Obsession (Year of Fire) (38 page)

“What do I do now? I want to please you, I want to do this well.”

“My love…” he mumbled, and stretched out his arms to raise himself above her. He plunged inside her until he started to allow himself to enjoy the feeling, and the pleasure left him exhausted.

Unconsciously, Matilde dug her nails into his back, amazed at Eliah’s intimacy, at once dominant and strong, vulnerable and devoted. His hoarse shouts cut right through her while his thrusts made her shudder and his pained face shocked her. He collapsed, relieved, on top of her, and Matilde grabbed his neck.

“Now I’m cured.”

“Now you’re mine,” he said.

Al-Saud continued to love Matilde until she had her first orgasm. Although he had explored her thoroughly and there wasn’t an inch of her skin that he hadn’t claimed as his, she was still a mystery to him. This was the first time she had ever felt sexual relief.

“You never masturbated?” he asked her, incredulous, and she, still trembling with her eyes closed, shook her head. “Matilde, my love,” he whispered.

“Eliah, kiss me, please.”

They sank into an embrace of burning skin, tangled thighs, thirsty mouths and irreverent hands. Matilde slipped hers between their bodies
and surprised him by grabbing his member as she had seen and read in
The Perfumed Garden
. He arched and moaned as though he was dying. His penis grew in Matilde’s hand while their kiss deepened and Eliah’s fingers opened the lips of Matilde’s vulva. They would never get their fill, this would go on forever.

“Can I get on top?”

“You can do anything you want. Put the condom on me first.”

“Me?”

He showed her how and she giggled nervously. He helped her to get on top of him and to slide him into her firm, hot flesh until her body swallowed him entirely. Then he showed her how to rock back and forth. Eliah didn’t dare to do anything, he simply limited himself to admiring her. She reminded him of a pre-Raphaelite model, voluptuous but tiny. A mystery. His Matilde. His love. His woman with a girl’s face, with no hair, with freckles and pigtails. She definitely hadn’t been a part of his plan. In truth, he had never been looking to fall in love. This kind of passion complicated a wanderer’s life like his. And yet it was already impossible to conceive of a life without Matilde. The enormity of this thing growing inside him excited him. He straightened up to face her. Matilde shifted and settled into his new position.

“Look at me,” he demanded, and for a few seconds they contemplated each other in silence. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“And you’re the best thing to have happened to me in my life. You’re my savior.”

Pleasure overtook them once more as they kissed and they moaned into each other’s mouths before falling apart onto the bed. There they remained until they got their breath back. Matilde slipped out from under his weight and got out of bed. Intrigued, Eliah sat up to observe her. Matilde spun around on tiptoes with her hands reaching up toward the ceiling, her nudity half-covered by her long hair.

“I’m cured!” she cried out. “I’m cured!”

Eliah jumped up toward her, lifted her into the air and spun her around. Both of them were laughing.

“I want you to know something. This is the first happy day of my life. And I owe it to you.”

Eliah swallowed the lump in his throat and blinked a few times to halt the prickling in his eyes. He remembered Sofía and Juana’s words.
“I’m warning you, nephew, that girl is an angel fallen to earth. Don’t hurt her. She has suffered too much in her life already.” “She’s suffered everything under the sun. Our gentle little Mat had to put up with it all on her own, because with the family that was given to her, she got no help from anyone.”
Just as before, his nerve failed him. He didn’t want to know. He couldn’t bear her pain. Hearing about the rape had devastated him.

“It’s the first, my love, but not the last.”

“I want more,” Matilde said playfully. “Is there more?”

“I’ve created a monster,” he said, flopping back onto the bed face up, his arms out like a cross.

Matilde was watching him sleep. She knew the titanic effort he had made to make sure that she had her first orgasm, and then he had given her one more. At the beginning of the night she hadn’t aspired to feel what Juana was always talking about, “the orgasm”; she would be satisfied just by being able to accept a man’s member in her body, like any normal woman. But Eliah had given it to her; he had given her everything. There was no way she could sleep with the eruption of feelings flowing out of her. Most prominent was happiness, which she was feeling for the first time, so pure and real that it kept her pulse racing. She slipped out from under Al-Saud’s arm and left the bed. She felt a slight ache between her legs and smiled. She put on his shirt and inhaled with her eyes closed as a wave of A*Men filled her nostrils. She walked toward a small room separated from the bedroom by a lancet arch. The room was circular, and the concave closets, one after the other, floor to ceiling, followed the outline of flower petals drawn on the hardwood floor. It was still dark. She pressed her forehead and hands against the leaded glass and sobbed quietly.
Thank you, Blessed Virgin, for protecting me from death so I could experience this happiness with Eliah.

She went back into the room, drying her tears on his shirtsleeve. He was still sleeping, lying facedown, his face obscured by his hair. She walked toward the door that led to the huge bathroom, with three sinks
on a marble counter, a large Jacuzzi and a shower with a glass door. There was no bidet. She was drawn to the bottles of cologne on the shelf, A*Men and a few more. She tried them all and spun around with her arms out so the fragrances would swirl around her. Every detail fascinated her, even the Roger & Gallet hand soap. Before she left, she looked in the wastebasket, where Al-Saud had thrown the condoms full of semen. A chill ran through her. Had she really experienced that night of passion?

She went back into the flower-shaped room and saw that it was dawn. The leaded closets led to an Andalusian-style internal patio, decorated with a majolica fountain and palm trees. She went back into the bedroom and discovered another door opposite the bathroom. She opened it. A fresh scent, like pines, rushed out to meet her. She fumbled along the wall until she found the light switch. It was Eliah’s dressing room.
If Juana could see this
, she thought as she walked into the oblong room. There was an endless number of suits, coats, jackets, shoes, sneakers, pants, shirts, T-shirts, ties and belts. Finally, across from the door, there was a mirror that took up the entire wall. Matilde studied her reflection from various angles, trying out different gestures and looks. The shirt was huge on her, hanging down past her knees. She covered her face and laughed when she thought of the things Eliah had done to her. He was so skillful and passionate, he wasn’t afraid of anything, he was unstoppable. He was free and he had cured her. An image in the mirror caught her eye. It was her jar with its little embroidered cap; it was clean and empty. Eliah was saving it among his watches, more bottles of cologne, a few wallets, cuff links of every kind and a silver billfold.

She heard footsteps. She checked that Eliah was still asleep and peeked through the door to the hall and saw a young girl coming toward her with her coat and black gloves and a pile of towels. She darted back just as the girl nudged open the door to come in. They both stood there, silently observing each other. Panic and doubt started to cloud Matilde’s mood until the girl’s childlike smile—showing all of her teeth with her cheeks raised so high that her eyes were squeezed into a squint—shook her out of it. She watched the girl put the coat and long gloves on a chair. The little wave the girl made to usher her into the bathroom made her laugh. Matilde saw that she knew the house and moved around it with authority. She opened the wardrobe that Matilde hadn’t yet dared to snoop inside
and put the towels on a shelf. Then she turned around and smiled again. Matilde introduced herself in French, but the girl kept her mouth shut and just looked her up and down, shamelessly. Matilde decided that she was very pretty in spite of how short her ash-blonde hair was cut. The boyish haircut had a dramatic effect on her soft, round features—it looked like a badly positioned wig on a doll. She had a small, straight nose, a small mouth with succulent lips and enormous, dark eyes. Tall and thin, she dressed simply, though her clothes were good quality.

The girl came over and brushed some hair off her face. For a second, Matilde was afraid that she would slap her. On the contrary, she stroked and smelled her. She indicated that she wanted Matilde to sit on the toilet cover and braided her hair into pigtails. The house and the girl, thought Matilde, were both part of the dreamlike sensation that was overwhelming her.

“Matilde!” Eliah’s voice caught them off guard, and the girl waved at her to tell her to answer his call.

Matilde found him sitting up in bed, his back against the headrest, his torso naked and his hair tousled. Even like this, she thought he was extremely beautiful.

“Where were you?” he asked her, impatiently, almost irritably.

“In the bathroom, with a girl who brought the towels.”

“
Bonjour, ma petite!
” said Al-Saud, and the girl ran to the bed with the clumsiness of child and jumped into his arms.

Matilde couldn’t believe her eyes. Eliah held her and spoke to her in French and the girl nodded or shook her head without making a sound. Once in a while they would look at her.

“Matilde, this is Leila, a great friend, who keeps the house in order.”

Leila disentangled herself from Eliah’s embrace and walked toward Matilde. She stroked her cheeks and held up her braids.

“You see how beautiful she is, Leila?”

The girl nodded vehemently and mimed bringing a cup to her lips.

“Yes, bring us breakfast please.” To Matilde he said in Spanish, “What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?”

“I would die for a mate, but I’d be fine with a coffee with milk, please.”

“
Café au lait pour Matilde, ma petite.
”

The door closed behind Leila, and Eliah reached out to Matilde. She clambered up the plinth onto the bed and crawled toward him. Her
braids brushed against the bedspread and her breasts swung under her shirt. Nothing could better sum up Matilde’s paradoxical nature than the little girl’s pigtails and those woman’s breasts. Eliah remembered how anxiously he had sucked on them the night before, and his penis started to perk up. He grabbed her arm and pulled her on top of him.

“Good morning,” she said, and Eliah inhaled her fresh, sweet breath and the fragrances that wafted from her skin.

“Good morning, my love. How do you feel?”

“Happy. Completely happy.”

His smile took her breath away. She stroked his darkened cheek.

“Don’t shave today. I love how you look with stubble.”

“And I love everything about you, Treasure Chest Martínez. My tarantula.” He put his hand under her shirt and pinched her bottom. He had never seen such a mouthwatering behind; it was small but pert.

I’m so lucky to have found you
, Eliah thought, but he didn’t dare to say it, because he still harbored doubts about her feelings.
What am I to you, Matilde? Only your healer? Will you go to the Congo and leave me?
He kissed her for a long time, slowly, savoring her mouth, playing with her tongue. They broke off the kiss and were lost in each other’s gaze.

“Are you okay?” he wanted to know, putting his hand over her vulva.

“Yes, very okay.” She didn’t mention that she felt a burning sensation when she walked; she was afraid he would refuse to make love again.

Leila came in, pushing a little table on wheels.

“How did she get that up here?”

“There’s an elevator in the service area. It’s as old as the house. It must be one of the oldest elevators in Paris. Later, when I give you the tour, I’ll show you.”

Leila served them and left. They were starving and ate with relish. Eliah rejoiced at the image of Matilde eating her second croissant and drinking all of her
café au lait
.

“Tell me about Leila. She’s just mute. She didn’t seem to have any problem hearing.”

“She’s not even mute. She’s just decided not to talk anymore.” He told her the story of the Huseinovics, though he didn’t mention that Diana and Leila had been raped by the Serbians; he couldn’t mention it without evoking Matilde’s confession from the night before. “A few days after
they were freed from Rogatica”—he also omitted the fact that he had led the rescue team—“Leila started to behave very strangely and only communicated through gestures. We’ve consulted the best psychologists and psychiatrists in Paris. They all agree that she will decide when she wants to return to the world of adults. Perhaps she’ll prefer to be a little girl for the rest of her life.”

“Do her siblings live with you as well?”

“No. Diana and Sándor rent their own apartments in the suburbs of Paris, though they often come to visit Leila. They work for Mercure.”

“How strange that Leila prefers to live with you and not her siblings!”

“A psychiatrist told me that she sees me as the father figure that she needs to feel protected.”

“How did you meet?”

He was reluctant to tell her the truth. He wasn’t ashamed of his career—God knew that mercenaries and war professionals were as necessary as doctors and engineers, but ordinary people didn’t understand that, and he was worried about what Matilde might think.

“Her siblings work for me, that’s how I met her.”

“Yes, I know. Diana was the one that got me out of the convention room.”

I never would have let one of my men put their hands on you
, he thought sincerely.

“Leila turned out to be an excellent cook and I brought her to live with me. She lived with me at my old apartment before I moved here. Now she’s in charge of the house and gives orders to my two other employees, Marie and Agneska. She doesn’t act like a little girl when it comes to that, I promise you.”