Chapter 15: Christmas
<<
The week passed and his misery lay on him like a rash. He saw Lisa at school but she looked through him and he had no reserves left to penetrate her shield and by Friday, the anger burned away his desire to do so. Saturday, his mother answered the phone and offered it to him with no explanation.
Rory took the phone and found Mrs. Hannah on the line. “What do you want?” He asked harshly. His mother shot him a disapproving look, she never brooked impoliteness and regardless of circumstances never left it unchallenged and now was no exception. “Hello, Mrs. Hannah, what can I do for you?” Rory amended.
Silence.
“Hello?” He said.
“Rory, I have something for you. It is Christmas so I thought, I thought you could come up and get it sometime.”
He agreed and hung up, regretting it immediately. His mood did not lift and Christmas was miserable, colliding with his mother’s eager desire to make it joyous for her little family. He resisted every attempt and even his silent father glared at him which served to cool his willingness to share his misery. He got to the end of the day with a modicum of pleasantness. He sat watching a basketball game when his mother sat down beside him.
“I do not know what has happened, Rory, but Mrs. Hannah has a Christmas gift for you, you should go see her. She has been a good friend and...whatever else she has been, it is cruel of you to treat her this way.”
Rory did not respond and his mother did not move but stared at him until he nodded. His mother rose and left the room. “For you, Mom,” he thought to himself but curiously, once he made the decision, he actually felt better, calmer.
The oppressive Christmas cheer made the idea of walking up to Mrs. Hannah’s actually seem attractive. Rory thought he could go there and spend two minutes, find a trash can to hold the ugly sweater or whatever stupid gift Mrs. Hannah had found for him and then he could just walk the quiet, decorated streets of his neighborhood till it got dark. He hated feeling so horrible at Christmas. He hated it and he almost thought he had brought it on himself. In truth, he could not see how he could have avoided this whole temptation, once he kissed Mrs. Hannah. At her door, he resolved he would not touch her.
Mrs. Hannah answered the door. She looked familiar but different, oh, but still tempting. Once she stepped back, insuring he had plenty of room to enter her house without touching her, she led him to the dining room table and asked him if he wanted anything. He shook his head, no. He placed her presentiment. She looked as she had when they first met as if all that had transpired had not happened, as if it had been swept away by the wash of circumstances. Only sadness remained and the joy had only been flimsy coverings.
“Rory, I have something for you, consider it a Christmas present but you do not have to take it if you don’t want to. I understand either way but I want you to know, I never intended to tie you to me in any way. I only wanted to see you happy, at Kallsworthy if that was what you wanted. The money makes no difference to me but it could have made a huge difference to you. I am sorry you misunderstood that. The money is there if you want it.”
“Because you have plenty.” Rory said, then snapped his jaw closed, biting off whatever other bile or bitterness might spurt out of him. He felt horrible and for a moment, looking at the sadness bleaching her features, he felt terribly sorry for the woman. Suddenly he could not breathe and looked away from her sad, sodden eyes.
Mrs. Hannah dropped her head. She walked into her bedroom and returned to stand beside the table. “Rory, this is for you. I am offering it to you, if you want it.” She laid some papers on the table and with one hand scooted it over the wooden surface towards him. “This is a contract, a bearer contract. If you wish, it is yours. If not, I understand you are angry with me. I apologize. I only did what I thought would make you happy. I truly was not...oh, what’s the use!” She sat down, folding her hand into her lap. She wore a pink sweater over a fuzzy white sweater blouse with a tight, straight skirt. They made her festive and young despite the coiled sorrow in her.
Rory regarded her, thinking for the first time how miserable Christmas must have been for her in any case and how he had added to it, really for no good reason. He felt sick.
Mrs. Hannah lifted her eyes to meet his stare. She did not blink.
Rory looked down at the document before him. It was face down. He looked up at her but she looked away from him.
“What is this?” He asked. When she did not answer, he picked it up. He read the heading: A Contract for Sexual Pleasure. It read. At the bottom, her name was printed and signed in two different colors of ink. He flipped to the next page and the next, glancing through the contract. He recognized it.
“My husband offered me this when, when I was young, before we married. I kept it in place our whole married lives. I want you to have it. Do with it as you like, whatever you care to do with it.” She spoke into her own lap.
Rory stared at it, then over the top of it at Mrs. Hannah. After several stark minutes of silence, he stood. “Thank you,” he said and walked to the entrance of the dining room. He turned and looked back at the forlorn woman sitting at the far end of the table. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Hannah.” He said softly and walked out of the room and thence out of the house.
The rest of Christmas vacation was a blur. Rory stumbled through it like it was dream. Each time he unfolded the contract to read it, his eyes blurred and he could not read it and when his eyes remained clear, what he read, he could not manage to comprehend. Having seen it before he knew what was in it but now, now she had given it to him. He bore the contract and by rights, he owned her pleasure. He simply could not manage to absorb the true meaning of Christmas with this document in hand.
School resumed after the New Year began with the swirling rumors of Lisa’s orgy, everyone was talking about it. Rory tried several times to talk to her, to get her attention but she reacted like she was strung out on drugs; glaring at him and snarling that unless he wanted a blow job, he should leave her alone. The transformation of the woman did not make sense to him, he could not understand how she could be transformed from the lusty, funny, intelligent woman into this, this person who refused to talk to him; spiteful, bitter and enraged.
She had a complete breakdown the second week back at school. She raved in Civics class, incoherent. Her father arrived but she refused to go anywhere with him. Her mother arrived after school was adjourned. Rory had hung around, hoping to see her, hoping to talk to Lisa himself. He watched the woman he presumed was her mother walk Lisa to a waiting car. Lisa’s father was there. Rory had met him a time or two at her house and he waved at the man. Lisa’s mother saw the man wave back and turned to look where he was waving. She closed the door on Lisa and walked over to Rory.
“Do you know my daughter?” She asked tightly.
Rory nodded, feeling unaccountably frightened in the face of the elegant woman. Unlike Lisa, she was gaunt and well-coiffed, with an assurance Lisa duplicated, at least at times.
“What is your name?”
“Rory. Rory McQune.” He said softly.
Mrs. Ashley nodded. “You are the one then, the one she fell in love with.”
The statement stunned Rory but did not surprise him. It did feel good to have that conviction confirmed but at the same time it wrenched his heart, tearing at it because he had been right and now he had lost it.
“Rory, I am sorry this has happened. Our daughter, she has a mental disorder. Sex is an addiction to her and once she becomes sexual, she cannot or at least does not control herself. There is more wrong than that. Her father and I have struggled with her since she became a teenager. I am sorry if she hurt you, Rory. You seem like a nice boy. Don’t take it personally.” The woman acted like she wanted to say more but those words carried such bile for her, she pursed her lips and said nothing more.
Mrs. Ashley walked back to the car. After she got into the car and it started up, Rory saw
the shadow of Lisa’s face pressed against the tinted back window. The car pulled away and a hand appeared, pressed hard against the glass and then she was gone.
Chapter 16: Her Contract
<<
The next few weeks, Rory swam from moment to moment, acting in slow motion but getting things done. He accepted his invitation to go AU State and began making the various arrangements. He avoided Mrs. Hannah and her contract. He got sick with bronchitis soon after Lisa left school and was out for nearly two weeks when he refused to take antibiotics. During that period at home, much of it alone, he read through Mrs. Hannah’s contract. By the end of January, he regained his strength and health and returned to school. He surpassed the work in all his classes, doing more at home than had he been at school. A couple weeks later, he returned to Mrs. Hannah’s house, knocking on the door, eschewing the bell.
Dorothy answered after a minute. She appeared waifish, haunted, and sallow. Her skin seemed almost gray. She did not smile when she saw who was at her door. She merely stepped back and let him enter the house. During his illness, Rory had read the contract carefully a hundred times and by the time he stood up, its import was clear to him. One of the things the contract denied him was homoerotic or lesbian encounters but at the same time, he had the stated right to ask for everything once. At one point he finally realized what the contract entailed.
Ownership.
This was ownership of her body, her sexual pleasure but to make it work, to keep the contract, he had to “own” her and such ownership implied responsibility and required that he direct her to her own pleasure, only taking his when he could. He walked past her into the dining room.
“Sit down Mrs. Hannah.” Rory spoke softly. He removed the contract from the inner pocket of his letter jacket. He laid it on the table. “This is your contract, correct?”
Mrs. Hannah glanced down at the paper on the table. She put out a hand and picked it up, scanned the front page, flipped through the rest. She nodded and laid the document back on the table.
“You gave this to me for a reason. If that reason is sufficient, okay but if you have changed your mind, now is the time to say so. I want to keep your contract, Dorothy, but only if you still wish me to do so.”
A flicker of light seemed to brighten her face for a moment along with a slight smile. “Yes, Rory. I want you to have it. Still.”
Rory nodded. “I owe you an explanation. When I was here, when I rebuffed your generous offer to help me go to...to help with college, I had just come from a horrible situation.” He related the contents of that night and what he had come to understand about Lisa since then. When he finished, Dorothy sat at the table, her face seemed to have regained color and expression as he talked.
“I see. I am so sorry, Rory but you must know what I see in this, right?”
Rory shook his head.
“You came to me, Rory.” She said, her eyes gleaming. “You came to me. You might think I see something deeply significant in that but don’t worry. I am pleased and it has allayed my inchoate feeling that something was wrong I could not correct. Now I understand. But it only means that you deserve my contract and I will be safe with you.” She smiled, the first true smile, “and you will own me as I wish to be owned. You shall bring me my pleasure and I will be yours.”
Rory nodded. “Mrs. Hannah, if you leave this with me, I am going to demand things of you. I will use you, Mrs. Hannah and I do not care who finds out. You understand?”
She shook her head. “No. I will not stand for that. If you use me, it must be in secret. I cannot bear having, having...” she gestured at the contract before her, “having this public knowledge. I cannot do it. I will not do it.” She hesitated, “I know we cannot fool everyone but we cannot go out and be a couple and date and all that. Here, in this house, I am yours. The rest of the world is yours where you will be you and I will be me.”
Rory regarded her till she raised her gaze to meet his. He nodded. “Very well, how do you propose...let me tell you what I want from you, what I think would give you pleasure and you can tell me if it is something you can or will do. I want you to teach me to fuck, to make love to a woman. In order to let you teach me, I must use you, take you, mount you whenever I want, however I want, till the lust I have for you cools. Then I can learn. Mrs. Hannah, can you endure losing what we had? Trading it for this?”
For a moment Mrs. Hannah looked at him. She swallowed once and licked her lips. Then she nodded. “What we had, Rory, was gone when I gave you the contract. But you gave me enough when I needed it the most. I am content to change our relationship. You bring me pleasure. I am not greedy. That is certainly more than many women in my condition can expect from their lives.”
“It was gone when I entered you after fucking Lisa on your bed.” Rory said, focusing on the personal part of her words.
Mrs. Hannah nodded and bowed her head.
Rory tapped the contract. “This contract, did it work? Did you get what you wanted from it? With, with him I mean? Your husband?”
Mrs. Hannah met his eyes and then she nodded.
“Where did this come from? How did it happen?” He pressed.
She raised her head then, lifting her chin. Her neck corded with the motion, accenting its long beautiful lines. “My husband was given a contract very like this by a woman he and his parents met while traveling in Europe. She was English I think or perhaps Russian or Swedish. I think he told me but I have forgotten. She seduced him during the summer he was in Europe and gave him the contract at the end of the summer. She followed them back to the US and he retained it through the second year of college when he returned it to her and she returned to Europe. He met me and seduced me and then gave me the contract for my consideration before he fucked me. I was utterly and hopelessly in love with him. At first, I thought this was all about me but you should note that there is an explicit provision where you can pledge fidelity to the undersigned or not. Usually, when the contract is passed along, it is renegotiated based on who gets it next. No one monitors this, it is just an agreement between us. Clearly, for example, I am no longer virgin in any of my holes.” Dorothy smiled. Some color tinged her face.
“I believe I mentioned Ben David’s journal. I have discovered, among other things, that he had other women under contract.”
Rory was fascinated. “How many?”
Mrs. Hannah shrugged. “I do not know. He only references...are you keeping my contract?” She asked. “I do not think I want to discuss these things with you unless you will, unless you do.”
For a moment, Rory regarded her. Then he picked up the document and slipped it back inside his jacket. “Stand up, Mrs. Hannah.” He spoke firmly and he felt something he had never felt. The feeling expanded, filling him when Mrs. Hannah rose to her feet. “Lean your hands on the table, put your weight on your arms.” He said and watched as she obeyed his instructions. He walked around behind her. Mrs. Hannah wore a conservative ensemble of pale green. The skirt was straight, accenting her narrow waist and shapely hips. She had a jacket of the same tweed material and color over a cream chemise with no collar but bordered with lace and gaped, exposing her skin nearly to each shoulder.
Rory leaned over her, placing his face next to her ear. “Mrs. Hannah, would it upset you if you never wore these clothes again?” He asked softly.
She turned her head, bumping into his, trying to look at him.
“Don’t look at me, Mrs. Hannah...”
She straightened, shoving him away from her with her back. She turned, glaring at him. “Rory, you misunderstand this contract; it is for sexual satisfaction. You are not getting a deed to a slave. You cannot treat me this way. I forbid it and if you persist, I will demand the contract of you and we’ll put an end to this.”
Rory stepped back and leaned against the wall, slightly disconcerted by her reaction. “You see Mrs. Hannah, I do not understand the contract. I cannot order you around? I cannot demand that y
ou do what I say if I think it is going to give you pleasure? If that is what it means, I apologize. I did not understand. You can have it of me if you like or you can resume your position at the table, as I requested. Or not.” He laid the document on the table beside her.
For a moment her face worked, she swallowed a couple time and then she turned around, placed her hands back on the table and leaned hard on them. She glanced down at the contract then straightened her shoulders, lifted her head and waited.
Rory approached her. “Mrs. Hannah, I asked you a question, I need to know.”
“You mean are these clothes special or expensive? No.”
“So if I asked you to never wear them again, you would not object?”
She shook her head.
Rory went to the dining room window and pulled the curtains closed till just a shaft of the dim afternoon light shown across the table. He went into the kitchen and fussed in her miscellaneous drawer for a while till he found what he wanted, a pair of scissors. He returned to the dining room. He sat on the opposite end of the table and regarded Mrs. Hannah’s awkward stance.
“Dorothy, I am going to fuck you now. But first, I am going to...” he snapped the scissors in his hand twice between them. Mrs. Hannah jumped a little at the sound. “...cut your clothes off your body. Maybe some, maybe all but I am definitely going to fuck you. When I return next, I am going to take your ass. I have never before fucked anyone’s ass. You indicate on your contract that you accept that sort of thing. Is that still the case?”
The blond woman nodded, still leaning heavily on her hands.
“If you do not want me to have this contract, you should ask for it back, Dorothy because I am going to use you up. I promise you. But you have to tell me when I approach your boundaries. I want you to help me keep your contract. I want to know what you like, what you need, what makes you plead for me to stop even when you want more. I need to know that if I make a mistake with you, you will help me correct it. Will you do that?”
The Pleasure Contracts-Contract #1: Temptation Page 12