by Anna Chillon
“Untie me,” I whispered with a muffled voice to make sure that he didn’t hear that I was on the verge of tears.
“But that’s not what you want,” he replied, looking across at me with his head resting on his fists.
I was suffering. He was stretched out as if he was on the couch at home watching his favorite program.
“How do you know what I want?” Even I had doubts.
“I just know,” he remarked. “You just want to complain and complain to me because I'm the only one here. I can prove it to you: Would you prefer I untie you or kiss you? What do you need most?”
I tightened my lips, turning away from him. Anything not to give him that satisfaction.
Vincent took one of my braids, making me turn back towards him. He studied my glassy eyes, confused and overwhelmed with emotion.
He had taken on a look that would’ve even intimidated an adult; laid on me it took my breath away.
“I have to talk to you, Giada.”
He got down from the stool and came closer. Even though the seats were high, he was taller, looming with controlled authoritarian grace. “Maybe I didn’t understand you well, it's my fault, I wasn’t quite clear, you're too young and I couldn’t expect you to read in-between the lines. This is my way of being more explicit.” He stroked my sore sensitive skin. He checked the state of my arms that from overheating were now going cold. “Come on get up, straighten your shoulders. Stand up.”
With his help I got into a sitting position, but my back was curved and my face bent toward my knees. He pulled my chin up.
“This morning I told you clearly not to overdo it with the sugar and you couldn’t have cared less. I've been indulgent with you, but you forced me to listen to a Catholic radio station. You showed your pants to other men just to spite me. I asked you to do a simple thing in the car, and you couldn’t even please me with that for more than a second.”
“What are you talking about?”
He took hold of my knees and widened them. “You had to sit still, with your legs open. Were you able? My words have meaning and you have to understand, it's important to remove the distance between us, Giada. I would like you to pay much more attention to what I say and show me more respect. That was just a game, but I hope you’re able to realize when it's no longer just a game.”
My fingertips pinched, I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. The tears began to flow fast because there was no way to express what I was feeling. It was not sadness, not even pain, although I felt it. He was rummaging inside me and had managed to find a sensitive spot.
“And do you understand me?” I asked him.
“That's what I'm trying to do, because you can be sure that if we don’t understand each other, nobody else will.”
Bending down between my knees he dried my face gently with his white, immaculate handkerchief. The rope pulled giving me the strong impression that he himself was pulling it tighter, cutting into my wrists. “Do you want to tell me what you feel now?”
I breathed in heavily through my nose. “I don’t know...”
“Be honest, tell me the first thing that goes through your mind.”
“I want you to touch me,” I replied impulsively.
“I'm already touching you.”
“More...”
“You don’t want me to untie you?”
“Yes, it's obvious that I want you to.”
“I wouldn’t say so. That's not what you said.”
“But I answered. Can you untie me now?” I begged.
He touched my hand to check if it was cold. “I know it hurts, but it's useful to make you understand a few things, about you and me. You have to wait a little longer.”
“How much longer? I can’t resist.”
“I can’t resist anymore, either baby.” His fingers slipped between my braids, loosening them, his hip rubbed on my thigh. “Me neither.”
Holding me up to stop me from leaning back and falling, he put his lips against mine. He kept them still for a moment, then moved them in tiny semicircles, causing mine to open. I found myself gently but inevitably open to the exploration of his tongue as we drank the salty drops that my eyes couldn’t stem.
He loosened the knots behind my back a little, enough for the blood to circulate, but not enough to stop feeling the pressure he was holding me with, so that I remembered every single minute.
He got me down from the stool, kneeling on the tiles of the kitchen floor. A black halo obscured my vision, squeezing tightly across my eyes, the low pressure I was frequently subjected to drifted to my head. He had reduced me to a puppet without strings, how could he expect me to straighten up?
“Open up, my little one.” I opened my eyes and found his pants down with his naked penis standing in front of me; The first time I’d seen one so close. It showed a powerful erection that was so long that it felt unlikely that it might have really been in my belly. I had no idea really, but found it scary none the less.
“Come here.” He put my head against his leg, caressing one side of my face while I squinted fearfully at his thing. Then his fingers closed around my hair, pulling my head back. “Open your mouth, don’t be afraid.”
As much as I wanted to do that obscene thing, and how excited I was at the idea of taking Vincent's cock between my lips, I couldn’t decide why I wasn’t sure of my reaction. Seeing me so uncertain, he managed to grab my chin, poking my cheeks with thumb and forefinger forcing me to open my mouth. The tremor in my limbs increased, my knee already weakened by the fall of the previous night, seemed not to want to hold me up, so I put my weight on the other.
“No... I’ve nev...er done...” I tried to beg for some understanding, but the words came to me distorted by the way Vincent deformed my face. I was very ashamed of what I’d just said. I thought that any girl somewhat normal and fairly pretty at eighteen must have already done it. I was afraid my inexperience might make me seem undesirable.
“I'm very pleased,” he replied, as opposed to what I had thought. “Do you feel like trying it for me?”
“What if it’s disgusting?”
“Do you think you could?”
“I... don’t know...”
“Let's do it like this, just try to give it a lick and tell me how it makes you feel.”
He let go of my cheeks so I could stick out my tongue and give him a lick. I tasted it looking for a clue about the effect it was having on me.
“So then?” he asked impatiently.
Undecided I gave another lick below the head.
“Be brave, little one, it doesn’t bite and you don’t need to either.” He leaned it against my lips. His words were pronounced with tenderness, but his gestures were heavy. “gently, a little at a time.”
Still very stiff, he slid it across my tongue, opening my mouth slowly. There was no odour or unpleasant taste, so I was less afraid to take it, and tried to stop it from touching my teeth.
The idea of me, tied up and kneeling to suck it in Mum and Dad’s kitchen, was horribly sinful.
He had the same thought, putting his palms on my cheeks. “You can’t imagine the effect you’re having on me to see you like this. You are my little, dirty girl...” he looked up and relaxed as he reached my tonsils. “Ah, jesus... we need a bed.”
I pulled my head back to get rid of the penis and watched Vincent from below, with his lips licked, damp. His face was transformed by a need to go further that was impossible to express vocally and it was probably flashing on my face too.
He wiped the corner of my mouth with his thumb, picked me up in his arms and carried me upstairs, into my room, and sat on the edge of the bed. I watched his large hand with clean nails on my chest, between my breasts, pushing me down slowly but firmly.
My abs resisted fleetingly, until he said, “down.” Then they gave way: the words had a meaning, and I understood them, or at least my body understood them, but my mind was still objectionable.
He put his hands under my dress a
nd pulled off my pants. “Separate your knees, baby. Let me see how beautiful you are.”
I pulled the sheets in my tied fists, hidden behind my back. “I’d like to, but I don’t have the courage. Do it yourself if you like.”
He smiled, caressing a calf. “I'm kneeling in front of you, Giada. I'm praying like a kid.” Yes, but advancing with the pretense of a man.
He massaged and lifted my thin leg in his hands, laying a soft kiss on my knee. I still can’t say if I found myself more disarmed when he was imposing orders or in the rare cases where he was showing a disorienting sweetness. Of course, in any case, the final effect was the same.
Slowly, my legs opened and my lungs inhaled all the oxygen they could.
It happened there, in my little room, where I’d grown up, I’d done my homework, day dreamed and dreamt during my sleep, where my mother had taken care of me when I was ill and where I’d played with Zoe dressing my dolls and later dressing up ourselves. In the bedroom where I kept all my most precious treasures, my tags, my diary, my CDs, the photos of Mum, Dad and I together. Right in that room, a small piece of my intimate and private world, Vincent showed me part of what it was that I wanted and, impudently, what he wanted too.
Chapter 7
I would never look at my little room in the same way again, that was for sure. At least my room would never have looked at me in the same way. The teddy bears on the shelves that now all seemed to have very shocked expressions would even make me blush.
You saw, I justified, I was tied up, I couldn’t do anything to stop it!
They had seen me laugh, cry, fight, and loose myself in fragments of bliss, then with my hair all messed up staring at the ceiling.
I was aware that I’d burned my bridges and found myself in great disadvantage towards my counterpart. Before I thought it was just a data issue. Now I know that it wasn’t only the difference of age and experience, though apparent, but rather the category of bulletproof man, the type that make being complicated their battle horse. Complicated in life and complicated in bed.
This was certainly not helpful to my situation, nor were the explanations I would have to give or the lies that I would have to make up.
Talking to Zoe on the phone that same evening had been extremely difficult. She knew me too well to be misled and she was in a bit of a mood because I’d stood her up that afternoon. Her bad mood turned up again the next morning at school. She didn’t try to hide it, responding in monosyllables and not looking me in the eye.
After a while I took her aside, begging her with praying hands. “Don’t hassle me, Zoe. I promise that one day I'll tell you everything and explain why I couldn’t come yesterday. I just can’t tell you yet.”
“And how long will I have to wait? You’ve got your head in the clouds, Gìa.” She used that nickname from the first superior and depending on the stress she put on ‘i’ I knew how angry she was. It was nice heavy one in this case.
“I haven’t got my head in the clouds. Something just happened to me...”
“Nice or horrible?”
“Nice,” at least that’s what I thought I felt. “I assure you that you’re the only one I want to tell about it and one day I will,” I confessed.
I had a desperate need and desire to talk, but I couldn’t because I was afraid that revealing what had happened would’ve made things seem worse than they really were and that anyone in their right mind would do everything to ‘save me’ from Vincent. As he’d said, people wouldn’t understand, especially those closest to us.
Despite the problems arising with my best friend, that Monday night I was electrified. I walked up and down the house like an idiot, jumping, humming and slapping kisses on my Mum’s cheeks every now and again, so she asked me while she was darning her socks where her moody daughter had ended up.
“Where? Who are you? Do you know my daughter by any chance?” She laughed arranging her reading glasses on her nose.
“You’re making me feel dizzy,” Aron mumbled, in his fake complaining tone. He used it when he liked something, but he didn’t want to admit it, so as not to undermine his paternal authority.
I wasn’t worried about the future.
For the time being I’d put what might have the characteristics of an assault in a dark corner, just enjoying feeling like a grown woman. With all the endorphins from the day before, a smile widened my mouth every time I secretly pronounced his name: ‘Vincent.’
During the night I looked out of the window toward his home many times, a hundred and fifty meters further along on the other side of the road. The lights were off and his car was not in the garden, where he usually left it. I was waiting for him to come back, but time went by and with my foolish hopes my enthusiasm ebbed away.
Simon continued to send me messages, Vincent nothing, not even one.
As time passed, I stopped smiling.
At midnight, the headlights of a car slowing down penetrated the darkness of my room. Moving to the window, I saw his PT Cruiser pass and stop to wait for the electric gate before turning into the garden. It took him seconds to cross the lawn into the house, without pausing even for a moment.
It was a smaller and older house than ours. It had windows with thick iron grills, the exterior walls were not plastered, but made of brick and left bare. The garden was full of abundant wild roses, and around the perimeter there was a hedge that got a little bit higher each year. In some kind of strange arrangement, in summer my father went to cut the lawn and trim the sides of the ivy hedge, the rest was left wild. It was more likely that Vincent would go out for a run than take care of the plants.
I had no idea how the house was inside because I’d never seen it, I’d never been interested to. Besides, he was always coming to us and never vice versa.
That night I fell asleep with the cell phone next to my head, which was unhealthy and utterly useless because he didn’t even deign to send me a signal in morse code.
On Tuesday, after the bell rang at the end of lessons, Zoe gave in and stopped being stroppy with me for the simple fact that she could no longer contain herself from telling me about her date with Tim.
They went to the movies to see the latest ‘Fast & Furious,’ he had put a hand on her knee but had been dismissed right away. At the third attempt, Tim had distracted her with a rude joke about the film. Zoe laughed with her mouth closed to avoid making too much noise, and he took advantage of it to go back to her thigh. He’d made her laugh, so my friend had allowed him to keep the ‘base’ he’d earned, letting the heat of his hand accumulate there for the remaining twenty minutes of the film.
She gushingly told me everything all in one go, as we walked through the chaotic rush of students leaving school. She explained to me that after the cinema they went to a pub where some boys had whistled and made cocky comments seeing them enter. She hadn’t been happy, she wondered if Tim had taken her there to show her off to his friends who had ruthlessly invaded their table. But then being the centre of attention of so many boys had revealed her exhibitionistic and flirtatious side. Tim had practically dragged her away so that she had no escape. “He lowered the seat while I was talking about which course I want to enrol on next year, can you believe it? I was talking seriously and he, looking me in the eyes... bam!” She clapped her hands. “He made the back of my seat disappear.”
I found that move cheeky and exciting at the same time. Suited to the boy she’d described to me.
“And then?” I prompted her.
“And then he asked if I wanted to kiss him.”
“He asked you?”
“Yes, is that very brazen?”
That weekend I had found out that there was conduct ‘slightly’ more brazen than that.
“Kiss him where?”
“On his cock.” Zoe gave me a push. “Where do you think? On the mouth, idiot!”
“Well, what do I know?”
She cut me up and stood in front of me. “Oh god, don’t tell me Simon asked you to put it in
your mouth?” She seemed keen to hear that was what had happened.
“No, I told you. The neighbour interrupted us at the best bit. So annoying...” I shook my head biting my tongue.
“What an asshole,” Zoe said.
She shrugged and turned to carry on walking. “Yeah, a nosy parker.” My temples pulsed with, I wasn’t proud of my last comment, a shameful lie. “Anyway, we were talking about you and Tim. Did you let him?”
She blinked, looking up and exploded with a slap, slamming her fists together. “Yeah! I wasn’t sure, but yes, I really kissed him, with tongues and everything! We snogged for at least an hour. I know it was just the first date, but he was so insistent, attentive... you know how older guys are.”
I swallowed. “More or less.”
At that point Zoe squinted her eyes and elbowed me. “Oh cool. Look over there.”
I looked up past the warden helping students to cross and in the direction of the coach station. On the other side of the street, Tim was leaning against the bonnet of his BMW parked to the side, all four parking lights flashing, and techno music at just below unacceptable volume. Next to him, Simon was leaning on a concrete pylon, his arms folded, his high visibility vest hanging from his waist, with the beautiful and damned appearance of a film star.
The warden asked them to move the car, but Tim challenged the order by pointing in our direction, so she gestured to him that he could only stay a minute, the time it took for us to cross the road. They’d already seen us.
“Ah, shit,” I commented, dropping my eyes to my faded sweatshirt with the pickles logo on the chest and the rip off jeans “Diselle.”
Well, at that moment, clothing seemed to be only a marginal problem. I had less than two minutes to find inside me the person Simon knew, the one he’d danced and shared secrets with. Someone else had taken what was supposed to be his place in-between my legs, but even though I was afraid he might work it out I couldn’t have avoided him forever.