Sweet Agony

by Charlotte Stein

  Though still I proceed as carefully as I can.

  Especially now that I know how to go about it. He can hardly resist a mistake, and there are so many I can make. I can forget to put milk in his tea, and remove bookmarks from important pages. He likes the ornaments on the mantelpiece to face forwards, so I just turn them a quarter of an inch. Not a lot, but enough to drive him to distraction. Soon after I’ve done it I see him standing there, hands in pockets, one foot tapping and tapping, as though he can restore them to their positions just by being supremely irritated.

  The second I step into the room I know he’s going to say something.

  So, when he doesn’t, I feel momentarily confused. I watch him sweep into his favourite chair with a great flourish and take up his paper, without a second glance at me. And when he finally acknowledges me, it’s only to say, ‘So what did you make of Nabokov?’ Which is fine, I have to admit. I like the fact that he randomly asks me about books I’m reading. It means three things: that he is different from everyone I’ve ever known, that he thinks I’m worth having a discussion with, and, more importantly, that he notices.

  He never enquires what I might be looking at. He sees the open books sitting on one of the tables in the library, or left over the arm of the chair. Details about me are so important to him that he pays attention, even if only offhandedly. When I answer his question about Nabokov with ‘beautiful but offputting’, he says, ‘Yes, I felt he was a tremendous pervert too.’

  He knows what I mean before I mean it.

  A fact that should probably tell me something about his failure to react to the disturbed ornaments, though it takes me a while to get it. I have to pretend to be reading while really I am watching him carefully – and then, suddenly, there it is. One furtive glance over the top of his paper, as though checking whether his ploy worked. Then, when he sees me looking at him steadily, he tries to act like he just wanted to mention some item of news. ‘It seems as though birds are flying into a lot of buildings,’ he says.

  But immediately realises that is a ridiculous thing for him to have mentioned. His face crumples, as though the words have turned bitter and gross in his mouth. They don’t suit him, and he knows it. He knows I know that he doesn’t give a flying fuck about birds. That he hates tedious trivia and will be annoyed they thought to write about it in his precious Guardian.

  So that leaves only one possibility: he is really trying not to care.

  And failing really fucking badly.

  ‘Look, I know you’re doing it on purpose. Put them back.’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes, you do, you despicable creature. Turn them the right way.’

  ‘Or you’ll do what exactly?’ I ask. Then there is a silence so deep I could use it to thicken gravy. It stands between us like a third person, made more intense by the look he gives me. His gaze is unwavering and almost lightless, the blue of his eyes almost too frosty to bear. I nearly break and run for thermal underwear and a furry overcoat.

  But I’m glad I stick it out, because after an interminable silence he does actually speak.

  And what he says was totally worth that moment of excruciating torture.

  ‘You are a very, very wicked girl.’

  ‘I know. You should probably do something about that.’

  ‘That will never, ever happen again,’ he says, but I can see he knows he made a mistake. He shouldn’t have said ‘again’. ‘Again’ implies that there was a first time, and he would obviously like to pretend there wasn’t. He did not do that filthy thing to me. He is utterly above it, and proves it now by turning back to his paper. He even lifts it so I can no longer see his face.

  Though I have no idea what protection he thinks that affords him.

  ‘I also put all your black socks in with the white, and took all your left shoes and put them with the wrong right ones. You can’t tell, because your shoes are all the same, but I bet just knowing will drive you mad,’ I say, and this time there is no hesitation. He snaps the paper closed and tosses it aside, as though he somehow no longer cares about trivia like litter on his floor.

  He’s not even bothered that it creases his immaculate copy of today’s Guardian.

  All that matters is dealing with me and my disobedience.

  ‘Right, stand up then,’ he says.

  He even claps his hands, the way teachers do when they want to start a class. Though Lord knows what lesson this is going to be. The second I do as he tells me I feel weird inside, like he poked a hole in me with a pin and now everything is running out. No wonder my feet shift around and legs are bending at the knee.

  I have nothing solid inside me holding me up.

  And even less than that, once he starts unbuckling his belt.

  I swear I stop to check that I’m not hallucinating. I had no idea that he wore a belt. When I think back I can’t remember one. Which means that he probably put it on specifically for this purpose. He knew what would probably happen, and was prepared. Worse than that, in fact – he knew that this would happen and so went out and bought a thing he possibly finds plebeian. I know he did, because once he has it free I can smell the leather. I can see that his trousers have no goddam belt loops.

  Good God, I am in so, so much trouble here.

  Deliriously exciting, delightful trouble, because this is what he tells me as he loops the belt around his fist: ‘I should probably tell you now that begging will make no difference to me. I care nothing for cries of “stop” and “please” – only something truly disgusting could ever grant you a reprieve from this punishment. Such as, for example, my first name.’

  And of course I know exactly what he means. How could I not? His suggestion has all the subtlety of a brick. Oh, he tries so hard to keep it just this side of sexless, but anyone would know the score. He just gave me a safe word. That was a fucking safe word dumped in the middle of all that scary stuff. If I want out, all I have to do is say ‘Cyrian’.

  But the chances of that happening are slim to fucking none. I think I would sooner poke out my own eyeballs than call this off. My body is fizzing at the thought of it, and not just because of his conscientiousness, disguised as something else. There is also the act itself, and everything that comes with it. The way he lets the belt end trail on the floor, a second before he tells me to turn round. The tone of his voice, so steely I could almost believe he barely cares.

  Though the waver in his next sentence says otherwise.

  ‘Palms flat on the ground, if you please,’ he says and I know, I just fucking know, that he has thought about this before. That is the reason his voice falters on ‘flat’, though he does his best to hide it. He makes his ‘please’ sound like a punch, then follows it with what could well be the sexiest sound known to mankind.

  The snap of the belt, as he tests it between his hands.

  Man, oh, man, I could live off that for the rest of my life. Probably I’ll hear it in my dreams, if the bit before dreaming doesn’t get there first. You know the one – when your mind starts wandering, and so does your hand. Suddenly you seem to be doing some really filthy things, even though a second ago your only thought was sleep. Though I doubt my thoughts will ever be on sleep again. If this is anything to go by, my future is going to be nothing but masturbation.

  Even the stretch of my thighs when I bend over sets me on fire.

  And the sting of that first strike…oh, I can hardly stand it. I want to do something the second it happens, but I resist. Then he hits again, and this time I can’t help it. I don’t care if he wants it to be a certain way or not – I just need to touch myself. I need to stroke my bursting clit and finger my wet and wanting hole, and, if that blows the whole thing, so be it. I don’t see how it can, though, given the things that have happened. He fucked my arse and is currently spanking me with a belt he bought for the purpose. The jig is up, I think, and then I just go right ahead.

  I lick my fingers and slide them over my
stiff little bud, though once there I don’t know why I bothered with the licking. I’m all sticky and slippery, from the seam between all the way over my swollen lips to my thighs. My fingers barely make contact. I just glide over and through everything, in a way that shouldn’t make any impression.

  But it does. Holy crap, does it ever. The sensation is so thick and strong, I sort of want to stop there. Let him just strike me again, and I’ll probably come over that alone. I can already feel it welling up inside me. A little more and it will happen.

  I think I want it to happen, so he can see me do it. I want him to see my fingers playing between my legs – and he will be able to, with very little trouble. I’m in such a lewd position he can probably make out all of me, especially if I’m really bad. If I part my folds for him and really fuck into that greedy pussy, over and over, and not just with one finger but with two, both nice and stiff so that when they slide in everything opens up for them. Everything spreads, in a way I know will look so filthy-dirty-disgusting.

  He might even tell me as much, I think.

  Then I feel a great wave of pleasure. I don’t even know why. His scorn should be the last thing I should want, yet somehow it only seems to take things higher. I think I hear him hiss in anger and I almost fall to my knees. I’m so bad, I think, so wicked, so completely lost to my own insatiable lust.

  And that’s when it happens.

  My cunt tightens around my still working fingers, so hard it almost brings everything to a standstill. So hard I have to say it out loud, no matter what the consequences. He might hate me for making it all so overt, but I don’t care. I’m coming I’m coming oh God you make me come so good, I tell him, as pleasure shudders through me. Glorious, golden pleasure, of the kind I could never regret.

  Until it’s over.

  It drains away, and I’m left with something far worse than the reaction I received last time. He doesn’t pick up his paper, and there’s no pretence at indifference. All I see when I turn is plain horror at all the things I made him do.

  And all the ways he saw me be.

  Chapter Nine

  I can tell things are different between us. And since our relationship was quite strange to begin with, any shift to something even less normal feels enormous. He seems doubly awkward around me now, as though I have told him a terrible secret about myself and he has no idea how to handle it. Somehow it has reduced me in his eyes, though I could have sworn there was nowhere lower to go. I thought I was already at rock bottom, and that he kind of liked that about me.

  But judging by his current behaviour I was incredibly wrong. He goes back to avoiding me, in a way that seems even more brutally obvious than it was before. Now he doesn’t just turn around at the end of the hall. He leaves rooms when I enter them. He has to brace himself before he goes into a place where I am – I know he does, because one time I catch him.

  I hear him in the hall and fling open the door, to find him standing there with his hand hovering where the handle was. Face like something recently stripped of all protection. Eyes almost hot with anger or confusion or fuck knows what. Everything about him telling me what I should have already understood: I shouldn’t have fucking masturbated. It was too filthy, I know it was too filthy. It crossed the line from pseudo-punishment into full-blown fuckery.

  And all after he told me specifically what he did not want.

  He said in no uncertain terms that he hates sex and touching and anything affectionate. He’s in love with logic, and what did I do? I gave him greedy feelings of the filthiest sort. It’s really no wonder he hates me now, though man I wish things were otherwise. I don’t just miss whatever we were slowly descending into. I miss talking to him about things, and hearing all his weird opinions. I miss sharing my weird opinions, and having someone accept them.

  Because he always does. He may not agree, but he will go with it to the bitter end. Nothing I say is beneath debate, no idea I float is unworthy of his attention. Sometimes he acts like it’s unworthy or beneath him but carries on talking about it anyway. He gives more attention to things no one else bothers about than most people will to things they think matter.

  And I am beside myself without it.

  I find myself doing the same stealthy things I did before for sex, only now I am foraging for conversation. I say ridiculous stuff and write it on post-its, then paste them in the books he’s reading. I even go so far as to answer questions he asks in the margins. ‘Why would she do something so ridiculous?’ he asks, and I answer, ‘She does it because she loves him.’ I tell him, because I feel sure he has no idea.

  Then afterwards realise my mistake.

  It sounds like I love him. It sounds so much like it that I want to take the post-it back before he can read it, but when I go to get the book from the study the door is locked. It’s the first time I have been forbidden to enter it, so I don’t think I’m overdoing things to have a mild panic attack in the hall. Most likely he found the post-it, decided that I am a danger to myself and others, and barred me from his presence. Or maybe he just wants some private time to laugh and laugh and…oh, God, this is not going well.

  And it continues that way even after I get my hands on the book. I find it back on the shelf in the library, but when I frantically open it at the right page I find nothing but hatefully post-it-less pages. It hasn’t slid into some other section, because of course I check. I would check every book in here, if it meant I could get it back.

  But there is nothing.

  He found it and threw it away – an idea I am so convinced by that I search the bins. I look through the one outside, pretending I’m searching for a lost fiver, and feel no comfort when I don’t find it there either. It probably means he got rid of it even faster than I thought. He saw it and was so allergic to the contents that he wrapped it around a brick and hurled it out of a window.

  Which would be fine.

  If it didn’t feel like he was doing the same with my heart. My poor heart, so suddenly sore that I come back inside from my search in a thoroughly bedraggled state. Everything inside me seems slumped, defeated. I suppose I should have known things would end this way. What did I think? That he was going to suddenly become a completely different person and spend long nights making love to me? That’s not so much a fantasy as a ludicrous descent into madness.

  Or so I would probably carry on believing, if it were not for the clothes he leaves for me to take to the dry cleaners. He always does it the same way, everything so neatly hung on hangers that you would never know it needed cleaning. And I always search the garments first, because he leaves all sorts of stuff in them. I find sticks of chalk in his suit jackets and paper clips attached to his cuffs. Sometimes there will be items I can barely identify, and this time is no exception.

  There is a box in the inside pocket, only I know right away that it’s not really a box. It reminds me of those Chinese finger cuffs that trap you the second you do anything with him. Or a puzzle, maybe a puzzle, but I can hardly imagine what purpose it could serve. It’s too small to open and reveal something, I feel sure – until I see the design on the back.

  I recognise it right away. It’s the flower from the wall in the parlour. I can tell, although the petals are in the wrong order. It’s arranged in concentric circles, first smaller shapes, then bigger ones, somewhat like a rose. And though the inner ones are filled in, the outer ones are empty – only here it’s all higgledy- piggledy. They’ve been rearranged into the complicated mess I remember from a million solve-that-shape puzzles.

  So I just put them back. I stand in the hallway, and fumble with it until they’re right again.

  Though still I don’t really expect it to open. And even if it had – if I’d imagined for one moment that I was doing this for a reason – I could never have imagined what would be inside. It seems like I should or I would, or that I knew all along, but I swear I didn’t. I see it and still it doesn’t connect in my head.

  I was so sure, you see, that I was the one
who went too far.

  I never thought that he would go further.

  But as soon as I process I know that he has. It sends a shockwave through me, as though someone had thumped me on the chest in an attempt to restart my heart. All I can do is stare at the little slip of yellow inside the box, suddenly certain what it is but hardly daring to believe. I didn’t even mean anything by it. I barely thought of the implications.

  He clearly has, however.

  He thought about the note I left in his book. He read those words of love and longing, however accidentally they were given. And he kept them, close to his heart. More than kept – they seem treasured, in a way I didn’t think he was capable of. I still struggle to think of him as capable of it, in spite of the evidence in my hands. I try to turn it into something else, but he seems to have decided to make that virtually impossible. When I go to him and hold it out – now neatly closed with its secret locked inside – he doesn’t do what I expect.

  I imagine retribution, or denial.

  And instead he says, ‘Thank you, Molly.’

  He says, ‘I thought I had lost it.’

  But some part of me knows what he really means. He holds my gaze as he takes it back, and in answer my heart thunders. It reaches towards him, half-stunned and half-soaring, as I slowly realise that he wanted to say something other than ‘lost it’ – so much so that he almost does. He almost tells me that he thought he had lost me. The last few days I spent without his company, he spent without mine.

  And he missed me. Maybe he even thought I was avoiding him because of some minor infraction in BDSM etiquette – an idea that seems insane until he breaks the practically glowing silence that is still between us. I begin to smooth my dress – most likely out of awkwardness – and wince. I forget about the row of jagged teeth-like marks on my backside, still as sore as anything.

  Though I’m glad I do, because then he says this:

  ‘I wish I had not hurt you – more than you could possibly imagine.’