If I am still hers, then this separation is so temporary it doesn’t even exist.
But I need to know.
“You stand there like a prim and clean little princess. But I’ve tasted your cunt. I’ve licked the sweat off your tits. I’ve made you beg for my cock. Do you think it matters that I’m on the other side of this glass? I spent most of my life getting to you. I fought for every scrap. I lived like a dog just to have you. I don’t need to touch you to own you. Your body and soul belong to me.”
She nods slowly and looks at the floor. “That’s the law.”
“Is it the law that I belong to you? Tired body and tainted soul, all I have is yours, or is your law too small for us?”
“I didn’t come to discuss things I don’t understand.”
Quickly, she looks away, where I can’t see. There’s someone at the end of the hall. Good. They can witness me claiming this woman.
“Why did you come then?”
“I didn’t believe they really had you. I needed to see for myself.”
“Here I am. You’re not a widow yet.”
She picks her head up, jaw tight, eyes on fire. “Not yet.”
For all her expressiveness, she’s unreadable. The determination on her face may be a determination to avoid widowhood or hasten it. For a moment, I’m not sure I should test whether or not I still own her. Then the moment passes. I need to know.
“Keep your feet where they are and put your hands on the glass.”
She swallows, gaze flicking up to me then back to the floor as she unlaces her fingers. I need her to do it. I need her to be mine, even if she hates me.
“You’re the same,” she says.
Not even close. I may be made of the same raw materials as the day I took her, but everything else has changed.
“Eyes on mine. I don’t care who’s down that hall. There’s only you and me.”
Pursing her lips, she presses her palms flat on the glass until the creases make a roadmap of a strange, unpopulated place.
She obeyed. She gave me a corner of order in a world of chaos. She is mine. I am hers.
My cock swells and rages, tenting the loose pants.
I knew seeing her here could break me, but I didn’t predict that it would make me whole.
Speaking softly, I put my fingertips against her flattened palm. “I will do whatever I have to do to touch you again.”
She shakes her head ever so slightly. Denial or warning? Resistance or hopelessness?
“Ain’t this cute?” Sergio’s voice echoes down the hall. “If I’d known this would turn into a porno, I woulda brought a napkin.”
Marco’s behind him, as if Sergio needs muscle to restrain Sarah or me—the guy locked behind a transparent wall.
“I was just telling my wife how to kill you.” I pull my hand away, but she doesn’t move hers.
“You taught her how to drive, but not kill a guy?” Sergio’s comfortable letting me know she drove here, but more importantly, by not commenting on what I actually said, he doesn’t reveal whether or not he can hear us when we whisper.
“I know how to kill him.” Sarah’s taken her palms off the glass, leaving handprints behind, and looks at Sergio. “Don’t think I don’t, asshole.”
“I’m terrified.” He comes closer. “For real. Paralyzed with fear, like on TV. Big eyes, close up with the dunh-dunh-duh.” He slides his hands into his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. “And the language… whoo, boy. They’re going to have to send you to the nunnery, sweetmeat. They’ll feed you soap three meals a day.”
He’d be funny if he wasn’t so humorless.
“Only my husband has the right to send me anywhere.”
“Gold star for loyalty.” He turns to me. “Why are you even alive, Lucari?”
“To murder you.”
He tsks and faces Sarah. “Honeypot, do you know why he’s still alive?”
“No,” she croaks.
Her eyes track him as if she’s going to hit him.
Don’t. Sarah. Not yet.
“My God,” Sergio says. “You guys use words and think thoughts, but there’s nothing going on up there. I had this whole organization figured out in two days except for one thing. Why hasn’t the Colonia had a traitor in however long? Why are you all so tight?”
He waits. Sarah takes a half a step out of his reach. He holds his arms out, waiting for the answer to drop into them.
“Say it or don’t,” I demand.
“Fine.” Sergio crosses his arms and leans against the opposite wall. “As the females of the Colonia go, you got your traitors”—he nods in Sarah’s direction—“and then you got your married traitors. The first, well, we know what happens there, am I right?”
He pauses to gauge our reactions. With my mind flashing the images of Dafne hollowed, wearing Sarah’s red dress, I must look like a feral beast, but Sarah folds her hands in front of her.
“The married ones, you can’t touch. The husband owns that shit. The only way to punish a female the Colonia way is to make her a widow. Now, I’d do that in a second and decide what to do with her cuntmeats later, but Massimo’s a bit of a pussy.” He lifts his arm in her direction, and I tense, watching as—in slow motion—he brushes the backs of his fingers against her cheek.
Sarah slaps him away and I bang the heels of my hands on the glass.
“Don’t you touch her.”
“Testy, testy.” He puts his hands back in his pockets, delighted at the impotence of my rage. “What are you going to do when I really handle her? Crack your own skull open?”
“I’m going to tear this building down with my bare hands.”
“Dario.” She tries to calm me, but I don’t want to be soothed. I want to feel this because it’s as hot as the sun and it’s as real as the gravity keeping me standing.
“Don’t do it, Agosti. I’ll kill you slow.”
“Okay, sure.” Despite the agreement, he grabs Sarah by the bicep, spins her, and puts her back to his chest, holding her to him.
“No!” I bang the glass in useless, helpless denial.
“You’re threatening me from a cage.”
“Let me go!” The more she wiggles, the tighter he holds her.
“You’re a fucking zoo animal.” He squeezes her breast through her bodice. “You think we want to keep a dumb orangutan around to watch him beat on his chest?”
“Please,” she cries, trying to peel his hand away.
Breathe. I have to breathe. I can’t kill him from here.
Sarah throws her feet up so he has to carry her full weight, and he does it by grabbing her between the legs, this fucker. This motherfucking fucker.
He’s not doing this because he wants to. He’s not doing it because she doesn’t want him to. He’s forcing his hands on her because he likes watching what it does to me. Likes hearing the way my scream sounds from the other side of the glass that shakes from my fists hitting it.
“Maybe I’ll save her.” Sergio pauses when she fights harder and he has to grab tighter. “After you’re dead. Maybe I won’t.”
Finally, she kicks and twists at the same time, getting away from him. Inertia throws her into the glass. She spins, faces him, and slaps him across the face.