White Silk & I Belong to You

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  “Yes, Steven. It is. That’s why we’re here. It’s just so hard…”

  I stroll my tiny garden trying to take solace in the simple beauty of the trees and flowers, but suddenly feel confined by the high walls around me… no comfort here. But would there be any comfort anywhere?

  “Stick with me, Michelle. We don’t have all day,” Steven interrupts my musings.

  I turn to him. He is troubled, his face looking aged and dour. I’ve driven him to this—and that hurts.

  “Why were you in New York?” Such urgency. Like Broc, just like Broc, an insistent, even dictatorial, fervor rises in the man. It swirls about him, about me, about my tiny protected place, which is no longer protected anymore. He invades this place the way Daniel invades me… like we’re in the hotel room, Daniel leaning over me, eyes menacing spears of darkness, demanding my answers. I feel my tears start to rise and turn away, but Steven stalks me, turns me about in his hands and gives me a quick shake. “Michelle?” He lets go my arms.

  “I had to see Daniel.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m, I - I’m worried about Sunny.”

  “Worried about Sunny?”

  “And me.”

  He’s confused. “So, what aren’t you telling me? What would Daniel Broc have to do with Sunny?”

  “I—I think the man she’s playing with—you know the warehouse scene, may be threatening to… to kidnap her the way I was kidnapped.”

  He thinks a moment. “That makes no sense.”

  “Oh, but it will.” My words confirm what I need to do, and in that instant, I feel the physical sensation of letting go, the tightness in my belly relax, the hurt in my head subside. I can’t hide anymore, I know what I have to do and my resolve is firm.

  I move to the concrete bench in the garden. “Will you sit with me?”

  He looks no less grim but he does sit… in a fashion, with his back to the wall at the side of the bench. He sits perpendicular to me, which intensifies his energy sending it all in my direction.

  I sit up straighter and look into his face. “Steven, when I was kidnapped five years ago, I wasn’t held in any normal prison. In fact, there really was no political reason for my abduction. From the beginning, I was marked for sexual purposes. I was made into a sex slave.”

  His expression hardly changes, but grows more fixed.

  “I was vigorously trained to serve the sexual whims of tyrannical men with kinky sexual tastes. Anything you’ve heard, read about or seen regarding sadomasochistic sexuality I was forced to do. I was beaten, put in bondage, humiliated, gangbanged, and tortured for pleasure in dozens of ways by dozens of men. There, I was White Silk, not Michelle Monroe. At the end of my training, I was sold to a man I called, ‘Sir’, my master. More abuse was heaped on me, but I accepted it. I was no longer the woman taken from the train. My freedom was gone and I lived in a world apart from my previous concept of reality.

  “It was a terrifying time and a horrible fate, one that would only get worse the more I aged, or the more that society used me. That world would eventually tire of me when new, younger, female flesh caught the attention of the masters. So, I worked hard to please them. I obeyed their commands without hesitation. And I poured my heart and soul into their pleasure—just so I could stay alive.”

  I stop to survey Steven’s cool expression again and take note of how it’s changed in imperceptible ways. A sense of worry, of alarm—of fear, perhaps—and fascination, all dance across his brow.

  “The truth is, much of the sexuality that was forced on me really wasn’t forced at all, but desired as much as I desire love. I came to want those extremes with increasing fervor—especially when they were coupled by even a slight degree of tenderness. Occasionally, one of my masters gave me exactly that, even Sir sometimes looked on me with respect, and then Daniel…” I pause and take a deep breath. “I fell in love with him. And I believe in a small way, his own way, he loved me back. He orchestrated my rescue. Despite the sexuality my captivity brought out in me, I relished my freedom as dearly. Daniel understood that. He’s a man who cannot be contained, and ironically, he saw me the same way.

  “What I didn’t clearly understand when I was freed was how much danger I was in. Kovac entered my life so quickly that I had little to be afraid of with him. He kept me safely in his underground world where my slave life continued, just in a different form. I told Kovac everything; he knew it all, and gave me the dark sex I yearned for. But when he died, I made the erroneous assumption that I could put it all away…like an adolescent puts away her childish toys. I thought I could put those years behind me and start fresh. I thought that by then no one would notice my small documentaries. Who would remember my name? Or even care that I was a free woman now? I got more aggressive in my field, which Daniel tells me now, only called attention to where I was. What I didn’t realize was that the underground still had their eyes on me. My former captors noticed. Daniel noticed. I had no idea how risky my life had become, until a couple months ago, a man named Aman pulled me off the street.”

  “He did what?”

  “Pulled me off the street. The night I was going to have dinner with Monica, I never got to MacArthur’s. I spent the night with Aman… and… he persuaded me to cooperate with him.”

  “Cooperate? What does that mean? Have sex?”

  “Oh, it’s more than sex, Steven; it’s sexual use, humiliation, heavy flogging, pain. Anything he wants. He forced the slavery on me again, threatening to hurt the people I love if I didn’t obey…you, Sunny, my family, you were all implicated as he offered me my choice.

  Steven’s face suddenly bursts with anger and he snaps, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you?” I blurt right back at him. “What would you have done? What could you have done? I was trapped.”

  “And you just allowed him to use you? When?”

  “When he was in town. He didn’t want me full time, just as his party girl.”

  “And you weren’t going to tell me?”

  “I wouldn’t be telling you now if Sunny hadn’t gotten involved in that dungeon scene. Aman set us both up. He showed me pictures of her with her master, but Aman was in the pictures, too, observing. I knew then that this was no innocent love affair between a dominant man and his submissive.”

  “And he knew about me, too?”

  “Of course. He expected me to break up with you—which is why I’ve been so erratic in my behavior the last few weeks. I couldn’t do it; I just couldn’t make myself say those dreadful words.”

  “So, we’re here now; why?”

  “I knew I had to let you go to keep you safe. And I would do that for you; I’d do that even now if I had no other choice. But Sunny…I had to fight for Sunny. Aman has plans for her… all I could see was the slave camps, the training, the horror of being bought and sold…” Tears sting my eyes, but I brush them back. “When I saw Daniel at the conference, I had to wonder if he was still part of the slave trade. It made sense that he would be. And when Aman’s plans for Sunny became clear, I went to him to plead for her. He rescued me; why not her?”

  “And can he save her?”

  “I hope so. I think so. Maybe. Steven, I’m sorry for all this, for your even being with me. Some women have baggage; I have a boxcar loaded with danger from my past. And I was too naïve to know that. I’m so sorry.”

  He gazes around at the high walls and shudders. “You know, this place is damned confining.”

  I look with him at the imperious green, that has suddenly taken on a very different look, like that of an ominous jungle. “You’re right. I used to find it comforting. I guess I lived in a prison of walls so long that I still seek them out when I’m afraid.”

  “So, why are you telling me the story now when you say we’re over?”

  “Daniel asked me if the man I loved was man enough to do what it takes to save me.”

  “And you said?”

  “That you were no weak-kneed
boy. What I didn’t know is if you still cared enough to want me.”

  He shakes his head. “You know, you really do stretch the boundaries of love.”

  “We can stop here, Steven. Call it quits right now. I’ll certainly understand if you want nothing more to do with me. I have no idea what Daniel has planned. But I know these men are violent and demented. They don’t have the moral values we grew up with. It’s a world of terror and trickery.”

  “So, what are you asking of me?”

  I stumble on the question, having no idea how to answer. I can’t even see the love in his eyes, which until today had so abundantly, so freely, warmed my heart.

  “Daniel says he needs your assistance to ensure my safety. It’s a tricky mission that can’t be accomplished by one man. He wants to know… if you’re willing…”

  He thinks, but only briefly, before answering. “I’m not the kind of man to back away from any battle, but I’d sure like to know what this battle will mean.”

  I see the fight inside him, the puzzlement, the anger, the confusion and the concern.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know what I feel right now, Michelle. Maybe when I let off steam, I’ll know…”

  “Let off steam?”

  “You’ve lied to me and that just doesn’t sit well.”

  “I was protecting you, Steven.”

  “I understand that. But there was a lot you could have told me that would have helped me understand you. You want the pie-in-the-sky relationship—and I believe in that as much as you say you do. But to have that, you can’t throw pieces of your life away as if they didn’t exist, and that’s what you did. You can’t expect me to like this, Michelle.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t. But you do understand why?”

  “I understand that you’re really scared. That you have a rough time being honest because you think you’re going to scare people away. That you’d just as soon forget what happened back then. Sounds reasonable, but it’s still not right. You can’t have a meaningful relationship with someone when you’re holding back half of you who are. Obviously, you think I’m pretty shallow; that I’m incapable of accepting what happened to you.”

  “No! I don’t think that at all!”

  “But that’s what I’m left to conclude?”

  “I made a mistake.”

  He shakes his head, his anger simmers at the surface, but it’s so contained, so like him. “Yeah, you did.”

  If only he would just erupt, slap my face, strike me down, I’d feel a whole lot better. But that is not Steven Vanderberg.

  He moves to his feet and paces this gentle garden like a restless tiger.

  “I want to get out of here,” he finally announces.

  “Sure.” I rise to my feet. “You want me to go with you?” I meekly ask.

  He nods his head. “Yeah, I do. They say confession is good for the soul; I would guess that absolution is, too.”

  I’m unsure what he means by this.

  I’ve never seen him so hard, so remote—or so appealing. I’d think he was shunning me, except that all his power is focused solely on me. My crimes have shifted his being into a mode I’ve never seen from him—not with this breathtaking force. Clarity. Purpose. Determination. They all pour from his soul, along with the rage that seethes disturbingly beneath the surface calm. He says absolution. I believe him, but what does that mean?

  Punishment. That I understand. I’d welcome punishment, the freedom I’d feel to physically pay for the crimes I’ve committed, to put this all behind me with the pain I understand. I fear, however, that it will not be that easy, not that black and white.

  As Steven exits my refuge, a stirring wind swoops through the tiny garden. Picking me up, it carries me away with him.

  Chapter Ten

  Steven is not exactly pacing, though he moves through his apartment living room, carrying the heavy weight of my recent revelations like an anchor, which will keep us motionless on our restless sea. He walks to the blinds and peers out, then turns the slats to darken the room. They set a grim, forbidding mood.

  As if his mind is an open book, I can tell he’s deciding what to do as he restively tidies his private space. He picks up a stack of magazines. I expect him to move them from the coffee table to the trash, but instead, he suddenly slams them down on the table so hard that I fear the force will break the glass top.

  “Damn it!” He looks at me. “What do you need from me, Michelle?”

  “I need to end this… this impasse,” I cry.

  “And how does that happen? How do I feel better about what you’ve told me? About your lies? Do I want to help you, I think I do, but …”

  The tension screams in my ears and I think there’s no way out. I remember Kovac, those few times like this… and I wonder if the solution he had for himself in these circumstances would work for Steven. I watch Steven’s grim face, the heat of anger in his solid eyes, knowing he needs to express that anger in some meaningful way. Let off steam, he said himself. I remember what Kovac would do and think… yes, that is the one solution that might work in both our favor. Entertaining no second thoughts, I abruptly rise, march into the bedroom, grab the hairbrush and return to living room, handing it to Steven.

  “Spank me!”

  “What?”

  “You said absolution…isn’t that exactly what you were thinking?”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I think you do; you’re just too nice a guy to believe you’d actually do this to the woman you love—or at least loved. If it doesn’t make you feel better, if it doesn’t set things straight, if you can’t act from a feeling of love and concern and caring… if I’ve totally fouled up this relationship, then I’ll leave. I’ll handle Daniel and my dilemma by myself. I’ll survive it one way or another, I know I will. But you’re off the hook without guilt.”

  “You think it’s that easy?”

  “It might be. You were feeling it in the park… I could sense what you wanted to do. So, do it, Steven. I’ve been a bad girl and this is exactly what I deserve.”

  He takes the hairbrush in his hand and stares at it with curiosity. “This is what the modern woman needs, huh?”

  Yes, it is, I silently reply. How I shudder, desperately anticipating his next move. I have been punished by masters, by Kovac when I pissed him off, but not in a scene like this one. The thrill is mysterious but evident in my body, as my pussy gushes liquid—or so it seems as if it gushes. My panties are certainly wet. My whole crotch itches in a wanting way, and I smell the fragrance as it drifts to my nose. I breathe it in hungrily, like the sweet smell of languid afternoon.

  “I don’t know about other women, Steven, but this is what this modern woman needs.”

  He stands back, eyes me carefully, putting himself in the mindset of another time when this sort of thing was more natural. Then he finally points to the sofa. “Over there. Bend over and put your palms on the seat, and don’t make a lot of noise; I do have neighbors.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another flutter of erotic thrill fills the air. I suspect he feels it too by now, although I don’t sense this session will end all that erotically.

  I do move quickly, taking the position he ordered, lying with my groin across the top of the sofa and my hands flat on the seat.

  Giving my skirt a good yank from the waist, Steven bares my ass. I twitch involuntarily as the tension between us mounts. I wonder if he feels the sexual energy the way I do. But this is more than about sexual energy; the spanking gives him purpose, something to do with this anger. Yes, it’s a gamble, but it might well pay off. I’ve felt for months that I have a closet Dominant in this lover, and he may prove it today beyond all doubt.

  SMACK!

  I lunge forward when the first smack strikes, and muffle the reflexive grunt. The swat seems to burn with all of the anger he could muster.

  He follows the first with a rain of strikes that quickly turns my entire ass hot. I squint har
d, holding back the tears.

  Obviously, Steven got my message, and into the act—a lot more easily than I expected. There’s nothing tentative in his delivery. A minute passes, and he eases further into this role. Pausing briefly, he stands closer to my side and places a firm and steadying hand on my back, pressing me into the cushion of the sofa. The heat of his flesh is comforting, but at the same time brusque and authoritative. I may have instigated this punishment, but he’s taken charge.

  Continuing with his decisive smacks, Steven attacks my ass with obvious glee. This might prove reassuring for my present dilemma and my guilt, but those thoughts quickly take a backseat. The heat and discomfort expand, and I begin to squirm. I grit my teeth and swallow my cries. I should be brave, face the music and take this licking like a good girl. But even when I’m trying to prove a point, I’m not that good when the pain short-circuits my reasoned determination. He lets go a few especially rebuking smacks and my whimpering cries rise as a testament to my woe. I hate wood, always have! I hope he’ll pause at least for a few seconds so I can regroup, and when he doesn’t, I start to fight him. It’s natural instinct. Who wouldn’t under theses circumstances?

  My entire body becomes taut as steel, while my ass flesh burns. And finally, because I can’t hold back any longer, I wail quite loudly, “Oh, God, please stop! Please!”