Go put on some stockings
, he might say.
At once
. Short and simple. Always effective.
Or he might say,
Wednesday, I feel like fucking. Fucking every hole you have. Go put on your stockings so I can use you l like a whore
. More creative, and she always thrilled to the expletives.
Or he might say,
Wednesday, stockings, now. Kneel on the bed and wait for me
. And he would make her wait, sometimes for an hour, and get wet for him on her hands and knees.
Or he might say,
Wednesday, put on your stockings, I think you need some discipline. I want to put some marks on your ass
. She would scurry off without a word or hesitation, anxious to take whatever he would give her.
It wasn’t long before he began to obsess over stockings. Since meeting Wednesday he couldn’t pass a lingerie store without ducking inside. He sprang huge erections choosing provocative ensembles for his lover. The shopgirls were ever discreet, pretending not to notice. Stockings, garters, and corsets haunted his every dream. Lace tops stretched on trembling thighs, straight back seams, beribboned garter clasps. He always, always woke up hard.
After their sessions, as soon as he released her, Wednesday would usually go off to her room. White bed, white linens, white walls, white furniture, white carpet.
Possibilities.
And yes, there was a bed in there, even though he had denied it to her at first. She said she needed a bed to truly relax, which he understood. He had ordered her a luxe one, massive and expensive and, yes, pristine white. He’d had it outfitted with crisp white French sheets and a white satin comforter that had cost a small fortune. It was an offering for his goddess, an altar for her, and they never besmirched it with sex. At least not yet, though he’d often find her dead asleep in that bed after their sessions. Before he went to sleep, he’d go and get her and carry her in his arms back to where she belonged.
She didn’t always run off afterward, though. After hard sessions,
really
hard ones, she would stay with him. Sometimes he would take her to his studio and paint her. Sometimes, instead, he took her to bed. He’d undo her lingerie, the hooks, the laces, the clasps, and lay her down. He would caress her all over, and worship her and love her and fuck her gently until she trembled in his arms and came.
Was it an apology for the rougher pleasures? He knew she thought it was, but no, it wasn’t that. It was more like a thank-you.
Thank you, Wednesday, for trusting me to use you. Thank you, Wednesday, for being so vulnerable to me. Thank you, Wednesday, for being brave when I hurt you. Thank you, Wednesday, for letting me lose my mind.
His intrepid, sex-siren-delicious editor. He could have kept her at home like some treasured concubine, paid for everything she needed, but she wanted to work. Lord knew he wanted to keep her home. But Wednesday truly loved her work. She didn’t only do it for security. He told himself she did to make himself feel better, but the truth was she fucking loved her job.
Unfortunately she would need to leave it soon, for a while anyway. He hadn’t told her yet. He was putting off that conversation, because he knew it would mean an ugly standoff. She was not going to be happy, but he had accepted a design assignment that would take him to an overseas film set for several months. There was not a chance he would attempt it without her. He hated to force it on her, but it couldn’t be helped. It was too much of a trial for him to go so much as a day without her now. A week? No, torture. Months? A flat impossibility.
But God, it was going to be wretched. It was going to be a bigger fight than they’d ever had. What would he end up doing? How far would he go to subdue her? Between them, those lines of allowable force sometimes blurred.
* * *
Daniel decided to talk to her on the weekend, but Saturday began with such wonderful intimacy that he pushed it back to Sunday. Sunday over breakfast, when they ate their favorite foods and lingered at the table. Pancakes, eggs, fruit, mimosas, while they laughed and flirted together. But not this morning, because she knew. She knew exactly what was coming. She knew about the project he’d been hired for, that it would separate them. She knew what he would ask, had known for weeks. But now here it was.
“Wednesday. Can you take some time off work? A leave of absence?”
“For how long?”
You know how long
, he wanted to say. “For three months or so. Maybe four.”
“Four months? No. They need me at the office. I’ll lose my job.”
“You can’t telecommute? Work online?”
“A lot of the authors are local. It’s a face-to-face press. That’s our whole shtick, what sets us apart. So no.”
They both kept eating. She stabbed her pancakes around in her syrup while he took a sip of his drink.
“Well, you’ll need to quit, then, so you can come with me to Australia.”
She was quiet a long time. Then she said, “I don’t want to quit.”
“I know. But you’ll have to. There’s no other way.”
“Can’t I visit you? Spend the weekends now and again?”
“Now and again?” He laughed humorlessly. “Now and again doesn’t work for me.”
“Daniel—”
“It’s too much travel anyway to be flying back and forth. I want you to be with me.”
“Yes, I know.” She said that—
I know
—very snidely, in a tone she would have been punished for in the bedroom.
“Wed.” It was a warning.
She put her fork down and folded her arms on the table. “I don’t want to quit my job.” Not
I’m not going to
or
I won’t
or
No fucking way
. Just
I don’t want to
, because she knew she would whether she wanted to or not.
He looked back at her.
It is what it is
. He tried to look sympathetic. He tried.
“I knew you were going to do this!” She pushed back from the table and stormed off. He cornered her in the living room by the birch tree. She stood behind it, as if she could hide there from him.
“No shit, Wed. What else can I do? What did you expect? That I could piss off from you for four months? That it would be okay? No fucking chance.”
“It’s my job, Daniel. It’s my livelihood!”
“And you’re my submissive! You don’t need to work.”
“I want to work. I love my work.”
“You claim to love me too.”
She snorted and threw up her hands. “Oh, either I quit my job or I don’t love you. Nice.”
“You belong with me. I’m not leaving you here. You can always get another job, Wed. The day we get back you can go out and apply somewhere, and they’d hire you in a heartbeat.”
“That’s not the point. What makes you think you’re entitled to this? You think you own me!”
“Yes, we’ve discussed this before. I do.”
“No, you don’t!” The foot stamp. Classic. “You don’t own me.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Don’t make me show you. Not now, when I’m angry. When you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry!” She made fists at her sides. “I’m bored. I’m tired of you always acting like this. You’re so possessive, Daniel, always! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. How about letting me be my own person and have my own fucking life? Are you that afraid I’ll run off? Sometimes you’re pathetic. Sometimes it’s pathetic how you cling to me. How needy you are.”
He was on her before she’d even finished talking. Her careless words—they made him see red. He took her face between both his hands, not gently, and hissed at her.
“You listen to me, you crazy fuck. The only thing I need is you kneeling at my fucking feet. The only thing I’m afraid of is not being able to choose which of your three holes I want to fuck first. The only thing that’s pathetic is how you pretend you don’t fucking need me. If anyone is pathetic in this fucking relationship it’s you, you damaged little slut.”
She slapped him hard, tears shining in her eyes. He barely felt it. He couldn’t believe the words had actually come from his mouth. “
Damaged little slut
.” Stupid, angry words spoken in frustration. God knew he hadn’t meant them. She turned and ran up to her room and slammed the door. He could hear her throw the lock from downstairs.
He had told her once that locking him out would get her bottom paddled, but he had a feeling at this point she didn’t give a fuck. He didn’t go up to her. It was too volatile a moment. She probably would have broken the fucking paddle over his head. Better to let her hide away for now.
The fact of the matter was she had already capitulated. She had known long ago she would be coming with him. This was just the bitter process of coming to terms with it. The final, wrenching concession that she really did belong to him, emotionally if not literally. For her he was sure it felt like a final farewell to her independence. It wasn’t, but in her addled mind it was.
He had a drink, early as it was, but he was still pricked from the words she’d spit at him.
Selfish. Boring. Pathetic. Needy
. Very flattering. After all he’d given her, those careless words had raked a nerve. He waited an hour, justifying it in his mind that she needed to be with him, not just for him to use, but for her happiness, for her safety. Hell, it was what she wanted, what she begged for. Control. Ownership. Care. Halfway across the world he would be too far away to come quickly if she needed him.
Finally he thought he had collected himself enough to talk to her, to get her to see the truth of things. That she had to be with him, that she could return to her job later. That this was necessary. That she needed him too, despite her reckless words.
He trudged up the stairs to her room. He knocked on the door, and she opened it. Her face was drawn and pale. She’d cried hard. He looked down at her, tracing the shadows of the tears on her cheek, then cupped her face.
“We need to talk.”
She shook her head, putting her hand over his.
“Daniel,” she whispered into his palm, “I want to put on some stockings.”
Those seven words began their darkest hour. He took her arm and led her to their room. Once there, she put on some stockings, his favorite set. A sleek black corset and fishnet stockings complemented by brazen plum lipstick. Then she smiled a smile he didn’t recognize and gave herself over to him.
And he took her. God, he took that girl. He took her until his fucking nerves started to fray. He took her until he started to feel sick, because she stubbornly gave and took nothing in return. She gave him back nothing, no sighs, no shudders, no bright eyes or small twitches, no resistance, nothing. Nothing at all, but a body to fuck. He fucked her every way he knew how, every way that usually got a reaction. Nothing from her but resigned acquiescence. Her mumbled answers to his ever-more-abhorrent demands were robotic and dull.
She was making her point, and it fucking inflamed him.
I’m here at your feet, Daniel, your three holes to use
. He goaded and tested her, pushed her over the line and further, black temper and fury. She took it in stony silence.
Here’s your damaged slut, Daniel. Do your worst.
He did. He did his very worst to her, hating himself the entire time. It was warfare, and it was ugly. When sex didn’t break her, he turned to sadism. He cycled through every angry toy he had, every instrument of torture, to no avail. He couldn’t believe they could be so cruel to each other, he to her body and she to his mind. Neither of them flinching, both of them hurting, trapped in this unending scene from hell. She was using the only power she had left, and she was using it to hurt him. It infuriated him. It made him wild. It made him want to jump off a building.
They hadn’t used safe words, not since she’d moved in, but she could have blurted them out anytime, and he’d have backed away. They hadn’t used them, because they were past that stage. They were so far past it, which was a shame, because they could have used those words now. If she would have said,
Untie me, Daniel
, whispered it, screamed it, whatever, they could have let it end. But she didn’t, and he kept on and on at her, determined to find her breaking point no matter how long it took.
It took hours and hours. Fucking hours. They went at it for hours, and she never cracked. He never broke her, though he tried it all.