by P. J. Fox
He caught her gaze and flashed her a quick smile. “I’m still me.”
She smiled back, timidly.
“We wouldn’t want you needing another surgery,” he continued, his back to her as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Dreadfully inconvenient. I need you, and I have no patience for hospitals.”
He laid his shirt over the back of the chair. His trousers, he kept on. He was barefoot; he’d never fully dressed in the first place, a fact that Belle only realized now. He must have planned this, then. He wasn’t in the habit of padding around the castle shoeless.
And then he returned. He kissed just behind her ear, the base of her neck. She could smell his cologne and, beneath that, the faint scent of soap. She sighed, trembling slightly. His fingers slipped down over her stomach and between her legs, parting her cleft and exploring there. His touch was delicate, skillful. She closed her eyes, swallowing. He awakened her desire easily. Embarrassingly easily.
She thrust her hips forward without even being aware that she was doing it, her response conditioned by months of passion. He in turn accepted her invitation, probing her deeper as he kissed her neck, her shoulder. He was gentle. So gentle. Far more than she was used to. She shuddered again, and moaned.
He was so subtle, so skillful, that she didn’t even realize how aroused she was until the first wave of release washed over her. She sagged in her bonds, thinking of nothing except the sensations within her. Of him, and the warmth of his shoulder against her cheek.
All too quickly, he pulled back. And as her senses returned, she became aware of how uncomfortable she was. Hastily, she raised her heels. He smiled slightly. It wasn’t a pleasant expression.
“And now,” he said, “we begin.”
Wait—what?
Walking over to the table, he opened a small box. She hadn’t noticed it before and wondered what it was. But she didn’t have to wonder long as he produced a strange-looking object and held it up for her inspection. “This,” he said, “goes inside you.”
It was like a dildo, but not. At the base of the silicone shaft, where a molded set of balls would normally be, hung the same kind of curved hook her mother used inside one of the kitchen cabinets for teacups.
“Sex with you,” he said, seeming to savor the words, “is…delightful. You are an exemplar of perfection who needs no improvement.
“But,” he continued, “there are still…certain things that a woman can be taught to do, which heighten the pleasure for both parties. I thought,” he said, taking a step toward her, “that to begin our training regimen we might try one of those things.”
Her eyes widened.
“And move on to the more…unpleasant aspects later.”
If this was a soft introduction, what had they been doing before?
He slid his hand down her flank, caressing her. “The purpose of this exercise,” he said, “which I plan to repeat with some frequency, is to teach you to contract around me when you come. This will be pleasurable for me, of course, but also for you.
“It will also teach you the value of obedience; because we are going to train your body to obey me, on command, whether your mind wills the act or no.”
A proposition she found terrifying.
His hand curved around her flank and she pulled back instinctively.
“Trust me,” he said.
She tried to relax.
He slid the object inside her.
“Hold it inside,” he said.
She tried. Her muscles were still trembling from the earlier orgasm. Which, she realized with chagrin, must have been his intent all along. Still, by exerting all her effort, she was able to keep the thing in place. Humiliation brought hot spots to her cheeks.
He walked around the room, sipping his coffee and admiring the view from the window before finally returning to her. “Are you sore?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Good.”
Putting down his cup, he came to her side and, with one hand, began to caress her. His touch was almost casual. She gasped, trembling. The object began to slide out and he returned it to its place. “This should be a…pleasurable exercise. To some extent. I am going to make you come and you are going to keep clamping down on the cock inside you. Your goal, of course, is to be able to do this consistently.
“The hook,” he added, “is the advanced class. For when I wish to add weights.”
He stroked her lightly, teasingly. She shuddered again. He knew just how to arouse her, whether she wanted to be aroused or no. He always had.
“This is an ancient practice, used on harem girls in India since the middle ages. Perhaps before.” His tone was calm, lecturing, as his fingers worked. “To build up muscle strength. The most talented girls could bring a man to orgasm without seeming to move at all. Quite an accomplishment, no?” His fingertip snaked up and down her slit.
She swallowed.
“Before long, your muscles will contract automatically, every time you come.”
She didn’t want this. She was too nervous, too distracted. But as he’d proved the night before—and, indeed, all the nights before that—he could force her to pay attention. Force her body to respond, even when her mind did not. She shook her head, half in denial, but he kept touching her. He watched her carefully: her breathing, the pinkish-red flush that crept up her throat. He knew her cues, by now. He teased her just to the edge and held her there, awash in a pleasure that was so acute it was almost unbearable. And then she was over the edge, hurtling toward a climax that had become unavoidable.
She shook in her bonds, every muscle taut, and the thing—the terrible thing—slid out.
He stopped immediately.
Her eyes popped open, her orgasm ended before it had even begun. The sensation was unpleasant, leaving her both sore and more frustrated than if she’d never come at all.
Her eyes searched his, questioning.
But he merely smiled. “Again,” he said.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
They walked through the woods, sharing the silence. Spring or no spring, the air was still cold and the occasional blast of wind near arctic. Belle was wrapped in her coat, a lovely thing cut from camel-colored wool. She’d showered and dried her hair and felt well enough, after having a few minutes to herself and a glass of juice, but she was still sore. Their morning session hadn’t been easy.
She thought about what he’d said, about obedience. She hadn’t known what she’d been expecting. Whips and chains, maybe; the sort of thing she imagined went on in Master John’s converted nursing home. Being told to bring Ash a fruit plate and feeling the bite of the whip somewhere sensitive if she didn’t move fast enough. Instead, what he’d done hadn’t felt like training at all.
It hadn’t been up to her—
She stopped dead in her tracks. It hadn’t been up to her. That was the crux of the matter, right there. He’d forced her body to respond to him, to be obedient to his wishes, and her consent was irrelevant. By the end of their session, she’d come no closer to doing as he’d asked but she had, after a point, accepted that his desire was also hers. She’d wanted to please him, and felt exceptionally discouraged when she couldn’t.
He turned. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” he prompted.
“This is embarrassing, but—”
“Belle,” he cut in, his tone gentle, “you have no reason to be embarrassed in front of me.”
He walked over to her and put his arm around her. The warmth felt good. He felt good. The ground beneath her feet was spongy with the aftereffects of the spring thaw and somewhere a toad was trilling for a mate. Belle found the sound strangely comforting; it reminded her of home. Not Scarborough but real home: the middle of nowhere where she’d been a child.
Romania, the Northeast Kingdom…the middle of nowhere was the middle of nowhere. She smiled slightly at the thought. “I just…I realized, finally, what happened this morning. What you wanted to have happen and I…I feel both s
tupid and liberated at the same time.” She looked up, her eyes meeting his. “If that makes any sense.”
“It does.”
They kept walking. The grounds around the castle were beautiful this time of year. Every time of year, Belle was sure. But she was experiencing each season for the first time. And there was a sense of wonder to that, as though she’d been magicked somehow to a different dimension. Through that long-ago door that she’d always wished for.
“Walt Disney has a lot to answer for,” she said.
Her hands were buried deep in her pockets. Ash, his arm still around her, was wearing gloves. He, too, had a wool coat. Only his was an expensively understated herringbone. One of his Savile Row acquisitions, she had no doubt. A toad hopped across their path, stopping to glower at them with a depth of disapproval that only a toad could muster. Belle laughed, delighted.
“I rather enjoyed Aladdin,” Ash offered. “Not, of course, that a pompous ass such as myself would ever admit to having seen it.”
Belle leaned against him. She was surprised at the depth of companionship between them, surprised especially that it could exist after such a morning. That it had even perhaps been deepened by their shared activities. As much as she’d acclimatized to her life over the past few months, she couldn’t help but experience a lingering sense of unreality at times like these: knowing that the man who tortured her for his own amusement was also the man who treated her like a princess outside of the bedroom.
Who walked along beside her now, dress and manner sedate, for all the world a proper English gentleman.
“You do love to live the stereotype,” she teased. “Although I never did understand the fez. I mean—he’s not supposed to be Turkish, is he?”
“Darling, Agrabah doesn’t exist either. Although I’ve been led to believe that its based on Agra, which is a real place. The sultan’s palace looks rather like the Taj Mahal. Which is a bit morbid; the Taj Mahal is a tomb, built by a man who went insane with grief after his wife died and thereafter refused to leave his room until he finally died of illness and starvation. In any case, Uttar Pradesh is in the north.”
“As are you.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re from Gujarat.”
“Yes. Along with Ben Kingsley.”
The vista of the hills opened out beneath them. In the strong midday sun, this spot was almost warm. By unspoken mutual consent, they sat down. Far off in the distance, a farmer was reprimanding his ox. That people still farmed with oxen astonished Belle. Astonished and charmed her. Perhaps there was hope for the world after all.
“I’m still waiting on your thoughts about poor Mr. Disney,” he said.
“The funny thing is that, growing up, I used to make these same points to my mother. To my teachers. And they all told me to suck an egg. I mean, they were a little more polite than that but—they told me that children don’t notice these things and I was overthinking the issue. Except now, of course, there’s a growing body of research suggesting that I’m right: that Disney movies teach lessons that are at best ridiculous and at worst damaging. And in any case, they’re very disturbing.”
“Perhaps I should watch more,” Ash murmured.
Warming to her subject, Belle grew animated. “And I’m not even getting into the history is whatever you want it to be lessons in Pocahontas. Or the fact that assassination is consistently presented as the answer to all your problems. First the Queen attempts to assassinate Snow White to fix her life and then Snow White turns around and assassinates the Queen to fix her life. I mean, really?
“And then—this idea that women just willy-nilly get themselves wrapped up in all sorts of crises and need men to come along and rescue them, men who always happen to be princes…how chauvinist is that? Moreover, what’s that teaching young girls about the kind of women they need to grow up to be, in order to attract a decent husband?
“Nothing ever changes without magic—nobody ever succeeds by hard work in these films—and you can fix a man by loving him. I mean, no wonder so many women end up in abusive relationships; they’re taught from childhood that all Belle had to do, to fix the Beast was love him. With enough love, poof! He changed!”
“And here, the whole time I thought the only thing wrong with Snow White was its endorsement of necrophilia.”
“Well she isn’t supposed to actually be dead.”
“In the original fable, she is. Moreover, I know of more than one man who’s paid a woman to bathe in ice water and then allow herself to be drugged, so he could indulge his fantasy without actually desecrating any corpses.” He turned. A slight smile played across his lips. “Have you ever considered the deleterious effect on men?”
“What?”
“The message is clear: be a prince, or no woman will ever want you. Quasimodo has all the qualities that women claim to want: he’s honest, hardworking, and kind-hearted. He has incredibly strong character, to have overcome the challenges in his life and to have reacted with kindness. Rather than, as most of us would, developing into a cruel and small-hearted individual. And yet Esmerelda prefers Captain Phoebus—why? He’s blond-haired and blue-eyed and undoubtedly has an enormous cock.”
“Women can be shallow,” Belle agreed.
“Can be?”
“I’m not!”
“No,” he said thoughtfully, “you’re not.”
The farmer was still scolding his ox.
“And that’s another issue I have,” Belle said. “Disney has created this myth that people just meet, and walk into the sunset together, and it’s all happily ever after. That intimacy is a given once you fall in love—that intimacy comes from love, so you can’t possibly enjoy sex, or commitment, without it.
“Not to mention the fact that many people who are in love have terrible sex lives. And not because they’re not in love but because they don’t communicate. Charlotte—”
She stopped. She didn’t want to talk about Charlotte. Didn’t want to think about Charlotte.
“Yes?” Ash prompted.
“Charlotte was always complaining about her terrible sex life. I mean, she had a lot of it, but according to her it was never very good. The guy was always a boor, or a jerk, or turned out to only want one thing. Which somehow, she only ever seemed to discover after she slept with him.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ash said. “She seems rather unpleasant.”
“So you blame her?”
Ash seemed surprised. “Of course. Good sex is learned. Throughout a lifetime. For her to automatically expect that the man will provide it…isn’t that exactly what you were railing against a minute ago?”
Belle’s mouth snapped shut. Frustratingly, he was right.
“An empowered woman, such as Charlotte claims to be, should take responsibility for her own orgasms. And that means communicating with her partner, not merely lying there and expecting a miracle to occur. Moreover, what does she expect? She clearly dislikes men. Not as sexual partners, perhaps, but as people. No man, or woman for that matter, with self respect is going to select such a person for a partner.”
“You’re right, naturally.”
Ash smiled. “I always am.”
Belle punched him in the ribs.
He laughed.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
Charlotte didn’t come back.
Belle tried not to think about what that might mean. To adopt Ash’s view that it meant nothing at all. That Charlotte was, after all, only an intern and had clearly been acting without benefit of supervision or probably even knowledge. The FBI, as Belle had herself observed, had no jurisdiction abroad. The Department of Justice, of which the FBI was a part, sometimes worked with other agencies, both domestic and international, but….
So she sat in her studio and she worked.
The subject of the internet had simply never come up. At first, Belle had wanted to contact the outside world so she could escape. Now, she no longer had any desire to escape but, she’d discovered, nor did she have an
y desire to interact with the outside world. She thought occasionally about calling her mother, then realized that Charlotte must have told everyone where she was and they, unlike Charlotte, had made no attempt to contact her.
She didn’t actually miss wasting an hour or two of each day staring at only semi-funny memes and watching cat videos. Or binge-drinking bad coffee while analyzing all the passive-aggressive bullshit on Facebook. She didn’t miss having a phone and she didn’t miss texting. No one had ever texted her anything interesting, anyway.
She wasn’t hiding, not really. She wasn’t antisocial. She was selectively social. And for the first time in her life she felt absolutely no pressure to sit on a bar stool and make small talk when she’d rather be reading a book.
She heard a noise and looked up. Ash. His sleeves were rolled up and he looked tired, but there was still that glint in his eye.
“Dinner awaits,” he said.
“Already?” It didn’t seem possible. She’d only just sat down, or so she thought, to sketch out some ideas she’d had for a series of figurine vases. Glancing at the window, she saw that dusk had indeed fallen. She’d been here for hours. Luckily, though, she still looked fairly respectable. Or so she thought.
“I’d like you to change,” he said.
“Oh.”
“I’ve left something on the bed. Please put it on and then join me in the dining room.”
“But—”
He arched an eyebrow. “Obedience?”
Right. “I—yes. Of course.”
She slipped out past him, feeling embarrassed. Ash’s notion of obedience training took the form of small things. Wear this. Learn to do that. His requests were never onerous, merely…uncomfortable. A gentle pressure rather than a fast push. Gentle, and yet inexorable.
She thought, as she climbed the stairs, about the frog in the pot.
Was she like the frog, rushing to obey where at first she would have fought?
But, as little as she wanted to admit this, hadn’t she always obeyed?
She pushed the uncomfortable thought from her mind.