Chapter 2: He Returns
Olan did not arrive for several months. By this time, Laura's husband had become very suspicious of Seth, and did not invite him over to the house, nor did he let Laura leave the house without a servant or his mother accompanying her. Marico wanted to be sure that if Laura swelled with child, the child would be his.
Marico could not be satiated upon Laura's body. He would ride her again and again, only to feel just as frustrated and needy minutes later. She had become an obsession. If he could have found a way to do it, he would have stayed home and fucked her into a stupor day and night. He knew his responsibilities, however, and once he was out of his home and away from her, he could at last stop thinking of her, and resist the compulsions he felt.
At first, Olan waited outside of her home, lingering in the trees or bushes, watching through a window as she spread her legs wide for Marico in the morning. She saw him, through the windows, half a glimpse here and there. She swayed between fear that she was seeing things and a wild elation.
The second day, after a long family supper, she went up to her bedroom to find Marico deeply asleep and Olan perched on the bed next to him, waving his hands in front of Marico's face. Being confronted with him so unexpectedly shocked Laura. He was tall and slender, but somehow had a more imposing presence than her tall, beefy husband. His hair was white and hung past his shoulders, but there was nothing effeminate in the hard lines of his angular face. His eyes blazed at her when she walked into the room, and she wondered how long he had sat their anticipating her return.
"What have you done to him?" Laura hissed. "Did you kill him?"
"Would it bother you if I had?" replied Olan. "It is no less than he deserved, for poaching on what was mine."
It took Laura a moment to grasp his meaning.
"Do you mean me? It's been years since I last saw you," she pointed out. "Did you expect me to wait?"
"Until the end of time, if need be," he replied. Suddenly he was looming over her, anger in his eyes. Laura froze. "No one should touch your ripe flesh without my permission. Every inch of your body is mine to play with, and I will take it now, as I should have years ago."
He reached between her legs, rubbing the cloth of her skirts against her. After half a moment, her head fell back. She gripped his shoulder to help herself stand and felt her hips swaying in rhythm with his fingers, trying to attain the release she had been denied for so long. It took her a minute to try to pull away. She knew that he was strong; although not bulky, she could see the lines of the muscles in his arms, and she remembered that even as a child he had more strengths than many adults she knew. So she waited, relaxing in his grip, before pulling away as abruptly and sharply as she could.
There was a loud ripping sound, and Olan looked surprised to find a swath of cloth but no Laura in his grip. He leaned back against the wall as she backed away from him, keeping him in view at all times. She reached behind her for the edge of the window, feeling frantically for it, wondering if she could break it and if it would do any good anyway, since they were on the third floor of the house.
She never considered screaming. Later, she would wonder why she hadn't brought the whole house down on them when she had the chance. Instead, she reached the window and swung it open behind her, watching Olan watching her.
She pushed the window harder than necessary, and for an eerie moment felt as if she were going to tumble out of it. At the same moment, a hard hand grabbed her wrist and hauled her forward. Laura never saw Olan move, but he crossed the large room in an instant and hauled her back inside, only to press her against the wall next to the window and pin her with just one long finger, which inserted slowly into her body, watching the expressions shift on her face all the while.
He pulled away from her, and she moaned at the loss, snapping her eyes open.