Translucent (17 page)

“But I have work in the morning, and I don’t have any clothes to wear.”

“We can get up early so you can stop by your place to change on the way to the office.” He raises his eyebrows as he explains the plan, and I know better than to argue. I’m happy he wants me to stay, but naturally a little apprehensive as well. My biggest fear is having him witness one of my nightmares, or me talking in my sleep and revealing information about my past life.

“Stop overthinking it,” he says softly. Reaching up, he lightly sweeps his fingers across each of the features of my face—first, around my eyes, then down the bridge of my nose, and finally, across my bottom lip. “Since I’ve met you, you’ve had this impervious shield wrapped tightly around you, and though I don’t know who or what caused you to hide behind it, I understand it’s for your self-preservation and protection. However, tonight, I feel like I’ve finally cracked through the density of the darkness, even if it’s just a little bit, and I’m not ready to let go of that quite yet. Please, stay the night with me, sweet girl. It would please me greatly.”

I want nothing more than to please him, especially after what he just did for me, so I nod and smile shyly. “Okay, I’ll stay if you’ll let me borrow a t-shirt to sleep in.”

Rolling off the opposite side of the bed, he retrieves a shirt for me as I locate my panties and glide them back up my legs. Once I’m dressed for bed, I wait for him to tell me what side I’m supposed to sleep on, or how all this works. He loses his jeans, leaving him only in his black boxer briefs, and I marvel at his overall handsomeness. He climbs back onto the bed and situates himself on the left side, holding the sheet out for me to crawl over and join him in the spooning position. Careful not to touch my wounds, he loosely wraps his arm around my chest and nuzzles his face into the back of my neck.

“Goodnight, sweet girl.”

“Goodnight, Sir.”

T
HE
ALARM
ON
MY
PHONE
goes off at six o’clock sharp, waking me from a restful sleep. Still swathed in Madden’s arms, I carefully slither out from underneath him, trying not to wake him up. Apparently, I didn’t have any night terrors, nor did I try to attack him or myself in my slumbered-state, which happily makes three nights in a row. Pressing buttons on the touch screen until the damn thing finally shuts up, I slide off the bed and head downstairs towards the kitchen in desperate need of water for my parched mouth.

As I near the bottom of the staircase, I hear a female voice echoing through the lower level of the house, and the smell of bacon frying grows stronger. Alarmed, I freeze dead in my tracks, trying to figure out what is going on. Listening carefully, her voice becomes clearer, and I realize she’s not singing in English. The foreign words sound eerily familiar, and all of a sudden, I can’t breathe. Collapsing on the stairs, everything fades to black.

“
Sorria e aja como você se estivesse feliz
,” Ish warned me through gritted teeth as we posed for our wedding pictures. “
Me beija. Agora
.”

Scared of what would happen if I didn’t, I kissed him for the cameras, put on my fakest smile, and did my best to pretend I was happy in front of our families and friends. It had only been a couple of weeks since the bloody episode in Bloomington, and he and I had hardly said ten words to one another since. Our normal schedules resumed—I made his breakfast, he’d leave for work and not come home until late in the night, and most nights, he’d take what he wanted from my body. I’d bury my face in the pillow and cry until he was finished, and then scoot as far away from him as possible in the bed to sleep.

The wedding ceremony went on as planned; Brandon walked me down the aisle, unknowingly handing me over to the devil, and everyone clapped after we said our I dos. The reception was an interesting mix of my small family and high school friends, his mom, who spoke to no one, and his dad, along with their ‘extended’ Italian family. Take away his mom and the twenty or so guests there for me, and it could’ve been a scene directly from The Godfather.

The following morning, we left for our week-long honeymoon at
Ponta dos Ganchos
, the exclusive, adults-only resort in Santa Catarina, Brazil. Because we were returning to her homeland, his mom accompanied us, which I was secretly thankful for, hoping she would serve as a shield of sorts for his brutal behavior. However, once we arrived, we left her to stay with family, while he and I took a private helicopter to get to the remote resort.

Our first couple of days there were pretty uneventful. The place itself was spectacular, with lush grounds and beautiful private villas. We spent most of our time lying out on the beach, and eating and drinking at our leisure. Conversation between us was still strained at best, but he made an effort to be nice to me, complimenting me on how I looked in the thong bikini he insisted I wear, and telling me that marrying me was the best thing he’d ever done. I tried to be as pleasant as possible, not wanting to upset him, fearful of the repercussions if I did. On the afternoon of the third day, I walked up to the bar at the beach to get us both a drink, when a nice-looking guy I’d seen around the premises said hello to me and asked me how I was enjoying my vacation. Being polite, I answered him and made a little small talk as I waited on the bartender to make the drinks. When I returned to Ish at the lounge chairs, I knew something was up, but couldn’t see the look in his eyes because they were hidden behind his sunglasses.

“I see you made a friend,” he said curtly, taking his drink from my hand.

Sitting down in the chair next to him, I replied nervously, “Not a friend. He was simply saying hello.”

“You aren’t really that fucking stupid are you, Bry?” he scoffed. “The guy was all but drooling all over your tits, and he couldn’t tear his eyes off your ass as you walked away.”

“You’re the one that made me wear this skimpy thing,” I argued, trying to adjust the small yellow triangle covering each of my boobs, “and he didn’t say anything inappropriate; he just asked how our vacation was going.”

“Stop talking. Your job is to be seen, not heard.” Then he stood up and walked off to an area on the beach where a group of other hotel guests—mostly women—were gathered on the beach. Laying my head back on the chair, I shook my head in disbelief over the situation I’d found myself in, knowing there was never going to be a way out. When he hadn’t returned in nearly an hour, I glanced over to where he and the rest of the group were, only to see some other woman wearing just a thong standing directly in front of him, obviously rubbing her ass cheeks up against his cock. His hands were on her hips, and he was whispering something in her ear. Sadly, I wasn’t surprised at his actions, nor did I really care all that much, other than it made me look like a fucking idiot as my husband allowed some bimbo to dry fuck him in front of everyone. I wanted badly to get up and go say something, but once again, the fear of how he’d react controlled me. Instead, I stood up and went back to the bar for another drink. I needed alcohol to numb my emotions.

That evening, as we dressed for dinner, Ish walked in the bathroom carrying a silver dress I’d never seen before. “Wear this tonight and find your friend from the bar earlier. I want to watch you seduce him. Do whatever it takes to get him back here to our villa, and then I will watch you fuck him like the little whore you are.”

“Ish,” I gasped, stunned by his words, “I can’t do that. I won’t do that. You’re fucking crazy.”

In less than a second, he had his hands around my neck and his forehead smashed against mine. “You can do it, and you will do it, because it’s WHAT I WANT,” he snarled at me in the most unnerving tone. “You are now my wife, my legal possession. You do what I say, or there will be consequences to pay. Do I make myself clear?”

His grip on my neck was beginning to restrict my air passage, and all I could do was nod as my eyes filled with tears. Releasing me, I fell into a heap on the floor, and he threw the dress at me before walking out of the room and calling, “We leave in twenty minutes. Get dressed now.”

Two hours later, I was naked and bent over the bed Ish and I had just shared the night before as Leandro, also known as my friend from the bar, stroked his massive erection in and out of me, while Ish jacked off in the chair in the corner. I’d never before felt like such a cheap, worthless piece of garbage as I did in that moment. Forcing myself not to gag during the entire experience, I was thankful when I felt Leandro’s body tense up and heard him scream out as he spurted warm semen onto my lower back. Ish’s moans of delight quickly followed, and as soon as he was finished, he stood up from the chair and walked over to the small closet in the villa’s bedroom.

Pulling out a small black duffel, he walked over to where Leandro and I were on the bed. He grabbed some sort of cloth from the bag, and in the blink of an eye, had Leandro handcuffed and gagged. It all happened so fast; I started to scream, but grew quiet when Ish told me to shut up. He then pulled out a small machete-looking weapon, and without warning, cut off Leandro’s dick.

“Nobody but me sticks their cock inside my wife…” he started with an evil smile. Leandro’s eyes rolled back in his head as he tried to cry out, the excruciating pain unbearable. As calmly as ever, Ish grabbed him by the hair and slashed his neck directly across the jugular, just like I’d seen him do two other times, as he finished his sentence “…and lives to tell about it.”

No longer able to control myself, I emptied the contents of my stomach onto the tile floor, next to wear Leandro’s lifeless body laid in a growing puddle of blood. Ish calmly walked over to the dresser, pulled out some fresh clothes, and announced, “Clean this shit up. I’ll have someone come get the body in a little bit.” After wiping the blade clean with a towel, he returned the knife to the bag and sat it back in the closet before walking out of the villa.

A little while later, I’d cried out every last drop of moisture in my body and had almost cleaned up all of the blood and vomit using every last towel I could find, when a strange man dressed in solid black walked into the room—no knocking, no words, nothing. With gloved hands, he placed the body into a plastic bag and walked out. I finished cleaning up the area where the body had been, and then curled up in a ball on the bed, doing the only thing I knew to do—I prayed for God to rescue me from the hell I was in.

Unfortunately, the next morning, I woke up in the same place. The aroma of breakfast being cooked filled my nostrils, and as I rolled off of the bed, I assumed Ish was cooking me breakfast as a way to apologize for the horrid events yesterday—as if that would make up for any of it. However, as I trudged out of the bedroom, into the living room and kitchen area of the cottage, I found the woman from the beach yesterday standing naked at the stove, singing some love song in Portuguese as she fried bacon. Ish was also naked, but sitting at the table watching her every move as his hand pumped up and down on his hard shaft.

“
Princesa Americana
, you’re awake!” he exclaimed when he saw me, as if everything was normal. The blonde woman turned around, smiled at me, and gave me a quick wave.

I said nothing; I simply looked back and forth between the two of them in disgusted disbelief.

“Don’t be rude to our guest,
Princesa
. Say good morning to Stacia,” he scolded me.

“Morning,” I mumbled, still standing in the doorway.

“Come sit down next to me, Bry. I want to show you something,” he instructed.

Shuffling my feet towards the table, I slumped down into the chair next to him. Stacia brought over two plates of piping hot eggs, bacon, and beans, and set them down in front of him and me.

“Come here, Stacia,” he commanded her. “Now that you’ve cooked a proper breakfast, I want you to show
minha Princesa Americana
how a woman should fuck her man. I’m ready for you again.”

She looked down at his large erection in his hands and giggled. Straddling his lap, she wasted no time in bouncing up and down on his cock as he played with her clit and sucked on her enormous boobs. I looked down at my food, trying my best to ignore what was happening right next to me, but Ish noticed.

“I said watch and learn,” he barked at me. He then stood up abruptly, with her still attached to him, and twisted them both around so that she was on her back on the table and he was standing up, pumping in and out of her. “Do you see how she’s playing with herself, Bry? I like that. Do you see how she’s smiling as I give her my cock? I like that too.”

All I could do was nod, sit, and watch my husband fuck some stranger name Stacia inches in front of my face—without protection, at that. Several minutes later, he came hard inside of her, yelling out in Portuguese as his body shuddered from the orgasm. As he pulled out, he looked over at me. “Now come lick my cum out of her,
Princesa
. A slut like this doesn’t deserve my babies; that’s only for my beautiful wife.”