When the Dark Wins

I’d experienced this before, at the room in Cuba. The world had slowly blurred from my existence, and I’d wondered if with enough time I might vanish altogether and become nothing. Push me to the wall and I blend into the paint.

Perhaps he had women he’d done that to.

“There.” He kissed the top of my head. “Maybe you’re not my talisman, maybe you’re an angel from above. Maybe you’re a cure. I’m tired of my monster.”

His monster – as if he were two people.

He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed gently, for a man of his size.

This transformation into kindness was more surreal than when he’d told Vitor to fuck me.

“I don’t think I want to be your cure.”

“No? The tool does what it’s told to do.” His hand found the cleft of my ass. His fingers lingered in the region of my asshole, circling, though I squeezed myself tight.

There were times I could resist.

He heaved himself upright, wrapped his fist around the back of my neck and dragged me with him as he walked to the steel railing. I staggered i

n his wake. Wrist-thick rope decorated the steel wires, woven into idle patterns. He pulled me past bronze statues of cranes with their beaks held low as if they fed from the deck.

“Look.” He gestured at pure blue sky and sea. Miles away, clouds sullied the perfection. “I want to be out there. You stopped me. You.”

Out where? On the sea?

I’d gone from talisman to what? Ballast? Yards below, the tide slopped back and forth, froth sailing past on small eddies and waves. I could see another deck down there. If I jumped, I could swim away.

He swung me, turned me, until my back hit the railing. I was a doll, forced by will and muscle into position – on my knees with my arms to either side, as if I were crucified. Carefully he tangled me in rope and steel. He roped my throat. I coughed at the pressure, though the rope did no more than lie across the front of my neck.

Wriggling, I found my fingers liked the feel of the steel cable.

“Fucking stay.”

His words were harsh yet his tone was calm, as if he contemplated whether the lawn needed mowing.

He stalked up and down, slowly, looking at the predicament he’d placed me in. At times, he kneeled and brushed his hands across my breasts, stirred my nipples, or ran his hand between my legs. The sounds when he deigned to penetrate me...

My eyelids threatened to shut until he commanded them open.

“So very wet.” When he smiled, all I saw was his mouth.

Whispers... He whispered to my neck, things I could not understand. Eyes widening, I stayed quiet and still, finding myself growing ever more aroused.

Questions began. Small questions, or they seemed small.

“Why are you here?”

“To kill you.”

“Why?”

“You ruined my life.”

“Will anyone miss you, search for you?”

“Yes. I used the database search function illegally.”

“Your employer will look for you? The CIA?”