“Johannes, what are you doing!”

I thought the hem would tear if I kept holding onto it. I let go of the fabric I was clutching. In that moment, Johannes, who had released me, tried to lift up my clothes. Just as my undergarments were about to be exposed, I frantically grabbed his wrist and forearm.

Our eyes met. His face was contorted, lips tightly pressed as if swallowing something bitter. Don’t. Don’t do it. I couldn’t speak aloud and could only shake my head. It was more than just hiding a lie.

I was terrified of Johannes, feeling I could be subjected to anything. Show me. Johannes, caught by me, said through gritted teeth. How, how could you ask to see such a thing? I scolded him. It was almost like sobbing. Johannes easily shook off my hands and muttered.

“What’s there that you can’t show? I told you. I don’t mind.”

“No, you’re scaring me. Why are you doing this?”

“Wasn’t a single nightgown all you had on to begin with?”

“Stop.”

“If you really started, shouldn’t you have tied something more around the bottom?”

“Don’t…”

“As ignorant as I am about these matters, did you think I wouldn’t know that much?”

“Johannes. Johannes. Johannes!”

Johannes pushed me away several times. My desperate attempts to stop him were as futile as leaves swept away in a downpour. Given the difference in our build, it was inevitable.

Finally, my skirt was flipped up. Johannes gripped my nightgown and swiftly pulled it up from my lower abdomen to just below my chest. He pressed between my breasts as if to hold the fully lifted garment in place.

Thus, with the only covering carelessly raised to fully expose below, we both held our breath. Only Johannes’ gaze poured down like a heated shower. What he saw must have been my undergarments, without any trace. The silence was intense.

“It’s only been… a short while since it started…”

Even then, I hurriedly made excuses like a child caught in a lie. It wasn’t consideration to lessen Johannes’ pain, or not wanting my true feelings discovered, or a clumsy attempt to delay a painful farewell. Simply.

I mustn’t upset Johannes now. I was frightened. My shocked eyes burned. The fear was so overwhelming that I didn’t even register being in an essentially exposed state.

“Ah…”

Johannes let out a long sigh as if in response to me. As his upper body that had been bent forward returned to its original position, the hand pressing my chest brushed my stomach and was weakly dragged away. Johannes just stared blankly at my undergarments with unfocused eyes. His posture seemed so weak that a slight touch could make him collapse.

“You say it hasn’t been long… It hasn’t been long, you say…”

Johannes’ face was chillingly pale as he repeated the words a couple times, as if trying to comfort himself. Bloodless, like a lake suddenly frozen by intense cold. At some point he raised his body. The weight on my legs slowly disappeared. And just as I hurriedly tried to fix my clothes after regaining a bit of composure.

“I’ll know if I check.”

What?

“Ah!”

It happened in a flash. Johannes grabbed the side of my undergarments. He pulled them down to my ankles in one motion. He yanked the fabric barely hanging on my feet and threw it to the floor as if about to tear it. He pushed down on my shoulders as I tried to sit up, forcing me to lie back down.

Straddling me like that, he carelessly reached down towards my now exposed lower body. I was shocked nearly to the point of fainting.

“Johannes!”

“Don’t tense up. You’ll get hurt.”

“Stop… Stop! Johannes, stop…”

“Relax.”

“You’re scaring me! Stop… Stop!”

Johannes’ hand made contact several times. My useless resistance was blocked by his arms, legs, body. Johannes paid no heed to my full-bodied rejection.

You keep lying to me until the end. The low voice muttering between rough breaths sounded like a punishment to my ears. Johannes pinned my thighs in place with his knees.

Stop. Johannes, please. Stop. There’s no need to go this far. Please. I forgot to resist and pleaded while gripping Johannes’ collar. Little by little. My body reacted sensitively, regardless of my will.

I felt ashamed.

While I was gasping from the cruel heat forcibly given, I felt even more ashamed because Johannes’ attitude as he ignored me showed not a trace of excitement. I alone was terribly, therefore even more terribly embarrassed.

“Not a drop of blood to be seen… And you said you were menstruating… That ‘today’ wasn’t possible…”

I heard low muttering just as unpleasant squelching sounds began to violate my eardrums. I wanted to explain. That it wasn’t true.

That while I had lied, I didn’t intend to betray your feelings, that wasn’t my intention, don’t misunderstand.

It was at that moment. The sensation of Johannes’ hand softly brushing a sensitive area.

“Ah, nnh…”

I let out a shallow moan. Then there was stillness without movement.

Silence that swallowed even shallow breaths. I saw the veins gradually becoming prominent on the arm pressing my shoulder. The blue tinge that had shifted downwards now broke off in drops, traveling up my chest and neck to my face. He stared at me as if plunging into despair a thousand fathoms deep.

Johannes’ expression that couldn’t hide his arousal. Like a boy faced with sacred food too sweet to taste or touch, then suddenly realizing there was no one around to stop him – a sinful boy. His Adam’s apple bobbed once as he painfully swallowed, and his tightly closed lips slowly parted.

The eyes visible between long lashes, the breath falling on my nose and lips, were all moist. At that moment when just confirming would have been enough to hurt. Johannes, defenseless against desire, gradually lost his restraint. He soon wet his own lips, swallowed his saliva like the juice of sin once more, and ah.

He desperately wanted to devour.

He could devour now.

Johannes’ expression seemed to mutter such things. In the end, he pushed into my most intimate place.

Hnng. I burst into tears I could no longer hold back. My soul screaming silently was all agonizing, dizzyingly intense as if my insides were melting.

“I can’t let you go… I absolutely can’t let you go.”

Slowly, what I thought was the end repeated. The touch of that hand became even slower and more languid. As if determined to bring me to climax, an unknown number of fingers entered me, soothing and widening.

Johannes’ upper body covered me as he removed the arm pressing my shoulder and bent it beside my ear. His scent, refreshing to the point of being vulgar. His rough exhales, hotter and rougher than me being touched, the feeling of the moist inner part of his lips gently biting my earlobe – it felt so intense I thought I would die. After wetting my ear like that, he moved down to my chin, the dimple below my chin, to my neck.

How, how beautiful.

Johannes’ hair brushing around my chest as if applying his moist breath.

I was staring blankly at his forehead and nose bridge, completely lost. His lips descended near my body countless times, almost touching, caressing the surroundings. At some point, Johannes looked up at me. Ah, if only he would just swallow me.

If only he would take me into that mouth. As if all my nerves were concentrated at that point.

Just when I wished for exactly that, Johannes took me into his mouth. I was captivated by his gaze that held my attention and wouldn’t let go even as he sucked breathlessly. Moans escaped freely.

“Jo, hannes. Jo…”

“I knew you’d change someday…”

His eyes finally sank beneath his eyelids and disappeared. What remained was the curve of his long lashes. Johannes moved his lips while holding me in his mouth.

“All I wanted from you was… a shred of mercy, really just a bit… mercy as trivial as the tip of your fingernail. Do you perhaps know why? The glances and gestures you’ve shown me all this time, your words that they were filled with affection for me, I wanted to believe but… couldn’t believe. Because I knew that you, in your haste, were just spouting lies to suit the situation… to save yourself.”

Johannes whispered persistently as he clung to me. It was incomprehensible to my burning mind. I seem to have asked without realizing.

“…With such feelings, how… how could you…”

“Ah, it was painful… I felt like I would go mad.”

Johannes answered as he moved his lips to the other side.

“It seemed you were wholly mine only in the moments our flesh joined and bodies connected, so every minute apart felt suffocating in its emptiness. But you said you’d come to me…. You said you chose this wretched me…. What did such pain matter to me then?”

“Ah, nnh…”

Johannes spoke with his face buried.

“You know, Giovinetta. I didn’t care what happened to me anymore. Even if I had to live clinging to the fleeting compassion you gave me on a whim, I just wanted to be inside you somehow.”

Johannes trailed off. He licked down my skin as if tasting it, then raised his upper body. Haah… With a long exhale, he pushed aside my nightgown that had already risen to near my collarbone to better expose my chest. I was completely exposed to his gaze.

“No matter what you did to me… as long as you embraced me in the very last moment…. I thought I could endure. Did you know? From the day you accepted me, it was all fine as if the pain until then had been a complete lie. It was the first time… and I was confident I could manage somehow in the future.”

Thud. The sound of a belt being undone came from below. Johannes was undressing while staring at my body. He didn’t take his eyes off me for a moment. His gaze roaming over my face, neck and chest, stomach felt like it was fondling my skin.

And low, so low.

“So I cast aside even attempts to remove, let alone suture, what you had stabbed me with, ready to gladly crawl at your feet if only you would hold onto me… to endure absolutely everything now even if I had to die slowly while impaled by you, but…”

He panted.

Johannes grabbed my thighs and raised my knees.

Then in one breath…

“…Ah!”

A cry escaped at the merciless penetration to my depths. Ungh…. I heard Johannes let out a low groan. An even more unreal thrill ran through my already dazed body.

Johannes, who had been completely rigid, slowly began to move his hips.

“But you… couldn’t even wait that long before saying you’d leave. While I… stabbed, was gushing… blood…. Now, you say… you’ll turn your back…”

Those words, little different from talking to himself.

Multiple times. The sensation of him thrusting into me as if rubbing. I couldn’t regain my senses. I spread my arms towards Johannes. His brow instantly contorted. But his body immediately came down to cover me, and I embraced his neck.

“Jo, Johannes…. Johannes.”

“You, ah, how many times must you turn your back… before you’re satisfied…”

“…I don’t… understand… what you’re say… mmph…”

His lips rose to cover mine, cutting off the question as he whispered as if he would devour me.