Her Reflection

CATALINA’S PERSPECTIVE

By morning, I couldn’t move.

The ache was deep. Bone-deep. I laid there in the sheets that smelled like him, my body still sticky with sweat and stained with his cum. Every muscle screamed when I shifted. My thighs trembled when I tried to close them.

So I didn’t.

I stayed still.

Eyes open, breathing slow, like any sudden movement would shatter something inside me.

The bruises, they were darker now. Fresh ones layered over old. A storm of purples and fading blues decorated the softest parts of me. My hips, my ribs, the inside of my thighs. My neck bore the worst of it. Angry prints where his hand had clutched me too tightly, like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hold me or destroy me.

I pressed a finger gently to one of them and hissed.

Still raw.

Still his.

Dante wasn’t there. Of course he wasn’t.

The spot beside me was cold. As always.

Maybe he left right after. Maybe he couldn’t stand to see me afterward.

But that didn’t bother me.

Because he was there. Last night, he was there. Really there.

And when I moved, just slightly, just enough to feel the ache between my legs, I smiled.

A soft, satisfied smile that no one else would see.

Because he saw me.

Not as a shadow. Not as some polite ghost floating in his house.

He saw me.

He touched me like he needed to prove something. Like he was angry someone else had looked at me. Like he couldn’t stand the thought of my smile belonging to someone who wasn’t him.

He was jealous.

It was a dangerous thing, jealousy. But when it came from a man like Dante Lucchese? It was intoxicating.

I turned my head to the mirror across the room. The one above the dresser.

I pulled the sheet away and stood slowly. My body winced in protest. But I wanted to see.

Naked. Bare. Bruised and still damp with his cum inside me..

I looked at myself. At what he left behind. At the purple rings around my wrists. The finger-shaped bruises along my hips.

I traced a finger over the bruise on my collarbone, watching the mirror closely.

"You see me now, don’t you?" I whispered. My voice, quiet, almost reverent.

"Not as the porcelain doll you ignore. Not as the obedient wife." A laugh slipped, soft and cruel.

"You saw me last night. You marked me like territory. You hated that he laughed with me." I tilted my head, studying the woman in the glass.

"So, I’ll let you think you won. Let you believe you tamed me." My smile sharpened. "But darling… that leash? It’s in my hand now."

And I smiled again.

“You saw too much,” I whispered to my reflection. Voice even. Calm.

"Don't smile like that when he's around, you'll be caught." I even giggled to myself.

But the eyes that looked back at me? They weren’t innocent.

I turned on the shower. Let the water warm. Then stepped in.

The water stung. My body flinched as the heat hit the open skin. But I didn’t step back. I let it cleanse me.

Let it wash the stickiness from between my legs. I spread my legs wider, scooping every drop of his cum with my fingers.

The blood from where he’d been too rough, the bruises that felt like warnings and worship all at once. I let it all drift away.

I washed my hair. My neck. My thighs. Every inch of me he’d touched.

And still, I could feel him.

His breath. His voice. His hands, wrapped around my throat. The sound he made when I gave in.

I got out, dried up, and cleaned the mess he left behind. The clothes torn and discarded. The trail of his destruction like breadcrumbs across the room.

I folded what I could. Threw away what couldn’t be salvaged.

Then I dressed. Something soft. Light.

And barefoot, I moved to the window.

The book I had started last week still sat on the chair beside it. I picked it up. Thumbed the pages. But I didn’t read.

I stared out. Let the light touch my skin.

Let the quiet settle over me.

The ache between my legs still pulsed. My lips were split from where he kissed too hard. My wrists still burned.

But I smiled.

Because last night wasn’t hate.

It wasn’t love either.

It was something else.

A storm. A claiming.

And for the first time in years, I wasn’t invisible.

~~~~

I rested my cheek on the windowpane, the glass cool against my warm skin. Below, the garden was quiet. The same one where I first met Luca. Where Dante saw me laugh for the first time.

I wondered if he remembered that.

If he thought of it when he pinned me to the bed and broke me open.

If he hated that someone else saw a part of me he never claimed.

I didn’t know.

And I didn’t care.

Because it worked.

He looked at me.

He touched me.

He chose me last night.

Maybe not out of love. Maybe not even out of want.

But out of need.

And that was enough.

For now.

Till I can fully claim his heart.