Immediately, the sense of a wrong answer.
Hardness flashes in his eyes, and Aleksandr shoves her to her knees, the tangle of his hand in her hair forcing her down. “Tell me,” he demands, pulling her head back. The harsh motion distends her throat, and Lili bites back a thin hiss; but God, the familiar wash of pain. “When am I going to be free from you? Of this, of remembering you?” It’s difficult to breathe around this angle—she tries, struggling, and he only grabs her hair harder. “Use your words,” he spits out. “You were always so good with your words, weren’t you?How do I get rid of you?”
Even though she’s on her knees, it’s like he’s begging her. All that cold indifference from the restaurant has burnt away, leaving such hate in his gaze, like it has fermented for weeks, like it’s eating him alive.
There isn’t going to be forgiveness here.
Just hate and hurt, to help him bleed dry, to let him be through with her.
Lili grasps his hand, in her hair. He lets her, grip loosening with a moment’s uncertainty, before she draws it to her throat.
It’s not hurt in his eyes, then. It’s heartbreak.
Snapping, he drags her from her knees and throws her onto the bed. Disoriented, air rushes into her lungs—but then his body is over hers, holding her down, as his mouth finds her skin.
It’s sheer, incredible insanity—the fact that he’s touching her again,he’s touching her again—hard press of his lips against her throat, scrape of his teeth, the arch of her neck; the absolute heat, the heartbreak soar of how her body lurches towards him—she cannot touch enough of him, he cannot seem to kiss enough of her, dragging her bra straps down. She’s trying to get his shirt undone—his mouth finds her collarbone, her breasts—he groans, this tight tension in his jaw, anger like the scent of her spites him.
“Are you fucking done with me yet?” His words tear into her skin. Lili tries to breathe into it—this roughness that used to be soothing. “Are you?”
I can give him this,she tells herself, shaking, trying to stay above water. His clothes—fine wool of his trousers, starched cotton of his shirt—grate harsh against her near-naked body, and she does not want him to stop hurting her—it’s selfish, but she holds onto the heaviness of his hate, this physical pain, as a thing she could interpret as want, for just this little longer.
But it’s not want, how he touches her now: it’s an exorcism, like he’s trying to wash himself clean of her.
Lili knows how to love pain when she knows it won’t harm her beyond her skin, won’t dredge too deep, won’t leave lasting marks, won’t meet the real hurt in her.
But this,thisis creating a new bruise, a new injury. This is not harmless; this is how they touch that pain, and cannot endure it. This is how they become changed people, strangers to one another. How they forget the scent of each other’s skin, thud of their hearts.
I’d give you anything of my body,she thinks.I’d give you more than that, too, but I don’t think you want it, any longer.
An angry, frustrated sound rises in his chest. “Answer me,” he demands. “What else do you want from me? When are you going to fucking be done with me? Is this finally it?”
Confused blur, it’s not about what she wants from him, it’s about what he wants from her. “No, I—more,” she gasps out, disoriented with the heat of him, the run of her breath. “I can take more—”
Tension snaps in his shoulders; again, the wrong answer. He grabs her throat, fingers still tangled with her hair, and forces her head against thebed. A choked whimper—hers, soft between them—as his hand slides into her underwear again, finding her wet. “Is this all there is to you?” he asks, hoarse. “Just some body? Only good for fucking? Is that all you’re ever going to be good for?”
Her breath starts to fail. There’s the immediate threat of transcendence to it, bitter, broken, blessedly familiar. A relief from everything she is, and has done, and will continue to be—he could push her into nothing, and she might be able to finally—finally—breathe in that.
But that—a sudden seize of concern, a panic of thought: Is that selfish—to need this, to want this, for the act itself, to find release, and salve in it, rather than endure itforhim, endure it without her—
“Answer me,” he grits out again, pushing harder. Her vision blurs; a question, he’d asked her a question. “Is this all you are?”
Blinking back tears, she tries to shake her head—aching throat, barely able to move under his grip—body struggling, shaking—and still, she is only trying to hold him closer.
“Aleksa—” His name expires in her throat, a whisper.
“Fight back, Lili,” he rasps, voice cracking with rising urgency. “Fucking fight back—”
As her consciousness begins to fade, her hand falls from his shoulder, settling against his forearm. With the last bits of strength in her, she does not grasp his wrist tighter, does not make him choke her more.
Instead, her fingers thread between his, gentle.
“Sasha—”
Suddenly, the heaviness on her windpipe disappears, along with the weight of him.
Coughing, she immediately gasps for air, rolling onto her side; vision careening light with relief, then dark with dizziness, resolving and fading, tangled grasp of her hand in the covers, trying to steady herself, the rapid thud of blood at her temples, like her body’s restarting, between panting coughs, bruised throat, searing lungs.
“Get out.”
