The Swan & the Jackal

  “Cassia,” I say, ready to hoist her off of me, tucking my hands underneath her thighs, “we shouldn’t do this right now.”

  What has gotten into her? Not that it bothers me—quite the opposite—but I get the feeling she’s jealous of Seraphina and is trying to take her place in all ways, not just in my heart.

  She frowns.

  “Don’t do that,” I say.

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  Reaching around her with one arm firmly around her waist so she doesn’t fall, I grab the iPad from the coffee table and toss it on the floor. Seconds after, I swipe away the files I had been reading about Kelly Bennings and Paul Fortright in Seattle. Photographs and sheets of white paper scatter about the accent rug. I lean over forward and Cassia instinctively grabs me around the neck to keep from falling backward, and I fit my hands about the upper legs of the coffee table, pulling it closer.

  I lay her down on it on her back.

  “What are you doing?” she asks with curiosity but no insecurity —she has an idea of what I’m doing.

  “Whatever I want,” I say, fitting my fingers behind the elastic of her panties and pulling them off.

  Grabbing her ankles, I prop her feet on the edge of the table.

  Her eyes grow wider.

  My dick gets harder.

  Her thighs fall apart before me, spreading like butterfly wings. I help her hold them still, grasping them with both hands, until she holds them still on her own.

  “If you swear to me you’ll never ask about Seraphina again”—I slide my middle finger between her nether lips, up and down twice before spreading her apart. She gasps.—“I’ll do this for you. Anywhere you want me to do it. Whenever you want me to do it. And often when you least expect it.”

  Her fingers curl firmly around the sides of the table, white-knuckling the grain. Her chest rises and falls with little pants that make me hungrier for her.

  I lean over and drag the tip of my tongue between her wet lips and she shudders and gasps.

  “But you have to fucking swear it.”

  I lick her again and push my index and middle fingers deep inside of her. Her head pushes back, arching her neck against the coffee table, her long blonde hair stark against the dark grain.

  “I swear it.” She shudders.

  With my fingers still inside of her, I flick my tongue against her clit.

  “Not very convincing, love.”

  I pull completely away from her, letting my back fall against the oversized leather chair, my long legs fallen open, leaving me the perfect view of her exposed naked body. My hands drape casually over the chair arms.

  “I swear it, Fredrik! I swear it!”

  “Don’t raise your head,” I tell her.

  She lays it back down.

  “I’ll never ask about her again,” she goes on pleading and it just makes me want to put more than my fingers or my tongue inside of her, but I won’t.

  “Hmmm,” I say, glancing upward at the ceiling, biding my time. “I’m still not sure I can believe you. I mean, you did promise me once before—”

  “I swear it, Fredrik—I’ll never even speak her name again.”

  That gets my attention.

  I raise my back from the chair and brush my hand against her thighs, only grazing the warmth between her legs to get to the other side.

  “Say you promise,” I say gently.

  “I promise,” she says in a shivering whisper.

  I stick my middle fingers inside of her, sliding them in and out carefully. A series of soft moans escape her. I play with her for a little while. Because I like to touch it. I could touch and probe her for hours and never get bored.

  More gasps, sweet and cock-throbbing, each and every time.

  Finally, my head falls between her trembling thighs and I lick her with furious intent, working my fingers inside and out at the same time. Cassia gasps, clutching the edges of the coffee table. Her stomach sinks in and she sucks in her breath to breathe in pants, revealing the outline of her ribs.

  I hear keys jangling in the front door, but I don’t stop.

  All I care about is sending Cassia into a delirious fit, splayed out right here in my living room.

  “Oh, Fredrik! Please don’t stop…”

  I don’t plan to, love.

  I suck her clit repeatedly into my mouth, pressing my lips hard against her pelvic bone.

  I hear another gasp, though it’s not coming from Cassia. I only stop when her thighs clamp around my head and she looks toward the living room entrance with an expression of horror.

  Greta is standing there with her mouth agape and eyes wider than Cassia’s legs had been.

  Without raising my body, I look across at her and say, “Do you mind waiting outside for about”—I figure it out in my head quickly—“a couple more minutes?”

  Greta, making me feel like she hasn’t been laid in a very long time, takes a few seconds to get her thoughts together.

  “I’ll be in the car,” she says, moving quickly toward the door. “Just wave at me when…you’re done.”

  The front door opens and closes so fast she probably ran the last few feet.

  “Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed!”

  “Don’t be,” I tell her while grasping her thighs firmly with both hands and spreading them away from my head. “Now be still.”

  “But I can’t—”

  “Oh, yes, you can. Trust me. Now lay your head back down.”

  Promptly, she does what I tell her and I go back to work.

  ~~~

  While Cassia is in my bedroom getting dressed, Greta is re-entering the house with absolutely no eye contact. Not that that’s unusual, but this time for very a very different reason.

  “I am so sorry, Mr. Gustavsson.” She sets her purse on the counter and then goes to drape her coat over the back of a barstool, but she misses and it falls to the floor instead. She bends over and tries again, fumbling it all the while. “You told me to let myself in. I just didn’t—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I step toward her. She steps to the side, dropping her gaze. I walk around her and toward the refrigerator. “It was my fault. I knew you’d be here, but…well, things happened that I didn’t anticipate.”

  “I’ll say,” Greta mumbles under her breath.

  I let it slide.

  Cassia enters the room, dressed in her gray tank top and a pair of my running pants covering her little pink panties. She can barely look Greta in the face, unable to contain the redness in her own. It’s so fucking cute I want to put her on the counter next.

  “Hi Greta.” Cassia waves her hand daintily.

  I open the refrigerator and take a water bottle off the top shelf.

  “Hi Cassia, dear. I uh, take it you’ve been doing well the past few days.”

  I shake my head at their awkwardness, but say nothing.

  If Cassia were standing on a beach, she’d look like she was shyly shuffling her toes in the sand.

  How can she and Seraphina be the same person?

  “Yes, Greta,” Cassia says with an unrelenting smile, “things have been wonderful.”

  Greta’s eyes finally find their way to mine, but she doesn’t look at me for long, just long enough to expose the uncertainty hidden within them. I let that slide, too. She’s just very motherly when it comes to Cassia, and quite frankly, I’m beginning to appreciate that about her even more now.

  Suddenly, realization sinks in and Cassia’s smile drops as she turns to me. If Greta is here it can only mean one thing.

  “Are you leaving?” Her sad eyes draw inward. It crushes me a little inside.

  “Yes.” I twist the cap off the water. “I have to meet someone in about an hour. It’s very important.”

  It’s important, but it also has me on edge. I almost don’t want to meet Izabel at the coffee shop because I’m afraid of what she’s going to tell me.

  Cassia steps up to me.

  “I don’t want you to go.” br />
  I set the water down and place my hands on her shoulders and lean in to kiss her forehead. “It won’t be for long. You’ll be all right.”

  Greta begins unloading the dishwasher, pretending not to be listening, but she’s hanging on every word.

  Cassia’s expression appears tortured. I know she doesn’t want me to leave her, but this isn’t only about that. She doesn’t want to go back into the basement and although I haven’t verified that’s going to happen, she knows that it will.

  I take her hand and she lets me.

  We leave Greta in the kitchen and I walk with Cassia down the concrete stairs, turning on the lights as I pass. I admit that even to me it feels like walking into a prison though I haven’t been the one confined in this place. I wish I could let her live freely in my house, able to look out the windows or even to go outside whenever she wanted. But right now that’s not possible. And it may never be.

  “You promise you won’t be gone long?”

  She lays her head on my chest, her arms bent and pressed between us, her fingers clutching my dress shirt.

  I cradle the back of her head in my hand, tightening my grip around her. “I promise.”

  Raising her face, she looks up at me with apprehension.

  “Fredrik?”

  I kiss her forehead.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  Cupping her face in both of my hands, I kiss her trembling lips.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “But I am. I’ll always be afraid.” Her fingers tighten around the fabric of my shirt.

  “Fredrik?” she repeats, though this time with reluctance.

  I soften my gaze, letting her know that it’s OK to talk about Seraphina—this is different.

  “Can you promise me that you’ll never let her hurt me again?” The corners of her eyes well up with moisture. “I know that you love her”—she tugs my shirt harder, seizing my wandering gaze—“I know you will always love her. But please, don’t ever let her hurt me again.”

  Looking her in the eyes and seeing only Cassia for the first time I say, “I’ll never let her hurt you again.” I kiss her forehead. “And I don’t think I want to find her anymore.”

  Cassia says nothing else as I lock the shackle around her ankle and make my way back up the concrete steps.

  Cassia

  I felt a smile try pushing its way the surface of my face, but it died too soon. My hands drop to my sides and I just stand here in the center of the room, the chain stretched out beside me on the floor. I should be happy about the last thing he said—I want to be, but I feel strange.

  I don’t know what’s happening to me.

  But I don’t like it.

  Fredrik

  With my coat already on and my keys in my hand, I head to the front door but stop at the kitchen entrance.

  “Greta, you need to understand something.”

  She sets the dish towel on the counter and walks around it toward me, her eyes never leaving mine as she senses the importance of what I’m about to say.

  “Cassia is dangerous”—Greta’s eyebrows harden instantly—“and you need to be careful around her.”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Gustavsson,” she says stepping right up to me, “but I thought you were past this. You told me the first week I began caring for her to be careful around her. You said it was because she couldn’t be trusted, but you—”

  “I know what I said,” I cut her off. “I know I eventually told you that it was OK, but the truth is I never should’ve allowed you to let your guard down around her. That was a mistake on my part.”

  “Cassia is harmless,” she says, crossing her arms covered by a knit blue sweater. “How can you say she’s dangerous after all this time? After what…,” she narrows her eyes, “…after what you’ve been through with her?” She’s referring somewhat to what she saw when she walked through the door tonight.

  “Listen to me,” I say with authority. “I’ll tell you more when I find out tonight in my meeting with Izabel. Hopefully I’ll have a better understanding. But until then, I want you to be on your guard around Cassia at all times.”

  “I will,” Greta says, dropping her hands to her sides and walking back around the counter. “But let me just say for the record—and you can kill me for saying it if you want—I trust her more than I trust you. Sir.” Her words were bitter, but heartfelt. She resents me for keeping Cassia a prisoner, for treating her like an animal—in her eyes—for even entertaining the thought that someone as sweet and caring as Cassia is, could be dangerous.

  “Your opinion is noted,” I say and open the front door. “I’ll be watching the cameras, so don’t do anything stupid.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Fredrik

  I pull into the parking lot of the coffee shop and find that Izabel is already here waiting for me fifteen minutes early. She’s not smiling when I approach her table in the far corner of the store. The only smile on her face is the lamentable kind when you’re about to give someone you love some devastating news.

  I want to turn on my heels and walk right back out the door. Maybe if I don’t listen to what she has to say none of it will be true.

  I sit down on the empty chair across from Izabel.

  I say nothing.

  Izabel takes a thick white envelope from her purse on the table and sets it in front of her covering it with her manicured fingers.

  I despise that envelope. It’s about to ruin my life and I want to set it on fire.

  Tearing my eyes away from it, I look only at Izabel.

  “How has she been?” she asks.

  “Actually, Cassia has been perfect,” I answer, as if that fact is going to negate everything she’s going to tell me. “No signs of her remembering that she’s Seraphina. I even let her out of the basement for the first time in a year. Took her out to eat and to the movies, you can believe that—Me. At the movies.” I didn’t realize how big my smile had gotten over the short time, but I couldn’t help myself as I recalled the past few days alone with Cassia.

  Izabel looks sympathetic and the smile dissolves from my face.

  “Fredrik, can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Sure.”

  I lean back against my chair and interlock my fingers across my stomach.

  Izabel keeps her hands on top of the envelope and I get the feeling she doesn’t want me to see what’s inside as much as I don’t.

  “Was your childhood anything like mine?”

  That takes me by surprise.

  I’ve never told Izabel about my past. The only two people—that I know of—other than Seraphina who know anything about it at all are Victor Faust and our ex-employer, Vonnegut. They knew because it was their business to know before I was recruited by The Order. But even still they don’t know everything.

  No one knew everything but Seraphina.

  “Somewhat like yours, yes.” I look at the wall behind her head.

  “Victor won’t tell me much about you,” she says gently, “because it isn’t my business unless you tell me yourself. I know this and I accept it. But I wanted to ask in case you felt close enough to me to tell me.”

  “What does my past have to do with what’s in that envelope, Izabel?” I still won’t look at the envelope. I see it in my peripheral vision, but I can’t force myself to look at it directly.

  “It’s just a question, Fredrik.”

  “No, it’s more than that,” I say and then lower my voice so the barista behind the counter won’t hear. “But yes, I was a sex slave, just like you were. Only I was one for a much longer time. And I wasn’t anyone’s favorite.”

  I didn’t mean for that last part to sound resentful or harsh, but by the offended look in Izabel’s eyes, I’m assuming it came out that way.

  Sighing with regret, I shut my eyes briefly and place my folded hands on the table. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

&nb
sp; Izabel softens her expression and nods gently. “I know.”

  “But I don’t know why any of this matters,” I cut in. “What does my past have to do with Seraphina?”

  “It has nothing to do with Seraphina,” she says. “I just want you to know that I’m here for you no matter what. You and me, we’re alike in many ways and I know that I was alone for a very long time because of the life I was forced to live. I had no one. Except for the girls who lived in the compound with me, but my relationships with them were always short-lived. They were either sold, committed suicide, or were murdered. I had no one, Fredrik. And I know how it feels to be alone and in a horrific life not of my choosing.”

  She leans forward, sliding the envelope to the center of the small table, but not yet ready to give it to me. Her eyes are sad and filled with understanding.

  “Not just recently,” she goes on, “but since the night I met you in Los Angeles, I saw in you the same loneliness and torment that was in me before I found Victor. People like you and me, we think we’re hiding our pain and darkness from the rest of the world, but we forget that we can see it plainly in each other.”

  I reach for the envelope, but she’s reluctant to move her hand away. Finally, she relents. I slide it over to me and keep my hand on top of it. But I’m not ready to read the contents.

  “I appreciate the heart-to-heart, Izabel, but—”

  “Fredrik, I’m afraid for you.”

  “Why? Because of this?” I tap the envelope with the tip of my finger without looking down at it. “I can handle it. Whatever it is I’m about to find out, I can deal with it.”

  “But I just want to say that Seraphina is not the only person in this world who has ever cared about you.”

  My fingers crush around the edges of the envelope.

  “Maybe not,” I say, “but she’s the only person who truly understood me.”

  Izabel nods pensively. “Yeah, but she doesn’t have to be.”