I imagine I see my old family dog, Charlie—who’s been dead for five years—licking at something in the corner of the cell. When I reach out to pet him, he turns into a snarling, black-faced, red-eyed rat and nips at my hand before scurrying up and out of the light hole.
Other things come and go, mostly insubstantial and inconsequential. I forget them as soon as they’re gone. My brain is having trouble holding onto thoughts and memories. Thoughts happen and then slip away like sand through my fingers.
Mostly, I just sit slumped against the wall, curled into a little ball and shivering. Occasionally, though not very often, I manage to sleep.
When I do sleep, I dream.
The dream starts the same way every time.
I am standing in a huge bedroom. There is a massive four-poster bed made out of rich mahogany, with carved lions and eagles racing each other up and down the posts. I am wearing a lavender silk bathrobe, loosely knotted in the front. The air in the bedroom is cool, though not uncomfortably so.
Behind me, I hear a door swing open silently and feel the rush of warm air that comes from it. Footsteps move towards me, several of them in unison. I don’t turn around. I keep my eyes facing directly forward—until the four Bianci brothers slide into view in front of me, shoulder to shoulder. If I wanted to, I could reach out and touch them. They are all shirtless and barefoot, wearing only suit pants.
In my dream, I am not afraid, although objectively, I should be. Somehow, the dream Milaya knows that they aren’t going to hurt me. Waking Milaya would beg to differ. But when I am asleep, the thought doesn’t even cross my mind.
Still, at the point in the dream when Leo and Mateo each step forward to untie my bathrobe and slip it from my shoulders, leaving me standing naked between them, I always force myself to wake up.
At least, that’s what I did the first two nights I dreamt.
But on the night of the third day, I find I have suddenly lost the power to wake myself. I’m caught in the throes of the dream, and I know right away that this time around, I will have to see it through to the end.
It starts as it always does. The room, the robe, the door opening, the feeling of heat licking the back of my neck, the brothers assembling before me. Leo and Mateo disrobe me. Dante and Vito stand in place, their gazes both inscrutable.
“Are you sure?” they ask me as one. Their baritones make my skin prickle up in goose bumps. The words are like a physical caress, trailing down the nape of my neck and between my thighs.
I want to scream,No! Stop! Leave me alone!
But, caught in the fabric of the dream, all I do is nod.
They step forward. Now, all four brothers are pressing against me in a tight ring. It’s a wall of muscled, scarred flesh. I raise my hands and lay one each on the bare chests of Leo and Mateo where they stand to my left and to my right. I can feel their hearts beating in my fingertips.
“Are you sure?” Vito and Dante ask me in unison one more time.
Again, I nod.
Then it begins.
They descend on me. Mateo’s teeth find and nip at my earlobe at the same time that Leo immediately winds his fingers through the roots of my hair to pull my head back and run a teasing tongue down the curve of my neck. Dante and Vito both fall to my knees, each of them suckling at one painfully hard, peaked nipple. It is so tender and so intense at the same time. I press my thighs together, trying to prevent what I know will happen next—the gushing of heat from my core.
As if he can tell that I am trying to slow this down, Vito kisses from my nipple down past my belly button. Gently but firmly, he pries my thighs apart. I know he won’t relent, so I have no choice but to let him. When his tongue then finds my center, lapping with just the tip, I groan out loud and let my head fall back further. My gaze is pointed straight up, towards a ceiling that seems like it is farther away than any night sky has ever been.
Vito’s tongue twists in a way that forces my attention back down to earth. I am opening up for him, blooming like a flower. Then, all at once as if by some unspoken command, the four brothers pick me up and move me to the bed.
They set upon me like starving lions to fresh prey. Mateo kisses me on the lips, his tongue delving past my moans to flicker against mine. Leo moves to the nipple that Vito left behind, while Dante kneads my breast and squeezes my hip hard, so I can feel through his hand the tremors that are coursing up and down his body. He wants me so badly that he can’t bear it, can’t sit still with it, can’t wait much longer before he explodes.
Between my spread thighs, Vito licks at my clit. And, as I groan into Mateo’s kiss, Vito adds a finger to probe at my opening, pushing into me millimeter by millimeter, letting me sigh and part for him as he goes. Already there is the telltale pressure of an orgasm building in my core, although it’s not there yet.
Soon, though, I will tumble over that edge. I may never come back from it.
Leo lets his fingers trace from my shoulder, down the length of my arm, to force my fingers to splay open. He guides my open hand to the erection pressing behind his zipper. “Do you want this, darling?” he murmurs.
I say the only thing I know how to say anymore: “Yes.”
He nods and frees his length from his zipper. I wrap my hand around the base of him. His manhood is slender and slightly curved, with a drop of precum glistening at the head. I stroke slowly with my hand.
To my other side, Mateo is doing the same. I wrap my hand around his cock too. His is thicker than Leo’s and ramrod straight. At the nod of my head, he slides forward to bring his tip to my lips. I open my mouth and greedily take him in. He barely fits, but I suddenly have an insane craving to swallow as much of him as I can. I want all of him. I want to hear him moan as I work my tongue around his girth.
I want to know that I have all the power here.