[English] The Virgin

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“I don’t know,” she said with a graceful tilt of her head, a graceful lift of her shoulders. “I think God gets scared.”

“You do? Seems unlike Him. All-knowing. All-powerful. What is there for Him to fear?”

“Us,” she said. “His people. He loves us and we’re...” She turned her gaze onto the water. “Small. Weak.”

“Fragile,” Kingsley said.

“We’re fragile, yes. And He’s new to us, as new as we are to Him. He doesn’t know His own strength. He doesn’t understand yet how weak we are.” She paused and looked at her feet in the sand. “I’ve seen mother birds crush their own eggs by accident. The mothers aren’t evil. They aren’t trying to hurt their babies. But still, the eggshells, they’re too fragile.”

Kingsley felt something in his chest, something like an eggshell. He felt it in the place where his heart should be.

“Imagine,” Juliette whispered. “Imagine how terrifying it is to know you could crush your own creation simply by loving it.”

“I can imagine.”

“I suppose that’s the price we pay,” she said, looking toward the horizon.

“Pay for what?”

“For loving and being loved by something so powerful.”

Kingsley nodded. God was so vast, and they so small—was it any wonder so many of His children got crushed? And yet, living in a world without God’s power would be like living in a world without oceans.

“How did you find me here?” Kingsley asked.

“I’m good at finding people. I found where your hut was and when you weren’t there, I followed your footsteps. Do you walk here often?”

“Every evening.”

“Can I ask you something?” Juliette took a small step closer to him.

“Ask.”

“Why are you here? In Haiti, I mean?”

“Something bad happened,” Kingsley said, trying to speak as vaguely as possible. What happened between him and Elle was between him and Elle and no one else. Not even Søren. Especially not Søren. “I didn’t handle it as well as I should have, and someone important to me was harmed in the process. If I’d stayed, I would have made it worse for her. And it was bad already.”

“Elle est partie,” Juliette said. Kingsley looked at her in shock.

“How do you know her name?”

“Her name? You talk in your sleep. I heard you say ‘She is gone.’”

In French “She is gone” was “Elle est partie.” He’d been speaking of Elle in his sleep. She is gone. Elle is gone. Same thing.

“Her name is Elle,” Kingsley said. “Eleanor.”

“I see. Were you in love with her, with Elle?”

“No. It was different with us. Love but not in love. Friends but not friends. I can’t explain us.”

“Love but not in love. Family?”

Kingsley smiled. “We were lovers.”

“I know married couples not in love with each other. But they are family.”

“Family,” Kingsley said, thinking of her and him and Søren and what they were to each other. Would they ever be that close again? “Perhaps she was family. There are two people in the world who know all of my secrets. And she was one of them.” Kingsley’s throat tightened painfully. “I failed her when she needed me the most. But she’s gone and I can’t even tell her how sorry I am.”

“Can I tell you how sorry I am?” Juliette asked.

“For what?”

“I shouldn’t have slept with you if one night was all I could give you. I shouldn’t have brought you into the mess that is my life.”

“We barely know each other. You don’t owe me any apology or explanation.”

“I do. Spending the night with you...it was selfish of me.”

“You aren’t selfish very often, are you?”

She raised her hands in a question. A question, or maybe a surrender.

“I don’t have the luxury of being selfish.”

“Why not?” Kingsley asked.

“Because I’m owned.”

“I know many men and women who are owned. They are quite capable of being selfish. Some of them have made an art of it.”

“I’m not owned the way they are.”

“How are you owned then? What other way is there?” he asked.

“The people you know, they are owned by choice? Because they want to be owned?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“I’m not.”

Kingsley turned and faced her finally. “What do you mean? Slavery was abolished in Haiti two hundred years ago.”

“Don’t be naive,” Juliette said with a smile. Kingsley was certain that was the first time anyone had ever accused him of being naive. “As long as there are men with money and power and women without it, there will be slavery in this world.”

“But you’re here with me right now. On this beach. You can walk away from him. I could take you back to Manhattan with me tonight.”

She shook her head. “No, you can’t.”

“No one can own another person. There are laws against it.”

“This isn’t about laws.”

“How can he own you like this?”

“He owns me because I owe him. A debt. A huge debt I can never repay.”

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“And you pay it to him with your body?”

Juliette nodded. “It’s the only currency he accepts.”

“What do you owe him?” Kingsley asked.

Juliette took a step forward and let her toes touch the water. The tide ebbed around her ankles and slid back into the sea.

“My family has always worked for his family and his family has been here since before the Revolution. My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my mother...our families are intimately intertwined. Maman was a housekeeper for Gérard’s father. And more.”

“They were lovers.”

“Of course. I say of course, but you haven’t seen my mother. In her youth, she was beautiful.”

“I can imagine,” Kingsley said, admiring Juliette.

“Gérard was appointed ambassador to Haiti when he was only thirty-three or thirty-four. But it’s an old family, the Guillroys. Old name, great power. That story.”

Kingsley knew that story well.

“Gérard has an understanding with his wife. They own companies together, properties. Better to stay married and live apart than divide the assets.”

“Very practical,” Kingsley said. “Very French.”

“It is,” Juliette said with the smallest of smiles.

“What happened?”

“Growing up in his house? Nothing.” She crossed her arms, shrugged her shoulders. “He was kind but distant with me. He had his own children to occupy him. Twin girls four years older than I am.”

“Something must have changed along the way.”

“Maman changed,” Juliette said. “All her life she was a little unstable. Emotional. She overreacted to things. But she was smart and strong. She took good care of me even if she did scare me sometimes with the things she said. But when I was thirteen...”

She paused. The pause scared Kingsley enough that he said, “You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to tell you. I want you to know. When I was thirteen, Maman changed. She...” Juliette took a ragged breath. “She went quiet. She was withdrawn, and then in a flash, angry. She grew paranoid and scared. She heard things, voices. And she started hurting herself. I walked into the kitchen one day and found her bleeding from both arms.”

“Suicide attempt?”

“No, she said she saw snakes under her skin and had to cut them free.”

Juliette shuddered and crossed her arms over her chest. Kingsley wanted to hold her and comfort her. He didn’t deserve to hear this story, so personal and painful.

“The doctor said schizophrenia. And Maman must never be left alone. She couldn’t work anymore, of course. I tried to watch her on my own, I did. But it was too much for me.”

“You were only a child.”

“I was but I wasn’t,” she said. “I was smart, too. I had the same education as Gérard’s girls, who were four years ahead of me, and I did better in our lessons than they did. I was smart and I knew...I knew how the world worked.”

“What did you do?”

“When summer came and his daughters went back to Cannes to be with their mother, I went to Gérard and asked him to put my mother in a hospital. A good one where she could get the care she needed. The doctor had mentioned a place in Switzerland where people like my mother got very good care.”

“What did he say?”

“He said such a place was expensive. And that although he was very sorry, my mother no longer worked for him. I told him I would take her place. I told him I would do the work she did for him if he would pay for the hospital. I told him I would do anything he wanted. In bed and out of it.”

“I assume he took you up on your offer.”

“I was fourteen by then, tall, a woman already in many ways. We were alone in the house. He brought me to his bedroom, and he took my virginity. That was over twelve years ago.”

Kingsley stomach turned. “You were fourteen.”

“I was scared, but the truth is, I enjoyed it. Eventually,” she said. “He’s a good lover. Handsome. Passionate.”

“French.”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. Then the smile faded. “I thought I was in love with him. For a long time I thought that. We did everything in bed two people could do. But I never forgot, not once, that my mother was at his mercy.”

“What would happen to her if you left him?”

“What are mental hospitals in New York like?” she asked.

“Hell,” Kingsley said. “Even the good ones are like Hell, they say.”

“Imagine what one in Haiti is like.”

“I don’t want to. Truly, I have seen enough horrors to last a lifetime.”

“I believe you,” Juliette said. “So now you know. Gérard takes care of Maman. I take care of him. If I stop taking care of him, he stops taking care of her. And when I say he owns me, I mean it.”

“Is this why you want to die? Is that why you’re planning to kill yourself?”

She looked askance at him.

“I saw the rocks in your bag,” he said by way of explanation. “I saw the book in your nightstand. Planning to follow in Virginia Woolf’s footsteps?”

Juliette’s lips formed a hard line. It took a few moments before she seemed ready to speak again.

“When I was eighteen, Gérard gave me a ring. Diamonds and sapphires. Worth a fortune. I have a cousin—he’s gone to Miami now, but when he lived here he worked outside the law. I had him sell the ring, and I told Gérard it was stolen at knifepoint. He kissed me, said he was sorry and called the insurance company. He had a check for the full cost of the ring and then some in a week and I...” She held up her right hand to display a diamond and sapphire glinting on her ring finger.

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“Life insurance policy?”

Juliette nodded. “I took the money from the ring and bought insurance. My mother’s the beneficiary on my policy. If I die and it’s ruled an accident, then there would be enough money to take care of my mother for at least ten years. People drown in the ocean all the time here and their bodies wash up on the beach.”

“There has to be another way,” Kingsley said.

“There isn’t. If there were another way I would have found it by now.” She took his hand and he wished she hadn’t. Her long slender fingers felt as if they belonged in his grasp. And the time would come when he would have to let her go again.

“I’m not certain I can go through with it. I am Catholic, after all.”

“This is a new feeling I’m experiencing now. I’ve never been grateful for someone’s Catholicism before.”

Juliette laughed softly and squeezed his hand.

“In the car on the way to the house, you took off your knife and gave it to me. Were you hoping I’d use it to kill you?” he asked.

“All I wanted from you was a night with a man of my choosing. A night with a man I wanted and who I owed nothing to. A night with a man who didn’t own me.” She paused for a long time before speaking again. “Before I died.”

Juliette stepped out of the reach of the tide. Side by side they walked back toward Kingsley’s hut.

“You should know,” she said, squeezing his hand, “he doesn’t abuse me. The pain he’s caused me has been the kind you and I both enjoy. And he’s faithful to me. He and his wife haven’t been intimate in years. He has no other lover, only me.”

“He owns you,” Kingsley said. “He’s rich. Beyond rich. It would be pocket change for him to pay for your mother’s medical treatment.”

“I made the offer. He accepted it.”

“He should have helped your mother without making you pay for it with your body. You grew up with his own daughters, for God’s sake. You should have been like a daughter to him.”

“I never said he was a saint. I only said he doesn’t abuse me. I live in luxury. Anything I want he gives me.”

“Except your freedom.”

“Except my freedom.”

She squeezed his hand.

“I shouldn’t complain,” she continued. “It’s like a marriage of convenience. How many women out there have made the same bargain with a wealthy man that I have?”

“But it’s not marriage. If you were married, the law would be on your side. You could divorce him, take half his money and pay for your mother’s treatments yourself instead of putting rocks in your pockets and walking into the ocean.”

“I should have asked him to marry me then. Oh wait, he’s already married. There goes that idea.”

Her flippant tone only made Kingsley angrier.

“Even an indentured servant knows when his service will end. How long will your mother need to be in the hospital?”

“They say she’s treatment resistant. And self-harming. There is no cure for what she has. Only constant monitoring and good care.”

“So you will be his...”

“Until the day she dies,” Juliette said. “Or until I do.”

“Do you ever see her?”

“Oh yes, twice a year I’m allowed to visit her for a week. She’s happy where she is, and safe.”

“Does she know what you do for her?”

Juliette shook her head. “She thinks Gérard’s father is still in love with her, that the family pays for her care because of what they were. I haven’t disabused her of the knowledge. It comforts her.”

“You are a good daughter. But you do too much for her. I don’t know of any mother in the world who would ask her only child to make the sacrifice you have.”

“Sacrifice? You’ve seen the house I live in, the clothes I wear, the car he lets me drive.”

“His house. His clothes. His car. Your life.”

“Yes,” she said. “They are. But I try not to think about it that way. My mother lives in a dreamworld. I try to live in my own.”

“Dreaming and lying to yourself are very different things.”

“I know. I have always known,” she said in her flawless, elegant French. Je sais. Je l’ai toujours su.

“What would you do with your freedom if you had it?” Kingsley asked. “If your mother were cured tomorrow, what would you do?”

“Go away from here,” she said. “Travel for a while. Then I would go to school.”

“School? For what?”

“Business,” she said. “I’m good with money. I handle all of his.”

Kingsley laughed and the sound carried across the ocean and back.

“What?” she asked.

“I never would have expected that from you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t be so surprised. I have an eighteen-year-old assistant who is a computer hacker.”

Juliette laughed. “You have an eighteen year-old girl working for you? Do I want to know what it is you do?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I were you. Only because it would take so long to explain.”

“Is she just an assistant? Or more?”

“Only an assistant. She flirts with me, but I remind her she’s young enough to be my daughter. I hope she’s doing her homework while I’m here. Usually you have to make her get off the computer to eat. She’s always up to something. But I can’t scold too much. So am I.”

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“You sound like a proud father.”

Kingsley winced. Father of an eighteen-year-old girl? Possible, yes, but God, he couldn’t imagine having a child who was already a teenager.

“She’s a sweet girl. That’s all,” Kingsley said. And then he asked a terrifying question. “Do you want children?”

“I’ve thought about it. Under other circumstances I would.”

“Could you have them with him?”

She shook her head. “He won’t allow it.”

“Why not?”

“His daughters don’t know about me. And considering I grew up in his home...it would be a scandal. Even for the French it would be a scandal. I’m nothing but the housekeeper to anyone but us. He wants to keep it that way.”

“You’ve asked, haven’t you? Asked if you could have children?”

Juliette visibly swallowed. “I’ve asked, yes.”

“And what did you do when he said you weren’t allowed to have children?” Kingsley asked.

She raised her hands again. They were still empty.

“I gathered a bag of stones.”

Kingsley closed his eyes and exhaled. He felt his heart crack like an eggshell.

“Bastard,” he breathed.

“C’est la vie,” she said.

Kingsley stopped walking. They were near his beach hut now.

“I could help you,” Kingsley said. “I have money, too.”

“And what would I do? Be your lover?”

“Of course.”

“Be your property?”

“Not like you are now. You’d have freedom.”

“Trading his bed for your bed, his money for your money...that’s not freedom. That’s merely transferring the deed of ownership.”

“It wouldn’t have to be like that.”

“What if I left you?” she asked. “What if I cheated on you? What if I betrayed you? Would you still take care of my mother even after I’d moved on from you?”

Kingsley didn’t have a good answer to that.

“What’s that English phrase?” Juliette asked. “Better the devil you know?”

“I won’t leave Haiti without you,” he said, meaning the words more now than he had when he first said them.

“Then I hope you love it here. Because you will be here for a very long time.”

“I suppose I will then.”

She stood in front of him, raised her hand to his face.

“Don’t be angry. Don’t be hurt,” she said. “And don’t be afraid to leave me here. I’m fine. I won’t kill myself, I promise.”

“You swear?”

“I do. It was a foolish idea. In truth, I’m blessed in many ways. I have food, shelter. He spoils me. My life isn’t perfect, but name me one person who does have a perfect life. Can you?”

He tried to think of a name. Nothing came to him. He stayed silent.

“I thought so,” Juliette said with a tight smile. “No one.”

“Do you love him?” He’d asked before and she’d lied.

“I can’t leave the house without his permission. He always grants it, but also, I always have to ask.”

Kingsley couldn’t imagine how much that must gall her, this beautiful intelligent capable woman to have to ask permission like a child to leave her lover’s property.

“But...” she continued. “He didn’t have to help my mother at all, and he did. And he doesn’t threaten me, or her. He and I, we work well together, play well together. Despite everything.”

“Then why did you find me tonight?”

“Because his work has called him back to Paris for a week,” Juliette said, taking a step closer to him, close enough he could smell the scent of jasmine on her skin. “And I want to spend every moment until he gets back with you.”

“You’ll go back to him when he returns?”

“I will. I have to.”

“Spending more time with me will only make it harder for you, harder for both of us. You know that.”

“I know that,” she said.

“Answer this...why should we spend another night together if it’s only going to end with you going back to him?”

She gave him a reason he couldn’t and wouldn’t refuse.

“Because I’ll let you beat me.”

22

Upstate New York

“DO YOU HAVE a hymen?” Elle asked, and even in the dark she could see Kyrie blush. “Some virgins do, some don’t.”

“I think I do. Why?”

“I want to know what I’m working with.” Elle sat on the bed in front of Kyrie.

“What are you going to do to me?” Kyrie asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Elle said, and she didn’t. She’d never done anything like this before. Never topped a woman. Never taken anyone’s virginity.

She brushed her hand through Kyrie’s hair again. The waves in the sun-streaked mass looked like feathers in the darkness.

“You remind me of a dove,” Elle said. “All white and light and nervous.”

Kyrie smiled and pulled her knees to her chest.

“You’d be nervous too if you were me.”

“Yes,” Elle agreed. “You should be nervous.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

Elle nodded.

“Will I like it?”

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“If I do it right you will.”

“Are you going to do it right?”

“I am,” Elle said, making the words a solemn vow. “But don’t think about what’s going to happen. Think about this instead.”

“What?”

Elle kissed her.

In the beginning, the kiss was nothing but light. A light brush of lips on lips. Elle let her mouth linger on Kyrie’s, waiting, patiently waiting. Elle would do the work, but Kyrie would set the pace. They had all night and tomorrow night. They had all week, all month, all year. As sweet as the kiss was, as beautiful as the girl she kissed, Elle was in no hurry for it to end. Only in a hurry for it to begin.

Kyrie tilted her chin up and parted her lips. Elle deepened the kiss. With the tip of her tongue she touched Kyrie’s teeth, lightly and without pressure. But Kyrie took the hint and opened her mouth even more to Elle.

She tasted sweet, like warm honey, and Elle cupped the back of her head to hold her mouth right where she wanted it—against her own. Kyrie whimpered at the force but didn’t pull away. The kissed deepened further, grew heated as Kyrie fell into the rhythm of lips on lips and tongue to tongue.

Elle moved her hand from Kyrie’s head to her shoulder, from her shoulder to her neck. She felt Kyrie’s pulse throbbing in the vein under her ear. She was scared, aroused, everything Elle wanted her to be.

From her neck, Elle dropped her hand to Kyrie’s waist. She found the tie of Kyrie’s white robe and unknotted it.

“Elle?” Kyrie made her name a question, a panicked question.

“It’s all right,” Elle said, resting her palm on Kyrie’s burning face. “You’ll get used to this.”

“Get used to what?”

“Get used to me undressing you. I’ll go slowly tonight. But when we’re alone together in my room, your body belongs to me. I’ll touch it when I want to touch it, undress it when I want to undress it and use it however I want to use it. You understand that?”

Kyrie nodded.

“How does that make you feel?” Elle asked.

“Better,” she said. “Scared, but better. I don’t know what I’m doing. I want...I want you to do it all.”

“I will. I promise. And I’m taking care of you.”

“You’ll take care of me?”

“Yes,” Elle whispered. “That’s what I want to do. You do what I tell you to do. And I’ll take care of you.”

“Thank you,” Kyrie said. And Elle had to stop herself from laughing. Thank her? Kyrie was letting Elle kiss her and touch her and dominate her and Kyrie was thanking her? Submissives were so cute sometimes.

Elle kissed Kyrie again, a slow sensual kiss. A kiss to distract the girl while Elle finished unknotting the tie of her robe. Once it was untied, Elle parted the robe and rested her hand on Kyrie’s stomach. She felt the muscles fluttering like bird’s wings with every nervous breath.

Beneath the robe Kyrie wore an old-fashioned gown of white cotton, tied with a drawstring at the neck. On the other sisters, the gown looked like a relic from another era. On Kyrie, it looked unbearably erotic. One little bow to untie and the gown would fall open like a flower.

“Are you okay?” Elle asked, between kisses.

“I think so.”

“Scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Good. I like that you’re scared,” Elle said.

“Why?”

The question caught her off guard. She didn’t have an answer for it.

“I don’t know. I just do. Maybe...” She kissed Kyrie’s neck under her ear and over the pounding vein. “Maybe I want you to be afraid of me. That way your trust means more than if you weren’t afraid.”

“I do trust you,” Kyrie said.

“I know. You’ll be brave for me, and do everything I tell you to do even if it scares you?”

Kyrie took a breath, looked away. “Whatever you want, Elle. Do whatever you want. I’m yours.”

Let it be done unto me...

“Good. I’m going to take your robe off you. Just the robe. For now.”

Kyrie took a breath as if bracing herself. Elle bit back a smile. With her mouth on Kyrie’s neck, Elle pushed the robe down her back and off her arms.

“Tell me if you get cold,” Elle asked.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m anything but cold right now.”

Elle pulled back and wrapped a leg around either side of Kyrie’s waist. They were face-to-face now, Kyrie sitting in the circle of her legs and arms.

“Do you like kissing?” Elle asked, kissing her again on the mouth, the cheek, the ear.

“I love it.” Kyrie’s head fell back, giving Elle better access to her neck and throat. Without any warning Elle nipped Kyrie’s neck with a quick snap of her teeth. Kyrie flinched but didn’t protest. A good sign. “I was just thinking kissing felt so good I wished I’d done it a long time ago. But then maybe I wouldn’t have come here, and I wouldn’t have met you. And you’re my first kiss, Elle. I’m so glad you’re my first kiss.”

Their lips met again in renewed passion. All gentleness had fled from the kiss. Elle took Kyrie’s face in her hands and kissed the girl until she moaned. While their lips were otherwise occupied, Elle raised her hands to Kyrie’s neck and found the bow of her nightgown. She untied it and yanked lightly on the silky string.

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Kyrie inhaled sharply and froze.

“Trust me,” Elle said in a warning tone. “Don’t forget to trust me.”

“I trust you,” she said again. “It’s just...”

“I know. I was a virgin once, too. I promise, I know.”

“I don’t want to stop.”

“We’re not going to stop until I’m done with you. Remember that?”

Kyrie smiled and laughed softly.

“I remember.”

“Do you need to stop for a minute or two?”

“Maybe...maybe just a minute. What are you... I mean—”

“I’m going to push your nightgown down to your hips, and then I’m going to touch and kiss your breasts. That’s what I’m going to do. Just that. For starters.”

“For starters.”

“Kyrie, you won’t be a virgin when you wake up tomorrow. Are you sure you’re ready for that sort of morning?”

She didn’t answer at first, not with words. But then she sat up straighter and brought her own hands to the tie of her nightgown. She loosened the fabric and, with a tiny shake of her shoulders, let the gown fall down her arms, baring her body to her waist.

Elle stopped breathing for two or three tense seconds. Kyrie had beautiful breasts, small and high and with the pinkest, most pert nipples. There was nothing voluptuous about the girl. She had a thin petite frame, almost boyish, but the breasts were flawless. Elle cupped one in her hand. Kyrie breathed in at the contact but didn’t say a word, didn’t protest. Not even when Elle massaged her areola with her thumb, making a slow circle until her nipple tightened and grew hard.

She raised her other hand and pinched both of Kyrie’s nipples. She didn’t pinch hard, not enough to hurt her, but hard enough a little gasp escaped Kyrie’s parted lips.

“How does this feel?” Elle asked as she rolled Kyrie’s nipples in her fingers, massaged and teased them.

“Amazing,” Kyrie said. “I didn’t know it could feel this good when someone else touched me.”

“I want to make you feel things you’ve never felt before. Pain and pleasure.”

“How will you hurt me?”

Elle brushed the pad of her thumbs over Kyrie’s nipples. That was something that never failed to make Elle aroused. Søren would do it until she was cursing the day he was born for getting her so aroused and then making her wait for penetration.

But Søren was her past now. Kyrie was her present. And like a present, Elle wanted to open her.

“I want to open your vagina up. It’ll probably hurt if you’ve never had anything bigger than a tampon or a finger in you before.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’m glad. I want to be the one who opens you up.”

“I want it, too. I want to feel you inside me, Elle. Please?”

“Soon. Lie back for me now.”

Carefully, Kyrie rolled down and rested her head on Elle’s pillow. Her hair surrounded her shoulders like a veil. What a waste of God’s beauty to cover this girl’s hair with anything. But Elle was glad then that Kyrie covered her hair with a veil. Now she and she alone got to see Kyrie like this—unveiled in every way.

Elle bent over Kyrie’s chest and kissed her right nipple.

“Oh, God.”

Elle smiled.

‘That’s how I feel about it, too. Now don’t talk,” Elle ordered. “Enjoy it.”

Like a good girl, Kyrie said nothing. Elle focused all her attention now on Kyrie’s breasts and nipples. She licked them, both breasts. Easy to do with breasts so petite and perfect. And then she took the right nipple into her mouth and sucked it and she used her fingers to pull and tug on her left nipple. Beneath her mouth, Kyrie’s breasts heaved with her ragged breathing.

“I can feel it...” Kyrie said in a low strained voice. “In my stomach.”

“Where else?” Elle asked, sucking her left nipple now.

“In my hips and back.”

“Where else?”

“Inside me,” Kyrie said.

“Are you getting wet? Can you tell?” She’d ordered Kyrie not to talk, but now she had to know everything she was feeling.

“I am. I’m sure of it. God, it feels so good.”

Elle took her time with Kyrie’s breasts. No rush. No hurry. She wasn’t a man rushing through the process, counting every second until he’d got his girl ready enough he could stick his **** in her with a clear conscience. No, Elle was a woman too and knew everything Kyrie was feeling and wanted to feel, everything she needed to feel. If Kyrie wanted her nipples kissed for half an hour, an hour, Elle would do it. She would do it with pleasure and with patience.

“Elle...” Kyrie breathed as Elle drew her nipple deeper into her mouth. “I want...”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know. I just...I want.”

Elle rose over Kyrie and kissed her again on the lips. A sheen of sweat covered Kyrie’s forehead and Elle pushed a lock of damp hair off her face.

“Me, too,” Elle whispered. “I want it, too.”

“Do you really like doing this? I know you’re not—”

“I’m a not a lesbian, no. I love having *** with men. But I also love having *** with you. And that’s what we’re doing now.”

“We are, aren’t we?”

“We are. I hope it’s as good for you as it is for me.”

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“Better,” Kyrie said. “You’re doing all the work.”

Elle shook her head. “This isn’t work. You aren’t work.”

“Will you touch me inside now?”

“Soon. I told you I’m enjoying myself. Don’t rush me, my dove.”

“Dove?”

“When I first saw you, your hair and your skin reminded me of a dove. I don’t know why.”

“I like it. It sounds like ‘my love.’”

“It does, doesn’t it?” With one more smile, Elle dropped her mouth back to Kyrie’s breasts. She kissed them again, kneaded and molded them in her hands and with her mouth until Kyrie panted.

Elle sat up finally and moved between Kyrie’s knees. She lifted the hem of the gown up to Kyrie’s waist and pushed her thighs open. Kyrie said nothing. Her body had gone limp. She was weak with desire. Exactly the way Elle wanted her.

“I’ll try not to hurt you too much,” Elle said, forcing her eyes to Kyrie’s face.

“You couldn’t hurt me now if you tried.”

“Don’t say stuff like that. Knowing me, I’ll try.”

With both hands, Elle stroked the lips of Kyrie’s vulva. She had the softest pubic hair, like a young girl’s. Elle pushed the folds open and looked down at the small pink hole of her vagina. Carefully she slipped a finger into her and pushed up against the soft hollow right inside her body.

“You are soaking wet,” Elle said.

“Is that good?”

“Unbelievably good. Let’s make it better, though.”

“How?”

Elle bent down and licked Kyrie’s clitoris with the tip of her tongue. One lick and a second one. One the third one she lightly sucked it between her lips. Kyrie went stiff and still from the shock of pleasure.

“Relax,” she ordered the girl. “Trust me. Even if this makes you nervous at first, after a couple times it will become your new favorite thing.”

“Okay. Trying to relax. But...”

“But what?”

“Doesn’t it taste weird?”

“If you want me to tell you it tastes like candy and strawberries, you’re going to be disappointed. If I wanted candy and strawberries, I’d go grocery shopping. Since my head’s between your thighs, I think it’s safe to say I’m in the mood for something else to eat. Now shut up. My mouth has better things to do than answer silly questions. Like this, for example.”

Elle licked Kyrie from her clitoris to the base of her vagina and back up again. Kyrie groaned in the back of her throat and Elle did it again. While she kissed and licked Kyrie, she pushed her finger into that soft spot as deep as she could.

Kyrie flinched.

“Good flinch or bad flinch?” Elle asked.

“Good flinch.”

“I wish I’d packed a vibrator. I hadn’t planned on deflowering a nun while I was here.”

“Better than doing laundry, right?” Kyrie asked. She was flushed and shivering. She’d never looked more vulnerable or more beautiful.

With every minute that passed, Kyrie grew wetter and her breaths faster and more desperate. She was on the verge of orgasming any second now. Under her mouth, Kyrie’s hips rocked up and down. Her fingers grasped at the sheets, at the pillow around her head.

“Are you close?” Elle whispered.

“Yes. Please don’t stop.”

“I’m not stopping. Not now or ever. But when you come, I’m going to put my hand inside you.”

“All of it?”

“Most of it.”

“That’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“I have small hands. It won’t hurt any more than a ***** would, which means it will probably hurt. Try not to scream.”

“What if I scream?”

“You will not scream. That’s an order.”

Kyrie gave a scared little laugh, and Elle went back to work on her, sucking her, licking her, ****ing her...first with one finger, then two. Two fingers...then three. Kyrie was so wet it was dripping onto the sheets underneath her and forming a small puddle. Good thing Elle did the laundry. That could be incriminating.

Elle focused her attention solely on Kyrie’s clitoris. It pulsed against her tongue while Kyrie’s tight wet passage slowly opened itself to her fingers.

Then Kyrie went silent, completely silent. She was there, on the edge, on the verge. She’d hit her climax and hit it hard.

“Elle—” Kyrie gasped the warning and Elle slammed her left hand over Kyrie’s mouth and pushed her right hand into Kyrie.

All around her hand Kyrie’s body throbbed and pulsed as the muscle contracted wildly, clamping down onto Elle’s intruding presence. Kyrie’s legs opened even wider and her hips rose half a foot off the bed and lifted them again and again. Against Elle’s palm, she cried out with either pleasure or pain. Who could tell in that moment?

Kyrie pushed her heels into the bed and pulled back. As quickly as she could without hurting her even more, Elle slid her hand out of her. With a whimper, Kyrie collapsed back onto the sheets in a sweaty, panting, tired mess of blond waves and tears.

“It’s okay,” Elle said, sliding up to lie beside her. “You’re okay. It’s over.”

Kyrie closed her eyes and nodded.

“You did so good.” Elle took a corner of the sheet and wiped the blood and fluid off her hand. Then she gently stroked Kyrie’s burning forehead. She looked so lovely right now, spent and tired with her lips swollen and her nipples taut and her stomach quivering. Elle couldn’t stop herself from kissing her on the mouth one more time.

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“How good?” Kyrie asked.

“Gold medal. You didn’t even scream.”

“Surely that’s worth a few points, isn’t it?” Kyrie asked. “One or two...or ten?”

“You want me to give you points for losing your virginity?”

“No, I want you to give me points for having my first kiss and losing my virginity all in one night. And extra points for not screaming.”

Elle laughed. “You have a one-track mind.”

“I should get points for that, too.”

“Okay. Three points for the first kiss. Five points for not being a virgin anymore. And a bonus two points for not screaming when I broke your hymen with my hand.”

“Nine plus three plus five plus two is...nineteen. I’m only six points away from getting the truth out of you. So close. Let’s have *** again so I can win more points.”

“You already know most of it.”

“But not all, right?”

“No,” Elle admitted. Not all.

“So is that a yes for more ***?”

“You need to recover. You’re bleeding a little.”

“I know,” Kyrie said, sighing. She closed her eyes and the smile on her face faded.

“Are you okay?” Elle asked, pulling Kyrie’s nightgown back up to cover her breasts. She’d be cold any second now as her temperature plummeted. “You don’t have to answer until you’re ready. And when you’re ready there’s no right answer. If you’re not okay, you can tell me that, too. I’ve had ‘not okay’ ***, too. We can talk about it.”

Kyrie still didn’t speak. Not a word.

“Kyrie?” Elle prompted. “Are you okay?”

Kyrie rolled onto her side and stretched an arm over Elle’s chest and threw her leg over Elle’s leg. Elle gathered Kyrie’s small shivering self close to her and kissed her on the forehead. She felt a wave of happiness flow through her and a surge of possessiveness. Hers. All hers.

“Elle,” she began, “what you just did to me?”

“What?” Elle asked, bracing herself.

“Do it again.”

“That’s my girl.”

23

Haiti

THE SUN HAD set by the time they made it back to his beach hut. The moon was on the water. The stars had woken up and come out to watch them. And the instant they were inside his beach hut, Kingsley grabbed Juliette by the arm and pulled her hard against him.

She went limp in his arms, resting her weight against him in an act of total surrender.

He kissed her deeply and she wound her arms around his neck. Her height brought her body into perfect alignment with his. She had substance to her, warm flesh and lean muscle, rounded hips and full breasts. He felt her strength even in her surrender and he adored her for giving it up for him, if only for the night.

“You want me to beat you?” he asked her, sliding his hand down her hair and pressing his palm against the small of her back.

“Please,” she said. S’il vous plaît. “I’ve dreamed of you doing that to me.”

“Has he beaten you?” Kingsley asked when he pulled back from the drugging kiss.

“Yes.”

“Was it his doing? Or yours?”

“Mine,” she said. “I asked him to hurt me.”

“Why? Did you have those fantasies?”

“Sometimes.” Juliette sighed heavily. “But the truth? By the time I was twenty, I had been his lover for six years. I was tired of him, bored. My love for him was fading. It was hard to pretend, especially since his interest in me had only grown in that time. I’m the center of his life now and he...” Her voice trailed off. “I used to love him and hate him in equal measure. Now...now the scales have tipped.”

“So you asked him to hurt you.”

“I did. A few years ago. I needed something, anything to make me look forward to going back to his bed every night.”

“Did it?”

She nodded. “It did. It does. I didn’t want him anymore, but I wanted it, wanted what he gave me at night—pain and fear and power. I wanted that even if I didn’t want him.”

“Did he like it as much as you did?”

“He didn’t want to hurt me at first. I had to beg him to do it.”

“Why didn’t he want it if you did?”

Juliette shrugged. “He’s white. I’m black. He’s French. I’m Haitian.”

“And that’s what pricked his conscience? Skin color and French colonialism? Not that you were fourteen and bargaining for your mother’s life when he took you the first time?”

“Don’t judge him,” Juliette said, pointing a finger at the center of his chest. “You didn’t see me when I was fourteen. I would have ****ed me, too. And so would you.”

“I have a conscience,” Kingsley said.

“Is that what you call yours?” she said with a wicked grin.

“You do want me to beat the hell out of you, don’t you?”

“Bien sûr,” she said with a wide smile.

“Is there anything you don’t like, don’t want?” he asked. “Any limits?”

“He’ll be back in a week. I need to be healed by then. That’s all. He and I, we’ve done everything.”

“Does he rape you?”

“When I want him to. He hates it but it’s my favorite. If I make him angry, he’ll do it, and then he hates us both afterward. I like making him hate himself.” She smiled, and Kingsley caught a glimpse of the darkness in her, the mirror image of the darkness in him.

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“Do you wear a collar with him?”

“No. He gives me jewelry and expensive clothes. That’s how he shows he owns me. I’d rather have the collar. At least that would be something private.”

“I’ve never collared anyone. Collars are for dogs.”

“You collar a dog so if it gets lost it can be returned home to its rightful owner again. The collar isn’t for the dog. It’s for the owner.”

Kingsley looked at her and found himself unable to speak for a moment. Finally he managed to get a few words out.

“I want to own you,” Kingsley said.

Juliette only laughed and shook her head. “Stand in line.”

Kingsley pulled her to him and kissed her.

Juliette had dreamed of him hurting her, she’d said. And Kingsley had fantasized about hurting Juliette since their first night together. Giving and receiving pain was the most intimate act two people could share with each other. More intimate even than ***, which required so little courage. It was a biological itch and that was all. But pain was life and trust and everything he needed from Juliette, everything he needed to give her.

But he hadn’t planned for this night, merely fantasized about it. And he had nothing with him—no floggers, no canes, no whips, no chains. That hadn’t stopped Søren when they were boys back in high school. But that was Søren and Søren could beat Kingsley breathless using nothing but...

Of course.

Kingsley unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of the loops of his khaki trousers. He’d lost weight while living on the beach, weight he hadn’t needed to lose. A month ago he’d dug a belt out of his bag, the one he’d packed in the leather duffel he’d kept in that locker, the bag that contained anything he would need to run for his life if the time came. And the bag that contained the last and only objects that mattered to him. The belt was in that bag.

Juliette took a nervous step back toward the bed.

“Do you know what this is?” Kingsley asked.

“Your belt,” she said.

“It is mine, and it isn’t.” He held it up. The black leather was scuffed and faded, but otherwise it was in pristine con***ion. It was high quality and had no doubt been expensive when purchased over twenty-five years ago.

“This belt,” he continued, “belonged to the first person who ever beat me. He was a boy at my high school, and I loved him. I loved him so much I gave him my body in every way possible. And this was the belt he used when he beat me. His belt. I’ve kept it all this time.”

“It’s special to you,” Juliette said, eyeing the black leather.

“He is special to me. Was special...”

“Is,” she said. “If he wasn’t still important to you, you wouldn’t be telling me about him.”

Kingsley nodded. “He is special to me. Then and now and always. So special I’ve never beaten anyone with this belt. I kept it hidden away like treasure. Hidden away with all my memories of him and what he did to me.”

“You loved him?”

“I did. And I do. Although I wish I didn’t sometimes. It’s been a knife in me for twenty-three years.”

Juliette nodded. “I know that kind of love. A love like a knife,” Juliette said. “But the knife is what carves us into who we are. Don’t repent of the knife.”

“The knife brought me here,” he said. “I repent of nothing. Not even making love to you again when I know you’ll leave me.”

“Not by choice,” she said. “I promise, not by choice.”

“If you could choose—”

“Don’t ask me to choose when I can’t. Just...”

“What?”

“Just hurt me tonight until I forget who I belong to. Hurt me until I forget who I am.”

Kingsley cupped the back of her neck, kissed her throat. Into her ear he whispered, “I’ll make you forget.”

He untied the back of her dress and pulled it down and off her body. Would he ever get enough of her body? It seemed impossible. The well of his desire was bottomless and he dived into it headfirst.

He kissed her again, held her breasts in his hands, gripped her hips and pulled her hard against his erection. Then, without warning her, he turned her back to him and shoved her against the rough wooden wall.

She held still, said nothing. Waited with her eyes closed and her head bowed.

He struck her hard between the shoulder blades and harder still a few inches lower. She didn’t cry out even when welts appeared on her skin, and he aimed for them. The only sound she made were a few quiet gasps that pleased him more than any scream he’d ever wrung from the lips of a weaker woman. A whip or a flogger made the work easy for him. With a belt he had to throw hard, strike hard, concentrate his energy and his strength. It was as much work for him to hurt her as it was for her to take it. After two or maybe three dozen vicious strikes up and down the entire back of her body, he stopped with as little warning as he’d started.

Juliette remained standing with her eyes closed, panting. He was hard already, eager to have her. Too eager. Dangerously eager. If he took her right now he’d no doubt hurt her with his ardor.

Then again, she’d admitted she liked rough ***. If rough *** was what she wanted, he was more than capable of giving it to her tonight.

Kingsley dropped the belt on the floor and stepped behind Juliette. He pressed his naked chest against the scores of raw welts on her burning back. Then, finally, she cried out in real pain. Sweat and heat against battered flesh...sensual salt rubbed in*****blime wounds.

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“I’m going to **** you now,” Kingsley whispered in her ear as he opened his pants and let his **** rub against her naked bottom. He let her feel it, let her feel the length and the width and the hardness against her like a threat. Behind her with his back still pressed to her, he rolled on a condom. “And you have one job to do while I’m ****ing you.”

“What is my order?”

“Try to stop me.”

Kingsley grabbed the back of her neck with his left hand. With his right arm he wrapped it around her waist and dragged her toward the bed. Juliette dug in her heels and pushed back against him. She was strong but he was stronger. His fingers dug into her soft skin. No matter how she twisted and turned in his arms, she couldn’t get away. He threw her onto the bed and she landed on her back. Before he could get on top of her she had hands up and she pushed hard against his chest.

Blood surged in his veins as he caught her wrists in an iron grasp and forced them down onto either side of her head. She gave a cry of rage and he’d never heard a sound so electrifying. She tried to kick at him but he’d already got a knee between her thighs and was forcing them open. He pressed his full weight onto her, onto her wrists and her thighs. With a burst of sudden strength she jerked under him, nearly succeeding in throwing him off her. But he tightened his grip to the point of pain and beyond.

At last her will to fight back was broken. She went slack underneath him, surrendering. He pulled her wrists together and trapped them in one hand above her head. With his free hand he claimed her body, squeezing her breasts, pinching her nipples, thrusting his fingers inside her wet body until she groaned with unwanted ecstasy. He caught a nipple between his lips and pulled it deep into his mouth. The struggle had made him wild with desire. He shoved his **** inside her and Juliette arched underneath him so hard her back bowed. All around his thrusting length, her vagina pulsed wildly with her orgasm. He kept thrusting, harder and harder, slamming into her with all his might. *** became ****ing became rutting became something else he didn’t know because he was too lost in the unbearable pounding pleasure of it.

This woman...this incredible woman...Kingsley couldn’t get enough of her, using her, ramming into her until every thrust hurt him as much as it hurt her. And yet the pain was as sweet as white wine and it drugged him like no intoxicant he’d ever taken. And he forgot...everything. Inside her body he forgot his anger at Søren, his anger at himself, the women he’d lost—Marie-Laure, Sam, Charlie, Elle... He forgot everything and everyone but Juliette, whoever she was. He didn’t care. She was his. Right now, this moment, she was his. His property, his body, his lover, his treasure.

He’d come to Haiti to drink, to sleep, to forget everything that had happened. By accident he’d stumbled into a dragon’s treasure room and found a jewel, rare and priceless. He held a fortune in his hands. Endless wealth. If only he could claim and keep it, he’d be the richest man in the world. How could he walk away from such a treasure? No man could. It would be like walking away from a pile of diamonds, a chest of gold. He’d no more leave Juliette in Haiti than he’d leave an emerald on the ground, a pearl on the beach.

“My Jules...” he whispered into her ear when he came inside her, his semen pouring out of him in aching bursts. “My jewel.”

A second climax overtook her and she writhed and shivered underneath him.

“Listen to me,” he said between kisses. She was still trapped by his arms and his knees. But the struggle was over and their bodies were still joined. “You belong in my kingdom. You always have. But you were lost to us, and now I’ve found you again. Your king has found you and I will bring you home where you belong.”

“Mon roi,” she said in her exhaustion as she went limp against the sweating sheets. My king. “I want to tell you something.”

“Don’t say it.”

He felt her laugh more than heard it. “You don’t know what it is,” she said.

“I know.”

“You know I’m in love with you?” she asked.

“Oui. But don’t say it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t have you. I can’t keep you. You aren’t mine.”

“Then I don’t love you,” she said, tracing the old and faded scar on his chest with her fingertips. “I don’t love you with all my heart and with every inch of my body. I don’t love you now and always.”

“I will never love you, either,” Kingsley said, closing his eyes.

“I don’t know about your priest, but my priest says it’s a sin to lie,” Juliette said, looking down on him. He rested his hand against the side of her face. “The Devil is a murderer and the Father of Lies. When we lie we are like the Devil, killing the truth.”

“God will absolve us,” Kingsley said. “He knows our lying isn’t murder.”

“What is it then?”

“Self-defense.”

24

Upstate New York

THEY KISSED FOR a long time, Elle and Kyrie. Nothing but kisses, gentle and sleepy. Elle had forgotten how pleasurable, how sensual, the simple act of kissing could be. She wasn’t designed for chastity. She needed a body in her bed other than her own. She needed to touch and be touched. And she needed this girl, this beautiful fragile little girl in her arms as she needed air and water and food.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Kyrie asked between kisses. “I mean, like you touched me?”