by P. J. Fox
In a stranger’s house.
His pace was punishing. This was for his pleasure, not hers, and he acted with no thought for her at all. She was merely a vessel. Anonymous.
And then she felt his hand on her, gentle at first and then not so gentle. Working her toward climax. Demanding it from her.
It was all she could do not to scream as she exploded from the inside out, a scream she knew would bring the whole house. They’d think she was being murdered. She shuddered, her body spasming around his as he too came. Inside her. She felt him, hot and pulsing.
She collapsed, spent. Moments later, she felt him untying her from the table. But she didn’t look up. She was floating, lost in a sea of sensation. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She could like this forever, arms forward and ass exposed, and be perfectly content. Even if someone had been watching, she wouldn’t have cared.
She wouldn’t have cared. The realization that this was her thought process hit her like a jet of cold water to the face. She lurched upright, tugging her skirt down as she turned around. She half expected to see John—see the entire household—standing in the door, watching her, with looks of disgust on their faces. Instead, there was nothing. No one.
Only her own shame.
She shuddered. What was wrong with her? Thinking back to how blissful she’d been only a moment before disgusted her. This man, this still near stranger, had called her a slut and a whore and she’d loved it. Loved every single second of being tied up and used.
He touched her shoulder and she flinched. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be somewhere—anywhere—else. Somewhere where she didn’t have to face herself.
She was certain that she must look a sight. Her hair and face couldn’t possibly have survived the past ten minutes, and she couldn’t even guess at what had happened to her panties. Probably a souvenir, tossed into some corner, for her leering host to find later. God, she hated that man. And she’d had sex in his house!
Ash, of course, looked perfect. He always did. As though he’d come straight from the pages of a magazine. Some high gloss ad for cologne, perhaps, or luxury leather you couldn’t afford. Always cool, never sweat-soaked and messy as she was. As she always was, lately. Withdrawing his hand, he looked at her oddly.
He opened his mouth, and she thought he was about to say something else, but what came out was, “I’ve had enough of House Brennus. Let’s make our excuses, and go.”
SIXTY
The ride back to the inn had a different quality of silence than the ride they’d taken hours before.
That silence had been fraught with tension, punctuated by bursts of panic as Belle wondered if—despite Ash’s protestations—she wasn’t going back to the same type of club where she’d been purchased in the first place. If she wasn’t about to be sold. Now, she was just tired. Tired, and discouraged. She didn’t know what to think and she didn’t want to think at all.
“Graham loved you,” Ash said. “I appreciate you being so kind to him.”
Belle said nothing.
“Not many women have much patience for the old lecher.”
Outside, the world was black. The trip to dinner had seemed very long, and Belle had no idea if the trip back would be as long. If it hadn’t just seemed long because of her dread.
“Dinner was a bit difficult.”
Headlights flashed toward them and were gone. Another lone driver on a chill and unpleasant night. The rain had eased, although rain was never very far off in this part of the world, leaving behind a ground fog that reminded Belle of smoke machines.
“And now you’re being difficult.”
But there was no accusation in his words; they were half statement, half question.
She had so many thoughts inside of her. So many articulate, intelligent thoughts. But what came out was, “is that what you want?”
A House of Brennus of his own, with her merely one more in an interchangeable horde?
He turned his head, his eyes meeting hers. “If it were, I’d have it.”
Which, she realized, was right.
“I don’t understand how people do this—live like this.”
“So that’s what this is about.”
“Yes.”
The silence returned.
A long time later, Alec pulled up at the inn. Ash got out on his own, not standing on ceremony, and opened the door for Belle. He helped her out. His hand was cold. The inn had been some sort of castle once; Belle wasn’t sure.
The countryside was littered with keeps of all kinds. There was nothing romantic or unusual about them, unless one really stopped to think. Although in this case the inn’s medieval origins had been nearly lost to time, and in a jumble of modern additions. Or what had passed or modern, at different points over the years. Centuries, even. Coach lamps winked in the gloom. Their shoes crunched on peastone; Alec’s tires crunched on peastone as he put the car in gear and turned off to wherever it was he went.
Ash opened the door and Belle stepped inside. The vestibule was, if not noticeably less warm, then at least less damp. It opened up into the lobby, which looked like a studio set for some sitcom about a British grandmother. Pea green wallpaper in a Kenilworth plume pattern offset age-darkened wood of indeterminate origin. The ceiling had been done in sheets of silver tea paper that, if the age spots were any indication, probably dated back to the original China trade. Pictures of someone’s ancestors lined the walls, clustered most thickly along the staircase. There was a smell of moth balls.
The desk clerk was asleep. They had their key; Ash led her across the carpeted floor and up the stairs. She felt like she was sneaking through someone’s living room. If there were other guests at the inn, she hadn’t heard them.
The desk clerk snored on.
They walked up the stairs. Belle wondered what this place had been, hundreds of years ago. At some point, the interior at least had gotten a makeover. Probably back when Queen Victoria was thin.
Their room was at the end of the hall, on the second floor. Alec, Belle knew, had the room next door. Ash tended not to go places alone. Not because he couldn’t fend for himself, like so many rich people, but for security reasons. Although he managed to downplay this aspect of his life, he was an important man. And, thus, attractive to kidnappers.
“We should have you learn some sort of self defense,” he said, as though reading her mind.
“What?” God, but she sounded stupid.
He turned, the room key in his hand. “Life with me can be dangerous. I want you able to protect yourself. Because, unfortunately, I can’t always be there. And,” he added, “I know you value your freedom.” He fitted the key in the lock.
“But—how?”
“Alec can teach you.” He opened the door a fraction, waited a beat, and then pushed it wide. His eyes scanned the space as he spoke. “Or we can find someone else.”
“Alec?”
“He’s an Eskrima master.” A small smile flickered across Ash’s face. “Like Jason Bourne.”
“And I suppose you are, too.”
He unfastened his cufflinks and tossed them casually onto the table. “Years ago, after I first started my business, a colleague of mine answered an ad for scrap metal. The ads on television, the ads in trade publications—it’s all the same thing. New lamps for old. We buy your broken cell phones, we buy your broken railroad ties. The original object doesn’t matter. We don’t want the object; we want its component parts.”
Belle sensed that Ash was sharing something very personal, and didn’t interrupt.
“My colleague agreed to purchase forty-two million rand worth of railroad ties.”
He removed his vest and tossed it unceremoniously over a chair. He unbuttoned another button on his shirt and, rolling up his shirt sleeves, fixed himself a drink from the mini bar. Then, sitting down on the small couch near the fireplace, he put his feet up.
That the room had a fireplace at all was charming. Belle saw that there w
as wood in the bin. The fireplace was functional, then. Silently, she went about building a fire while he talked. It was certainly chilly enough. And fires reminded her pleasantly of her childhood. They meant safety, and protection from the elements; Sunday mornings spent at home, watching the snow fall, and laughing retreats from pumpkin carving and caroling.
“That’s a little under four million, at the current exchange rate.” He meant a little under four million dollars, American. “The sellers asked De Klerk—that was his name, Haven De Klerk—to meet them in Joburg.” Johannesburg. Ash threw around these sophisticated terms so casually. He thought nothing more of going to Johannesburg than her friends back home thought of driving to Wal-Mart for milk in the next town over. Making the trek into Boston had undoubtedly been harder for Donna Wainwright than flying to any part of Africa was for Ash. And Belle’s mother had certainly found Boston more exotic.
“De Klerk was a purchasing agent. Before agreeing to the rendezvous, he’d asked to see the sellers’ financial statements. Which were furnished and which, when I reviewed them later, turned out to be quite professional. Excessively so, even.
“A chauffeur collected him at the airport, and he was never seen again.”
Belle turned sharply. “What?”
“Kidnapping for ransom is common.” He made a dismissive gesture. “But, like any growth industry, it attracts its fair share of goons. Kidnapping for ransom works, because the ransom is paid and the victim is returned. But in this case, the kidnappers got squirrely.”
“They killed him?”
“He was found floating face down in a canal.”
“That’s horrible.”
“There are strategies one can use, to protect oneself.” He sighed, staring into the fire. Belle straightened up and, after a minute, joined him on the couch. She sat at the far end, her feet tucked up under her. She waited. After a minute or two, he continued. “But most people are, regrettably, stupid. They obsess over the silliest little details, debating this airline and that car service, purchase kidnap insurance…then divulge their itineraries on Facebook.”
“For their friends to see.”
“The internet isn’t private. So-called privacy controls don’t make it so.”
Belle studied her hands, folded in her lap. “He was your friend.”
“Yes.”
“In response to your earlier question, there are many different kinds of relationships. Within BDSM and without.”
Belle was caught off guard by the abrupt change in topic. “Oh?”
“Some are much more formal than others.”
“I worry that I’m like Julianne.”
“Julianne is happy.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“When John and I were in school, he was more fun. Or at least I thought he was.” Ash finished his drink. “Gods, I must be growing up.” He made a face. “But John’s gormless. And a jammy git, to boot. Gods, that laugh. I mean, really.”
Belle didn’t understand half of what Ash had just said, but she agreed with the general sentiment. When Ash was tired, he reverted to the schoolboy slang of his childhood. Indian he might be, but he’d been raised in Britain and he carried a British passport.
Among others.
“It makes me want to pull my teeth out.”
“Don’t do that, you won’t be able to chew.”
“You’re so sensible.” His eyes searched hers. The fire crackled pleasantly. “He, and men like him, want sex with non-beings. Most men who want what he wants, who want what I want…are not like this. Julianne…she lives in a state of fear. Her master’s job is to help her overcome that fear. The services she performs for him are obvious, but what’s less obvious—and yet equally true—is that he performs services for her as well. If he didn’t, there would be no point in her involvement with the lifestyle. Or, for that matter, with him.
“His purpose is to help her grow. To help her achieve whatever it is she wants to achieve from her life, and herself. To push her without hurting her; to understand her limits, even when she isn’t aware of their existence. Or won’t, at least, admit their existence to him.”
“You think he cares for her.”
“I know he does. Sex—including within the realm of bondage—doesn’t require this kind of maintenance. Let alone marriage. For the dominant, caring for his submissive, whether she’s a submissive or a true slave in the sense that Julianne is, should be paramount. At all times, and in all places. Maintaining control of oneself is essential to that; to never strike in anger, to never use words that hurt. Humiliate, yes. Degrade, yes. But not hurt.”
“In other words, not telling a woman who’s had a wretched childhood that she’s unlovable.”
“Yes. And it’s exhausting.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes.”
“Did Julianne tell you how she and Marcus met?”
Belle shook her head.
“Her master had started pimping her out. Before that, before she was even in the lifestyle at all, her foster father started coming into her room. She was ten.”
Belle’s eyes widened.
“Marcus loves her. In a fashion that, granted, might be difficult to understand. Or accept.”
“I think I understand.”
A log broke apart with a loud pop.
“I…need certain things, Belle. It’s who I am. Who I’ve always been. Even so, now and then, I have a twinge of fear that once I start I won’t be able to stop. That, without meaning to, I’ll unleash something inside myself. Something buried deep within, that I can’t control.”
“Exploring the dark side of your psyche leaves you feeling vulnerable.”
“It’s all dark side.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“I’m hurting the person I love and I’m—not enjoying in it. Enjoy is too weak a word. Reveling in it. When I first saw you…I knew. I knew there was something inside you that I wanted to protect. But that I also wanted to destroy. I wanted to give you everything, in that moment. But I wanted to make you scream. And to connect with you, to be the kind of man I wanted to be for you, I needed you to want and need the pain.”
“Because it was part of you.”
“Yes.”
He needed her to want, to need, to crave those things about him that were horrible. To accept the monster. Anything else would be conditional; anything else wouldn’t be him. By accepting the pain, by accepting the limitations of their life together, she proved that she did want him. Him, the whole person.
Since that first night, she’d never seen him as vulnerable. But she did so now. He’d been—and still was—the controlling force in her life. Both protector and tormentor. She feared him, and feared his control over her. Both physical and mental. She feared what he’d made her become. The traitorous thoughts he’d unleashed. But now, for the first time, she saw that he was also merely human. That he and she were bonded by the same need. She’d never been accepted, even by her own parents. Never fit in. She knew what it was to be an outsider, knew how it felt to wonder if she’d ever find a home.
“John really is an idiot.”
“I can understand his need for formality. But he was a fool to lose Robin.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you like it?” Belle was, she discovered, genuinely curious. Not jealous, and not disgusted. Merely curious. Much to her own surprise.
“Yes.”
“And John didn’t mind?”
“Apparently not.”
Belle took Ash’s glass and, walking over to the sideboard, fixed him another drink. A moment later, she returned. He accepted the drink without comment.
“I need to be in control. But I don’t need to prance around in a Dracula costume to prove to myself that I am.”
Belle laughed. And then, “what’s it like, sleeping with so many women?”
“Like any other form of masturbation.”
“And Robin?”
“She wanted to.” He sipped his drink. “You can’t possibly be interested in this.”
“But I am,” she said honestly. “I want to learn more about you.”
And she did. She couldn’t say why, precisely; only that at this moment, there was a strange intimacy between them. This was a part of who he was. A strange, alien part that frightened her, but also drew her in. Somewhere inside of him was the child who’d never been shown how to form a bond with another human being and who’d searched, all these years, for something that casual sex was never going to provide.
“Does it bother you?”
“Strangely enough, no.”
“The other women, they…aren’t like you.”
“I know.”
“You should fix yourself a drink, if we’re going to continue this conversation.”
She smiled slightly. They shared the silence for a long time. Another log popped, sending up a shower of sparks. And then, “I think,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “that if your friend had lived, he might have discovered that kidnappings—even very brutal kidnappings—can be strangely liberating. Forced to leave your life behind, you examine it in a way that you never have before. Might never have at all.
“You…you feel the things that aren’t right in your life.”
“You’re right, about people looking for you.”
Of course she was. She knew that. She wasn’t a fool, and neither was he.
“They want to find you, and take you home.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go home?”
She considered her answer. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
At this point, she didn’t know where home was.
“Then perhaps,” he said, choosing his words equally carefully, “you could ride out your indecision with me.”
She knew what he was asking. He was asking her to stay. Asking.
He wanted her to live with him. To be his. She knew that. And she…she wanted to learn more about him. To decode the strange enigma that was this man, so strong and yet so weak, with all his flaws. Flaws, and great strengths. He could be cruel and unpleasant, but he could also be kind. Funny. Thoughtful. The man who’d rescued her from a lifetime of servitude, what might perhaps have been a very short lifetime. And yet who saw himself as a monster. Might even be one. She didn’t know.