Mercy

by Annabel Joseph

  “He loves you,” he mouthed, handing it over. I waited with the phone to my ear as it rang. I hoped to get his voicemail so I could just leave a message. But no, on the fourth ring he answered, his deep silky voice in my ear.

  “Hello,” he rumbled anxiously. “Is Lucy all right?”

  I was thrown for a moment, but then I realized I was calling from Grégoire’s number, that he would assume I was him.

  “This is Lucy,” I finally managed to say, and I hated how scared I sounded. I said it again louder. “It’s Lucy.”

  “Lucy. Lucy, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  There was a short silence, a slow, soft sigh.

  “I’m glad you called me. I’m so glad. I’ve missed your voice.” He paused. “I’ve missed everything about you.”

  I was crying by then, hard enough that I almost hung up because I just couldn’t get any words past my lips, but Grégoire nudged me insistently.

  “Talk!” he ordered, gesturing to the phone.

  “Matthew...” I whispered through tears.

  “Yes, honey. I’m here.”

  “I miss you, Matthew. I need you, I think. I’m sorry I said those things to you.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes, Lucy. I’m leaving right now.” I handed the phone back to Grégoire, wide eyed, terrified. Frantic with relief.

  “He’s coming now.”

  He smiled. “Figures. Should Georges and I go out? Give you two some privacy?”

  “No! Don’t leave me! Just...don’t leave yet.”

  “I won’t. I’ll be here if you need me, but you and he need to talk. So dry those tears and buck up. Be brave.”

  I went to the kitchen and guzzled some water trying to calm myself. It occurred to me just as Matthew knocked that the pajamas I had on showed every bit of my strange new shape.

  “Jesus,” I said, hiding behind the counter. Grégoire was already opening the door. Matthew shook his hand, but he was searching the room for me. He looked as amazing as ever, his piercing eyes, his virile body, the same intent swagger as he crossed to where I was ducking behind the counter.

  He took me in with one sweeping gaze. “Come here.”

  I straightened slowly, tried to stand and present myself to him the way he’d taught me eons ago. He pulled me into his arms carefully like I was a delicate thing, and I suppose I was. My leg still wasn’t completely healed. Although his hands on me weren’t rough or grasping, they were possessive, undeniably possessive, and I felt as soon as he touched me that I was his again.

  “Lucy,” he sighed so softly that goosebumps rose on my skin. His hands cupped my face, then ran down over my shoulders, my pregnancy-inflated breasts, and over the curve of my hips.

  They stopped on my little baby bump and his fingers spread out there, broad and warm.

  “Lucy, my God. Look at you.” He fell to his knees and put his head right against me like he wanted to hear the baby inside, or perhaps feel it there. My hands curled in his hair. It disturbed me to see him kneeling at my feet, the supplicant for once, the one without the power. I wanted to give it back to him immediately. Take me, Matthew, I wanted to say. I’m yours. The moment I’d seen him in the doorway I’d known I was his and that I always would be as long as I lived.

  Dr. Rob was right, we belonged together. If you enjoy it, if it makes you happy, then it’s a good thing...

  He stood up and looked deep in my eyes, and I looked back at him just desperate with love.

  He kissed me, hard, gentle, soft, deep, just kissed me and kissed me and kissed me again. He drew me close until I was wrapped tightly in his arms, body to body, and the little round body between us both.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, breaking away from my lips. “I’m really so sorry for what I did.

  You’re right. It was terrible, and hypocritical of me. It was the worst kind of dishonesty, when I demanded the truth.”

  He sighed and took my face in his hands, his thick, gentle fingers threading through my curls. “I owe you truth,” he continued, “so here’s the truth. I’m happy you’re growing our child.

  I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a say in it. I hope you’ll forgive me for that. But I won’t ever leave you again, Lucy. I love you, and I can’t really live without you. I’m going to marry you and we’re going to have a baby. And that’s, finally, the whole truth of it.” By this point, tears were running down my face and he put his cheek against mine so it grew wet too, then he rubbed it against my hair. His fingers tightened in my curls so I felt it, felt that insistent pang of pain.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Lucy. I don’t know how else to love. But I promise I’ll take care of you forever, if you’ll just give me the chance.”

  “I thought you didn’t love me because I’d been raped. What about that?” He shook his head against my hair. “I didn’t understand. I just didn’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t because I thought you wouldn’t hurt me the way I wanted to be hurt.”

  “Is that why, though, Lucy? Is that the reason you want to be hurt?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, crying against his shoulder. “Does it really matter, Matthew? Does it really matter in the end?”

  He thought about that for a long moment, then sighed so I felt his breath against my ear.

  “I think the only thing that matters is that, from now on, we tell each other only truth.” I clung to him and he held me and soothed me while I soaked his shirt with tears.

  “I’m...I’m afraid,” I stammered, my voice trembling.

  “I know it,” he said, smoothing my curls. “I know.”

  * * *

  So back I went, from Grégoire’s to Matthew’s, that very night. Matthew insisted he wouldn’t sleep another night away from me and our child, and I was overjoyed to have my master back giving orders again. He came to my little room and helped me pack up everything, my very few things in my two suitcases. His eyes lingered on the Grecian Urn poem.

  “Do you know why I gave you this?”

  “No, Matthew, I don’t. Maybe because it talked about truth and beauty, and it was meaningful to you.”

  “You were meaningful to me. Even back then when I was still in denial of how I felt about you. How much I loved you. Did you love me back then?”

  I didn’t even consider lying.

  “Yes, I loved you long before then. Desperately.”

  “Me too,” he said. “I loved you from the start. I loved you when we sat in that coffee shop talking, and you blushed and stammered and tried so hard to tell the truth. I loved you when you danced that night at the Gala. I loved you that day we spoke in the hall, when you tied your little shoes up without looking down once.”

  “You loved me then? You didn’t even know me.”

  “But I did, Lucy. Just like you knew me.”

  I sat beside him and we looked at the poem together.

  “If you had told me the truth then,” I said, “I would have run away. If you had told me all that was going to happen between us.”

  He laughed. “I still would have caught you. I wouldn’t have let you get away.” We said our goodbyes at the door. I thanked Georges and Grégoire with tears in my eyes for the love and support they’d given me when my life had been off the rails. But now I finally felt I was back on track again. I hobbled to Matthew’s house and he carried me up to his bedroom and there were Pietro’s paintings of me just as before, all three in a row.

  I stared at the paintings while Matthew slowly undressed me, ran anxious fingers over me like I might still try to get away.

  “I’m yours, Matthew,” I whispered. “Please take me. Like you used to.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.”

  And he didn’t, even though he loved me for hours. He made love to me until I was falling asleep in his arms and still he made me come, made me thrill with his mouth, his fingers, his cock inside me. We fell asleep
still connected, and I woke up the next morning in his insatiable grasp.

  So life went on between us, thrilling and wonderful as ever. I rested during the day while he worked. Mrs. Kemp spoiled me rotten, coming and going and clucking over me constantly.

  Kevin drove me wherever I needed to go, and Dr. Rob came to see me as always. I thanked him gratefully the next time I saw him for giving me the courage to call.

  Matthew and I stuck to our pact to tell only truth to each other. We had long revealing talks in his bedroom—well, our bedroom now—while I lay cradled in his arms. My old life, dancing and the secrecy of pain, was replaced by a new world of honesty and warmth. And love. We’d talk for hours with his hand resting on my swelling belly, and the baby grew and began to move inside me while my leg knit together like new.

  And of course we found ways to make love, to have sex, to fuck, to do the things we had to do. It wasn’t always easy, and it was downright awkward as I grew bigger, but he still fucked me and beat me and bedeviled me until I came. Matthew hired a private obstetrician who came to the house, and who was let in on our games so there would be no need to explain away the marks.

  On the plus side of this open communication, the physician was able to offer frank advice of how far we could go and still be safe. “The baby is exceedingly well-cushioned,” Dr. Stein would say to Matthew with a wink, “so if she misbehaves, you give her hell.” It was one of those nights when my ankle was almost completely better that Matthew stroked my face and said, “So, now, Lucy, can I be your dominant husband?”

  “You call that a proposal?” He pulled out a ring that made my jaw drop.

  “Lucy Merritt, marry me.” An order, not a question, of course.

  “And be your submissive wife? Let me think it over.” I pretended to for all of three seconds.

  “Yes, Matthew, I will.”

  He kissed me a long time, then he whispered to me.

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

  “Yes, Matthew,” I said. “I promise I will.”

  And I really meant it this time.

  * * *

  We had a wonderfully beautiful wedding that Matthew’s money threw together in a week.

  His rich developer friends attended, and the dancers from my company. They wished me well but they looked at me with fear in their eyes. She’s through. Someday I’ll be through too. But being through wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. As time went by, I missed dancing less, and settled into the wonder of just being Matthew’s wife.

  I was quickly becoming Matthew’s huge, bloated, whale-like wife, but he seemed to love me just the same. And being Matthew’s wife was a full time job, much to my pleasure and occasional pain. We played almost every day, and every night, and I’d never known such happiness in my life.

  We found out eventually that we were going to be having a boy, so we began to shop for blue and boyish things. It was one such time, when we were out shopping downtown, that we ran into Joe. We were getting coffee, and a huge pastry to feed my pregnant hunger, when I looked up and saw his eyes on me, on my massive waistline, and Matthew at my side.

  “Hi, Joe,” I said. Matthew’s eyes shot to him. “Matthew, this is Joe. We almost got married once.”

  Joe had the grace to look sheepish. He had a ring on his finger. “Kim and I got married. And I see you did, too.”

  “This is my husband Matthew.”

  Matthew and Joe shook hands, in that way of two men who’ve loved the same woman.

  “Nice to meet you,” Matthew said. “I guess I should thank you for being foolish enough to leave her at the altar.”

  I nudged him, rolling my eyes.

  The awkward conversation ended shortly afterward and we said our goodbyes. As soon as he was out of earshot, Matthew taunted him under his breath. “Idiot,” he muttered. “Vanilla fuckboy.”

  “Matthew, be nice. His loss is your gain.”

  “And yours too,” he whispered, eyeing me lasciviously.

  I laughed. “How can you look at me like that, when I look like this?” I pointed down at my huge belly, round and swollen.

  “I think you’ve never looked sexier. I bet Joe did too. I can’t wait to take you home and fuck you.”

  “Stop!” I laughed, looking around at the people passing by us, oblivious to what he said.

  “You’re such a perv. To even think of fucking a woman this pregnant—”

  “What are you talking about? We’ll be fucking up until the bitter end. Did you hear that, baby?” he said to my stomach. “If the womb’s a rockin’...”

  “Don’t talk to our baby about sex!” I giggled.

  “I’ll be pushing the doctor out of the way to get at you in the delivery room.”

  “Matthew!”

  “Those stirrups will come in handy. I’ll be hunkered down there with my mouth between your legs.”

  “Oh God,” I laughed. “Please shut up! You’re so sick!”

  “You made me that way. You’re the one who did this to me and you know it. I was doomed the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Yes, we spent many fun, wonderful afternoons shopping and preparing for our lives to really, really change. We fixed up a nursery for our soon-to-be-born baby on the top floor of the house, the longest possible distance from the basement where we played, for obvious reasons.

  In the early hours of New Years Day a little over a year and three months since we’d met, we had a healthy, darling baby boy. He had light blue eyes and red curly locks of hair, and we named our beautiful baby Keats.

  Epilogue

  His deep voice whispered over the monitor. “Little Lucy, I’m coming for you.” I laughed. So he’d successfully gotten Keats to bed. I was in the basement room, kneeling by the sofa. A moment later he was there at the door.

  “Did you hear me?”

  I nodded with a smile. It was a little ritual we used to test the monitors each night. A whispered message to whoever waited below, more provocative some nights than others.

  He came to the sofa shedding his clothes. He looked down at me, taking control without words. As always, I gave myself over to him easily and thankfully. He sat in front of me, spreading his legs and guiding my mouth to his cock. I sucked him. He pinched my nipples each time he wanted something different, for me to lick his balls, or rim his ass. I stroked my lover and my husband all over, and he came on my lips and on my tongue.

  “Beautiful little whore. Savor it. Swallow it all.”

  I did, with grateful exuberance. He watched me, then pulled me over his lap. He started to spank me and I moaned from the pleasure of the contact. I squeezed and kissed his leg, and then I nibbled.

  “No biting, Lucy,” he said with an especially sharp crack.

  I jerked under the harsh sting of it and he gripped my arm more firmly behind my back. He spanked me soundly and I reveled in it. No matter how many times he did it, I still wanted more.

  When my ass was deep pink and burning, he stood me up and walked me to the center of the room.

  “Stay,” he said, and I complied, although I shifted a little from one leg to the other, trying to cope with the discomfort of my reddened ass and the increasing arousal in my pussy and clit.

  He looked at me sternly on his way back from the armoire.

  “Behave yourself. Stand still.” Over his arm was a fine silk garter belt and some matching black stockings. I shuddered a little in delicious anticipation. It was going to be one of those nights.

  He knelt at my feet and fit the garter belt to my waist, then laced it up in the back. He smoothed it down over my hips and my bottom, then picked up the first of the black stockings in his hands.

  “Turn,” he told me, his voice low and raspy. I did, and pointed one toe. He gathered the stocking up with deft fingers and smoothed it up my leg with a delicate touch that belied his strength. He carefully hooked it in the front and the back, working the tiny garter clasps with a skill born of practice.

  “Your other
foot.” He did the same, gathering the stocking up, pulling it up to the top of my thigh, and hooking the clasps. He held my foot in his hands, massaged it. “Point.” I obeyed. He caressed my pointed foot while I stood perfectly still. “I thought dancers were supposed to have ugly feet,” he said.

  “I’m not a dancer anymore.”

  “Of course you are. You always will be.” He picked up my other foot and I pointed it in his hands. He ran his fingers over the arch and across the top.

  “How beautiful you are, Lucy.”

  “Thank you, Matthew.”

  His fingers moved up higher, splayed across my ankle and then up my shin. He shifted to crouch behind me until I could feel his hot, steady breath on the back of my thighs. With both hands he smoothed the back seams, running one finger up the center of each calf. I tried to stand still but I was so hot, so wet. I tried to stand still and be a good submissive to him.

  I felt his mouth brush against my outer thigh, and then at the lacy sheer top of the stocking, he placed a kiss. He nibbled, softly biting the pale skin outlined by garters, and wherever he bit me, he licked and tasted me too.

  “Down, lie down.” He pulled me down to the floor right there where I stood. He parted my thighs and licked above my stocking tops, and I flexed my thighs in that way I knew drove him wild.

  “Your hands,” he growled, and I gave my hands to him. He grasped them tightly in his own.

  His questing mouth settled between my legs, and the second he put his lips on me, I arched under him, the warm erotic sensation too much to bear.

  “Lucy,” he chided. “Be a good girl. Don’t you come yet. I’ll punish you if you come.” I shook my head and gritted my teeth as he laved me. Lick, caress, nibble. Each point of contact sent lust through every teeming nerve. He went on and on, teasing me to insanity.

  “Matthew, please!”

  “No.” His deep voice vibrated against my clit. He nipped me softly, thrusting his fingers inside me.

  “Please, Matthew, please, you’re going to make me come!”

  “I said no,” he growled, feigning impatience. “You obey me or you’re going to pay.” I felt him smile against my clit as he closed his teeth on it and very intentionally sent me over the edge. I came with a howl, shaking and bucking. He licked me hard across my entire aching slit, then looked up at me with a devilish grin.