SWNOVELS Chapter 30
I do not want the happy ending.
I want the grand finale.
Like in those magic shows
that leave you open-mouthed
and believing, just for a moment,
that magic is real.
No one was breathing.
Rigel watched them all, in a line, standing stock still next to one another.
He wasn’t with them. As ever.
The matron’s shadow paced in front of their little bodies like a black shark.
‘Today, a woman told me that one of you was making signs to her from the window.’
Her voice was like slow, screeching glass.
Rigel watched the scene from a distance, sat on the piano stool. He hadn’t missed the glare of pure hate that Peter had thrown him.
He never got punished with them.
‘She told me that one of you was trying to tell her something. But she didn’t understand what.’
No one breathed.
She looked at them, one by one, and Rigel saw her fingers closing around the elbow of the girl next to her.
Adeline tried not to stiffen, not even when the matron started crushing her arm in a slow, violent grip.
‘Who was it?’
They were all silent. They were scared of her, and that was enough to make them guilty in her eyes. That was how she saw them.
Adeline’s skin turned purple. She was gripping her so hard that he felt his own gaze was screaming with her pain.
‘Ungrateful brats,’ the matron hissed with inhuman hatred.
Rigel instantly understood what the reddish glare in her eyes was. It was a flash of violence.
Everyone started trembling.
Margaret let Adeline go. Then, she mechanically unfastened her leather belt.
Rigel saw Nica, at the end of the line, trembling more than all the others. He knew that belts terrified her. Something scratched inside of him as he watched her, like fingernails scraping against his skin. He realised his heart had frozen and his palms were sweating.
‘I’ll ask again,’ the matron said, walking slowly up and down the line. ‘Who. Was. It?’
He saw them shudder. He could say that it was him. After all, he had taken the blame for something he hadn’t done before. But it wouldn’t work this time. He had been with her all day.
And Margaret was too angry. When she was this angry, someone always had to suffer the consequences.
She wanted to inflict pain.
She wanted to beat them.
Not because she was sick, or disturbed. But just because she wanted to.
And Rigel couldn’t expose himself, couldn’t take all the blame, or she would stop trusting him, and giving him more freedom than the others, and then he wouldn’t be able to protect Nica.
‘Was it you?’
She stopped in front of a girl with quaking knees, who frantically shook her head, looking down. She was wringing her hands so tightly that her fingers had gone white.
‘And you, Peter?’ she asked the little red-haired boy.
‘No,’ he replied feebly.
That frightened cheep had always been his condemnation. The leather in the matron’s hands creaked.
Rigel knew it wasn’t Peter. He was too scared to do anything.
Peter was tender, delicate and sensitive. That was his only fault.
‘Was it you?’
‘No,’ he repeated.
‘No?’
Peter started to cry because, like all the others, he sensed she wanted to let off steam.
She grabbed him by the hair and he held back a yelp. He was little, scrawny, with dark shadows under his eyes that dug into his cheeks. He looked pathetic, his nose running and his eyes full of fear.
Rigel glimpsed the disgust in the matron’s gaze, and wondered if there was a single crumb of humanity in that woman.
Once again, he swore to himself that he would never become attached to her, not even if she cuddled him, cared for him like a mother and told him he was special. Not even if she was the only one who ever gave him a crumb of affection.
He could never forget her other face.
She did not usually punish them in front of him. She would always make sure that he was in another room, as if he didn’t know what she did, what a monster she was. But this time, it was different. This time, she had flown into such a rage that all she could think about was beating them.
‘Turn around,’ she ordered.
Peter’s eyes filled with tears. Rigel hoped he wouldn’t wet himself again, or she would make him regret staining the carpet.
The matron made him turn round and he lifted shaking hands to his head to protect himself, whispering prayers that would never leave that room.
The noise was so loud that everyone held their breath. She lashed him on his back and on the backs of his thighs, where no one would see the marks.
His tiny body crumpled under the thundering strike, and she seemed to despise him even more, just because he had reacted to the pain.
How could he do it? How could he be loved by such a monster?
Why was the only person who gave him affection so inhuman?
He felt even more wrong. Twisted. Inadequate.
Rejection pushed inside him until it broke him apart. Even more.
He couldn’t become attached. He couldn’t feel love. Love was wrong.
‘I want to know who it was,’ the matron hissed, the veins on her temples throbbing with fury. She hated not finding the culprit.
She prowled around the children, the belt clenched in her fist. She came up to Nica. With horror, Rigel saw that she was convulsively nibbling her Band-Aids. She did this when she was nervous, and the matron knew it.
She stopped in front of her, her cruel eyes lit up by a sudden realisation.
‘Was it you?’ she whispered menacingly, as if Nica had already confessed.
Nica stared at the belt in her hands. She was pale, little and trembling. Rigel felt his heart pounding in his ears.
‘Well?’
‘No.’
She slapped her so hard that her little neck cracked. Rigel felt his fingernails digging into his palms as Nica turned around. A tear fell down her cheek, but she didn’t even dare to wipe it away.
The matron wrung the belt in her hands, and Rigel felt his heart racing – he could see her anger, her mad eyes, her hand raising, hitting, the belt flashing through the air – and something screamed inside of him.
Panic overcame him.
He did the only thing that came to mind. He looked around and grabbed the scissors the matron had used to cut the sheet music. Then, in a sudden, crazy gesture, instinctively, feverishly, he sunk the blade into his palm.
He regretted it immediately. Pain exploded furiously and the scissors clattered to the floor, making everyone turn around.
Red droplets stained the carpet, and when the matron noticed, the hand that was about to strike Nica lowered. She ran towards him and cradled his palm as if it was an injured sparrow.
It was only then that Rigel met Nica’s eyes. They were scared, fragile, distraught.
His vision went hazy with the pain. But he’d never forget her gaze.
He’d never forget her eyes, as pale as freshwater pearls.
That light would stay inside him forever.
I stared at the workmen without really seeing them. They were redoing the bridge parapet and for several weeks, instead of a railing there had been an orange net that obscured the view.
I had gone there to feel the grass under my feet and the reassuring embrace of fresh air, but my heart was throbbing like a wound. It was all I could feel.
When I got back home, a voice welcomed me. ‘You’re here!’
Anna had her coat on, ready to leave, and I nodded slowly. I saw her eyes searching my face, but I hid behind my hair.
‘There’s cake through there,’ she said in that soft voice I loved so much. ‘Do you fancy something to eat?’
I replied that I wasn’t very hungry. I felt slack, extinguished. Her forehead wrinkled with worry and I tried to smile.
‘Nica…I’m sorry about last night.’ She gave me an embarrassed look. ‘I realise that…I might have gone too far. All that about Lionel and the flowers. I’m sorry.’ She tucked my hair behind my ears. ‘I’m just so happy that there’s someone who appreciates you for who you are. Making you uncomfortable was the last thing I wanted.’
I put my hand on hers, and whispered, ‘It’s all okay, don’t worry.’
‘It’s not,’ Anna murmured. ‘You seem so despondent. Ever since you came back to the table last night…’
‘It’s nothing,’ I lied, finding my voice. ‘It’s…I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’ I softened my gaze. ‘You don’t need to feel guilty, Anna. You didn’t do anything to upset me.’
‘You’re sure? You would tell me, wouldn’t you?’
I hoped she couldn’t sense my heart tremble at that question.
‘Of course. Don’t worry.’
In moments like those, I couldn’t work out what hurt me the most. What I felt inside, or having to hide from her what I couldn’t tell a soul.
Anna’s eyes were understanding. But she was the last person in the world I could confess my feelings to.
‘Put a scarf on.’ I smiled at her. ‘There’s a bit of a breeze.’
She thanked me. I waited for her to leave, said goodbye, but as soon as she had gone, the same feeling of emptiness returned.
I slowly walked to the living room and sat down on the couch, wrapping my arms around my knees.
I wondered if this was how Billie and Miki were feeling, as if something fundamental was off kilter. I just wanted to talk to someone about it.
‘I thought it would come from outside.’
Klaus, curled up on the couch next to me, stared at me with an eye half open. At that moment, he seemed like the only one I could confide in.
‘When it all started…’ I whispered. ‘I thought that any obstacle that would come between us would come from the outside. That we’d somehow…tackle it together.’
I turned towards him, feeling my eyes mist over.
‘I was wrong,’ I murmured. ‘I didn’t take the most important thing into account.’
Klaus watched me in silence. I slipped down, huddling into myself as if to protect myself from the world.
I let tiredness take over my thoughts. I fell asleep, but not even in sleep was I able to find the peace I hoped for.
At a certain point, I thought I felt someone touching my face.
Fingers…brushing my cheek.
I’d recognise that touch among a thousand others.
‘I want to let you in,’ I heard. ‘But I’m a path of thorns inside.’
It was as if he knew no other way to say it. His melancholic tone burned my heart. I tried to cling on to reality, to struggle to stay awake, but it was in vain. His words drifted away with me and vanished.
It was evening by the time I woke. As I opened my eyes, I felt two things weighing down on me.
The first one was those words, which I was sure hadn’t been a dream.
And the other…
The other was Klaus, curled up on my chest, snoozing with his nose tucked in my neck.
The next day, Rigel didn’t come to school with me.
When Norman came downstairs, he told me with an awkward smile that he would give me a lift, that Rigel wasn’t feeling well, his headache from the previous day hadn’t passed yet.
I wasn’t able to pay much attention in class that day. My mind kept wandering to the previous afternoon, to the few words he had whispered when he thought I was sleeping.
When I left school, under a drizzly sky, I glanced around, hoping I wouldn’t bump into Lionel. So far, I had managed to avoid him. Even during lab I had sat as far away from his desk as possible.
‘Are you heading home?’
Billie looked at me from under her mass of curls. I met her lingering, opaque gaze and wrinkled my brow in a contrite smile.
‘Yeah…’ I murmured softly.
She nodded silently. The dark circles under her eyes were visible even in the shadow of her hood.
‘Okay,’ she whispered.
I realised she was feeling the same loneliness as me.
Billie needed me. She needed a friend…
As she was turning away, I grabbed her hoodie.
‘Wait,’ I stopped her. She turned and met my gaze. ‘Do you fancy…going to grab something to eat?’
I saw her hesitate. ‘Now?’
‘Yeah…There’s a café at the crossroads, just by the bridge. Will you come with me?’
Billie looked at me for a moment, uncertain. Then she looked down and took her phone into her shaking hands.
‘I…I’ll tell Grandma that I’m staying out…’
I smiled at her softly. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’
I spent the whole afternoon with her.
We ate sandwiches and sat on the little couches in the café, sipping chocolate frappés as the rain fell outside.
Billie spoke to me about a lot of things. She told me that her parents were supposed to be back by the end of the month, but by now she had given up all real hope.
I listened to her patiently, never interrupting her. I had thought that she wanted to vent, but I realised that she just needed some company.
When we parted ways towards evening, she still seemed a little dispirited, but her eyes were flickering with a silent relief.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
I gave her an encouraging smile and squeezed her hand.
I walked home as the first streetlights came on, and suddenly my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and checked who it was before answering.
‘Anna? Hi…’
‘Hi, Nica, where are you?’
‘I’m on my way,’ I replied. ‘Sorry, I’m running late. I should have told you.’
‘Oh, honey…I’m not at home,’ she sighed. I pictured her with her hand on her forehead. ‘This event at the club is driving me mad! I’ve still got deliveries to check, I really can’t put them off until tomorrow…No, Carl, those don’t go there,’ I heard her saying to her assistant. ‘No, dear, those go with the begonias by the entrance, over there…Oh, I’m sorry, Nica, but I really don’t know what time I’ll finish tonight…’
‘Don’t worry, Anna,’ I reassured her. ‘I can make something warm for Norman when he gets home…’
‘Norman’s having dinner with colleagues this evening, remember? He’ll be back late, that’s why I’ve called you…’
I heard her sighing as I opened the gate.
‘Rigel’s been alone all day…Can you go and see how he’s doing? Just to make sure he hasn’t got a fever,’ she said anxiously.
I recalled the time I’d had to call her when they were at the conference, ages ago, when Rigel was so ill. Anna was always worrying.
I bit my lip, then nodded. I remembered she couldn’t see me, and as I entered the house and dropped my keys in the bowl, replied that it was all fine and she didn’t need to worry.
‘Thanks,’ she murmured, as if I was her guardian angel. Then she said goodbye, and I hung up.
I took my soggy shoes off so I wouldn’t get the floor dirty and went to go find him. I couldn’t see him anywhere, so I deduced he must be in his room and walked upstairs.
But I hesitated outside his door. My heart was thumping in my chest.
The truth of the matter was that I had been thinking about him all day, and now it came to it, I was scared of confronting him.
I steeled myself, lifted my hand and knocked.
I went in. The dim light coming through the window marked out the edges of the room.
Rigel was enveloped in shadows. My chest tight, I saw the silhouette of his body, and for a moment, listened to him breathing.
Outside it was raining, but the smell of the rain wasn’t enough to mask his musk, which diffused into my blood and reminded me how deeply he had penetrated my soul.
Tenderly, I approached and placed a hand on his face. It was hot, but fortunately not feverish.
I sighed. I let my fingertips brush against his skin, giving him a hidden caress, then turned around. I had already reached the door, but stopped at the sound of his voice.
‘I can only hurt you.’
I froze. I heard those words as if, deep down, somewhere, I already knew.
‘That’s who I am…’ he murmured, disillusioned. ‘And it’s all I know how to be.’
I stared ahead, my eyelids drooping, my expression flat, as if my heart was a dusty diamond that had stopped shining.
Slowly, I turned around. Rigel was sitting up, his hands gripping the edge of the bed, his face downturned, shadowed by his hair. It was as if he didn’t want me to see him.
‘That’s the truth…’
‘I can sleep at night,’ I interrupted him, drained but determined. ‘I don’t need to keep the light on any more. I’m not staying up because I’m scared to fall asleep. The nightmares haven’t gone away…but they’re fading. They’re fading, because in that blackness, I don’t see the cellar, but your eyes. You’re healing me, Rigel. And you don’t even realise it.’
He had filled me with stars. And he couldn’t see it.
‘Healing is possible…’ I whispered, really believing it.
At that point, however, Rigel looked up. And I understood that whatever truth his gaze held was out of my reach. He had never let anyone see him.
‘Something in me is broken…and won’t ever heal.’
‘The stars are alone,’ he had said to me some time ago in the same cryptic tone.
I realised that he was telling me something important, that he was trying, in his way, to make me understand.
The door to Rigel’s heart no longer seemed like a portcullis outside an impenetrable fortress, but like the entrance to a dense thicket of thorns, etched in crystal, ready to collapse in on itself.
‘There are some things you can’t fix, Nica. And I’m one of them. I’m a disaster,’ he whispered adamantly. ‘And I always will be.’
‘I don’t care,’ I whispered sincerely.
‘No, you don’t care,’ he repeated, almost harshly. ‘Nothing is ever too far beyond repair for you. Nothing is ever scary, dark or bad enough. That’s how you are.’
‘You’re not beyond repair,’ I replied.
Why did he keep condemning himself to loneliness? It hurt me, because he wouldn’t let me stay with him through that pain.
He stared at me with a bitter, contemptuous irony.
‘Every tale has a wolf…Don’t pretend you don’t know what part I’m playing in this one.’
‘Enough!’ I stubbornly protested. ‘Is that what you think you are to me? The monster that ruins the story? Is that how you want me to see you?’
‘You have no idea how I’d like you to see me,’ he whispered.
I stared at him, stricken. I tried to hold his gaze, but he clenched his jaw and turned away, seeming to regret what he had said.
‘Rigel…’
‘You think I don’t know?’ he interrupted angrily. His eyes shot daggers at me.
For a moment, the burning, submissive look he gave me made me think of a wolf looking up at his moon.
‘I know how much it’s costing you. I know. I can read it in your eyes, every single day. All your life, that’s all you’ve ever wanted. A family.’
I froze. I hadn’t realised I had come closer to him.
‘This situation is suffocating you. You don’t want to lie, but you’re forced to every day.’ And then, centring in on my heart, he added, ‘You’ll never be happy like that.’
A boiling sensation gripped my throat. Tears were blurring my vision, affirming my vulnerabilities.
Rigel was reading my soul.
He knew what drove my most shining desires.
He knew my dreams, my torments, my fears.
I had been a fool to think he hadn’t realised.
I could not hide.
Not from him.
His gaze was the condemnation I had never stopped dreaming of.
His voice was a wound that I would carry inside forever.
But his scent was like music.
And in his eyes, I found my salvation.
I was his.
In a strange, mad, painful and complicated way.
I was his.
‘I chose you…’ I breathed, disarmed. ‘Over everything else…I chose you, Rigel. You’ll never understand it, because you only see things in black and white. I have always wanted a family, that’s true,’ I stressed in a whisper. ‘But I chose you because we belong together. Don’t push me away…Don’t keep me at a distance. You’re not a price to pay. You’re what makes me happy…’
I clenched my eyes shut in anguish.
‘I want to come in…even if you’re a path of thorns inside.’
His eyes flashed, and I seized the moment to stretch out my hand and hold his face.
I was still scared that he would flinch away, that he would recoil from my touch, but Rigel just lifted his eyes to me, two shining black galaxies.
I looked at him imploringly, and for a moment swore that he was staring back at me in the same way.
Why?
Why couldn’t we stay together?
Why couldn’t we be together like everyone else?
‘I want you,’ I told him again, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘You, and only you. Whatever you are, however you see yourself…I want you as you are. You’re not taking anything away from me, Rigel. Nothing…’
I stroked his cheek, clinging to his dark gaze, and prayed he would believe me. I wished I could give him my eyes so he could see himself as I saw him, because I loved his complexity more than anything else.
‘If I let you in…’ he whispered slowly. ‘You’ll get hurt.’
I smiled sadly and shook my head. Showing him all my Band-Aids, I said, ‘I’ve never been scared of getting hurt.’
He clenched his eyes shut, defeated. Before he could do anything else, I lifted his face and closed my lips over his.
I didn’t know how else to let my heart speak. I anchored myself to that kiss as if my life depended on it.
His hands grasped my sides and my tears fell on his cheekbones.
We anchored ourselves to each other, clinging on, chaining ourselves, knowing we would sink. That we would forever be lost, because in the ocean of reality there was no place for us.
We were shattered, broken, ruined.
But the light within us shone with the power of a hundred stars.
He had the strength of a wolf.
And I had the tenderness of a butterfly.
And I couldn’t believe that something so beautiful and sincere could also be wrong.
I kissed him, almost with despair, clinging to him with such passion that we fell backwards. His shoulders touched the mattress and I kept on holding his face, not letting him go.
I felt his pulse pounding against my stomach. Rigel traced my back with his fingers and then gripped, almost as if he couldn’t think straight. His hands were shaking, as they did every time he touched me. I thought that I never wanted to be touched by anyone else.
He was one of a kind.
The only one.
The only one who could send me to pieces.
The only one who could put me back together.
The only one who could floor me with a smile and destroy me with a glance.
Rigel, my soul cried out. I clasped him to me, my Band-Aids snagging on his shoulders, my hands refusing to ever let him go.
You’re not alone, my every kiss shouted, and his fingers closed in my hair, grasping tightly. I let him embed himself into me, up until the last shiver.
Rigel gripped my hips, and the next instant, it was my back against the mattress.
He pressed me into the bed. I felt his muscles trembling, as if they needed some release, to explode, to let themselves go. I slipped my hands through his hair and kissed him passionately. My tongue tangled with his and something within him gave in.
He impulsively pinned my wrist above my head and grabbed my thigh, pushing it possessively against his side. His fingers left rough half-moons on my flesh, and my back involuntarily arched. My lips parted in a silent gasp.
Rigel froze, panting, and looked me in the eyes. He seemed to realise only then how forcefully he had grabbed me, holding me in that constricting position.
I sensed the constant effort he was making to keep that part of himself at bay.
I watched him, my heart in my throat, powerless in his grasp. He had me in a vice-like grip, but he was shaking as much as I was. I looked at him because, even though he had never been tender, when I was held in his gaze I was not scared.
I had known those eyes all my life.
They were eyes that had cradled me when I couldn’t sleep at night.
Eyes that had always been with me, tattooed on my soul.
They would never hurt me.
Slowly, I intertwined my ankles behind his back, with all the tenderness I had, defenceless and disarmed. Rigel looked at me, his jaw tense. As a tear dripped down my forehead, I reached up and stroked his cheek.
‘You’re good like this,’ I whispered to him. ‘You’re my beautiful disaster…’
He looked at me, a silent emotion in his eyes. A powerful, inscrutable emotion.
My heart panged as he lifted the hand that he had gripped and brought it to his mouth. His lips landed on my soft wrist and kissed it slowly. His face among my Band-Aids was the sweetest, most impossible and desirable thing I had ever seen.
There he was, Rigel, touching my mistakes. He kissed my fingertips one by one, and I felt my eyes brim with tears until my vision burned.
He was not my most beautiful mistake.
No.
Rigel was my destiny.
He was my broken, crumpled, beautiful finale.
And he always would be.
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him down to me. Our lips were consumed in kisses, and his hands slipped under my dress.
I jumped when I felt his hot fingers.
Rigel breathed slowly, then traced the curve of my pelvis as if he had desired it all his life. My heart drummed furiously against my abdomen.
He caressed me deeply, touching nerves I didn’t even know I had. His hands slipped down between my shoulder blades, and the next moment, my bra came undone, revealing my back.
I held my breath.
Before I could take one, Rigel slipped his finger inside my bra and touched my bare breast. He squeezed, and I felt my cheeks flushing, my breath accelerating. I was burning with incredible, completely new emotions. He touched a nipple, tweaking it, twisting it with his fingers. A strange hotness spread out from my breast to my stomach.
My heart leaping, I noticed my arms lifting. My dress almost ripped as he pulled it over my head with my bra.
The air in the room whipped my skin, I was totally exposed. Instinctively I tried to cover my chest with my arms. I looked for his eyes, and found them already on me, two chasms of terror and wonder.
I felt inadequate, small and fragile. I felt vulnerable, so much so that I found myself resisting when he took my wrists to move my arms.
Extremely slowly, he opened my arms, holding my hands in place, level with my head.
Then he looked at me. All of me.
His eyes slid down my body, devouring me as if I wasn’t real.
When he looked at my face again, I glimpsed in his eyes a heat I had never seen before.
Powerful. Extreme. Burning.
Something incomprehensible made my breath shudder.
Rigel leant over me and his lips closed around my nipple. I opened my eyes and tried to move, but his hands were pinning my wrists to the mattress, holding me still. He sucked through his teeth and a sweet tension flooded my lower stomach, becoming boiling and unbearable. I felt my body writhing, curling, imploring, but all I could do was desperately squeeze my thighs around his leg.
‘Rigel…please…’ I panted, without knowing exactly what I was begging for.
In response, his teeth clamped down around my nipple and the sensation grew stronger. My back arched and my lips shuddered, the tension in my abdomen got so intense it took my breath away.
I was too sensitive. My body was ice and fire, something I could hardly recognise. It was so strong my eyes half-closed.
Then, Rigel lifted himself off me and took off his t-shirt.
He seemed to be burning with the need to feel contact between our bodies. The rustle of fabric mixed with the sound of my breath and his dishevelled black hair fell over his face.
I shivered again, faced with the masterpiece he was.
His pale skin made his wide shoulders look as if they had been sculpted in marble. His defined chest seemed made to be touched, felt and admired, but his raw, exaggerated beauty intimidated me so much that I again clasped my arms to my chest, unable even to touch him.
I stared at him, my cheeks burning, lifting my fingers to my swollen lips, my gaze trembling. His face, a dark angel’s, was full of disbelief.
He was my fairy tale. I was sure of it.
But he was also my greatest shiver.
My wildest fear.
The only nightmare I never wanted to stop having.
When he kissed me again, I exploded.
His skin burned on mine, and the feeling that flowed through me was so intense I gripped his shoulders tightly. I felt my bare breasts against his chest, the friction of his skin on mine was incredible.
He positioned himself between my legs, and his burning fingers touched me all over, as if he wanted to absorb, to take everything from me, even my soul. Suddenly, it seemed as if everything in his body was screaming for me to touch him.
Uncertain, I placed my fingers on his skin, because I didn’t know where else to put my hands.
Slowly, I traced the outline of his arms and his strong shoulder bones. Once again, I felt small, insecure and even more fragile than I was.
The next moment, his spine tensed. I realised he was reacting to my touch, however hesitant it had been. With more courage, I ran my fingers up his chest, caressing him up to his neck before sinking my fingers into his hair.
His mouth left mine to leave a trail of burning kisses down my body. Rigel sunk his lips into my stomach, biting and caressing with his tongue, before continuing downwards.
I was breathing heavily, desperately, and gripped my fingers in his hair. My blood was pulsing under his lips like a mad symphony of tremors.
He kissed my inner thigh, the softest and most sensitive part. Then he lifted my trembling leg and continued that torture until I couldn’t think clearly. He nibbled my ankle, and his black eyes looked up at me, burning me.
He was panting, kneeling on the mattress, his lips swollen and his eyes shining. The spectacle of him took my breath away.
The bones of his pelvis traced his lower abs and his broad chest emanated a seductive, infernal heat. He was gorgeous and terrifying. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
My cheeks were burning, and while my legs were closed and trembling, my heart was a wide open, pulsing flower.
The next moment, his hands reached my pelvis. Reality was pounding around me, but nothing felt as real as his fingers on the edge of my underwear.
Breathing quickly, Rigel stopped and lifted his eyes to mine.
I became definitively aware of what was about to happen.
This was the point of no return.
Slowly, waiting for me to say no, Rigel’s fingers tucked inside the waistband of my panties. Then, he pulled them down.
I felt my heart stop. My breathing ceased.
Every nerve in my body became aware of the fabric sliding down my legs and disappearing.
I was panting, fragile and bewildered. Rigel’s eyes slid down to where I was now exposed.
I squeezed my thighs. Like never before, I wanted to escape from the condemnation of his gaze. Like never before, I wanted to hide and disappear. I tried to huddle up into myself, but before I could, his fingers moved down between my thighs.
He touched me where no one had ever touched me before. As he touched that soft flesh, my surprised moan made him hover over me again. He leant down and sucked my breast. The reaction that came over me was so intense it floored me.
He tantalised, massaged, and my breath became erratic. It felt like I was losing my mind. I trembled, my cheeks became furnaces. One part of me wanted it to stop, because the other part wasn’t able to withstand that raging fire.
I found myself clutching him, incapable even of speaking, and a moan broke from my lips.
‘Rigel…’
In response to that imploring moan, his fingers between my thighs moved with increased vigour and the caresses of his tongue intensified.
My back arched and my eyes opened wide. I dug my nails into his back.
I felt my limbs shake convulsively. The room started spinning. My legs were trembling and a tingling sensation grew in me. I couldn’t breathe. It was the most consuming feeling in the world.
His hands closed around my hips, pulling me towards him. I startled when I felt his desire between my legs. I was so hypersensitive by now that it took nothing at all to make me tremble.
There was nothing, now, between us. My heart thumped violently, my gaze quivered.
‘Look at me,’ I heard him whisper.
I met his eyes.
Rigel looked at me…He looked at me in a way that, until the end, I would never understand. Infinite emotions burned in his gaze, I chased each and every one of them until they were imprinted in my memory.
Until they were mine.
Mine and mine alone.
Then he pushed inside. I stifled a moan of pain and felt my muscles tensing, burning. My body stiffened and a piercing feeling made its way inside of me as he slowly advanced, trying not to hurt me.
I took a breath in, feeling a tear roll down my temple. Rigel didn’t break eye contact, not even for a moment. His deep, dilated pupils remained anchored in mine, as if he wanted to engrave every single nuance of that moment into his soul.
Every single nuance of me.
And I let him.
I let him take everything.
Everything I could give him.
We fit together…like broken pieces of a single soul.
And for the first time in my life, for the first time since I was a little girl, every part of me seemed to find its right place.
Without cracks or chips.
Rigel fused with me, his hand clutched my ribs as if he wanted to reach my heart. He put his other hand on the headboard, tilted his face, and placed his forehead against mine.
Maybe because he also wanted to tell me something without words.
Maybe because, even though he had never been tender, he was choosing to give me the softest part of himself.
And as the world reduced to nothing but us, I wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter if he was a disaster inside. With the ink that he had given me, we would write something that was just ours.
And maybe he would stay as impenetrable as the night, as multifaceted as a vault of stars, but in that single song, our hearts beat as one.
We would find a way.
Together.
We would find it. Even if it didn’t exist, we would write it with what we had.
With our souls.
And with our hearts.
With secret melodies and constellations of shivers.
With the strength of a wolf, and the tenderness of a butterfly.
Hand in hand…
Until the very end.