Heart In A Cage

32

Isabella

Yesterday was a night loaded with both dread and anticipation. The two aspects of my undying thoughts stretched time into long fragments in which I remained static in a chair, flinched internally at the hot prick of a needle, and mused on what Andreas had been doing up in his room.

Apparently, he'd paid off Ethan beforehand and given him a generous tip to atone for the request of a session which was just as sudden to me as it was him. The tattooist consulted with me prior to commencing his work, reiterated the same, reassuring reminder that ultimately, it was up to me to settle on whether I really wanted to accept the tattoo. That he'd been ordered to pack up his equipment and leave if I so much as hesitated on my decision.

I had nudged my arm toward him and insisted that he pulls through with it.

It may have been the declaration that I have a part of Andreas that made my option so instantaneous. I was a promise to assist in infuriating a cheating, jealous ex when I'd walked into this house, guaranteed sexual pleasure even if it wasn't planned to coincide with the Boyfriend-Girlfriend game that had been constructed. I wasn't welcomed in to seize or be seized.

What we do for our act has become a brittle wall of deceit, pieces chipping off every time we extend our performance to behind closed doors where no one is present to watch. Just a little longer and we might shatter it and be left with something we hadn't expected on the other side.

But his existence inhabits my head, and the closeness my thoughts have to him offers me disclosure on what I feel―that I don't care if our performance isn't as artificial as it was meant to be. A shocking revelation, really.

When I went into his room after Ethan had finished, there was an investigation conducted on my forearm, on the designs that were extended. The leaved stems grew and spun to form a twirl of nature embellished with miniature roses, thickening from where they began at my fingers. They're going to get thicker with more additions of the tattoo, assuming I give in to my dangerous desires to have them.

I know this because he had been holding my arm next to his, and for all the times we'd been coddled together in bed, my head rested on his chest, his arm hung over me, I had never felt so close to him. It was a feeling derived from both my nervousness and the consuming prospect that he might have made his claim on another part of me because he too feels.

There was attention on me, one flickering between our skin as he looked back and forth, delving into every minor detail of the tattoos to spot any faults or misplacements. The thought of him being so engrossed had become the spotlight of my focus, a thing flipped over in my head continuously.

So when I woke up extra early this morning alone in his room, I had doubts that what I assumed of his feelings may have been a product of my longings. Because I showered and brushed my teeth, soothed lotions into my skin and massaged oils through my hair to rush time, paced around the room impatiently and awaited his arrival, and then returned to bed in my uniform only to fall asleep to his unusual absence.

But I feel it now. I feel that attention now.

My surroundings are marked with a blanket of unnatural warmth. It's a presence behind me that I sense, loitering beside the bed, one concentrated on my body laid on its side.

I don't turn around when my arm reaches behind me and digs into the source of that warm swathe of air closing in on me. His abdomen is bare, a resemblance to a span of rolling hills as my fingers idly run along it. My head lounges back and I arch my body, the extent of his exposure revealed when my hand slides down, below his stomach.

I pause at his groin, softly scratching the skin with the tip of long acrylics to silently beg. He isn't swayed. He doesn't even react beyond breathing loudly. I can open my eyes and turn to the other side, plead with a seductive look. But I'm exhausted and hungry, and the darkness beyond my lids tells me I won't be able to see much if I were to face him.