Chapter 6 One Immutable Fact #3
I was on guard duty outside her quarters—it's how we met.
She passed me every day, and I thought she was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, and could never stop myself from staring at her whenever I saw her.
Well, one day she didn't pass by. She stopped and struck up a conversation with me.
It was innocent enough, just idle chit-chat, but it felt like a gift from heaven to be close to her, to speak to her.
We shared more conversations, after that, and eventually it became a daily habit.
And then we began meeting in secret, late at night after the compound was asleep—except for her father's guards.
Those late-night meetings were the highlight of every day.
I spent those conversations staring at her lips, of course, wishing I was brave enough to kiss her.
She kissed me first.
Eventually, it was clear we both wanted to be somewhere more private than a shadowy corner of the compound where we could be together.
The day in question, I was on duty outside her father's cash room—a bank vault built within a bombproof chamber below his bedroom. She waited until I was off duty, arranged to make sure we passed each other, and secreted a note into my hand: stables at midnight, it said.
I found her hiding in the back corner of the hayloft, sitting cross-legged on a quilt, wearing a pretty white sundress adorned with pink flowers. Her hair was down and loose in a wild black cloud.
My heart had pounded in my throat at the sight of her sitting there waiting for me, as visibly nervous as I felt.
We'd kissed awkwardly for a while, and then less awkwardly as passion and lust and hormones took over. I had stolen a condom from one of the other guards, and I remember distinctly the way it felt in my back pocket—as if it weighed a thousand pounds, searing a circle in the back of my leg.
We’d stood up together, and I had peeled my shirt off, shucked my jeans.
I’ll never forget the moment she shrugged her dress off, letting it pool at her feet; I'll never forget the way my dick had hardened at the sight of her, standing there in the harsh light of the electric lantern she had brought.
She wore a matching bra and panties set—scarlet lace and silk that hid and accentuated her curves at the same time.
She held my eyes as she reached behind her back and unhooked the bra, drew it off, and revealed her breasts for me. Shimmied out of her panties. Stood utterly naked for me, bold and unafraid, eyes hungrily raking over my body, and the obvious evidence of my arousal.
I knew then, as I took in the lush wonder of her beautiful body, her bright eyes, her smooth skin, that I would never want anyone else but her.
"Why are you looking at me like that, Ren?" she asks, bringing me back to the present.
I shrug one shoulder. "Just…looking at you," I say. "You're beautiful."
She smiles at the compliment, a shy curve of her lips that brightens and livens her features. "Ren," whispers. "Stop."
“Never. I will be telling you how beautiful you are when we are both old and as wrinkled as raisins."
Her dark eyes search mine. "That isn't what you were thinking."
"It is," I counter. “It's just not all I was thinking."
She closes the lotion cap with a click. "Tell me. Please."
"I was remembering the first time I got to see you naked," I answer. "That night in the hayloft. The white dress with pink flowers. Red underwear and bra. You were so fucking beautiful I couldn't think straight."
Her chin drops to her chest; it's hard to tell with skin like hers, but I'm pretty sure she's blushing. "You wouldn't let me touch you for the longest time. I was so frustrated."
"Because if you'd so much as brushed my dick, I'd have exploded."
"I know that now." She smooths the towel over her thighs. "You still remember what I was wearing?"
I bark a laugh. "Of course, meu amor. How could I forget the best day of my life? I remember every detail."
"The best day of your life?"
"To this day, yes. I felt like I could fly.
I was the luckiest boy who'd ever lived.
You, the princess of Rio, the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, in real life or on television.
I was obsessed with American TV and I thought you were more beautiful than…
well, anyone. And you…you wanted me. You chose me—me, a gutter mouse from Rocinha.
A nobody who barely rated a gun for guard duty.
When you let that dress fall to the floor and I saw the red bra and panties?
My god, Sophia. I could have died a happy man in the moment. "
"You were so handsome, Ren." Her smile is…
soft with remembrance. It is a sacred thing, that smile.
Rarer than any gem or precious metal, and more priceless to me than either.
"I remember thinking how cool and different and exotic your name was.
I would walk around saying it—Lorenzo. It doesn't sound Brazilian. Because it’s not, I suppose.
But it…it just rolls off the tongue differently.
You were a little older than me, of course, and you had a man's body.
Big and hard and muscular." Her eyes drop from mine.
"That was the best day of my life, too."
Silence stretches between us, laden with a million unspoken thoughts and feelings.
"You are even more beautiful now than you were then," I say. "You are still so beautiful to me that it is sometimes hard to breathe."
She shakes her head. "You're ridiculous. I'm not. I'm covered in scars." She gnaws on the corner of her lip, looking away from me, one hand covering her belly over the towel. "And stretch marks. Reninho was a very big baby."
"Sophia—"
She glares me into silence. "If you give me some shit about tiger stripes, I'm going to stab you."
I sit up and angle toward her, my knee touching hers. "Do you really think a few scars and stretch marks can make you any less beautiful to me, meu amor?"
She shrugs. "I don't know, Ren. I…I haven't felt…" she tips her head back, blinking. "Dammit."
I touch her chin, turn her face to mine. "I am not afraid of your emotions. You shouldn't be, either."
"I have spent the last fifteen, almost twenty years keeping my emotions locked away in a box, Ren," she says, fiddling with the corner of the towel.
"Trying like hell not to feel anything. It meant I couldn't feel happiness, perhaps, but what was there to be happy about?
Nothing. It meant I didn't have to feel the shame of what was done to me, or the horror and guilt at what I did.
It isn't so easy to just…let it all come tumbling out. "
“It did back at Club Sin," I prompt. "With the other girls."
She sighs. "I can't put how that made me feel into words.
I felt…connected to them. To every woman who has ever come before me—because we've all suffered something like that.
We all know how it feels. And they…they let me…
" she shakes her head. "I don't know. I feel lighter.
They took a burden from me. Like I've been walking around with rocks in my pockets, and suddenly…
I'm free." Another head shake, another sigh.
"But now all of those emotions are out of their box and I can't put them back in and everything is too fucking much, Ren. "
I put my hand on her knee—her bare skin is hot and silky smooth. "Not for me. Nothing you are is too much for me."
At the touch of my hand, she sucks in a sharp, hissing breath and tenses all over, still as a statue. "Ren, please."
"Please, what?" I ask, whispering.
She's panting, short, frantic breaths. "Don't touch me. It's too much."
I remove my hand.
She drops her head and exhales in relief. "I'm sorry. I know…I know what you want."
"No, you don't."
Her head jerks up with a derisive snort.
“Of course I do. You're looking at me and remembering the first time we were together.
You're remembering an eighteen-year-old virgin.
I was eager, back then. Free of all this…
" she shakes her head, tipping it back again and blinking, sniffling.
"Free of all this fucking trauma. I'm not that person anymore, Ren.
I want to give that to you. I haven't been touched or wanted for so fucking long.
I haven't…I haven't felt like…like a woman in so fucking long. But I don't know how…"
I touch her lips with one finger. "Hush, my love. It's alright."
"But what if I can't ever go there with you?" She whispers, her voice shaky and breaking. "What if I can't give you…anything?"
I take her hand in mine, kiss the knuckles. "Then I will still love you."
"You need…" she swallows hard, licks her lips. “You deserve a woman who can give you sex, Lorenzo."
"I haven't been with anyone since Consuela, and that was nearly five years ago."
She frowns at me. "So you haven't…"
"I have not touched a woman in that way since Consuela. I tried to. I…well, I hired a girl, to be blunt about it. But I couldn’t…perform. I couldn't so much as kiss her. So I paid her for the full hour and left after about ten minutes.”
"And what about your…needs?"
It's funny—she's a warrior. She can drop a man with a bullet to the face without blinking. She can stab a man and watch the life drain from his eyes. But she can't speak of sex in direct terms.
I shrug. "I have a hand." I meet her eyes. "And some very vivid memories."
"Lorenzo!" She hisses. "You don't mean—"
"I do."
“No!”
"Yes."
She looks away from me, and now I can see that she is indeed blushing, hard. "You—you think of me…when you—"
I turn her palm and kiss the center of it, holding her gaze. "Sophia, my love. Listen to me. I am not ashamed or embarrassed, and you should not be either. We shared something special and incredible, and those memories have sustained me throughout my life."
"Stop," she whispers.
"No, I will not." I bring her palm to my cheek and nuzzle it.
"I am going to go take a shower now. I’m going to take my clothes off and get in the water, and once I'm clean, I'm going to close my eyes and remember.
I'm going to remember you and me together in that hayloft.
I'm going to remember you taking your dress off for me, taking that bra off, and your panties.
The way you looked, naked and perfect and all for me.
I'm going to remember kissing you. The way your skin felt the first time I got to touch your breasts.
The way your hand felt wrapped around my cock. "
She whimpers softly. "Ren, stop. Stop. Please. I can't—I can't. I can't."
I nuzzle her hand again, whispering. "I'm going to remember that night, and I'm going to touch myself while I do.
I'm going to come, thinking about you. How beautiful you were—how beautiful you are.
" I drag the pad of my index finger from her kneecap to the towel's edge at her upper thigh—goosebumps pebble her skin.
"I'm going to fantasize about you as you are now, Sophia.
Picture you, as you are now. Naked. Perfect.
Scarred and stretch-marked and tattooed and powerful and perfect.
And mine, Sophia. You are mine. You have always been mine.
You will always be mine. I will never ask you to do anything you are not ready for.
But I will think of you, and in that way, you still give me what I need and want, and that will be enough, even if that's all of you I ever get. "
I rise from the couch and sink to my knees in front of her. She presses her knees together, stiff and tense. Staring at me, eyes wet and wide and black. searching. Searing. I cup her face in my hands, lean in ever so slowly.
"Ren," she breathes.
"Trust me," comes my answering breath.
"I do."
I touch my lips to hers in a delicate ghost of a kiss.
Barely a touch. "I love you, Sophia." I do it again, another whisper of a kiss.
"I love you, Inez." Again. "No matter your name, I love you.
I see you. I know you. That will never change.
It cannot. It is…imutável. I can't think of the word in English for some stupid reason. "
"Immutable," she murmurs.
"Yes, exactly." I brush her cheeks with my thumbs. "Like the sun and the moon and the stars."
"But stars die."
I laugh. "Everything dies. Don't be obtuse. You know what I mean."
"You know the English for 'obtuse' but not 'immutable?’” she says, with a wry grin.
"You scramble my brains with your eternal beauty." I stand up, reluctantly. "I'm not asking anything of you except that you let me in, Sophia."
"I am trying," she whispers.
"Then that's all I need."