The room is narrow… but now it seems wider than it should be.
The air is saturated with the smell of oil, leather, and old sweat that hasn't been washed since the last death chase.
Eron sat on the edge of the bed, bare-chested, his body leaning slightly back, his hands behind him supporting his weary spine, and his hair damp with sweat and mist.
The dim light coming from the wooden lamp casts blurred lines over his belly… a broken muscle here, a bruise there, a wound on the side of his ribcage, and claw marks as if a rogue rabbit decided to leave its signature in blood ink.
Selina stood in front of him.
A bottle of oil in her hand, her fingers trembling lightly, unbefitting a woman who witnessed the massacre of her family.
She said nothing.
But she moved closer.
She lowered herself before him… on her knees.
There was no servitude in the position… but there was something else. Something closer to suppressed explosion.
She poured the oil onto her palm.
The sound of the viscosity between her skin and the whisper of her breaths made the whole room constrict… as if the walls were bending to watch.
"Start from here…" he said, as he traced his finger over the wound slanting from beneath the collarbone to the hip.
She didn't need instructions.
It was as if her hands memorized the map of pain before she touched him.
She touched his chest first. Gently… then slowly… then with a light pressure that made him purse his lips unconsciously.
The hot oil seeped into the wound, and her finger followed it as if she were planting soft spells in it.
The sound of his breath changed.
Not a gasp.
Nor a sigh.
But that kind of exhale… that comes from the teeth of someone who knows he is starting to lose control.
"Garon said… that you lost your entire family."
He said it calmly… but he didn't look into her eyes.
Instead, he looked at her fingers, as they slowly descended from the chest to the belly… passing over the navel… then stopping there, as if she were thinking.
She didn't respond.
So he continued.
"And I... have not lost anyone."
He smiled.
But it was the smile of a killer confessing to his crime without remorse.
"Because I simply... never owned them. And I am not sad."
She looked at him.
Her eyes resembled the shadow of a dagger over fire.
He breathed slowly, allowing his body to lean slightly forward.
The distance between him and her?... Enough for a single spark.
"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty. Nor to touch my wounds as you touch this wound now."
He pointed to the oil that had begun to shine on his side.
"But because I... am jealous."
She whispered, for the first time:
"Me?"
He nodded.
"You have Garon."
His finger trembled as he pointed to her neck... where there was a small mark, barely visible, but it was there.
"A man... who protects you, loves you, worships you even if he hasn't touched you."
His face got closer.
His eyes were revealing.
"And I? I lick the oil of wounds on the hand of a woman who is not mine... and dream that her hand, one day, becomes something else."
Her hand slowly slipped... towards the wound on her thigh.
She touched it.
She could say she was treating... but she was touching.
In a way that neither the doctor nor the mother nor the nun could.
But a woman... who began to forget that she was resisting.
She whispered, as if revealing a secret he already knew:
"And this wound?"
He said in a hoarse voice:
"Not a wound... but a weakness."
She looked down... where the lower garment had risen slightly, revealing skin whose warmth resembled lips searching for justification.
She did not move afterward.
But her hand remained suspended over the thigh, between the shoulder and the intention.
He asked, with a smile wrapped in a curse:
"Do you stop here?"
I looked at him.
Eyes of unquenched ash… and lips that had not yet decided: a kiss or rejection.
Then she stood up… slowly.
Her hand remained burning.
And his eyes continued to follow her body as she returned to standing… as if everything in her said:
"I did not flee… but I did not stay."
And she only said:
"Sleep.
The oil works best… when you don't watch it do."
She turned… and walked.
But before she opened the door, she paused.
She looked over her shoulder, the shadow cutting across half her face.
Then she said, in a voice he had never heard from her before:
"Next time… perhaps I will start with the wound that cannot be seen."
And she closed the door.
The door… did not close completely.
It remained ajar, as if the wood itself longed for a sound that should not be spoken.
Eiron did not move… did not even breathe.
He looked at the wood, at the line her feet had left on the ground, at the bottle that remained warm in his hand.
Then he said in a voice only his heart could hear:
"No.
Not yet."
He stood up.
His first step was slow.
The second… confident.
He opened the door with his hand, stepped into the hallway.
She was still there, at the end of the hallway, her hand on the doorknob, her back to him, her body still as if she were waiting for a slap that would not come.
He said, in a warm… almost innocent tone:
"Selina…"
She froze.
"Just listen to me… for a moment."
She turned… slowly.
Her face was still neutral. But in her eyes, there was a hidden blaze, something between curiosity and fear, something like a woman who had forgotten how to be desired.
"I haven't said everything on my mind."
He stepped closer.
"I am not trying to trap you. Nor am I playing with your emotions."
He moved closer still.
"But… think with me.
You are strong, silent, beautiful even as you resist…
And Garon? He loves you."
She raised her eyebrow, as if preparing to kick.
But he continued.
"Garon will kill for you... but have you thought?
What if he saw your eyes shining?
What if he heard you laughing without restraint?
What if you felt something... for the first time in years?"
He whispered:
"Wouldn't he be happy?"
He moved closer.
"You have the right to touch something... for yourself.
You have the right to lead things... and stop them, or... continue them."
He extended his hand, and did not touch her... he just placed it on the door beside her head, as if it were protection, not a threat.
"I don't want your body... but the moment you choose."
She did not back away.
But she did not move forward either.
His eyes sparkled.
Then he moved closer.
The first touch... very light, on her cheek.
His lips approached... they did not kiss, they just grazed the edge, as if asking the skin if it still remembers how to be delicious.
She closed her eyes.
She did not respond... but she did not run away.
He whispered in her ear:
"I don't rely on your desire... but on your right to desire."
And then...
The distance broke.
Her hand rose... she did not push him away, but held his neck...
Her lips pressed against his.
A kiss that was neither harsh nor soft.
But confusing.
As if all the years of loneliness, cold, and dust gathered in a second... and evaporated under the heat of that kiss.
His hands fused with her waist.
Her fingers slipped under his hair, pulling his breath toward her.
Then they separated... panting.
She looked at him... her eyes red, not from crying.
But from something resembling hunger.
He said, as he ran his hand over her arm:
"I just want to touch you... like a survivor touches the first warm blanket after the snow."
She whispered, her breath mingling with his:
"I'm not sure... is what we're doing good?"
He answered her with a sigh… then sat down, pulling her with him.
She sat on his thighs, her body still stiff… but it began to soften.
He kissed her again.
But this time… longer.
Deeper.
With lips searching for a beginning, not an end.
...
At the same time, in another place, the bar was almost empty.
The usual smell: old wood, spilled alcohol, and the breath of the drunk customer sprawled on the table for an hour.
Garon was behind the bar, wiping a glass that no longer needed cleaning, staring into nothing.
The hour was late.
The light was dim.
And the sound of the wind outside the windows was louder than any conversation here.
He was thinking of nothing… or pretending to.
Then, suddenly…
A grip inside him tightened.
A cramp.
Not an ordinary stomach ache.
But something… strange.
A contraction in his insides…
As if someone had thrust their hand inside his belly and pulled something small out of it.
He stopped moving.
Lowered the glass slowly.
Then muttered in a faint voice, barely audible to himself:
"Selina?..."
He raised his eyes to the door, as if expecting to see her walk in at that moment… but she didn't.
The drunk muttered something incomprehensible from the corner, then rested his head back on the table.
Garon remained standing, his hand still on the glass, but his spirit was elsewhere.
Something had stirred within him…
And broken.
Or at least…
Started to break.
...
She was sitting on top of him, her breaths hot but unstable, as if something in her chest was oscillating between drowning and screaming.
She was the one who had shed the robe.
Suddenly… without warning.
It slipped off her shoulders… revealing her chest.
Her skin resembled ivory in the darkness, her nipples dark, hardened from excessive stimulation, as if everything she had endured from deprivation and silence had left its mark on these two spots in particular.
Eiron did not blink.
He stretched out his hand slowly sickly... as if touching a forbidden wine.
His fingers touched the left nipple, and her entire body trembled... a palpable tremor, starting from her lower abdomen and going up to her neck.
He rubbed it with his thumb and index finger, pressed gently and then gradually increased the hardness.
"Ah..." Her voice came out, soft, sharp, in it a faint tremor that could not be mistaken by ear.
Then he leaned with his mouth towards the chest…
And swallow the right nipple.
He sucks her deeply, as if he is trying to suckle a life that has never been given to him.
His tongue goes around the dark circle, jumps from tip to tip, licks, pulls, and then bites.
"Ah-Irun...!"The name came out of her this time tinged with fire .
Her body arches over him, her hands on his shoulders, her fingers plunge into his relaxed muscles as if clinging to the last atom of consciousness.
But he did not stop.
But while his mouth was drinking her breast,his other hand had crept under the robe, towards her lower abdomen... and then between her thighs.
Touch the damp cloth.
[Warning: desire level exceeded 85/120]
[External humidity indicates 92% response]
"Damn..." he whispered to himself, and then slipped his finger under the rim.
He touched her skin... and then plunged into the humid heat.
[Area temperature: extremely high. The probability of an internal explosion within 0.6 minutes.]
"Ah... ah... ah...!" Her breath exploded, her tremors becoming palpable.
Her head tilted back, her lips open, her chest rising and falling crazily.
His middle finger entered slowly.
It was tight... so wet... so hot it almost burned his skin.
[Successful partial penetration!]
[Docking level: 41% - you can improve performance by adjusting the angle or slowing down]
He started moving:
In... Out...
Then he pressed his thumb against the clitoris and began rubbing delicately.
[Spoiler alert: the clitoris is 97% responsive!]
[additional stimulation will result in maximum orgasm]
"Uh... uh... no... don't... don't stop..." she mumbled, between a gasp, an exhale, and a half-distorted sigh.
Her lips became dry, her cheeks flushed, her eyes blurred... as if she was detaching from reality and dissolving into a place that contained nothing but pleasure.
He didn't leave her.
He lifted his head from her chest, looked directly into her eyes, his face stained with his saliva and her wetness, and then said... with unforgivable naivety:
"Now I understand...
why Garon was willing to kill for you."
[Warning: Emotional misstatement!]
[Social Error Rate: 99.3% - are you sure you want to ruin all this?]
Silence.
Her body suddenly stiffened.
[Heat loss: -34 degrees Fahrenheit per second]
She stopped breathing for a second.
Her eyes became ice.
The heat withdrew from her thigh... from her chest... from her voice.
[Danger: Collapse in emotional reactivity]
[Would you like to run the apology protocol? Too late, idiot.]
She slowly lifted herself off of him... and pulled the robe over her body without haste.
Aeron realized his mistake... but too late as usual.
"Selena-I didn't mean to-"
She raised her hand.
Enough.
She looked at him, and said in a low tone... dead inside:
"I was about to let myself...
and then you told me I was still for others."
She got up... walked to the door.
She opened it.
But before she came out, she stood up and said without looking:
"If you want me...
Don't mention another man's name as I open my legs."
And she closed the door.
[Game Over - the emotional roller coaster ride is over]
I left him there...
His hand was still wet from her, his lips swollen from unfinished lust.