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My favorite orphan.
Any of those would be depressing, but if I consider what he told me about not staying with the same woman for long, that's probably what I'm going to hear.
I'm getting ready to get up, wrapping the sheet around my body, when the bathroom door opens, and he appears with his hair still dripping from the shower, a tiny towel wrapped around his narrow waist.
I can't speak, too stunned by that nearly 6'6" man looking at me as if he wants me for breakfast.
"You kill me, Serenity."
"What?"
"I know what you're thinking. I want it too, but if I fuck you again, you won't be able to walk for two days. I'm not going to take it easy like I did yesterday." He lets go of the towel, letting it fall carelessly on the floor.
I swallow hard when I see that his huge sex is semi-erect.
"Choose: me or ballet?"
"My God, I always thought dancing was my life, but . . ."
He throws his head back, laughing, more handsome than any other man on the planet. Without saying anything, he climbs into bed and unravels me.
Over the next half hour, Ares gives me two orgasms with his mouth and fingers, and when I fall back drowsily against the sheets, I start to question whether it wouldn't be worth taking a vacation to live solely on sex for weeks.
"What about your performances?" he asks, lifting his face from between my legs, his lips still wet from my pleasure. The personification of sin.
"Did I say that out loud?"
He doesn't respond, just gives me a lazy smile.
"My God, I said it out loud!"
"Whatever you decide, I'm in." He lies on his back and pulls me towards him.
I didn't mean to sleep, but I know I blacked out when I wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmare. He is no longer with me.
I must have screamed because Ares enters the room looking worried.
"What happened?" he asks.
"What?
"You were crying."
I run my hand over my face and feel it wet with tears. It takes me a while to remember. The usual nightmare. "It's a recurring dream that I've had my entire life."
He sits on the bed and pulls me into his arms. "Tell me about it."
"I'm alone in front of the full-length mirror that was in the house where I was born, in New Orleans. It was in my parents' room. I'm looking at myself, combing my hair, and then Mom and Dad appear behind me. But they don't have faces, they don't have heads, just bodies, and yet they can speak. I hear them call my name. When I told JeAnne about this dream, she told me it might be because I feel guilty about not remembering them."
He puts his hand on my head and, little by little, I calm down.
"Have you talked to anyone about it?" he asks.
"You mean . . .a therapist?"
"Yep."
"A few years after they sent me to boarding school, I went to some sessions. I don't remember much, just a woman talking to me behind closed doors at German school, when I was still very little. She gave me paper and colored pencils to draw with. But if it was therapy, it was only for a short time, and I don't think it worked, because I didn't say anything. In any case, they are just flashes of memory."