Just One Year

So how can life be so merciless?

And how can a human life be so tenacious at the same time?

I never thought it would come to this.

There had been a time when I believed I was born for Formula 1. There had been times when I arrogantly lifted my chin as high as it would go, deluding myself that everything I possessed was something I had achieved by my own power alone.

But now that glory had slipped away like sand through my fingers, what remained for me?

Nothing.

I never knew I would become nothing like this.

Life really was like that. Who would have guessed that I would end up as the physical therapist—and sex toy—of a rival I had never even bothered to glance at before?

Not even a sex partner. That would require an equal relationship.

Just as the thought crossed my mind, Harold’s voice snapped me back to myself.

“What are you thinking about?”

Harold, who had been lying face-down on the bed, turned his head toward me and fixed me with those eerily blue eyes.

“I’m treating you. What thoughts would I be having?”

Harold gave a faint smile at my words and sat up. Then he gently took hold of my wrist and asked,

“You’re staying the night, right?”

“……”

I let out a silent breath.

It was almost admirable. How could he still feel like having sex after hard training from morning until evening every single day? Back when I had done that same intensity of training daily, once it was over I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep.

How does he still have any energy left?

If the intensity of the conditioning he put himself through wasn’t light, then Harold seemed to be the type who drew energy from sex with his partner.

And that partner was me.

No matter how I look at it, this feels like the main job.

Doing it almost every day, I felt as though my lifespan was being shortened. Before I could even open my mouth, Harold shifted positions and very naturally laid me down, climbing on top of me. When I frowned and tried to push him away, he caught both my arms—not painfully, but firmly—and pressed them down.

Onto the bed sheets.

“Let’s end the treatment here.”

His blue eyes glittered through the blond hair falling over his forehead. Looking into Harold’s eyes, I sometimes felt as if I were submerged in the deep sea—the kind of ocean where you could no longer tell front from back, up from down.

And looking at myself reflected in those pupils, I felt trapped inside a blue prison whose density shifted moment by moment with the angle of the light.

Those two eyes seemed to hurtle toward me like a meteor falling to earth, and then Harold’s lips closed over mine.

Harold loved kissing. He loved pushing his tongue in to stir the inside of my mouth, loved cutting off my breath. When he kissed so deeply that my mouth was completely sealed and my breathing quickened to the point of choking, I felt again as if I had been plunged into the sea. As if something massive had wrapped around my ankles while I tried to surface and was dragging me down… Or was I even trying to surface? Maybe I had lost all sense of direction and was already descending further into the depths.

Just one year.

Only until the season ends.

I had decided that once I endured this life until the season was over, I would return to my second life as if this year had never happened to me. For that, keeping my wits sharp was essential. Never forgetting that someday I would rise back to the surface.

And never forgetting which direction the surface was.

Because if I kept going deeper while believing that just a little higher would let me break free, only to lose every last breath and drown, that would be the end.

But whenever Harold kissed me, my breath caught and I felt my head plunge into the sea. The sensation that spread from my mouth to every peripheral nerve in my body muddled my mind until I could no longer tell whether my head was pointed toward the surface or the abyss.

I felt the muscles in my lower abdomen tighten and my underwear grow wet.

“Nngh……”

I struggled beneath Harold. As if denying that sensation—yet the more I did, the more Harold simply pressed his weight down. Holding both my hands gathered above me while he kissed me, his right hand dragged my pants down below my thighs. My pants caught above my knees. Harold’s hand covered my thigh and slipped inward between my legs.

“Hanna.”

Harold parted his lips and called my name with a wet mouth.

The moment that voice brushed my ear, goosebumps prickled across my skin. I felt the muscles in my thighs tremble with tension.

Harold’s right hand gently covered me over my underwear. His fingertips pressed against that place—just as I had once stroked, pressed, touched, and rubbed his back. In that instant my vision flashed white and my back arched.

A voice came from above my head, thickly laced with laughter.

“I like it when you’re out of it.”

At the same time I felt Harold’s hand grow wet with the sticky fluid seeping through my soaked underwear. Harold was in no hurry. Only after he had thoroughly soaked me did his hand dig inside the fabric. Like prying open a clam that held a pearl, he rubbed and pinched and lightly twisted the clitoris hidden in the folds, and I threw my head back.

“Hah… nngh……”

The moans I had been holding back spilled free.

“And screaming is even better.”

Hearing that was humiliating.

“Ah—ah. Hah… nngh… ahhh… ah—hahk.”

But it felt like I was dying, and I could not stop the sounds pouring out. I bit my lower lip and sobbed, feeling the wriggling movement of his fingers inside my underwear. Those slippery fingers dug into my wet entrance. Spreading like scissor blades trying to cut something inside me, until I finally could not hold back any longer and begged.

“Just do it…… Don’t torment me.”

When I lifted my head to look at him, I felt his eyes flash. Harold released the hand that had been pinning both of mine. He also withdrew the hand that had been stirring deep inside my soaked underwear. The moment I was freed from those fingers that had been giving me such sharp thrills, I almost felt a sense of liberation. Harold’s two hands cupped my head.

And then he kissed me again—deeply. My breath caught at the same time I felt the illusion that his tongue was sliding all the way into my throat. That couldn’t be possible. A person’s tongue couldn’t be that long. I accepted the kiss and panted. Harold only let me go when my consciousness was on the verge of fading.

Then he lowered his head. His mouth slid over my neck, my shoulder, my collarbone. He opened the zipper of my training top and stripped off my bra in an instant. And Harold bit down on my breast, sliding his hands between the bed and my back to support my upper body with both palms. I let out a sharp scream.

My breasts were the most sensitive part of me—sensitive enough that I would rub and fondle them when I was alone. Harold pressed the tip of a nipple with his tongue, or sucked it into his mouth, or bit it hard enough to send a tingling pain through me.

“Ah—aaa… ah… nngh! Hah! Nngh… a……”

I thrashed to free myself, but Harold’s supporting hands made it impossible. Moreover his lower body was pinning me tightly. Still in the short pants he wore for physical therapy, I could already feel his large, hard erection. From time to time he rubbed it against my skin. Eventually his mouth moved to my other breast.

He made me moan until my throat was raw, then slid lower to my abdomen.

“Please, stop.”

“The best part is watching you come.”

After saying that, Harold’s lips latched onto my clitoris like a sucker.

“Please!”

Even yanking his hair with both hands and pounding on the shoulders writhing between my legs was useless.

“Hahk!”

I thrashed wildly, completely at the mercy of Harold’s mouth. He was like a kraken—a giant monster wrapping my lower body in tentacles of many legs. I truly cried.

The tears leaking from both eyes would not stop.

In an instant my vision went white, then blacked out entirely.

I really feel like I’m going to die.

The pleasure had long since surpassed any Maginot line I could handle. Black fear, like the ink an octopus spews, flooded my mind.

The season hasn’t even started yet. Can I endure this?

I came several times, sucked by his lips. Only long afterward did Harold raise his head and wipe his mouth. His eyes curved, full of satisfaction. I looked at him with every ounce of strength drained from my body. It would be more accurate to say that was all I was capable of doing.

Harold took off his pants. His erect cock sprang free. He slid a pillow under my hips, then lifted both my legs onto his shoulders.