Chapter 4
1496 Words
Li Jingting POV
“f**k, you look perfect crying under me,” I growl, snapping another photo while she sobs into the pillow, tears streaking the mascara I made her put on an hour ago. The camera roll is already full, six thousand eight hundred and forty-one pictures and counting, every single one of Su Ran broken in a different way, and I still can’t stop taking more.She tries to turn her face away. I grab her chin, force it back toward the lens. “Eyes open. I want to see the hate.”
She glares through the tears, lips trembling. “Delete them.”
“Never.” I thrust harder, watch her mouth fall open on a silent scream. Flash. Another keeper.Her wrists are tied to the headboard with the Hermès scarf she wore to dinner tonight. I made her keep the pearl necklace on. Looks f*****g obscene against the red marks I left on her throat.
“Say it,” I tell her.
She shakes her head.
I stop moving, buried deep, and wait.
“Say it or I stay like this all night.”
She chokes on the words. “I’m yours.”
“Louder.”
“I’m yours, husband.”
Flash. I save that one as the new lock screen.I lean down, lick a tear off her cheek. “Good girl. Keep crying. The investors loved you tonight. Said you looked radiant. They have no idea I f****d you raw in the coat check ten minutes before dessert.”
Her whole body shakes with rage or shame, maybe both. Doesn’t matter. Both taste the same.I pull out slow, flip her over, drag her hips up until she’s on her knees, face still in the pillow.
“Ass higher.”
She doesn’t move fast enough. I slap it hard, watch the print bloom white then red. She whimpers.
“Higher.”
She obeys.
Flash. Flash. Flash.I slide back in and start a punishing rhythm. The headboard slams the wall in perfect time.
“Tell me who you belong to.”
Silence.
I slap her again, harder. “Tell me.”
“You,” she sobs into the sheets. “I belong to you.”
“Say my name.”
“Li Jingting.”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“Li Jingting,” she screams when I hit that spot inside her that makes her hate herself.I laugh, reach for the phone again, switch to video. Red light on.
“Look at the camera, wife.”
She tries to hide her face. I fist her hair, yank her head back.
“Look or I send tonight’s coat-check clip to your mother’s doctor.”
Her eyes snap to the lens, wide, wet, ruined. Perfect.
I keep the angle steady while I f**k her until her voice cracks on my name again.When I finish I stay inside, lean over her back, and hit stop on the recording.
“Fourteen minutes. New personal record.”
She’s shaking so hard the bed vibrates.
I pull out, flip her onto her back again, spread her legs wide for the final shots.
“Hold yourself open.”
Her hands are still tied. I untie them, guide her trembling fingers where I want them.
“Do it.”
She does, crying silently now.
Flash. Flash. Flash.I drop the phone on the nightstand, screen still lit with her wrecked face, and light a cigarette.
She curls into a ball the second I let go.
“Don’t move,” I tell her. “I want to enjoy the view.”
She stays frozen, knees to chest, come and tears mixing on her thighs.
I blow smoke at the ceiling. “You were perfect tonight. The Chens signed the merger because you smiled at the old man exactly three seconds longer than courtesy requires. I should reward you.”
She doesn’t answer.
I reach over, thumb across her swollen bottom lip. “Want to see your mother this weekend?”
Her head jerks up.
“Three perfect days in a row. No screaming, no scratching, no throwing food. You manage that and I’ll drive you to the hospital myself.”
She stares at me, chest still heaving. “You’d let me see her?”
“I said I’d drive. Didn’t say you’d be dressed.”
Her face crumples.
I laugh, stub the cigarette, crawl back over her. “Kidding. You can wear clothes. Maybe.”I kiss her, taste salt and hate. She doesn’t kiss back, but she doesn’t bite either. Progress.
“Shower with me,” I say against her mouth.
She whispers, “Please, no more tonight.”
I pull back, study her. “One more. Then you’re done.”
She closes her eyes, nods once.In the shower I make her wash me first. She does it with shaking hands, eyes down. I return the favor, slow, clinical, until she’s crying again under the spray again.
When we’re done I towel her dry like she’s a doll, carry her back to bed, tuck her against my chest.
She’s out in thirty seconds, pure exhaustion.
I open the phone, scroll through tonight’s additions, pick the best one, her face when she came the third time, mouth open, tears shining, and set it as my wallpaper.I kiss the top of her head. “Two years, ten months, eleven days left, baby.”Morning.
I wake up hard against her ass. She’s already awake, stiff as a board.
“Pill,” I say, reaching for the nightstand drawer.
She opens her mouth like a bird. I place it on her tongue, watch her swallow.
“Good girl.”
She turns her face into the pillow so I can’t see whatever’s in her eyes.I get up, dress for the office. Before I leave I lean over the bed, kiss the bruise I left on her collarbone.
“Tonight we’re having dinner with the Lims. Wear the white dress. No panties.”
She doesn’t answer.
I grip her chin, make her look at me. “Say yes, husband.”
“Yes, husband,” she whispers.
I smile, walk out, lock the door behind me.At the office my assistant places a thick folder on my desk. “The new photos from the private investigator, sir. Mrs. Li visiting the hospital yesterday.”
I flip it open. Su Ran sitting by her mother’s bed, holding a hand that doesn’t hold back. Her face is soft for once. No tears, just quiet devastation.
I close the folder, slide it into the drawer with the others.
“Tell the driver to bring the car around at six. And tell the hospital to expect us Saturday morning.”
“Us, sir?”
“She earned it.”Saturday comes.
I dress her in a modest beige dress, high neck, long sleeves, nothing like the scraps I make her wear for me. She looks almost human.
In the car she sits as far from me as the seat allows.
“Seatbelt,” I remind her.
She buckles it herself.
I reach over, pull the strap tighter across her chest until it bites. “Safety first.”At the hospital I keep my hand on the small of her back the entire walk to ICU. The nurses pretend not to see the finger-shaped bruises peeking from her sleeve when she reaches for her mother’s hand.
She sits, talks softly to the unconscious woman, tells her about the weather, about the flowers I made her bring, about nothing at all.
I stand behind her, arms crossed, watching the monitor beep steady.
After twenty minutes I touch her shoulder. “Time.”
She kisses her mother’s forehead, whispers something I don’t catch, and stands.
In the hallway she stops, looks up at me. “Thank you.”
First time she’s ever said it without being forced.
I nod once. “Don’t get used to it.”Back home I make her strip in the foyer the second the door closes.
“On your knees.”
She drops.
I take the phone out, aim it down at her tear-stained face.
“Say thank you, husband, for letting me see my mother.”
“Thank you, husband, for letting me see my mother,” she repeats, voice hollow.
Flash.
I save it to the folder labeled Insurance – Year 1 – Month 2.That night I f**k her slow, almost gentle, let her come twice before I do.
Afterward I hold her while she pretends to sleep.
She whispers into my chest when she thinks I’m out, “I’m going to kill you one day.”
I stroke her hair. “I know, baby. I’m counting on it.”I open the phone again, add tonight’s videos, watch the counter tick to six thousand nine hundred and twelve.
Still not enough.
Never enough.
I kiss the top of her head and save every tear on camera roll already full.
Two years, ten months, ten days left.
- Writer
