#97

That night was a night without humans.

I don’t remember when I was moved to the bed after accepting him on the entrance floor. I remember Johannes’ groans as he left biting kisses all over my body and thrust himself into me, half-mad.

The moisture that fell drop by drop from his panting chin to my cheek, neck, and chest – was it his saliva, sweat, or tears? The taste of blood from an unknown source was on his tongue as it plunged in recklessly, gripping the back of my head.

“Johannes, Johannes, slowly, just a little, a little slower, no, ah.”

I sobbed. I writhed, feeling as if I was losing my mind. As if jealous of his back that remained unscathed unlike mine, I unconsciously raised my nails several times.

His skin was scratched with a slithering sound, some places seeming to be deeply gouged. I drew dozens of bright red lines on Johannes’ bare skin like that. It wasn’t intentional. It was done with a lost mind.

Every time I carved those impure lines on his body, Johannes took a deep, dark red breath. Ah, do it more. He barked at me as if expelling the breath he had swallowed. He tore off the bandages compressing my upper body as if he would devour them.

He tied my wrists together and bound them to the tall bedpost. Johannes’ fingertips trembled like aspen leaves as he blindfolded me with the remaining bandage, covering my eyes that were crying beseechingly while hanging from the ceiling like a piece of meat.

“Say it again, Inette, slower?”

His voice, despite the sandpaper-like tone, conveyed the spasms of his body and breath entirely. He was trembling so much.

I saw intermittently through the blindfold that had slipped down at some point.

His gaze habitually turning to the ceiling as if checking for imminent divine punishment. His frenzied gestures of burying and rubbing his face against my body as if to hide himself when my moans lengthened.

The voice that occasionally urged me, asking “You don’t like it? Should I stop?”, sounded like the desperate cry of someone who would crumble if rejected. And his repeated dry washing of his face looked like a child helpless in the face of disaster.

Why was that?

Johannes was terrified. Yes, while completely suppressing and dominating me like someone overcome with anger, he looked frightened throughout. I didn’t know the reason for that fear or that anger.

And I was just as scared. I had to feel an unbearable fear from Johannes’ caresses that were almost like violence. I had to let out moans barely distinguishable from wails until my voice was hoarse.

But to confess shamelessly, it was fundamentally different from the fear that grips one when life is threatened. I think I felt fear from my own nakedness.

The fear of completely tearing off the outer skin of reason, drawing out the flesh of a new pleasure that had only been tasted briefly before. It must have been the fear of rawly confronting the barbarism within oneself. The pleasure of that day, which seemed to melt even my bones, felt entirely like self-harm shared with Johannes. I begged.

“No, don’t stop, please. No, ah, I don’t know. Johannes, it’s strange, strange…”

My voice, which would have prostrated before Johannes if I weren’t hanging, was completely cracked. I can never forget the sound of my voice that day.

How many times did I climax? Completely exhausted from numerous climaxes, I collapsed on the bed. Johannes, who had seemed unlikely to let go, finally released me, and I was barely keeping my eyes closed with a dazed mind.

Plop, plop. I heard the sound of water droplets hitting the surface.

Soon a wrung-out wet towel diligently wiped my arms and legs, eventually reaching my neck. From outside to inside. It was probably an order Johannes considered so as not to startle me, but the rather cool sensation made my body shudder involuntarily.

“Cold…”

“Sorry.”

When I grabbed Johannes’ wrist in my sleepy state, an awkward apology came back. His attitude was strange. Had his mood improved? Such gentleness only now. I vaguely thought this without feeling particularly upset or displeased.

I felt Johannes gently sitting astride me, placing my lower body between his thighs. He quietly whispered as he firmly grasped under both of my armpits to sit me up.

“You shouldn’t fall asleep like this. I’ll dress you soon, so bear with it a little.”

“Mmm…”

“Lift your face for a moment, Inette.”

Johannes, supporting my back with one arm, said as he lightly pushed back my forehead with the towel. My dazed head suddenly flipped back.

The wet cloth touched my exposed eyes. With my face entrusted to Johannes’ hand, I stretched my sleepy arms forward, bending my hands past his nape to dangle near his shoulder blades.

I woke up very gradually. The dull pain throughout my body only then began to creep up. It was a stinging pain in the skin of my wrists rubbed raw by cloth all night and an aching pain in all my joints.

A strange sense of guilt was like a desolate north wind; I felt my heart stirring despite having committed no sin. I ignored that sensation. What was there to feel guilty about? I’m not bothered at all, I told myself. And without opening my eyes, I mumbled.

“My wrists hurt…”

“Your wrists?”

“…My shoulders too.”

“Oh dear…”

After meticulously wiping the corners of my eyes and mouth, Johannes set down the towel for a moment and began to gently massage my forearms and shoulders. A pleasant touch. That caress-like touch seemed to slowly unravel and melt away the guilt. But in reality, the most painful part wasn’t my arms or anything, but above all…

“My jaw hurts the most.”

“…”

I had simply voiced what came to mind without attaching much significance, as usual. But the moment I mumbled, I clearly felt all of Johannes’ parts touching me stiffen abruptly.

He sat motionless for a while, as if he had been struck on the head. Soon his hand burrowed into my nape as if to support it. Johannes circled his thumb around my earlobe and jaw joint. There were no words of apology.

The pain that had been heavily aching until then.

Until that day, I hadn’t realized. I had thought it was just a matter of opening my mouth to bite and lick, like when eating. But the act of tensing the jaw while being mindful not to scratch what was in my mouth was truly… well, it was no ordinary task.

I felt Johannes’ thumb, which had moved along the fine muscle fibers of my face, touch the corner of my mouth. When I briefly opened my eyes, I saw Johannes looking down at me in the darkness. There were still no words of apology.

His eyelids, which lowered slightly as soon as our gazes met, seemed somewhat dejected. Perhaps even that faint impression cast on his eyes felt like an excuse to him. Johannes’ gaze briefly slid diagonally downward. He seemed like someone trying to remove himself from my sight.

“I didn’t dislike it.”

I quickly whispered, burying my cheek in Johannes’ palm. It wasn’t a lie. Johannes’ gaze returned to me with a startled look. I felt his eyes on my eyelids, asking what I was doing.

I kissed Johannes’ fingers resting on my lips. Parting my lips slightly, sucking with the moist inner skin, slowly. I heard the sound of dry swallowing right in front of me. Johannes’ breathing seemed to quicken slightly.

“You know… I, I liked it.”

I murmured softly, holding his wrist with both hands. Perhaps my repeated sincere answer was some kind of insult to Johannes.

“You liked it…”

His voice, hard to tell whether addressed to me or a soliloquy, trembled slightly. Johannes, who had been supporting my upper body until then, pushed me back to the headboard and withdrew his arm.

“Would you do it again if asked?”

He asked me. As if angry. That tone was just like the young Johannes who used to get upset at my stubbornness. I didn’t answer. I merely affirmed silently. Anytime. As much as he wanted. Johannes’ brow finally twisted slightly.

He moved his thumb that I had been kissing and lightly pressed the tip of my chin. This caused my already parted lips to open even wider. Johannes’ finger, which had been tracing my jaw, slowly pushed into my mouth and gently pressed my tongue.

I curled my tongue around the finger he offered and rolled it. Carefully, as I had done to other parts of him that night. I licked it sweetly as he had taught me, like eating an ice pop melting under the scorching sun.

What taste could human skin have? So what was sweet to me was not Johannes’ hand touching my tongue, but the sight of Johannes getting heated right before my eyes.

I watched Johannes’ reaction while panting slightly. Perhaps because the newly learned act was terrifyingly stimulating, my heart was pounding noticeably. Johannes was silent for a long time. He only stared intently at my tongue wrapping around his finger and my chest heaving more than before. At some point.

Johannes leaned down and kissed my forehead without withdrawing the finger I was licking. I silently received the kiss while focusing on his finger. Drip, drip. The exhaled breath falling like heated ice. His breath pouring onto my forehead was markedly irregular.

Johannes’ hand, which had crept between our bodies nearly touching, stroked upward from my lower abdomen and cupped one of my breasts as if caressing it. The gesture and movement seemed as if he could no longer just watch. The momentum with which he positioned himself between my legs was as if he would spread me open and plunge in at any moment. Yet what came with the caress that seemed about to melt me was.

“…Sleep more. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

It was a voice pressed out firmly.

“But I mean it…”

I grumbled without thinking after releasing the finger I had been holding, and Johannes laughed bitterly as if telling me not to lie. He collapsed on top of me and slowly caught his breath.

And that day, even in the brief time I slept, I was plagued by nightmares of mutilating Johannes. Why are you like this. I felt Johannes’ touch gently soothing me in my sleep, not knowing what was happening to me in my dream. Holding me in his arms, he breathed softly into my ear. Shh… It’s okay. It’s okay, he said.