Page 15 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
“Does that disgust you?” he asks quietly, and I cannot imagine how he is positioned around me. If he is sitting in a chair adjacent to this table I seem to be on, or if he is standing. But the way he touches me, with such hesitant ease, makes me believe whatever pose he is in is comfortable for him. He slides his finger over my teeth now, along the sides, across the front two, my top lip pushed out a little with his invasive exam. “Because if you thinkthatis bad, Little Sun… If I extractedthistooth,” he pushes his gloved finger beneath the sharpness of my canine, “right here, without anesthetic, you would understand a small fraction of what it means to behischild.”
Fear like I have never known shoots through every corner of my body. Fear and sympathy and a desire to comfort him; they all contort and confuse inside my brain.
“Why?”I can’t help it, and the word is muddled from my mouth. When I speak it, my lips close briefly around his finger.
I hear his sharp intake of breath and I don’t know what it’s from until a second later when he says, “Do that again,” in a calm, hoarse voice. Before I can ask what, he adds, “Suck on my finger. Use your teeth.”
I am breathing with my mouth open, spit running out the corners of my lips, and I want to tell him no and I want to ask why Stein Rule hated him so much and I want to scream but before I can do any of that, he seems to stand or straighten, the way the shadow of him moves behind my closed lids.
Then his other hand is pressing harshly against my low belly, over the sheet, and my ab muscles contract as I heave again, around his finger still in my mouth. The pressure on my abdomen is full and painful and deep and he says very clearly but so raspy, “I am trying to control myself with you and it is incredibly difficult. Please, do as I say, Karia.”
I don’t think. I am no longer sure I am dreaming, but if there is a chance I’m not, I would like to survive this. I close my lips around his finger, which takes more effort than it should, like my muscles are still sleeping, hovering on the border of wakefulness. I let my teeth catch softly around the bones, the sensation of the leather soft and spongy beneath them.
He lets up on the pressure along my stomach, although he does not move his hand away.
I hear him breathing; it is loud, over the fan in the background. He sounds frightened, but he hasn’t told me to stop and in fact, he presses his finger further into my mouth, touching the back of my tongue.
“Bite down,” he says, a low rasp.
I close my mouth just above what I think is the last knuckle of his finger.
“Harder.”It is a command laced with desire.
Heat flares inside of me, sweat forming along the back of my neck, but I do as he said. I do not wish to hurt him, though, and inside my head, I see his father sucking on candy after he abused his son, laughing through it all.
That pressure becomes fuller behind my eyes.
Then, as I bite on his finger pushed to the very back of my throat, I can…blink.
There is a hazy vision ofhim,lit by the softest green glow I couldn't sense through my lids before. Perhaps he only turned the verdant lights down instead of off.
Dark eyes, brown with a fleck of amber. A hood over his short, dark strands. The high black collar covering his throat.
His plush lips parted as if in ecstasy.
He is standing over me. There are high ceilings, jars atop them, but I focus on nothing but him.
Until he sees me watching.
He snatches his hand from my mouth so violently, my canines scrape along his glove and my breath hitches as he places his hand over my eyes, the feel of my own saliva wet and warm against my skin just above my brows.
“I did not get the dosages correct,” he says, muttering as if to himself. “I did not. I messed it up. You shouldn’t be awake. You shouldn’t see—”
“I’m so sorry he hurt you, Sullen.” I speak while I can, my lips trembling as I try to clench my fingers into fists at my side. I am regaining some control, but I want to be subtle. I pretend this is real, in the case my death wouldn’t be something I could wake up from. And that means I cannot let him know I am able to feel and move again. “Your dad is—”
His hand comes to my throat.
He squeezes the sides,hard.
My voice leaves me, and he is speaking over my mouth again, palm keeping my vision dark.
“He is not my dad.”The words are animalistic, breathy, and guttural. His fingertips close tighter around my neck with each one.
“I’m sorry, I just meant… You deserve better.” When I speak, I can feel my own breath reflecting back to me because of his closeness. Everything is muffled with his hand at my throat. “You deserve so much better. Where have you been? Where did you go? Let me wake up so I can see you and talk to you and—”
“No.No.No, I’ve done this all wrong.” He releases me all at once, both hands, and when I blink again, clearing my vision, I see him turn his back to me, broad with wide shoulders beneath his hoodie.
I cast my eyes downward, trying to decipher what he’s doing, but before I can spot more than a sterile-looking steel table, he is facing me, and there is a syringe between his fingers, his thumb on the plunger.
