Breaking Joseph (36 page)

“Lei-Lei.
You’ll be back all the time.”

“I might not
be, though. I mean, I’ll be really busy. And I’ll have to help on
the farm and stuff to make up for being allowed to stay at Matt’s
house, they’re being so nice to have me–”

“Mattman’s
right. You do need to leave London, at least for a bit,” he said
gently. “Get away from all the work shit. From the Marquis.”

“No, I don’t.”
I lowered my eyes with a defensive scowl.

“Yes, you do.
You sat on the sidelines for the entire time we were at that
club–and while it was ace to grind up on Miss Thailand, really–it
was miserable seeing you so out of it.”

“I am not out
of it!”

He reached over
and brushed my knee. “It’s all right to miss him, you know. Even if
he is a cunt.”

“I’m not used
to it being like this,” I said sadly. “Blokes used to pay me and
then I went away. I wasn’t bothered. He fucked up all the rules and
now I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

“Maybe he
isn’t, either.” He shrugged. “Ah well. At least he didn’t leave any
scars in the end, eh?”

“They still
hurt,” I muttered.

He rolled his
eyes. “You’re not Harry fucking Potter.”

No, just
Alice.

Stuck on the
other side of the mirror and there were no potions, no pills, no
magic wands; just an apple, red and shiny, sitting in my palm.

I wasn’t sure
if I could throw it hard enough, but I prayed for a clean break all
the same.

* * * *

I was asleep
when the glass cracked. The minutes ticked away: eight hours until
the removal van arrived, helpers descended and London fell
away.

I wasn’t in
bed. Not really. I sat beneath the tree in the back garden, the
blanket spread out and the lilacs perched in the glass half-full of
water. Stuffed toys sat around awaiting their sandwiches and
cupcakes. Rose bushes swayed in the summer breeze. Just a lazy day
after school; I was eighteen.

Joseph leaned
back against the trunk. “Don’t normally see you in the sunshine.”
His eyes narrowed the way they had in our last moments, as if he
wasn’t used to the light. As if he looked for something that I
wasn’t able to see.

“It’s beautiful
though, isn’t it?” My head fell onto his shoulder and his arm wound
around me.

He nuzzled my
hair. “Smells beautiful. Smells gorgeous.”

“It’s the
lilacs.”

“No,” he
whispered. “It’s you.”

A finger nudged
my chin up and then I tasted him, sweet and sharp and metallic all
at once. His blond hair tickled my collarbone as he sank down to
suck my nipples through the school shirt and flimsy bra. I gripped
his head and whimpered, arched into his mouth.

He yanked the
shirt over my head, buttons popping, groaning seams. The bra came
apart easily in his large hands. Then we fell back onto the
blanket, stuffed toys flying everywhere; he took mouthfuls of
breast in his teeth, biting and suckling until blood turned purple
beneath the skin. My eyes glazed through water, sunshine,
something. I didn’t know pain was this exquisite. I moaned for him
to show me more.

He snatched the
glass and then water trickled over my nipples, already stiff and
hot. It was cool, infused with lilac perfume, and now the word sat
anointed on my skin with his name. He lingered above me and exhaled
over my wet breasts, watching me squirm as the warmth of his breath
made me tingle.

I found myself
laughing; dirty, raucous. “We can’t behave at the tea party,” I
said.

He tutted,
elbowing a teddy bear away. “Everyone here is mad anyway.”

“Mmm.” I let
him kiss me, let him knead my soaked flesh. I belonged in these
hands, melted into them, wax for the shaping. My skirt rode up
against his hips and already, I felt his cock harden through his
trousers. If I couldn’t have him inside me the proper way, I’d
happily gouge another hole just to manage it. The urgency was
potent as that.

But I was made
to wait…as always.

He crawled on
his knees to pluck fat roses on their prickly stems. Petals,
bloodied and silky, were pressed over my breasts, welding against
the wetness in a papier-mâché. He teased them past my lips, shared
the taste with me; they were bitter like perfumed gin. Thorns
dragged along my upper arms, meandered to my shoulders and then
plunged to my belly in a melee of tiny scratches. My body was a
mosaic of hot and stinging cold.

“This is the
battlefield,” he murmured, his lips brushing my stomach.

“No it isn’t,”
I said, “it’s a picnic blanket. Silly.”

He tugged my
skirt up in his teeth and pulled my knickers aside. I threw my
hands to my temples, my head throbbed and I moaned out loud as the
air hit my swollen lips. Joseph probed and stroked until his thumb
sat at the mouth of my pussy.

“Are you a
virgin?” he asked.

“No.” I glanced
down at him through heavy lids. I was afraid to disappoint, but no
lie could be conjured here. All the power was his.

His fingers
made a sticky trail back up to my left breast. “What about here?”
Beneath his palm, my heart almost leaped up into it.

“There? There’s
just broken.”

“Broken in.” He
nuzzled his handprint. “Poor baby. Shall I make it better?”

“Please.”

I lifted my
buttocks so he could peel my knickers off. He licked the soles of
my bare feet as he reached them, and then his tongue slid up to the
inside of my thigh. There, he reached for a rose and its plump head
tickled my clit, one bloom kissing the other.

“See,” he
whispered, “I brought you flowers.”

“You dress me
up in them.” I panted, frustrated at the light touch.

“In case you
were wondering what you were. Now you can look into the mirror,” he
placed a lilac branch on my belly, “and remember.”

“I’m
lilac?”

He smiled as he
sank down between my legs. “You’re my safety word.”

I don’t know
what I cried out louder for–his tongue, flat and forceful, or the
admission that told me I mattered. The thorny stem stuck at the
very top of my thigh, biting me each time I bucked into his mouth.
He laid one on each side and the lilacs completed the triangle
where he sailed away, lost to everyone but me.

People don’t
return from those places, do they?

He was generous
with his fingers. Stuffed me full of them, dared me to split. I
snapped down on them in sweet, sore retort, edging his knuckles to
the spot that stole my breath away.

“Easy now.” He
grinned, and that lovely amused tone flooded through.

God, I
recognized so much of him. He was a semantic code all of his
own.

“I want it
harder,” I begged.

“You always
do.”

He obliged me
for a moment, groaning at my wet response. Then he was up on his
knees, tugging his tie off, slinking out of his shirt. When he was
naked, he was glorious. He cast a broad-shouldered shadow and the
light tan of his skin glowed in the sun. I reached up to take his
cock in my fist and he swatted me away, chuckling. A turning finger
gave a silent command.

I rolled flat
on my belly, petals bruising beneath me and thrusting the scent up
to colour the air. He scooped my thighs apart with a forearm and
laid over me lazily, planting a hand either side of my shoulders.
Making love outside like this, my skin was taut in the breeze, and
I felt my lips stretch around him as he entered. An ache shot down
beneath his cock and shaped to him as I did. It simmered as he
settled, and echoed as he moved. He pinned me with the weight of
his torso and a fistful of hair.

Sometimes, I
wanted to stare a lover in the eye and study them for the shock of
the spell. Not now–it was enough to have him bear down on me and I
pillowed my head in my arms, welcoming the dark. Murmured curses
filled my ears and sharp teeth nipped at the back of my neck, my
curls stroked and pulled until I moaned at him to be merciful. My
clit rocked against the mash of cool flowers covering the blanket.
The thorned stems, still tight in the crease at the tops of my
thighs, had dulled their assault to vague throbbing. With a
shudder, I atoned for every stroke.

“How much
harder?” he asked

I pushed my
buttocks up into him as an offering; like any bud in summer, I was
overripe.

“Just…what you
want,” I said, whimpering as he clasped my hips. “I can be
that.”

He angled me to
take everything and then I was possessed, forged open, taunted by
his flesh. I was nearing the peak of things, where the sun would
tumble and crack like an egg.

Then he found
the stem tips nestled between my legs. Inch by savage little inch,
he pulled.

I howled as if
the moon was rising. The scratches swelled and split as the thorns
gouged a nettled path. He pulled thread from seams and I was coming
undone, coming away…coming. Ah, ah. I couldn’t jerk away from the
contractions as he bore down on me; he shoved me into them, made me
suffer them, groaned as they ricocheted around his cock. The orgasm
devoured my insides and left my whole abdomen as sore as my
throat.

When I was
done, he flipped me over and carefully spread my thighs to admire
his handiwork. Sticky trickles of blood welled either side of my
mound and he stroked the little gashes, delighting in my yelps.

“No fun leaving
a battle without scars.” He smiled.

I gazed up at
him, still panting. “Where are yours?”

Joseph bent to
kiss me, his hand spanning my stomach and printing petals in
scarlet blood. “Here,” he said, “and dozens of women before you.
Scars can be more than wounds, Leila. They walk away from me, but
not really. I bear them all the same.”

“Then why am I
here?” Why was I different?

“I gave you the
knife,” he insisted, his tone wavering.

Above him, the
sun was swallowed by darkening cloud and now the tree was a hand
stretched over us. Waiting.

“I gave you the
knife. Won’t you sever them for me?” He almost fell back inside me,
his forehead smacking to mine.

I wrapped my
legs around his waist and let him find his place in the world. In
New York, I’d felt like it was Purgatory; now it was Eden and
everything that came with it.

“Joe.” I
gasped, “I…I love–”

Something soft
brushed my cheek, and a voice tutted. I glanced aside to find a
stuffed rabbit shaking its head at me.

“You’re late,”
it said.

Joseph rolled
his eyes at him. “Fuck off.”

“I said, you’re
late.” Its plastic nose seemed to dance on the stitch. “Too
late.”

“Wolves eat
rabbits,” Joseph murmured, nuzzling at my ear. “Don’t listen,
baby.”

“I taste like
apples,” said the rabbit, and its mouth split open to flash jagged
pips for teeth.

I screamed.

First, it was
into his shoulder. The sound reverberated with his quivering pulse.
Then it was against my pillow; softer, colder. Dead.

I trembled
beneath the bed covers, staring at the untouched pillow beside me.
There was no indent, no whisper of a ghost; he gave me the knife
but I cut in the wrong places, and he would not follow me to
Salisbury after all.

The moon slid
beneath the curtains and licked me with its forked tongue. I had
expected him here now and yet, he was missing.

I love
you.

You’re my
safety word.

Except Joseph
never wanted a safety word.

Whether he
needed one, I would never know.

Chapter 21

Clemmie arrived
at nine with armfuls of bacon and bread rolls, and the removal van
pulled up soon after.

“Thanks for
cooking again,” I said through my toothbrush, hugging her as she
came through.

“No worries.
Where there are sweaty men, there should be pig sandwiches.” She
glanced in the fridge. “Do you remember where you packed your
ketchup?”

I grimaced.
“I’ll get Aidan to bring some.”

I couldn’t
quite believe that this was my final morning in London. I wouldn’t
return to a City job after qualifying in Salisbury–this was my last
hurrah. Now, I watched the boxes disappear into the van for storage
and I felt like a halfhearted attempt at a jigsaw, split through
someone else’s hands. I could only take a few of my things to
Matt’s, and Charlotte hadn’t been invited.

“It’s weird,
thinking that you’ll be living here,” I said to Clemmie.

She piled
sliced rolls on to the chopping board. “I know. I’m still slightly
peeved that you’re leaving me, but maybe we both need a new start,
right? Besides.” She grinned. “I can borrow your Aidan from time to
time.”

“You can borrow
any part of me that you like,” Aidan chirped, dumping a bag on the
counter and grabbing Clemmie around the waist. She whooped as she
peeled him away reluctantly.

“I got carried
away with the condiments,” he said.

I peeked in the
bag. “Reggae Reggae sauce?” I arched an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve been
running, I’m all drunk on endorphins!” He leaned on Clemmie and
groaned into the frying pan. “God, that smells good.”

“I’m the one
leaving, you know. Where’s my inappropriate grope hug?”

“Ooh. You asked
for it.” He bounded over, heaving me up and spinning me about. “Let
me know if I’m groping the wrong places!”

“Aidan, you
arse!” I shrieked with laughter. “Put me down!”

“Quickie in the
bedroom? One for the road?” He sighed. “Once you shack up with
Mattman, I really won’t be able to sleep with you again. It’d be a
question of loyalty.”

“He’s lending
me his bedroom, not stamping me with a cattle brand,” I
complained.

“Yeah, yeah.
Even Clemmie agrees with me,” he said.

I shot Clemmie
an accusing look. “Agrees with what?”

“Come on,
Leila. I give you two weeks before you sleep with him. Tops.” She
paused to add more bacon to the pan. “Not that I’m judging you–I
probably wouldn’t last that long.”