. cold deep

[dominic vinten cuvo]

He has been sapped of everything. Fluids, blood, bones. In the bathtub he suddenly comes to, Kitty’s tiny frame draped over him just above the waterline. His body is spent; he is a softened, wet mess floating in their mess. In fact, mixed with the water of the tub like a makeshift sensory deprivation chamber, Dom only feels the tips of his fingers flex as he realizes his person against the porcelain. Made curious by the water’s color, his lips purse to taste it, drawn to his tongue and down his throat like a perverse sommelier. The night was a blur that had only just finished. Years of pent-up desire for Kitty, along with nifty blue pills just for the occasion, finally emerged after the fateful strike of the clock to midnight. He had been tense for days, restricting himself in ways he would never even attempt for anyone else, practically coming out of his skin during the vow renewal ceremony, eyeballs glued to the clock. A denial—no, a delay—like no other, delivering his speech with his hands tightly fisted white in his pockets, honoring the love of Carter and Kota while fantasizing about defiling their daughter. His head tilts to the side, offended by the sunlight bleeding through a nearby window and rudely reminding him of shifting time. Still his body is recovering and remembering, visions of her beneath him, next to him, in front of him. A flash of red on her hand from between them, wet and bright and clasped over his wicked grin. Shivering with restraint to the sounds of her whimpers, only able to hold himself off for so long, biting back the desire to hurt her now that he finally had her. “Wake up, my love. We’ve missed breakfast.”

[kitty smith-sato]

Kitty feels waterlogged, unsure where her skin ends and the tepid bathwater begins, Dom's body firm and threateningly solid under her. As she stirs she realises how much pain she's in, her body pummelled from a night of repeated use, pent up tension released without restraint. It had been a night of revelations piled on top of each other, no time to dwell on any single one of them but logging them all away for future reflection; so he really is that big, that's what that feels like, was there molly in that champagne or is that serotonin of my own making, who knew he was so strong? Her embellished Miu Miu ivory silk co-ord is now a $17,900 pool of fabric on the floor. Kitty feels just as crumpled. Raising a hand to her face, she pushes wet hair away, groaning as she tries to shake off the grogginess intensified by so little sleep and the terrible decision not to have at least heaved themselves out of the tub. She does so now, avoiding looking at him, her stomach twisting with the reality of having to face the reality of what they have done. It's easier to go about as if nothing had ever happened, quickly grabbing a fluffy white hotel robe and wrapping it around herself tightly. "I never miss breakfast," she mutters. It was true; making a big show of never skipping meals was one of the tick boxes for keeping her rampant eating disorder under the radar.  "You go down and tell them you checked on me. Say I'm jet-lagged or something."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

What a vision he has tamed out of her, quiet and sated. The discolorations of nascent bruises blossoming where he’d grabbed and pressed and teethed. Of course his favorite was his own art, the damning initials setting nicely in the skin of her bony hip, the bowl of her pelvis that he played in for most of the night. Depriving her, filling her, punishing her; breaking her only to catch her, overindulging her. First gentle, restrained, then desperate and depraved. “You never eat breakfast,” Dominic corrects with a wry smirk, dismayed to watch her leave the tub but lacking the energy to resist it. Not until he re-supplied, anyway. “Phones exist, you know. Text them,” he drawls sleepily, eyebrows struggling to meet against the botox, dark hairy slashes on his face. After she rises, her slight weight is replaced with cloudy water. She is pale and slick and all limbs, like she should be crawling out of a television screen or scaling the stony edges of a well. “Where are you going? I’m not done. It is still October fourth and a promise is a promise.”

[kitty smith-sato]

She sets a hand on the marble surface of the sink to steady herself. The room feels tilted, her legs weak. Before long she's sat back on the edge of the tub for some stability, catching sight of the opaque water in her peripheral vision and feeling sick. Kitty was prone to post-coital bouts of Catholic guilt, something she hated about herself and her upbringing. But this felt different. The severity of a line crossed, the futility of wanting to uncross it. Toothpaste already squeezed out the tube. This thought prompts her to brush her teeth, something she does aggressively, violent streaks of red colouring the minty foam as she spits it out into the sink.  "I need to sleep," she says shortly, though the suggestion of another round manages to elicit a stirring within her. It had felt sacrilegious the night before but it would feel entirely blasphemous in the light of day, knowing their absence would be noted, not least by Calvin. Knowing they wouldn't have the alcohol to hide behind, or the glamour of his undone bowtie, the thrill of venturing into the unknown. Though there was plenty of that now, their new reality stretching out beyond them. Or maybe this was it, maybe there was no future for them now he'd gotten the prize he had so desired. It's this possibility that's making her feel so unsteady, she realizes.  Looking at him, she goes to ask if things have changed, though the question dies on her lips. "Get out of there before you get sick," is all she offers instead, turning her attention to the act of brushing her hair, something she also does with real violence.

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Fortunately his mind had not yet processed the impending ripples of this night. It could focus on nothing else but her body and his pleasure, the world outside simply ceasing to exist—though he wouldn’t have minded an audience had anyone interrupted them. Perhaps an unsuspecting cleaner, or a neighbor troubled by their noise. Or Calvin. His body tingles at the thought, remembering his birthday soon and his years-old wish of group sex with his best friends. He was now two for three, saving the best and most surprising for last. “I’m exhausted,” Dominic sighed, luxuriating in the full space of the tub. “Throw me a toaster, would you?” Briefly he disappears beneath the surface before emerging as if in a Dolce & Gabbana commercial, parting the blue waters of the Mediterranean with the blunt of his nose. Never embarrassed about his nudity, he simply flicked the water off his skin and let the rest puddle noisily at his feet, holding her gaze in the mirror as he watched her brush her hair. The long black tresses whipping back at his chest, wishing to tie them around his neck until he lost the privilege of air. Instead Dominic pressed himself to Kitty from behind, nuzzling against the nape of her neck. “Katherine,” he hummed, the sore ridges of his throat resting on her shoulder as he peppered kisses beneath her ear. What if he took her right here, one hand resting on her hip, the other nudging her to bend forward against the counter. His body has not yet rejected her despite the rule he swore to uphold since the disaster with Lila Moss. "I am already very sick. And so are you."

[kitty smith-sato]

Dom is still under the influence of the night they had shared, Kitty teetering on the edge of a brutal comedown. She desperately wants a reset, to step outside of the room for a moment and come back in to find it made over, sheets no longer stained and crumpled, bathroom pristine, towels folded neatly to one side. The full weight of what she's done has yet to hit, but she feels it ominously pressing against her, a threat of what was to come. "I said we had to make breakfast," she says, pointlessly. As if she had no hand in missing it. As if it would have changed anything. The suggestion of a toaster is a welcome one, her mind instantly wandering to the electric kettle she had noticed in the other room. Would that do the job? No, it would lead to more questions when what she really wanted was as few as possible. Their eyes meet in the mirror and she's convinced she can see a shift in his dark features. He stoops to meet her neck and instinctively she tilts her head to give him better access, her movements slowing though she continues to pull the brush through her damp tresses. He's solid against her, tendrils of steam rising off his bare skin though the bathwater hadn't seemed that warm to her. With her head tilted she can see red marks around her neck, tutting out loud though her tut turns to a sigh as he traces kisses behind her ear, her skin prickling with pleasure. What he says elicits a feeling of shame and pride, the two vying for dominance as she finally puts the hairbrush down. She turns away, not wanting to see herself anymore. Facing him now, she studies his face, the perfect cut of his jaw and cheekbones in the dim lighting of the bathroom, a shard of sunlight cutting across his face. Someone in her last class had called beauty boring and she vehemently disagreed; it was aggressive, severe. Hard to look at directly though it made you want to do just that. "One night only."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

The bath had done little to actually cleanse him, rendering him slippery and malleable. It had been his idea in the first place to draw one up, an attempt at aftercare for the body he worshipped—and then brutally desecrated. As though he’d broken into a church and touched every single thing inside. It is true now that they’ve completely laid claim over the other; there were marks and spots of broken blood vessels on him, too, a soreness ringing in his hips. “We could have,” Dominic points out, uninterested in the notion. “But we didn’t.” Indeed he had promised that she could physically make it down for breakfast, but there was no guarantee that either of them should want to, or actually would. He grinned against her skin, reveling in the loophole. Her face is gone in the mirror, Kitty turning herself against him, the cover of her robe offering little for his eyes to feast on. With a pout he juts out a lip, tugging at the fluffy sash keeping her together. He wants to see his initials, craves the sight of the slashes reminding him of that spectacular night carving her up. Still he had her blood, coveted more, sufficiently fooled by her magic that he had taken her virginity just hours ago as he wrung pleasure from her flesh. His hands come to frame her face, studying the blush of her fat lips that for hours were bitten in sighs or parted with achy moans. Thumbing beneath her eyes where he had tongued at errant tears and demanded to watch her fall over an edge. Now, as his dark eyes flick around her, Dominic thinks of cute aggression. He once heard that men don’t experience it—because if they did then they wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to pop off their baby’s little head. Something so cute that you want to squeeze it, crush it, eat it? Something already so helpless makes for a pathetic target. But in some way, he loves Kitty so fucking much that such dark, destructive desires are difficult to quell, tugging at his every fried nerve. In this case he needs some resistance in his prey; Kitty was nothing without her fight. “Let’s order room service and take a nap. In fact, we should go to a different hotel.”

[kitty smith-sato]

The night before had left her feeling like she had chosen the man and the bear. The two of them were worse for wear, hair damp, shadows under their eyes, battle scars marring their otherwise pristine expanses of skin. She thinks through the many suitcases she had packed for this trip, thanking herself for thinking to pack a cashmere roll neck sweater, making a mental note to pick up some more suitable items when she went shopping later that day. She wasn't sure that her dads ever looked at her long enough to log changes but it wasn't a chance she was willing to take, not without a solid excuse lined up, and that was not something she had the mental capacity to work on just yet. Kitty pulls herself up onto the countertop so that he isn't so stooped. Dom's hands are soft against her face and she instinctively leans into them, a tender reaction where she'd have flinched had it been any other. It's reassuring to have him study her face like this, to look into his eyes and see the same spark of recognition she always had. I am you, you are me. For the first time since waking she thinks this might be okay. That perhaps it wasn't a piece of collateral she had handed over foolishly, it was a cosmic inevitability. A collision that needed to happen, a release of tension that could have otherwise been their undoing. So his proposal is a tempting one. "I told Cal to meet us at Harrods for afternoon tea," she says, her bottom lip taking on a subtle pout. She realizes she has no idea of the time, though the sun is out, breaking through the rainclouds and causing cold light to pool on the floor. "Brush your teeth so I can kiss you."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

For years Dominic had looked forward to this moment. Dreamed and fantasized about it, climaxed to it. Both her resistance and the social taboo drove him, a promise delicious enough yet still attainable that he didn’t lose interest. An inevitability, he would swear—the only concrete thing in his life if he thought about it. Unable to plan more than a few days’ time but still able to commit marriage and family to her, like it was something that would simply, naturally happen to them with or without their participation. Cut from the same cloth; since they had the same beginning, they would have to be seen to the same end. Had that end come too soon? He doesn’t have to deeply think about why Kitty suddenly bent her rules for him or what implications this would have on everything next. The foreseeable future only stretches to their next obligation, Dominic rolling his eyes at the commitment she has made to Calvin—he isn’t even sure why he was invited, as much as he loved the boy. Humming his displeasure, Dominic briefly thinks about bullying himself between her thighs and listening to the sounds of her writhe for him again. Instead, he takes the toothbrush she’d just abandoned, still wet, squeezed out a decadent amount of paste and brushed. Vigorously. Would his friend be able to smell them on each other? Had the stench of sex leaked out from their room, could it cause the cleaning staff to faint? These are the matters currently important to him, messing with his hair in the mirror as it air-dried, unfazed by his state of undress. He scrubs his gums and tongue and the insides of his cheek, certain that all the grime of their doing is gone. It’s an interesting color in the sink, viscous and frothy as it swirled the drain. "Fine but I need a bump. Let's coordinate outfits."

[kitty smith-sato]

Despite the constant ripple of sexual tension between them, there had been moments when the lust had hit her like a tsunami. A time he got in a fight and had a bloodied lip, or when he'd been stood at her school gates waiting for her at the end of the day, a fall breeze tousling his freshly cut hair. The half smirk that he knew was her weakness. In all of those moments the strength of her feeling had surprised her, unpleasantly, and she had suppressed it with all her might. Lust was the most dangerous emotion for her and so the one she worked most hard at resisting, not wanting it to muddle her thinking, preferring to weaponise it against her friends and her foes. Dominic had been on the receiving end of this weaponisation more than any other, kept in an eternal state of near satiation.  "Don't roll your eyes at me." Her eyes are appraising him openly, looking him over as flecks of toothpaste splatter the mirror. He did look like he had been working out. It would be far too much to tell him so, but she also holds back her more critical thoughts, finding that they aren't coming as easily as they usually did. She needed more sleep. Perhaps it's her exhaustion that softens her, or maybe her depleted serotonin levels, but she finds herself pulling him over to her. Using the sleeve of the robe to wipe toothpaste residue from his swollen lips she opens her thighs to him once more, wrapping her legs around his torso and her arms around his neck. "Fine. You'll also be getting me a gift while we're there," her fingers fan out against the skin of his bare back, feeling the ridges of scratches she barely remembers leaving. "For being such a good sport."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

Nothing truly matters in Dominic’s life. He is not particularly pulled one way or another, requiring no purpose or meaning to go about every earthly rotation. Privileged in unburdened time and excess money, nothing truly reaches him until it is made spiky with conflict, things he essentially sponsored with drugs and poor choices in interpersonal relationships. Surrounding himself with debauchery and grandeur until he is muted or debased in comparison, keeping the type of company that makes him look relatively sane. For a moment he wonders whom between them is worse: him on the outside, or Kitty on the inside. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he scolds around the toothbrush, smirking at her like she’s forgotten the power dynamic between them. His very blood at odds between hurting her and submitting to her as it careened through various parts of his body. The most obvious perked against her, renewed by her vigor. “I would like to buy a ring,” he mentions nonchalantly, teeth catching on his lip at the thought of metal clasping around her finger in finality. But it’s all stupid documents and technicalities; it feels like they are on borrowed time while her “virginity” is still fresh. “Can we get married here?” he wonders, an abstract thought that goes from one end of his brain to the other, a vision of tulle flooding his imagination. "Nevermind, who cares. We'll buy this place. No one will be allowed to be married besides us."

[kitty smith-sato]

The part of herself that she hates most is immediately activated by Dom's chiding. For all her scheming and her frankly biblical levels of self control, Katherine craved male dominance. Whether this was the consequence of living a male dominated life or because it gave her overactive mind an opportunity to switch off was a question she would leave for a shrink she did not have. All she knows is that the command paired with that devastating smirk is enough to melt what little resistance she had, an Achilles heel that she probably should have worked much harder to hide from the one person who'd have no boundaries whatsoever in exploiting it. She doesn't do that though, instead pressing herself against him, back arching to close the gap between them, annoyed at herself for letting the robe come between them. Just as she's about to suggest they tell Calvin they're sick and get back into bed, he says seven words that make her blood run cold. She falters, visibly and internally, a flicker of something in her eyes as she looks away from him for a split second, willing her scrambled brain to reconstitute itself in time for a convincing recovery. Knowing what he was like, how easily he could become set on an idea (and didn't she have the scars to prove it), but also how easily he could move on from them, she tries to think of how to coax him towards that latter option without raising any suspicion. "I'm sure we can," she coos, moving a hand to his jaw and catching his bottom lip on her thumb. God he was so pretty. Maybe she could become a bigamist, did they check wedding records when you got married abroad? Thankfully his volatile nature triumphs and he abandons the idea as quickly as he had uttered it. She's surprised by the mild disappointment she feels, though it's quelled by her stronger sense of relief. "We need to commemorate this somehow. Want to get matching tattoos? Or we could make a blood oath, since you have a clean bill of health." Yes, she had checked. "Or we can ask Calvin to third, he might be jet-lagged enough to agree."

[dominic vinten cuvo]

This predicament of the present reality is beginning to annoy him. Be it the fried neurons, the lack of sleep, years of fantasy careening to a finality…it felt so dull to suddenly be standing in a bathroom, teetering on sober (as much as he could, anyway), talking to the girl he so coveted. With how racy his mind could be, ideas cropped up every few seconds and were either thwarted or enabled by the girl before him—depending on how useful they were to her. His appetite and attention span were infamously impossible to pin down, a stream of consciousness no one could understand. Would he soon return affections toward Calvin? Or remember his love for Lila Moss…she lived here, didn’t she? Briefly, an image of them married and waving to the streets of London flashes through his mind. Grounded by the present, suddenly those images switched to her underneath him, teeth gnashing into the sheets, begging him. To continue or to stop, it didn’t matter. Switching as easily as his moods, his proclivities, his fancies; like a radio scanning for open channels, settling on what was the clearest before switching to the next. The idea of leaving the hotel room is abysmal. His life had zero plans up until this moment, thinking only about the speech, playing his part, knocking on Kitty’s door at midnight. Sure there were travels and jobs and friends and such, but that’s out of his orbit of concern, barely able to consider Calvin. Normally he would ache to be reminded of his best friend. “You can carve me soon enough,” he promised, pressing a kiss to her forehead. But the idea of someone else in these sacred, fake-blood-stained sheets irks him. “No,” he reacted, hands framing the tiny thighs bracketing him. His fingers slip beneath the robe’s sash as he nuzzled her neck. “I think I might become homicidal at the sight of someone else touching you,” he promises, teeth snagging her shoulder. "Or suicidal. Or both. One after the other—that's moderation, isn't it?" As much as he needs Kitty, he needs a bump. Sucking a lascivious kiss from her mouth, he claps the top of her thighs as he abandons her. “I’ll be ready in…forty-five,” he decides arbitrarily, inhaling deeply from the other room.