— Mary lay back, the sheets cool against her naked body, nodding, mostly to herself, in the dark. “I’m ready,” she said. “I’m sure.”
“I didn’t ask,” said the boy. He was positioned on top of her.
“Ass,” she said, and swatted him shoulder, but he smiled (visible even in the dark), and she forgave him instantly…
–his calloused hands kneading the soft flesh of her breasts, squeezing, the pad of his thumb and fingers pinching her erect nipples. She cried out, squirming, thrashing her head from side to side, pausing just short of telling him to stop, but pushing through. He fondled her, and she felt molded by his touch, sculpted into a shape corresponding to his —
— the intensity of the wetness surprised her. He made a crude comment, but it barely registered, as she felt a kind of hazy barrier between herself and —
— Her hands crawled down his naked back, testing the rippling muscles there one at a time. She felt his whole body flex with the force of his exertion, felt him bend like a bow as he pushed in, and then the almost reflexive snapback as he came out, and she felt herself bend to that force as well. Try as she might, she could not escape the impression of pliancy underneath him. It made her feel sad and ashamed, but she savored it, tasting it, drawing it out, loving it, even loving the shame, in a way, reminding her of the long nights (or days, she corrected herself) she’d spent awake, thinking about this, thinking about the moment when he would finally —
— “I’m ready,” she said, wincing. “Just do it.”
“I’m about to.”
“I don’t feel…”
“Wait, you will.”
“There’s still — ahhh!”
“It’s okay, you’re okay.”
“Is there blood?”
–”Is there blood?”
–”Is there blood?”
— she winced as his stubble grazed her bare skin. His mouth on her neck made her shiver, and as he continued down to her shoulder she began to nod in a barely perceptible way along with his movements. He was crouched over her, half on top of her, and as hard as she tried to relax she went rigid as steel every time he went in. She gasped at the back of her throat, head swimming and —
— “Just let me feel it.”
“You can feel it.”
“No, but just stay still for one second and let me really feel it. I’ve never felt…” —
— even in the dark she saw the blue of his eyes staring down at her, looking through her. She was crying out, meaningless screams punctuated by the word “Yes!” whispered under her breath. He grunting in a low, guttural way, animal-like, and she tried to imagine the kind of feeling that would create that noise, that look, that feel of his body, in him. Was it the same thing she was feeling? Were they feeling the same thing? Had they ever, always, or was it just now, just these seconds, for the first time?
The sheets under them were drenched —
— A series of increasingly lurid, revolting words cycled through her mind: hard, thick, swollen, throbbing, engorged. It did not feel as she’d expected it to, and she was confused but fascinated by the combination of its unbending rigidity and its soft, organic texture. She realized that she thought of it as separate from him because it made him seem vulnerable, in a way she was not —
— she scratched his back as hard as she could, and he swore, and she giggled and did it again. He retaliated by squeezing her throat, choking her lightly, and at first her heart welled up in a sense of panic, but after a moment she (secret shame and all) found she wanted him to do it again. She pulled him in as if for a kiss, but bit him as hard as she could on the side of the neck at the last second. She was surprised to briefly taste blood —
— taste blood —
— taste blood —
— her vision even blurred a bit as his hands wrapped around her throat, and she was open to him, to the ceaseless thrusting, pounding, grinding of his body. He seemed to be losing control, and she was shocked that she, so passively, could drive him to this, and she wondered how much further she could make him go, and whether this, finally, was what it was like to —
— she could feel it. “I’m going to…”
“Hold on, I’m not there yet.”
She threw her head back, screamed, smothered herself with a pillow, but pulled it away and screamed again. “Oh God, oh God, oh fucking God, I’m going to, to, to…!” —
Friedrich jerked his hands away once more and returned to the present. For a moment he trembled, taut with rage, and he very nearly ripped her throat out then and there, but he stopped himself. Mary, unaware, smiled in her sleep, murmuring and rolling to her side. She gathered a pile of blankets against her body, cuddling it. Friedrich watched her sleep for a few moments more, then retreated from the arrival of the sun.
As he shut himself in his coffin, his anger subsided. This was all to be expected sooner or later. After all, she wasn’t a little girl anymore, now was she? It would have been better if she’d told him, but then, how could she? And the boy himself, well, she ought to have better taste, but she was young, and she would make mistakes. Perhaps Friedrich could do her the favor of getting rid him…
No. Better to let the affair play its course. She would learn her lesson in short order, and he’d be there to comfort her, and then in the future —
Wait, the future? Friedrich blinked. Yes, Mary had a future, didn’t she? He knew now that he would not kill her after all. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He had wanted to kill the girl Mary, the sweet, naive, unassuming little creature as pure as driven snow, but she wasn’t that little girl anymore. She was a woman, her own woman. She would surely leave him soon, as children did when they were grown, but that was fine. Yes, it was almost time for the nest to be empty.
And Friedrich? He would never be young again now, not if he did not kill. But so what? He was old enough, and he could only grow so much older. Soon his mind would go completely, and he almost relished the idea of that sweet, senseless oblivion of permanent senility, almost the match of sleep, or death. Content, he closed his eyes and sank away. If he could just dream while asleep, he would have happy dreams, his first in longer than he could remember…
Friedrich awoke to a nameless pain and a feeling of being trapped. It was the next night, and his coffin was open, but when he tried to sit up he realized something was holding him down. He waited for his panic to subside, and then he perceived the cause of his predicament, a thick piece of wood, sawed from a table or chair and whittled to a point, piercing his chest. Someone had run him through in his sleep. The shaft had missed his heart, but the length of it pinned him against the bottom of the box.
Slowly, very slowly, Friedrich worked the stake out. He felt no pain now, and in fact hadn’t all along, having merely imagined the ghost of how he knew pain should feel. Instead there was only a mild discomfort, which was alleviated as soon as the obstruction was free. He dropped it to the floor with a thud, then sat up gingerly, trying not to exacerbate his wound; the edges of it were dry, and rather than blood only a thin trickle of dust flowed from the rent flesh. He frowned, stroking his chin. Who could have tried to kill him as he slept?