ataraxia, lorenzo berkshire

"fifty"

"When's Saskia back?," Valentina hummed, still remaining in Lorenzo's company - revelling in it, for it felt so revitalising - after being deprived of it for so long.

She just wished she could touch him the way she used to be able to. However, she didn't want to reinitiate something that she knew she wouldn't be able to finish.

This time around, if Valentina got her hands on Lorenzo once again, now after knowing everything, she knew she wouldn't be able to let him go.

And if she did, their souls would be tattered with desperate claw marks from which their emotional and intimidate connection had once made them grasp each-other tightly.

"Not for another hour or so," Lorenzo hummed, turning the page of his book he was reading in his lap while he was propped up against the bed-frame, "She's talking to her father about the arrangement."

Valentina nodded curtly, accepting his vague answer - not wanting to prod.

"I have like, a really weird question." Valentina interrupted the comfortable silence, "You don't have to answer.. but I'm just curious."

Lorenzo skeptically slid his leather bookmark in between the current pages of his book, closing it as he placed it slowly down on the bed - his attention now utterly central on the girl at the end of his bed.

Valentina fought a pathetic grin, immaturity twinkled within her eyes - she looked like she was going to unleash an awful dad joke that she knew Lorenzo wouldn't find funny, but he'd laugh anyways.

Because it made him as equally enamoured watching her shamelessly laugh at her own jokes.

"Okay, sorry." She cleared her throat, trying to suppress this childish grin that tugged at the corners of her lips - Lorenzo realising that he'd spent a little too long looking at them.

"Come on, then." He shrugged impatiently, "Ask."

"Is, uh-," She drummed her fingertips upon her crossed legs, "Is Saskia.. good?"

"...Good?" Lorenzo narrowed his eyes confusedly, eyebrows furrowed in comprehension, "What do you mean 'Good' ?"

"Is Saskia good...," Valentina looked as if she were about to physically combust in hysterics if she were to finish her sentence, but she managed to get the words out anyways.

"- Is Saskia good in bed?"

"Val." Lorenzo quickly shut her down, "What?"

"Sorry! I'm sorry!," She covered her face with her hands, "I'm just curious, and she used to bully me all the time about how I was a virgin when we were fifteen, like she was some underage sex symbol or something."

"Oh." Lorenzo tilted his head, "That's not nice." He said, a grin now tempering his own features, mild sarcasm in his playful tone.

"Exactly. And I told you - you don't have to answer, I'm just nosy." She sighed, "She can't get away with saying stuff about me being pathetic and frigid if she's bad in bed."

"Okay," He slowly replied, his expression laboured in thought of how to reply to the obscure question.

In reality, an entire thesaurus' worth of answers consumed every crevice of his conscience. Most of them being inappropriate to the extent where it may mortify Valentina.

He couldn't exactly tell her something along the lines of how he genuinely hasn't been focusing on how Saskia performs in bed, because most of their sexual interactions consist of Lorenzo fantasising about Valentina, tricking his brain into reminiscing some of the best moments of his existence into some sort of twisted reenactment.