Somehow I knew he wasn’t the sort of man to be told what to do. I also knew he was fucking crazy, giving me that contract.
I watched him throw his shirt back on and I stroked my plait as he got himself dressed again. If this was all he wanted me to do every night, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
“I’ve found a salon I think you’ll like. Your hair is in very good condition but I want it long enough to cover your lower back. Regular trims make it grow quicker, yes?”
“What?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”
“To cover my… lower back?” I repeated.
“I’ll set it up for you, if you like? Sexton will drive you.”
“What if I don’t want really long hair?”
“Why wouldn’t you want really long hair? Your hair’s beautiful.”
Again, with the compliments. I had to swallow my surprise and try to find words to reply with. “It’s the upkeep. Washing, drying, all that… it’s long already and difficult enough to keep in good condition.”
“Let the salon wash and dry it for you, then?”
“What? Like, everyday!”
“No, how about every other day?”
I grimaced. “I… I don’t feel comfortable with that. I’m already taking a lot from you. I don’t know if I want–”
“I’ll sort it out, don’t worry Cleo.”
He walked out of the room and reminded me, “Don’t forget the delivery people are coming tomorrow morning to bring some furniture for my room. I doubt I’ll be sleeping here, but it’s for just in case, you know?”
I followed him down the stairs. “I’ll make sure I’m in.”
“Good. Now…” He took his suit jacket off the hallway hook, and then his coat, putting both back on. “…I’ll be back tomorrow night but maybe we could just, discuss a few additions to the dungeon. I have a catalogue I can bring round.”
“Okay…” It was sinking in that spanking him was my full-time job. I was in his employment to have my hair the way he wanted it and also to spank him. Humour him. Whatever he wanted me to do to him… I just had to do.
“Everything okay, then?” he asked with a strained smile, pulling some leather gloves on like he was ready to go.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“See you tomorrow then.”
He grabbed his umbrella and dashed out into the pouring rain outside, Sexton having waited all this time in the car just on the other side of the street.
Dante jumped in and Sexton pulled from the kerb instantly.
He was gone.
I always hated it when he was gone.
I shut myself indoors and looked around at the lovely house. Too big for just one person, but nice nonetheless.
I cuddled my arms around my chest, feeling a chill without him nearby.
I ran upstairs to change and a thought occurred to me. Dante looked stunning in just his trousers, shirtless. How would I look to him, the same way?
After I tugged off my leather trousers and replaced them with my stonewash jeans, I tugged off the boob tube over my head and walked to the mirror, wearing just the jeans.
I closed my eyes and imagined him walking up behind me, his shirt off, his warm chest touching my back. Big arms around me. Hands splayed along my waist, feeling where my body dipped below my ribs, to the flare outwards of my hips. He’d caress his lips along the right side of my neck where my skin was exposed, the plait on the other side. Gradually his hands would come up to my breasts and his thumbs might rub my nipples. I’d turn and jump into his arms and he’d push me down on the bed, kissing me like mad, my jeans and his trousers the only barrier between us. He’d kiss me for such a long time, I’d feel desperate to have his mouth on my nipple… and I’d scream for mercy.
I unbuttoned my jeans and remained standing in front of the mirror, peeking at myself, just imagining him touching me. My breasts felt hard and my lungs hot. I reached into my jeans and tickled my clit a couple of times. I came, knowing that if he saw me looking like this in my jeans, it would drive him insane. It would make him fuck me.
“Oh god, Dante,” I whispered to the house.
After washing my hands I pulled on a comfy jumper and walked downstairs to fish some snacks out of the cupboard. Sitting in front of the TV, I was happy and contented enough.
My thoughts ran to asking myself, could he ever be contented with real life?
I knew that he couldn’t. He didn’t do watching TV or drinking beer to relax. He needed whipping. He needed this fantasy, because a fantasy it was. It was making me want to touch myself non-stop.
Which meant my quandary was real. I loved him but I knew that right then, our arrangement was exactly what he needed.
It was maybe what we both needed.
Nineteen
2012
THE NIGHT OF MY TWENTY-FIRST birthday was the night I tried to run away. It was my first attempt at it.
Something had snapped in me, but I wasn’t sure what it was.
Over dinner that night at the Knightsbridge house, he looked at me like I had sprouted three heads because it being my birthday, I said I didn’t want to hit him that night. For once, I was making the rules, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. I made him sit across from me and eat a meal I had prepared and he ate it begrudgingly, like I was force-feeding him food. He looked mercilessly unhappy and didn’t try to appease me. Didn’t give me a gift, or a kiss. It was a Thursday and he said that he was taking me to Paris, Saturday through Monday, and that he’d give me my birthday gift then. I knew it would be some sort of BDSM-related gift I didn’t want and suddenly, how incompatible we were had become blaringly obvious.
I decided that night was it – time to go.
I knew he said it was impossible to escape him, but I was ready to try.
I was tired of the routines. I was tired of his foul moods. I was tired of being locked off from the world. I was tired of it all. I was mostly upset with myself for ever believing he could change.
After he left the house that evening, I was mad as hell. No birthday kiss. No birthday present. No conversation over dinner. No sex. No love. I wanted to be gone.
“Fuck this, fuck it all,” I said to no-one as I packed a few things into a bag. I had a plan to go to Trixy’s and see if she still lived there and if she didn’t, I’d use the cash I’d been siphoning off Dante’s credit cards to book myself into a hotel room and hide there until he got bored of looking for me and gave up.
I slammed the door shut on the house and stomped down the street in sneakers, jeans and a big coat. My birthday being April, it still wasn’t the warmest, and I didn’t know how long my travel time would be so I wanted to be prepared.
As I stormed away, I felt sick. Angry. Emotionally wrought.
Ultimately I felt lonely.
Really lonely.
I desired him so much but I knew nothing about him. Not his birthday, not his favourite food, not his dog’s name, not where he slept at night.
Nothing.
I knew nothing.
I was so tired of the hairdressers.
Of trying to think up new games to play every night.
So, so tired.
So lonely.
Even back home when I’d felt like nobody understood my passions or my ambitions in life, I’d never before felt as alone as Dante made me feel. I never cared about anyone as much as him and to think that he didn’t care in the same way made me furious. It made me unhappy. It made every bit of strength I possessed in me fray.
I was torn apart, inside, trying to stay strong when really I needed his arms and I needed him and his love.
My chest ached, thinking about the possibility of having his love.
Was he capable of love?
I got on the Tube and felt sure I was away and free. This was so easy. I just had to stay on the blue line until I could jump on the black line and head up to Camden Town for Trixy’s place. It was so simple, I didn’t know why I hadn’t done it
before. All this time, I could’ve just gotten away and escaped his masochistic demands.
I was quickly navigating the pedestrian tunnels to jump on the black line when a guy knocked into me hard and stole off with my bag!
My bag with all of that money in it!
I knew I should’ve stayed dirt poor and unable to buy nice stuff. I probably looked like I had money. How was he to know I had a couple of grand in the bag, though?
I gave chase and screamed, “Stop, thief! Stop!”
At the end of one of the long tunnels, I found the thief pinned to the ground by a member of the transport police.
“We saw him on the cameras, miss,” the guy told me, “I assume this is your bag!”
I bent over, hands on my knees, catching my breath. “Yes, it’s my bag. He just took off with it.”
“I’ll have to take a statement, miss.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t got time for this!”
“Sorry,” the guy breathed, “it would help if you could give me some details so I can get in touch.”
“Okay.”
When he asked for my address, I obviously gave the Knightsbridge one. I didn’t think twice about it. When he was looking at my ID, he saw my DOB and said, “Hey, happy birthday! Twenty-one, wow! Well, you must be on your way to your party.”
I nodded slightly. “Yeah.”
“Off you go then, have a great time!”
He took the would-be thief away by the scruff of the neck and I held my bag tighter to my body and decided I’d take a hotel instead of trying to chance Trixy’s place. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even live where she used to. Not if she finally got her way and found a husband, like she was always planning to. I never kept in touch with her because of the way I skipped Miss Lindy’s but also because I couldn’t afford a phone back then.
I stalked around Leicester Square trying to think of a place to stay, but found myself all of a sudden at a loss as to my motives, my next move. What was I doing? Where would I go? I’d never used London hotels. I’d never used Paris ones, either. Dante always arranged places to stay that weren’t hotels.
I searched for any sort of budget-looking hotel, people from the Underground pushing all around me as I remained stationary while they buzzed about. I must have seemed a rabbit caught in the headlights.
“Where are you going?” I was asked, and I recognised the voice. He stood behind me, right behind me. I smelt him.
“I’m going, it’s over. I want to leave,” I said, even though the knowledge he was right next to me made me mad with longing.
“No.” He took my arm and yanked me back against him, saying again but this time right in my ear, “No.”
With the gentlest of whispers, he kissed my cheek and being as weak around him as I was, I walked with him when he took my hand and pulled me towards where Sexton was double-parked on the road right outside Wyndham’s Theatre.
On the backseat of the Phantom, he held me close and I felt his cool fingertips pad against my hair and my cheek. He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t mad. For some reason it felt like he was deeply relieved.
Sexton was mad, though – his bushy eyebrows furrowed, his forehead wrinkled deeply. Dante seemed alright – and I didn’t know why.
When we got back to the house, it was just Dante and me in the kitchen. Sexton waited outside in the car.
“How did you find me?” I asked as I poured myself some wine.
“That’s for me to know.”
“Why’s Sexton all in a paddy out there?”
“He thinks I should let you go.”
“You should.” I took a swig of wine, avoiding his eyes. Why did he kiss my cheek, whisper for me not to go, and hold me close on the backseat?
“I got mugged,” I blurted.
“YOU WHAT?” He leapt out of his skin almost.
“Yep, I got mugged,” I said again, “I must look like I carry money! I got mugged!”
“WHAT?” he said, hand to his forehead.
“A copper caught him in time, but yeah, someone tried to nick off with me bag.”
“My bag,” he reminded me, anguish in his gritty voice.
“Whatever. It’s all your fault anyway, for keeping me locked up here.”
“I don’t keep you locked up.”
You don’t give me your love either, and I need your love. All of it.
“I want to go.”
“I’ll stay with you tonight and we’ll go to Paris tomorrow instead. I’m not having you run off on me.”
“Let me go!”
“No.” He remained firm, eyes to the floor as he tucked and re-tucked in his shirt, like the nervous cradle snatcher he really was.
“Why not?”
“You’re my–my employee, and you’re going nowhere.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, I couldn’t take it!
I smashed my glass to the floor and screamed, “YOU MAKE ME WANT TO DIE!”
Then I smashed my wine bottle on the counter and red liquid poured everywhere, even over my feet, and all up my forearms. It looked like a massacre.
Some twenty-first birthday this was.
Shocked at myself, for not only screaming and getting so angry – but also telling him (finally) how I felt – I shook with anguish and carefully padded over the broken glass to then rush away upstairs and to my bedroom.
He knocked on my door a little later and crept into the bedroom, tentatively walking inside. It was dark, only lit by the hallway light which streamed in as he opened the door inwards.
I felt the bed dip as he sat on the other side to where I was, buried beneath the blankets in my pyjamas.
“Look at you, Ciara. You leave for one minute and already you’re getting mugged and putting yourself in danger–”
“Go away.” Didn’t he know he’d ruined my birthday completely?
“I’m sorry if I was strange over dinner but I had been looking forward to some stress relief tonight and when you said I wasn’t going to get it, I was upset. I’ve grown used to looking forward to coming to see you. Our time in the dungeon is sometimes the only thing that keeps me going.”
“What do you think keeps me going?”
“I don’t know. Tell me?”
You loving me… one day. “You don’t deserve to know.”
“Ciara, I’m sorry.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You won’t run again. I’ll always find you. You belong with me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You belong right here, with me.”
“I don’t.”
“You do, Ciara.”
“You’re old and haggard and foul and miserable and you make me sadder than I’ve ever felt. Just leave me alone! We’re not friends anymore. I’ll do what you want, but let’s get something straight… we’re not friends. Just employer and employee. NOW GO!”
I burst into tears and wept into the pillow.
Behind me I felt him watching for a while, but then he left the bedroom and the house.
I could have attempted another escape that night, but somehow I knew, he’d just find me.
***
THE next day he called round the house and injected the tracker into my arm to make sure I’d always be safe – to make sure he could always find me, even if I got taken away (as he termed it).
I felt too sad to fight against him. My hopes were lost and yet I knew, I’d never love anyone else like I loved him. He’d gotten wedged so deep in my soul, just hearing his voice made me breathe heavily and sit up straight. There was something about him I loved so deeply, and it was strange, because I could never pinpoint what it was I loved.
Didn’t he know how much I wanted him? How much I needed his body?
I was of the flesh too, didn’t he see that? Hadn’t he looked through my receipts to see I also bought toys for me, not just for him?
He and Sexton dropped me off at St Pancras for my train ride to Paris and I knew there was no point in tr
ying to get myself lost, not now he’d made sure he could always find me. He must’ve really trusted me before because he’d always let me travel to Paris alone while he made other arrangements for himself (I assumed he flew).
WHEN I arrived at the Paris apartment, he looked relieved to see me walk in through the door in one piece. (He’d beaten me there so it stood to reason he’d flown.)
I ignored the look in his eyes and began unpacking in my bedroom.
I stood watching the rain patter against the windows when he jolted me from my thoughts, tapping on the door.
“Can I give you your present now?”
“Why not.”
If he wanted to try making up for the fact he’d ruined my twenty-first birthday, he could try. And no doubt – fail. Nothing could make up for what he’d done to me.
“Here,” he said, placing a slim box on the bed.
I turned and looked at him, then again at the box. He fidgeted as though nervous.
I sat down on the bed and he bit his nails as he waited for me to open his gift.
I pulled off the cardboard lid and sifted through tissue paper to discover a black leather corset. It was gorgeous and laced, with frilled trims. I picked it up in my hands and it was weightless and soft. Pulling it to my nose, I breathed in the heady scent and held it to my chest. I turned my face away and stared out of the window so he couldn’t see my eyes, streaming with tears.
“I love it.”
“Oh! Good! I’m so glad. You do like it? You’re not just trying to please me?”
“No,” I shook my head, “I love it. I really love it.”
“I hope you’ll wear it when we go to the club tonight.”
“Yes, maybe.”
I averted my eyes, still looking away.
“I’ll leave you to it.”
When he was gone from the room, I curled up on the bed and wondered about the mysteries that man kept. Clutching the leather to my chest still, I said to myself, “One day, my love surely has to run out. One day.”
I couldn’t see that day, couldn’t see it at all – and I was trapped while such a simple gift could have such a powerful effect on me.
The Contract (Nightlong #1) Page 21