by P. J. Fox
The clay was then poured onto a clean, porous surface. In Maine, people tended to use old sail cloth. The canvas duck was sturdy and reliable. Once the clay had begun to set, usually within twenty-four hours, it was wedged and wrapped. Again, in Maine, in nothing fancy. Usually repurposed supermarket bags. People were always donating theirs to whatever potters they knew. Those not used to clean the litter box.
Everything in Maine was repurposed. A kiln was expensive, although sometimes artists shared one. But clay itself came from the earth and most of the materials needed to work it were recycled junk. Belle had learned, too, that the best tools were one’s fingers. Or, occasionally, an old fork. She’d seen masterpieces brought to life with as much.
She’d gotten a lesson once, on how to identify good clay. Some clay is too sandy and some is too sticky, her employer had told her. Especially around here, too sandy is more common than too sticky. When I prospect for clay, he’d continued, gesturing along the roadway cut, I look for a clay that I can easily roll into a pencil-thick coil and then wrap around my finger. He’d demonstrated. See how this clay here doesn’t crack, when it coils? That’s the sign of a clay with plasticity.
Dry clays didn’t have enough and damp clays had too much; a too-damp clay would shrink down to almost nothing in the kiln, cracking and breaking apart. Sometimes artists mixed different clays together, experimenting until they achieved just the right effect. A particularly beautiful effect could be achieved by adding finely ground mussel shells: their pearlescent sheen transformed simple stoneware into something ethereal. Too beautiful, she’d sometimes thought, for this world.
Fairy dust, she’d called the crushed shells as a child.
She had a thousand different ideas for what to do with her clay, and she’d almost filled the table when she heard a noise behind her. The wheelbarrow was almost empty now. Straightening up, she pushed her hair back from her face and turned. More than half of it appeared to have escaped from her bun, hanging down and getting into her eyes as she worked.
Ash was standing in the door.
They regarded each other.
“You missed dinner.”
“Oh.”
“Or rather, I should say, you were missed.”
Belle, disoriented, glanced at the bank of windows behind her. It was full dark. She hadn’t, she realized, looked up from what she was doing for some time. She had to pee, too, more than a little. And her back was stiff. How long, exactly, had she been at this?
Surely no more than an hour….
“It’s ten at night,” he said, answering her unspoken question.
“Ten?” she echoed, disbelieving.
He smiled slightly.
“Oh.”
“Explain what it is you’re doing?”
He was standing casually, his hands in his pockets. He seemed both genuinely interested and not particularly upset. She smiled briefly. She felt awkward, being caught out like this. Like she’d been doing something naughty, even though she hadn’t. But then her earlier confidence reasserted itself, at least somewhat, and she began describing her activities.
He came over, listening, not interrupting, and stood next to her at the table.
“I’ve been thinking about experimenting with glazes,” she said, gesturing. “Your little world here says red to me. Something not too fiery, but with depth. A glaze you can get lost in.” She had, in fact, been thinking about this issue for some time. She loved the old Chinese reds, and wanted to replicate those colors but with more of a natural element.
“I was thinking of, if I could get a hold of some copper, powdering it and mixing the powder with water and a small amount of slip to form an under-glaze. Then brushing that on and letting it set. Or perhaps add silicone carbide to the glaze itself or….”
He was right behind her. He placed his hand on her shoulder. So casually possessive. She trailed off, suddenly uncertain.
She was uncomfortably aware of how close he was to her, and the fact that she must look—and smell—revolting. That she’d been in here all evening and almost all night, working hard, without benefit of a shower or a change of clothes. She was covered in clay. Absent minded swipes through her hair had left it crusted with clay that had now dried, like a punk rock statement gone wrong. She smelled, to her own nose, like minerals and mold.
“What?” He spoke so quietly.
“I don’t know.”
“This makes you happy?”
The silence held. And then, “yes.”
He brushed a loose lock of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She could feel his breath on her neck. She held very still, waiting. Bending down, he kissed her neck. She barely dared to breathe. He paused. And then he kissed her again.
She didn’t respond, only stared at the table before her. At the marching rows of neat, uniform little balls. At the well-worn wood beneath. At the whitish clay dust that now covered everything. Inside and out. She could taste it, coating her throat. She found herself focusing on a thumbprint left behind in one of the balls. Perfectly preserved, representing a moment out of time that was both lost, and maintained, forever.
“Is this what you want?”
There was a wealth of meaning in that question, asked so quietly. So many things he wanted to know. Did she want to be here, now. Doing this. In this room. With him the one who found her. Who was standing here with her now.
She understood, without being told, that this was a turning point.
She understood, too, that she knew her answer.
Had known, before she’d given herself permission to know. Perhaps that was what had frightened her so, when she first saw him: understanding, on some level, that he represented change. Would she rather be back at TUD, in her dorm room, taking notes and drinking too-strong coffee and doing everything right? Was what she’d been told to want, virtually since birth, what she really wanted? What she’d been told was right and good and acceptable for women?
Or did she want this?
FORTY-NINE
“Yes,” she said.
His hand tightened briefly on her shoulder.
For a long time there was silence.
And then, “even within the world I’ve chosen…a good dominant should not want a slave. Someone who plays the part, yes. But not a true slave. He should recognize that her wants are as, or more, important than his own. Her needs even more so. He should never pretend, therefore, that being with him is her only option. He should never place her in a position where is, either, by withholding emotional or financial support.
“He should fight for her but, in the end, he should let her leave. If that’s what she wants. Even if it kills him to do so.”
Belle absorbed his words without comment, her eyes still on the table.
“I want you to want to be here. I want to fill a void in your life, and for that void to be one that only I can fill. I should tell you that if you don’t, and if I don’t, then I’ll let you go.”
The rest of the thought remained unspoken. Would he have let her leave, that night, if she’d told him that she wanted to? She’d never know; in her response, some Rubicon had been crossed. The issue was now moot. All that mattered was what would happen, going forward. Belle couldn’t think of that, now. Enveloped in her own sense of unreality, she could barely credit the present moment. Was this her? Had this day been a day in her life? Had it only been one day? She felt like she’d woken up, not this morning but a thousand years ago. And she’d go to bed tonight a different person entirely.
He turned her around, so she was facing him. His eyes searched hers. She waited.
And then somehow her mouth was on his and his hands were on the small of her back, digging into her scalp, everywhere, and it didn’t matter that she was covered with clay. He pulled her down to the floor, the stone tile punishing against her knees. She held onto him, using him for support, not wanting to fall and go sprawling. But he held her securely; she wouldn’t be hurt, she knew, unless he wished it. A th
ought she found oddly comforting. He was in control.
Her fingers found his buttons of their own accord, and then she was on the tile and under him. She didn’t know where her clothes had gone, only that every nerve ending in her entire body was on fire. Her face felt flushed and her breath came in short, shallow gasps. His lips, so firm and cool, were like melting chips of ice. His cologne was heavy in her nostrils but overpowered even so by the lake water scent of clay. Low. Secret.
She arched her back as he kissed her neck, her fingernails digging into his muscular back through his shirt. Her eyes were closed. He bit her earlobe and she cried out, and then he was inside of her. She was ready for him, slippery with a combination of sweat and desire. She wrapped her legs around his waist, thrusting herself up to meet him.
“Tell me you’re mine.” His words were a hoarse growl in her ear.
“I’m yours,” she breathed, not knowing whether this was true or no.
“Tell me you belong to me.”
“I….” She couldn’t find the breath for words, crushed as she was between two planes and lost in a realm of sensation.
He bit her, hard, on the lip. She tasted blood. “Tell me,” he whispered.
“I belong to you.”
There was nothing of tenderness in their coupling, or of affection. This was a raw, bruising act of possession. Him claiming her, on the floor, beneath the table. She was still bleeding, a realization that both sent a shot of ice through her veins and—to her horror—heightened her arousal. She didn’t want this, and yet she did. Loathing warred with an arousal as powerful as any she’d ever felt. Part of her wanted to run, and keep running, and part of her wanted him to bite her again. To keep biting her until she climaxed from horror alone.
To know that she was pleasing him.
To be fully wanted. Fully claimed.
The unforgiving nature of the floor beneath her heightened the raw nature of his assault; with every thrust, she felt like she was being run through. Her back ached. Her insides ached with the effort to accommodate him. He was large at the best of times and right now he felt huge. She felt rung out, used, exhausted.
And alive.
He was still half dressed, having done little more than free himself from his pants. She was fully naked and should have been cold, but the fire inside her had only intensified. She cried out as, in one sudden rush, the dam broke. He bit her again, this time on the shoulder, sweetening her release and at the same time claiming it, too, as his own. Letting her know that this was him. His power. That she was merely a vessel for whatever pleasure he deigned to give.
She sighed, collapsing back against the tile. She knew this and, at that precise moment, she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything.
He used her then for his own release, pummeling her into the ground and then holding her to him as he cried out. He collapsed against her then, replete, like a lion that had just completed a hunt.
She sighed, content simply to relax. She was still floating in that half dream state, but her lip hurt. She’d been stung by yellow jackets, as a child. This was worse. This felt more like a bullet ant sting: a pure, intense, brilliant pain that faded, not into a numb throb but into the distracting hurt of a burn.
He propped himself up on one elbow, using his free hand to brush her hair back from her face and smiling as the clay flaked off in a halo around her head. His eyes met hers, and held them.
“Tell me again,” he said, but with none of the demand of earlier. His tone was…different, now. Almost warm.
“I’m yours.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He seemed pleased.
She wondered what he was to her.
He must have seen the change in her expression, because his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her.
“What?”
She shrugged. She didn’t want to lose the magic of the moment before. Of being able to step outside herself and, for that brief, blessed period, not caring. But it was already fading. The real world was encroaching, and with it a host of real world problems. The same real world problems that had been plaguing her now for weeks.
“I want to know what you’re thinking,” he said. He spoke quietly, but with an unmistakable intensity. “And I can’t, unless you tell me.”
So she did. “I’m scared.”
There. She’d said it. She’d said it before, so she didn’t know why saying it now should be so hard. Why, after what they’d been through, saying anything to him should be so hard. She’d been as revealed, as exposed to him as she’d ever been to anyone in her life. He’d seen, not just her naked body but her vulnerability.
“Of?”
“Of telling you.”
He seemed to understand. “Belle, regardless of the…kind of relationship people are in, or what their roles in that relationship are, there has to be communication. As equals, outside of those roles.” He paused. “I might want to tie you up, or threaten you with all the terrible things I’m going to do to you once I have, but that’s…flirtation, for me.
“Outside of that, we have to share who we are. To discuss things; things not related to this.” He gestured. This being the fact that he was her captor and she his captive. Or at least, that things had started out that way. What they were now, she didn’t know.
“As equals,” he finished.
Could she leave? Was it possible to interact as equals, when she’d only met him because he’d purchased her? When he literally held her life in his hands? She didn’t know.
And that was what scared her most: that she didn’t know. The answer, she thought, should have been obvious. Would have been obvious, before. What seemed like a very long time ago, now. She should have been screaming; fighting him. Not thinking that his almost-smile, that small quirk of the lip, was oddly endearing. Ash was a man who almost never smiled, and he wasn’t smiling now. Just that quick flash and gone. But he was staring at her intently. As intently as Belle had seen a professor of hers study old manuscripts. As though hoping to decode something.
“Tell me about your other women,” she said.
“What would you like to know?”
And then, impulsively, “everything.”
She discovered, as she spoke the words, that she meant them.
He rolled over onto his back and, folding his hands behind his head, stared up at the ceiling. At first, she didn’t think he was going to answer her. But then he started to speak. She listened, fascinated. Here was a glimpse into a world that, until recently, she’d never even imagined let alone guessed actually existed. A world where license replaced love, and people acted on motivations that Belle herself had never experienced.
“You’re not the first woman to live here,” he said, “or with me. But you are the first to share my room.”
Belle thought distractedly that she should be concerned at this admission. Jealous, even. But she wasn’t.
“Moreover, although you might find this difficult to credit”—there, that quirk of the lip again—”you’re the first woman that I’ve…purchased, quite like this. The others have been more than willing. Are more than willing.” He paused again. “Although most of the women who appear on that stage are there entirely of their own volition. You see….”
FIFTY
And he spun a tale for her of bored, spoiled women, jaded men, and beneath their studiedly casual interactions an undercurrent of desperation. A desperation both strong-flowing and cruel to patron and party-goer alike, as he well knew. The men paid the women, because without their millions or in some cases billions no one would look twice at them. They, like Ash and like the heroes of a thousand different so-called romance novels, were emotionally stunted creatures who thrived on control and whose understanding of the word love was entirely based on a devotion to their own needs. Men whose high-end cars and bespoke suits did their flirting for them.
Men who, if they worked as mechanics, would be immediately spotted as weak-willed and thoughtless. And women who, for their part, treasure
d the fantasy of being pursued by a billionaire. Of being thought irresistible; of being showered with compliments and gifts alike. Of shopping sprees and hours—months—spent sunbathing by countless different pools, doing nothing to earn their keep except letting themselves be worshipped.
It lasted for as long as it lasted, and then it was over.
Some women sold themselves into an informal sort of slavery, a revelation that seemed to surprise his companion. Others, like Belle, were decidedly taken against their will. Still, the haze of drugs and alcohol that pervaded the industry, and its customers, made it difficult to tell one from the other. And sometimes, even the unwilling girls weren’t as unwilling as they seemed: a politically incorrect observation that, in being ignored, only served to muddy the waters and make helping those legitimate victims all that much harder.
A cause that, Ash had to admit, until he’d met Belle had singularly failed to interest him. He’d been to a number of different auctions, more for sport than to purchase—he’d told Belle the truth about that—and the thought had crossed his mind that not all of these women were there on their own initiative.
Not that anyone particularly pretended otherwise. Indeed, the…hesitancy was part of the draw. Some men had interests that couldn’t be legally sated. Others simply had no interest in purchasing a woman the old fashioned way, with dinners and compliments. Still others were lonely, convinced that no woman would ever want them. So they opted for a formal arrangement, believing that something was better than the inevitable nothing.
Sometimes, love—or an approximation—bloomed.
Sometimes it didn’t.
Sometimes nobody cared, so long as everybody’s needs were being met.
Ash had read a study, years ago, concluding that men who visited prostitutes did so for the same reason that other men dated: someone to talk to, who’d listen. An activity partner. Simple companionship. Even when cash was exchanged, emotion was always a factor.