LIQUID BALANCE

Chapter thirteen

"Where are you going?" His voice was sleepy; he lay supine, blankets wrapped between his legs, completely abandoned. His broad, muscular back was smoothed by the sun and hardened by athletic activity. His buttocks firm, his legs covered in black hair.

He reached out a hand to hold me, I escaped him. I longed for the privacy of the bathroom.

"Where are you going?" The tone was more attentive.

"In the bathroom, I'd like to freshen up."

"Go on, then." Was he giving me permission to take my leave?

The man was amazing, he looked like he had been transplanted from the 13th century with a crown and coat of arms, and we were his vassals.

He turned around to expose his hairy chest, he didn't have the modesty to cover his nudity which he rather exposed, truncated.

I stood up; I was fatigued. I would choose to fight when I regained my strength.

I regretted that I had little sexual experience, my body felt like a hungry, relentlessly escaping me. I couldn't control myself, I wished I was transparent. A body to be filled.

Instead, the taste was such that the meal felt like a feast.

Bruises were forming in my wrists.

She should have given me taller bracelets. Or dresses with long sleeves.

I don't think he realized it, he simply lost control.

In truth, I was losing it too, reaching ecstasies and surrenders I wouldn't have supposed to experience.

Intolerable though was the idea that I was his thing, like furniture or property or his stable of sports cars.

They could accept their differences, without crushing each other. Even if for a short time. She had to invite him to hold more urban, less medieval ways.

Including using force in love acts.

It was implied that she would submit; it was part of the contract. What more did she want?

And would he stay there and sleep?

He peered into the darkened room, recognized his body where he had left it, in the background the steady breathing of sleep.

They were supposed to sleep together, she couldn't find any motivation to wake him up, and kick him out.

The Hilton suite was his, perhaps the Hilton itself was his.

Even that robe, which she found neatly folded on a shelf in the refined dressing room, was hers.

I was his. He had bought me.

My daughters were also bought out.

And if I had been unfortunate enough to become pregnant, her son would have been the fruit of

a good business transaction.

I went back to bed, might as well rest to regain my strength.

I woke up with his body pressed against mine, one of his arms holding my waist. His hand was clasped to my breast. I had woken up because the uncomfortable position he was forcing me into had obviously disturbed me. I could feel his warm breath on my shoulder. Was this the intimacy that couples desire? This promiscuity in which one and the other mingle into a single salty smell?

I felt drained of strength, exhausted.

I let him continue to sleep and lay awake watching the wall.

Would the future still be normal?

He held me tighter.

"Are you awake?" he mumbled, still partially asleep.

She would have been compliant and would certainly have avoided another assault. By now her mechanics were clear, she would get excited in the confrontation. She would have been strategically atonal.

"Yes, a little bit."

"How soft you are."

He began to caress me. How could I escape?

I didn't want it! I didn't want it! I didn't want it!

It's nice to wake up with you next to me. You smell great."

She gave me a shy kiss on the shoulder and opened her eyes.

So in the dim light of the early hours of the day, with his dark beard and shaggy moustache, with the intense eyes of a predator, he was a very handsome man.

She had never caught him making nervous gestures, touching his mustache or hair. She had never caught him smoking, neither cigarettes nor cigars, he drank alcohol in measured amounts and generally maintained a single monochromatic tone of command for each of his interjections.

Evidently he was not used to asking with the possibility that his interlocutor's answer would be different from his prediction.

"I don't breathe much with you on."

"I breathe just fine. Didn't you sleep well?"

Remember Elizabeth, don't seek confrontation, he enjoys it.

Humor him. It was slightly different from what Franca had recommended to her. Love, she had said. Certainly not humor him lest he end up spread-legged with his wrists crushed in a vise.

Love...but what?

That endless bullying?

"I slept wonderfully with you on."

"You don't fool me. I'm learning you. But I notice you have energy this morning."

At all. I felt like a sack of flour to be punched.

"How about we have breakfast brought in?" Maybe I could turn him off.

"A nice hot Cappuccino would you like?"

"Yes I would appreciate that, thank you."

"You could earn it."

"I know that you are a kind man, and particularly inclined to please the ladies."

"Yes but I also wish for the ladies to please me."

"In fact I wish that one particular lady would always, and I stress always, please me."

"The lady will accommodate you until she gets pregnant."

"I like making love to a big belly."

"No it's not in the contract. Now I am allowing you to touch me because it is in the agreement. As soon as I get pregnant, we can finish this paperwork."

"You will be my wife shortly."

"It's not a real marriage."

"In front of the church it will be. And my family is very Catholic. You will honor the marriage."

"No."

It was impossible to keep calm.

"Now you get them."

I had to laugh, good thing.

to be continued...