[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Mercy

Mercy
Mercy Page 30



“Thirty, Lucy. You said mercy on the thirtieth stroke.”

“Do you love me?”

His face got hard, and he blew out his breath.

“Are you falling in love with me, Matthew?” I repeated. I believe the term he used for it earlier, when we talked about Slave, was topping from below.

He squirmed, which I hated, and then he seemed to collect himself, and he actually answered me, which I hadn’t expected. The problem was, he lied through his teeth.

“No, Lucy, I’m not falling in love with you. Last night I just got a little jealous, a little possessive, maybe. It was hard watching them with you, knowing that they want what I have.

But they wouldn’t appreciate you the way I do. I guess for a moment I thought that was love, but it wasn’t. Please don’t deceive yourself by thinking it was...” His voice trailed off. He sighed and looked at his hands. Don’t deceive yourself, he told me. Okay.

“I can’t give you love. I won’t, Lucy. I told you that from the start. I’ve been honest with you.”

“Why not? Why can’t you love me?”

“I just can’t, but you have to believe that I care very deeply for you.”

“I do believe that, Matthew. But you know what else I believe? I don’t think you tell me the truth. I think it’s you that’s deceived, it’s you that lies. I want to go home.” So that night, dinnertime on Sunday, Matthew had his driver take me home. I’m not sure if he waited for me to show up on Tuesday, but I didn’t, or any day after that. He didn’t call, which was a relief to me, and after a while the driver stopped coming so I could stop sneaking out the front. I didn’t see Matthew backstage or in classes. He very gracefully let me go.

And this time that Matthew and I spent apart, I always umed it would be a temporary thing, because I was terribly lonely without him and I couldn’t imagine he didn’t miss me. In fact, the more time we spent without each other, the more I came to realize all he did for me. The structure he gave my life, the affection, the hot pleasure, all of it was missed. Even the way he slept beside me, the way he would reach for me, half asleep, drowsy and hard. All those things I took for granted when we were together, it occurred to me now how needed they’d been. It seemed more and more to me that we were two wrongs that somehow made a right. But we needed a serious reset, and he needed to be punished for lying to me, even if, in doing so, I punished myself.

I looked often at the poem he’d given me, puzzled over it to figure out the clues I would need to understand him. He had said to me, I can’t give you love. I won’t, and it haunted me.

Why, why, why? Why couldn’t Matthew give love to me? Why couldn’t Matthew give up control? Were the two things tied together? Somehow I knew they were.

Just as Matthew had warned me, Byron and Frank came to offer for me. They were waiting outside the stage door after the show one rainy Saturday, handsome and scary looking in their rich suits and ties.

Byron approached me first, and I turned a little from him.

“Lucy, how have you been?”

“Fine.” I suddenly wished Matthew’s driver was here, that I could slide into that backseat and escape.

“Frank and I heard that you were no longer with Matthew. Is that true?” he asked in a strange, controlled voice.

“I don’t know. We’re sort of taking a break I guess. We had a falling out.”

“Was it over the night we spent together?” asked Frank. “Slave is no longer with us, you know.”

So Matthew had been right about that as well, and so here they were, looking for new blood, which was me.

Byron came a little closer, and I stepped back. “If that night was difficult for you, if we hurt you, we’re sorry. If you wanted to consider playing with us again, we could negotiate what we do. To a degree. How far we go.”

I was already shaking my head.

“I really can’t.” I thought of Matthew’s words to me about this. They will try. You’re not to go. Swear to me! I wasn’t to go, he’d told me that emphatically. So while I might have been tempted to consider it if I wasn’t still in love with Matthew, I didn’t, not even for a second.

“It can be a temporary arrangement,” suggested Frank. “If you’re taking a break with Matthew. Something to pass the time, just for now.”

I didn’t want to think about how desperate that sounded, and the look of cloaked intensity in their eyes. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t safe at that moment. There were dancers coming and going, and Grégoire was walking me home. He’d be out at any time. But the low voices they used to be sure no one would overhear our conversation gave an edge of menace to their words. They had backed me into a corner, for privacy, of course, but it felt more than a little like a power play.

These two men standing here, looking civilized and kindly, making soft requests to me under the harsh light of the street were the same two men who had beaten and gagged me and asked to piss in my mouth.

“I have to go,” I said, scooting over to the stage door. It was locked from the outside, so I had to wait for someone to come out to get back in. I stood with my hand on it, praying for anyone, anyone to come.

“Lucy, we’ll go if we’re upsetting you so much.”

I bowed my head. They had power over me like Matthew, the same power of dominance that controlled and cowed me. The difference was, I didn’t want them to have it, so I just shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. I knew if I did I’d sound guilty that I didn’t want to do as they asked.

Byron tried once more, sensing my weakness. “It could be whatever you want, Lucy.

Temporary or permanent. We could work out the guidelines. The idea of two men controlling you, working you, that doesn’t interest you? That doesn’t turn you on?” I looked around, suddenly glad we were alone out there. Was I such a slut? Yes, the idea did turn me on. It turned me on a lot. These two powerful men, handsome and virile, and horny enough to have me that they would let me set the rules. For a moment I almost let it creep into my mind. We could work out the guidelines. It could be what you want.

But it would never be what I wanted, because what I really wanted was Matthew. Matthew, who had forbidden me to go with them. And if I went with them, even temporarily, what if it got horribly blurred? What if I began to feel for them what I felt for Matthew? To feel that times two, that confusion and longing, I thought it would finish me off.

“To be honest with you, the idea of it does turn me on. But Matthew told me I wasn’t to go with you, and even on a break, I’m his submissive after all.” Then fortunately, the stage door opened and Grégoire came out. I stammered a short goodbye to Frank and Byron. They nodded and walked away. I could see then, now that the conversation was over, the possibility of success dashed, the controlled ire they had hidden from me. They were furious that they left without what they sought. For myself, I felt an almost crippling relief. They were angry, just savagely angry in general, and they would have taken it out on me. Angry at Slave, beautiful Gloria, who had left them feeling less of the men they were, angry at anyone who might have the power to do that again. I saw now why Matthew had forbidden me to go with them. In my heart, I thanked Matthew for that.

But for many weeks more after that tense standoff, I subsisted without Matthew and sleepwalked through my life missing him every minute of the day. I spent a little more time with Grégoire, and a lot of time on my own. The days of dancing began to stretch out before me like trials. My joints became worse, my ankles ached. Then one day, one Saturday night performance, one of my ankles gave out completely and failed. It happened right in the middle of a show while I was on stage, and Grégoire felt it and compensated for it, such was his mastery of partnering. Somehow he carried me through the finishing notes of the dance until I could hobble off the stage and collapse. Some in the audience might have been fooled, but anyone who knew anything about dance would have known at once that something was wrong.

It hurt so badly I feared it was broken. Finally, now, my body was done with me. It was the beginning of the end and I burst into bitter tears. I sat there on the cold dirty floor in the wings, crying my eyes out, surrounded by mournful dancers who all empathized with me. I felt a hand on my back then, warm and firm, and I knew that warmth and pressure as well as I knew my own self.

I turned with tearful eyes to find him right there, kneeling beside me with an anxious look on his face. I wondered how he’d gotten there so quickly, and then realized he must have been watching the show. He would have known the moment it happened, the very second, because, like Grégoire, he was attuned to my body as much as his own.

By this time it had been nearly two months since I’d been with Matthew, and even injured, even devastated, I longed for him to take me in his arms. His face was so close to mine, his lips, his icy blue eyes right there. I wanted to press my body to his, cling to him and not let go.

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“Matthew,” I said. “Matthew.” It was a plea, a prayer, a sob. It was all I could say.

He rubbed my back, supporting me there on the floor. “Lucy, poor Lucy,” he said, and it was the next best thing to an embrace, the caring and concern in those words.

We had no physical therapist on staff to examine and treat my injury, so I would have to be taken to a hospital. He offered to take me for treatment, and as usual, everyone deferred to him.

Then he did take me in his arms, just picked me up and carried me while I cried onto his shirt.

He placed me in the front seat of his car, taking care not to jostle my leg.

“Okay?” he said, carefully positioning my swollen ankle. “Does it hurt?

“Yes.” Yes, it hurts. This all hurts so much. I wanted to scream out to him, please don’t leave me. Please take me home with you now and don’t leave me alone again. But I didn’t, I just sat there sobbing, whimpering and sniffling like a child.

And being a rich and resourceful man, he didn’t actually take me to a hospital. He called a friend who practiced orthopedics, and the friend came in to his office at that late hour especially to see me. Matthew introduced him as Rob, and Rob called him Matt, not Matthew or Mr. Norris like everyone else. The three of us were alone in the silence of his deserted office while he took x-rays and manipulated my injured joint. I still had on my dance costume, tights and shoes, and my garish stage makeup, sullied with tears. Everything the doctor did he did over the sheen of my tights, but still, his fingers were firm and sure, just like Matthew’s. I wondered if this was another of those kind of friends. I pictured the exam wrapping up, and the doctor, who was quite handsome, producing a gag and ordering me over the table to be whipped. I imagined Matthew holding me down, and afterward suggesting they me together. She loves it in both holes.

I’m happy to share.

But no, that wasn’t what happened. Dr. Rob looked over the x-rays and ured me it was only an acute sprain. He was so kind and businesslike, and seemed so trustworthy, I almost asked him for help with my other burgeoning aches and pains. But in the end I stayed silent and just nodded my head and accepted his instructions for resting and healing my leg. He taped up my ankle and gave me some medicine, which Matthew handed back to him.

“This is too powerful,” he said. “She’s too little for this.” The doctor nodded and handed Matthew a weaker prescription, and told him if I had too much pain, to call him back.

“She handles pain pretty well,” he said with a perfectly straight face. I just looked at my feet, flushing hot, and wished he would hold me close again.

After that, he took me back to my apartment. He let me limp for a while, then picked me up.

He carried me up all the stairs, and I thought to myself that there was no elevator. He thought it too, and said I would come and stay at his house. He said it just like that, that I would, not Would you like to? or If you want...

“Just for a while, until your ankle is better. Rob said if you rested well, you’ll be mobile again in a week.”

He’d also told me no dancing for at least two weeks, and then only a limited amount. I felt my entire career slipping away, and my entire life.

I sat and let Matthew pack my things for me, and we left shortly afterward for his place. On the way over, he held my hand and reassured me.

“I just want you to have a safe place to heal. I have no expectations from you.” He was quiet a moment. “Not that I haven’t missed you, Lucy. I’ve missed you a lot.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” I thought he might ask me then why I’d gone away from him. Or maybe he knew. Knew that it was, between us, an issue of truth. Now he was taking me to stay at his house, but not to play. Did I want to play? Oh, God, yes I did. I wanted him to want me, to take me, even broken as I was. But I just said, “Thanks for that doctor, he was really nice.”

“An old college friend. Someone I trust. I think dancers need good doctors for all that wear and tear.”

Oh, you don’t even know, I thought.

Then he asked me point blank, “Are you dancing with pain, Lucy? Every night?” Of course he knew. He knew my body inside and out. I played dumb. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve just noticed at the shows that your dancing is changing.”

“How often are you coming to the shows?”

“Enough to notice a difference. And I’m more than a little worried about you.”

“My dancing looks that bad?”

“To the average person, I’m sure you look fine. I probably study your body more carefully than the average person might.”

It kind of felt good to know that, that he’d missed me so much he’d sat out in the audience to watch me. “I’m fine, Matthew,” I said with fake conviction.

“Tell me the truth please, so I can help you.” Help me how? I wanted to ask. Maybe money truly could buy everything. Maybe he could buy my youth and my body back. If anyone could do it, it was him. “What are your plans for when you’re finished dancing?” He discussed it so easily, the end of my career. I chose sarcasm, because otherwise I’d have burst into tears. “Plans? What are these ‘plans’ you speak of?”

“I’m serious, Lucy. What will you do when you’re finished?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me depressed.”

“It’s something you’re going to have to face eventually.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t know what this feels like. When I have to stop dancing, it’s all over for me!”

“All over? Lucy, how long have you been dancing? Twenty-five years? There’s more to life.

You’re what? Not even thirty years old. And you’re smart and you’re strong and you’re beautiful. I think you should start to make some plans.”

“I don’t want to make plans. Anyway, why do you care?”

“I care, Lucy. You know that I do.”

This is how I spoke to him, the man I loved, the man I was certain loved me, who had roused an old college friend out of bed at ten o’clock at night just to take care of my ankle.

“I’m so sorry, Matthew. I’m so sorry.” I started to weep. I was still weeping when we pulled up to his house, and still weeping as he helped me in the shower, and still weeping when he put one of his soft, luxurious shirts on me to sleep in.

He set me up in a first floor guest room with the help of Mrs. Kemp. She clucked around me with exhalations of Poor dear! and Poor thing! I remembered with a pang of embarrassment how I was the last time she’d seen me, on my knees in the hallway, sucking off Matthew while he told her to burn my dress. Poor thing indeed. Of course that’s how she saw me. And here I was in his house again, as broken as I ever was. When Mrs. Kemp felt I was comfortable enough, she finally left us alone, and I thought, please, please, please. But he seemed reluctant to come anywhere near me. He gave me a chaste kiss on the forehead and a squeeze on my arm. I cried alone long into the night. He was so near and yet so far from me. Why had I left him? It was clear now he wouldn’t be taking me back.

In the morning Mrs. Kemp brought me breakfast, and I didn’t see Matthew at all that day, or for three days after. He’d had a business trip to take. He came to see me when he arrived home on the third day, looking like a million bucks in his power suit and tie. If I could have, I would have crawled to him on my hands and knees and begged for ***. He took off his jacket and tie and loosened his collar, then sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked my calf.

“Have you been resting, Lucy?”

Please me, Matthew. “Yes. I stayed in bed all day.”

“Mrs. Kemp has been helping you out?” His voice was ridiculously tender.

“Yes, she’s been wonderful.” Please, please, please, please.

“Is there anything I can get for you?

Yes, Matthew, you can get me some of those clamps. Get that lube that makes me burn and use it to ease your into my . You can even get the cane for me if you want.

“I’m fine. Really, I am. My ankle’s almost better.”

“Did you have dinner yet? Will you come and have dinner with me?” He said it slowly, as if he wished he wasn’t saying it.

“Of course. Yes, Matthew,” I said before he could take it back.

We ate that night at his formal table, dined on lamb and asparagus and really good wine. We ate by candlelight, which felt really romantic, but he steered our conversation to practical things.

I told him that Grégoire had been by to visit me, that other dancers were filling in for me for at least two weeks. He told me his orthopedist friend Dr. Rob would want to see me next Monday, and that he would come to the house. He asked me how the painkillers were working, and I told him they worked great and I barely needed them any more. I actually didn’t really need them at all for my ankle, but I kept taking them because they helped so much with all my other pains. I didn’t...

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I looked up at him constantly from under my lashes, and again and again our needful eyes met. I wondered what would have to happen for him to take me back, to have things be as they were. I still had to be with him, even if he was determined not to love me. I knew that now, that I had to be with him either way. But I didn’t know how to broach that conversation especially when it seemed it was a subject he wanted to avoid.

So instead I said, “You were right. Byron and Frank came to see me. To ask me to be with them.”

“I know,” he said, his face hard.

“How did you know?”

“Kevin told me.”

“Oh.” Of course, Kevin had been there. Where? Somewhere. Close enough to help, close enough to stop me if I had made the wrong choice. “Was he there every night?”

“Yes. Some nights I was there.”

“I never saw him, or you.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

He only had to look at me to see how much I wanted him, to see the desire in my eyes. If he had looked at me then, I couldn’t have stopped myself. I would have pushed back my chair and knelt before him and laid my head in his lap like the most abject supplicant.

“I would never have gone with them, Matthew.”

“No, you wouldn’t. It wouldn’t have been a good situation for you.”

“What would be a good situation for me?”

His lips turned down a little at the edges and he chose not to reply. We finished our meal in tense and miserable silence.

If he still loved me, he was really hiding it well.

Chapter Twelve: Pain

That night in bed, I let the tears come. If he wanted space between us, there would be space.

It was he that controlled our relationship, and I didn’t dare ask to return to him for fear he would deny me outright. Lying there in his house, his spare room, his bed, the feel and scent of him was everywhere tormenting me. I sobbed myself to sleep remembering the many intimate and pleasurable hours we’d shared, and dreamed of having them again.

I dreamed that the door opened and then closed, that I heard his measured footsteps crossing the floor. I dreamed that he pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed beside me, and then I woke with a start to find it was true. He was there beside me, real, not a dream, warm and stark , his hard like granite against my thigh. “Tell me to leave, Lucy,” he said.

His hands fell on me, roving over my skin, warm and searching. His arms wrapped around me as if he just needed to feel me, convince himself that I was really there to be touched. I still had his shirt on that I slept in every night, just to have something of his close against my skin.

Again he entreated me, “Tell me to leave. Please.”

“No.” I trembled at the very thought of it. “No, please don’t leave. Please!” I clung to him, pressing my forehead to his chest.

He pulled my face up to his and kissed me deeply while unbuttoning my shirt. He pushed it off my shoulders and down, then lowered his mouth to my taut s and teased them with his tongue.

“Oh, God, Matthew...please...”

I cried emotional tears as much as I moaned. My whole body felt electrified to be under his hands again. He made no sound, only kissed and loved me, running his mouth, his lips and tongue all over my skin. It was as if he wanted to memorize me with his taste buds, and his hands never once left the landscape of me. I thrust my against him as he caressed me. “Matthew, Matthew...”

“Shh, hush. I’m here.”

“Please. Please...” I didn’t know what else to say. He pulled away from me and I clutched at him, distraught, but he was back a scant moment later. He could put on a condom in record time.

He put his arms around me, used his big hands to align my to his.

“Am I hurting your ankle?”

I think at that point I could have felt nothing, no pain or discomfort, with the measure of lust running through my veins. He thrust inside me, so slowly, rocking against me, stretching me so gradually it seemed to take a minute or more before he was fully seated inside. When he was, he buried his face in my neck and drew his back and thrust deep inside me again. He felt so perfect. He fit inside me so exactly, moved so expertly, the way he always had. My whole body thrummed with pleasure as he plowed in and out of me. Within moments, the arousal of every sense, every nerve converged into a shattering orgasm. I clung to him, shuddered and shook with the power of what I felt for him.

He laughed against my ear, feeling my walls contract around him. “Little Lucy, you come as well as you ever did. Come again for me. Over and over.” I did too, before he was done with me. My world was reduced to a wonderland of presses and sighs, grasps and thrusts and Matthew’s lips on mine, and all over my body. How had I lived without him those many weeks? How could I ever live without him again?

When I came for the last time, he came with me and fell over me, exhausted. He held me close and sighed. I clung to him, unwilling to let him go.

“Lucy.” That was all he said for a long time.

Then, “Lucy, I tried not to fall in love with you. I didn’t want to. It’s not what I planned.” He said it so sadly, so wretchedly, my heart ached for him.

“Why is that so bad? To fall in love with me?”

“Because if you leave me...if you leave me, I won’t survive it. Not you. Not this time.”

“I won’t leave you. I won’t. Do you really love me? Please tell me, do you love me now?”

“You know I’ve loved you for an eternity. And it’s hurt like hell, hurt much more than anything I’ve ever put you through.”

I buried my face in his neck. “I love you too, Matthew. I want to be whatever you want. I want to make you happy.”

He made a soft sound. “That’s what I’ve always wanted for you. When I saw you at the Gala

—” His voice cut off and he buried his face against my ear. “When I saw you dance at the Gala, I had to leave. I told you I had a phone call, that I missed that party because of a call. But the truth is, I was outside in my car.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you leave?”

“Because it was too much, how I felt. The desire I felt to possess you, the drive to make you mine. I would have given my entire fortune that night, all of it, just to hold you in my arms.”

“But you’re holding me in your arms right now. For free.”

“But then, I had no way to do that. You’d already blown off my tentative attempts to get closer to you. So I just sat in my car, insane with jealousy.”

“Jealousy of who?”

“Whoever was going to get you that wasn’t me. Whatever normal, vanilla man would get you and not know what treasure he had in his hands.”

“Matthew,” I said after a long silence. “Did you really know right away, that I would want what you give me?”

“Yes. I told you, I knew the moment I saw you. I knew before, when I saw those paintings.” He laughed. “Those paintings are obscene.”

“They’re only obscene to you.”

“High ography. I don’t know how everyone else can’t see it, the submission in your pose.”

“Maybe only you were meant to see it.”

“Me and my wallet,” he snorted, and I laughed.

I thought of the paintings, thought of myself posing for them, alive in the knowledge that I was being used. Used to make a painting, used for my body, used for the curves of my neck, , and . I had been Matthew’s submissive in my heart, in my mind, from the second I laid eyes on him, and now, at long last, I was in the hands of my match, the man who had known even from an image on canvas how badly I needed to be controlled.

“Matthew, please don’t ever leave me. We belong together.”

“I know.”

“Promise you’ll never leave me. Please.”

“I’m more worried about you leaving me. You’re young, you’re so beautiful. I’m an old man next to you. And you’ve already left me once.”

“You’re what? Forty years old? With the libido of a teenage boy. I think you could out**** an eighteen year old.”

“Not forever. I won’t be able to do that forever.”

“Oh, I think you will. Anyway, what about me? I’m decrepit. My joints are giving out and my career’s almost through.”

“Retire then and be my concubine,” he teased. “Live to serve me, like Slave.” I made a retching sound. “No, I don’t think so.”

We lay in silence for a long while after our laughter died down, breathing in perfect cadence, our bodies entwined.

“I won’t be any softer on you because I love you,” he said when he spoke again. “I’ll actually be harder over time.”

I shivered with lust and excitement to hear that. Speechless with gratitude, I bit down on his neck. He drew his breath in and slapped my . “No biting, Lucy. I’ve told you that how many times now?”

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I hummed and ground against him, and he chuckled at my inability to find control.

“I see some re-training will be in order, little girl. Making up for lost time.”

“Yes, sir.” Yes, yes, yes.

The next night he asked me if I was well enough to go with him to the basement.

I told him yes, I absolutely was.

* * *

So that’s how I became Matthew’s girlfriend, in ad***ion to being his submissive and slave.

He still used the favored endearments, tramp and slut and whore, but he added some new ones too. Darling. Precious. My love.

Soon after that night, he acquired Pietro’s third painting of me. He wouldn’t tell me what he’d had to pay to make it his. He only told me he’d wanted to own them all, and I hoped, I truly hoped Pietro hadn’t been too cruel in his price.

We played down in the basement and our sessions were more fun than they’d ever been. The first night back at our games, I was beside myself with restlessness. He knew it and made me go downstairs early, to strip and kneel in the middle of the room and wait. I knelt there, horny and wet, so wet I’m amazed the moisture didn’t run down my legs. I waited and imagined the things he would do to me, and by the time he came to me, I was reckless with need.

He came to me and already rock hard. He stood in front of me and I stared at his .

I opened my mouth to take him inside, but he lifted my chin instead and turned my face up to his.

“I know you want me, you horny little slut. Did you touch yourself, or did you wait patiently for me?”

“I waited, sir.”

“What about while we were apart? Did you ever touch yourself? Play with yourself while you were thinking of me?”

“Yes, a lot of times,” I admitted guiltily. “I couldn’t help it.”

“Why?” he asked, with an edge of arousal. “Why couldn’t you control yourself? Did you sleep with any other men?”

“No,” I said, horrified at the idea. “But I dreamed of you often.”

“You dreamed of me? What kind of things? What did you dream about?”

“About you hurting me.” My voice trembled from the intent way he stared.

“What did I do to you in your dreams? Tell me everything.” I wanted to groan with frustration. I didn’t want to talk, not right now. But I obediently told him, “You ed my , and then you beat me—”

“Specifics,” he snapped. “Kneel up straight and tell me a story. And remember, I’m still deciding how to punish you, so it would be in your best interest to make it good.”

“You made me bend over the ottoman and you restrained me—”

“How?”

“With the cuffs. You made me part my legs, and you...thrust really hard into my . You really ed me hard...”

“Did it feel good?”

“Yes, sir.” His was bobbing in front of me. “Can I suck you now?”

“You’ll suck me when I tell you to, you little whore, and not a moment before. What happened in your dream after I ed you?”

“I came without permission, and you...used your cane on me.” He smiled broadly. “The cane? Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many strokes?”

“Twenty,” I admitted with mounting dread.

“You like being caned.”

“No, sir.”

“It wasn’t a question. Twenty with a cane, huh? And you jerked off over that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you woke up from your dream?”

“Yes. I was desperate to come.”

“You’re a naughty little whore, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

He pinched my s until I yelped.

“You are all the time. Open your mouth, Lucy.”

Before I could part my lips fully, he thrust between them, but I was ready for him, my mouth hot and wet. I sucked him as he pulled painfully on my s. Then he let go and held onto my head, curling his fingers into my hair.

“I’m glad what we do turns you on, Lucy, but we have rules. You get twenty for touching yourself without permission. And you did it how many times?” I moaned around his . It would have meant hundreds of strokes. Thousands.

He laughed. “Lick my balls, Lucy. Do it really nice, the way you were taught.” He groaned as I ran my tongue over his sack, lapping at him eagerly. “If you do it real nice, if you suck me off good and swallow all my cum, I might have mercy on you. I might give you twenty and call it a deal.”

I moaned and took his in my mouth again, deep throating his length. I was out of practice, but I managed not to gag.

“That’s a good girl.” Before he came, he pulled out and came on my mouth and my s.

I licked his jizz from my lips the way he’d taught me, and he rubbed in the cum on my s while he tugged at my s a few more times. Then he put his fingers to my mouth.

“Lick it off. Savor it, you little slut.”

And I savored every drop. I loved his fingers and the taste of his cum. I licked his fingers until they shone and again licked my lips, delicate as a cat.

“Crawl to the ottoman and bend yourself over it. How many do you get for touching yourself?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“Would you like me to use the cane?”

“No, sir.”

He laughed. “Noted. But I choose.” I looked up at him from the ottoman, watched his mind work. “Let’s try a new toy.”

He returned with a thick leather strap I’d never seen before. He dropped it in front of my face, along with a condom and the itchy lube. I shivered a little.

“I’m going to your first, Lucy, and then I’m going to beat you with this.” He slathered the itchy lube all over his after he put the condom on, then reached around to smooth a little between my legs. I moaned, grinding against his fingers. He chuckled. “I never make it easy, do I? Give me your hands.” He bound my hands at the small of my back, then parted my cheeks and placed some more of the lube in my . I wiggled and groaned from the hot, invasive sting.

“You may come when I come, Lucy, not before. This ing is to reward your slutty little dream. When I’m done, then you’ll get your punishment with the strap.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, but what I wanted to do was beg please, please, please, please! He did everything slowly and deliberately, for no other reason than to drive me mad. It had been weeks since I’d had his in my and I was desperate to feel that pleasure and pain. He had other plans though. He took his time fingering my cheeks and hole, and then he whistled under his breath.

“So pale, so white. It’s been months since I’ve seen you this way. Have you missed having my marks on your ?”

The lube stung and teased inside me. I practically cried, “yes, sir!” He played lazily with my cheeks, squeezing and pinching them. “Do you like it when I do this, when I play with you and touch you?”

I groaned into the ottoman. “Matthew, please!”

“Okay, let’s try this. No toy first. Can you be open for me? It’s been a while since you took me, little girl.”

He guided his to my entrance. “Open. Relax and open.” He pressed against me and I tensed a little. I’d forgotten how large he really was. He nuzzled my neck. “If you were better trained, I’d be able to slide right in. You’ll learn one of these days to be ready before I even touch my to you. We’ll just have to practice a bit more, won’t we, you little anal-loving slut?”

I made a soft sound, somewhere between a thrill and a laugh.

He pushed deeper into me, so only the thick head of his was inside. “Relax, don’t tense.” He rubbed my back soothingly. “Offer your to me, let me come inside.” And then he was sliding inside me, and I was stretching open for him. I felt the familiar burn, the full, hot sensation. “Jesus, Lucy, I love your . See, you’re doing it, not even a toy first. You can accommodate my fat . You’ve come so far.”

I moaned because his words were so nasty, so erotic. He sawed in and out of me steadily, and with each thrust, my throbbed.

“I’m going to you a long time, Lucy. I’m going to make you so used to this, so used to the feel of getting your hole ed. You’re going to get it ed all the time now that we’re together again, aren’t you?”

“God, yes!” I cried.

He held my in his hands and drove into me over and over, while I writhed and wiggled against him. Then he reached up underneath me and pinched both my taut s.

“Oh God, Matthew!”

“Yes, I know you like that. But don’t you come yet.”

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I shook my head, whimpering softly.

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Matthew, I can’t—”

“You can, you just concentrate, you horny little cumslut. You concentrate on waiting for me.

I told you to wait for me, and that’s what you’ll do.”

I buried my face in the ottoman and I tensed, my hands behind my back clenching into fists.

He ed me roughly and again and again, jerked on my s. I cried out in torment, trying to hold off my orgasm at the same time it threatened to overtake me. Each moment, the strain and pleasure intensified. Finally, I heard his breath change.

“Okay, you little tramp. You may come now, because I’m about to really plow your .” And he did, so that I came in an explosion of sensation, my entire pelvis contracting and bucking in exquisite relief. I could feel him quaking behind me while I cried out, thrusting in me deep. He collapsed over top of me, his hard stomach muscles crushing my hands. He breathed and sighed into my hair.

“Did you like that?”

“Yes.”

“Thank me then. From now on, since you like it so much, I want you to thank me when I your .”

“Thank you, sir,” I breathed.

“Pathetic,” he snapped, smacking my hard. “With some enthusiasm!”

“Thank you, sir!”

“Better.”

“Thanks for ing my so...enthusiastically,” I added, looking back at him, and he smothered a smile and grabbed my hair hard.

“Naughty. Jesus, you’re naughty. Now you’ll get five more, you naughty little slut.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Apologize.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He got up to throw away his condom and wash up, then he undid my cuffs and refastened them to the ottoman legs. He picked up the thick leather strap with a devilish grin and tapped it against his hand.

“This is new. I’ve never used it. I bet it hurts.”

I buried my head in the upholstery.

“You’ll count, Lucy. Twenty five.”

He warmed me up with a few cracks, and I counted each one. By the time he got to five, I was already tensing and dodging the blows, because the thick leather stung like bejeezus.

“Stop it,” he snapped. “We talked about this. You just buck up and take it.”

“Six.” I flinched again.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes, sir. Seven!” God, it hurt like hell.

“Does it hurt more or less than the cane?”

“Eight! Less, Matthew.”

“More or less than my belt?”

“Nine! More, Matthew. Ten!” I yelped again. He was hitting me harder now. Around stroke number eighteen, I finally burst into bitter tears of remorse.

“You would have been almost done now.”

“Nineteen!” I sobbed.

“You would have had just one more.”

“Twenty!” Jesus, that was a hard one. He was really getting severe. I wanted it though, had asked for it, in fact.

“Little Smarty Pants.”

I nearly forgot to count. He took me to twenty five, and the last ones were brutal. My butt was on fire.

He crouched beside me, lifted my chin and looked in my eyes.

“Did it turn you on as much as your dream?”

“No,” I pouted. “Not quite.”

He reached back and thrust his fingers up inside me. I was ridiculously wet. “I think you’re a liar.” He shoved them in deeper, wiggling them, making me moan and arch my back. “Next time, I’ll use the cane.”

He undid my hands, yanked me to my feet, and fondled my s while he kissed me hard.

“I’m glad that you dreamed about me while we were apart. I dreamed about you.” I looked up at him, completely enamored and sick with love. He stroked my cheek thoughtfully.

“Do you really like being a submissive, Lucy? I know you weren’t sure. Why did you run away from me?”

“I didn’t run away. I needed some time to think about things.”

“Have you had enough time now? Are you sure now? Are you sure you want to be with me?

I couldn’t take it if you left me again.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “I want to be here.”

He kissed me, nuzzling me affectionately. “Well, run upstairs, wash up, and I’ll you again in bed. Go.”

He came up a short time afterward, showering after me. When he came out, I was sitting on his bed brushing my hair.

“Give me,” he said, sitting behind me. I handed him the hairbrush. He loved to play with my hair. The way he brushed it though...tragic.

“You have to...” I gestured hopelessly. “Brush it curl by curl.” He chuckled, dragging the brush through it.

“Or you’ll make it frizz!”

He ran the brush through it the other way then, teasing it up on end.

“Stop! Stop it,” I pleaded, giggling as he fought with me over the brush. We wrestled, and of course I ended up over his lap. He cracked my with the hairbrush, and I yelped and screeched as he tickled me in between smacks.

“Stop! Give it back to me. Ouch!”

I looked back at him, trapped under his hands.

“Give it to me. Please.”

With a smirk, he tossed it into the corner.

“I like the tousled look better.” He pulled me up in his lap and started to slide me down on his . He sighed as the head entered and went into me a little.

I pushed at him. “No.”

He groaned. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to get pregnant.”

“Why not?”

I laughed, and looked at him reproachfully. “Matthew.”

He pouted, but pushed me off him to reach for a condom. “Why don’t you go on the pill already?”

“I told you why.”

“Can’t you get a diaphragm, or a...what the hell are those called? An IUD?”

“How about I just get a hysterectomy? Will that please my master?” He rolled on the condom with an arch look. “Sometimes you have a smart little mouth.

Makes me want to put something in it.”

He pulled me into his lap again and lowered me onto his , caressing my back, pulling down my . I felt so full of him, not just full of his , but full of his love, his affection and care.

“Oh Jesus, Lucy. Jesus Christ.” He cupped my in his hands, bruised and hot as it was. He pulled me closer and I ground against him, riding him, grinding my against him so swirls of arousal washed over me again and again. When I started getting close to coming, he picked me up and dropped me down on my back. He came over me, thrusting deep and hard inside me. I reveled in the feeling of his power, his mastery. His taut abs rubbed against my stomach and his chest hair tickled my s. I clung to him, drifted on the manly scent of him.

“Jesus, Lucy, I just want to you sometimes. I want to you forever. I want my in you every hour of the day.”

“I’m confused,” I teased. “Do you like to me or not?” He licked my neck and pulled me closer. “I love to you. Frizzy hair and all. Does it feel good when I you?”

“Matthew, if you knew what you felt like, how you feel when you’re inside me. God, if you could feel it...”

He laughed. “I can feel it.” I moaned as he drove into me. “I can feel how much you love it,” he said. “I love the noises you make, like you love to be ed.” He pulled my hands up hard over my head and held them there. “Are you going to come for me, Lucy? Come hard and loud for me?” He bit my s while he held my hands tight. I struggled against him, just to feel that he had me held safely, that I couldn’t get away.

“I’ve got you, baby. I’m going to you so hard now.” He pushed my thighs wider apart, practically bruising them with his hands. He pounded into me roughly and my sore cheeks slid up and down on the bed. I was trapped, captured, consumed by his passion. “My God, Lucy, I love you so much.”

I shuddered with pleasure. How long had I dreamed of him saying those words to me?

“I love you too, Matthew,” I sighed, completely transported by his hard, punishing thrusts.

When I came, he came at the same time. It was like we were one, one creature, one being. I came with my legs kicking, my clenching around him, his teeth buried in my neck.

* * *

The next morning he woke me by parting my thighs and starting to eat me out. He licked and stroked my with his tongue, sucked at my , parting me wider and wider to taste me.

“Turn over,” he rasped. I flipped over, still not fully awake. He came over my back, the tip of his pressed against me, and drove all the way in, warm, pulsing flesh.

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“Matthew! No!”

“I’ll pull out.”

“No.”

“I’ll pull out. Trust me.”

“Please!” I knew he was clean, we’d been tested long ago, but a baby would end my career.

“Please, Matthew. Please don’t! If you don’t want to use a condom, my .” He stopped and pulled out of me with a groan, lying beside me on his back.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t let you. If I get pregnant—”

“No, it’s okay. You’re right to make me. I’m just being a .” He leaned over to get a condom from the bedside table, along with some lube, which he used to ease his finger into my bottom. “I think I will your though, now that you mention it.” He pulled me up on my knees and spread my legs wide. I trembled as he parted me and pressed the tip of his to my hole. I buried my head in my hands and willed myself to relax for him. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, that he would make me come. I willed myself to accept him, and slowly, he made his way in. “Good girl,” he breathed. “Jesus, what a good girl you are.”

When he was fully seated inside me, he ed me while I clawed at the bed, overwhelmed as always by the sensation of being plumbed by his massive tool.

“You like the feel of my big fat shoved in your ?”

“Yes! Please, me. I love it!” My hands scrabbled at the sheets.

“You’re a little whore.”

I whimpered in agreement.

“Are you mine, Lucy?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m yours.”

His hands clenched in my hair and he breathed on my neck. “Mine. You’re mine.” His hands roved over me and I felt his ownership deep inside, deeper even than he ed me. Deeper than the blue of his eyes. He touched me in all the places that thrilled me, tapping my , pinching my s, until I was shuddering to come. “Oh, please, Matthew!” I howled as his jerked in and out of my , fast, slow, shallow and deep.

“You want to come?”

“Please, I want to come with your in my .”

He made a growl of ent and we came together, and I basked in all my favorite pleasures.

The clutch of his hands, the strength of his thrusts, his breath rasping against my ear. Afterward he held me a long time, and he asked me again, “Are you mine?” The answer, of course, was “Yes, I am.”

“Am I your dominant boyfriend?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

He frowned. “I know that you belong to me. That you’re mine. You are mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why? Why are you mine? How did I get so lucky?”

“I don’t know that luck had anything to do with it,” I said, gazing up at the three paintings that now graced his bedroom wall.

“Mmm. How’s your ankle?”

“Almost completely better.”

“Lucy,” he said. “Do you think it’s time for you to stop dancing?” Oh, Jesus. “No, I’m fine. It barely hurts anymore.”

“I think you should stop before you hurt yourself. I can tell it’s not as easy as it was, even in the months I’ve known you.”

I buried my head in his neck. “Matthew, please. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I worry about you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just me again.”

“Again? You’re a greedy little slut.”

He pinched my hard, and caught my yelp in his mouth with a kiss. He kissed me a long time, then whispered, “Get a condom and roll it onto my . And yes, Lucy, I’m your ing boyfriend. Your ing dominant slave of love. If you ever try to top me, I’ll hurt you.” I smiled as he pulled me under him. I had no desire to top him, although I had a certain power over him of my own.

“Lucy, will you always be truthful to me?”

“God, yes. Yes, Matthew, I will.”

* * *

But I was a big liar. I wasn’t truthful to him, or truthful to myself. I slowly turned into a big, fat liar in the weeks that followed that sweet little talk, because I was in pain of the most excruciating kind.

Two decades of wear and tear on my joints had brought me to a point where the pain made it impossible to dance. So I did what any self-respecting dancer would do, which is drug myself in order to get by. I didn’t go to Grégoire. He wouldn’t have gone along with it. We all knew what dancers were hooked up to the pills, so I talked only to the people I had to. I took only what I needed, but that amount slowly increased, and then my flexibility started to go and the pain was that much worse.

In desperation, I considered seeing Matthew’s friend Dr. Rob, who’d been so very kind to me. But I had no doubt he would have told Matthew everything. Not only that, but he would have told me to stop dancing. So I soldiered through on what pain pills I could get my hands on, and I tried, I really tried to not let things get away. But sometimes, you know, they just do.

Chapter Thirteen: Lies

Hello, my name is Matthew and I’m an addict. I’m addicted to a drug named Lucy Merritt.

This girl, this little dancer named Lucy fills my every waking hour with either longing, craving, pleasure, or peace.

I met Lucy back in October. It was almost May now and spring was in the air. I was sitting and waiting now for her to come to me. It was one of “our” nights, the nights when she was mine. I suppose now that she’d moved in, every night was really “our” night, but there were only certain nights I required her to play. The other nights were by choice, her choice, because my own choice, of course, was a perpetual “yes.” Most of the time, yes was her choice as well, but she wouldn’t move in without a “no” choice clause, so we agreed that some days she belonged to me, and other days she would be able to choose if she was mine.

But tonight, no. No choice. I’d already planned what I was going to do to her. Some days I planned things, plotted pervertedly, other days I just went with the flow. It all depended on how much control I felt. When I really wanted her, it was better to make plans so things didn’t really get out of hand. Sure, it happened sometimes, but I never hurt her, not really, and I never ever would. By some freakish good fortune, she gets off on pain, the same way I get off on watching her endure it at my hands.

I was running through my plans of depravity when I heard Kevin bang in the door.

“Mr. Norris!”

I jumped up. “Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s out in the car.” The way that he said that, it wasn’t to reassure me, it was to tell me something was wrong. “She’s in the car. I can’t wake her up!” I was across the room in an instant, pushing past him.

“She was fine when I got her, and then I thought she fell asleep. But she won’t wake up.”

“Is she breathing?”

“Yes, she was when I left.”

I ripped open the car door, and she was breathing but she was so, so still, and so very pale. I lifted her and her warmth was reassuring, but she was limp and lifeless as a rag doll.

“Get her bag. Find her phone. Call that guy she dances with. His name’s Grégoire.” I took her inside and laid her on the couch. Her breathing was shallow and she was just utterly gone. I shook her and slapped her face a little, shook her harder again. Nothing. I gestured to Kevin to hand me the phone.

“Grégoire,” I yelled. “What’s wrong with Lucy? What did she take?”

“What? Who is this?”

“This is Lucy’s boyfriend, Matthew. What the hell did she take before she left the theater?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. I don’t know what she took. God damn it, she doesn’t tell me.”

“Who would know? This is not a ing joke. She’s passed out on my sofa and she doesn’t look good.”

“Hold on, I’ll make some calls. I’m coming over.”

“Yeah, get over here, and call whoever would know.”

Kevin let Grégoire in hardly five minutes later.

“Where is she? Is she okay?”

“She’s dead to the world. I don’t know if she’s okay or not. What is she on?”

“Mariel said she thinks she took some pain pills she got from another dancer, that he bought off the street.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What kind of pain pills?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of painkillers. Vicodin. Something like that. Ellie said she thinks she took four.”

Four. Jesus Christ.

“She should go to the hospital, Mr. Norris.”

“No, I’ll call someone to come here. You stay with her.” I crossed the room and called a doctor friend of mine, and he arrived and examined Lucy while we watched. During that time, she woke up a little, and he told us her heart rate and pupils looked good. He advised me to have her sleep it off, and that any pills off the street were most likely not full strength.

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After he left us with instructions to monitor her, I glared at Grégoire. “She danced tonight?”

“Yeah. She was fine.”

“Is she really fine, though? You’re her partner. Is she really fine?” He looked at me, and I saw the answer in his gaze.

“Who is doping her?”

“Lucy is doping herself.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s in pain! Because her joints hurt.”

“Well, why don’t you ing make her stop?”

“Me? I’m supposed to make her stop? She doesn’t listen to me anymore. Her world revolves around you now, sick as that is.”

I ignored that barb. “She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know.” I scowled at him. “They don’t drug test dancers?”

“No,” he said like I was an idiot. “They don’t.”

“You knew she was taking drugs to keep dancing.”

“I suspected, yes, but I never saw her take anything.”

“You never asked her?”

“I didn’t want to know.”

“I thought you were a friend to her.”

“You don’t understand! You don’t know how it is! All dancers have pain, all dancers understand that, and dancers don’t tell each other how to cope!”

“Oh, nice. Same exact thing she said. ‘All dancers have pain.’ They teach that at the Dance Brainwash Academy.”

“Yeah, brainwashing.” He made an angry sound. “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“You have a problem with me and Lucy? We’re consenting adults. You have no idea, anyway. You shouldn’t talk about **** you don’t know.”

“Exactly. And you’re not a dancer. So follow your own advice.”

“Tell me what I can do then. What do I do? Can’t you do anything? You’re her friend, can’t you convince her to stop?”

“To stop dancing?” He snorted. “It doesn’t work that way. There’s only one way she’s going to stop dancing and that’s to injure herself past the point of return. Which is not far off by the way.” He stopped a moment. “Or else...”

“Or else what?”

“There is one other way. To force her to stop.”

“What?” I would do anything, anything on earth to stop her from destroying herself.

“If she gets pregnant, she’ll have to stop dancing. At least, she’d have to stop long enough to not be able to come back.”

Pregnant. I shook away the thoughts that suddenly crowded my head. “She won’t let me anywhere near her without a condom.”

“I think if you came at her now, she’d never know.”

We both looked over at her, passed out senseless on my sofa, and I actually considered it for a moment before reason prevailed.

“I couldn’t do that to her. That would be heinous.”

“And yet you beat her senseless and call it love.”

“Beat her senseless?” I stared at him. “Is that what she tells you?”

“Believe me, she doesn’t have to tell me. I see the welts, the bruises. Everyone does, they’re hard to miss. Whatever. If she likes you to beat her up, that’s her business. But I wouldn’t get all holier-than-thou about knocking her up.”

“She’d just get an abortion.”

He laughed. “Lucy? I don’t think so. She wouldn’t even accept a morning-after pill after the rape. If he’d made her pregnant, she would have carried it.” I heard the words, but they made no sense to me. “Wait, what? What did you say? What the are you talking about?”

“She never told you about that?”

“No.” My mind was reeling from all the lying she’d done to me. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“It’s not my place to tell you. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because she’s ing passed out on my couch! How the am I supposed to ask? I want you to ing tell me about this time that Lucy was ing raped, right now!” I yelled so loud I think it surprised us both that she didn’t wake up.

He sighed heavily. “It was, God, probably three years ago now or more. He beat her up pretty bad. An obsessive fan. He came to her place. He landed her in the hospital. He tied her up and he...” His voice trailed off. “You should ask her. Anyway, that’s why I wonder why she lets you do what you do.”

“I don’t beat her up. Not even close. Nor do I rape her. It’s nothing like that.”

“Sure,” he muttered. “Whatever.”

“Not that I have to explain it to you.”

“Actually, I wish that you wouldn’t. I’d rather not know.” We both turned then and looked at her, and Grégoire said shortly, “Her period was a couple weeks ago, so...”

“How the hell would you know that?”

“I know,” he said. “After ten years, partners know.”

I looked at him, needing help, needing something. The things I learned tonight...The things that she’d kept from me, things that had hurt her. Why? I had asked her point blank to her face, Lucy, will you always be truthful to me? and she’d said, God, yes. Yes, Matthew, I will. What a liar she was.

“I couldn’t do it,” I said, trying to convince myself. “It would be wrong. So totally wrong.”

“She’s going to injure herself soon. Badly.”

“So I’ll make her pregnant? That’s better?”

He got up to leave. “You can do what you want. I’m just telling you. You asked me how to make her stop dancing, and that’s the way. Anyway, I’ll leave you alone.” I didn’t want him to leave. If he left, there was a chance I’d break down and do as he suggested.

“I want to know who gave those pills to her, Grégoire.”

“No. I don’t know anyway.”

I trailed him to the door. “I’ll find out. And believe me, she’s not taking one more ing pill.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

We stared each other down, scowl for scowl.

“What is she to you, anyway, Grégoire?”

“She’s my friend.”

“Good friend she seems to be with you!” I was bitter, so bitter that he knew more about her than me.

“I’m gay!” he snapped. “If you’re insinuating what I think.”

“Gay, that’s convenient,” I said, but I knew I was being ridiculous.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, listen, I’m out of here. Call me if she gets any worse. If you’re too embarrassed to take her to the hospital with all those marks on her , I’ll do it.” I wanted to punch his ing lights out. I really did. But he had been a friend to her for many, many years, and at one time, long ago, we had spoken as friends too.

“Good night, Grégoire,” I ground out. “Thanks for coming over tonight.”

“Good night,” he replied, equally grudgingly, and then left me alone with his evil, evil idea.

What if I did manage to make her pregnant? The idea both attracted and terrified me in its simple grace. My mind was reeling in a million different directions. It occurred to me that I ought to have talked to Grégoire long ago. Grégoire, the keeper of all her secrets. Pain and drugs and violent rape. I thought of words she’d told me one time. It’s hard to explain, but it makes me feel safe.

I crossed the room and knelt beside her. Her face was so innocent and guileless in sleep.

Someone, some man had raped her, raped her so badly she’d landed in a hospital bed. What had he done to her? Held her down? Hurt her? ****ed her hard? All the things she liked me from me.

She wanted me to do them, because I wasn’t him. Because when I did what I did to her, I cared about her, I wasn’t her rapist. It suddenly occurred to me that that’s all I was to her. Her anti-rape hero, her mental defense against what happened to her. I was the way to make it okay. So what was so bad about that? What was so bad was that she’d never told me.

I remembered how skittish she was when I first followed her. An obsessive fan. He came to her place. How defensive she’d been, how upset that I followed her around. Now, it all became perfectly clear.

I remembered with crystal clarity when I’d said to her, how long have you wanted it? To get tied up, and beaten, and ed? She’d shaken her head. She wouldn’t answer me. Then a few moments later, she’d said, “How did you know? ” And she hadn’t meant, how did you know, how did you know that’s what I want? No, I think now she meant, how did you know? How did you know that’s what I need to feel safe again?

I shook her gently with a lump in my throat. “Lucy. Lucy, wake up.” I shook her harder.

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“Please wake up. God damn it, please!”

She barely responded, turning her head with a sigh, not even coming to consciousness.

Then I stood up, still looking down at her, and slowly unbuckled my belt. I undid my pants, and took out my and stroked it, getting it hard. Then I took off her pants and I slipped inside her. I ed her and came inside her twice, down on the couch, still fully dressed. Then I carried her up to bed and undressed us both, and took her in my arms and came in her once more, and then, half asleep in the middle of the night, I came inside her once more again.

* * *

It was almost noon the next day before she awakened with a groan. She lurched out of bed and just managed to get to the bathroom. She vomited, over and over, then collapsed beside the toilet on the cold tile floor. I lifted her up, brushing her hair from her eyes.

“Okay, Lucy, okay. Better?”

She shook her head. “Nooo...”

She heaved again, but nothing came out, just dry, broken heaves as she held onto her head. I put a wet cloth against her hot forehead.

“Go away!” She pushed weakly at me.

I got up to get her some water, and returned to hold the glass to her lips. She shook her head.

“Drink it!”

“No.”

“Yes.” I got a little bit past her lips, half of which she spit out when she retched again.

“Please, just leave me alone!”

“No.”

She tried to lie down there on the floor, between the toilet and the wall.

“No, Lucy,” I sighed, pulling her up. “Drink some water. A little more.”

“I want to sleep.” Her words were still slurred, her color was still off.

“You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours, you little .” She looked up at me then, at the tone in my voice. “Yes, you’re in trouble.” I picked her up and carried her back to bed. “As soon as you’re healthy enough, I’m going to beat you to within an inch of your life. Now drink some water.”

This time, when I held it to her lips, she drank. I looked down at her with cold recrimination.

“Where did you get those pills?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll beat you right now if you don’t tell me. If you don’t tell me the ing truth.”

“A dancer. I don’t know her that well. A friend of Remy’s. He’s not even in our company.

He gets them from someone his friend knows. I don’t know...” Her voice trailed off.

“Remy? Who the is Remy?”

“A dancer.”

“A ing dancer. Thanks for the scoop.”

“What time is it?”

“You’re not dancing today.”

“I have to!”

“You listen to me. You’re going to spend today resting, and tomorrow bent over a ing ottoman. So lay the down and answer my questions like a ing good girl, before I tear up your !”

“I’m tired,” she said, soft and plaintive. She wasn’t getting any sympathy from me.

“Does your head hurt?”

“No, I’m sleepy.”

“Yes, because you overdosed on pain pills. What the were you thinking? Who the knows what was even in those pills? Why did you do it?” She just moaned.

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know! Because it hurts!”

“What does? What hurts?”

“Everything! Everything hurts, Matthew!”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I took her in my arms. She cried weakly, her whole body pressed against mine, as if I could take the pain away.

“Lucy.” I held her, rocking her as she grieved. “You have to stop dancing. You have to stop.

I know it’s hard. I know. But I’ll take care of you, I promise.”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispered with a desperation that broke my heart.

“I know. But if you’re hurting...if you’re hurting enough to take drugs...”

“It’s just for my ankle. It never completely got better. It’s just not totally healed, that’s all.”

“Then why did you go back to work?”

“Because it’s my job!”

“Because you’re a ing idiot. And now you’ve probably made it worse.”

“Matthew...”

“No, you ing listen to me. If you ever, ever ing take another Vicodin, I will personally beat you to unconsciousness.”

“I didn’t know what it would do.”

“Well, it’s ing addictive and you are never to take it again, do you understand?”

“Yes, okay,” she said, holding her head.

“Or are you already on it?”

“No.”

“Tell the truth. What are you on?”

“Nothing. I’m not...nothing... I looked down at her hard but her eyes were starting to close.

“I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.”

“Sleep then and get better, because when you’re better, we’re going to talk.” I watched her fall asleep, holding her close. When her breathing slowed again, I pulled her closer into my arms and I whispered against her cheek, so quietly she never could have heard.

“Lucy, you stupid little . Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Then I just watched her sleep, still and yearning, remembering how it felt to come inside her, finally, unsheathed.

* * *

She woke up again just after dark, looking much better than she had at noon. I’d given Mrs.

Kemp the evening off, so I ordered sushi for her, which in hindsight was not the best idea. She sat in her chair and looked a little better when I took the raw fish away and gave her a dish of crackers and some milk.

“Eat it, Lucy,” I said, and she did, slowly, looking ashamed.

“Are you going to punish me?” she asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to do my damndest not to kill you.”

She paled a little and looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. I know I must have worried you.”

“Worried me?” It was such an understatement, I was hard pressed not to laugh. “Reckless, Lucy. You’re so ing reckless with your body. You forget that it’s mine. So yes, you’ll be punished. For lying and hiding things and endangering yourself. What do you think I should do to you?”

She looked down, unwilling to answer.

“You’ve broken every one of my most basic rules. Every one. Over a very long period of time.”

“Maybe you can just forgive me.”

“If I could just forgive you, this wouldn’t be so hard.” She closed her eyes, pressed her fingers against them. “I hate when you’re angry with me.”

“Lucy, I’m so ing furious with you. Do you have any idea how it felt, having Kevin rush in here and tell me he couldn’t wake you? Do you know what it felt like to watch you all night to be sure you took your next breath?”

“I’m sorry, Matthew.” She pushed her plate away, tears shining in her eyes.

“Eat.”

“I can’t.”

“At least drink the milk. All of it.”

I watched her drink it and I hated myself for wondering if she might already be growing our child. When she put the glass down, I leaned back and sighed.

“Now go upstairs, kneel on the bed, and ing prepare yourself to be ed.”

“Yes, sir.” I knew she’d be crying, full on sobbing, before she got to the stairs.

I cleaned up the kitchen, trying to hold on to my control. We had more to talk about, things I needed to hear her say. When I got upstairs she was as I’d ordered her, on all fours on the bed. I put a condom on and slathered it with lube. I put my hand on her back and pushed down her head so she arched open to me.

“Give me your hands.”

She reached them back to me and I held them hard in one hand, and with the other, I guided my to her . Roughly I thrust the head in. I felt her adjust with a jerk. I stayed still in her, just the head of my for a moment, letting her stretch for me, then I started to her mechanically. She sobbed, not from pain, but because I was angry. She hated when I was angry.

But I hated that she kept secrets from me.

I leaned down over her, reaming her , and I hissed in her ear, “Lucy. Answer something for me. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be raped?” She turned her head away, burying it in the pillow, but I turned her back to me pulling by the roots of her hair.

“Answer me, Lucy. Have you ever been raped?”

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She didn’t answer for a moment, then sobbed “yes.” Her eyes were screwed shut, closed up tight.

“And what did it feel like? Did it feel like this? Was that feeling of rape all you ever really wanted from me?”

“No!” she cried. And then “Stop,” and that one word, stop, was weighted with fear.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you? You want me to stop?” I ed her harder still.

“Do you really want me to stop, Lucy? Or do you want me to rape you? Just like him? That’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve always wanted? You’re a liar, you know. All I ever asked for was truth—”

“Stop!” she shouted, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Stop!” She struggled under me and pulled at my hands to get away. I pushed her down to the bed and I ed her so I probably hurt her, and honestly, if she had said mercy then, I wouldn’t have let her go. I loved her hopelessly, but she was more beautiful and perfect than I could bear. I hurt her because she wanted me to hurt her, but it wasn’t for the reason I thought. It wasn’t because she genuinely loved me for me, that wonder of wonders that I had so foolishly believed.

“If you want ing rape, you’ve got it.” She sobbed and fought me until I finished and let her up. The moment I let her go, she pulled away from me, ran away from me just as I knew she would. While Kevin drove her to Grégoire’s, I called him and told him to look after her. I told him it was possible that she might be carrying a child. He asked me why? Why have you done this? Not why did you try to make her pregnant, but why are you sending her away?

Why? God, how to explain it.

I tortured her because I hated her, and I hated her because I loved her. And because I loved her, I needed her to go away. I needed to send her running from me, for her own good and probably mine too. If she hadn’t left that night, I would have punished her the next morning until she did. I would have hurt her until she left, for lying, for not being who I thought she was, for keeping so many secrets from me. Which was ironic, because the biggest lie, the biggest secret, the biggest betrayal, of course, was my own.

Chapter Fourteen: Mercy

I fled from Matthew’s to Georges and Grégoire’s place, and they took me in without demanding any explanations. I stayed in bed for two days straight. I wanted to die, but instead all I did was sleep. Grégoire came and went, looking guilty and remorseful. I knew that he was the one who had told him about the rape, because, besides me, he was the only one who knew.

“I’m so sorry, Lucy. I’m so sorry that I told him. It just came up in conversation. It slipped.”

“It slipped? What the hell were you talking about to say something like that?”

“We were talking about you and why you’re so screwed up.” I scowled at him. “Now he thinks the only reason I like him is because I got raped. Like I got imprinted on violence or something.”

Grégoire looked at me. “Well, didn’t you?”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I turned my back on him and ignored him until he left.

Later that day, Kevin brought all of my things. Two small suitcases and a box of items, including the framed poem Matthew had given me. My entire life. I wanted to beg him to take me back to Matthew’s, but I didn’t because I was too afraid.

I understood why Matthew had been so angry with me. He had told me enough times about his obsession with truth. He had wanted truth and beauty, but gotten deep and encompassing lies.

But to me it seemed the broad lies we told to one another were the only thing that kept our relationship alive. For him, it was the lie that he didn’t love me that protected him. For me, it was the lie that I’d always wanted what he gave. Taken together, those lies made up the foundation of our relationship, and now, without them, it had totally collapsed. Those lies we lived by kept our relationship on kilter, kept us frozen in a tableau like that of the Grecian Urn, beautiful and timeless and unable to be ruined. But everything was ruined now. The beautiful, unchanging urn had been broken by the ugliness of truth.

I had felt lost the last time we’d been apart, but this time, when it seemed a permanent break, I was so much more lost than before. I missed him horribly, thought of him obsessively. I wondered hourly if he could possibly forgive my lies, if I stopped taking pain pills, which I did; if I explained to him why I hadn’t told him about the rape. Surely if I just explained it all and said I was sorry, he would forgive me and we could go on again as before. But I was terrified of approaching him because if he sent me away, if he wouldn’t listen, then we would really be through. So instead, I waited in hope that he would come to me. But no, he didn’t, and days stretched into weeks.

My darling Grégoire was as true a friend to me as ever. I forgave him for ratting me out to Matthew because I know he hadn’t meant any harm. He weaned me off the pain pills and went with me to the gym and to a physical therapist to try to salvage my joints. And slowly, day by day, the pain did get better. My flexibility returned in part, and without the pills masking the pain, I knew when I pushed too far and could stop before it escalated.

He urged me to eat well too, and take vitamins and supplements, folic acid, and calcium, and protein. He kept me out of clubs where I’d breathe in smoke and be tempted to drink, and strong armed me to bed each night at a reasonable hour. I did as he prompted because I thought it might help me heal faster and stay strong, but all that good nutrition and healthy living after many years of half-assed habits actually made me feel more nauseous and tired, ironically enough.

But I danced through all of it as we entered the summer season because I thought, as always, that this season could be my last. And as it turned out, it was my last season, because the first week in June, my Achilles tendon snapped.

I had thought I’d known pain as a dancer. In fact, I had known pain of all kinds. But the pain of that tendon giving way was more excruciating, more debilitating and terrifying than any pain I’d ever known. The only mercy was that it gave out during practice. The indignity of collapsing onstage would have made it that much worse. I was carted off to the hospital, sobbing and pleading for someone to help me, but there was no one, nothing at all, that could fix this pain.

Grégoire stayed beside me through the trip there and my admittance, and wouldn’t leave my side even as they took me back to be examined. I was so far gone, so hopeless and mindless, that I was glad to have him there to answer all the questions they asked. They weren’t hard questions, but there were so many of them, stupid questions that annoyed me in my pain. I was confused though, when they asked before the x-rays if there was a chance I could be pregnant, and Grégoire answered quietly, “yes.”

“No,” I corrected him. “There’s no chance.”

“There is a chance, Lucy,” and his face seemed suddenly pale. The way he looked at me made my skin go cold, then prickle into goosebumps from the back of my neck all the way down my arms.

“How is there a chance, G?” I asked in a voice that was shaking on the edge of hysteria.

He swallowed hard. “Did you ever get your period last month?” My breath caught in my throat as I thought back. No, I hadn’t. But...but...that could be due to stress. It could be due to all the new vitamins and nutritious food...the vitamins and food that Grégoire had practically forced on me. Bitter tears, the tears of a friend betrayed, pooled in my eyes.

“Lucy...” he said, watching my face darken. “I can explain. I can explain what happened.

It’s not all his fault. It’s my fault too.”

I shook my head, trying to put it together. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t get it clear. His fault. Matthew’s. It’s not all his fault.

“Am I pregnant?” I asked him. I thought of the nausea, the exhaustion that dragged me towards the earth. All this time the x-ray tech just stood there. Just a gay dancer and his partner sorting some things out about a pregnancy, a pregnancy that had happened though some unholy alliance from hell.

“Talk to me, Grégoire!” I shouted.

“I’ll go order a test,” muttered the tech, excusing himself.

“Lucy, listen, just, please calm down. I’ll tell you what happened but you can’t freak out.” I burst into hysterical tears. “It’s too late for that, it’s too late to freak out now, isn’t it?

When? What? The night I was sick?”

“The night you took the pills, and you...wouldn’t wake up.”

“He ed me? Matthew? Without a condom?” I don’t know why I phrased it as a question, otherwise I’d immaculately conceived.

“He asked how to make you stop dancing, so you wouldn’t hurt yourself, and I told him...”

“You told him what?”

“I told him there were only two ways. For you to injure yourself, or get pregnant.” My mouth fell open.

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“I didn’t think he would, Lucy! He said he couldn’t do that to you. I don’t know what changed his mind after I left.”

My brain was reeling, the pain in my leg forgotten. I couldn’t say whose betrayal was worse, Grégoire’s or his. I think Matthew’s was worse, because he’d broken up with me over a lie. My lie, when he had perpetuated the most gargantuan lie of all. He’d been upset that I’d kept my rape from him, and yet he raped my very life, raped my very being by impregnating me with a child without my knowledge, without my permission, against my will.

I was angry enough with Grégoire, but Matthew...if he had been in the room then and someone had handed me a gun, I would have turned it on him, and I really do believe I would have pulled the trigger. I was so stunned by the audacity, the depravity of what he’d done, that I could barely draw breath.

The tech returned, and I could tell by the look on his face that they’d run a test with the blood they’d drawn, and what the result of it had been. He silently laid the lead apron over my middle and arranged my injured calf under the machine.

* * *

By the time I got *****rgery I knew Grégoire had called Matthew, because it was Dr. Rob who smiled down at me from above.

“We’re going to take good care of you, Lucy. By the time you wake up, you’ll already be starting to heal.”

But to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I wanted to wake up. When they put me under, there was the one liquid second of floating away. How wonderful it would be to bottle that fleeting second, to live forever in that second of drowsiness when the whole world faded away. All the confusion, the fear and betrayal. All the anger and sadness and pain. To live forever in that moment of losing it, that moment that only Matthew had ever helped me find.

But I did wake up, and yes, the pain was better, at least the physical pain. My leg was elevated and immobilized by a splint. Before my eyes even opened, I felt a hand stroking my hair and I knew, just from the pressure, that the hand was his.

“Don’t touch me.” I intended to yell it, but it came out a weak, raspy moan.

“Don’t try to talk, just rest.” His hand stopped moving but he left it there, heavy against my head. “The surgery went fine. You’re going to heal completely. But you won’t be able to dance.

At least not the way you did. But it’s going to be okay. Everything will be okay.” Everything will be okay. I hated him. I hated his soothing voice and his hand in my hair. I hated his arrogant umption that everything was going to be fine just because he said so.

“What are you even doing here?” I still wouldn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “How can you even show your face to me after what you did?”

“I did it to stop you from hurting yourself. You wouldn’t have stopped dancing any other way.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me to stop?” I asked, jerking my head away from his hand.

“I did ask you to stop. You didn’t listen to me. You snuck off and got yourself hooked on pain pills to keep dancing, and started buying drugs off the street!”

“You don’t understand! You have no idea what it’s like to be me, to walk in my shoes.”

“No, I don’t,” he shot back, “because you wouldn’t confide in me. I would have done anything in my power to help you. Anything, if I could have, if I had only known. You lied! By keeping quiet about all these things that were hurting you, you lied to me, you didn’t give me truth.”

“I didn’t give you truth?” I turned on him and started to hit him as hard as I could. Of course, I was pathetically weak, and he quickly had my hands pinned.

“Enough. You need to relax. You need to be regaining your strength. You have a baby to care for now, our baby. You need to rest.”

“What I need is for you to go far away from me, because you’re an awful, horrible, dishonest person, and the biggest liar and hypocrite I’ve ever met, and the last thing I want is your ing baby, because I never want to ing look at you again.” My voice broke off after that long diatribe. I was exhausted but he still stood there beside me, his own face tired and drawn.

“You don’t mean that. You’re angry now, I understand. You just need some time to calm down. I’m sorry, Lucy, that things had to happen this way—”

“I hate you,” I cut him off.

“You don’t,” he said after a moment, “and this is the most dishonest conversation we’ve ever had. I’m not sorry, actually. I’m excited that we’re having a baby. And I don’t think you hate me. I know you don’t.”

“I mean every word I just said to you. You make me sick. You really do. The way you went on and on about how important truth was to you. Do you remember how you felt when you discovered your last girlfriend lied to you for so long? That’s exactly how I feel now. I really, truly do hate you and I’m not going to be in a relationship with you again, and that’s the bitter truth, not that you would recognize truth if it bit you on the —”

“Lucy, enough! You’re tired, you’re angry.”

“No, I’m not angry, I’m not tired! You know what I am, Matthew? I’m defeated. I’m done.

My career is over. The love I had for you is gone, completely gone. I’m carrying a baby I don’t want, that I’m probably just going to get rid of, and then I’ll have to live with that guilt my whole ing life even though it was your fault. But I prefer that to living with you, to having a baby with you after what you did to me, this awful disregard for me, this rape of my life—”

“Lucy,” he cautioned, “do not. Do not call it that.”

“That’s what it is, so just...go. I’m done. There were a lot of things you did to me that hurt, but I liked them, I wanted them. But this, I don’t want it. I keep waiting to wake up and find it was all just a dream.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. What I did was wrong, but what’s done is done.

You know I didn’t do it to hurt you. And I didn’t...I really...I only half thought it would work.”

“But it didn’t half work, because you didn’t half do it, did you? You did it all the way. You came inside me while I wasn’t even conscious, Matthew! What’s wrong with you?”

“Four times,” he murmured.

“What?”

“I came inside you four times, actually.”

“Oh, four times. That’s just great. Congratulations,” I said sarcastically. “Your guys can swim, you must be so proud. But I’m not having your ing baby. Not a ing chance. No.”

“Grégoire told me you didn’t believe in abortion.”

“I didn’t, until now. Now I think maybe in cases of rape it’s justified.”

“I didn’t rape you!”

“Yes, you did! It sure as hell wasn’t consensual!”

“Rape is something else, Lucy. It isn’t done with love. It isn’t done to help someone—”

“I ing know what rape is! Believe me, I know. No one knows better than me, because I’ve been there, and now I feel like I’m right back there again.”

“Oh Jesus, Lucy, please.”

I turned away from him.

“What can I do?” He tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away, pulled myself as far away from him as I could.

“Leave or I’ll call the nurse.”

“Let’s talk about things again in a few days. Things might look different in a few days.”

“No, things are very clear right now.” I stared at the light blue wallpaper on the wall, the wallpaper that was the same pale blue color as his eyes. “I’m done. I know that. I’m sure of it.

This has gone too far for me. Mercy, Matthew. Mercy, okay? Mercy makes it end, that’s what you told me once. I want it to end.”

Again he reached for me, and I pushed the nurse call button.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone. But don’t do anything, Lucy. Don’t do anything, okay? Until we talk again.”

I bit my lip. I was making him no promises after all his lies.

And no, of course I wasn’t going to have an abortion. I just wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. Let him believe I was going to get it taken care of, let him feel that pain of cold-hearted betrayal, the same pain I was feeling now. Just one little lie, but everything else I’d said was true. I was done with him, done with his peculiar one-sided brand of honesty. In my mind, it was already completely over. Convincing him would be more difficult, but eventually he’d understand.

* * *

A couple hours later, Grégoire mustered up the courage to visit me. He lingered at the door like a repentant puppy, gauging my mood before he dared come near. I wished I had a rolled up newspaper to smack him with.