Rive_Little Mermaid Retold

by Daniela Jackson

  “Sive, breathe, baby,” Axel whispers into my ear as his hand strokes my head.

  His glance meets mine. There is a hint of concern in his eyes but most of all his feral hunger. Like he’s finding pleasure in my pain.

  So I try to breathe, but it feels like my chest is a cage. Axel moves his hips, pulling back, then drives his cock hard into me. Goes deeper. I whimper at the sensation of being full, stretched and punished. My skin heats up and a new sensation spreads in my tummy. It’s a delicate vibe of pleasure. The airy flutter at first. Then the painful temptation full of darkness. I want this pleasure, this pain and the punishment.

  And that beautiful man atop me.

  Axel

  Her neck arches, and I plant kisses on the corner of her mouth, on the angle of her jaw and along the curve of her neck. Her pussy clamps down on my cock, almost causing me pain.

  I’ve never been with such a tight and inexperienced woman before. I’ve never caused such pain to a woman.

  But again, I’ve never felt such primal hunger for a woman. My animalistic instinct urges me to claim Sive, take possession of her whole and make her mine.

  I told her I could wait. But the truth is I could have waited only for five more minutes.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” I whisper into her ear, but in fact, I don’t feel guilty at all.

  I derive a primal pleasure from punishing Sive like this. My cock has torn through her virginity. My cock is filling her hot little pussy for the first time ever.

  Sweat beads her forehead and her face is tinged with pallor. Her chin trembles and her form shakes beneath mine.

  It has to be like this, her pain and my unstoppable desire to fuck her hard. The last wall of my control crumbles and I turn into a wild beast claiming his female. One word from her may stop me, but she doesn’t say it so I close her mouth with mine and move my hips against hers. She throws her arms around my neck and clings to me. It won’t take long and it’s convenient for her because she won’t probably have anything but pain. I deepen the kiss and sense how desperately she’s fighting to catch her breath. She moans into my mouth as I pump my cock in and out. Something changes, and her body sways with mine. She feels less stiff and we catch the kind of rhythm. We are as one. One desire, one smell, one breath.

  My whole body fills with the overwhelming urge to have my release. There are no thoughts in my head just dense heat, darkness and pure instinct. Sive’s scent becomes even more intense, engulfs me like a cloud as her moans push me to move faster, to drive into her harder and harder until I feel like I’m ascending and touching something powerful. My orgasm ripples through me.

  At first, it feels like I have blacked out. There is nothing around me, then sounds become clearer and my body feels hers. She is shaking like she has a fever. I look at her and try to focus on returning to reality. Droplets of sweat adorn her face and cleavage; her mouth is wide open and she is gasping like a void has replaced the air in the bedroom.

  “Fuck, Sive, did I hurt you, baby?”

  I did for sure. I don’t know what happened a moment ago. A dark force or something possessed me.

  Sive shakes her head as I pull out of her. She rolls on her side, turning her back to me and cries out. Her blood marks the sheets.

  I throw my arm over her chest and pull her to me gently. My other arm squeezes under her neck.

  “I will be good to you; I promise,” I say.

  I don’t know what else to say. Sive is exhausted so I let her drop off to sleep. She shudders as I kiss her shoulder. I cover her with the comforter and have a nap beside her.

  Chapter 17

  Sive

  I can’t read his face—it’s like a rigid mask, but he is gentle with me. His arms enclose me in a warm muscular trap, and I rest my chest against his, sprawled like a frog. It knocks the air out of my lungs and a sigh escapes my mouth.

  “I know that you are sleepy,” he says, “and very tired but you are bleeding, Sive.”

  Am I? My whole body is so sore that I can’t move. I slide my chest against his then the sensation of something liquidly and sticky between my legs tears its way to my torpid brain.

  “We’ll have a shower or a bath,” he continues. “I’ll help you.” His palm strokes my back, and he glides it over my ass cheek, then squeezes it. “It’s not like you wanted that? Not with a pig with a hangover?”

  I chuckle and Axel tightens the embrace around me, kissing the top of my head.

  “I will behave, Sive,” he says like he’s making a vow.

  What does that mean exactly? I want to ask him so many questions but I can’t.

  Axel lifts himself and cradles me like a child, then settles me into the armchair and changes the bedding. After that, he carries me downstairs to the bathroom. We are naked and it’s awkward.

  I sit by the bathtub whilst Axel fills it with hot water, adding a few drops of lavender bubble bath. He dips his hand into the water, checking the temperature, then scoops me up and immerses me into the pleasant heat. I sit with my knees flexed as he steps into the bathtub and stretches his body behind me, guarding me with his legs at either side of my body. His hands pull me to him and my back rests against his chest.

  My eyelids grow heavy as the heat of the water penetrates into me, giving my skin a delicate red tinge. A pleasant laziness takes possession of my body. Axel pours water over my breasts and kisses my cheek.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” he asks. There is a crack in his voice.

  I nod and turn slightly on my side. The steam rises magically, fills the bathroom, enthralling us in an eerie realm. The foam swishes delicately as it dies at a slow pace.

  It is nice. It’s so nice that I start imagining my happiness with Axel, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a month. Forever. Then the reality hits me hard. He hasn’t promised anything to me. I’m naive.

  Axel places his arm over my chest and bites my earlobe.

  “Much better, isn’t it?” he asks.

  I rearrange my body and sit on my heels, turning my face to him. The water splashes against the bathtub and pours out onto the plush rug.

  “Be-tter,” I say.

  I smile at him. It’s as if my whole yearning for him and my whole hope have centred on my smile. I must look ridiculous like an excited child.

  Axel’s eyes widen and he smiles too. That smile takes at least five years off his face.

  “You are an enchantress,” he says with amusement.

  His eyes slide down to my breasts and he palms them. He probably wants more sex and I want more too, but my whole bottom is sore.

  He squeezes my breasts and watches me with a tense expression like I did something wrong or stupid, then one corner of his lips quirks up.

  “I’ll put you to bed, Sive.”

  Blood drains from my face and my heart sinks. He doesn’t want me. I know the reason why. I’m just a cripple who invaded his life and happened to be convenient for him.

  I rise, step out of the bathtub and reach for a towel, wrapping it around my chest, then grab my toothbrush. Axel joins me, covering his lower body with a towel, and we brush our teeth. I feel like I’m standing next to a stranger who knows everything about me, my most shameful secrets, but I know nothing about him. I don’t even know whether I can ask him any personal questions. Probably not. Men like him get angry when women ask them questions after a one-night stand.

  I rinse my teeth and Axel grips my arm, pulling me behind him. We go to the kitchen and he takes out a bottle of vodka, pouring the alcohol into a shot glass, then hands it to me.

  “It will do you good,” he says.

  Well, he is the adult here. I empty it in a number of tiny sips, retching every few seconds. It’s humiliating, but I don’t really care. I must have got used to being mortified around Axel.

  “Go to bed, Sive.”

  I hand the empty shot glass to him and shuffle upstairs. I’m like that woman to him, the one who touched him. I’m nobody important to him, just another girl in his bed
.

  Axel

  I watch her as she disappears at the top of the stairs and I pour vodka into my mouth straight from the bottle. Nausea hits me like a reminder of my hangover and I slam the bottle on the kitchen worktop.

  I have to stay far away from her. Otherwise, I will hurt her again. She needs to recover and I only want to drive my hard cock into her again. It’s insane like I’m addicted to her shivering body in my arms, beneath me, to her whimpers, gasps and tears.

  She is in so much pain that she can’t move. Each time, I look at her, there is nervousness in her eyes like she regrets the intimacy between us. And yet she can smile like everything is perfect to her.

  Everything is perfect to me. Magical. Beautiful. So intense that it feels like a delirium.

  The memory of her naked body flashes through my head and my dick hardens further. I’m an addict. I will be addicted to her forever.

  I should do something rational now, I guess.

  People talk when they are in a relationship, but I have no idea what I should tell her. I’ve already mentioned that I’ll look after her and that didn’t make her less scared of me. What words can evoke that beautiful smile of hers more often?

  Fuck talking. I’ll take her for a walk tomorrow, buy her more clothes, take her to the cinema. Find a suitable place for her own small gallery. An image flashes through my mind. I know where I can find a suitable room for such a purpose.

  I watch TV for a while, then go upstairs and slip under the comforter beside Sive. She is breathing regularly as I stare at her like a rapt teenager, holding my weight up on my elbow.

  “You belong to me,” I murmur, clenching my fists. “Only to me.”

  I drop off to sleep a moment later and wake up before Sive. Slipping in my jeans, I correct the comforter around her and go downstairs to grab a slice of bread.

  I make myself ready in a few minutes and hurry to the garage. The noises drift to my ears from inside, so the boys must have already started. I enter through the back door and bounce off Boulder.

  “What are you doing here?” I growl as my eyes flick over his t-shirt marked with grease and petrol.

  “You are busy so I’m helping in the garage,” Boulder says.

  Zane peers from behind a car’s back. “Somebody must run the garage.”

  “I run the garage,” I say. “But I have to do something in the town first.”

  “Like what for example?” Boulder smirks. “Like buying more pairs of stockings?”

  Gunner and Dash desert their positions and come closer to us. They lower their heads, hiding their grins.

  “No,” I say. “I need to visit crazy Ziggy and ask whether he would be happy to rent his old tobacco shop to me.”

  Ziggy is almost ninety and he ran his tobacco shop before a stroke made him unable to do that. He’s moving, using a wheeled frame or sometimes a wheelchair, and has slight difficulty when talking.

  “What do you need this shop for?” Zane asks.

  “I thought about a gallery for Sive,” I say.

  “A gallery for Sive?” Boulder mimics my voice and the boys guffaw.

  “Any problem with that?” I jut my chin out.

  The boys shake their heads and raise their hands as Boulder rubs his palms against his jeans.

  “And what after that gallery?” Boulder asks. “Marriage? Three children?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I bark. “I just want to set up a gallery for her.”

  Boulder shakes his head and shoves my arm. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” I sway, turning my face to him.

  “To Ziggy’s,” Boulder says. “He won’t talk to you, but he will talk to me.”

  I don’t protest. Ziggy is a mean eccentric who thinks that very few people deserve his attention. Ma says sometimes that his meanness was born out of his despair after losing his wife and daughter in a car crash. He’s a member of the Shadow Wolves MC, but hasn’t attended any meeting for years.

  Boulder and I jump on our bikes and roar through the town. After a fifteen minutes’ ride, we park in front of a devastated wooden house surrounded by dry deadness. Indian bells hang from the roof and interrupt the eerie silence of the area with their soft sound.

  Ziggy is sitting in the armchair on the veranda, a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. His chequered red shirt wears stains and his trousers have holes. We climb the stairs that scrunch like they will crumble into pieces at any moment and his scent hits me. He smells of alcohol and pigs or cows. Or something of an animal origins.

  “Get out, you fucking burglars,” Ziggy mumbles. His brown translucent eyes flicker with hostility and his alcoholic face burns like fire.

  “Can’t you recognise me, you old git?” Boulder says.

  “Is that you, Boulder?” Ziggy leans slightly forward. “Come closer.”

  Boulder moves closer and pats Ziggy’s shoulder.

  “Who is with you?” Ziggy asks and coughs. It sounds like he has thick glue in his lungs.

  “My son, Axel.”

  “What do you want?” Ziggy growls.

  “Well,” Boulder says. “We are interested in renting your tobacco shop.”

  “No fucking way,” Ziggy growls.

  I open my mouth to say something, but Boulder shakes his head and shoots me a warning glance.

  “A beautiful girl wants to open her gallery there,” Boulder says.

  “Who cares,” Ziggy says.

  “A beautiful disabled girl who doesn’t talk,” Boulder says. “She’s eighteen.”

  Ziggy clenches his fists and snorts. “I don’t care.”

  “Really?” Boulder tilts his head and lays his hand on Ziggy’s shoulder. “A disabled girl, Ziggy. Have a heart.”

  Ziggy shoves his hand into the pocket of his trousers and takes out keys. They clatter as he separates one from the rest and throws it at me. The key lands at my feet and I stifle an urge to twist his neck.

  “I’ll give you five hundred a month,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t want your fucking money,” Ziggy growls and adds in a calmer voice. “For the disabled girl.” He strokes his unshaven cheek. “Get out before I change my mind.”

  “Amanda will pick you up tomorrow at five,” Boulder says. “Blaze is inviting you over for a barbeque.”

  “No fucking way I’m going to attend this circus,” Ziggy says.

  “At five,” Boulder says and pats Ziggy’s back. “And have a bath.”

  Ziggy waves his hand like he wants to kill a fly as Boulder joins me, cocks his head towards our bikes, and we evacuate ourselves from Ziggy’s land.

  We roar towards the tobacco shop and park at its back. Plastic containers layer the ground and patches of dry vegetation contribute to the impression of gloom and devastation.

  Boulder and I walk towards the front door, remove the wooden boards blocking it, and enter a dark space. The air carries putrid smells of rot, rats and dirt.

  “A lot of work,” Boulder says. “Deal with it. I’m going to help in the garage.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “How is she?”

  “Sive? I don’t know.”

  Boulder nods. “We will entertain her tomorrow.”

  “I’m entertaining her enough,” I say wryly.

  I’m using her selfishly, punishing her without mercy, and I can’t stop doing that.

  Chapter 18

  Sive

  It must be after midnight as a warm breeze drifting across my throat wakes me up. My eyes open slowly, but I can’t see anything at first. A grey fog blurs my vision and my eyelids feel like there is glue between them. Heat and wetness spread across my throat and a masculine scent settles in my nostrils. This scent makes my heart race and causes warmth to fill my tummy.

  “Sive,” Axel says.

  I rub my eyes and notice that he is sitting, cross-legged, on the floor. I sit up and lean back against the couch, wrapping the blanket around my body.

  “Sive, thank you for th
e lunch. And for the dinner. And for the supper.” He smells of shower gel and his hair is damp. “The boys wolfed down your curry and asked for more.”

  I cooked for the whole day and delivered the lunch to the garage, but Axel was not there. Zane agreed to do some shopping for me and delivered the bags within an hour. I cooked more food and waited for Axel in the house, but he did not return on time. Then I cooked even more food and cried until it was time to go to bed. I decided to sleep on the couch.

  “I’ve rented a place suitable for your own gallery, Sive. You will have your own gallery, here in the town.” Axel’s palm lands on the back of his neck as he shoves his other hand into the pocket of his jeans and shows me a key. “I’ll need a few days to tidy up this place for your purpose.” He puts the key on the coffee table behind him.

  My eyes widen and my heart skips a beat. He wants to get rid of me. I should start packing my clothes.

  “Tha-nkk you,” I say and rise to my feet. Tears prick my eyes and I drop my head to hide my despair from Axel.

  Why are women so sensitive and cry about every tiny problem in their life? It’s ridiculous.

  “Sive, are you okay?”

  I nod, pull the blanket over my head and jerk my body forward, but Axel’s arms brace me from behind. He tugs the blanket off my head as his chest moulds against my back. Then he holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning my face to his.

  “What’s wrong, baby? I thought you would be happy.”

  “I-I amm.”

  “You are crying of happiness?”

  I nod and flash him a smile so he won’t think I’m ungrateful because I’m very grateful for his effort. Except my rational goals contradict the yearning in my heart and the fire in my body. I don’t care whether I’m jobless, homeless or disabled. I just want to feel his lips against mine, to have his palms on my breasts, to have his cock inside me. Forever.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Axel mutters, then pulls my hair together and winds it around his fist.