Chapter 3: The Fourth Surrender
The half-hour passed in a haze of damp towels, bottled water, and silence broken only by the city’s distant hum. Aidan dozed fitfully, his body tensing even in sleep. Mei-Ling sat in a sleek armchair by the window, knees drawn to her chest, watching the minute hand move on the modern clock. Catriona refreshed the candles, their new flames dancing higher, throwing fresh shadows across the mirrored sky.
“Time’s up,” Catriona said, her voice slicing through the quiet. She didn’t raise it. She didn’t need to.
Aidan’s eyes opened. He looked wrecked, but the hunger was still there, banked like hot coals. He pushed himself up, his movements stiff. Mei-Ling uncurled herself from the chair and walked back to the center of the room, her steps silent on the deep pile carpet. She stood waiting, a slight tremor in her thighs.
Catriona studied them both, a general assessing her troops. The predictable positions were losing their edge. The bed, the wall, the floor—they’d used them. She needed a new geometry.
“Come here,” she said to Mei-Ling, pointing to a spot on the floor before the bed. The girl complied, kneeling. Her back was to Aidan, a pale canvas marked with the evidence of his earlier releases.
Catriona then looked at her husband. “Sit on the edge. Right here.” She patted the mattress.
He obeyed, lowering himself, his legs spread. He understood nothing yet, which was exactly how she wanted it.
Without another word, Catriona moved behind Mei-Ling. She ran her hands down the girl’s sides, feeling the delicate cage of her ribs, the dip of her waist. Then she slowly, deliberately, straddled her from behind. She settled her weight, her own bare thighs framing Mei-Ling’s, her wetness a shocking heat against the small of the girl’s back. Mei-Ling gasped, a short, sharp intake of breath. Her spine went rigid.
“Shhh,” Catriona murmured into her ear, her lips brushing the shell. “You’re just the middle. The best part.” She locked her arms around Mei-Ling’s torso, her hands finding and gripping the sharp points of her hip bones.
She looked over Mei-Ling’s shoulder at Aidan, whose eyes were wide, his breath already coming faster. “Your view is a little obscured, darling,” Catriona said, a wild smile playing on her lips. “So you’ll have to go deep to find what you’re looking for.”
Aidan needed no further instruction. He pulled Mei-Ling forward by her shoulders, her body sliding through Catriona’s hold until she was positioned where he needed her. He entered her in one long, relentless push.
Mei-Ling cried out, the sound muffled as her face was pressed against Catriona’s inner thigh. The sensation was overwhelming—filled from the front, encased by Catriona’s body from behind, the heat and scent of the older woman engulfing her. Catriona held her tight, a living, breathing restraint.
“That’s it,” Catriona breathed, beginning to move her own hips in a slow, grinding rhythm against Mei-Ling’s back, using the friction of the girl’s skin. She was riding her as much as Aidan was. “Feel her, Aidan. Feel how she tenses around you when I move.”
Aidan was beyond words. His thrusts were jagged, desperate things, driven by the visual of his wife wrapped around the girl, by the triple-fusion of their bodies. Mei-Ling was moaning continuously now, low, vibrating sounds against Catriona’s skin. Her professional detachment was cracking, splintering under the sheer physical overload.
Catriona threw her head back, watching the mirrored ceiling. The tangle of limbs, the sheen of sweat on three bodies—it was a brutal, beautiful painting. She increased her pace, chasing her own climax against the other woman’s spine. “Inside her,” Catriona commanded, her voice tight. “Finish inside this time.”
With a broken shout, Aidan obeyed, driving deep and shuddering as he released.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of ragged breathing. Catriona slowly unwound herself from Mei-Ling, peeling away. She was flushed, triumphant. Aidan slumped back, spent.
But Catriona wasn’t done. “Look at her,” she said to Aidan, her voice dangerously soft.
Mei-Ling was on her hands and knees, head hung low, hair a mess. The internal claim Aidan had just made was invisible, but Catriona wanted a visible one.
“Not inside,” Catriona corrected herself, a dark whim taking hold. “On her. On her face. I want to see it on her face.”
Aidan looked dazed, exhausted. “Cat… I can’t…”
“You can,” she said, with absolute finality. “You will. For me.”
It took a minute, his hand moving roughly over himself, his gaze locked on Mei-Ling’s lowered head. Finally, with a groan that was mostly pain, he found a last, scant reserve. He moved forward, his hand guiding himself. Mei-Ling, understanding, lifted her chin and closed her eyes.
It wasn’t the earlier torrent. It was a few sparse, hot stripes across her cheekbone and lips. She didn’t flinch. She held perfectly still, a statue awaiting a final, desecrating touch.
Catriona crawled closer. She crouched in front of Mei-Ling, studying the result. Then, with a intimacy that felt more violating than anything that had come before, she leaned in and slowly licked a clean line through the mess on the girl’s chin. She tasted salt, bitterness, and the iron-like tang of utter exhaustion. She met Mei-Ling’s open eyes as she did it.
“Four,” Catriona whispered, the number a sacred incantation.
She stood, her legs unsteady. The room swam. The candles were guttering, pools of wax on the surfaces. Six to go. The night felt both eternal and like it was rushing toward a precipice.
Mei-Ling finally moved, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth. When she looked up at Aidan, there was no resentment, no anger. There was only a deep, unsettling understanding. They were all prisoners of the same script, bound by Catriona’s will, chasing a finish line that seemed to keep moving further into the dark.