Page 60 of Lovesick

“Come for me, Little lamb,” Billy’s voice breaks through the bleakness, his teeth in my neck, his panting breath hot against my damp cooling skin.

And despite everything, this empty nothingness inside of me, his fingers over my clit, pressing firm and slow, I squeeze my eyes closed, my head knocking back against his, and I come.

He says nothing as he fills me up once more, staying sheathed inside of me as he starts to soak my hair, massage shampoo into my scalp before rinsing it off and repeating the same process with conditioner, his fingers combing through the tangles.

Carefully, he lifts me off of his lap, standing me on my feet as he steps out, grabs a towel from the heated rail, runs it over his head, down his face and chest before wrapping it around his waist. And then he holds one open for me.

After waiting too many long seconds for me to climb over the lip of the bath, Billy reaches out, offering me a hand, waiting, allowing me to decide if I want to take it or not.

But it’s all secondary to what my attention is truly on.

The brown rippling of Billy’s defined abdomen, the perfect inking of webs and spiders down the left side of him, from beneath his pec, down his ribs, the bottom of the piece hidden once more beneath the white towel he wears lowly around his hips.

I’m staring at the branding in his firm chest, the almost fully healed ‘two’, the roman numerals which match the ones burned into my own chest, mine still a little pink, still a little raw around the edges. And even though it sometimes feels like a tag, like a collar, like a mark of ownership, a chip. Weirdly, now, it feels so much more like my own, too.

Something special.

Shared.

Sacred.

Just for Billy and I.

It makes me feel such an overwhelming wash of love that I can’t stop the tears from coating my cheeks.

I’m so numb to everything, this feels like some sort of weird finality.

We’re still trying to conceive.

We’re still trying to make this work.

We’re still trying to pretend that we’re fine.

That I’m not some useless broken doll who can’t speak, can’t eat, can’t function without direction.

Something Billy has always done for me anyway.

Control.

It’s imaginary in a place like this.

I fed off of it before, letting Billy think for me, trusting him enough to allow myself to finally relax.

Then he brought me here.

And now, now I don’t know what it means.

I don’t know who I am.

Who we are.

What I’m doing here.

I’m not good enough for Billy.

For his life.

I never really was.