Page 62 of Requiem & Reverie

The air catches inside my chest, tears streaming down my cheeks as I stare, paralyzed with fear. It takes me back to when Oliver was just a baby and he got too close to the kiln while it was firing, accidentally burning his finger. I cried for days after, feeling like the worst mom on the planet. I can’t even think about him burning alive. I won’t.

“Your silence is concerning to me, Nola. Allow me to pose the questions separately. Would you choose to watch your son burn in the kiln?”

I shake my head, unable to stop shaking long after the question has been answered.

“Then, should I assume you accept my seed inside your body? Do you choose me?”

Feigning a smile that he likely can’t see for the tube, I nod and mumble the word, “Yes!”

“I’m so relieved.” He sets his hand against his chest and blows out a breath. “For a moment, I thought you were going to choose your son, and how sick would that have been, right?”

I don’t answer him, my body in spasms beneath the tight plastic.

My pulse settles, when he walks away from the kiln, making his way toward me.

Smiling, he kneels down in front of me, between my legs that have been propped spread-eagle by the latex. At the apex of my thighs, he leans in and breathes deeply, his hands gripping either side of the metal frame to steady me.

“I love the smell of your cunt beneath the latex. Would you like me to taste it?”

Tears leak from my eyes, as I lift my gaze, squeezing my lids shut to block all of this out, and nod.

Seconds later, I feel pressure where he’s buried his face between my thighs, sucking me through the plastic. It’s not erotic. It’s not enjoyable. It’s sickening, and the urge to ball my hands into tight fists has me scratching at the latex keeping them captive at my sides.

“Delicious.” The sucking sounds twist my stomach with the urge to wretch. “Why aren’t you moaning, Nola? I know you moan. I’ve heard you moan during your baths.”

The thought of that should mortify me, but it only adds to my disgust. Tightening my closed lids, I will myself somewhere else. To the night in the hotel room with Voss, while he buried himself in my thighs. I imagine it’s his lips on me right now and I fake a soft moan to appease Simon.

“It feels good, doesn’t it, Moonflower?”

Again, I nod my head and open my eyes to the kiln, where the lid still stands ajar. “Mmm-hmm,” I mumble through the tube. Not for his sake, but for Oliver’s.

In a moment of mercy, the sensation disappears, and Simon pushes to his feet, standing before me, eyes riveted on my breasts. I can’t tell if I’m naked, or wearing my lingerie, but he leans forward and takes one of my breasts in his mouth.

The way he suckles it is unnatural, in rhythms that mimic a baby’s feeding.

In seconds, his sucking turns fervent, excitable, and he squeezes too harshly, creating a flash of jagged light behind my tightly screwed lids.

The sucking stops, but he continues to massage my breasts and groans.

“Tell mother you’re sorry for wetting the bed, Simon,” he whispers in an odd feminine voice.

“I’m sorry, mother.”

“Come, lie in bed with me.” The voice changes are so distinct in him, I’d almost swear another woman was standing in the room with us. A sound so practiced, it sends a chill down my spine. “I know you’re upset over your spanking. Take my breast in your mouth.”

Once again, his mouth is on my nipple, harder than before. A pinch of pain makes me grunt into the tube, but he doesn’t relent.

“Harder. Suck me harder.” That voice wasn’t spoken with the feminine tone, but the one of the child. A slapping sound follows, and I don’t dare open my eyes, as I’m certain he’s stroking himself.

His mouth releases my breast, and he rests his cheek against it, his harsh breaths beating against the plastic in time to the slapping sounds that heighten. “That’s it. Harder.”

My whole body is trembling, while this sick fantasy, or flashback, or whatever the fuck it is, plays out in front of me like a nightmare.

For another minute, he masturbates against me, jerking and massaging my breast, until at last, his fingers dig into my flesh with a flash of pain, and he shudders on a long, drawn moan.

“You didn’t finish, Nola.”

I open my eyes to see his mouth curved into anger, his jaw tight and clenched.