Chapter 28: The Morning After
The dawn light was a gray thief, stealing the solid black of night and leaving the room in watery, shapeless gloom. Susanna had not slept. She had lain in the terrible clarity that follows a shock, listening to the building’s noises: the groan of pipes, the distant echo of a cough, the shift of the night nurse’s chair. Her body ached with a deep, pervasive tiredness, but her mind raced on a track with no exit.
Then she felt it. A weight on her hip, a warmth against her back. Lisa was there, curled around her, having slipped in silent and seamless as a shadow. One arm was thrown over Susanna’s waist, and Lisa’s hand was tucked between her thighs, palm pressed possessively against the thin cotton of her gown. She must have been there for hours.
Susanna didn’t move. She watched the light solidify on the far wall, tracing a crack in the plaster that looked like a river on a map going nowhere.
Lisa stirred. A slow, cat-like stretch that tightened her arm around Susanna’s middle. Her hand shifted, fingers curling inward, applying a subtle, insistent pressure. Susanna tensed. She was sore, yes, but beneath that was a treacherous, answering heat that spread instantly, shaming her.
“You’re awake,” Lisa murmured into her hair. It wasn’t a question. Her fingers rubbed in a small, knowing circle. “And you’re already wet again. Christ, Susanna. You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you?”
The words were sticky with sleep and superiority. Before Susanna could form a denial, Lisa was moving. She shoved, rolling Susanna onto her back and swinging a leg over her hips in one fluid motion. She straddled her, pinning her to the thin mattress. The morning light caught the sharp angles of Lisa’s face, the sleep-tousled wildness of her hair. She looked feral and beautiful, a creature of this place, fully adapted to its ecosystem of need.
“You think too much,” Lisa stated, her voice low. “I can hear it. The gears grinding. Let me shut it off for you.”
She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her own sweatpants and panties, shoving them down to her thighs. The musky, intimate scent of her body bloomed in the space between them. She was already slick, her skin gleaming in the low light. Susanna stared, mesmerized and appalled.
Lisa leaned forward, bracing her hands on either side of Susanna’s head. She lowered herself, not onto Susanna’s hips, but higher. She hovered over Susanna’s face.
“Open,” Lisa commanded.
Susanna’s lips parted on a shuddering breath. Lisa settled her weight, the wet heat of her cunt pressing directly against Susanna’s mouth. The taste was immediate, primal, and familiar now—bitter, salty, utterly Lisa.
“Taste me,” Lisa said, her voice a rough vibration above her. “Clean me up. You made this mess.”
Then she began to move. A slow, grinding roll of her hips that smeared her wetness over Susanna’s lips, her chin. Susanna’s hands came up, fluttering for a moment before settling on Lisa’s thighs. The muscle there was taut, trembling with controlled motion.
“Use your tongue,” Lisa ordered, her rhythm becoming more deliberate. “Don’t just lie there.”
Susanna obeyed. She closed her eyes, shutting out the room, the light, the reality. There was only this: the weight, the smell, the overwhelming intimacy of it. She tentatively flicked her tongue against Lisa’s folds, finding the swollen nub of her clit.
Lisa gasped, her hips stuttering. “Yeah. Like that.”
Encouragement was a drug. Susanna dove deeper, her shyness evaporating under the sheer physical feedback. She licked and sucked, mapping the texture of her, drinking in the fluid that leaked onto her tongue. She could feel the tension coiling in Lisa’s body, hear the hitches in her breath becoming sharp, shallow moans that Lisa bit back, burying her face in the pillow beside Susanna’s head.
Lisa’s hands tangled in Susanna’s short hair, not guiding, but holding on, gripping tight enough to hurt. She fucked Susanna’s face in earnest now, a steady, desperate rhythm, her hips pistoning, her cries muffled by cotton.
“Right there, don’t stop, right fucking there—” Lisa’s words dissolved into a broken string of grunts.
Susanna felt the moment it crested. Lisa’s whole body locked, a rigid arch, before shattering into a series of violent, shuddering contractions. A hot rush flooded Susanna’s mouth, more than before, a bitter-sweet gush that she had no choice but to swallow. Lisa collapsed forward, her weight heavy and spent, her forehead pressed to Susanna’s shoulder, her breath coming in ragged, hot bursts.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their breathing. The institutional hum of the wall. The distant clatter of breakfast trays beginning far below.
Lisa finally pushed herself up. She looked down at Susanna, whose lips were swollen, chin glistening. Lisa’s expression was unreadable—a flicker of something that might have been tenderness, quickly snuffed out by a harder, more familiar satisfaction. She swiped her thumb through the mess on Susanna’s chin and brought it to her own lips.
“Good,” she said, the word flat. She climbed off, pulling her clothes back up. She moved to the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. She didn’t look back.
“Group therapy at nine. Try to look like you didn’t just have my cunt for breakfast.”
The door clicked shut.
Susanna lay there, the taste coating her tongue, her mouth aching. She felt hollowed out, used as a vessel for Lisa’s release. The gray light was stronger now, exposing every stain on the wall, every threadbare patch on the blanket. She slowly sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her body felt both heavy and weightless.
She walked to the small sink in the corner and turned on the tap. Cold water. She cupped her hands under it, brought it to her face, scrubbed at her mouth and chin until the skin felt raw. She looked up into the small, steel-framed mirror.
The woman staring back had dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was a mess. Her lips were red, bruised-looking. She looked exactly like what she was: someone who had been consumed.
But in the depth of her own gaze, beneath the shame and the fatigue, a cold, clear thought formed. It was a pebble dropped into the murk. You took something from me. The thought wasn’t about her body, or her mouth. It was about the quiet, secret self that existed before Lisa, the one that observed and wrote things down. Lisa wanted that, too. To own the observations, to be the only thing worth writing about.
Susanna turned off the water. The silence felt different now. Not empty, but charged. She dressed mechanically. The taste, she realized, wouldn’t wash away. It was in her, part of the chemistry now. But as she buttoned her shirt, her fingers were steady.
She would go to group therapy. She would sit and listen. And she would observe. Not just Lisa, but everything. She would begin to write it all down again, in the hidden corners of her mind. It was a tiny rebellion, invisible. But it was hers. The first thread of a longer leash, perhaps, that she might one day learn to sever.