Lolita and I are both silent over breakfast and the drive home. Lolita and I. Lolita and I. How I love the way that sounds. Valeria is quiet at first as well, nursing her hangover. Then the coffee kicks in and she rouses herself, and chatters ceaselessly about the ball. My sweet Lo has put on a pair of large, dark sunglasses and gazes out the passenger side window, sunk in thought. Every now and then she runs her thumbnail over her plump lower lip. Her swollen, thoroughly kissed lips that I can still feel moving against my own.
Is she remembering how it felt to kiss me? Is her tender pussy sore this morning from the pounding I gave her? Every time her eyes meet mine, she looks hastily away. I want to laugh. She’s being a good girl for her daddy and trying to avoid me. When she shifts in her seat she winces slightly, and I smile broadly at the road ahead. What I wouldn’t give to get her home and coax her legs open for me again.
Daddy knows you’re sore, he’ll be gentle sweetheart. Look how wet you are for me already. That’s it, take daddy’s cock…
I almost drive off the road thinking about it.
When we reach the castillo, Valeria gets out of the car and saunters up the steps, her hips swaying and her chin held high, as if an evening of male attention has recharged her batteries. I pull our bags out of the trunk while Lo stretches and rakes her fingers through her long hair.
By the front door, Valeria pauses and turns around, a puzzled expression in her dark eyes. “Lolita, I didn’t see you much in the ballroom last night. Where were you?”
Lolita freezes, her fingers stilling in her silken strands. Behind her, I stay where I am, my hands clenched on the luggage.
She licks her lips. “I was dancing, and then I talked to a friend. After that I got the most splitting headache and I…I thought I should go straight to bed. I was going to say goodnight to you, but you seemed to be having such a good time that I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Valeria’s eyes narrow with irritation. I can see that she dearly wants to scold her daughter for not meeting enough men, but as she coopted the most eligible bachelors all night, she seems to think better of it.
My wife disappears to the castillo, and I follow Lolita up the stairs. Just inside the d
oor, I drop our bags, catch my stepdaughter by the wrist and pull her around to face me. “Lie to your Mama if you want to, but not to me.”
She glares at my hand on her wrist and then up at me. “Go to hell.”
Anger smolders deep in my chest. How dare she talk to me this way? “One of these days, a man is going to take his belt to that tender ass of yours, and you’re going to be better off for it.”
Her pretty mouth parts in shock. “One of these days I’m going to tell Mama that you’re touching me like no stepfather should, and she’s going to kick you out so fast your head will spin.”
“Just try it, and you’ll see where your lies get you.”
“Did you enjoy getting your hands all over me last night?” she hisses. “Your mouth in places it shouldn’t be?”
She’s talking about the kiss I pressed against her throat, but I can’t help but remember the luscious taste of her pussy and how she squirmed against my tongue. I draw her closer, murmuring softly, “If I sucked on your plump little clit and made you burst on my tongue, would you still run to your mother and tell on me? Or would you start running to daddy, instead?”
Lolita’s face suffuses with outrage and shock. I turn away and pick up the bags, laughing.
Her whisper follows me down the hall and pierces me like a dart. “I hate you.”
Pain explodes in my chest. I manage to turn a corner before I double over, gasping for breath. I can feel it like a physical thing, her hatred, and it makes me jubilant but the Black Fox despair.
There are old vines on the east of the castillo, and I need a hobby. Something to keep my hands busy. I’ll learn to make wine.
Can one just do that, learn how to make wine? I have no idea, but with vines to hand and all the time in the world, there’s no reason not to try. It keeps me away from Lolita. Even as Zacarias, I’m wary of being too close to her. When I lay eyes on her the urge to be cruel, to take hold of her, to slide my hand beneath her skirt as she begs me to stop threatens to overwhelm me. I must be clever around Valeria. I must be deceptive.
I manage to avoid my stepdaughter for nearly two weeks. Two whole weeks of burying my face in textbooks and learning about earth and fertilizer and drainage. Two weeks of walking up and down the vines, examining leaves and stems and bunches of grapes. I spend every night in the spare room, telling Valeria that I don’t wish to wake her when I come to bed after long hours of study. She accepts this without comment, and doesn’t seem to notice that I can’t stand the sight of my wife. I detest the smell of her. Her voice is someone scraping a bow over an untuned violin. Her vapid conversation makes me want to scream at her that I don’t care what she thinks or says. I never cared. I never wanted her. Only the curse wanted her.
I spend every night alone, and I barely sleep. Does Lolita miss her Black Fox? Is she wondering where he is, if he’s discarded her after their moment of passion? Is she breaking her heart over him? I rub the heel of my hand over my own aching heart in the darkness, needing as much as wanting my Little Lo. On the fifteenth night after the ball, I work myself up into such a frenzy that I’m pacing up and down the bedroom at one in the morning, breathing hard and growling under my breath. She’s so close. So close. I ache from head to toe for her. My sweet Lolita with her luscious mouth and her pink velvet pussy. I remember the way she clung to me, her fingers digging into my shoulders. She needs her Black Fox, too. The memory of her trusting eyes as I choked her with my belt breaks me.
I run to the wardrobe and yank out the carefully concealed bag. It’s the work of a moment to change into him, and then I’m swinging out the window into the night.
The ramparts of the castillo are crumbling, but I feel my way in the darkness around to Lolita’s balcony. There’s a sheer drop below into the vines. I wonder what would happen if I fell and Lolita and Valeria found my body in the morning. Would Lolita scream as the mask came off and she realized who her darling Black Fox was all this time? Or would she sob over my body, broken and battered by this curse?
Her room is silent and dark when I reach it. The night is warm and her balcony door is open. I steal inside, my booted footfalls soft on the carpet. The breeze lifts the gossamer hangings of her canopied bed, and I see her, a dark-haired princess amid a cloud of pillows and white sheets.
How lovely she is. How much I want to care for her, my Little Lo. As the Black Fox, my heart is filled with tenderness. I slip up onto the bed and gather her into my arms. Even my lust is tender, and I coax her awake with soft kisses. As her eyelashes flutter, I wonder if I will need to clamp a hand over mouth to prevent a startled scream, but she’s not afraid of the stranger in the shadows. She smiles up at him.
“Black Fox,” she whispers, arching her back and pressing her breasts up toward me. Her nipples are tight little buds beneath her thin nightgown. “Black Fox, I knew you’d come.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” I say in a low voice, and press my mouth against hers. Her lips are like cherries, bursting with sweetness. “I’ve done nothing but think of you, mi niñita.”