Undone

by Kristina Lloyd

  Bruno came to stand next to me behind the bar, face ablaze. ‘Lana,’ he said. ‘I can manage till Raf gets here. Please go home.’

  Sol raised his hand, and the two men high-fived each other, Sol more enthusiastically than Raf. ‘Good man,’ he said. ‘One day I’ll do the same for you.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ I said, failing to conceal my amusement through my show of disapproval.

  We grabbed our gear and left, taking the kitchen’s rear staircase leading directly to the mews. The mews, a cobbled L-shape of terraced, white-brick cottages and garages, was as quiet as usual. Bedraggled pink and purple petunias spilled from the hanging basket at number two, the blooms looking weary in the pale dusk of a summer evening. A smudged pearly glow haloed the wall lanterns. I thought how lucky I was to have found a place as charming as this to live. I don’t miss London at all. I wondered if Sol would remember the peace here when he was number-crunching in some over-lit office in Birmingham.

  As we crossed the cobbles, I fished around in my bag for my door keys. Inexplicably, I felt uneasy. There was a sudden stillness, a silence, and I was struck by a vague sense of dread. Weird, I know. With a little distance from the situation, part of me puts the peculiar feeling down to my anxieties about our relationship changing. But at the time I felt as if a sixth sense were trying to warn me of something. I felt we were being watched. I glanced over my shoulder, checking the street beyond the courtyard’s broad, metalwork gate, but saw nothing untoward.

  Before we reached my door, Sol hooked an arm around me from behind, dragging me into a backwards embrace. The paperback tucked under his arm jabbed at my shoulder.

  ‘You feel that?’ He rubbed his hefty crotch against my buttocks. ‘You feel how hard you make me, huh?’

  His reached down for me, crushing my skirt into the juncture of my thighs. I tried to wriggle free, laughing.

  ‘So hurry up then,’ I said. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  I grappled with him, tried to slap at and prise away his arm. ‘Sol!’ I said, playing at primness. ‘What will the neighbours think?’

  He butted close to my ear. ‘They’ll think you’re a greedy little bitch who can’t get enough cock.’

  ‘Let me go!’

  He released me and I tottered, laughing. I turned to flick a reprimanding tap against his chest and, as I did so, I saw the figure of a man at the gate, looking in through the ornate iron bars. Immediately, he stepped back and out of sight, on to the street. Tall and dark-haired, that’s all I saw.

  Sol followed my gaze, frowning. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh nothing. Just … a cat.’

  As I unlocked, Sol ground himself against my arse, muttering dirty talk into my ear. Were we still being watched? I scanned the courtyard as I closed and locked the door but no one was around. I’d barely turned the key when Sol tossed his jacket and book on the hallway floor and slammed me against the wall. I gasped, the breath knocked from me. His hands mashed my breasts as he bit and kissed my neck. I laughed, rocking my head against the wall, trying to shove him off me so we could do this more comfortably.

  ‘I’m already scared of how horny you’re going to be after a week away,’ I said.

  ‘So you should be.’ He began tugging up my pencil skirt.

  ‘Slow down,’ I urged. ‘Let’s get into bed.’ I pushed at his chest, and felt his specs in his shirt pocket. ‘Sol! You’ll break your glasses if we carry on like this.’

  ‘I’m gonna give you something to remember me by tonight,’ he said in a low growl. He jerked my skirt harder and up over my hips, past my thighs and knickers. His cream-and-caramel shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbow, baring his strong, hairy forearms. The flex in his muscles as he grappled with my skirt made my stomach flip. I love it when he has to force my clothes off, his touch determined and strong. He makes me want to wear figure-hugging skirts forever.

  ‘Gonna put some marks on that pretty little ass of yours.’ He hauled my gusset aside and drove two fingers high and hard into my cunt. I gasped and he gave a small victorious grunt. ‘Sopping wet,’ he said. ‘Just as I thought.’ He began finger-fucking me, banging urgently so my juices squelched and poured onto his fist. I gasped over and over, sensation escalating so fast it dizzied me.

  ‘You going to promise me you’ll be good when I’m gone?’ he panted. He rested his forearm across my chest, pinning me to the wall, and squeezed a third finger inside me. ‘Are you, Cha Cha?’

  He used no technique or finesse, offered no clitoral stimulation. He just trapped me there, using three fingers to fuck me nonstop while he watched my face. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything except wail, and plead for mercy.

  ‘Are you?’ he snarled.

  ‘Yes,’ I managed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can’t hear you,’ he said. He snatched his fingers from me and grabbed my hair. ‘This way,’ he said, jerking my head. ‘I can see I’m going to have to beat it out of you, aren’t I?’

  ‘Oh God.’ I tottered after him, crouched and wincing in pain, as he led me into the kitchen by a fistful of hair.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Over the table for me.’

  He tipped me forwards onto my reclaimed, oak-beam dining table, steering me with my head. I lay across the unvarnished surface, arse jutting, the wood cool on my face. He shoved my skirt higher onto my back; then he yanked my knickers to my ankles with one sharp tug. I winced at the indignity of the position. The kitchen, separated from the living room by a breakfast bar, isn’t overlooked but I was still bothered by the uncurtained patio doors.

  ‘Sol, the curtains,’ I said.

  ‘Ain’t nobody watching, Cha Cha,’ he said. ‘Maybe next time, if you’re lucky.’

  He crossed the slate-tiled kitchen floor, eyes darting around the room. I lay still, greedy lust pounding between my legs, my thighs drenched. He rifled through a pot of bamboo utensils and plucked out a slotted spatula. He slapped it on the heel of his hand and laid it on the granite worktop. To my consternation, he began flinging open drawers and cupboards, peering in and bending down. With his shirtsleeves rolled back, he looked as if he owned the place. Is this what he did when I wasn’t around? Was that how he’d found the towel?

  ‘Ah ha!’ he cried, squatting before a cupboard I barely used. He stood, and in his hand was a baguette board, a slender piece of wood with a short handle. ‘Perfect.’

  I tensed as he stood behind me. ‘I’m not even going to warm you up,’ he said. ‘You going to be good for me, Cha Cha?’

  Before I could reply, he brought the makeshift paddle down onto my buttocks, swiping low across the fleshiest part of two cheeks. The contact smacked dully and I yelped, although the blow sounded worse than it felt.

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  He thwacked me on the left cheek, then the right. A burn began to rise. ‘Yes, I promise!’ I gasped, half laughing.

  He hit me again in the same places, the whump of contact loud in the quiet cottage. The heat intensified. My laughter faded. I stared at the blur of grain and knots on the table below my face.

  ‘Because I know what you’re like,’ he said. ‘A cock-hungry slut. Not sure I can trust you to behave while I’m gone.’

  He landed two more blows, one on each cheek. My flesh was starting to smart, the skin turning tender.

  ‘Please,’ I wailed. ‘I’ll be good.’

  He swiped at me again, harder this time, the force of him jolting me. The wooden table legs grunted on the slate tiles. I cried out in agony, banging a heel on the floor as I tried to ride out the spreading pain.

  ‘Consider this punishment for something you haven’t even done,’ said Sol. ‘Preventative medicine.’

  Again, he slammed the board onto my rear. I howled, my skin sizzling, pain pushing deeper into the tissue. I heard him panting lightly behind me.

  He followed up with another strike. ‘I’m going to colour this ass,’ he said. ‘Mark my territory. So if any
one comes near it, they’ll know it’s taken.’ The paddle banged onto my scorched cheeks, catching me on the upper thighs. ‘Used goods. Someone else’s property.’

  ‘Please,’ I gasped.

  ‘What’s that, you want more?’ he said. ‘Wanna make sure these marks last all week?’

  I screamed as he landed a series of pitiless blows on my inflamed backside.

  ‘Because you don’t trust yourself to be good,’ he said. ‘Is that why you want it?’

  He stepped away from me and slid the baguette board onto the work surface. I thought he was releasing me from my torment but instead he crossed the kitchen and returned with the bamboo spatula. His face was flushed, his hair chaotic, and one shirt flap had come untucked from his waistband. His burgundy tie was askew and his erection pushed a great, gorgeous lump in his trousers.

  ‘Got to layer it up,’ he said. ‘Make sure my bitch remembers who she belongs to.’ He pressed a hand into the small of my back, holding me to the table, and cracked the spatula onto my burning flesh. It hurt like hell. The board had landed with dull thuds. This vicious little implement stung, air whistling through its slats.

  I yowled and writhed as he swatted me with sadistic relish. He didn’t pause, didn’t make me anticipate the next blow. He just thrashed me harder and harder until I thought my skin would break. My skin didn’t break, but the spatula did. The bamboo cracked, its impact immediately weakened. Sol tossed the tool to the floor, where it landed with a clatter.

  ‘Look what you did,’ he said. ‘You broke it.’

  He dropped to his knees behind me and parted my buttocks. His broad, strong hands were cool on my blazing flesh. I cringed to feel his perusal, shame streaking through me as his fast, warm breath breezed into my cleft. He held me splayed open for a seeming eternity, and with every passing second my mortification grew. I longed to be whisked away from his intrusive inspection and have a soothing, cold compress applied to my cheeks. Then he dived into me, his tongue latching on to my hole. I whimpered as he slathered me in wet, squirmy attention. The pleasure was excruciating; delightful, awful. Beneath his sloppy caress, my crinkled rim became something else entirely, silky and soft, tender and tingling. He wiggled his tongue tip into the pinched circlet, probing and teasing. My flesh seemed to rise to him, swelling with sensation, greedily seeking his touch.

  ‘Oh God,’ I breathed. ‘Please, please.’

  I felt I was vanishing there, the velvet sensitivity almost too much to bear after the flesh-heavy ferocity of his beating. He drew back a fraction and his tongue was replaced by the press of a digit, his thumb, at a guess. He eased into me, breaching my tightness.

  I moaned in distress and bliss, woozy with lust.

  ‘Ye-es,’ he said in a low, exultant tone. ‘I’m taking total ownership of this ass, inside and out.’

  He screwed his thumb back and forth and I bleated constantly. He withdrew after a short while then inserted two fingers, harder, bulkier, and deeper. My opening stretched to take him, and he worked me, twisting and pumping, loosening my muscles, making my body relax for him.

  I groaned, engorged with gathering ecstasy, aching with need. When he pulled free of me, I was slack with pleasure, so slack I thought my flesh might slip from my bones. I couldn’t move. I was powerless, broken by desire. Through my dazed perception, I heard Sol head into the bedroom. All I could do was lie sprawled on the table and wait, a stream of booming pulses surging through my body. He returned, naked, rolling a rubber onto his gloriously stiff erection.

  Usually, that’s the point when I tense up, concerned penetration might hurt, but I was so doped up on horniness I felt anyone could shove anything into any orifice, the bigger the better, and I’d gladly take it. Sol spat into his palm and moved behind me, shunting his cock in his wet fist. He stood on the knickers shackling my ankles together.

  ‘Spread yourself,’ he instructed, his manner cool and smooth.

  I stamped and wiggled one foot until I was free of my underwear.

  ‘Good girl.’ He widened my stance with a soft kick and held my cheeks apart. I cried out as his blunt, solid end pressed into the creased pit of my butt. My instinctive resistance locked him out but he nosed in deeper, prising me open.

  ‘Come on, Cha Cha,’ he said, voice a touch strained.

  He grunted as my grip encircled him, my muscles nipping as they stretched to take his girth. He advanced steadily, and I wailed constantly as I took the slow, inexorable force of his cock. When he was lodged to the hilt, he held still, the two of us groaning through our ragged breath. I clasped the table edge, needing something to hold. I was stuffed to the brink, packed with Sol’s meaty weight. When he withdrew his stroke, my narrowness clung to his shaft, desperate not to lose him.

  He pressed his hand into the dip of my back near my rucked-up skirt, stabilising himself while trapping me.

  ‘Here we go, baby,’ he breathed.

  He drove forwards again, and my passage expanded around him. He eased back and deep again, picking up speed, starting to thrust. The table edge bumped above my clit, sending tremors through me. Ordinarily, I’d need more than that to get off but my orgasm began to bunch, a thousand and one shivers amassing in my thighs.

  I cried out, complained, begged for less, begged for more. I was an incoherent mess, full of contradictions.

  ‘This should keep you going for a week or two,’ said Sol, huffing and grunting. He hammered into me with ruthless excess, his cock slamming high, his hips battering my raw, bruised buttocks. ‘You going to remember this, Cha Cha? Remember who you belong to?’

  My breaths rose to a pitch, the tension inside me becoming too dense to contain. I wailed as he banged away until I climaxed with an intensity that shocked. My orgasm flung itself out from a deep, hidden part of me, taking possession of my body. I pitched, jerked and shuddered, sobbing with bliss.

  Sol grabbed a bunch of my hair, making me arch my neck backwards. ‘That’s my girl,’ he cooed, slowing his thrusts. ‘Coming from my cock. Taking it like a whore.’

  He released me and I slumped against the table, my nerves simmering, my calf muscles tingling. With a harsh, mean grip, Sol sunk his fingers into my buttocks, exacerbating my soreness as he began fucking with increased brutality. The table legs dragged against the slate floor and Sol’s noises grew loud and wild. He gave a long roar, a pained cry, and then his body was spasming against mine, fingers clawing me.

  His roars dropped to groans and then a final gasp of pleasure puffed from his lips. He stayed there awhile, catching his breath. His size dwindled inside me, the movement sending out little pulses.

  ‘Oh God, Cha Cha.’ His voice was quiet, loaded, remorseful.

  He withdrew from me and I twisted around on the table, fearing he was upset. He heaved me to him so I was perched on the table edge and he held my face in both hands, staring into my eyes. I was confused.

  ‘Sol?’

  He shook his head and leaned in to kiss me. His lips were warm and pliant, his mouth wet, and all the time he held my face in his cupped hands. When he broke away, he said, ‘I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘It’s only a week,’ I replied. ‘It’ll be over before we know it.’

  Since then, I’ve been thinking about that kiss, how he held my face in his hands and looked at me, his eyes clouded with emotions I couldn’t decipher. I thought I saw desire and tenderness there but also sorrow. I can’t recall if the kiss troubled me at the time or if, only now, I’m perceiving it as a goodbye because he’s barely been in touch these last few days. When he left early the next morning, he woke me with a kiss on my lips. He was travelling on Sunday and had a ton of stuff to organise so I wouldn’t see him until he returned. He stroked my hair from my forehead, smiling affectionately. I gazed up at him through sleep-bleary eyes.

  ‘Shalom, sweetheart,’ he said gently. ‘Catch you on the other side.’

  ‘Safe journey,’ I murmured.

  He texted a few times over the weekend and said he’
d phone before he left yesterday but didn’t. And all I’ve had since then is silence. He’s only been away one day, I know, but it’s unlike him. I’ve called, I’ve texted, I’ve emailed but no reply so far. Technology is my only means of reaching him, and the connection feels fragile and tenuous. He’ll be in Birmingham now but I have no details of where he’s staying or working. I know the name of the road he lives on in Brighton so I could drive over there and loiter. That might make me feel a degree or two closer to him but it’s of no practical use. I try telling myself he’s been too busy to get in touch but I’m fooling no one. He used to be reliable but then he changed, grew erratic and cagey. If it weren’t for that change, weren’t for my growing suspicions he harbours a secret, I might have been more worried he’d come to harm.

  I can only conclude he wants out of the relationship but doesn’t have the balls to tell me. So now we’re going to go through a fraught painful period where he treats me badly in a bid to make me finish what we had. Perhaps his inability to bring this to a decent close is related to his history of bereavement. He’s unable to instigate a breakup after suffering so much from death imposing loss upon him. Or perhaps he’s a callous, lying bastard, and I’ve been fooled.

  Safe journey, Sol Miller, whoever you are. Shalom.

  Tuesday 2nd September

  There’s a page missing, I know. I wrote something I shouldn’t have done but it’s OK now. It’s gone.

  This journal’s looking ragged and worn. The spine’s broken from me leaving it splayed open too often, and some of the pages are coming unglued. It’s a cheap thing. If I’d known I was going to record so much, I would have thought more about the object in which I was writing. I’m considering asking Kat to bind it in leather, although I wouldn’t want her to read any of the content. Perhaps she could mend it while I was there so I could ensure my words were safe from her eyes. A cover with a lock would be good. If Sol’s going to go rooting around in my drawers looking for towels, who knows what else he might stumble upon. Well, assuming he ever comes back, that is. But I’m starting to think he will. I over-reacted yesterday. He probably forgot his phone charger, that’s all. And the hotel Wi-Fi is down.