The trousers slip from his fingers. His large hand rests a moment on my stomach. I watch his manhood. Beautifully decorated with ink it stands proud and thick. His knees come between my legs. Slowly he tries to nudge the apple head into me, but I must be so sore and swollen from the night before because it feels as if I am being split asunder. I swallow my scream of pain, but my eyes widen and my mouth gapes open in a shocked O.
He freezes.
My flesh feels raw and ripped, but I grab his shoulder. ‘No. Don’t stop,’ I urge.
He retreats gently, but it scorches all the way out.
‘Sweet Lily. I couldn’t hurt you even if you asked,’ he breathes. The burning eases. It is relief but at a price.
He moves lower and puts that hot, wet mouth on my swollen, bruised sex. I sigh with pleasure. He licks gently, with great dedication. It soothes me. I feel bright and shiny again. My fingers dig into the lustrous black hair and pull his mouth harder onto me.
I come quick and hard and gasping, my spread thighs shaking uncontrollably. The pleasure is so intense it is agonizing.
I try to rise. He puts one finger on my breastbone. ‘Stay. You look good when you are open and ready to be taken.’
‘Take me in the ass.’
And in this way, inch by inch, slowly, carefully, painfully he goes where no other man has gone. No matter what happens after this, this is my gift to him.
Afterwards, I lie on his chest and listen to his heartbeat pulsing—slow, definite. A sheltering sound. He deserves more than I can give. Something tears at my heart. He deserves much more.
Can he feel the beat of my treacherous heart? I shouldn’t have begun this. Too late. I just never dreamed someone like him would ever want me. I feel suddenly so lonely it hurts. Aching tears swell my eyelids. I stamp them down. He explores my hair, curling it around his fingers. I open my eyelids and the tears run out and smear between our skin. His hand stills. He takes my chin between his thumb and his fingers and lifts my face up.
‘Why?’
I realize I want to make him feel good. I want to pretend a little while longer. ‘I’m just happy.’
He stares at me for a moment longer. He is about to speak again so I smile. So easy to execute. So disarming. Such a lie.
I trace the cross over his heart. ‘When did you do this?’
‘I was fifteen. I built it over time. It is made of seventy-seven scratches.’
I lift my head higher and look at him curiously. ‘What does it stand for?’
‘Matthew 18:21. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” My seventy-seven times are up, Lily. No more forgiveness for me. Only hell awaits.’
He doesn’t know but I already know his story. I think of him as a fifteen-year-old boy. Lanky with long muscles. Arrogant on the outside, but fragile and broken inside. Scarring his own skin, filling it with ink, counting his sins, and I suddenly feel so sad I want to weep.
Life is so strange. So unfair. What has a starving child in Africa done to deserve its fate? Or a gypsy child who has to take over a criminal enterprise at the age of fifteen? I think of my brother bringing me an abandoned bird’s nest with the broken shells still inside. Doing handstands on Brighton Pier. Sweet, clueless Luke. Making lumpy pancakes on a Sunday morning. A knot forms in my throat. I swallow it. My throat aches. I will not cry in front of him.
‘Why didn’t you stop at seventy-seven?’
‘Because I couldn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘The more money I made, the more entitled I felt.’
The child is gone now. The man is impenetrable. He fucks. He comes. He doesn’t feel. He leaves. And yet he is different with me. As I am different with him. I nod. Yes, money. It makes the world go around. All of us little puppets in its thrall.
‘I found you a job,’ he says softly.
I feel tired. ‘Yeah? Where?’
‘You’ll work in my organization.’
‘As a drug mule?’