Chapter Sixteen – Angel.
There still were days when the sun gathered its waning powers to dissolve the creeping mists. Days when it could incite the surrounding hills, turning its sides into a splendor of gold and orange. But more often, like now, the winds thrashed the windowpanes, thunderous rainstorms shaking the building.
Autumn had come to the house.
A fire blazed in the huge sandstone hearth; Eva felt its heat touch her skin. She lay stretched on the white furry rug in front of it, embracing Sandro, whose body was as naked as hers. Sandi he was to be called now. Eva's mouth closed in on the boy's ear, her tongue licking its silky-pink lobe. One of her pale legs crossed his tanned hip. She whispered words into his ear, clumsy little forays into Italian that made the boy giggle. It caused their bodies to move together, nipples touching nipples, thighs touching thighs, keeping their arousal simmering at a juice-weeping level.
From the corner of her eye, Eva saw M reclining in a leather club chair, her scary blue eyes half-closed, her glorious body wrapped in the blood red silk of a kimono robe. The woman sipped a mouthful of white wine, rotating the glass in her long fingers. 'Mistress,' she ought to call her. At first it had been easy to do so, a matter of course, ever since her rebirth at the teeth of the branding iron. It had felt natural in Venice, but then... thoughts had entered her mind – ghosts.
True, the woman had saved her from her own awful choices and disastrous consequences. Her life was hers now and she'd gladly surrendered it, hoping to be released of her guilt and shame – hoping to find a new home, a place to belong. But then there had been Sandro, Sandi, and what she did to him.
Sandi was part of that new home too, wasn't he? Her little brother, her sweet, innocent little lover, victim of a cruel woman that was her Mistress, treated horribly, utterly broken now, depending on Eva, wasn't he? So, there was cruel M, and sweet Sandi, choices, ridiculous choices.
'Mistress.'
She always used the word to her face, obeying the eyes. But in her mind, it was M again, like it had been scribbled in that first letter when she arrived. Eva knew it was just a pathetically thin line of ultimate defense; a last vestige of... what? Pride? Rebellion? Didn't M stand for Mistress anyway?
Stretched by the fire, Eva knew what the woman saw, looking over her glass's rim at them. She saw two naked creatures that she'd bought, her property to play with – to drug and flog and mark and manipulate with impossible choices and cruel dilemmas, humiliating them again and again, until they were hers, mind and body, using tricks to make them dependent, powerless to shape their own lives. Had she succeeded?
Eva watched through the curly curtain of Sandi's hair, using it as camouflage. She feared the woman's unpredictable temper, her whimsical actions. She had to be pleased at all times or there would be pain, wouldn't there, intimidation and nightmares? Fear it was.
Sandi didn't fear her, did he? Not like he used to. He'd changed, melted into a soft eagerness; how could he not have after what he went through? Before his absence, they'd both obeyed the fickle woman, but they'd also gossiped and giggled behind her back, doing harmless imitations and having their own private little jokes, like fresh breaths in a stifling room. There had been a 'her-time' and a 'their-time.'
Not anymore. The boy seemed to have lost every bone in his slender body, anticipating M's every wish. He wasn't just her slave, but really needed to be, it seemed – every moment, every second. Never not being it. He told her he loved the woman, and Eva knew it wasn't just a phrase. His wonderfully clear eyes sparkled when he said it; there was no trace of fear left, no trace of 'self.' With total indifference M had broken him at the Bordello; it must be. How else could he believe what he said – loving a woman that had been so cruel, so indifferent?
Love? The sick sweetness nauseated her, and she loved to believe it was from indignation. She should feel mad at the woman, shouldn't she, for what she did to him; for breaking the poor boy into believing he loved her? But Eva wasn't able to find madness, or even offense inside her. She should, she knew, shouldn't she? But she couldn't find it. Why couldn't she? It must be there.
Eva's branding and her time with M in Venice maybe changed her too. For a while, she'd even forgot she was Evelyn, hadn't she; many of her old memories never came back – neither the sad ones nor the miserable ones. Did she ever have good ones? Her pathetic little secret garden had been destroyed, engulfed by a black sea of ink, no private place left to run to. But now, so much later, she'd built new walls, hadn't she – flimsy things, pink, paper-thin walls, like a Japanese folding-screen to hide her nakedness behind. A mere gesture it was, the ghost of a ghost of a choice.
Looking through a curtain of hair, it allowed her to watch the woman from a distance – a fake, uncomfortable distance, maybe, but nevertheless enough to create the illusion she needed, a way to duck the woman's attention, even when her body ached for it.
Her damn body.
A small hand crawled up her bare neck to disappear into her new, thickening hair. Fingers scratched behind her ear. Full lips appeared, whispering sweet words as they kissed the tip of her nose.
"Ti amo," Sandro said; Sandi. "Ripeta!" They dissolved in giggles as Evelyn indeed repeated the Italian for 'I love you.' For just a second the outburst of uncomplicated fun put a stop to Eva's glowering, unrelenting horniness that kept rising into a blind lust she had no way of dodging, let alone satisfying. A week ago, the blond woman had once again locked Eva's crotch, this time with a leather contraption, closed with buckles and a silver padlock. What was the use? Why do that, if not out of pure sadism?
Things were done to keep her aroused all day and night; something in the food, maybe, the water? Perhaps she was hypnotized to keep her cunt itching and flowing, pre-occupying her mind? And then there was Sandro, eternally horny Sandi with his soft hands and lips and tongue...
Why she, why not Sandi as well? Sandi wasn't locked up, was he? Eva made him come whenever they were together, sucking his sweet little penis, balls and all, while milking his tight ass with a crooked finger. All it did, was arousing her more, like it did now. The boy's closeness, his scent, his heat, his kissing and licking, his sweet little moans and Italian whispers brought Eva close to coming again and again – heart-aching, pulse-racing close.
Close, yes, but never there.
She could smell it right now, and so could the woman, no doubt, watching them over her wine glass. The pink skin around Eva's nipples swelled into aching tightness. Her locked-away cunt lips strained against the smooth leather that closed her entrance. If she spread her thighs right now, her moisture would seep from the edges. It would run down the tender skin where loin and leg unite. Sweetest hell it was, forever making her totter on the brink of ecstasy – a brink she couldn't cross. Writhing her groin, she tried to conjure up enough friction for release. In vain, of course, always in vain.
