He cups my neck, pulling me close and sniffing me again. I must pass muster this time because he whispers in my ear, “Just leave it wet and come through.” His gaze drops to the floor where I folded my clothes in a neat pile, shoes alongside. “I’ll have the maids clean them for you. You smell like you’ve been sleeping rough again.”
My ears buzz with warmth. I have but nobody’s meant to know that. And it’s not rough. Not like the last time. I have my car now, after all.
Maybe I should leave the doors open to air it out when I spend the night in it, but it’s felt too cold lately. Not like when Zach first bought it for me at the tag end of summer. Then it had been so mild that I could leave everything open, even overnight.
I’d fallen asleep loads of times with the windows wide open, parked high above the city. Up there, the stacks of uprooted wilding pines make the area smell like an air freshener. Then there are the greasy undertones of lanolin from the sheep wandering through the high country, following each other on the endless trails through the tussocks.
“Come on,” he says in a low voice, sliding an arm around my waist. “I’m so happy to have you back. I’ve got a surprise.”
I walk alongside him with some trepidation. Surprises in the past have ranged from those inflicting pain so bad I can’t sit comfortably for a few days to diamond earrings that I wore everywhere until my mother’s friend threatened me with a rusted pipe and disappeared them down to the pawn shop.
The glass of wine is large and bubbly and cold. Everything a girl could ask for. It also goes straight to my head, although that might have something to do with the speed that I drink it. When I put it down on the coffee table, Wilbur automatically refills it.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
I glance at him, unsure what he means. No matter how many times I visit, he always gets me on the back foot immediately. I gulp another half glass, cradling the flute against my chest. Eventually, I give in. “Ask what?”
“What your surprise is.”
A shiver rises in my lower back, and I lean forward to hide its passage. “What’s my surprise?”
He places a finger on my shoulder, slowly lowering it along my upper arm, swirling around my elbow, then along my arm to the wrist. He circles it with his thumb and forefinger, a makeshift cuff. “You’ll have to wait just a bit longer.”
I finish my current glass and put it back on the table. This time when Wilbur picks up the bottle, he doesn’t refill it. “Lie back,” he orders instead.
The sofa isn’t deep enough to do that where I’m sitting so I swivel and lie lengthwise on the cushions. He stands, tugging me farther along the couch until I’m positioned where he wants me. Flat on my back, with my legs hanging off the far end. He unwraps the towel from around my body, then my hair.
“You look so beautiful like this. All natural,” he whispers, perching on the outside of the seat next to me, trailing his hands down my naked body. When he reaches my crotch, he lifts the bottle, “Open wide.”
I force my knees apart, closing my eyes so I don’t have to bear witness to what comes next. The wine hits me in the lower abdomen, shockingly cold, shockingly wet.
“You’re my glass, tonight,” he announces with a soft laugh. I keep my eyes screwed up tight, hearing the thump as he places the bottle on the floor. His hands are on my thighs, him kneeling between my legs. My whole body is as tense as a rod.
His tongue laps at the wine, following its trail down into my pussy. Lapping at my clit and the wine and inside my folds as every muscle in my body clenches like a bolt of electricity is shooting through my brain.
“Relax,” he whispers, placing my legs over his shoulders and bending his head again. “You’re so young, you shouldn’t have any stress.”
My eyes open and stare at the ceiling. The moulding patterns in thick cream mean the whole thing’s probably riddled with asbestos. I imagine tiny fibres breaking free, twirling through the air until they’re whisked along an indrawn breath and lodge in Wilbur’s lungs, nestling in until they’ve made themselves a proper home. Changing the wet flesh around them until an altered cell starts randomly reproducing, growing, stealing the blood and oxygen and energy meant to keep his body alive and turning it into the mesothelioma that will kill him. Finally rob him of everything. The excess he uses to craft his life exactly the way he wants it. The money he uses to buy me.
Only because you’re for sale.
I sit up, gasping for air, feeling panicky. Pushing Wilbur’s head away from between my legs as I struggle to breathe.
“Hey,” he says, his voice mellow. He twists me around until I’m sitting normally, left arm around my waist, right hand on my chest, lightly pressing as though giving me the world’s softest CPR. “You’re okay,” he whispers in my ear. “You’re safe here. Nobody can get you.”
Like he’s the hero of the story rather than the villain.
“I’m so glad you came back to me. I’ve missed you.”
I try to nod. Try to acknowledge him so he won’t take it out on me. All that happens is my head jerks and my mouth drops open wider, now trying to scoop air inside since my lungs refuse to do their job and simply inflate.
“Shh,” he says, rocking me until I settle, despite myself. “You’re safe. You’re back where you belong.”
When I’m calmer, he leaves me alone for long enough to fetch another bottle. I scull another glass, burping while my eyes sting from the sharp bubbles. My head buzzes, full of happy bees. Soothing.
“Lie down,” he tells me again, this time moving me, so I’m face down on the sofa, his weight pressing on me.
His fingers burrow between my legs, working at me until I’m wet enough for him to enter. He grabs a handful of my wet hair, tugging it until my face is parallel to the wide-screen television in front of me.
