Page 19 of Decimation

It’s hypnotic, the way her body sways to the rhythm. Her hips are rolling like a tide I’ve been trying to ignore for years, her arms raised above her head, that slip dress riding up her thighs to reveal the smooth expanse of skin I’ve never allowed myself to look at directly. She’s singing along under her breath, something that I can’t quite make out over the pounding in my ears.

Is it just me or is the music off, distorted?

Jazz doesn’t sound like this, and yet it’s my record, my music playing. The notes seem to bend and stretch, wrapping around me like silk, like smoke, like something I can’t escape.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Konstantine says beside me, and his voice is thick with something I’ve never heard before; not jealousy, not pride, but a kind of calculated reverence.

I don’t answer, can’t answer.

My tongue feels thick in my mouth, heavy and uncooperative.

I take another drink, trying to clear my head but it only makes things worse. The room seems to pulse with the music, the walls breathing in and out like the ribs of some great sleeping beast. Ines is a blur of movement and colour, her laughter ringing out like bells, but there’s something else in her eyes when she looks at me, something that looks terrifyingly like a predator who’s cornered her prey.

Something’s wrong.

The thought drifts through my mind but doesn’t quite stick. Everything feels distant, dreamlike. Like I’m watching this happen to someone else. Like my body is no longer my own.

Konstantine refills my glass. But when did I finish it? His hand is steady, but his eyes are glistening with something that might be triumph.

“Drink up, brother.” His voice cracks on the word brother, and I realise with a start that he’s not mocking me. He’s orchestrating something. Something I’ve been too slow to recognise.

Drink up. Drink…

I do, because my arm moves without my permission. Because the warmth feels good in a way that terrifies me, because Ines is still dancing and for some reason I can’t look away, and I’m so tired of fighting whatever chemical is flooding my veins.

She’s closer now. When did she get closer? The air between us crackles with something electric, something inevitable.

Her hands slide up her sides, cupping her breasts through the thin fabric and the gesture isn’t performative, it’s a trap. Her eyes never leave mine, dark and hungry and full of promise, but also full of something that looks like satisfaction. Like she’s been planning this for longer than I want to imagine.

Then she reaches for the straps of her dress.

They slide down her shoulders, slow and deliberate, and I watch the fabric whisper against her skin like a lover’s farewell. The dress pools at her waist, revealing perfect breasts, nipples already hard and the sight of her, the reality of her after all these years of carefully averted eyes steals the breath from my lungs against my will.

“What the fuck is going on?” The words come out slurred, like my tongue doesn’t want to work properly but beneath the confusion there’s a desperate, clawing need to regain control.

Konstantine moves closer, and when he speaks, his voice is raw. “I figured it out, you know. The problem between you two. The problem between all of us.”

“What?” I try to stand, but my legs won’t move and I slump back in the chair, my heart hammering against my ribs like it’s screaming a warning.

“You want to fuck her.” He says it gently, like he’s confessing something sacred. “It’s been eating you alive.” He pauses, and his voice drops to a whisper. “We’ve always shared everything, Laz. Everything, but I kept her from you. I was selfish.”

“You’re talking shit.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. In what fucked up world would he believe that I want this? “You’re drunk.”

“Am I?” He’s not grinning now. “Or are you? Or are we all finally brave enough to stop pretending?”

Ines is right in front of me now. The dress has fallen completely away. She’s naked except for a scrap of lace between her thighs, and she’s trembling. Not from cold, from the weight of this moment, from years of tension finally snapping but the look in her eyes is one of victory, not vulnerability.

“Lazarus,” she breathes my name like a prayer, and her voice breaks on the second syllable. “I’ve wanted this for so long. Both of you. Together. The way it was always supposed to be.”

Her hands are on me. On my chest, my shoulders, sliding down to my belt. I try to push her away, but my arms feel like they’re moving through water. Weak. Useless. My body won’t obey the commands my brain is screaming.

“Stop,” I manage to say, but it comes out as barely a whisper, and even I can hear how pathetic it sounds. What I mean is stop. What I mean is get the fuck off me.

Only, she doesn’t stop.

Her mouth finds mine and she’s kissing me, her tongue pushing past my lips with a deliberateness that makes my stomach churn even as my body responds. She tastes like cherries, sin, and every boundary I’ve ever set being systematically dismantled.

My body betrays me, responding even as my mind screams that this is wrong, that I need to stop this, that I’m being played, but my limbs are heavy, my will dissolved in whatever they put in my drink.