Page 1 of You Need to Beg
Part I
I should never have slept with him.
If I hadn’t, things might have been different. Perhaps, I would free. A woman with her own sense of self. Not someone irretrievably tied to a man who could tear me apart.
Would it even have been possible to restrain myself? I don’t think so. I can still smell that day and as if by clockwork, my body responds to its call. To him. That day will always leap out in my mind—the first spot of colour in an endlessly grey existence. The day thathewalked into The Bookshop.
I had ignored him at first. At least I had tried to.
He came into the store with dark sunglasses; his chiselled face shaded under the hat he wore that cast dark shadows over his deep brown skin. Despite the measures he took to obscure himself, anyone could see that he was immaculate. His strong jaw coated with freshly trimmed night-dark hair, his lips full and his cheeks carved from stone. His 6 ft 3 frame made him a giant in the tiny Bookshop. His muscles pushed against his shirt, coated in dark, bronzed skin, misted with sweat.
It was a hot summer day in England, and the heat was relentless and oppressive. England was not made for heat. My white linen dress clung unto me in a way that had flustered Mr Harris. His eyes had wandered over my body. Staring intently as the sweat trickled down my breasts. He had let his mouth hang slightly giving him a dumb, insufferable look. I had wanted to slap that look off his face, but Mr Harris was one of our best customers, and The Bookshop couldn't afford to lose him. So I had smiled brightly as I rung his order for yet another Dan Brown book. He jeered at me, winking as he took his final mental note of my body, no doubt to toss one off to later.
"Filthy perv," I had muttered as I settled into my book. Soon after, the door had swung open, andhisscent had wafted through the room. Deep musk and earth. As though he spent his days cutting wood and taking afternoon dips in a river. It was the smell of sex. I had never smelt anything like it before. It was that raw, powerful scent that first drew my attention.
The door let out its shrill ring that sounded whenever a customer entered the shop. I hated that sound. It felt like a demand. I suppose it was. A sharp call to attention, "Ken!" it would yell at me, "stop what you are doing and serve!"
Emma, on the other hand, found it quaint, and though she was never here, it was her family that owned the shop, so she made the decisions. I ignored the brash command and uttered my usual greeting.
“Hello, welcome to The Bookshop,” I sang, "let me know if you need anything." I didn't bring my head up, which was terrible of me. While I could never be the perky, ready to go salesperson that Emma dreamed of, I did, on the most part, try to be attentive. The Bookshop had a certain charm about it, with its rustic furniture, decades old. Its creaky oakwood floor and it’s ancient smell of age-old books. I loved it here and I didn’t want to soil anyones experience by being the moody girl behind the counter. But I’m only human, and I’d made the mistake of reading through my lunch break. I mistake I made every day in The Bookshop. This week’s read was Ian McEwan’sOn the Chesil Beachand I couldn't tear away.
Then the scent hit me. I frowned as my heart thundered in my chest. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I felt separated from my body, as though it had torn itself away from me and was now determined to act on its own accord. It needed something, desperately, and it wasn’t going to let me get in the way of it. My body knew something about the man that had just walked into The Bookshop that I was still oblivious to. I glanced up, and my heartbeat kicked up its pace.
Fuck.
1
When You Know
When you know, you know.
The wet speaks of it first.
The moistness that erupts in the deep.
The thick hunger that sinks into your skin.
You sink,
into it
until you drown.
You want to drown.
Your breath quickens as fingertips crawl inside you.
The softest skin,
smacked raw with desire.
I want you.
Do you want me?
Tell me, you want me.
Part II
