Cries of Penance (34 page)
Authors: Roxy Harte
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Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte
Vomit forces its way from my gut, and he pul s out only long enough for me to spit.
Catching his gaze, holding it, I watch his face darken with lust as I take his cock back into my mouth. This time it isn’t him forcing himself deep, it is me taking him deep, swal owing him, milking him with the muscles in my throat.
“God, my love.”
My love.
The emotion that’s been riding me hard al morning strips me raw, and I give al of it to him in my gaze. I love you, I love you, I love you. Please let me heal you.
Thomas’s eyes close, and his head drops forward. His lips move, I know he is saying something, but I can’t understand the words, and then I understand. He is praying.
I release him only long enough to lick his shaft once, down and back, letting my saliva drip out of my mouth to make him slick. Wetter, I slide his shaft into my mouth, and he hisses with pleasure.
“Sophia.” He growls my name softly, but it’s a warning growl. He is coming—
hard and fast and thick and creamy. I swal ow and keep swal owing.
Holding onto his thighs, I pul him deeper into my throat as he jerks with a finality.
* * * *
Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte
courtyard, al the children are crying but it is the twins I go to first, checking their diapers to make certain they are intact.
Standing, shaking from head to toe, I face Garrett and slap him as hard as I can. “How dare you!”
He backs way from me. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You put doubt in my mind, you mother fucking bastard!”
* * * *
I guess I sleep, I don’t remember my mind ever shutting down to sleep. I kept arguing. Arguing with everyone, Thomas and Garrett, tel ing them that I didn’t want to sleep, didn’t need to sleep, but then I wake up realizing I did.
I lie stil on the sofa, listening intently, and hear thunder in the distance. It is a low rumble, and I don’t fear it because it seems far, far, away. Rain would be wonderful. The cool breeze coming through the windows is very nice.
I realize that the darkness isn’t just due to the approaching storm. It is dusk, and I’ve slept away the entire day.
I think the babies must be hungry, but feeling my breasts, they aren’t ful .
I almost feel like I recently nursed them, but I couldn’t have because I was sleeping.
I slapped Garret .
Master.
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Cries of Penance – Roxy Harte
I wonder what the punishment is for slapping Master?
I don’t know if I want to find out, but two soft male voices draw me out of bed like a magnet. Passing the children’s room, I peek in and see four sleeping children. The sight makes me smile, and I wonder to myself how it was so easy for them to steal my heart.
Garrett sees me first and stands quickly. He starts toward me, not waiting for me to come to him, and my heart races. I expect now I wil find out the exact punishment for being the worst slave ever.
I am surprised when he wraps me in his arms and pul s me into a hug. He holds me. He holds me so long it becomes awkward, and I have to force myself to relax in his embrace and not struggle. He keeps holding me and after awhile our breath matches, and I feel that I am sliding into and out of him. I think I am stil dreaming.
Master says, “I’m sorry.”
Definitely dreaming.
I try to wiggle out of Master’s dream arms, but they hold me tighter.
“Relax.”
My dream Master is definitely making me uncomfortable.
“I haven’t been here for you.”
No, no, no.
“If you ask me for your freedom, I wil give it to you.”
“That isn’t what I want.”
“Real y?”
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“I’m sorry I slapped you.” I try to pul away, to look into his eyes, to make him understand, but he holds me tighter than a vise.
“I deserved it.”
I go completely limp in his arms, and it seems to be what he was waiting for because he lifts me and carries me to the couch. Sitting, he positions me on his lap. I look toward Thomas for help, but he is sitting cross-legged in a thickly upholstered chair and one baby is propped into the bend of each knee. Either he is ignoring me and Garrett completely or he is completely enraptured by his sons.
“Look at me.”
I do, meeting his gaze.
“There is no room in our relationship for lack of trust…or doubt. I’ve caused both.”
I take a deep breath and hold his gaze, forcing myself to, because this isn’t easy. Spank me, beat me, but please don’t bare your soul to me—that would hurt too much. I know I’m not going to like the direction of this conversation. I feel it.
Deep in my guts. I dread his next words.
“As your Masters, we’ve made some decisions regarding your future.”
Oh , fuck. No, no, no!
“You, Thomas, and the children wil leave as a family.”
What about you?
“And I wil be your brother.”
“No!”
“Listen! This is the cover story we have decided on, and this is the way it is going to be.”
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I turn my head to look at Thomas, but he isn’t looking at us. Garrett grabs my chin and jerks my head around. “I. Am. Your. Master. You wil cal me Lord Ice or Master in private.”
I shudder, frightened, realizing I don’t trust him and I do have doubts.
He strokes my shoulder, teasing his fingertips over my gooseflesh. “It’s okay if you fear me while you learn to trust me again.”
I can’t breathe around the lump in my throat.
Lord Ice kisses my shoulder. “I like your fear.”
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“Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.”
Edmond de Goncourt (1822-96) and Jules de Goncourt (1830-70), The Goncourt Journals entry for 15 Nov. 1859
Thomas
Celia is naked and sitting on Garrett’s lap. He has been torturing her for over an hour with caresses and pinches meant to tease and titil ate—meant to mind-fuck—meant to regain control, and as much as I’m enjoying the show, I’m exhausted. The twins sleep beside me in their makeshift bed. My only decision is whether I real y want to walk to the bedroom or sleep in the chair.
My cel ringing is a jolt.
“Get out. Now!” Hearing Pepé’s command over my cel , I react.
Standing, I command, “Get out of the house!”
I assume they wil both obey as I run back toward the bedrooms. I grab Atso and Nikkos and hold them tight as I shout for the other two children to get out of bed. I am surprised when Celia jerks the now terrified and screaming Atso from my arms. She holds out her hand to Nikkos and he goes to her. His eyes are wide and he is obviously terrified, but he is silent. Without a word, she turns and runs. The exchange takes seconds we didn’t have, but with six children to get out of the house I also know it wil take al three of us.
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Hector and Olympia have grabbed their Go Bags and I usher them out at a dead run.
We gather beside the house, Celia and Garrett are already buckling the two youngest kids into car seats in the back of the car she drove here. We don’t have infant seats for the twins but I see they are stil tucked into the dresser and it is wedged in the back on the floor. The car isn’t safe, there has no doubt been reports to both sides concerning its make and model. Fleeing on foot isn’t safe.
Fuck! “Out of the car, into the truck. Now!”
“That isn’t safe!” Celia argues, and I wonder if she even realizes she is naked.
She’s right though. We can’t escape in the truck. She slides into the backseat, putting Olympia on her lap.
“Garrett? Where’s Garrett?” she asks, sounding terrified.
He answers the question, climbing in the front. He went back for the diaper bag and Celia’s caftan. Starting the engine, I shout, “You never go back!”
“She’s naked!”
“Better her naked than you dead.” I don’t turn on the lights and drive off-road as fast as I can, fol owing the wild mustang trail and staying close to the canyon wal s. It is only fifteen minutes later that there is an explosion behind us. A firebal lights the sky. Someone breeched the adobe’s perimeter. Between Hal eck and Deeth I get us on a main road and second guess myself before turning and heading north on State Route 225.
I had no doubt we were in danger but having not stuck around long enough to find out who was searching for us, I now have no idea who found us.
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I’d hoped we could stay there for several more weeks, because we are unprepared for a move and now we’re on the run with no money, no food, and no clothing in an easily identifiable vehicle. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm and hoping no one asks what the plan is. We don’t have one.
“Daddy, should you turn on the GPS now?”
I look in the rearview mirror, meeting Hektor’s gaze. Why didn’t I think of that?
I have so many contingency plans to keep my children safe, but I didn’t think about fal ing back on any of those plans. I smile at him, trying to appear reassuring. “What month is it?”
“June.” He smiles back at me in, our gazes locked in the mirror. I wink at him and am relieved when he looks out his window, an expression of contentment on his face. Level headed, calm, he trusts the plan.
A quick glance at Garrett and Celia proves they don’t. Pale, tight lipped, neither one of them signed up for this.
“Where are we going?” Garrett asks.
“The Twin Cities.”
“Minneapolis-St. Paul?” he asks.
“Yes.”
I look at him. He’s staring through the window at the passing night. He’s shaking his head, clearly not happy, but he doesn’t say anything, and I don’t say anything else. Eventual y, everyone except the two of us fal asleep, and the tension bouncing between us is most unbearable. I decide it’s going to be a long night.
“Are you up for this?”
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He meets my gaze, and I seek answers in his face before returning my gaze to the road. After a long moment he gives me his answer, “Before you left, we were a ménage with problems, and now, for better or worse, we’re a family. I can’t be her husband wherever we end up, but you can be and I expect you to place her above al others. Your children. Me. And I’l do my part by being there for both of you.”
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“It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future wil be…?”
H. Rider Haggard, Al an Quatermain
Celia
Five months later
St. Paul , Minnesota
I settle the twins into a tandem strol er for an afternoon walk. I love walking around the neighborhood when the sun is high in the sky and the air has a crispness to it. Sweater weather. The leaves are changing color, making me realize how much I’ve missed seasons living out west. We have a large maple tree in the front yard, and it is a bril iant shade of orange. The fal ing leaves have been raked into piles for jumping into. The children are adjusting to our new home. Our new life. At the moment the oldest two are in school, both a grade lower than my husband would have liked, but after placement tests, the best place for them to start. The school’s academic counselor assured us it was because their standards were so much higher than the norm, and we didn’t volunteer that they hadn’t had formalized schooling for over a year.
We have a three story brick English Tudor with nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and a ful , finished attic, which we turned into a delightful playroom.
The house is as old as the town, constructed in the eighteen thirties when houses were designed with parlors instead of great rooms and real wood was used everywhere. It has history. It seems ironic that we are creating a future here based on falsehoods and doing everything in our power to hide our pasts.
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“Hel o, Mrs. Xanthis!” My widowed neighbor across the road cal s out to me and waves. She is ancient, her face wrinkled and her hair snow white. She keeps her hair pul ed up into a tight bun, and she is so thin a strong wind would blow her away. I push the strol er across the street. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Karasavas.”
I wasn’t surprised when I learned our quiet neighborhood was predominantly Greek. My husband seems to have a knack for finding places where he unobtrusively fits in. Though he was disappointed there wasn’t a private Greek school for our children nearby, there is an orthodox church and an independent private school not too far away. I’m sure we seem very ordinary.
The widow bends over and touches her arthritic, deformed finger to my youngest son’s cheek. “He is so innocent. So precious. How many children do you have?”
I’ve told her several times already over the months we’ve lived across the road from her. “We have six children, Giorgios, Ourania, Dionissis. We cal him Nissos. Anthanasia, Stavros and Thanos.”
She nods and smiles. “Strong names.”
“Yes, my husband named them.”
“Your husband.”
“Yes, my husband, the artist, Kyriakos, remember? He showed you his studio just last week.”
She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Oh yes, the handsome artist. He’s your husband, you say?”
I stifle a laugh. “Yes, he’s my husband.”
“There’s another handsome fel ow I see going in and out. Is he married?”
