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“Anyway, I have to get going. Mamma and I have a lunch date with the Morellis.” She bends to grab her bag, and as she turns to go, she pauses. “Maybe keep this between us. What I told you about Elio.”
“Yes. Of course,” I reassure her. I appreciate her telling me all this, and I’m not going to go betraying that confidence. Besides, I can’t see myself bringing this up with Elio anytime soon, anyway.
But even so, her words stay with me all day long. I can’t get them out of my head. Can’t get Elio out of my head. He morphs and oscillates, swinging wildly between the man I know and what I imagine his fourteen-year-old self to have once been.
After how last night wound up unfolding, I don’t venture out of the room today. I hang out in the quiet space, picking away at the lunch and dinner Rosa brings me and staring into the void of my phone. By 9pm, Elio still hasn’t come back to his room or mine. I try to be relieved at that and ignore the way his absence niggles at me.
Chapter 27
Deirdre
Elio doesn’t come back the next day. Or the next. After four days of not seeing him, I’m starting to get pissed. Is this how it’s going to be? Me, alone in this giant, beautiful cage of a house? I can practically feel the interest accumulating on my debt, like a little bit of weight added to my shoulders every day, and I don’t even have the chance to work towards paying it off because Elio isn’t fucking here.
That’s the only reason I want to see him, of course. To keep chipping away at my debt and actually do what I’m supposed to – play violin for him. I don’t actually want to see him. Obviously. I’m not insane.
Maybe I’m just lonely. I haven’t heard from Willow since that initial email, and I have to think that Paddy’s got her under major lock and key right now. I wonder what’s happening with Darragh and everybody else. If they’re still trying to get their hands on me, or if they’ve given up after Elio presented me at the gala like his personal, chained-up property.
I wonder about my father sometimes, too, even though I try not to. It’s too easy to slip into pity and self-loathing and questions about why I wasn’t enough. Enough to protect, enough to stay and fight for.
But maybe I really am worthless, because I apparently no longer even have Elio’s interest considering he can’t be bothered to show his face.
It’s thoughts like these that have me fuming – stewing, literally – in a very hot bath on the fifth day of not seeing Elio. My classes are supposed to resume tomorrow, so I’m in an extra shitty mood because I’m pretty damn sure I’m not going to be allowed out of here to go. All that work to get my Bachelor of Music, down the tubes. I’m halfway through my third year, still have one more to go after this, and I can’t see a way around the fact that my education has come to a screeching halt.
I slide down in the hot water until I’m submerged past my shoulders, hoping the scalding heat will burn away my emotions. It would be so much easier to be numb right now. To not feel anything at all. No anger, no disappointment, no grief. No matter what I do, though, I just can’t seem to manage it. I can’t let go of the hurt and the frustration. But then again, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe the force of that unhappiness, the sense of injustice of it all, is keeping me going. Numbness won’t keep you alive. Bone-deep anger will, though. It will keep me standing when nothing else does.
I blow out air through tight lips, sending bubbles from the surface of the bath scattering in a spray of foam. The thick layer of bubbles is the only reason I feel comfortable taking a bath in here instead of doing my usual towel-curtain-shower thing. But then again, considering Elio hasn’t even bothered to come check on the prisoner he was so hellbent on keeping, I doubt he’s looking at the camera feed, anyway, wherever the hell he is. So maybe the bubbles aren’t even necessary.
I glare up at the camera in the ceiling, resenting it and him and everything about this. The resentment grows and grows, pushing out everything else in my chest, even the ability and the desire to breathe. I suck in a huge breath then plunge beneath the water.
My eyes scrunched shut, I let the eerie melody of the water fill my ears and start to count.
One, two, three…
I force my muscles to relax even as the anxious burn I know so well starts to build in my limbs.
Ten, eleven, twelve…
I don’t feel desperate for air yet. I love this part, the part before everything gets tingly and twitchy and I really have to fight to stay down here. I love the brutal calm of it. The way my body could be just a leaf or bit of driftwood or maybe even just a part of the water itself, simple and mindless and floating.
Thirty… Thirty-five…
My lungs feel tight. It’s hard to stay still.
Sixty… Seventy…
I squeeze my fingers into fists, battling to hold on just a little longer. The longer I can hold it, the more euphoric that first breath when I’m out again. My thighs press together, a needy burn pulsing in my clit. I release one of my fists, strumming back and forth over my clit, fast, fast, fast. It has to be fast because I won’t last much longer. My spine is winding tight, my legs straightening and bending reflexively.
Eighty…
I’m close. Close to everything. Close to coming, close to needing the sweet release of breathing. My fingers tingle and twitch as I rub them over my swollen clit. Just a few more seconds… Just a little more… Just-
My orgasm rips through me at the same moment a set of huge hands seizes my shoulders and wrenches me out of the water. I gasp and cough, confusion wrapping around the white-hot, black-edged pleasure that binds my core. I pant heavily, feeling water-logged and weak-limbed, blinking rapidly and scraping hair away from my face as my pussy quakes.
I try to focus my gaze, but I don’t have to work too hard to see who’s here. His face is a mere inch from mine. Elio.
A rush of humiliation makes an aftershock throb in my clit, and I snap my teeth together to keep from moaning. I stare at Elio wordlessly, taking in the absorbing black of his eyes and the furious set of his jaw.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask between ragged gasps, trying to get my bearings. Elio hasn’t been here for days, and he has to show up now?
