Fuensalida

Chapter 5

Celeste sat on the couch, watching the news. It had become her addiction in the past five days. The news of the Lieberman family grew fast. Celeste Lieberman was the first to come up missing. A promising student who never missed school mysteriously did not show up on Monday morning. No phone call from her parents. Frederick Lieberman had taken a leave of absence and allowed his secretary paid time off, no one could reach him within his office or on his cell phone. Trying Cassandra they still received no answer. Time ticked by, Tuesday rolled around, and Celeste was still nowhere to be found.

The police were called to check in on the family. The school would take precautions to protect itself if Celeste turned up missing. They wanted to show they were sympathetic and worried. When a rich man’s daughter disappeared lack of security at the private schools could often be to blame.

It took no time at all for the police to realize something was wrong. No bags were packed and no one had entered through the doors in days.

“The body found in the local hotel fire five days ago was that of Frederick Lieberman, local lawyer for the Vargassi family, supposed mobsters with more power in the city than the governor,” the woman announced from in front of the remnants of the burned room. “This still leaves both Frederick Lieberman’s wife, Cassandra, and daughter, Celeste, missing.”

She was laid out on the couch, as she had done so many nights while they slept. Her door knob was back in place, though now it had remained unlocked. She was not sure if it was foolish of him to trust her so inexplicitly, or if it was foolish of her to think he would not find her if she had tried to run. Either way she spent most of her days sleeping and most of her nights out in the living room, wearing his old clothes, like tonight’s ensemble of a black T-shirt with a rude saying and a pair of his boxers that she had shrunk on purpose. Every evening when she woke up and started moving she would find something made for her to eat. If she ran across Chris he would joke about her becoming a vampire, she would snarl, then she would eat. If she did not see him she would eat in front of the television and often forget the plate on the table, which he would grumble about when she shuffled back to bed, and she would snarl, and go to sleep.

“You know they think you are dead.” She jumped, nearly dropping herself off of the couch, sitting up quickly and glancing out at him as he entered the room from the kitchen. He wore a pair of sweat pants that had seen better day. She wondered why all of the old clothes were necessary when she knew he had the money, and the means, to wearing better. She was not as finicky about her clothing as say, her mother, but all of the old clothes that had been worn out were bothering her. It niggled a bit in her brain, making her think of worse fates that lay before her.

“Thank you for reminding me,” she snapped, relaxing a bit on the couch again. She was not in the mood to deal with him right now. Actually, she was not sure she was ever in the mood to deal with him. She was locked somewhere between wanting to kill him and wanting to plead with him for answers. She hated both strong emotions and ignored them, focusing her attention on the television and the lack of evidence investigators had found so far.

“They will search as hard as they can to find you,” Chris assured her, stepping further into the living room. “After all, you are a rich man’s daughter.”

“You say that like it’s all I am,” Celeste complained, her hackles already rising.

In a small way he loved provoking her, it was when the spark of life came back into her. “I know better than that, Celeste,” he told her, walking over to the couch and glancing down at her. It took everything in him not to let his eyes move from her head to her toes and back again. The black leather of the couch looked good against the milky skin, a color that looked almost eerie with the lack of lights and the blue glow of the television screen casting shadows across her body. The shadows, instead of hiding her curves, only seemed to emphasize.

“No you don’t,” she told him, quickly losing the spark of fire that had begun to burn, spilling the coldest of waters over it, extinguishing even the smoke that should have been left behind. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“You sound like a spurned lover,” Chris told her, plopping his ass down on the other end of the couch, watching her pull her legs up a bit to avoid him. “Or else you sound like a lover who didn’t get her way and is pouting.”

“I don’t pout,” she snapped.

“That’s true,” he nodded, “you hit instead.”

Celeste, with her very mature attitude, stuck out her tongue and kept her eyes glued on the television. Chris, frustrated with the television, went up to it and pulled the plug, engulfing the room in the blackness of night. For a moment he cursed himself, he could not even see her on the couch. She had left all of the lights off, even the ones in her room, and the moon never shone through the trees out here.

“What did you do that for?” she snapped, moving a bit on the couch. She was in no hurry to go moving around now that she was unable to see a foot in front of her. She had never seen such complete blackness before. There were always lights shining through windows from the streets, always a small light in the bathroom left on, always something. This was a complete blackness that had her shivering.

She nearly screamed when Chris’s hands found her shoulders. She did jump and he chuckled, holding onto her. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Your eyes will adjust.”

“I know that,” she told him, her voice still as haughty as her usual attitude. “Why did you unplug the television?” And surround us in darkness, but she kept that part to herself.

“Because you need to stop.” He sat down beside her on the couch, letting her lean against the arm. “You need to stop watching it.”

“I can’t,” she told him. “And I won’t.”

“Yes you will.” He knew what he was jumping into, yet he leapt away anyway.

“You can’t tell me what to do.” She stood with the declaration of her own teenage angst and he easily reached out and gripped her, pulling her back, his eyes adjusting just fine to the blackness surrounding them.

“Yes, I can.”

“You’re not my father.”

“Nor do I want to be.”

“Then why bother?”

“I don’t have to be your father to give a damn,” he snapped at her. “If you sit here watching that fucking thing non-stop you are going to make yourself nuts. I’m not sure if you are trying to hope for them to show you how close you are to being rescued, or if you are trying to separate yourself from the event that brought you here. Either way, it’s not healthy.”

She laughed, and for the first time he associated something ugly with the girl. The sound was anything but what should come from a sixteen-year-old’s lips when needing to laugh to something. “You know what else isn’t healthy?”

“Before your begin your fucking lecture, I already know.” He held up his hand as if that could hold back her words, but she dug at him despite the fact he was straining not to hear her.

“Of course you know,” she snarled, the sound coming from her still ugly, filled with hatred. “If I had known it was you, I never would have come.”

“You would have let them die?” he asked, suddenly a bit shocked by her change in direction.

“I thought he was cheating on her,” Celeste said, her voice losing the energy, and the ugliness, but not the emotion. “I thought she had gone there to catch him. I was sure she would kill him herself. I was trying to be there for her, and instead I found you.” He watched her in the dark, watched her become more visible to him with every passing moment. It occurred to him, watching her, that she had believed she was going to lose her father that day either way.

“Had he been cheating on her?” he asked, afraid it was that girl who would know the answer.

“You already know the answer to that,” she told him, but she nodded when he continued to stare at her. “I hate you, for being the one who killed my father… but what would she have done if it had been her? I would have lost both of my parents.”

“Celeste… what do you think is going to happen here?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. He saw the sparkle of sapphire even in the dark. “You’ll grow tired of us and kill us one day, but for now… we are nothing more than hostages.”

He shook his head, reaching out, gripping her hair, lightly, just holding onto her for a moment. “Celeste, you are so much more than a hostage.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice filled with anger again. “Don’t say that, don’t do that.”

He watched her fight the emotions she felt. Her beautiful face twisted and his hand tightened a bit in her hair, tugging just enough to force her to bend closer to him. “What could ever make you think I would hurt you?”
“You already have, several times,” she told him, letting him drag her face closer to his.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “What would ever make you think I would kill you?”

“We are baggage,” she told him, looking up at him, meeting his eyes. “When you grow tired of taking us from one place to another, tired of not being able to settle and having two women constantly around you, who you have to feed, and clothe, and take care of because you’ve taken away all of our freedoms, it will become so tiresome it will not be worth it to you anymore.”

“Make it worth my while,” Chris smirked, not pretending to hide what he was thinking.

She did not pretend to play that innocent. “No.”

“Why?” he asked, almost completely serious in his question, pulling her face closer to his again.
Celeste huffed. “What a ridiculous question,” she told him, pulling back. “You act as if I have a say if that is what you have decided.”

“And what if you do?” he asked, pulling her back again.

Her face was close. He watched over that porcelain kewpie doll face and smiled. She was questioning it, rolling it around in her mind. He was worried he had just given her keys to a car she did not know how to drive.
“Kiss me,” he said to her calmly.

“I thought I have a say in this,” she spoke in her high superior tone.

Chris chuckled. “Please, kiss me.” He moved closer to her, watching her face as he did. She did not turn away, or pull away, and he took that as an invitation to push his lips against hers. He did not give her the calmness or slowness he had tried before. This was a kiss of absolute passion, and experience. Her lips moved against his and the two of them found their bodies laid out on the couch, him nearly on top of her, as they kissed one another, hands roaming, gripping at each other.

She ignored that nagging reminder that this man was sleeping with her mother at night, sharing a room with her, and other such intimacies. She wanted to kiss him, to let him just hold onto her in a kiss that would suffice the girl she still was, a girl who had dreamed about having his lips on hers since she knew what a kiss was. Perhaps that was exaggerating, she knew what a kiss was most of her life, but she wanted him to kiss her, to touch her, since she was ten. Perhaps not in the way he had before, but just to hold onto her, the way he was, his fingers gently caressing her breasts, his lips moving hard over hers.

She felt his need pressed against her nearly bare thigh, their bodies rubbing together as he let the kiss grow deeper. She gripped his sweatpants, needing to hold onto something, her lips parted just enough against his to let out a moan. He moaned back, loving the sounds coming from her, pushing harder against her, slipping his body between her legs. She shuddered, rubbing her body against his, against the erection that throbbed with need for her.

She felt her own need, felt her body heating up with carnal wants, remembering the heated way he felt inside of her, the look he gave her as he was ready to burst, then she remembered… everything else that happened and her hand came up fast. She did not smack him, or hit him, she just brought it up to his chest and pushed gently. It was enough, he knew what she was asking. He stopped kissing her, pulling his tongue from her lips and looking down at her, gazing at the woman… no, girl.

It took every last ounce of strength the man had to pull back and to keep from just ravaging her. His breathing was rough. His eyes were slightly blurred. She looked up at him and slid away a bit, shifting on the couch to pull her legs closed. She looked disheveled, he was not sure if he had pulled at her shirt that much or if just the movement had made her look that way. If she looked up at him with those big eyes she would lose all of her choices.

“I… I’m going to sleep,” she suddenly said, throwing herself off of the couch and smacking her knee against the table, forgetting it was there, hiding in the dark. She cried out in pain and he was up and over to her, wrapping his arms around her.

“Calm down,” he told her as she shook in his arms. “If that’s all you want tonight, that’s all it has to be.”

“You say ‘tonight’ like you expect me to one day change my mind again?”

Chris chuckled, lifting her, carrying her in his arms around the table and to her room, flicking on the light, while both of them winced against the sudden brightness. “I gave you some power tonight,” he said, kissing her forehead, “but I have very little patience, especially when it comes to how much I need to be inside of you again.” He felt her shiver. He kissed her ear this time. “Don’t test my patience when it comes to that. I will give you the world, Celeste, but if you test my patience too much… I want you to come to me.”

“Not the next time.”

He chuckled. “No, not then,” he placed her in bed, he felt he was doing that a lot. He looked down at her in the ratty clothes and kissed her again, lightly. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she grumbled, and fell back against her pillows.