Page 169 of Impulse Control
Her eyes were locked on mine, and in them, I saw my own desperation reflected back at me. This wasn't just about pleasure anymore. It was about connection, about breaking open all the dark, empty places inside both of us and filling them with light. With this. With us.
I could feel my own orgasm building, a tidal wave of pleasure gathering strength. "Kiara," I breathed, my voice ragged. "Come with me."
She arched her back, her head thrown back, a cry tearing from her throat as her orgasm ripped through her. The sight of her, the feel of her pulsing against me, was my undoing. My own orgasm crashed over me, blinding and intense, a wave of pure, unadulterated bliss that left me shaking and spent.
I collapsed against her, our bodies slick and trembling, our hearts beating a frantic, synchronized rhythm against our ribs. I buried my face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent, trying to memorize the feel of her skin against mine.
For a long time, we just lay there, tangled together in the quiet aftermath. The frantic energy had dissipated, replaced by a profound, bone-deep peace. She held me, her arms wrappedaround me, her hands stroking my back in a slow, soothing rhythm.
I didn't know what this was. I didn't know what would happen tomorrow. But for this one, perfect moment, I was right here. I wasn’t disappearing.
I didn't have the words. I didn't know what to say. But it didn't matter. She just held me, her hand stroking my hair, her presence a quiet, steady reassurance. In the silence of her room, wrapped in her arms, I felt something inside me, something that had been locked away for a very long time, finally shatter.
From Rachel’s Diary:
It hurts.
I think that’s the point.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
RACHEL
Mischa made me print them.
Not thumbnails. Not digital previews.
Actual prints. Heavy paper. Matte finish. The kind that forced you to commit to the image instead of scrolling past it. It also let me use the dark room I’d actually set-up when I first moved into the building. It was so weird to actively use this skill that had been lying fallow so long I was actually rusty.
I could have used the photo printer, but I didn’t want to. She said make it cost me, so I forced myself to do it this way. I forced myself to treat each print like film — slow, deliberate, unforgiving.
One at a time.
Music turned up, door sealed, red light on, and it was me and my pain in the little room until I’d done them all. I might have printed out more than ten. I might have spent all day and most of a night in that dark room until I had close to thirty different shots printed.
Selecting the first for Mischa’s project took even more time, but I lived in that space. I didn’t check my phone, my email, ormy calendar. I had sent René a single note—I was finishing this project then I’d check in with himafter.
I didn’t ask for anyone’s permission. I just did it.
The minute I realized I’d circled around twice on picking, then eliminating, then picking the same few images—I closed my eyes and picked up ten, put them in a folder and walked away. It wasn’t until I laid them out on the long table of Mischa’s studio at the Sorbonne like evidence that I even knew what wounds I’d put on display.
Ten photographs.
Ten small admissions.
None of them were clean. None of them were safe.
A reflection in a bus window where my face was cut in half by glare. Weirdly, it seemed to make my mouth look twisted between pleasure and pain depending on how you angled your head.
A woman crying on the métro, hand pressed over her mouth like she was fighting to keep the sound and the misery inside of herself. It shook me when I first saw it. It shook me even more in the image.
Kiara’s shoulder in soft focus, sunlight dissolving her edges. A nymph or apparition, there was something almost luminous and utterly unreal about her.
My own feet on the apartment floor, one sock missing, the bed still rumpled behind me. I had chipped paint on my toenails and never had I seen feet more in need of a pedicure.
The café table after we left it, two cups, one still warm. The faintest hint of steam rising from one while the other was isolated, and almostcold.
