“You can touch me,” she said against his lips. She appreciated his reticence, his desire to do what she told him to do, no more and no less.
“I don’t want to screw up,” he said, sliding his hand under her little black slip she’d put on when she’d woken up. “I still have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Me,” she said. “That’s what you’re doing. Now put me on the desk and touch me any way and anywhere you like.”
Nora could tell he was doing his very best to be strong and suave as he cupped her ass and lifted her onto the desk.
“If I drop you do we still get to have sex?” Noah asked.
“Yes, but we’d have to play it as it lays.”
“I think that’s golf,” Noah said.
“Same rules apply.”
He laughed, which was exactly what she wanted him to do. He relaxed and kissed her now with enthusiasm, all nervousness gone. His hands wandered under her slip, massaged her thighs, pushed them wider. He penetrated her with one finger and rubbed inside her. Last night she’d given him a thorough introduction to locating the clitoris and the G-spot and what to do when he found himself in contact with one or the other. The lessons seemed to have stuck because she was soon very, very wet and he was very, very hard and if they didn’t fuck very, very soon she would be very, very put out.
She pushed his boxers down his hips until they pooled at his ankles where they belonged, grasped his cock and guided him inside her. He lifted her slip up and off her and Nora lay back on her desk, naked and happy. When he bent over her to kiss her breasts she twined her hands into his hair, holding him right where she wanted him, pumping her hips against him as he pushed into her.
“This is so much more fun than writing,” she said. “I should tell my muse to fuck off more often.”
Noah laughed as he glanced over at her still-open laptop.
“What were you writing?” he asked, taking her breasts in his hands.
Nora turned her head and glanced at her screen, the blinking cursor, the highlighted text.
You can be Nora with everyone else as long as you are Eleanor, my Little One, with me.
She slammed her laptop closed.
“Fiction.”
23
Theology
NORA GRACIOUSLY ALLOWED Noah to join her in the shower. She also graciously allowed him to wash her body inside and out with his bare hands. Afterward Nora put on her black silk bathrobe and kissed him goodbye at the front door. She didn’t mind if the neighbors saw them. They seemed like nice people and she enjoyed giving them something to talk about at dinner.
He turned to leave but turned back around again.
“This was a one-night thing, right?” he asked.
Nora cupped his face. No scruff. No five-o’clock shadow. Not even a two-o’clock shadow.
“And one morning.”
“So I guess I shouldn’t call you later?”
“It’s sweet of you to offer. If I weren’t me, and you weren’t so young...”
“I’m not that young. I’ll be a sophomore at Yorke this year.”
“You’re young. My life is complicated enough without adding a very sweet, very handsome, very young complication to it. Plus...we have to work, remember?”
“I get it.” He gave her a shy smile in return. “See you at the coffee shop sometime?”
“You’re the only one who gets my order right.”
“Extra whip,” he said.
“Story of my life.”
Noah kissed her one last time and walked out her front door to his car. He hadn’t been the first male virgin she’d deflowered since becoming a dominatrix, and she knew he wouldn’t be her last. Since she was making something of a habit of it, she’d developed a personal philosophy regarding her encounters with inexperienced younger men. She would show them the world of sex had more flavors to it than vanilla, and say goodbye the next morning leaving her boys better off than when she found them. Wiser, more experienced and grinning like idiots.
But Noah hadn’t been grinning like an idiot when he left. Neither had she. She nearly called him back. A terrible idea, of course. He was nineteen. She was thirty. He was sweet and innocent. Nora was, well... Nora.
And yet...it might be nice to have someone in her life who didn’t come to her house just for the kink and sex and leave after the shower. Who was she kidding? She worked two jobs. She was rarely at home. Last thing she had time for was a pet.
Nora watched Noah drive away. Maybe she should find a new coffee shop. For Noah’s sake, of course. Not hers. She was fine.
With less enthusiasm than usual, Nora put her day together. She packed clothes for her various clients—Sheridan wanted suits, Judge B loved her stiletto heels, and Rabbi Friedman couldn’t care less what she wore as long as she used the stock whip on him until he had to crawl from her dungeon—literally. Once dressed and packed, Nora headed into the city. She blamed her lassitude on the August heat. The city sweltered at the melting point. She could imagine the sidewalks bubbling like molten lava. The sun beat down on her as if it had something to prove. She couldn’t get into the air-conditioned car fast enough.
On the way to the city her hotline phone rang again.
“King, I’m busy here. I have three sessions today. I don’t have time to give the mayor’s baby brother an OTK spanking. Again.”
She heard a laugh on the other end. Juliette’s laugh, warm and honeyed and endlessly amused by her lover’s top domme.
“Sorry, Juliette. I thought it was King.”
“What does OTK mean?”
“Over the knee.”
“Ah, I’m learning all the terms. Monsieur asked me to call you. His hands are full.”
“I don’t want to know what his hands are full of, do I?”
“He’s giving Max a bath. The puppy got out and played in the garbage before we could catch him.”
Nora heard the plaintive cry of a miserable beast in the background, a full-grown Rottweiler that only Juliette would call a “puppy.” She heard something else, too—it sounded like every swear word in the French language coming out in one long, blue sentence.
“King knows he can pay people to give his dogs baths, right?”
“He’s having too much fun to delegate.”
“What, pray tell, does His Royal Dog Groomer want from me now?”
“Your Sheridan called. She can’t make her appointment tonight. Her agent called her in for an audition. She’d like to reschedule for tomorrow at nine.”
“That’s fine.”
“Also, I needed to know if you had room in your schedule tonight for a session with a new client.”
“New client? Tonight?”
“He wants your earliest appointment.”
Nora dug her red leather appointment book out of her bag.
“Thursday afternoon,” Nora said. “I have Troy at two. Put him at 3:30.”
“Done. Merci.”
“No problem. Who’s the new guy anyway?”
“He’s—”
Nora heard a “Merde!” followed by the sound of wet feet running rampant.
“I have to go,” Juliette said.
“Let me guess—Max ran away from King and is running around the entire house dripping water?”
“One of them will not survive this day,” Juliette said. “Both, j’espère.”
“Bonne chance,” Nora said and hung up the phone.
She had a lovely session with Judge B, a brutal session with Rabbi Friedman. She had dinner in the city with Griffin before heading back home. But when she arrived back at her house that evening, Nora couldn’t bring herself to open the front door of her house. Once the key was in the lock, she realized the last place she wanted to be was alone in her own house with her own thoughts and her empty bed. Instead of going home, she walked across the street and down the block.
When she stepped through the side door of St. Luke’s she almost stumbled from pure sensory overload. She could smell the fain
t memory of incense in the air, a scent she’d recognize anywhere. And there was no light quite like the light of evening through stained-glass saints and angels and no sound quite like the sound of high heels on church floors. She climbed up the choir loft steps and took a seat in one of the pews. Inside her day planner she jotted down her appointment for Thursday. Usually she wrote down the initials of her client so she could better prepare for the scene but she didn’t know who it was. Not that it mattered much. She’d beaten every sort of masochist there was. Whatever he wanted, she could give it to him.
When she’d finished updating her schedule, she pulled her laptop out of her bag. She should have been thinking of Noah. She’d spent the night with him, and the morning. But as always it was Søren who consumed her thoughts. She started writing a memory simply to have some mastery over it. When she put Søren on paper he became hers again. If only for a little while.
* * *
He sat at the table in the bar of the club drinking a glass of red wine with their king. They spoke in French too rapidly for her to understand more than a few words here and there. It didn’t matter what they spoke of, however. Nothing mattered except His thigh under her chin and His left hand on the back of her neck, caressing the tender skin under her collar. She sat on the floor at His feet, a white pillow between her knees and the floor.
He didn’t speak to her, but He did tap her under the chin. She lifted her head and met His eyes. He dipped two fingers into His red wine and brought them to her lips, and she drank the wine off His hand.
Their king said something followed by the word “parfait.” Perfect. He was speaking of her, their king was, speaking of her submission to Him. A perfect submissive. Not true although she was flattered. It was not she who was perfect, but Him. Don’t call the painting perfect even if you see it that way. The painting didn’t create itself. Call the artist perfect. If she was perfect it was only because He was perfect first.
He rose to His feet and she waited. She would not rise until He bid her to rise. She would stay there all night if she must waiting for the order.
“Come, Little One,” He said, brushing her cheek with His fingertips.
He didn’t tell her where they were going, because it didn’t matter. As long as she never lost sight of Him, she would never lose her way.
She followed Him to His dungeon, which was a terrible word to describe a beautiful room. In the olden days, prisoners were kept and tortured in dungeons. But long before that the word held a different meaning. It came from Latin, from the word “dominus,” which meant lord or master. The master’s keep, that’s what a dungeon was. The place where the castle’s lord kept his precious things, not a dank, dark hole for prisoners.
He was the master, and she was that which He kept.
Once safely inside His keep He kissed her with a claiming kiss, a conquering kiss, a master’s kiss. He called her by name and the name He called her was “Mine.” He stripped her of her white shoes, her white dress, her white stockings, until she wore nothing for Him but her white collar. He ran a bath of warm water and set her into it. As she sat in the water He rolled up the sleeves of His black shirt, revealing strong forearms, strong wrists, a pale dusting of hair and a small white scar left by His father.
“Don’t look at the scar, Little One,” He said, lathering his hands with gentle soap.
“I hate to think of you hurt, sir. I wish I could have been there for you.”
He pushed her onto her hands and knees. Her nipples hardened as the water kissed them.
“You weren’t even born yet,” He said, spreading her thighs with His hands and washing inside of her. He had told her what would happen tonight so she braced herself as two wet fingers entered her anally.
“I wasn’t even born when I was born.”
“When were you born?” He asked her as He opened His two fingers inside of her, widening her. The muscles inside her protested against the penetration and she bit her lip to stifle a cry of discomfort.
“The first time I saw you.”
His lips touched her hair as He inserted something into her body, something hard and thick, something to open her and keep her open. He washed His hands in her bathwater and helped her to her feet. She felt strange with the object inside her. Tense. Full. There was no pain, however. Not like last time when He’d taken her without warning. Then He’d swooped down on her like a god in the form of man, taking her with force if not by it. It had left her shaken, afraid of Him. Burned. Burned like someone who’d stared at the sun. Those who kept a safe distance could bask in the glow of the sun, see by its light, glory in its warmth. Those who came too close were burned.
She did love to burn.
With a soft white towel He dried her. He led her to the bed and she sat on the edge. The bed was soft. Sitting felt strange but didn’t hurt. She’d worn her hair pinned up as He’d requested, and now He took the pins out one by one and set them aside before taking a silver hairbrush and running it through the black waves of her hair. The act was soothing, soporific. She was naked and deeply penetrated and yet she could have fallen asleep with her head against His stomach. He wanted her like this...at peace, limp, open. She heard the sound of Him setting the hairbrush aside and she opened her heavy eyes. Gently He wrapped a white silk sash around her wrists and used it as a lead, guiding her to the center of the bed. He put her on her stomach and tied her wrists loosely to the headboard. The light in the room was low so it didn’t surprise her when He produced three small tea candles. It did surprise her, however, when He laid the three flat round candles on her spine. They formed a line, the three of them. One on the back of her neck. One between her shoulder blades. One at the small of her back. Then He lit them. As small as they were it didn’t take long before she felt the wax heating and melting onto her skin. The candles burned without searing her. It was His touch that seared her instead. As the wax melted onto her naked spine, His hands roved over her body, her legs and her arms, between her thighs and inside her vagina. He pushed a fingertip against her cervix, a test to see if she would flinch or jump, which wasn’t allowed when she had candles on her body. She inhaled sharply but didn’t move. She’d passed the test.
The wax turned to liquid and slid over her back, creating paraffin wings over her rib cage and sides. She barely felt the thick hard object inside her anymore. It had become a part of her. All her attention was focused on the burning wax. What happened inside her was beneath her notice.
As the three flames of the three candles reached her skin, He licked the tips of His fingers and snuffed them out. The wax congealed almost instantly, and He peeled it from her body. Although she couldn’t see her own back she knew the wax had left a bright red mark wherever it had touched. His lips caressed her burns, bringing fresh pain to her and fresh pleasure to Him.
The bed shifted under His weight, and she heard the rustle of fabric as He undressed. Naked He covered her body with His, pressing His chest into her back and renewing the pain of the burns with His own heat. He pulled back and drew the object out of her. She missed it immediately, felt the emptiness like a wound and when He entered her with His own body, she was healed.
Carefully He lowered Himself onto her. Carefully He thrust into her. She felt no pain. She was far too slick and open for pain. Not quite pleasure either but for the pleasure of being penetrated by Him, used by Him. That was its own pleasure far removed from the physical manifestation of it.
He pulled out of her but only to order her onto her back. With her ankles resting on His shoulders He entered her again. His fingers found her clitoris and stroked it. She shivered and gasped and the muscles inside her clenched in pleasure. Turning His hand, He pushed two fingers into her vagina and she felt him filling both holes. Yes...she closed her eyes and her head fell back against the sheets. Yes...this was what she’d always wanted, to have Him inside every part of her, to keep nothing of her from Him. Submission had become synonymous with surrender to her. Willing surrender. The Lord of the C
astle had come to invade her world. If she fought Him, she would lose everything. But if she surrendered to Him, He would carry her off like a spoil of war. When she entered His keep she would find riches beyond her wildest dreams waiting for her if she were only brave enough to surrender.
She surrendered.
Three fingers penetrated her vagina. Four. Both holes were filled and she could take nothing more. Like a wine chalice she was made to be filled. It was her purpose, her raison d’être. He knew it and so He filled her. Filled her to the brim and more and she overflowed with Him, the sheets wet beneath her. She came silently and hard, her clitoris throbbing against His fingers and the deep muscles of her pelvis contracting around the cock in her ass. This was a new pleasure she’d never before experienced. The contractions were deeper and harder. Nerves she didn’t know she had went wild. She felt the orgasm all the way up her spine and into her thighs and calves and down to her toes. When He came inside her, she felt that, too. She felt everything everywhere. It was blinding pleasure, obliterating, like staring into the sun. But she didn’t blink, didn’t turn away. Once one saw the sun, what was there left to see anyway?
The ecstasy pulsed and faded at last. He untied her wrists from the headboard and pulled her to Him, her chest to His chest, her leg over His thigh, His fingers gentle probing inside her wet holes.
“Better?” He asked and she knew He meant was it better than last time. It couldn’t possibly have been any worse.
“Perfect, sir.” Everything was perfect now—He was perfect, the sex had been perfect...a perfect evening...
“Parfait,” He said and she remembered His conversation with their king and asked Him about it.
“What did he say to you about me? I heard him say ‘parfait.’”
“He said you were the perfect submissive.”
“What else did he say?” she asked because she knew there was more to it.
He didn’t answer at first.
“Sir?”
Her sir smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. Still, she had asked and He would answer.
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