I was angry just before I saw her. The anger that gnawed at me whenever I felt that she was cracking through my exterior, making me weak, taking my single greatest source of strength—my independence—away.
I was going to make her suffer that night. I could already envision the devices I would use on her, forcing open her every hole and using her over and over again until she was nothing but a powerless, limp rag, filled with my cum, spanked into submission, unable to walk straight.
But then I saw her there, descending the steps, and my body was seized by a different feeling entirely.
I tried to take her to my special room, but I wanted her before I got there. Differently.
And she took away all the control I had, that night.
So when I saw her the next morning, and I saw the glow on her skin, read the strangeness in her eyes, I knew. I knew that she knew, and I knew for sure—the passionate lovemaking on the couch had left my seed inside of her, and she was pregnant.
I was gripped by fear, as deep as it could go. Fear like I had never felt before, because now, suddenly, the idea of losing Natalia had become fathoms more deeply unbearable. Even thinking of it drove me to a state of madness, where my thoughts became disorderly and I could onlyfeel: where I might have died inside if anything had happened to Natalia before, I now felt like I would burn the whole world if anything happened to her now.
And I knew that I would do anything to protect her, and there was no more chance of that wearing off, someday, as I had been, I suppose, hoping I would eventually feel.
I decided to wait for her to tell me. Surely she would—surely she would have to.
And in the meantime, we continued to make love so much like what had gotten me into this mess. We had dinner together, and she would decline the wine, or take a mere sip and no more, and at times the wind would pick up in her hair and her eyes would be wide and moist, and I thought that she wanted to tell me her secret.
But she didn’t.
When I found her stockpile of pills I was unsure what to make of it. She had obviously stopped taking them—which gripped me with fear and elation, because it meant my suspicions were right.
But why stockpile them?
That’s why I brought Eric in. A doctor, a man who owed me favors as profound as the ones I had owed to Kyril. I had saved his life and saved his favor for when I needed a discreet surgeon.
One who could be trusted.
A man doesn’t get many favors like that in his lifetime; they’re not to be squandered.
But I was going to use them on her.
“If you don’t want her to abort the child, replace the pills,” Eric advised me, without asking questions. He sent me a stockpile of placebos. I knew what he meant: I couldn’t trust her.
I deliberated over it for a long time, while she lay in the shade on the beach.
In the end, I left the pills.
A woman who declines wine and stays in the shade when she loves the sun is not saving pills to kill her baby. Or at least, she is undecided.
And wasn’t this what I wanted all along? For her to come to me of her own volition? It meant nothing to me if I forced her. Icould, it was within my power.
But something about that sort of victory was too hollow for me, and it did nothing to fill the void that seemed to be growing every day.
