He licks his thumb and sits up a little so he can reach down between us, and he starts to work at my clit again. The sensations pick up almost where he left off, and as the pleasure grows, the pain inside me eases. I keep my eyes open and my expression reproachful, wanting him to know what I think of him for hurting me even as the pace of my breathing picks up. My hands slide down his arms, clasping his strong wrists, needing to hold onto him.
A smile tugs the corner of his mouth as he watches my face, as if he knows that I’m trying not to show how good he’s making me feel. “Tell me you like it.”
My eyes narrow at him. “Fick dich, Reinhardt.” Fuck you. I never swear, but if ever somebody needed to be sworn at it’s him right now, pinning me to the bed with his cock and his heavy body, making me hate him even more because he knows I do want him.
He smiles wider. “You’ve never said my name before.” He pulls his hips back a few inches and then surges forward. I cry out and grip him tighter, and the pain is back, mixed with pleasure. But he’s right. The worst is over. He thrusts again, and again, his thumb still working on me, pleasure sparking through my body.
“I think you mean fick mich, don’t you?” he says. “Fuck me, please, Reinhardt, because I like your hands on me, and your tongue inside me, and even though it hurts I like your cock inside me.” His low, inexorable voice seems to be talking me closer to orgasm. “Don’t you, Evony. Don’t you.”
My voice is almost a sob. “Yes. Yes, all right.”
His hand catches me around my throat and turns my head toward him. “Look at me when you say that.”
I look up at him through my haze and his eyes are sharp, calculating. I’m the one who’s falling apart. “Yes, Reinhardt,” I manage, before my head tips back and my body clenches with my climax. As the sensations pound through me I hear his soft laugh, feel his hand tighten ever so slightly on my throat, the way a predator’s jaws tighten on its prey.
When I come back down again I watch him, eyes narrowed, hating him again. Hating that it feels good. Hating how good he looks, muscles moving in the semi-darkness, his lower lip full and soft. I put my hand up to touch his mouth and he kisses my palm. It’s so tender a gesture, but anger boils through me and I pull back my hand and slap him hard across the face.
For a second he looks shocked by my audacity. There are things I would never dare do or say to Oberstleutnant Volker that I find I can do and say to Reinhardt. Grabbing my wrists he pins them either side of my head, moving harder and deeper now. He looks oddly proud of me. Yes, he likes this very much, and unable to look away, unable to cover my face, he sees the truth laid bare in my eyes. He knows I want him.
He pulls out of me suddenly and takes himself in his hand, making a low, harsh sound at the back of his throat. Something hot spurts against my inner thigh and then he’s still. He breathes hard once, twice, his head bowed.
Then he looks up at me. “Are you all right? I didn’t want to draw it out.”
But I can’t say anything. I feel raw and confused, uncertain now how sleeping with him was meant to give me the upper hand.
“It will be better for you next time.” He eases himself off me and tries to draw me into his arms.
Next time. I curl into a ball and roll away from him, tugging the tangled sheets over my body. Suddenly I can’t bear for him to see me like this. I’ve given up everything to this hateful man and there’s no escape. He’ll take what he wants again and again, until—until what? What does he want from me? To screw me until he’s bored? This isn’t how I imagined my life would be. He should have chosen Lenore, or someone like her. She would have wanted this.
“Liebling? Would you like to come to my bed?” He puts an uncertain hand on my shoulder but I shrug him off angrily.
“Go away.”
I feel him watching me for several minutes and then he gets up with a sigh and collects his clothes. A moment later I hear the door close behind him.
With a soft groan I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I stare for a long time, searching for ways to escape, to end this. But nothing comes. No solution offers itself.
What have you done?
8 8 8
The morning casts its cold, gray light on the evidence of Reinhardt’s visit to my bedroom. My sheets are smeared with blood and his semen. It’s a ghastly, embarrassing sight that I can’t leave for Frau Fischer to discover, so as soon as I’m washed and dressed I pull all the linen off the bed, making sure the most visible stains are buried deep in the bundle before I open my door.
I head for the laundry, noticing a slight ache low in my belly and a vague feeling of self-loathing clinging to my skin, but other than that I feel no different. Even the self-loathing is not unfamiliar these days.
I’m as silent as I can possibly be but luck is not on my side. Frau Fischer comes bustling out of the lounge and exclaims loudly, “Let me take those for you, my dear. I was going to change them today, anyway. You must tell me if you require clean sheets more regularly.”
At the other end of the hall I can see Reinhardt standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, dressed in his uniform. When he hears the word sheets he smirks down at his newspaper.
I go red and keep a tight hold of the linen, stammering that I want to wash them myself, it’s no bother, but she’s a determined woman and wrestles them out of my arms. Please, please just think that the blood is my period, and don’t notice the other stains, I beg silently.
Reinhardt is still smiling to himself when I enter the kitchen and he greets me with a conspiratorial look. “Guten Morgen, Evony. Did you sleep well?”
Volker, I tell myself. Think of him as Volker, not Reinhardt. But I have the feeling that after last night it’s going to be difficult to think of him in that distant way again.
I don’t like his cozy attitude, as if we share a cherished secret. “Frau Fischer has asked me to tell her if I require clean sheets more regularly, but that’s not really for to me say, is it?”
He catches my unsaid meaning. Are you going to be making these visits nightly? Putting the paper down, he walks slowly around the table and looms over me. I have to tilt my head back to look him in the eye.