Other Colors Ch. 23-24

"Déjà vu, Monsieur," I murmured, still marveling at all that had happened since he scooped me up off the gallery floor several weeks ago.

Meticulously, he dried my fingertip, and wrapped it up in the bandage.

"Déjà goûté, mademoiselle," he laid a lingering kiss on my hand. "But no more knives. I'm cutting you off, Miss Foster."

"Iniuria," I frowned, shaking my head, "You know you were distracting me, Mr. Caine."

"Perhaps. Though you're not to be trusted with nail files either."

A pair flames licked across my cheeks.

"In the corner cabinet," freed me from the apron "fetch us some salt, and vinegar."

That I might lick my wounds, Dmitri? I rolled my eyes impetuously at him, and smirked.

"Do I look like your kitchen bitch, Maître?"

"Os impurum," he turned darkly, "Didn't your Mother teach you any manners, Miss Foster?"

"She did," I glanced back, bending a bit lower than necessary to appease him, "She also taught me to cook—which is how I know your pot needs stirring, sir."

"Comment?" he spun. It was already smoking, and beginning to boil over, "Ah, Bozhe moi," he attacked the mess with his whisk, "crisse de calisse d'osti de tabarnac."

Os impurum. Didn't your mother teach you any manners, Master? I giggled as he fanned the smoke away, and dried the sizzling edge of the pot. Double, double toil, and trouble. I stepped next to him, my knuckles grazing his inseam as I reached to turn down the burner. I let my hand linger there, I think, just long enough for him to notice.

"May I stir the pot for you, sir?" I batted my eyes unctuously.

He ran a hand through his hair, pretending I hadn't felt him swell beneath my touch.

"You always do. But if you burn yourself, Penny, so help me—"

God, sir? I nodded, rising up on tiptoe to peck him on the cheek. They say he helps those who hurt themselves.

He surrendered the whisk, and sliced up the last several parsnips. It was dreadful fun, really, making a mess in the kitchen with him. He put on some music while we worked; while we flirted, and fondled, and drank up the wine. We waltzed a few steps here and there. He dipped me, and I yelped in delight, instead of terror. And while I couldn't put my finger on it at first, throughout the entire evening there was something just a bit darker than whimsy hovering at the edges of my lips.

Had I asked him, I suspect the vestigial clinician in him would've dubbed it a salirophilia. The kitchen of my childhood, after all, was a sterile, joyless place, and as the lone female in a litter of six, my Mother conscripted me into her culinary ranks at an early age.

I'd resented her more than once for it—being stuck with the stuffing on Thanksgiving; shredding bread, while my brothers kicked a soccer ball on the beach. To her, a girl's suffering at the stove was quintessentially Catholic—a catechism of cookery, as it were. Saint Lawrence of Rome, roasted rare on an iron spit. Maybe had Doctor Foster been around, he might have tried to balance my scales a bit. But Doctor Foster, almost every holiday, was working.

Never mind that. The point is, in my seventeen some odd years of stirring pots, this was maybe the first time ever I'd done so with a smile, and salvaging Dmitri's little disaster was a challenge I welcomed. I seasoned and tweaked, playing witch's brew at the burner until he stepped close behind me, and dipped the tip of his finger into the pot.

I beat him to the punch. Before he could taste it, I bent forward, wrapping my lips around his fingertip, and widened my eyes as I licked him clean.

He clenched his teeth as I swallowed, "...Well?"

"You won't like it, sir," I smacked my lips, "Too sweet."

His hackles rose, "Is that so?"

I gasped as one hand flew to my throat, while the other—the one I had tasted—tore open the top of my jeans, and sank beneath the band of my panties. By reflex, I tried to snap my legs shut, but he was too swift, too strong, and pinned them apart against the counter. I trembled violently in his arms, feeling him steal his way lower, and lower.

"What is it little girls are made of, Miss Foster? Sugar? Spice?" he uncoiled behind me, turning slowly to stone, "Everything nice?"

He let his hand glide across my clitoris, and a slow wave of fire moved through me, incinerating all that it touched. He did it again, sinking deeper. I moaned, and I quailed. I came apart at the seams. He kept at it, coaxing, and caressing, all but bringing me to my knees.

It's not fair. I bit down into my tongue. It's too easy for him. Too easy to unmake me. Mere moments had passed, and already I moved as he moved me. My body did for him as he pleased. I was his, through and through—his puppet, his prisoner. His slave. And just as my eyelids began to flutter; just as my thighs began to buckle, and my hips tensed for one final, feathery collision, he slipped away, and raised his hand back up to my lips.

"Taste," he growled softly across my ear.

My heart quit beating, strangling itself mid-systole. No. He wouldn't. My stomach twisted into a Gordian knot at the thought of it. He wouldn't dare... It was just too degrading. Too depraved. In my right mind, the reservoir of shame I too often felt for my body was at least as deep as Lucretia's, and its waters maybe twice as dark.

But I was not in my right mind. I never was once he'd touched me. It was a type of trance that came over me. A hypnosis of the hips. To be aroused by Dmitri was to be possessed by a demon. Such things I did for him—such things I would do—willingly, ecstatically, and for the pleasure afterward, even thank him. The serpent's kiss. The serpent's hiss. My eyes fell shut. My lips softly parted. I obeyed. I laid a kiss against his glistening fingertips, letting my tongue dart lightly between them.

Sweet. My head spun. Salty. Metallic. For every ounce of iron must rust.

I opened my eyes. He was leering ravenously at me, and our fast, I knew, had ended. I thought of the Eucharist, of kneeling down at the prie-dieu—the salt-slick body, the bittersweet blood. Take, and drink. I wetted my lips, quivering as he turned to kiss me, to devour me, and my body went slack in his arms.

"Yes. Yes, you're right, Penny," he whispered, allowing me to breathe, "too sweet."

I said nothing. My lips could kiss, and my tongue might taste, but my mouth, no longer, was meant for speaking. I pressed closer, thrusting my chest against his. I wanted him. I was all but begging. Snips, and snails. Puppy dog tails. I slipped my palm into his pocket. He stirred and stiffened, like an adder shedding its skin. He sighed icily as I stroked him. I bit my lip, reaching for his belt. I was ready—ready to release him, ready to receive his venom—but he caught hold of my wrist, and stopped me.

"...Patience," his eyes flashed, "you're going to suffer first."

I've been suffering for days, Dmitri. Our eyes locked, and for one, electrical moment, all was still. I didn't know what he had in store for me, but I sensed he wouldn't leave me waiting long. I blinked, and it began. He whirled me around, snatching up the sleeves of my sweater to lash them together around my back. I wriggled, and writhed. I shimmied my shoulders. It made no difference. Without any warning, without any resistance, he'd strapped me into a makeshift straitjacket. I was trapped.

He turned to kiss me, and still I kept struggling. I couldn't help it. I struggled as he tore my jeans and panties past my knees, and stripped them over my ankles with the sole of his shoe. I shuddered, and shrank. I struggled some more. In its suddenness and its asymmetry, my nakedness was almost dizzying. I cowered beneath him; flustered, blushing, bare below the waist. He laid his hand lightly on the back of my thigh.

"Bend," he squeezed.

I hesitated, though only for a moment, and lowered myself, laying my cheek against the cool, smooth stone of the counter. A thread of hair fell over my face. I pursed my lips, trying to blow it away. I could feel him there behind me. I could feel the heat of him, his gravity, pulling me closer.

"No counting tonight," he tucked my wayward bangs behind my ear. "You're done hurting, Penny," I trembled as he ran the back of his hand down my spine, clear to the moon-white crest of my ass, "when I am done hurting you."

Never. I'm never done hurting, Dmitri. I started to nod, but froze stiff as the belt slithered off of his waist. No. He folded it over, and a blue bolt of fear flashed through me, burning clear to my bones. No. Not that. Not tonight, Maître. Je t'en prie.

It was just too much—too painful, and cruel. To be struck ad infinitum with his hand was an abuse I could abide. It was sensuous in a way, even intimate. His skin against mine. The sound, and the sting. At its most exquisite, spankings from him were the shattering simulacra of sex. But I'd already learned once at Lacoste—and once was quite enough—that even a handful of lashes with the end of his belt was neither titillating, nor tender. It was torture.

I winced pitifully, awaiting his blows with curled toes, and muttered a breathless prayer to Perpetua for the serenity to suffer without screaming. I waited. I curled my toes tighter. But the lashes never came. Instead, my eyes grew wide as he folded his belt over once more, and slipped it gently between my teeth.

"Bite," he commanded, stroking my cheek, "this is going to sting."

'But only for a moment, Miss Foster.' I breathed, relieved beyond words, and bit down, sinking my incisors into the strap. It tasted of leather. It smelled of his cologne, and his musk. I bit harder. I wanted to leave a mark. And soon it was clear, so did he.

The first blow fell like brimstone; like his hand was made of molten lead. Even the vibrations afterward were vicious, sending their shock waves clear up to my teeth. Had I not already been braced across the counter top, I'm certain he would've knocked me to the floor.

He struck again, and I bellowed into his belt. The buckle jingled on the stone. There was a third, and fourth—each as terrible as the slap that preceded it—until by the fifth, my knees began to give out underneath me. He held me up. He held me down. He wrapped one hand around the back of my neck, hastening his blows with the other.

Seven. Seventeen. Seventy times seven. 'No counting tonight, Miss Foster.' His words swirled icily inside my head. 'You're done hurting when I am done hurting you.'

I was hurting—hurting badly—but truth be told, it didn't sting in the least. Each time he hit me, the pain that flared up was cut from much heavier cloth. It was a burn, a soreness, a crippling ache. It split open seams of my muscles, enmeshing itself in the mineral-white lattice of my bones. It drowned me. It dissolved me. Like Echo wasting away for Narcissus, my body vanished a little more with each moan, until only the pain remained, and the sound of one hand slapping.

By and by, his blows did diminish. That is, they must have—but I swear that I barely even noticed; so far had I already floated from my body. His belt, I sensed, was still between my teeth. His hand-prints were freshly etched upon my skin. He was breathing heavily. So was I. I felt the warm tears that had gathered at the edges of my eyes, clinging to one another, refusing to fall. I felt felt his hand resting on the scalding, red swell of my ass. He lingered there, letting the pulsations of his palm mirror those of my rapidly bruising buttocks. Then he slid his hand lower, still warm, still tender from striking me, and plunged it deep between my thighs.

I gasped, and his belt fell from my lips. He drew his fingers over me in a smooth glissando, strumming me like the dew-slick strings of a lyre. I moaned again. I whimpered, and mewled. I was ready for him. I was almost steaming. But I swear it wasn't the pain that had aroused me—it was the absence. Whatever poison was inside me, whatever wound had been buried there these several days, in tearing into me, he'd exposed it. He'd given it air. He'd given it egress into the aether. Dmitri was done hurting me. And I, at last, was done hurting.

"You will never know," he moved in slow, agonizing circles across my vulva, ruining me with every radian, "You cannot know—how I've starved for you these three days, Penny. How I've thirsted, and craved."

To die of thirst. To die by water. I groaned again as he slid across my clitoris. My chest tightened, my breath grew shallow. I craned my neck to glimpse him over the two tortured swells of my backside. His eyes locked with mine as he took his hand away, running it slowly across his lips.

"I could drink of you," his jaw tightened, "until I drowned, little girl."

Sugar. Spice. Everything nice.

He'd never looked more lupine to me. He'd never looked more dangerous. Without once breaking his glare, I saw him unfasten, unzip, and release himself. Without once breaking mine, I watched him do it. Studying Sandow—wondering what's under the fig leaf. I flushed rose-red at the sight of him, at his brazen trespass against gravity, and felt my skin smolder as he grasped me closer, twisting my torso to his like a Mobius band, and locked me in a long, Euclidean kiss.

The Orchard, the apple. The fig leaf, and fall. Hell was all circles, concentric. Emaciated angel. Were there angles in Eden?

"Say it," he broke away, just long enough to snarl seven words, and allowed me just half a heartbeat to answer, "what are you, Penny Foster?"

"...I'm yours," I whispered, shuddering as the tip of him grazed the aching edge of me, "Only yours, Dmitri."

Always. All ways. As above. His eyes darkened. So below.

He kissed me again, still more barbarously than before, and my body went slack as he thrust himself through me. My moan was almost feral. He kept his lips sealed with mine, sinking deeper, letting the sound echo down the rose-wet hollow of my throat. I breathed him in; his heat, and his hunger, his sighs turning to steam on my tongue, and trembled terribly each time he withdrew, begging breathlessly for him to fill me again. Every time, he obliged. His motions were perpetual, impossible. He was Herod's Fall, and Escher's Fountain. And I—I was his lamb upon the altar. Bound and bleating, burning to ashes. I was La Pucelle to his Thérage, forever immolating at his stake.

Hoc est corpus meus. Hic est sanguis meus. Huc coeamus. Coeamus.

I died a little at the end of each kiss, and died a little more as his hips moved harder. I felt his palm snake its way around my thigh, flitting my clitoris like the tongue of a fer-de-lance.

The world either doubled, or my eyes must have crossed. I saw it all split—the bathing girl, and the kettle bell—then crash back together each time that he thrust himself through me. In those moments, no remaining shred of me was mine. I could neither beckon, nor rebuff him. I could barely even move. My eyes rolled back, and lost focus. I intended to disappear, to dissociate; to let him do as he would with me, and reemerge only after, inhabiting whatever battered and bruised bits of Penny were left. I tried. I tried to float away into the crystal cold air, but he stopped me, thrusting so deep and asynchronously that I shrieked.

"Oh, no. No you don't," he snarled rabidly into my ear, "you'll stay here . You'll stay with me," he let his claws rake across my ass, "You'll feel everything, Penny. You'll remember everything. You are mine."

A fresh flash of panic ripped through me. Up until that evening, inner flight had been perhaps the only means of protection I retained against him, and now, he had clipped my wings. He'd locked a lead weight around my mind, and caged me inside my own body. I tried again to fade away from him, and again he stopped me.

It was far and away the most helpless I'd ever felt in his arms. He'd seized me, possessed me, body and soul. I was his—even as his vicious left hand was his. I belonged to him more than the air in his lungs, more than the rusting pigments of his blood. His ice-flecked eyes and his throbbing cock, even the twisted, sinuous strings of his heart—in that moment, none were more a part of him than me. I made him human. I made him whole. I made his heart race, his breath quicken, his skin perspire, and steam. I was his élan vital, and his lustprinzip. I was his animal pleasure, incarnate. Breath upon breath, beat upon beat, I gave him release—even as his own hand might give him release.

I came for him in those terminal moments. I came only once, yet the intensity was fearfully infinite. There was almost a mise en abyme to my climax, recurring within itself like a fractal, until my tortured body was too drained to descend or magnify any further. Then—only then—when I'd surrendered to him entirely, I felt the death rattle of his ruthless erection, as he roared, and let his final convulsions ripple through me.

He held us still for sometime after; breathing deeply, resting his hands on my hips. I was still impaled upon him, still prostrate upon the counter. Stigmata. Saint Longinus. I curled my toes, and tightened my fists inside his sweater's sleeves. The last wound was the lance.

My muscles tensed as his fingertips swept over my tailbone. The wool fibers prickled my sweat-stippled skin. I could still feel him moving—deep, deep within me—each time he breathed in, and exhaled. At length, he lifted my chin, leaving one last, lingering kiss on my lips as he withdrew, then let me drop like Eulalia from the cross, pummeled and panting beneath him.

"Penny," he breathed darkly, untying my sleeves.

I didn't stir, but stared into the round, blue flame of the burner.

"You know, don't you?" his words fell across me like a morning frost, "You know that I love you."

Morning frost, mourning frost. Still, I stared, never blinking. I could feel the fire on my face. I could smell the mercaptan, the burning brimstone above me.

"I didn't," I murmured, "I do now."

I felt a strange tear trickle over my temple. It was first time he'd said it, without artifice or machination. I didn't reciprocate. I didn't need to. My love, I think, was implicit in my degradation, my surrender. It was spelled out in silences, in the space between stars.

I shut my eyes, erasing the rest of the tears that had welled there. Then, more than ever—much as it might have felt like a blessing—I knew that I was damned. I was blemphemous, vile, beyond redemption. A demon was in love with me, though that was no curse. My curse was to fall for him—to fall deeply, and destructively. To fall from the sky, and sink beneath the sea, struck dead by Anteros' arrow. Samael, seducer of Eve. I sighed.

Dinner was ruined by the time we put ourselves back together. The pot had boiled over again. The coulibiac was scorched. Dmitri set the whole charred affair on the floor for the Rupestrian. I smirked, watching him inhale the parsnips.

"You really are an awful cook, Monsieur."

"Peut-etre," he shrugged, his face still ruddy, and flushed, "tout est dans le choix du moment, mon Piaf."

So it is. I nodded sleepily. The dog feasted. We had some bread with French butter instead, and a little salad I tossed together of vinegar, oil, and greens. We sat quietly side-by-side. He watched my eyes when I spoke. He smiled wryly when I called him 'sir'. He touched my thigh from time to time, almost absentmindedly, as if he were cracking his knuckles, or parting his hair with his hand.

For the life of me, I can't recall what we talked about. Everything that came after his confession remains clouded, and blurred. What was said was said. What was done was done. He made love to me. He had done so before, he would do so again. We were alone. We were together. That much, I sensed, was true. The rest was just rhetoric.