SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Five
“Where were you?” he demanded when I returned home.
Apollonia had gone to fetch Cecco the moment I walked through the door as if she’d been tasked with informing him.
“I went to visit Signora Vervio,” I said plainly.
My answer seemed to incense him, and his impatient eyes widened.
“You spoke to her of our misfortune?”
The question didn’t throw me. I had left the Vervio’s house prepared for the performance I would give.
“She’s a dear friend,” I answered. “She’s my only friend if I’m honest with myself. I sought her counsel, and she helped me to see what I had done—the part I played in our misfortune, as you put it. Sofia was honest and sobering, even when her stern words came with a loving embrace. I think she will be the best friend I ever have.”
The idea seemed to stun Cecco, and he said nothing in reply.
“I understand now how I failed you, how I failed us both, to say nothing of little…” I paused, unable to speak my son’s name. “While I was furious at your betrayal, both Sofia and Father Piero helped me realize why such resentment is a sin, and I have forgiven you in my heart.”
I stepped forward toward him, raising my face.
“I would ask you now, as I have already asked of God, to forgive me for betraying you.”
Tears came to my eyes, but they resulted from the loathing in my heart.
Cecco exhaled to see them, and he reached to hold me.
“I forgive you,” he replied and kissed my forehead. “Let us never speak of it again.”
I could hear Cecco and his men in the warehouse. Several bottles of wine enlivened the raucous noise of their celebration, and I suspected the neighbors’ were also tolerating the sound. I didn’t know the details of their victory, but it was the first time I’d heard Cecco laugh in weeks.
I suspected he might come to my room that night, and as repulsed as I was by the notion, I had prepared my mind for the eventuality. I was confident my body was ready to conceive again. To succeed with my mission, I needed to smile and act as if I wanted Cecco in my bed.
“May I join you?” he asked in time, taking my smile as a confirmed invitation.
I could smell the wine on him and struggled to keep a welcoming face.
“You had a good day?” I asked.
“We had an excellent day,” he answered, barely slurring his words.
To my surprise, Cecco’s sloppy undressing soon showed that his cock was hard and standing at attention despite his intoxication.
He will be quick, I thought with resignation.
I lay back to accommodate him, feeling his weight pushing me into the bed. He attempted to penetrate me, and the first awkward stabs caused me to whimper from the discomfort. It was not merely his clumsiness that posed the challenge; I was not wet enough to receive him. My body could not hide the truth of acceptance versus desire.
After a few failed attempts, Cecco spat into his hand and reached to wet himself. Though the act repulsed me, it eased his passage, and he soon mounted me properly.
He did not last long before the drink overtook him, and his cock unstiffened. Cecco sighed, releasing his full weight upon me in frustration. The discomfort was too much for me to bear, and I sharply sucked my teeth in unconscious response.
The sound seemed to insult Cecco, and his eyes darkened. With surprising speed, he slapped me in the face. Unlike a month earlier, I understood now why he’d done it.
Rising from on top of me in anger, Cecco ripped my sleeping gown open, the light fabric tearing in his rage. He pulled me over by the hips and slammed my head into the pillow, which muffled my whimpers.
He rose my hips into the air and shoved impatiently at my upper legs, kicking them with his knees to put me into position and expose my sex. I felt his crude spit land upon me several times, which he rubbed his cock against with exhales of vulgar delight.
Its iron had returned, and Cecco penetrated me without patience or forgiveness. I screamed at the pain, which only enlivened him more, and he thrust into me over and over as if seeking my cries.
He seized me by my hair and dragged my torso up to meet him.
“Please, don’t,” I begged my husband in vain, but he only thrust himself harder into me.
Cecco released my hair and placed his firm left hand around my throat. With his other hand, he squeezed and pulled at my breasts painfully, slapping them when I released more cries of pain. Then he whispered into my ear a catalog of words I barely understood. They were insults and condemnations, and he delivered them mercilessly with his feted breath. It was language so vulgar and demeaning that I felt the words to my core.
When it was over—when he released me—I fell forward into a ball on my side and wept. Cecco, exhausted and satisfied, laid beside me and fell asleep at once.
Everything tortured me in those moments of silence: the wall shadows created by the single candle, his stink on me, and the throbbing pain between my legs. The unrelenting agony in my mind became too much to suffer. I felt drenched in betrayal and humiliation.
I turned over and sat up, and moved by a rage I’d never before experienced, I pounded my fists on him.
“I hate you!” I wailed at him. “I hate you!” My screams stopped only long enough to spit in his face.
The expression in Cecco’s eyes was that of horror when they opened to find himself under attack. But they soon changed when he got his bearings, and clarity sharpened in his dull, drunken mind.
With one fine blow from his fist, the dim light in the room disappeared.