Chapter 71

71

Jonathan

We take my Porsche to Mas's country house. I am almost broke. I used to love running out of money, because then I had an excuse to take another job—a more dangerous, more lucrative one. Another chance to blow it all again. But right now running out of money feels more like a death sentence than my actual death sentence.

The sky is dark blue and I know what that means. I have a feeling that I am really going to die this time. All my life I have been terrified of almost this exact moment: me and a girl driving alone to a family house in the countryside.

"We're going to be fine," Eva hums, in response to my unaired worries. She is gazing into the blue, too, like she knows it is the color of my death. Like it is the color of her death, too.

—

The house in Bordeaux is ancient. It is falling apart, uninhabitable, dangerous.

The front steps are high and bound in columns, like the steps of a courthouse. I lead Eva up.

"Nice," she says. The front door is wooden but carved to look soft. I find the key.

The door opens into a chapel of an entryway. Stairs spiral down from either side of the second floor. The ceiling is spun with a heavenly mural just visible in the light of the sliver moon.

"Do you have a flashlight?" Eva asks.

"No." We are going to have to feel our way around this cavern of a house. "Take my hand."

The house is stunning. Mas has always had excellent taste. It is a shame that it is a death trap, but I know a lot about beautiful death traps. I appreciate them more than most people do.

I am going to have sex in this house. I am going to have sex in every room of this house. It could take all night, but I like to aim high.

We walk into a circular ballroom that somehow looks like it is at the bottom of the sea. Half an organ is crumbling in rusted veins along the wall. The fireplace is as big as a bedroom.

Eva is tired, although she will not admit it. It must be almost three in the morning.

I pull the drop cloth off a horsehair sofa, and she nestles into its corner.

"It's cold," she says, hiding her hands under her elbows.

I inspect the fireplace. I turn a key and hear the hiss of gas. I pull a lever to light a flame. It draws a ring along the floor of the fireplace and spins, narrower and narrower, until it makes a spiral of fire.

Eva watches the flames, then gazes up at me. "You know what would warm us up?" she says. I have an idea.

I climb onto the sofa and kiss her cold mouth warm.

Kiss harder. Kiss deeper. Kiss harder.

She slithers off the sofa. Then she stands, a snake framed in flames. "Where do you want me? I'll do whatever you want me to do." It is like she knows this is my last night alive.

I stand up with her. The heat of the flames covers us like a sheet as I kiss her. Kiss her harder.

I glide my fingers up her ribs until they collect around her breasts. I direct her with kisses. I catch her wrists, and I lift them slowly above her head. I kiss her lips, seal them like an envelope.

"Keep your hands up," I instruct her. "Don't move them."

The heat from the fire is almost overwhelming. It does not crackle but it burns. It burns in light along her bare legs as I remove her pants and her underwear.

Her wrists are crossed above her head. She is naked from the waist down.

A line of liquid leaks down her leg, drawing a crack in the arc of her thigh.

She is being very quiet now. She is thinking very deeply. She has nothing to say.

I rub the pressure points at the base of her skull and her head rocks toward me, nuzzles against me.

"I want to fuck you standing," I say.

Flames blush across her cheek.

I push her wrists higher up along the wall. Her body stretches up, past comfort, almost to pain—that is where the body comes alive.

I slip on a condom. I push into her, and as I do I lift her up along the wall, so that when I hit the deepest part of her, her toes are barely touching the floor. It is a cheap shot, an easy way to make her come, but we are not shooting for one. It is double or nothing tonight.

I stretch her up and thrust into her, grunting like a bull.

"Oh fuck!" She cannot believe it is happening so fast. I can feel her try to stop it and I push back, up and into her until her arms go slack and her legs start to jerk. "Fuck!"

One of her hands slips from my grasp, slick from the heat. It escapes. It curls around my collar. I try to grab it but her insides start to rock. She tightens her grip and she rips open my shirt.

I take her and I lead her, stumbling, onto the drop cloth.

"But what about you?"

"I'm not finished with you yet."

Some of the best sex happens after she comes. The second orgasm does not come so easily. The body bows in twisted pleasure, skims along the ceiling, but it does not break. The pressure cannot crack.

"Hold on to the sofa leg." She does as she is told.

I put my hand on the dip beside her hip bone and I enter her again. I hit her at an angle, pushing her legs up so I get the right spot, the spot marked Sexual Psychosis .

I mold her; I elongate her insides. I tease lazy circles into the center of her clit. I press my thumb into it. I flick it. I tease it. I massage it, and as I do I move slowly inside her, building up the wall that I will eventually break.

Her eyes are wild. She is focused on a fixed point on the ceiling and it is telling her things, delicious secrets in radial stutters and long, hungry waves that rotate through her sexy body.

Shadows from the primeval flames are licking up her side. For a moment I am the first man on earth. I blame the fire.

I stroke her stomach and I think, absently, that I would like to impregnate her.

Fuck .

It is obviously an instinct, a side effect of too much sex. It burns like a match in my nostrils and it turns me on in a way that games never do.

Fuck.

I am not an animal spreading its seed; I am a Very Sophisticated Fucking Machine.

Prove it.

I pull myself out.

"Get on your knees." She rolls onto her front.

Wouldn't it be nicer if you could feel her, the real her, if you could feel all of her around you? Like a circle in the fire. Like every star in every sky. Like eternity is a ring of endless light.

Vanilla sex is a dangerous thing. It leads to vanilla children. It leads to animal instincts that ruin human lives.

I ignore it. I cannot be blamed. I am in the thick of it.

One can never be held accountable for what one thinks during sex. You have to allow for stray thoughts. You cannot take them seriously.

I bite my lip and I slide back into her tempting insides. If you don't want to think about impregnating her, you probably shouldn't be fucking her like an animal.

Breathe.

I am a professional. I am a Very Sophisticated Fucking Machine.

"Please, may I spank you?" I ask.

"Yes," she says.

I take my hand and I draw the ecstasy particles down to her ass and— smack!— make them scatter.

She rocks forward. I feel her juices flowing down the base of my balls.

"Do you like that?"

"Yes," she says. She pushes back for more.

I weave my fingers into her hair, close to the base of her neck, and I tug slightly as I thrust into her. She pushes her ass up against me and I smack it once for her.

"That feels so good," she says.

I take the palm of my hand and I draw it through the shadows of flames that dip along her spine, and I take all the pleasure, I lead all the pleasure particles to the rosy red cheek of her ass and I smack! it as I thrust. I scare all the pleasure away so it runs through her bones. Her knees start to give and her thighs start to shake and I realize she is going to come again but I am not; I am not because my brain has instituted a ban on free thinking.

It would be rude, though. It would be rude not to come and it could create a problem. Just think about it. Just think about it a little bit and then stop. It does not count. It does not count in the throes of passion.

It is just pretend. It is just another fantasy.

I slide my hand down below her stomach and I hold her and imagine driving my seed there and I do. I give into her.

My mind peaks and it all comes pumping out.

"God."

I pull out of her. I toss the condom into the fire. The smell of burning rubber bleeds into the air.

She sits up. Her eyes are half-closed, but she sees everything. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I say. I am not in a secure place. I am in a very suggestible frame of mind; I have just made an imaginary baby. "I'm going to get some water. I'll be right back."

—

I stalk alone through the endless house, looking for a place to be alone.

The night is gathering strength, making one last stab at darkness before the sun rises. I sit down on a chair, a throne masked in white cloth.

I cannot do the things that ordinary people do. I know that. This relationship will be a disaster because ultimately, I cannot keep myself together in situations where I do not have complete control. I need nice hotel rooms. I need expensive clothes and purified water. I cannot live in a broken-down castle. I need electricity.

I need to breathe.

Love is like death in a way. It comes and it catches you by surprise, and it hurts and it hurts and you cannot control it.

I tried to design a world where no one could love me and I failed.

I could go back to work. Maybe a new handler will take me if I give them my soul and I will not have to dream and I will never have to be afraid anymore. As your hand curls around her stomach…

This has got to stop. I need to stop dreaming.

The sky through the windows is catching light by degrees.

You could watch the sunrise. What a horrible, twisted thought.

These dreams are worse than nightmares. At least nightmares do not sting. At least nightmares do not lie.

We will put the dreams to bed, but not yet. Not just yet.

We will wait until sunrise.