by Jewel Geffen
Melody shrugs, “I dunno, but she's not around anymore, now is she? Something must have happened, and I don't think she died. Nobody talks about her, especially not to Mr. Moreau. I've seen a picture though.”
“You did? What did she look like?”
“Well... I mean, a bit like you, to be honest.”
I blush. “Oh.”
“This was her room, you know.”
“I didn't,” I say. My head is spinning with thoughts and possibilities now. Antoine just got a whole lot more complicated, and it's going to take some time to adjust to this.
I'm about to ask another question when the door swings open. Speak of the Devil.
“Miss Johnson,” he says, just a touch coolly.
She blushes and rushes to her feet, ducking out the door with a curtsy.
“I asked her to say,” I say.
“I'm sure you did,” he said, his tone faintly sardonic. “If you've finished your breakfast, I'd like to get back to the portrait. We've got a lot of work to do.”
“You just can't wait to get me tied up again, can you?”
He smiles that infuriating little smile of his and steps back out into the hallway. “Whenever you're ready,” he says, “I'll be waiting.”
“I'm going to win,” I murmur after him, too quiet for him to possibly hear, “I have to.” Because if he doesn't fuck me soon, I'm going to lose my mind.
Chapter Seven
The second session of painting is, if possible, even more torturous than the first. My resolve holds steady, if only just. Whatever hope I might have had of wearing Antoine down proves to be in vain. He seems hardly effected by the sight of me, aroused and in bondage, squirming on the floor with all my body displayed for him, offered up in supplication.
He merely paints on, seeming quite absorbed in his work even as I teeter dangerously on the verge of orgasm, the velvet rope rubbing gently against my clit with every motion. I begin to suspect, in a kind of sexual delirium, that he's not even painting anything, merely swiping his brush uselessly against the paper in an attempt to drive me mad.
Every so often he comes over to me and adjusts my position, slightly shifting the angle of my legs or turning my face slightly to catch the light in a certain way. Every time I feel his fingers on my skin I melt a little bit more inside, and I'm sure he knows it and is only doing this to break me.
As he paints he talks, and I reply, trying to keep my body still.
“Do you like having sex, Victoria?”
“Of course I do. You know I do.”
“With your husband?”
“...Not especially.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
“Because he can't satisfy you.”
“That's right.”
“But there's more to it than that, isn't there?”
I can feel my eyes narrowing. What's his game, anyway? “What's that supposed to mean?”
“I mean it's not just about how well a man fucks or how big his cock is. That's not what you're looking for.”
“It isn't?”
“No.”
“Well then, if you know me so well, maybe you can tell me what I want in bed.”
“You want to be mastered, Victoria. You want a man who will own you... mind, body and soul. A man whose lovemaking dominates you to the core of your being. You want to be tamed and taken, but you don't want to give it up lightly. I respect that. It's a big part of what keeps drawing me to you.”
I look at him out of the corner of my eyes, unable to bring myself to reply, perhaps for fear that I'll agree with him. He's still focused intently on the canvas, his dark brow furrowed in concentration.
“Most women I've met are all too eager to put themselves in my power, but not you... You're different. You won't just give it up, but, on the other hand... you don't have to be here. You don't have to be tied up on your knees for me, but here you are. You can't stay away, but you won't allow yourself to submit completely. You're a challenge, but it's more than that...”
“I'm flatter that you'd take such an interest in me,” I say.
“You intrigue me,” he says, “and it's been a long time since I was this intrigued by a woman.”
Since your wife? I almost ask, but bite my tongue at the last minute. Until I know what happened, I'm not going to risk kicking that beehive.
I want to ask more, but I stop myself, and we lapse back into silence. Soon there's nothing but the sounds of his brush on the page and the slight creaking of the ropes with which I'm bound.
* * *
He undoes the ropes, slowly and methodically. I close my eyes, feeling exhausted even though I've done nothing but sit there all day. The rasping sound of the rope sliding free is like a kind of sweet natural music, like wind in the trees or waves upon the shore.
I try to stand up and immediately lose my balance, almost toppling over and landing on my face. Antoine catches me, his strong dark hands shooting out to take hold of my body as I tumble. He pulls me against him and I tremble weakly in his arms, my heard pounding in my chest as I stare up into his eyes.
“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice slow and calm, infinitely comforting. I feel so safe in his arms – safer than I've ever felt, actually.
“I'm okay,” I murmur, “my legs just fell asleep, that's all.”
“If this is too much for you-” he starts, but I cut him off.
“It isn't! I'm fine, Antoine, really. I'm going to see this through. I promised you that I would.”
He looks down at me, a strange expression in his dark eyes, then his hand caresses my cheek, drawing my face up towards his. “Well... we'll stop for the day, anyway. Come on, I'll help you back to your room.”
“I'm fine.”
“I'm sure you are, but I'd like to help you anyway, unless you object.”
I just shake my head, unwilling to tell him that I want nothing more than to be held by him right now. “Have it your way.”
He slides my arm over his shoulders and, bending slightly, he helps me across the hall and back to my room.
I tumble gratefully into bed with a big sigh. He stands in the doorway, grinning slightly. “You've been amazing,” he says, “a true inspiration.”
“I hope the picture's worth it,” I grumble playfully, rubbing at my wrists.
“We don't have to do the ropes tomorrow,” he says, “I just want to work on the face and expression.”
I feel something then that I don't except: regret. “Oh... well, if you're going to be doing my expression...”
“Yes?” he prompts.
“I'm not much of an actress,” I say, blushing slightly in the evening gloom, “I... I don't know if I could fake it. If you... wanted to tie me up, um... you could. Just for the sake of the portrait, I mean,” I hasten to add, then throw a harsh glower in his direction. If he says anything smart, I'm going to throw something at him.
I can see his little smile in the darkness. He just nods. “Alright then,” is all he says, and then he switches out the light and turns to go.
“Wait,” I say, my voice quiet in the gloom. “You... can stay.”
He hesitates at the door, then reaches up and begins to undo his buttons, one by one from top to bottom. My breath catches in my throat a little as I gaze up at his naked chest, the black skin seeming to glow a soft and beautiful blue in the moonlight coming through the open windows. His pants fall to the floor with a rustle of fabric, and he comes around the bed to slide in beside me.
I moan contentedly as I cuddle up against his warm body. He puts his arms around me he pulls me tight, pressing me against himself.
“That's nice,” I murmur. My body is exhausted, but I'm still keenly aroused, in a state of almost unbearable need. I want him, I want his body, I want him on top of me and inside of me. Maybe he's right about everything, maybe I have been waiting all this time for a man strong enough to tame me. Maybe. I'm not entirely willing to concede, however, but I can't stop my hand from pres
sing against his lower belly and then sliding slowly downward slipping under the tight band of his boxers.
I moan softly as my fingers wrap around the thick shape of his cock. I start to stroke my hand up and down, just little movements at first, gentle tugs on him. I can already feel it getting harder.
“Is it true that this was your wife's room?” I ask, and am immediately mortified at myself for letting the words out. I'd not meant to speak them aloud, and now that I have I wish I could pluck them back out of the air and stifle them from ever being given voice.
He's quiet for a long moment, giving no response either verbally or physically. For a moment I can almost convince myself that I didn't actually say anything after all. Then he speaks, “It was,” he says, “but that was... some time ago.”
“I'm sorry,” I say, “we don't have to talk about it if it's... I don't know. Sensitive...”
“No, it's all right,” he says, “It's only fair, after all. You've answered more delicate questions than that about your marriage and your husband. No reason my wife should be off limits.”
“Is she... still your wife? I mean, uh...”
He shakes his head. I can't see anything of his expression in the darkness. “We're still married, legally speaking. But she wouldn't consider herself my wife anymore.”
“What happened?”
He shrugs slightly. “What always happens, I suppose. She caught the eye of another man. Decided she could do better... so she left.”
“I'm sorry...”
He sighs softly into the gloom. “No reason you should be. This is just how things happen. You think... if you give someone everything... the house, the security, the money, if you love them how they say they want... you think you can make them stay. But it's all a lie, Victoria. It's an illusion. Marriage is a fraud, a relic of another time. We're fools for clinging to it the way we do.”
“Oh,” I say. I might go further, but there's a picture forming in my mind now.
His wife runs off with another man, breaks his heart... so he retreats, he stops allowing himself to feel intimacy, devotes himself to having sex with other women – married women – in front of their husbands... seducing them out from under their spouse's noses. I remember what Melody said about me, that I look like her... the former Mrs. Moreau. It all makes sense now.
That's why he's trying so hard to make me submit to him... because I remind him of her.
Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe all of this is just nonsense and I'm drawing conclusions with no connection to reality. But, on the other hand... I don't think I am.
None of this changes the fact that I want him. If anything, it makes me want him more. He's not just a soulless sex machine, he's a man, and a deeply wounded one. I press my forehead against his chest and increase my pace slightly, squeezing and playing at his huge hard cock.
He reaches down and grasps my wrist his hand, slowly drawing me away. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses it once, gently on the knuckles. “Wait,” he says quietly, “wait until tomorrow. After the third session. Trust me... just wait a little longer.”
I gaze up at him, his eyes two glittering points in the darkness, and I nod slightly. “Okay.”
He pulls me close and he kisses me softly upon the forehead, then gathers me into his arms and pulls the blanket up and over us. I shut my eyes and put my head to his chest, listening to the soft thump of his heartbeat.
In that way, cuddling gently, we sleep.
Chapter Eight
Antoine is gone when I wake up, but the bed is still warm where he laid. I purr softly, half asleep, and put my hand on the bed to feel the ghost of his presence.
Today is the last day of my stay at the mansion. The time seems to have passed impossibly quickly, I feel almost as though I've scarcely arrived, and already my visit is drawing to a close. I rise to another session of nude yoga in front of the expansive windows and another glorious sunrise.
I dress in a fluffy bathrobe and make my way to the studio, thinking that perhaps we'll get an early start and finish before the day's too far gone. Perhaps we'll finish in the later afternoon and have time for a nice dinner and some quiet time. Yeah right, he's not interested in you like that, Vicky, accept it. And anyway, I don't want him to be interested in me like that, do I?
I knock on the studio door and get no answer, so I poke my head in. Nothing. The room is still and empty, the painting supplies neatly packed away, the canvas covered by a black sheet of silk.
“Hello?” No answer. I come fully into the room.
All this bondage equipment... I wonder if he ever used it with his wife, or if it came afterwards. Did he tie up Mrs. Moreau, or does he like to tie up woman so that they won't be able to run off on him anymore?
I walk idly around the room, reaching out to touch the devices and toys that I've spent the past two days just looking at. The leather has a seductive feel against my fingertips, soft and supple and smooth...
I play with the end of a riding crop, biting down on my lower lip and imagining what it would be like to be on the receiving end of Antoine's attentions with this in his hand. The thought is just a bit delicious, to be honest with myself.
I take it down and give it a little experimental swing. It makes a lovely sound swishing through the air. I glance around, slip my leg out through the slit in my bathrobe and tap it ever-so-gently against my bared thigh. It makes a little slap, but it doesn't exactly hurt. How hard would I have to swing it to leave a mark, I wonder? How hard would Antoine swing it if he were using it on me?
“If you curious about that, I'd be more than happy to offer you a demonstration.”
I whirl around, feeling strangely guilty, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Antoine Moreau is standing in the doorway, arms crossed and that little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“N-no, I...” I stammer, holding the riding crop behind my back as if trying to hide the evidence. I realize how absurd I must look and return it to its place on the wall. “I was just looking.”
“Take off your clothes,” he says, coming in and shutting the door behind himself. He rolls up his sleeves, not even looking at me.
I slip it off my shoulders, obeying without question or hesitation, only realizing as the fluffy robe drops to the floor around my feet that I'm taking orders from him. As if he were my master, the words flicker through my thoughts before I can fully banish them.
“What will you be working on today?” I ask, regretting that I didn't take my chance to peek under the black silk to see the painting of me he's been making. He's been quite insistent that I not see it until it's finished.
“A few more details,” he says vaguely, “nearly there.”
“I see.”
“Are you ready to begin?” he asks, his voice calm and level as always, as if our conversation the night before hadn't happened, as if I didn't know what was really going on inside that head of his. At least... what I thought was going on in his head.
“Alright,” I say, “should we...” I gesture to the floor where I've been kneeling.
He shakes his head. “No, something new today, I think.”
I can feel my eyebrows go up. “Something new? I didn't think that was how it worked. You're not starting the painting over again, are you?”
“Trust me,” he says, “just do as I say, and it will all turn out just as it should.”
There he goes, being opaque and authoritative, again. I sigh and hold my hands out, wrists together and palms up. He steps closer, the black velvet rope coiled around his fist.
“Turn around.”
I turn and face the wall. The huge array of bondage equipment fills my field of vision as Antoine takes hold of my wrists and pulls them back behind me, then slowly coils the rope around them, cinching it tight as he goes. He ties me completely, but in a clearly different arrangement than he previously used. He ties my arms back and my hands together, then ties my legs so that the ankles are bound to my thighs, and my legs tie
d up and back so that they're spread wide.
Then he reaches up and I hear a metallic clatter. “What are you doing?” I ask.
He doesn't answer, just grunts softly and heaves. The rope creaks a little as he pulls it tight, and I'm lifted off the ground, pulled up three feet or so up into the air. I crane my neck awkwardly back and look up. The rope has been looped through a series of large metal hooks in the ceiling that I'd never noticed before.
Just like that, I'm suspended helplessly in the air. He's tied the knots very skillfully so that my weight is evenly distributed and I don't actually feel any particular discomfort, at least not right away. The posture, however, is embarrassingly compromised, but then that's something I've gotten used to, at least to some extent.
I struggle to keep my face from showing an expression as I sway slowly in front of him, dangling and vulnerable. “What's going on?” I ask, feeling more than a little suspicious.
Those suspicions are soon confirmed as he steps back and turns the canvas which he's been working on around to face me. He pulls the black silk cover off.
The portrait isn't finished by any means, most of the background is merely sketched in and there are aspects of the rest that he'll probably be going back to add detail to later, but the bulk of the portrait seems largely complete. I see myself, kneeling and vulnerable, an expression of chastised submission on my face, big blue eyes upturned and golden hair spilling over my naked shoulders. My breasts are on full display, the nipples rendered with artful and impressionistic swirls of pink. I can't help but notice that he's captured the sheen of arousal between my thighs.
“It's largely complete, I think,” he says, “I more or less finished the parts I need you for yesterday. Since you agreed to three days, however, I thought we might spend some time engaging in a slightly more... intimate activity.”
“You just can't resist, can you?” I say, a victorious smile on my lips. I might be the one tied up and seemingly at his mercy, but I never asked for it. Now he's the one coming to me, trying to get me to fuck him. You never made me beg, Antoine Moreau.