And a good wife is obedient. She listens. And that's what you're gonna do, isn't it?"
You nod. The nausea almost chokes you, but you swallow it down, swallow around the thick, nicotine-tinged split of his fingers as he hums, staring down at you. half-mad, maybe. Or fully mad.
A mad man. He has to be—
But he's put together. Has a job, a good one. Won't need to worry 'bout money. and good girls, good mums, good wives, get spoiled fuckin' rotten, don't they, sweetheart?
and a house in the countryside—one far away from town. From people. your new home.
The place where you'll raise his kids. Take care of him.
He's a simple man, he says. jus' want dinner on the table. and if you can't handle the kids, we'll hire a nanny, mm? you don't have to worry about anythin' anymore—not your job, not rent. No stress—
just him. his kids. and nothing else.
"We'll make this marriage work. I know we will, mm, sweetheart? You're a smart girl. You won't end up like her."
The web is thick. The silk strands tighten into a noose as he lays the groundwork, the rules, of what to expect. And outside of the ache, the threat of that knife, the stench of the no rotting behind your teeth, it sounds like the epitome of what you've been craving for so long now. A fantasy you could easily slip into when he sets a standard for himself—he won't hit you, won't cheat, won't yell; the house is just as much yours as it is his. He'll lavish you with things. With clothes and gems and all the luxuries you could possibly want.
take you to India, mm? get you some real food. know you like it—
and places you've never been before. Places you could never go without him—the Azores, a weekend in Hong Kong, sailing along the Ivory Coast. A pretty doll dripping with luxury. A smiling, warm mother pulling his children into a tight embrace. A wife—
wanting. waiting for him to get home.
The scariest thing is that there's no delirium staining sapphire. no smears of insanity. Just the bright, clear gaze of a man anchored in reality, and willing to do whatever he must to bend fantasy until it falls into his living hand. carving dreams into daylight. Into flesh and blood. As sane as Pygmalion, chiselling into marble.
Between the bitter taste of skin, spit, and nicotine, an acrid tang surges up from the back of your throat. The rotted remains of that no resurfacing, spilling leachates all over your tongue. It's there, suddenly, between your teeth. Your tongue pushes against it, trying to shove the necrotised husk out of your mouth and onto the slope of his belly.
But he must feel it. Feel the skin sloughing off against his nails—
"Gonna be good for me, aren't you?"
Blunt nails cut through the mouldered tissue, shoving it down your throat until it slinks back into its esophageal prison—a whalefall sinking down into the abyss. Cradled in the siliceous ooze and turbidites.
All that remains is yes. A helpless nod drenched in spit and tears. In an acquiescence whispered over the bevelled edge of a blade and a warm, rough hand that curls around your jaw and lifts your head up to meet ruthless slate. Brine pools.
"''course you are," he purrs. It's louder, deeper with your head so close to his stomach. A chuff. A low roar. "I knew it from the moment I saw you, mm. Knew you'd be the best fuckin' thing to happen to us—"
His fingers slip out from beneath your chin, curling over your cheek, the shell of your ear. The soft give of your temple—a gentle press, a small, rough kiss—before curving over your nape, thumb brushing the fragile knob at the top as the fingers in your mouth drive deeper.
Beneath your belly, he thickens. Fattens up. New warmth, a new, sticky slickness dampens your skin when you gag around his knuckles, eyes fluttering. Watering. Tears drip down your hot, feverish cheeks as the nightmare shifts, solidifying under his hand. The tapestry of your life, your freedom, unravelling with each nudge of his fingers in your mouth, down your spine, until his thumb is digging into your tailbone, thick, calloused fingers splitting your cheeks apart—
he lingers there, pausing on a low, decisive groan as ink spills over your eyes at the deep, burring gonna fuck you here, too, mm, gonna have all of you—
all his, he adds, and his fingers sink lower, cock pulsing. Throbbing. His hand pushing between the backs of your thighs until you give, wincing in discomfort because the shift of your hips makes your cunt ache. The squeeze of your thighs against your folds keeps the pain at bay, but spread open, parted, the cool morning air is agony on your swollen, abused flesh. But he doesn't let it stay untouched for long.
He cups your aching cunt in his hand. Splaying it across your seam until his long, thick fingers are buried beneath your pelvis, middle finger dipping into the indent of your mons pubis, brushing the sensitive skin above your clit until you shiver.
Dissatisfied with just holding you, his heel nudging into your folds until they part around the thick of his wrist. You can feel him still—the slick, thick ooze of his release smearing against his palm as he opens you up. Spreads you wide.
It’s sick. Demeaning. He burrs low in his throat at the mess he left behind—been savin’ it, he groans, and you yearn, desperately, for that sweet bliss of sleep: jus’ for you. Ever since I saw you, I knew—and nudges his palm harder; the pads of his finger toying with your clit. Rubbing your flesh until your belly churns with—
with disgust. with nausea.
—with heat.
His fingers are dry. Rough. Stroking the embers still smoldering between your hips, fanning the flames until they grow. Burning bright. Incandescent.
You hate it. Hate how good it feels. How good he makes you feel—
With a quiet groan in the thick of his throat, he drags his fingers out of your mouth. Holds his hand up to the soft spill of dawn cutting through the open curtains, and draping across the bed. They're wet. Soaked. Sticky strands of spit web between the knuckles of his index and middle finger when he peels them apart. Messy girl, he grunts, but it's fond.
He brushes his fingers across your cheek, smearing cold, tacky spit over your skin as he looks down at you with that same false tenderness as before. Soft and sweet. A loving touch that makes you feel sick.
“Gonna fuck you again,” he rasps, voice firm. Full of promise. His hand peels away from your cheek, sliding his sticky, wet palm down your spine before he presses it flat across your dorsum.
His knee draws up, slicing between your legs until his thick, wooly thigh taps against your cunt. Between your bodies, his fingers twitch.
Then he shoves. Grinding you into his thigh. Into his palm.
And you hate it. Hate it—
It feels good. The sting is there, burning bright; a flickering ache that rears with each bump of his thigh only to be soothed with the same pressure. A strange duality of sensation that hums in your belly, oscillating between pleasure and pain. Distress and comfort. Keeps you balanced, in perfect equilibrium, between the two.
His cock twitches. His hand slides down to curl over the back of your thigh, fingers digging into soft, plush meat in a painful, pinching squeeze. Jerks your leg up, over his knees.
“Wanna watch you, sweetheart,” he says, and his breath reeks of algae, of salt. The look on his face, in his eyes, is trenched in an unfathomable black; a void, a maw. He's an open mouth, all eager teeth; wanting to devour you whole. And he does just that. Shapes you into a meal, into prey. A malleable spill of meat and tissue to sink his desires into; grips your bones in his firm fist, and cracks them open like crab legs before slurping at the sweet kelp of your marrow. A feast he can have over and over again—
and will, he promises, thick hand wrapping firm around his fat cock as he nudges you up—a pretty doll, a pliable wife—and makes you sink down onto him. Like coming home, he says, but it doesn't feel like that at all. It aches. Burns. The pain of it steals the air from your lungs, but he doesn't let go of your hips. Doesn't relent. Keeps forcing his cock into your sore, swollen flesh and shushes your sobs, the hitching whimpers, with promises you don't want—
Will never want.
Time to be a wife, he grunts, and tugs you down those last, painful inches until you're flush against his hips. A pretty wife him—
It's too much. The agony is white-hot and vicious, but all he does is lift up, and lick the tears streaming down your face with a deep, guttural groan; savouring the taste of your misery as he pulses deep inside of you.
You're not the first lachrymose bride, and maybe it's easier for him to pretend, too—lie to himself and say the tears are of joy instead of agony. That you want this, want him—
But then he curls his hand around your throat, blunt nails like little knives that dig into your feverish skin. Holding firm, steady, even as he grinds your sore cunt over his cock.
“Gonna be good for me, and then—” the hand tightens, the warning clear: obey or else. “When mommy and daddy are done lovin’ each other, we're gonna go wake the girls up, and have breakfast, mm?”
His hand curves up, cupping your jaw. Isn't that right?
The no is buried under silt. You think about reaching for it, just once—
But his hand is quicker. Deft fingers bury it deeper until it's unreachable. All that remains is the yes, and it trips off of your tongue when he adds:
as one big, happy family, mm?
(this, you think, is what the bottom of the ocean must feel like, smell like: cradled against his damp, heaving chest, breathing in the scent of tobacco and leather. sex and sweat. blood.
his mouth is cold, damp, when he smears his lips across your forehead. it reeks of algae and rot. iron. wrought shackles. a tightening chain. an anchor, rusting in the deep, being pulled up to shore. ice cold and rough. heavy with concretions. with long, dangling tendrils of rusticles that gather across your body—
you think of that dark, endless mausoleum when he bends down, mouth full of smoke, ash, and demands: c’mon, sweetheart, be a good wife an’ give your husband a kiss—)