“What you’re going through has a natural explanation, Lucia.”
“It does?” She has no desire to hear anything that might convince her Richard is only a psychological illusion.
“Yes, it does.” He stops walking and faces her. “Doug’s right—you’re feeling guilty. Part of you believes you’re betraying Richard. Think, Lucia, it wasn’t until after we slept together that you began seeing him. Don’t you feel that’s significant?”
“I don’t feel guilty about us, Mark.”
“Maybe not consciously.”
She turns away from him and sits down on a stone bench facing the water. She cannot control the flood of longing that sweeps her away every time she imagines Richard is making a powerful effort to communicate with her.
Mark sits down beside her. “Come here…” He rests a hand on the back of her head and gently but firmly forces her cheek down against his chest. “I guess that’s just the way things work,” he murmurs. “I have gorgeous women coming out of my ears yet I fall in love with a widow haunted by her dead husband’s ghost.”
He cushions the exquisite blow with insults but it still brings her face-to-face with the fact that her body has no desire to follow the occult path opening up before her. Like a horse, her flesh is wisely resisting her soul’s urge to leap the bottomless chasm between life and death with the sheer strength of her love.
“Mark, if you weren’t here,” she lifts her head to look up at him, “I don’t know what I’d do.”
“But I am here.” He caresses windblown strands of hair away from her eyes and kisses her cool forehead with his warm lips. “Talk to me, Lucia. Tell me about Richard. How did you meet him?”
She focuses on the river, alive with the infinite white cells of reflected stars. “I met him at one of his book signings. He wrote ‘Let’s have dinner tonight’ in my copy. I couldn’t believe it. I hung around in a daze until he was finished then I left with him in his limousine. The next time I saw my apartment it was a week later, when I went back to pack my things. It was the strangest feeling being there, as if I’d died and come back to haunt the place for a little while. We were so intensely in love from the very first night it was like existing on a whole different plane.”
“Did he leave you everything when he died?”
The question surprises her. “Yes. Why do you ask?”
“What about his relatives? Didn’t they get anything?”
“He never spoke to his parents. They didn’t approve of him or his work. They thought it was Satanic. I never even met them. There was just his younger brother Julian. Richard left him a trust fund with a fixed income for the rest of his life, so he couldn’t spend it all at once.”
“How long were you married?”
“Nearly three years.”
“Was he much older than you, Lucia?”
“Not really… I mean, he was only forty-three.”
“When you met him or when he died?”
“When I met him.”
“Which made you what, twenty-five? He was intelligent and charismatic and you worshipped him. Am I right?”
“Yes,” she answers defiantly, “I did.”
“And you still do, Lucia. You completely surrendered your will to him and now you don’t know how to get it back.”
She slips out from beneath his arm and rises. “Let’s keep walking, Mark, it’s getting cold and this bench is hard.”
“Cold and hard,” he follows her up, “isn’t that how you like it, Lucia?”
Her pulse quickens yet her pride forces her to ask, “What do you mean?”
He slaps her.
The strangely pleasurable shock clears her head and she doesn’t need to think straight to understand that the nature of the universe is whatever he wants.
“That’s what I mean, baby. You liked that.”
“Let’s go to my room,” she urges softly.
“Just how far did you let Richard go, Lucia? Did he tie you up? Did he blindfold you? Did he whip you?”
She looks out at the glimmering black water again, knowing her silence now will say much more than words ever can.
“I see.” Mark is silent for a moment. “Are you just submissive, Lucia, or are you a pain slut too?”
“No, definitely not.”
“You think a little pain is stimulating but mainly you just like being dominated?”
His perception, the subject, the sweet, lingering warmth of his blow and the mysterious sense of Richard’s presence all around her are seriously turning her on. “Yes,” she says, looking beseechingly up into his dark eyes.
“Well, let’s see what your definition of a little is, shall we?” He takes her firmly by the arm and starts walking in the direction of her hotel again. “Shall I give you a safe word?”
“No,” she replies, disappointed. Her first night with Richard he had not asked her if she wanted a safe word—he had simply given it to her.
“No? Do you think that’s wise?”
She cannot explain that asking her if she wanted a safe word has already told her he won’t go so far that she’ll need one. And she doesn’t want to tell him nothing really matters to her anymore anyway because Richard is never coming back.
* * * * *
By the time they reach her room Lucia’s excitement has nearly gone out, like a promising fire that was not properly stoked. Mark insisted on giving her a safe word anyway, the totally unoriginal “red”. Then he kept asking her questions about what she liked and didn’t like, what she wanted him to do and what she didn’t want him to do, all of which turned her off by making her feel completely safe and in control.
Finding her way in the dark, she switches on the lamp by the bed, sets her purse on the nightstand and turns to face him. He is still standing by the door staring at her and suddenly she senses a distinct hostility emanating from him that frightens her and resurrects her excitement somewhat. She wonders if it is only her imagination but she senses it isn’t.
“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you, Lucia? It doesn’t matter to you that he’s dead. You’re still in love with him.”
She sighs and hangs her head, unable to deny it.
“That’s all right, princess, I actually admire that about you. Except you’re forgetting one very important line in your marriage vows. You know, the one where you said, ‘until death do us part’?”
She sits on the edge of the bed. “I guess I just need more time.”
“No,” he starts toward her, “what you need is another man to make you forget about him.”
She looks up at him hopefully.
“Get up.”
She obeys him.
He slaps her, stares at her expression for a moment and then slaps her again even harder.
Her cheek is flushed, her lips are parted slightly as if in wonder at her own reaction and her eyes are as dark and glimmering with need as the ancient river outside.
“Hmm,” he says and slaps her a third time.
She gasps and sinks to her knees before him as he unzips his jeans. But when she moves to help him pull them down he flings her hands away.
“Don’t touch me,” he warns, “just watch.” He steps back out of her reach as he kicks off his black sneakers, removes his socks and then pulls off his jeans and underpants. He tosses everything aside carelessly but he leaves on his black shirt, only lifting it slightly so he can look down and observe his growing erection. She is even more mesmerized by the sight of his stiffening penis and when he begins stroking himself her pussy responds with a jealous clenching that starts her juices flowing. She wants to touch herself and because he is still gazing admiringly down at his long, slick rod, she dares to slip her hand up her dress and down into her panties.
He senses her motion. “Oh no you don’t.”
She immediately pulls her hand out of her panties.
He sticks his cock in her face with one hand and slaps her again with the other.
Her eyes close and her lips
part to receive him.
“You’re not getting that either,” he says coldly.
She opens her eyes and gasps in shock when she sees the smooth cheeks of his tight bottom facing her.
“Lick my ass,” he commands. “Do it!”
Part of her resists the filthy idea and then she discovers just what little say that part of her has when she grabs his narrow hips and buries her face in his crack with a moan. And in the warm, cloying darkness between this beautiful young man’s buttocks she vividly recalls the night she was sucking Richard off and abruptly dared to realize there was more of him. He was kneeling over her, facing away from her and she was holding his penis in her hand to feel it react as she licked his balls. Then she flicked her tongue up a little farther and a little farther, wondering how far he would let her go and breathlessly praying he would let her go all the way up to his anus. He did…
The darkness in the room seems to flood her mind as she passionately buries her face in Mark’s bottom, possessed by a hunger she cannot understand because she cannot think at all. Her mind can’t seem to wrap itself around what she is doing and is even more appalled by the perfectly pure satisfaction she takes in the technically disgusting exercise of licking his asshole. All she cares about, all she is aware of is the determined muscle of her tongue and a strangely sweet secretion. She has no idea if the delicious moisture is coming from her own gaping mouth or from his sphincter responding to the pleasure he takes in what she is doing. All she knows is that it drives her wild. It isn’t enough to just give him a passionate rimming, moaning in disbelief at how much she relishes every dirty second of it. She wants to dig into him, to explore his secrets through this very different side of him. So she does it—she thrusts the tip of her tongue into the impossibly exciting black hole in the deep, warm space of his bottom.
“Oh, yes, baby!” He pushes himself against her face as he pumps his erection.
She can sense the pleasure flowing from her mouth through his body and then out into his cock and back again in a spiraling cycle that gets hotter and hotter without reaching a peak and dying. She feels it could go on forever and she would love it to. She thrusts her tongue into him as far as she can, which isn’t far enough. Because the more she caresses his insides, parts of him she could never have imagined the feel and flavor of, the more she wants, the more it drives her crazy and makes her feel she could devour him.
She is close to passing out from the overwhelming satisfaction of fucking his ass with her tongue when he abruptly steps away from her.
“Oh no!” she groans, utterly bereft.
His voice is oddly constricted as he orders, “Take off your clothes.”
She stands up and obeys him, swiftly and efficiently.
“Now lie on your side on the bed. That’s it.” He spreads himself out behind her, grips her behind one knee and lifts her leg up out of his way. From this angle he slides his hard cock into her so deeply it almost hurts as he penetrates her fast and hard, stabbing her with him. She was in such a trance while rimming him that she didn’t even notice how wet her pussy had gotten. She swallows his whole cock easily, the glistening rosy lips of her labia sucking it up into her greedily. Yet before long he pulls out of her and pushes her over onto her back as he straddles her, pinning her arms to her sides.
“I know what you want,” he says hoarsely. “You want me to come all over your face!”
“Oh yes,” she breathes. “Yes!”
“Say ‘please come all over my face, Mark’.”
“Please come all over my face, Mark.”
He throws his head back and strokes himself furiously for a few seconds before his eyes meet hers again angrily. “Here it comes, bitch!”
She opens her mouth and her eyelashes flutter to protect her darkly satisfied eyes as his hot cum erupts over her face. She licks her lips, tasting this beautiful young man with her tongue even as her heart savors the name of Richard…Richard…Richard…
* * * * *
When he is finished with her Mark slips his clothes back on in the dark.
“Aren’t you staying?” she asks languidly, still lying naked across the bed.
“Not tonight,” he answers coldly.
She quickly sits up, kneels on the edge of the bed and wraps her arms around his lean hips.
He strokes her hair. “Did you enjoy that?”
“You know I did.”
“Why?”
He might as well ask a cat to explain its purr.
“I’m working tomorrow,” he announces, peeling her arms from around him.
“Then I won’t see you?”
“Not until later. Now, hand me my belt.”
She finds it on the bed and offers it reverently up to him with both hands, as if assisting an unholy priest with his vestments.
He slips it back on. “I don’t want you going out by yourself tomorrow, Lucia. I want you to stay in your room and rest.”
“But I’d like to visit the temple of Luxor and—”
“You heard what I said. You’re not to leave this room. Do I make myself clear?”
She sighs. “Yes, Mark.”
* * * * *
After he leaves she drinks an entire bottle of water and then lies facedown amidst the foaming sheets to rest for a moment before she gets up to shower. But she drifts off…
She thinks she hears the door open again. She is so profoundly relaxed however that she can’t bring herself to turn her head and look. Even when a shockingly cold caress travels slowly up her back all she can do is moan. She can’t raise her impossibly heavy eyelids even when gloved knuckles press against her lips and force them open, gagging her with the familiar taste of leather. Then she hears a man’s voice, a voice that sounds impossibly like Richard’s, whisper, “I need you!” She glimpses a black sleeve, glimmering with moisture like the star-filled sky before her mouth is emptied and the gloved hands pull her roughly up onto her hands and knees from behind…
She opens her eyes. In the dark room the bed is a choppy frozen sea around her.
The dream was so vivid it has left her feeling even more deliciously worn out.
She gets stiffly out of bed to use the bathroom and then checks to make sure the door to the room is locked.
He was wearing gloves. She remembers all too well what the cold caress of leather feels like and she can still taste the frightening excitement of his fist forcing her mouth open, as if he meant to reach straight down her throat for her heart.
Chapter Five
In the morning, the phone shocks her awake.
“Good morning, Lucia, I do hope you weren’t still sleeping,” Elizabeth says cheerfully.
“Oh, no.”
“Are you sure I didn’t wake you?”
“I’m sure.” She clears her throat but is less successful with her head.
“Then how about having breakfast together, Lucia? I’m so dreadfully bored here, you know.”
“That sounds nice. Um, what time is it?”
“Half past eight, I shouldn’t have called you so early. Please forgive me. I forgot you were on vacation. Oh…I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“No.” The thought of spending time with a woman is suddenly very appealing. “I’d love to have breakfast.”
“Splendid. I’ll meet you in the dining room in, let’s say, in half an hour?”
“I’ll be there.”
* * * * *
Lucia has been sitting at a table by a window for over fifteen minutes before she finally spots Elizabeth’s slender figure approaching. Luigi’s wife is casually but elegantly clad in a sleeveless light-blue dress that ripples over her sharp hipbones like water over stones.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Lucia,” she quickly seats herself, “but all the carriages seem to be taken this morning.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it because I’m starving.”
Elizabeth smiles knowingly. “Of course you are.” She picks up her menu. “I imagine you’re quite
a breath of fresh air for him.”
Lucia feels the smile on her lips stiffen like honey freezing on a branch. “What do you mean?”
“Is this your first visit to Egypt? How are you liking it so far?”
“Are you trying to tell me something about Mark?”
“I’m so sorry about your husband, Lucia. Did you love him?”
A growing unease makes her sound angry. “Of course I did!”
“I see.” Elizabeth snaps her menu closed and puts it down. “Did you really?”
“Why do you doubt it?”
“I thought you and I might be able to be honest with each other, Lucia. It would be a refreshing change.”
“I’m not the one beating around the bush.”
A waiter appears.
Elizabeth orders a cup of tea and two slices of toast with butter on the side.
Lucia orders the same, having lost her appetite.
“So how long are you planning to stay in this godforsaken hole, Lucia?”
“That’s not exactly how I’d describe Thebes.”
“Please forgive me. I forgot that you nearly studied Egyptology yourself. But believe me, darling, if it weren’t for Mark you’d be bored out of your poor skull in no time. But then,” she pauses to sip her lemon water, “you’re not poor, are you?”
Trying to contain her growing anxiety, Lucia looks out a window at the sky.
“How much is he costing you?” Elizabeth asks in sudden earnest. “I’m dying to know.”
“Excuse me?”
“How much is Mark costing you? The boy doesn’t have a dime to his name yet he travels all over the world. Haven’t you wondered about that, Lucia? Or did he tell you that story about freelancing for National Geographic? Ah, I see he did. Well, not to worry. You’ll be able to hold on to him for a good long time since you’re both beautiful and rich. Yet you didn’t even suspect, did you? Well, I suppose you’re not thinking too clearly these days, not if you truly loved your husband. But didn’t you wonder even for one tiny moment, Lucia, why a gorgeous young man like Mark would suddenly devote himself to your every whim?”
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