In Vino Veritas

His phone beeped, and when he picked it up and read the text his heart sunk a little, like it always did.

"Heeey sweetie!"

"Just wondering if you had finished that homework... "

Mark had trouble remembering when he switched from helping her with the assignments of the classes they took in common to doing all her homework, but the feeling he got simply sending her homeworks clouded his mind to such a degree that he didn't really care.

"Yeah sure, I was just about to send it."

"Mark have I told you already that you are the best?"

"Yeah a couple of times but I still like hearing it."

Thank God for texting, Mark thought. It was the only way he could possibly play it cool with Helen without her seeing what a puddle he became when she talked to him.

"BTW are you still coming tonight to the club?" she texted him.

"Oh yeah sure!"

"Tim stood me up so I guess you are gonna be stuck with me all night..."

"My luck 😂!"

"Don't worry, I might introduce you to some of my friends so dress sharply. "

This is the power she had over him, he realized. Such an ability to utterly destroy him that even these seemingly so regular and normal words obsessed him to such a degree that he really had to consider stooping so low as to masturbate to a text message.

He opted to take a long cold shower instead, he had to get ready anyway.

And it really was a great choice, because the shower allowed him to clear his mind and rationalize the situation he was gonna be in.

He loved Helen. Not exactly breaking news, and how could he not love a person like Helen? Even excluding her beauty, where is he going to find someone else with her charm, the honey of her voice, her confidence and her sense of humor?

But he also realized that just as clear as the fact that he loves her is that she is aware that he loves her. Ignoring all the normal ways in which a person can tell that somebody else is in love with them, the fact that he just spent three hours doing her homework just like he has been for the past couple of months must have tipped her off, considering that she never even asked him why.

So, if the fact that she already had a boyfriend was not enough, this act of just asking him to come along and hang out with her without his boyfriend is the certainty that she very much does not love him. And that's OK, of course.

He just has to deal with it and move on. Maybe she actually will introduce him to some of her friends, even if Helen does not love him, she must at least like him and like to spend time with him.

So he arrived just outside the club with a clear and relaxed mind.

And then he entered and saw Her, standing at least a couple of inches higher than all her friends, but for all Mark knew she could have been literally levitating two inches above the ground considering how divine she looked.

The night of her hair made her large blue eyes stand out even more in her perfect face, her mouth curled in the most devious and yet angelic smile he had ever seen, the proportion of her breast on her body meant that she had clearly been sculpted by Michelangelo, because anything else was impossible. As for the legs that sustained her body, all the words of the English language were not enough and yet redundant to describe them.

Mark could have passed out right here and there as he was picturing Helen burning down the world while all the people of Earth kneel before her begging for mercy, but she was coming to him and he had to be strong.

"Heeeey," she welcomed him loudly as she leaned in for a hug, and just as she did that, Mark could smell the unmistakable odor of alcohol. She had been drinking, not that much, but enough.

Helen led Mark to her table and all her friends followed them sitting at the table.

"So, who is this cutie?" one of her friends asked, and Helen promptly replied: "Oh, you are gonna love him! He's my best friend, he helps me with my homework, always knows what movies to watch, is always ready to buy me coffee and you should try his foot rubs. He's basically my slave!"

All her friends laughed at the joke, but when she uttered the word "slave" Mark's heart sank and something else of his rose very quickly. He laughed and jokingly bowed his head, generating more laughs, but thankfully one of her friends asked Mark to help her with the drinks, because he had to get away from the now steaming hot table.

Mark got that her name was Hannah, she was cute and seemingly funny and very nice, but right now to him she was worthless when compared to Helen. They returned to the table and everybody helped themselves with the drink they had ordered.

Helen grabbed her bottle of beer and started chugging it really fast, much to the surprise of everybody at the table. "Hey there!" exclaimed jokingly one of her friends, and Helen curled her mouth still clinging to the bottle in one of the most adorable attempted smiles that Mark had ever seen.

When she was done with the bottle, an unmistakable glimpse of malice went into her eyes, something which only Mark managed to notice.

"Nah but for real though, watch this:" she said, and then asked Mark for his glass of water.

Everybody started looking at them, curious of what was going to happen. Mark himself had no idea, and promptly gave her his glass filled with water. She looked at him, then at the glass, then quickly spit in the water. Everybody was taken aback, but they hadn't seen anything. She then gave Mark back his glass, and said "Now drink it." "What?" "Oh you heard me. Drink it."

"Helen, what's going on?" he asked her, but she kept at it: "Pleeeeeaseeee drink it! I said drink it!" Even the music seemed to have stopped as everybody in the table stared at them.

Mark begged Helen with this eyes, but her expression only hardened.

He sighed, then drank the entire content of the glass.

"Oh my God, he actually did it!" said Hannah, who then laughed the most embarrassing laugh of Mark's life, joined by her other friends. Mark tried to chuckle a little too, but Helen simply smiled at him and acted like nothing had happened.

The awkward silence which followed was interrupted only by one of her friends standing up and inviting everybody to go dancing. Mark made to go with them, but Helen's hand stopped his arm. "Get me another one, Mark." she said, dangling her empty bottle. "Hummm..." is the only noise he could muster, again his will crashing against her stern eyes.

"She is just drunk, right?" he thought to himself while he was going to the bar, otherwise why would she be mad at him?

When he returned to the now almost empty table except for Helen, he found her lying across the entire cushions of the bench behind the table, only leaving a little room for him to sit down near her shoes.

All Mark could think of while looking at her is a banquet hall in roman times, where the mistress of the house would lie on the couch comfortably as the slaves fed her.

Mark now needed a glass of water, his palate was too dry to speak.

"S-Should we go dancing?" he managed to say as Helen emptied her new bottle.

"Do you want to go dancing, Mark?" she asked teasingly with a hint of condescension, putting the emphasis on the word "want" and raising herself to look straight into his eyes. "What do you mean?"

She started laughing, "Nothing, just wondering why you feel like the world needs to see your dancing skills..." and both of them started laughing. Mark felt relieved to see Helen joking around, hoping this meant she wasn't still mad at him. "Right, let's go!" she said, standing up very quickly for a woman who clearly had had a few drinks too many.

They joined the others on the dance floor, and this was Mark's excuse for distancing himself from Helen, both to let the blood arrive to other parts of his body and because he was still weirded out by her behavior. He decided to approach Hannah, maybe actually get to know her.

"Hey, what was that about with the glass?" she asked him, and he shrugged. "I have no idea, she is never like that, right?"

"Mmmmh, she had a fight with Tim, it must have shook her. Probably why she's so cranky and drinking so much."

"Oh, she had a fight with Tim? I had no idea..." said Mark, trying to seem less interested than he was, "Yeah, I don't know the details either, she won't tell me."

"Anyway, you were saying that you are studying photography? This is very cool!" said Mark, trying to revive his conversation with her decided to stay out of Helen's way for a while.

He wasn't particularly interested in Hannah, but clearly she liked talking about photography because she just kept going and the topic had begun fascinating Mark as well.

Suddenly, a strong grip to his ear caused Mark to flinch in pain, but he didn't realize right away that Helen was literally grabbing him by his ear. "Helen, Jesus, what are you doing?" he yelled, but she ignored him, instead saying to Hannah: "Sorry girl, I need him tonight." leaving her as speechless as she was at the table earlier.

"Are you drunk? Leave me!" Mark protested with Helen, but he didn't dare to struggle to get away and instead let her drag him outside the club, not even looking at him, let alone answering his multiple questions.

Finally she reached a little wall outside the entrance of the club not visible from the windows, and sat down still holding his ear putting him in a kneeling position in front of the little wall.

"Hey sweetie, I need you to tie my shoelaces, see, that shoe is untied!" she demanded, now oozing alcohol and suddenly smiling at him with warmth, and proceeded to put her shoe near his face

"WHAT?" yelled Mark, finally freeing his ear from Helen's hand, but still not daring to stand up.

"STOP QUESTIONING MEEEEE!" she yelled as well, in the most drunk way Mark had ever seen her, "TIE MY SHOEEEEES."

"Why are you doing this to me? What the fuck is your problem? " replied Mark, now attempting to muster a little bit of pride.

"What? I told you I wanted to hook you up with some of my friends!"

"And that's the way you th..." Mark tried to reply, but she cut him off again: "Oh, you don't think they are gonna find cute a pathetic sycophant who pretends to be friendly with a woman just to lust after her for years?"

"I..." Mark really had to say something now, but he had barely managed to keep his brain functioning after Helen dealt him the verbal equivalent of a dagger to the heart. And she wasn't done:

"No, you don't think they are gonna fall in love with a worm who does everything a person says just to be near her? Are you worried that they are gonna find such a man to be unworthy of being looked at, let alone loved? Or do you think that being a piece of shit who will shamelessly lust over another man's girlfriend is going to be a big hit with Hannah? I won't ask you if you want to fuck me, but do you at least want to fuck her? Just to know if I am speaking to a man after all."

"I... I love you" he managed to say, still kneeling in front of her, not daring to look anywhere but down.

Had Mark been looking her in the eyes, he would have at least seen the first kick that she landed at his head.

He certainly managed to see the second and all the following ones, though. They must have been at least 5, but he was in no condition to count. Not too strong, but enough to send him on the floor cowering before her.

Both of them were silent and out of breath, Helen was looking straight at him but without doing anything.

Mark could not explain to himself what he was about to do, but he grabbed the foot who had just kicked him and kissed the tip of her shoe as many times as he could before she pulled away.

Helen started laughing surprised, and Mark saw a very quick smile cross her face for a second, disappearing fast however and being replaced by more anger. "THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT?" she yelled, and with surprising quickness removed the shoe with the untied laces and peeling off her sock, leaving her foot completely bare. It was his favourite thing in the world, and even in such a stressful scenario the sight of her heavenly and elegant foot instantly clouded his mind.

She lifted herself from the wall, and came close to him. Then, before he could say a word, she began stomping his head with her bare foot.

"THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED?" she asked again, without ceasing the beating to let him answer, "THIS? THIS SHIT?"

Mark's head was repeatedly banging against the concrete of the floor while the top of his face was being stomped by his goddess's foot, but not as such a strength that he could say he was really hurt.

Helen stopped stomping Mark and attempted to grab him, but it was mostly Mark who let himself be lifted by her and even helped her as she dragged him near the wall again.

Sitting back down, she raised her foot to his face and pried open his mouth until all her toes were inside of it and grabbing his hair to keep still began pushing.

Mark's eyes were becoming increasingly watery and red as his mouth was filled with her goddess's foot and his nose was the only way with which he could receive air, but he still desperately tried to move his tongue to better lick her foot. Helen noticed it and laughing, at times pinching his nose with the other hand to make him swell up even more.

None of them could tell for how much this was going on, but right when Mark felt like he was going to throw up, the foot left his mouth and without addressing him, Helen stood up, went into the club for a brief moment and exited again, heading for the parking lot while Mark was left hopelessly looking at her lying on the ground trying not to cough to death.

When he was ready to stand up, Helen had already been gone for a while, though time had become a blurred notion in his head.

Mark stood up, considered entering the club to grab his jacket but decided against it and instead went straight home.

-

Mark had had a long night of sleep, returning home at 3 Am, going straight to bed, and waking up only at 12.

He hadn't checked himself in the mirror the night before to see if Helen had left any mark, but when he did he noticed a swollen lip but nothing particularly serious.

He sighed and prepared to take a shower, but suddenly his phone beeped again, and he went to read the text he had received:

Helen: "Heeeeey slave😘!"