Mercy

by Annabel Joseph

  I didn’t talk because I was afraid of saying something stupid, afraid of sounding too familiar and loving during this meal that felt like a date. He didn’t talk because he was too busy just staring at me, staring at me with eyes that made me burn. I was half afraid he’d turn me over the table right there and fuck me, lift my skirt and thrust inside while the other patrons looked on.

  His eyes were so alive with smoldering lust, I had no idea why he hadn’t just taken me straight to his home. It had been nearly a week then since we’d been together, and we both felt that strain.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said when the waiter brought dessert. I stirred my coffee, too nervous to reply. I remembered that night long ago at the coffee house, when I’d first drunk coffee with him and he’d told me what he wanted from me.

  “I’ve missed you too, Matthew.” It was a safe, inane thing to say. Then he reached over and picked up the rectangular box he’d carried in, and handed it over to me.

  It was wrapped in heavy, elegant paper, a stylized holiday print of berries and holly leaves.

  There was a bow on top, perfect and crimson.

  “I didn’t get you anything, Matthew,” I said, running my fingers over the gorgeous wrappings.

  “Good. I didn’t want you to.”

  “Whatever you want, I’ll do it for you later. Anything at all.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a dweeb. We both know you’ll do what I want anyway. Just open it up. I wanted to get you a present, and now I fucking want you to see what’s inside.” I smiled. He was so ridiculously charming, even when he called me a dweeb and ordered me around. I carefully undid the paper, not wanting to wrinkle it, and honestly, not really wanting the moment to end.

  “Rip the fucking paper off it, Lucy. Open it up or I’ll break it over your ass.” I smiled wider and looked up at him from under my lashes. I ripped off the rest of the paper and lifted the lid. I had expected something typically appropriate between us. Some new lingerie, or a paddle or a plug, but there was nothing sexual or kinky inside that box. There was a beautifully framed piece of parchment covered in spidery calligraphy and decorated at the top with a painting of a Grecian urn.

  He’d gifted me with a framed copy of the Keats poem I’d quoted to him, the one about truth and beauty, and it made my breath catch in my throat. Ode on a Grecian Urn, it was called, five stanzas long. I stared down the poem while he sat and watched without a word. The first two lines drew me in with their strange, appropriate sentiment: Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

  thou foster-child of silence and slow time...

  Silence. Slow time. I thought of our hours in the basement when he only sat and stared. He’d found this for me, or perhaps, knowing him, had it crafted by some artist to his exact specifications.

  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter...

  Thou canst not leave thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss.

  As I read, it seemed every single line spoke of our strange relationship. Matthew and I were frozen in time just like the pastoral scenes on the urn that Keats described. We were frozen in a scene where we reached for one another, but would never actually touch.

  More happy love! more happy, happy love!

  For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,

  For ever panting, and for ever young;

  All breathing human passion far above...

  For us, it would always just be passion. He would love me while I was young and perfect, his unchanging ideal. And then what? Someday, the urn would be broken, would crumble to pieces, capitulate to the ravages of time. The poem was so appropriate to us that I shivered, and for a long time, I couldn’t look up into his eyes.

  At the end, the famous and well known words we’d discussed so long ago...

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

  The simple words that exemplified Matthew’s view of the world, all Matthew desired.

  You’re beautiful to me. There will be only truth between us.

  I looked over at Matthew and wondered what it meant. If it was a declaration of some kind, I didn’t understand it. Perhaps it had no significance at all. Maybe it was a mindfuck, a way to hurt or mock me. Maybe simply a gift to a lover with whom he’d spent so much time.

  “Thank you, Matthew,” was all I dared say in the end.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes. I love it. It’s beautiful.”

  He stared at me, long and hard, but I gave him nothing, no emotional reaction. I felt suddenly we were both teetering on the edge of a cliff.

  “I love everything you give me,” I said as an afterthought, and thankfully, he left it at that.

  He took me back to his house afterward, and when I turned towards the basement, he pulled me instead up the stairs. “Not on Christmas Eve. I won’t beat on you tonight.”

  “You can if you want.”

  “No.”

  Up in his room, he took off my dress as I kicked off my shoes. “Go stand against the wall,” he said, stripping out of his clothes. He pushed me over to the broad white wall, the one without the paintings, and I stood there in my black stockings with my hands at my sides. He sat on the bed, looking at me, stroking his cock which was already huge and hard.

  “Play with yourself. Stroke your clitty, pinch your tits.” I did what he asked, trying to look sexy. He didn’t like that at all.

  “Fucking submissive. Harder. Touch yourself.” He stood up and strode over to me.

  I moaned as he pinched my nipples, then twisted them mercilessly hard. He reached between my legs and found my swollen clit and pinched that too until I danced under his touch.

  “You little cum whore,” he breathed. “Come on. Come for me, let me watch you.” I reached out to him and squeezed his shoulder hard, and he let me, so I kept squeezing, just as he squeezed and worked my sodden clit. “Come on, you little slut,” he prompted me again, then he pressed himself against me, pressed me to the wall and kissed me hard and violently, with more feeling than he ever had before. He hauled me over to the bed and pushed me onto my hands and knees and drove into me standing up from behind. He came just moments later, driving hard, then collapsed on top of me, his lips against my neck.

  Before he even caught his breath, he gasped, “Lie down. Lie down and spread your legs.” I did, the obedient slave, and he fell on me at once. He stroked my thighs, bit the top of my stockings, licked and teased me while I flew on a high of sexual pleasure and pure infatuation for the man who mastered me.

  He devoured me, kissed and sucked my sore clit, licked my pussy and asshole with a fervor that made me wild. He had gone down on me on many occasions, but this time, somehow, it was even more abandoned and wild. The arousal built, throbbed, turned inside out and then exploded.

  I came apart, thrashing under his mouth. He held my thighs hard between his hands and began again. I begged for respite, but he allowed none. He made me come again, this time finishing by thrusting his thick fingers in and out of my cunt. As I came, he gazed down at me chanting,

  “Yes. Yes, beautiful girl.”

  He lay beside me then on the bed while I gasped for breath, completely spent, sprawled at his side. He watched me, his head propped on his hand.

  “I have an unhealthy addiction to watching you come.”

  I looked over at him. “I’ve noticed. I don’t mind.”

  He stroked my face a moment, and then leaned over and kissed me like a true lover, and I let myself kiss him back just the same. We kissed like that while time spun away, and then he broke away from me. He suddenly seemed agitated and cross.

  “Lucy, can you go home now? I’ll call a cab for you. You can’t stay here tonight. I’ve got things to do in the morning. You understand.”

  I nodded. Yes, I did. Of course I did. I took a cab home that he insisted on paying for, and I was really okay with that. I climbed the stairs to my little apartment with my framed K
eats poem clutched in my hands.

  Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

  To what green altar, O mysterious priest...

  Matthew, my handsome and mysterious priest. And I, the urn, frozen in beauty, not permitted to change.

  He was the artist, the priest, the shaman, and I was the urn, existing only to receive.

  * * *

  That lovely Christmas Eve night that Matthew took me to dinner was an anomaly, certainly, perhaps an attempt at holiday cheer. It was nice, but I think it made both of us uneasy. We returned after the bustle of the holidays to our regular schedule and my stringent sessions in his basement continued just as before.

  One morning after such a session, I came awake with the most delicious feeling. I was warm and relaxed. The bed was the perfect cozy temperature. Matthew lay beside me, an arm’s length away. He rarely held me in bed even though he insisted almost always that I sleep over. I knew he didn’t want me there for snuggles and cuddles. He wanted me to sleep over in case he felt like fucking me in the middle of the night, and he did wake me up to do that fairly often. Those were always nice fucks, half-conscious and quick.

  But that morning, I just felt so happy and cozy. I did a hard stretch beside him. His hands came out for me at once and his sleepy arms wrapped around me. “Do it again,” he whispered.

  “Stretch for me.” I stretched again and his hands groped over me. He nuzzled his face into the curve of my neck.

  “Lucy...Happy birthday.”

  And I swear to God, I had completely forgotten that on this cold, luxuriously comfortable morning I had been born twenty-nine years ago.

  He fucked me then, twice in a row, once from behind and once clutched close in his arms.

  Warm delicious snugglefucking. I came both times, to his soft encouragement, to his constant demand. Come, Lucy, come.

  Down in the kitchen, Mrs. Kemp produced a cake for me, a small cinnamon apple cake with roses in cream cheese frosting. It had a candle on it which Matthew lit with a flourish. I laughed while they sang Happy Birthday to me in surprisingly lovely harmony.

  All of this strange softening of Matthew around me, the affectionate kisses, the cuddles, things like the birthday cake, I was so happy he felt all right with doing these things, because it meant I had finally convinced him that my emotions were not a threat. That I no longer harbored unrealistic fantasies, that I wouldn’t flip out and ask him for love. That I wouldn’t expect any commitment. Things got so much easier, so much simpler after that.

  After one particularly debauched session, as he kissed me before bed, he asked if I’d like to go out with him again.

  “On Saturday, I’ll pick you up at the theater. I’d like to take you to dinner with some friends.”

  Some friends. Friends like Davis? “Okay, Matthew.”

  “Why ‘ okay’?” he asked, mimicking my ambivalent tone. “What? Why not?”

  “Nothing. I said okay. I would like to.” I didn’t know why he was so annoyed. Did he want me to fall over myself with excitement? “Will they know what I am to you?”

  “Maybe. Do you care?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I’ll clear it up right off and introduce you as my sex slave.” I just looked at him, because it was completely possible he wasn’t joking. I guess my uneasiness amused him, because he laughed and pulled me next to him in the bed.

  “Listen, don’t think so much. I want you to come out with me. I want to see you smile and laugh and do something besides take me in every hole. You’re my submissive, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you do as I say. I don’t really understand the attitude.” I murmured apologies, but I felt his mood shift.

  “Do you want me to put a fucking collar on you, Lucy? Would that make you feel better?

  Take you to dinner on a leash? Make you eat it out of a dog bowl at my feet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How about a toy in your ass while we dine? You’d probably like that, actually.”

  “Matthew, it’s fine, I’ll go. I just didn’t know if these were friends who...”

  “Who what? Who will come back with us to the basement?” He fought with himself for a moment, over whether or not to admit it, and then I knew for certain that they were. Of course, he’d wanted to spring the whole thing on me. Now he would be angry with me that I’d pried it from him in advance.

  “So what if they do, Lucy? What are you going to do about it? I know you’re a hot little cum-crazy whore. You come like a fucking horny slut every time I fill all your holes. I thought you might enjoy a few extra of my friends.”

  “Yes. Yeah. I would love that, Matthew.” I expected to be slapped now, for the way that I said that.

  “You know what I’d love?” he said low and dangerously. “A little fucking appreciation sometimes.”

  I turned to him and pressed my head into his chest, and then sank down until I faced his cock. I wanted to suck him more than anything at that moment, just so I wouldn’t have to participate in this conversation any more. He sighed as I put my mouth on him, and he let me suck and caress him at my own pace. For a long time he just let me have him, and while I had him, I thought about what he’d said.

  I thought about going out to dinner and coming back to the basement with his friends. God, who cared? As long as it felt good. Just more way to be sure we didn’t fall in love. I was actually really looking forward to it. By the time he came in my throat the idea actually turned me on. I hoped they were as beautiful and handsome as Matthew. I hoped they thought I was beautiful and desirable too.

  Chapter Ten: Falling

  On Saturday night, Matthew didn’t meet me at the stage door. He actually met me backstage, outside my dressing room door. Of course he had all-access granted whenever he wanted it. The amount of money he donated to the company assured that. He had a garment bag in one hand and a small boutique bag in the other, and a broad smile pasted across his face.

  “My little dancer. How was your show tonight?”

  “Fine,” I murmured. My ankle hurt.

  As soon as Ellie left he came into the dressing room with me. He helped me pull the black dress down over my naked body and it fit like a glove. He nodded in approval while I marveled at how it made me look. It fit so perfectly and so flatteringly. I had no idea how he managed it. I pictured him standing over me with a measuring tape while I slept, then calling a seamstress with all his notes.

  “Yes, I had it made for you,” he said.

  “How—”

  “I got your measurements from Jo.” The costume mistress.

  “I’ve never worn anything so beautiful. I really haven’t.”

  “Well, it’s yours now. It looks wonderful on you.”

  It wasn’t a slut dress of course, not from Matthew. It fell to just below my knees. It had some beading, very subtle, on the front. It had an almost iridescent sheen to it, and the bodice laced up. It didn’t lace up in some pseudo-corset way, it laced up with silk laces to a tie at the top. It was sexy, elegant, and girlish. I absolutely loved it and it moved like a dream.

  But he wasn’t done with me yet. “Hold up the skirt,” he said, kneeling down. He reached for the shop bag he’d set down on the vanity and drew out a garter belt that made my breath catch.

  It matched the dress in design and laced up in the front, and was embroidered with delicate beads. He put it on me, and of course, again, it fit perfectly. Then he gathered up the stockings and put them on next. He smoothed them up my leg so that I shivered, and then he attached the garter clasps for me. He licked me softly at the place where my ass met my thighs and I put my hand back on his head, twined my fingers in his hair. It was partly because I didn’t want him to stop it, and partly because my legs were about to fail. It may sound funny to say this, but it was the first time in the nearly four months I’d known him that I’d touched his hair that way.

  He stood up all too soon and said, “We’ll be late.”

  As
we sat in his car driving to the restaurant, he ordered me to pull my skirt up over my thighs. He made me masturbate myself until I came, and I was thankful that his windows were tinted black. For once, primed as I was by the erotic way he dressed me, it wasn’t that hard to jack off for him. I wasn’t as self-conscious and hesitant as I usually was. I thought too of the way his hair felt under my fingers for that wonderful moment, that very short moment when they twisted in his soft, blond locks.

  When we arrived at the restaurant, it was busy and crowded. Lots of rich people standing around looking rich. It was loud, smoky, frenetic, and expensive of course. My eyes darted all around, wondering who his “friends” could be. He had told me nothing further of the people we’d meet, letting me work myself into frenzy of curiosity and nerves. And I was nervous, very nervous to see the people that Matthew had decided to let play with me. Unlike Davis, I assumed these players knew what they were doing.

  The maître’d led us to a secluded table, and I was surprised to be greeted by two men and a beautiful woman my age. Well, perhaps she was a bit older, thirty five or so. The men were older than Matthew too, with grey in their hair. They weren’t old men though, not at all. If they were fifty, I would have been surprised. And they turned me on. God, I hate to say it. They were sexy and virile, and potent to the core. They looked at me in the same way Matthew looked at me, as something to appraise. A thing to conquer and own. These men were dominants, and the woman was a submissive, that was patently clear to me even before we spoke.

  All of a sudden, I started to panic a little. What were the rules here? How should I act? I hung back and shrunk closer to Matthew, but he put his hand on my back and pushed me forward. They all stood up and greeted each other warmly, including me, so I was not to be ignored, the peon slave. Matthew pulled out my chair and seated me next to the woman. She was a woman that made me feel like a girl, voluptuous and sexy, and quietly self assured. Her body was amazing, large breasts and hips, and wide brown eyes framed by jet black, flowing hair. I wanted to cry, imagining my skinny dancer body beside hers, my babyish red curls next to her black, flowing mane.