Chapter 18
After the maid left, silence once again filled the room.
Only Kaelan and the unconscious woman remained in the room.
Kaelan slowly approached the bed and stroked her head.
Her well-kept navy-blue hair flowed softly through his fingers.
“Every performance is bound to have mistakes. You can’t be perfect at your first performance. That’s why rehearsals are necessary.”
His fingers slowly descended from her cheek, along her jawline, and down to her neck.
“Today… I rushed things too much. I only ruined the instrument.”
His gaze turned toward her ankle.
The grotesquely twisted ankle was turning the bed red.
“But it’s all right. Instruments can always be repaired.”
The hand that had been caressing her face clasped her hand, interlacing their fingers.
“At our next performance, we’ll be able to create a perfect harmony. You’re special.”
Kaelan’s gaze returned to her face, and his shadow began to fall across her torso.
“Every performer I’d met until now had played only according to ordinary sheet music. Predictable, boring, and rigid.
But you’re different. Hatred, anger, murderous intent. The improvisation created by those emotions. That… is beautiful.”
Kaelan’s lips touched her forehead.
“Father always forced me to play only the prescribed sheet music. But things are different now. Our concerto is only beginning.”
The shadow that had hung over her disappeared.
“…There’s a lot to prepare.”
_____
A prickling pain throbbed in my lower abdomen.
The foreign sensation in my abdomen was unpleasant.
My first experience with a man.
It should have been utterly disgusting, but I felt nothing.
I couldn’t even feel the pain of losing my virginity.
Our bodies had certainly joined, but it did not feel as though they had.
Everything had been drowned out by the pain of having my eye torn out and my ankle, ligaments, and bones breaking.
I had to check my physical condition.
Trembling with fear at the thought, I tried moving my ankle.
The place that had shattered with a horrible cracking sound rotated smoothly, as though nothing had happened.
There was no pain.
As though everything had been a dream.
When I opened my eyes, perfectly normal vision greeted me first, unlike before I had lost consciousness.
And at the edge of my vision sat a man on the bed, looking at me.
“Ah, awake at last.”
The hand caressing my face felt like insects crawling over my skin.
‘I have to endure for now. To survive, I have to wait for an opportunity.’
I suppressed the trembling of my hand.
“Yes, these eyes. Watching you lie there like a corpse is worth admiring, but it can’t compare to seeing you awake. What’s your name?”
“…Ella.”
His tone was gentle.
After a brief hesitation, I gave a short answer to his sudden question.
The weight I had felt on the bed vanished.
A moment later, I felt hands behind my knees and against my back.
My legs drew up because of yesterday’s painful memories.
“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen today… probably.”
My body rose into the air and was carried away in his firm arms.
The only sound was his steady footsteps echoing through the corridor.
As the cold corridor air swept over my body, I shrank back at the thought that someone might see me.
“No one will come here at this hour. I don’t want to show you to the count’s dogs.”
It was strange.
Yesterday’s Kaelan and today’s Kaelan were completely different.
Unlike yesterday, when he had done nothing but inflict pain, today he was incredibly kind.
‘Is this preparation for inflicting even greater pain later?’
I could only throw out questions no one would answer.
At the end of the corridor was a huge bathroom.
It seemed as though the entire room had been carved from a single enormous piece of marble, and the steaming bathtub was filled with hot water.
A rich scent of roses filled the air.
It was a scent I had grown familiar with after smelling it countless times at the marquis’s estate.
Kaelan carefully set me down beside the bathtub.
His hand dipped briefly into the water.
“It’s just right.”
After removing the robe he had been wearing, he slowly lowered my body into the bathtub.
All I could do was tremble with fear.
Regardless of his sudden change in attitude, my mind was filled with thoughts of the various kinds of pain water could cause.
Kaelan might suddenly change again and plunge me back into that pain.
“Lord Kaelan, what is this—
“Shh. Your body’s dirty. You need to wash.”
His hand, as though accustomed to this, carefully wet my hair.
His hand gently massaged my scalp.
My hair tangled around his fingers and was lifted upward.
I heard him inhale above my head.
“…It smells good.”
He muttered with satisfaction.
“I like this mark…”
His fingers slowly eased my body backward, then traced the red mark on my waist.
“Ah!”
A scream burst from me as pain surged through my body.
“…As expected, the color becomes more vivid when there’s stimulation.”
His touch, accompanied by a satisfied smile, softened again.
Soon, the hand he had brought into the tub was holding a cloth.
The soft cloth rubbed slowly from my neck down my body.
His hand finally reached my pelvis.
“Is it still running down? It’ll be quicker to scrape it out.”
Along with his sudden words, his fingers slowly caressed my vulva.
The sensation was bewildering.
A subtle pleasure rose along the path of Kaelan’s fingers.
Unlike the day before, when there had been nothing but pain, my body was extraordinarily sensitive, stimulated by the warm water and soft cloth.
“Wait, Lord Kael—”
My words were cut off by a finger entering my vagina.
A pleasure I had never felt before.
The pleasure I felt for the first time in over a decade was incredibly intense.
My toes curled, and my breath stopped.
‘No. Pleasure is the road to submission. Resist. Deny this sensation.’
I clenched my fist until my nails dug into my palm.
I bit my lip.
So I wouldn’t moan.
“Ngh…”
But a small moan escaped my mouth before I could stop it.
‘No, no, no…’
I had been a man.
Most of the memories from that time had already grown hazy, but everything about the way I lived was a product of that time.
Having sex with a man while fully conscious.
‘It’s all right. I had prepared myself for something as simple as joining bodies with a man.’
I repeated the words in my head, but my body was reacting honestly.
His fingers began scraping along the inside of my vagina.
“Ngh, hng, haaah.”
In the end, I could not hold back, and a moan burst out.
Self-loathing washed over me.
“Even after I rammed it in like that yesterday, you’re still so tight.”
His fingers withdrew.
“I meant to restrain myself today, but I don’t think I can.
He grabbed my waist.
In the blink of an eye, my body was placed on the rim of the bathtub.
Cold marble touched my buttocks.
His cock, larger than yesterday, swayed grotesquely.
“Ella. You’ll be all right, won’t you?”
Even as he asked, holding his cock in one hand and caressing my face with the other, I could already feel a hot pulse throbbing at the tear.
“W-wait—”
Kaelan did not wait for an answer.
Something hot pressed against my entrance.
“Ah… Aah!”
I felt myself being forced open.
Kaelan slowly pushed his hips inside.
Not all at once like yesterday, but slowly.
The sensation of my insides being pushed aside made it hard to breathe.
“Good, it’s almost all the way in.”
My entire body stiffened from the pain stabbing at the entrance to my uterus.
“Aah!”
The scream lasted only a moment.
“Mmph!”
His tongue intertwined with mine.
Unlike yesterday, when the intense pain had made it difficult to feel anything properly, this time was different.
As our tongues tangled fiercely, my body gradually grew hotter.
“Phaa…”
I gasped roughly, releasing my trapped breath.
“A boring scream isn’t beautiful.”
His voice sounded right beside my ear.
Despite his gentle tone, the words he spoke reminded me once again that he was not normal.
Kaelan’s hips began to move slowly.
The sensation that had begun as pain gradually turned into pleasure.
My body, draped over the rim of the bathtub, trembled faintly every time he moved.
“I really like this rhythm. The whole piece falls apart if it stays fortissimo the entire time.”
I couldn’t understand what he was muttering.
“Ah… ngh…”
His cock slowly rubbed the inside of my vagina.
Lukewarm water sloshed around, stimulating my sensitive skin.
Kaelan’s pace gradually quickened.
One of his hands held my waist, while the other brushed my wet hair back.
“You can feel the tempo gradually speeding up, can’t you?”
“Ha, ngh… ah…”
Moans kept escaping me.
‘…Is this me?’
I was confused.
‘I’m… making sounds like that…’
My previous life came to mind.
Prostitutes.
The moans they made.
‘I’m… making the same sounds as them…’
The self-loathing I had felt when I briefly lowered my head came surging back.
‘No… this isn’t me. This isn’t my body. This pleasure, these moans—they aren’t mine. They belong only to this body.’
But my body was honestly moaning.
“Good. An improvisation.”
Kaelan laughed.
After moving only in predetermined ways, he changed his angle.
“Ngh… here, ngh, strange—haaah!”
The moment he struck an unexpected spot, it felt as though electricity surged through my entire body.
“Found it.”
Kaelan muttered with satisfaction and continued striking the same spot.
“Ah, no, ngh!”
My trembling legs wrapped around his waist.
‘…Why? Why are my legs moving on their own?’
My toes curled, and my waist twisted on its own.
‘I… don’t want this… This is… my body reacting.’
I desperately denied it.
“Beautiful. The way you break.”
His hand pressed against my lower abdomen.
“Can you feel it? Feel me inside you.”
“Ngh, ah…”
My mind went white, and I could not say anything.
I felt as though something were about to burst out, like during ejaculation.
“I don’t want this… ngh… stop…”
Kaelan laughed at my voice, steeped in pleasure.
“Why? A performance must have a climax.”
As his pace grew faster and faster, I could no longer endure it.
My entire body trembled as though in convulsions.
My vision flashed white, and my ears grew muffled.
“…Ah! A perfect finale.”
Kaelan’s exclamation was the last thing I heard.
How many more times did we have sex?
My body went limp.
No strength remained in my body.
‘…This is the worst.’
Tears flowed.
The afterglow of pleasure.
Tears of humiliation.
My body, limp from the afterglow of climax, trembled.
I didn’t feel it… It was this body. I felt nothing.
I merely denied it with all my strength.
But even I knew.
‘A lie.’
I did not want to admit it.
‘I, who had once been a man… felt pleasure as a woman.’
A satisfied expression appeared on Kaelan’s face.
Someday… definitely… I’ll kill him.
I closed my eyes and quietly swallowed the hatred surging inside me.
For now… I have to endure. I have to survive. Even if only for the sake of revenge.
The faces of Father and Noah came to mind.
…I’m sorry. Though I’m alive in this state… I’ll survive. I’ll definitely get revenge.
I opened my eyes, filled with resolve.
‘Please wait just a little longer.’