Persephone in Winter

“She does love you. Perhaps too much.”

Simon’s voice still carried the same self-confidence that Steven remembered from the only other time he had heard it. His thumb hovered over the “End” button, an instant away from silencing him. Instead, he pulled the car to the side of the road, unable to look away from Elyse’s name staring back at him from the tiny glowing screen.

“How did you get her cell?” Steven asked, after a moment’s pause. He was determined not to let the defeat show in his own voice, but doubted that Simon would be fooled.

“There’s no shame in fleeing from a blow to your very heart, a blow that may keep one from returning to fight another day.”

“Arrogant fuck!” Steven shouted into the tiny phone. His hand closed around it, now so tightly it dug into his palm like a weapon sent not to kill, but to merely torture him.

“Arrogant, Steven? Do you see this as arrogance? Is asking a husband to rescue his loving wife arrogance? Is warning her husband that her very life depend on his actions arrogant?”

“What have you done to her?” Steven shouted again, now shaking violently with both anger and fear.

“Have you’ve ever taken her for granted, ever disappointed her, Steven? Think about those times, every one, however frivolous or short-lived. No doubt at least a few of those times were taken to heart more deeply than you imagined. But you know that, don’t you, Steven? Inside, you’re afraid to own them, afraid to count them, afraid they might justify her surrender to another man. Don’t disappoint her this time, Steven. It may be your last chance.”

The phone went silent. Elyse’s name vanished from the screen, the connection severed. At that instant, Steven felt the delicate thread connecting them stretched to near breaking. Would he hold tight while Elyse dangled from the opposite end, or release her, letting her fall helplessly, even perhaps willingly, into Simon’s hands?

A light rain pelted the windshield, and the darkened streets became slick, black mirrors, each abstract reflection suggesting the existence of some unseen world beneath the black asphalt. A sudden gust of wind heaved an overhanging branch toward him, then away, it’s leaves waving the way to his new destination. Steven turned the car around and drove back into the night.

Steven retraced the route to Simon’s estate not by effort of memory as before, but by sheer determination, as if guided by the programmed instructions of a hidden subroutine triggered by something he chose not to understand or question. The mist on his windshield turned to a wall of water bursting from the night sky. Flickers of lightening in the distance now found him, the stabbing electric explosions of light and thunder following him as he drove. There was a time when he might have thought of the weather as a horrific monster, some bizarre extension of Simon, intntionally impeding his way to save his wife. But Steven drove on, unaffected, untouched by demons he had feared for so long.

He found the entrance easily, turning sharply into the wide space in the dark hedges that hid the property from sight. The drive swept to the left, still lined by ten-foot hedges, concealing any trace of the inner grounds from the street. Steven stopped the car before the huge iron gate, the headlights suddenly revealing his worst fears.

Elyse hung from the gate, her arms outspread, her wrists tied to the heavy bars. She was naked, her alabaster skin glowing against the black night. Her head hung forward, her dark hair a solid, drenched curtain that hid her face from him. Steven stared, fixed to the steering wheel, searching desperately for a hint of life, one breath that might give him the strength to escape the suffocating fear that had again become an unwelcome passenger within the car. A sudden blue-white burst of light turned the night to day for a split second, accompanied by an immediate deafening crash of thunder. Steven’s hand rose to shield his eyes to the blinding light, shuddering as the thunder rocked the car. Then, focusing once more on Elyse’s glistening ivory body, he noticed an almost imperceptible rise and fall of her breasts, a shallow breath that became a ray of hope as the raindrops fell, one by one, from her small red nipples.

Steven bolted from the car and ran to her. He lifted her head and found her eyes open, staring back at him, as wide and full of life as he had ever remembered. “Steven,” she whispered. ‘Steven…” She smiled at him – not the weak, trembling smile he might have expected, but a full, luscious one, with open lips and dazzling teeth. Startled for a second, he moved away an inch, then went to work untying the bonds that held her to the gate. To his surprise, they were made of soft, hollow, velvet cord, and came undone easily.

Elyse fell into his arms, her soaked body melting into him, wetting his clothes until he felt naked against her. She reached up and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him fiercely, ravaging his mouth with her tongue. Steven felt her hand snake past his belt, fighting to find his cock, her body now writhing against him. She began to moan into his mouth as they kissed, crushing her body against his, desperate in her sudden heat. Atop the tall pilaster beside the gate, the tiny red light of the camera winked on and the glass eye rotated silently toward them.

Suddenly, Steven broke their kiss and held her at arms length.

“What is this, Elyse? Some kind if trick? What is it with you? Do you need him that much? That you pretend I’m him, even after he throws you out? What’s wrong with you? What do you want, Elyse? You have to tell me! You have to decide! You have to tell me what you fucking want, Elyse!!!”

As Steven spat the words at her, he pushed her away and she fell backwards, landing in the soft wet grass beside the gate. Rising up on her elbows, she pulled her knees up, spread her legs, and grinned at Steven with the same wanton confidence Simon had shown her during their first meeting.

Steven stared, no longer able to cope rationally with the invading threads Simon had woven into their marriage, into Elyse, and even into himself. He wanted to unravel everything, to return their life to the past, to the ordinary, to make Elyse the wife she was before Simon’s meddling. Anger welled up inside him. ‘Damn him! Damn her! Damn me!’

“So, is this what you want?” He raged at her, stripping of his wet clothes, tearing at them as though he was tearing at his own skin. “To be fucked? Like an animal? Like a fucking whore?”

Elyse spread her legs wider, still grinning, quietly inviting his threats. Steven went to her, hitting the ground hard with both knees, landing between her legs. He took her wrists and pulled them roughly over her head, waiting for her to come to her senses, to beg him to stop. Elyse closed her eyes and moaned.

“If you want to be fucked like a whore, I’ll fuck you like whore! Is that how he does it? Is this how he fucks you, Elyse?”

Steven plunged into her, forcing her to take the entire length of him at once. Her body shook as he slammed into her again and again, taking her as roughly as he could, imagining how Simon might have poisoned her against him. But with each stroke of fury came satisfaction, and then excitement. All fear and uncertainty came boiling out of him, and with it, filling the space they occupied, came a feral sexual appetite fired by a bewildering new strength.

Then, as their eyes met once more, Steven slowed his pace, moving inside her as he once did in the comfort and safety of their own bed. Her grin faded, and he recognized the familiar soft features of the woman that loved him.

“This is what I want, Steven. I want this, with you, not with him. It’s what you want too, isn’t it?”

Steven kissed her, softly at first, then harder, biting her lip, feasting on her neck, as his pace returned to its former fury. Elyse laid her head back on the wet grass and closed her eyes, feeling the slowing raindrops dance against her face. She spared him nothing. Each moan and whimper was only for Steven now, and she knew he understood that.

“Yes – Steven. This – is what – I want. It’s – what I’ve – always – wanted.”

High above them, the camera turned slowly and silently away, the tiny red light winked out, and the glass eye went still, its watch given up not with discretion for modesty, but with a sense of satisfying completion. And below, two new lives were born in the first rain of spring.