Summer Queen

by Amelia Wilde

  My fingertips brush the corner of the paper. It’s thick paper, but old, and the texture reminds me of my mother’s phase when she sold paper products, too. Did she make this? I’m dying to know.

  A movement at the door, movement in the air.

  “What are you doing?”

  15

  Hades

  Persephone is adorable when she’s caught red-handed. I will never get tired of the way the way she gasps, startled. She assumes that she won’t get caught. That’s what’s so striking. I can see in her face that she genuinely assumed I wouldn’t be here. That I could stay away until the evening. It hasn’t been four hours.

  She squirms away from the filing cabinet and kicks it shut, her cheeks red, biting her lip. If it wasn’t this cabinet, of all the fucking filing cabinets, I might let it go.

  No. I wouldn’t. I like it too much when she cries. And I like how hard she comes afterward.

  I try to ignore the tick of my pulse at the side of my neck. She’s been here less than a day, and already she’s come dangerously close of discovering the one secret I won’t let her buy. That secret is fucking priceless, like the location of a live atom bomb. To find her like this, about to set it off—

  The sight of her in a blue dress she found in my closet overwhelms me. Inflames me. Earlier today I decided to exercise some self-restraint with her. Now that I have her back, I need to pace myself. I can’t devour her in a single day. I can’t hurt her. Not like that.

  There are other ways I can hurt her. Other ways I will hurt her. Getting close to her, even for this, is like stepping into a hot room in winter. My skin is supersensitive to my clothes. It has been since I put them on this morning, but now the sensation is intensified a hundredfold. My hands ache to touch her, but that’s only superficial—it’s an ache that extends to the parts of me I can’t let her see. The only way to sate myself is to make that pain her only reality.

  What I can’t do is let her know how precarious this little game is. For me, not her. While she babbles an apology, I swallow the stupid, harmful urge to tell her everything. I’ve never been so reckless and I won’t start now. Fuck that. I know how vulnerability ends. It ends with listening to the things you love struggle for a final breath in the hands of a person you hate. I’ll fucking play, because she wants to—because her eyes get so wide and hopeful, because her body loves being bent and punished. But I can only give her scraps at a time. My better instincts will prevail.

  My better instincts need her now.

  From the way she looks guiltily down at the filing cabinet and tries not to keep her hands in sight, I know she’s done more than search around in a document cabinet. Persephone can wear blue and red and pretend she’s not that linen-clad little thing, fresh off her mother’s fields, a new flower waiting to be plucked. But she is. We have much further to go before she turns into an autumn bloom.

  I go to her and she doesn’t run, she only trembles like the angel of air and sunlight that she is. She knows there is no escape from this darkness. She knows, and she still tries.

  “I got carried away,” she says urgently as I bend her over the desk with a hard shove that doesn’t leave room for argument. Persephone finds the crack in the wall. One errant tear flees down her cheek. Don’t worry, sweetheart. There will be more. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to get into your business.”

  I take a fistful of her hair, digging in until she whimpers.

  Fuck. I thought I’d killed and buried all these feelings, the hurt and the fear and the sick, pointless jealousy. Persephone is a conduit for those feelings. They radiate from her, drawing them out of wherever they’d gone to hide. I fucking hate that. She can never discover how helpless I am to her—to the need to come back to her, over and over again. Perhaps she already knows, and that’s why she’s chosen this as a way to entertain herself while she belongs to me. Forever is a long fucking time. If she puts her mind to it, she’ll buy every last secret from me. Except the one that’s not for sale.

  “Here is what you may know about my business.” I take a pen from the drawer closest to her and slam it shut, which causes a cascade of movements—she jumps, pulling harder against my hand, and lets out another half-cry. I wanted to fuck her long before I stepped into this room and now I want it so much that my practiced denial is crumbling under an onslaught of feverish need. “Are you paying attention?”

  Persephone’s eyes flick up toward me. With my fist in her hair and her head turned to the side, she has no choice but to pay attention. I just want to see those tears in her eyes. Her mouth forms the word yes.

  I draw an x on the calendar page that takes up most of the desk. As a rule, I never keep appointments on it. It’s only there so I can mark the passage of time. Every day gone is one less day I don’t have to live with myself.

  “This is my business.” A few inches below the X, I scrawl a rectangle. “This is your mother’s operation.”

  “Wedding flowers,” Persephone whispers.

  “Drugs.”

  Persephone stiffens. “No, she—she makes bouquets for people.”

  Demeter kept her daughter prisoner for years. I know she wasn’t kind—Demeter hasn’t been kind for years, despite the earth mother bullshit she uses as a front for her brand. She has her reasons. I study Persephone, the quiver in her chin and the way she worries at her lip. It carves out a space in my chest. One I can’t bear. She’ll go to the ends of the earth to defend her mother. I know, because once upon a time I would have done the same for my father. It took me years to grow out of that tortured, misguided longing.

  “No, sweetheart, she doesn’t.” Persephone flinches at sweetheart. Good. Below the rectangle I draw a bigger box. “And here is Zeus’s whorehouse. He had you dressed up as one of them. Any guesses what he planned to do?”

  She shakes her head. For a moment I consider making her guess. It would turn her on. Persephone is already wet. I don’t have to reach beneath her skirt to know it.

  Around all three marks I draw a circle, then throw the pen into the corner of the room. It hits the wall and clatters down. With infinite restraint I move Persephone’s head over the collection of marks and stab a finger onto the paper. “Be a good girl and tell me what the circle is.”

  “The train.” She tries to get up, but only succeeds in arching her back in a way that is going to take me out at the knees. “It’s the train.”

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know.” She can’t get my hand out of her hair and more than that she’s rocking back toward me. A greedy little slut. I push her all the way flat on the desk. Persephone barely turns her head in time to avoid getting her nose in the ink from my pen. My most fervent wish is that I could fuck her right now, like this, but there are punishments to be metered out first. She can’t get into the habit of digging in my cabinets.

  I lean down next to her ear. “Money. Drugs and whores are frowned upon by the federal government. They need my diamonds to make their money legitimate.” It pains me to stand up, but I do it anyway. “Our father was a titan of illegal businesses. Once he was gone, it made sense for Zeus and Demeter to take over what they could.”

  I let go of Persephone’s hair because I need both hands free and because if I keep fucking talking, I’ll tell her too much. Demeter has truly hidden everything from her, that bitch. She should have given her a basic lesson about how her life works. Now she’ll come to a far more painful understanding. At least I get to enjoy it.

  “What happened to him?”

  “We ate him alive.”

  I take her wrists and pull her forward so that her hands are off the other side of the desk, then pick up a small glass statue that normally sits at the corner of my desk. For years, it’s been a reminder of an unfulfilled contract. I turn Persephone’s hands palm up and make her hold it. Her fingers explore the shape.

  “A poppy?” she whispers.

  I ignore this. We’re not getting into the details of my agreements now. Not when I’ve alre
ady destroyed what little peace was left between Zeus and I. The repercussions of that fucking poppy go far beyond our financial ties.

  “I know I shouldn’t have looked,” Persephone says to the poppy. Is she just now realizing the consequences she’s brought on herself? “I just thought—”

  “It’s too late for that now.”

  I step back behind her and the sun catches in the paperweight. It shouldn’t be possible because of the windows, but the fucking sun has sought out the perfect angle to refract into my eyes, a stab straight through the head. It causes a brief loss of control in the form of a curse under my breath. I unbuckle my belt and slide it through the loops, test it in my hand. I shove the skirt of her dress up to her waist. She’s naked underneath.

  Persephone looks back toward me the best she can.

  “Is it the light that hurts you?”

  “Yes.” Fuck. I’m not thinking anymore, with heated blood and a pounding heart, and I need to fucking think. No. I need to hurt. I need to have. Slipping up like that is not an option. “But my belt will hurt you more. Ten if you can obey. Twenty if you drop the glass.”

  I bring it down onto her skin and she howls, throwing her head back, but she keeps the statute in her hand and stays still. The stripes are so red and she sound of her cries is so cleansing. It focuses my mind. It’s a release and a torture at the same time, because—two more—it’s not enough to claim her with leather. I want flesh, too. Need it.

  Four. Five. Six.

  “You’re here in my private quarters because I need you.” Another fucking slip. I meant to say I need to protect you. I can’t fucking stop myself. “Don’t fuck this up, sweetheart. Don’t disobey me.”

  Seven. Eight. Nine.

  She’s crying, tears flooding down her cheeks, face red. The sound of it hooks into my hidden places and drags me toward her. I lean down close. This next part she needs to hear, even though she’s sobbing. Especially because she’s sobbing. And because I need another opportunity to breathe her in, to put my lips close to her skin.

  “Don’t go looking through my desk.”

  I drive the last point home with a final strike. Persephone screams, her knees buckling, but she holds onto that damn paperweight like it’s a lifeline. The belt falls to the floor first, and I follow it to my knees. Force her legs apart. Drink her in.

  She is wet. I was right. And she tastes so fucking sweet that an old springtime explodes in my mouth. A clear day, my first dog still alive by my side, before summer was a killing pain. One breath—that’s all it takes for her screams to turn to moans.

  16

  Persephone

  I’m nothing but throbbing, heated flesh and this delicate poppy statue. Nothing, nothing. His punishment has left me a blank slate. Everything is chased away from my mind except the bruising pain on my ass and the slick, hot pleasure between my legs. If I didn’t know better I’d think I was drunk. That’s how it feels with Hades hands between the desk and my hips, pulling me back to his mouth. That’s how it feels, staring into the light captured in the statue. He—he didn’t say when I could put it down, so I’m going to assume that the answer is never. I’ll hold onto this statute for the rest of my life if he keeps doing what he’s doing.

  It feels so good. Not the crack of his belt—that felt bad, very bad. But every single stroke drove my desire deeper between my legs. He knew I was ready for him. I heard the sound he made when he knelt down behind me. I heard it, unless it’s part of a grand hallucination I’m having. The statue is what grounds me. It was real before this started, and it’s real now, so the rest of it must be real.

  My hips have nowhere to go. Hades told me to stay still, didn’t he? If he didn’t he’s making it happen through the force of his will and the hard boundary of the desk. There’s nowhere to go, so I open myself to him. He wants more than that. His fingers dig in and spread. I can’t hide anything, I can’t—and I don’t want to. All I want is to come.

  His tongue takes me there. The rhythm is too fast—wait, I try to scream, but nothing comes out except an anguished moan. His answer is another series of punishing licks. I’m getting hauled toward a vicious orgasm by a machine of a man. Crying makes no difference to him. It’s unbearably sexy.

  My orgasm winds and winds until it finally snaps, so powerful that I’m begging for him to stop almost as soon as it starts. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going and going until he’s devoured it from me, until I’m hanging limp over the desk. Still holding onto the glass poppy. I won’t let go. I won’t earn myself another ten strokes with his belt. I won’t, I won’t.

  He stands up behind me and one hand comes down on the desk, then the other. Thank you, desk. Without you I’d be a limp mess on the floor. Without you I wouldn’t be standing. The hard crown of him demands entrance and Hades takes me with one hard thrust of his hips.

  This time, I’m not the only one breathing hard.

  He’s a wild thing, all his muscle and power concentrated into fucking me. It forces the air from my lungs every time he enters. Hold onto the poppy, hold on, hold on. My ass smarts from the extra contact. Oh, it hurts, it hurts, I need it to hurt. A bolt of anger goes through me—why punish me like this? Why make me hold this stupid statue when I could be scrabbling at the desk and digging my nails into him? Because it’s better this way. Because I like it better this way. Twisted. Terrible. Dark.

  Light. Caught in glass, where I wouldn’t expect it to stay, but it does.

  Thoughts come one by one into my mind.

  All of this is connected.

  The poppy.

  The papers.

  The man behind me, driving into me with complete abandon.

  Pleasure and heat locking themselves together between my legs, skimming over a layer of pain that heightens everything until another orgasm sneaks up and pulls me under. Far under. One time when I was very small my mother took me to the beach. I didn’t see the wave until it was on top of me. Has Hades ever seen what water looks like from below the surface, with salt stinging his eyes and his lungs fighting for air? Has he ever felt that shock? He’s like a dark, unfamiliar room. None of our experiences line up.

  Except this one.

  This one...

  Now.

  He says something I don’t hear because all of my energy is focused on his cock inside me and the statue balanced on my palms. If I hold it as tight as he’s holding me I’ll break it. That will be enough for him to punish me. Of course it would. This is a precious object.

  Then he pushes himself inside, so deep it makes me cry out again—I will never stop, never stop—and his superheated release paints my insides.

  “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck.” His hands tighten on my hips, making me stay frozen to the desk. For once he’s the one with aftershocks rolling through him. I can feel them everywhere. My face flushes—he just fucked me over a desk and I’m the one blushing. Why?

  Hades banishes the thought with a final sharp slap to my ass, which layers itself on top of the burn and sinks in deeper. A shadow falls over me. I brace for more, fleetingly think of begging for it, but he only plucks the statue from my hands and puts it back on the desk.

  It was the statue holding me up, then. I slide off the surface of his desk unceremoniously, landing heavily in his arms before I hit the carpet. No, I’m going to tell him. I can walk. But I can’t.

  Hades carries me somewhere else. Light and shadow go by as he walks. I only know we’re back in the bedroom when he tips me into the sheets. The window’s gone dark again but I curl up on my side and look toward it anyway. Hades stands at the edge of the bed. It’s not like him, to take so long to decide. I’m already drifting off, letting go of the aches in my body and my heart, when the mattress bends. It’s another long while before he runs his fingers through my hair. It’s not easy, with hair like mine. You have to work at it. Maybe he can only be this gentle when I’m not looking at him.

  “I’ve said too much,” he mentions absently a while later. “You do that to
me.”

  My mouth doesn’t want to work, but if he’s inviting me to have a conversation, then we will have a conversation. “Do what?”

  He sighs. “Make me lose control of myself.”

  I think it through, my mind hazy from whatever that was. Punishment. Pleasure. Both. “We could make another trade.”

  His fingertips come down on my naked hip, and then he pulls the blanket up over me. “I already own you. What else could you give?”

  “I’ve thought about it.” Wake up, wake up. Stay awake. “The only thing you don’t have are my new thoughts. What’s inside my head right now.”

  “What gives you the idea that I care what you’re thinking about?”

  “You’re still here,” I whisper. “So you must want something else. And you can take anything you want from me. You can extract payment. You’re so big and strong, I can’t stop you.” I press my thighs together. It does nothing to stamp out the new shoots of desire there. “All I have are new thoughts.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He’s silent for a long time. “Give them to me.”

  I’m on the edge of drifting off, but I haul myself hand over hand back to enough of a semblance of consciousness that I can talk to him. “I used to dream about buildings. The New York Public Library.” The taste of the words is so familiar. An old dream. “I used to dream of walking by the lions out front on forty-second street.” I was never allowed to go to anywhere large enough to have a forty-second street. He’s never going to let me go, either. That’s why it’s a dream. A fantasy. It doesn’t compare to his fingers in my hair. “Going inside. There are so many books there.”

  “I gave you a library stuffed with books, you ungrateful little brat.” There’s no sting behind the words.

  “So?” I say, like an ungrateful little brat. “I wanted to go to the New York Public Library. That’s where I’ve always wanted to go.” I can’t open my eyes—my eyelids are far too heavy for that—but his body next to mine spurs me on. “Anyway, I was talking about my dreams. I dreamed of that place. I used to dream about it all the time. I would be there without my mother, and nobody would be able to stop me from reading anything I wanted. I’ve seen pictures. It’s beautiful there.”