LOGINDiane
Silence is an open wound, purulent with the echo of my own moans. The air is heavy with the smell of sex, sweat, domination. His weight on me is not an anchor, it is a seal. It presses me into the fur, into humiliation, into the irrevocable.
Shame does not seep. It floods, black, acidic, rising in my throat in a nauseating flow. I close my eyes and I see, in violent streaks, the spectacle of my degradation: my mouth open on pleas, my hips rising for him, the
LORENZOShe enters the room and the world slows down.It's not voluntary. It's not chosen. It's physical, visceral, uncontrollable. Every time Béatrice appears in my field of vision, my body reacts before my mind can stop it. My breath stops for a fraction of a second. My fingers clench. That heat rises, treacherous, unacceptable.Today, she is in the garden. Sitting on the stone bench, near the old oak. She is reading, or pretending to read. The sun filters through the leaves, draws moving shadows on her light dress. Her hair is loose today—a rarity—and falls in dark waves over her shoulders.Her belly. Always that belly. Immense, taut, magnificent. My children are growing inside her. My sons or daughters—we don't know yet—moving beneath her skin, kicking her palm when she rests her hand on them.I should see only them. I should see only a mother carrying her children.But I see her.I see the curve of her neck when she tilts her head. I see her lips moving silently as she reads. I s
AURÉLIESilence.— I don't know what I feel for her. It's complicated. It's tangled. It's… she carried my children. She sacrificed herself for us. How can you expect me to be indifferent?— I don't ask you to be indifferent. I ask you to be honest. With yourself. With me. With her.He closes his eyes. A long second.— I don't know if I can.— Then learn. We have months of lies to catch up on. We have time.He laughs, without joy.— We have twenty weeks before the babies arrive. Six months to rebuild everything.— Then we'd better hurry.I lift my hand, caress his cheek. His features are drawn, his jaw rough with stubble, his eyes dark-circled. My husband. My love. My lie. My truth.— Go talk to her, I repeat. Seriously. Not telling her what she wants to hear. Telling her the truth. Whatever it is.— And if the truth hurts her?— She already hurts. From the beginning. Since she agreed to take my place that night. Since she discovered she loved you. Since she understood she would have t
AURÉLIEShe places her hand on her belly. The gesture is instinctive, maternal. I feel a searing pain shoot through my chest. Those babies. Her babies. The ones that should be mine. The ones I couldn't give him.— Do you want some coffee? Lorenzo offers.He pours for me before I answer. The gesture is mechanical, habitual. Eight years of marriage. Eight years of mornings together.Except these past months have been a lie. Except I wasn't really myself.Béatrice butters a slice of bread. Her fingers tremble very slightly. I am the only one who sees it—perhaps because I know her gestures as well as my own. Perhaps because I watch for the slightest crack.— I thought about names last night, she says suddenly.I startle. Our names?— For the babies, she clarifies. I was thinking… well, if you agree…She looks at Lorenzo. She doesn't look at me.— I was thinking of names that recall the family. Our grandparents' names, perhaps.Lorenzo sets down his cup.— We have time.— Not really. The d
AURÉLIEDawn is soft. Too soft.I wake with a start, heart pounding, hand reaching for the other side of the bed. Empty. Still warm, but empty. Panic seizes me, and then I hear it. Water running in the bathroom. His voice humming, low, distracted.Lorenzo.My husband.He is there.I let myself fall back onto the pillow, my hand on my belly. The baby is already moving, little fist or little foot against my palm. Our baby. His and mine. In a few weeks, he will be in my arms.And in my sister's belly, his children grow.I close my eyes. Morning sickness rises, familiar, but today it has a different taste. A taste of reality. This morning, for the first time in weeks, the three of us will be together. Me. Him. Her. In the same kitchen. Around the same table.The same family. Broken before it even existed.The water stops running. The door opens. Lorenzo appears, a towel around his hips, his black hair still wet and plastered to his forehead. He looks at me, and in his eyes I see everythin
AURÉLIEI don't know what he sees. Perhaps the woman he married. Perhaps the liar. Perhaps both, inseparably intertwined, forever, until death do us part.His hand slides from my belly to my waist. He pulls me toward him.His mouth finds mine.It isn't gentle. It isn't tender. It's the hunger of two beings who have deprived themselves for too long. It's the thirst of the desert. His lips are hard, imperious, his tongue plunging between my teeth, taking me, possessing me. I moan into his mouth, and that sound seems to break the last dam.He sits up suddenly, carrying me with him. I find myself seated on his thighs, wrapped around him, his steel arms around my waist. He kisses my jaw, my throat, the hollow of my neck. His teeth bite my skin, not hard enough to mark, hard enough for me to feel his hunger.— You're insufferable, he breathes against my collarbone.— I know.— You're going to destroy me.— I know.— I should hate you.— But you can't.He lifts his head. His eyes are bright,
AURÉLIEDoes it matter? Now, here, before this body taut toward me without knowing it, does it still matter?My hand trembles on the sheet.I should turn away. Close my eyes. Let him sleep, let this night end, let the day impose its silences and distances on us again.I can't.I can't.I slip out of the sheet with slow movements, as if in a dream. The fabric glides over my skin, revealing my bare shoulders, my arms, the top of my chest. I am wearing the white silk nightgown, the one he loved to undo button by button. It is wrinkled from insomnia, damp with fever.Kneeling on the bed, I watch him sleep.His breathing hasn't changed. He is far away, lost in a dreamless sleep or one full of nightmares. His fingers barely move, a nervous twitch.I swing one leg over his hips.My movement is silent. I lift the weight of my body, thighs apart, and sit on him. Slowly. With an almost religious reverence.His warmth through his trousers. His hardness against the fine fabric of my underwear. I
DianeHe tilts his head. I think he is going to kiss me. I freeze, ready for the violation of my mouth. But he merely rests his forehead against mine. A gesture of heartbreaking intimacy. A lovers' gesture.— I will remind you, he whispers against my lips, his wa
DianeHe lifts his head, his lips glistening. A cruel and magnificent smile floats on his face.— What is it, Diane? Do you want something?I shake my head, incapable of forming words, rolled over by a wave of shame and need so intense it is painful.
DianeThe silence enveloping us is not peaceful. It is charged with the echo of our kisses, the short breath of our breathing struggling to find a normal rhythm. Lying against him, I feel every part of my being vibrate with a new alertness. The truce is a deception. It is the eye of the storm.His
DianeHesitation paralyzes me. It is the leap into the void. The acceptance of everything this means: the betrayal of myself, the entry into his game, the recognition of this twisted attraction.But the memory of his caress on my skin, of the fever he ignites, is stronger.I close my eyes one last







