26. Nico
26
NICO
AFTERCARE
A s we ride back to my house in the middle of the forest, my head has quieted down to an unusual level. The only element still present there are the vivid memories of Marie’s taste on my tongue. I’ve never even considered going down on someone before but when she opened herself up for me and told me to lick her leaking pussy, it was like a trance. I couldn’t control my body or my body’s response if I wanted to. I had to do what she told me, be her good boy, bring her pleasure, just as much as she gave me. That’s the least I can do for her.
Already, I’m planning a repeat.
I understand how she could become addicted to alcohol if it gave her even a fraction of what her sweet commands do to me. It’s addictive. She is addictive. I don’t care to put a label on what I feel as long as I get to experience it over and over until the day I die.
I park my bike in front of the house and help her off. My fingers tap a staccato of rhythm on my legs as we approach the front door. Marie regards me curiously and decides to be brave, asking what’s on her mind. Watching her bloom is such a privilege. “You do that a lot.”
“What?”
“Tapping your fingers. Always in a set of three. And always when you have something on your mind. Do you want to tell me?”
“I thought you wanted to watch a movie first, then talk.” She shrugs, but it’s a small disruption in the plan. It’s all part of the after care she asks for and as long as we get to do all the steps she laid out, I think I’ll be okay. Even if it’s not in the order she expressed at first. It makes me uneasy, but her eyes are still set on me, waiting for my answer.
“It calms me down. Ever since I was a kid, there were always three people I cared about: my father, my mother and Andrea. Then, my father died because of me and I was down one person but the number stayed. It’s like an anchor.”
She nods to herself in my periphery. Now that I’ve started, it seems the words have decided to come out, with or without my permission. “I also like it when we’re in a scene.”
“I know. I tried to keep count of three tonight.”
“I noticed. Thank you.”
She dips her head down, her hair falling like a curtain around her. I tuck it back behind her ear so I can fully watch the expressions going through her face. “If I don’t see your face, I’m not sure what you feel. And it’s important for me to know. I’ve learned non-verbal clues but I can read faces better.”
“Oh. Of course. I’m sorry. I guess I’m used to hiding,” she says as she sits on the sofa and I take my place next to her. Her hands wrangle together on her lap before she passes her palms on her jeans a few times. I guess she does need the comfort of the gesture before she continues. I wait with bated breaths. “When I was young, like twelve or so, I hid a lot in my house so I could listen in on what the adults were talking about. I never got caught eavesdropping and it felt good at first, like I was good at something. Then, I realised it’s because I’m invisible. When I started drinking, at sixteen or seventeen, I started hiding in plain sight. It’s easy. My family drinks a lot of wine at parties and dinners. After a while, the less they saw, the more I drank and the more I drank, the bitter I became. And now I can’t stop. Because it helps with the pain, you know.”
“You haven’t drunk in a while though,” I say. She’s been with me for three weeks but except for a few glasses of wine at dinner with my family, and the occasional low alcohol beers I keep in the fridge so she doesn’t feel the negative effects of going cold-turkey without medical supervision, I haven’t seen her sneak alcohol into the house or drink, and I’ve been watching her constantly.
“I actually had miniatures in my suitcases and I drank them all by now. The past few nights have been restless. I’m on edge and I really, really want it.” Her voice cracks at the admission. “But I’m alone here with Ember so I can’t indulge. As much as I trust you, it’s the first time I realised how much she needs me. And she needs me sober. But it’s constantly on my mind. Except tonight.” Once again, she dips her chin down with what I believe is shame. “And I know you lost someone, too. You lost your father, yet you didn’t turn out like I did,” she croaks.
“Marie, look at me.” Her eyes meet mine, full of fat tears and red with pain. “I have this urge to kill people because every time I do, I imagine it’s the man who made me an accomplice to my father’s murder, and I make him pay over and over again. I did not become an alcoholic, no. But I’m the bigger monster.”
“Is this why you need to hurt, Nico? Do you think you deserve it?” she asks, her face softening.
“I do. If it weren’t for me, my father would be alive. I’m the one who let the man I thought was a friend into our house that night. My parents were away. I don’t know what he did but he left with a condescending slap on my cheek. And that night, a fire started in the house and no alarm went off. My father died from inhaling too much smoke and my mother ended up in a wheelchair because a roof beam fell over her. Andrea had already left the nest and was in his apartment in London, so he wasn’t there, thankfully. But I walked out without a scratch, Marie. I deserve to atone for this for the rest of my life.”
“When was this?”
“Ten years ago.”
“You were sixteen,” she exclaims as she shifts on her knees and frames my face with her soft hands. There’s nothing she can say that will make me change my perspective. I’ve seen therapists. I’ve worked on my guilt and my grief. And I transformed it.
“It was my fault. And every time I have to clench my teeth in pain, I’m reminded of it and I feel like I’m paying my dues. I learnt to take pleasure from it, too, and I have no interest in changing, Marie. Don’t ask me not to love the pain.”
She shakes her head gently. “That’s not what I’m saying. If you love to be whipped, that’s one thing. I’d love for you to not associate it with your father’s death, one day. That’s all.”
She drops her hands and laces them with mine in between us. Silence hangs, but it’s not heavy. I’m not sure what to say so I don’t talk. All I know is that she’s not fully understanding me, but at least she doesn’t want me to change and that’s enough for me.
I’m eager to cuddle with her, Ember close by. When I started considering Ember like mine and started needing her as much as I need Marie, I’m unsure. But I convince Marie to pick her up from Andrea and Giulia’s even though it’s the middle of the night.
When we get there, Luca DeRossi is leaving and Giulia introduces him to Marie. My brother’s lawyer doesn’t keep business hours so it’s not a shock to see him there, though I’d think he’d rather be wrapped in his new wife.
Marie and I don’t linger once Ember is wrapped around her front. As we walk the way back, it almost feels real when visions of other kids running around us assault me. Marie round with child, claimed by me, at my side. The idea has my cock rising uncomfortably in my jeans but I can’t stave off the sudden and new need to breed her. If she’ll even allow it. I hope she does. I could groan out loud imagining it but I focus on opening the front door instead.
When we get back to the house with our daughter, we settle together and Ember falls back asleep in Marie’s arms. She links our fingers together and watches the TV screen I’ve never used before, a film called Moulin Rouge playing in front of our eyes. It’s a lot of singing and I don’t care much for it so I watch them instead.
I like having Marie here. And I like that living with a baby is so regulated with rules and a time for everything. Ember is fed a bottle every three or four hours no matter the time of day or night. Which means she wakes up crying during the night too, but after I understood what she needed that first time, it hasn’t bothered me. I haven’t worked up the courage to feed her myself so I let Marie get up instead, and always follow, hovering behind them. It always creates a pang in my chest. Marie also always tries to bathe Ember at the same time, 5 pm, every day, creating another routine element that I can latch onto. Then, there’s the morning nap and the afternoon nap.
“Can you pause the movie?” Marie whispers, as though she doesn’t want to wake up the bundle in her arms.
I straighten and click pause on the remote. “What is it?”
“I really need to pee,” Marie giggles and the sound goes straight to my heart. Am I having a heart attack? I’m too young and healthy for it.
“Okay,” I answer, unsure what that means for me.
Marie’s shoulders shake with restrained laughter. “Nico, take Ember.”
I’ve held her before. So many times in fact but every time, her fragility hits me in the chest. I take Ember in my arms and raise the bottle to her little mouth. I don’t know why I was so anxious about this because it’s so easy now. She’s a greedy babe, I noticed and clasps the sides of the bottle with her tiny hands. In the past month, she’s become so much more expressive and her eyes crinkle at the corners.
“She likes you,” Marie says from behind me when she returns, and it’s my turn to smile.
“Who wouldn't?"
Marie’s mouth drops open and I know I did the teasing right.
“Nico Capaldi, are you mocking me?”
My cheeks hurt and warm when I answer. “Only if you like it.”
Marie plops back on the couch next to me and rests her head on my shoulder. “I like you ,” she says, and it sends my heart into overdrive.
Before I can get distracted by her lush lips and sinful body that I now know every dimple and curve of, I delve into the conversation we need to have.
“How do you feel after tonight?”
She sighs heavily as she sits next to me, caressing Ember’s head.
“I’ve read a lot of material about this type of relationship over the past month. And all the blogs, whether they were written by submissive or dominant people, they all describe that deep space within yourself where nothing exists. Like you transcend the physical plain or something.” She looks up and meets my eyes, smiling bashfully for the first time since I met her. I lift a hand to touch her cheek and she leans into me like a cat. “That’s what I felt. And it could be really addictive.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Battling her addiction is constantly on her mind, she said so herself this evening. Every behaviour driven by the need to drink. I’m a bastard for wanting to replace one addiction with another, but the way I want to consume and own Marie Moretti isn’t rational and I don’t want to control and tame it.
“I don’t think so. We’re not hurting anyone. Well, we’re hurting you but you love it.”
“That I do.”
“Being the hand that dealt you pain, a pain you crave, it made me feel in control. Powerful. Cherished. And the way you came for me,” her voice drops, sinful and enticing. “It was a gift. Even more than when you made me come on your tongue.”
I close my eyes at the image she depicts and turn my focus back to Ember. “Your mamma’s a real tease, Bibi.”
Marie giggles and kisses my cheek with a quick peck.
“Sorry not sorry.” The youthful retort is a reminder that under all the pain and grief, Marie’s young and full of life. “Let’s finish the movie.”
I nod and settle, Ember on my chest and Marie tucked under my arm, sharing the space with her daughter. Before she presses play, she whispers, “If you’ll let me, I’d love to do it again.”
I bend down and kiss the birthmark at the corner of her eyes and the little scar next to her mouth before I agree enthusiastically. Anything for my little bird, until she can fly off her cage.