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I snarl into the cloth and force my body to stop reacting to the taunt of fear. I’m not afraid of here. I asked for here and everything that came with it. Malachi included. Clarity rushes in, reminding me of Gray asking me to leave with him – go home. I don’t want home. I want here and now and this if this is what being here means. My fingers start tapping a rhythm, finding a cadence in the music to cling to.
Thud, thud. Thud, thud, thud.
It gets heavier every time I drop the finger, and I ready myself for whatever’s next.
Get on with it.
Something hits me. My stomach buckles at the impact and then my back arches me off the bed, air rushing out of my nose. Pain. I look for him, my wide eyes furious because of the sensation. Still nothing but shadows and corners. And then the pain lands again. So hard and sharp, like metal landing on me.
I suck in air repeatedly, shouting and screaming into the cloth at the same time for it to stop. Nothing stops. It comes again, and again, and again until it seems like it won’t stop at all. Everything on me heats and warms, muscles tensing to get away, but nothing stops the pain of it as it lands again.
Tears leak from my eyes. I can’t stop them. Don’t want to either. They let something out of me, some terror or dread leaving with them. I feel them over the pain that keeps coming, feel their slow trickle on my skin as they roll down my cheek. Slow. They roll so slowly.
Drip drip. Drip, drip, drip.
And then there isn’t any pain anymore. There is only the drips and the thuds. The loud notes and music carrying on around me. Everything seems slow. Laboured and unclear. Almost empty of anything. But my stare through the tears is focused, precise. It’s there – the thing hitting me. Long. Many of them. Swishing through the air repeatedly to land in the same spots.
“Ask for a reprieve,” his voice says calmly. “Blink for it.”
No.
Not now I’m in it.
I keep my gaze firmly fixed on the thing as it comes down again, making sure my eyes stay wide, and brace against the blow that lands heavily on my skin. Ask for a reprieve? Why should I when this result is what I came for? I came for the nothingness and emptiness of that nothing. There are no feelings in nothing. I am a bitch and singular, able to survive without a man and never needing to ask for a reprieve again. Nothing that can tear me down or destroy what I am becoming.
Weight lands on top of me, Malachi’s near black eyes staring into my own. I half squirm under the pressure of his body, trying to avoid contact on the marks he’s just caused, but then remember that I am more than that.
My teeth grit down on the rag, body stilling regardless of the grate of his ribs on me.
“Shall we talk about fucking now?” he asks, smirking. I don’t move, acknowledge, or change my direction of gaze. He can talk about anything he likes. I, clearly, can’t. “I’m wondering what you’re like to fuck, and why he seems so fascinated with you.”
He moves, placing more of his weight onto the very spot that’s excruciating. I swallow and glare, waiting for more pain. That’s what’s coming. I know it. And if he took this fabric out of my mouth I’d ask for more of it because now the feelings are coming back, the hurt and aches. Rick filters in somehow. His face smiling at me.
One finger comes up to my face. Soft again. Feathers. My eyes flutter closed under the sensation, mind reeling back to thoughts of tender and gentle, as he wipes the last traces of tears from my cheeks. “What are these for?” he murmurs. “Tell me.” I shake my head, unable to articulate what they’re about even if I wanted to. “They’re not from the pain of the tails.”
No. They’re not. They’re from something so deep that even I don’t understand it. Fear, pain, trust. A life lost and rejected as useless and replaceable. Sweet Hannah.
Good Hannah who hoped and loved and dreamed.
Stupid fucking Hannah.
I mutter into the rag, telling him to stop, to leave me alone, to go back to the way it was so I can return to unfeeling and empty. Empty is best with them all. Cold and barren, just like that world outside this window. Only Gray gets anything more now. He gets heat from me. Thought, connection. And I want pills again. I do. I want all of them inside me so I can linger in their light and fun rather than deal with any of this probing. Any colour. All of them.
Mixed and swallowed without thought to why.
“Mmm. Intriguing.”
The finger moves again, trailing slowly down my neck, chest, breast. He stops at the nipple and squeezes, twisting and winding bitterly as if trying to detach it from me. A groan comes out of me, the pain mingling with the nothingness I’m craving. It wakes parts of me that the pain earlier didn’t, makes my body writhe under him to grind on the bruises further.
“You’re a little pain slut, Mrs Tanner.” I don’t know what that is, but if it’s to do with the power of the orgasm that’s rolling through my body, then yes, maybe I am.
My eyes close again as he moves lower and pushes his hand between my legs, his nails raking across the sensitive bud of my clit. The nipple still twists and tugs, as the palm of his other hand pushes and rubs. More pressure, harder. My legs tremble first, arms beginning to shake soon after, and then his fingers push inside me.
A muffled moan comes from me again, the sound building louder as he carries on. My ankles try to widen with the crescendo of the music crashing, try to give him more access to go deeper, but they’re locked tight. Held fast and not moving, as he holds me on the brink of orgasm.
“I still don’t like you, but I’m willing to keep playing,” he says. I don’t know what that means, don’t care either. I beg into the fabric, nails digging into the bed for more. “We’ll make a bet, Mrs Tanner.” It’s painful. All of it. Slow and torturous. Warmth hits my nipple. Wet and warm and then hard teeth bite in without any care for the pain associated. I yelp into the fabric, sucking quick breaths in through my nose to stop the pain, as he pulls back to look at me. “You won’t win.”
More whimpers. More moans and groans, as the tears spike my eyes again. I don’t care about bets. Don’t care about anything other than getting what I need now. And it’s too much. So much I can’t breathe through the onslaught. My head shakes, body vibrating to the point of me lifting off the bed to ease the ache, and then the orgasm finally takes hold.
