Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (23 page)

I went back to scouring the photograph.  The church had to have been built mostly in the nineteenth century from the looks of it, but everything else was literally thousands of years old, a contradiction of sorts. I vaguely recalled reading about Sevastopol’s role in the Crimean War, how those events had inspired Alfred, Lord Tennyson to write
The Charge of the Light Brigade.
As per usual, I could only analyze things in terms of Victorian literature.

Silly girl,
my inner self snapped at me.
This is no time to be thinking about poetry. Concentrate.
And yet, I couldn’t get Tennyson’s verses out of my mind. I’d memorized them for a quiz sophomore year, and they plagued my brain now the same way you can’t get an annoying pop song out of your head.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

Round and round those words went in my mind. I wasn’t sure why I’d fixated on the third verse of the poem, but it seemed relevant to what I was doing for some reason. Taking the poetry as my cue, I stopped scanning the photo by laddering up and down and just glanced right, left, up and down. I did it once, twice, three times, watching the image blur a little bit, just as the other photos had when I’d inspected them. Just when I was about to give up, I saw something.

I pressed my finger to a spot in the lower right corner of the panorama, a dark shadow that
creeped between two crumbling bits of Greek ruins. “This,” I said.

Peter gave me a single nod. “You’re very good,” he said.

“What do you think this is?”

He took a deep breath before speaking. “I want to hear your interpretation.”

I studied the shadow for a bit longer. I had to squint my eyes a bit to see it at all, otherwise it just disappeared into the landscape. It looked like a body---a
dead
body, sprawled out on the ground between two ruined buildings, yet it also seemed almost like a ghost. There were no details, no clothing, no facial features. Just a blurry dark shadow, as if cast by moonlight.

“It’s a body, like the others. But it’s almost as if it’s not really there. Like it’s a shadow of something---or someone---that’s out of frame.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I see too.”

“Have you shown this to anyone else? What do they think?”

He shook his head. “No one.  I haven’t been comfortable showing these images to anyone until now. You’re the first.”

“Why me?”

He pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. “You just seem like the right person to help me solve this mystery. Among other things. You just seem like the right person, period.”

“I thought you said I needed to stay as far away from you as possible.”
“Yes, I did. But even I don’t believe that you will. In fact, against my better judgment, I really wish you wouldn’t.”

I leaned closer to him, taking in his scent. My nether regions warmed in response. “I won’t stay away,” I whispered. “I can’t. Not now.”

“Good.” He seized me, kissed me passionately, seeming to suck all the air out of my lungs, then pulled away for a moment to gaze into my eyes. He plunged his hands into my hair, plowed the depths of my mouth once again with his tongue. I pressed my body into his, wanting more of what had gone before. All thoughts about photos and ghostly images and investigative reporting melted away, and was replaced by a singular urge:
Him. Inside me. Now. Go.

He scooped me up and carried me to the bed in the inner chamber. Unlike the other one, which was sleek, ultramodern, and
Scandinavian in design, this bed was polished brass with porcelain fittings and a quilted floral coverlet. He set me down on top of the bed, untied my bathrobe, parted its folds to expose my nakedness. His lips caressed my nipples, his tongue lapped the globes of my breasts, then traced the line of fine down that led to my mons of Venus.

Mons of Venus
. I’d never encountered that phrase outside of books. And now here I was, watching an older man caress mine with his mouth. In an expensive hotel, in the middle of the night, as I parted my legs wide to give him better access to the most secret parts of me, which were still sore from giving away my virginity just a few hours before.

I was Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Daisy Miller, Mary Barton
, Martha Endell. I was all of them and none of them. Yes, I had fallen, like they had in their dreary, coal-dusted Victorian novels, but I had fallen into something that was nowhere near the gutter. I had fallen into something that was truly great.

As I spread my legs and lifted my hips so he could lap the seam of my sex with his tongue, I knew that t
his was where I was truly meant to be.

My body bucked and writhed as he brought me to the brink and back again. I came once, twice, three times. It was so easy for me, not at all like what my girlfriends had said about trying for hours to achieve orgasm with their boyfriends only to come up empty
time and again. My body was all too willing to give and receive, and almost entirely without effort. I’m sure Hannah and the rest of my friends would think that was unfair. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting more, more, more.

He teased me with his tongue, the tips of his fingers, his thumbs.
My body contracted and pulsed yet again. I cried out, thrashed and moaned. My arms and legs took on a mind of their own, my kicking left foot narrowly missing Peter’s temple as he savored my taste. He paused his ministrations and looked up. “Nancy, dear, we need to work on keeping you still, or else you’re liable to give me a concussion.”

“Tie me up,” I breathed. “Tie me up now. Then fuck me.”

He sucked in his breath, kissed my belly softly. “Oh, Nancy. You know not what you ask.”

“Yes, I do,” I breathed. “Tie me up. Please. Now.”

He stood, put a finger to his lips. “Hold that thought,” he said, and stepped out of the room.

What?
How could he just walk casually from the room and leave me hanging like this?

Sex was a cruel master, it seemed.
You were at its mercy, at its beck and call, denied what you wanted and needed when you wanted and needed it most---and yet you begged for more.

After what seemed like hours, but was really only a minute or two, Peter reappeared. He carried a box of condoms in one hand and a selection of men’s leather belts in the other. I propped myself up on my elbows for a better look.

My legs were still spread wide, my chest heaving, my head spinning and my knees quavering from the latest in a series of orgasms. By all accounts I should be spent, sleeping the rest of the night away sated and pleased. But I was far from it. I felt like a caged animal that hadn’t been fed in three days. “Are those my restraints?” I asked. My voice was deep and gravelly with desire; I didn’t recognize it as my own.

Peter set down the condoms on the side table, then unwound one of the belts from his left hand and held it up with his right. “Yes, they are. If you are absolutely sure you want to use them.”
“I am.”

“You’re positive?”

I managed a nod. I had suddenly lost the ability to speak. The only sound I could emit was a whimper; my body had taken on a mind of its own. Every cell seemed to reach out through the air between us, seeking Peter’s touch, begging for the feel of leather wrapped tightly against flesh, of limbs pushing hard against the ties that bound them. I knew not where the knowledge of these sensations came from, I had so little experience. They were borne of raw instinct, perhaps even something deeper and darker. The animal part of me longed to be unleashed, but the only way that could happen was if I was made to submit to Peter’s will. And I wasn’t sure if he would give me the pleasure of doing so.

He ran his palm up and down the unfurled belt
. “This is one of five belts, all of the belts I brought with me from New York. These are mostly just regular belts, worn with my pants. I have other restraints back in my home studio of course, but it’s not my usual protocol to travel with them.”

He paused, smiled, set the belt down on the bed next to my left foot, the one that had very nearly kicked him in the head.
He reached out and caressed my instep with a single fingertip, sending me reeling. “You remember your safeword?”

I nodded. I had to struggle to keep my eyes open. The pulsing need that pervaded my whole being threatened to tie me in knots, made me want to screw up my eyes, grit my teeth, clutch the sheets in my clenched fists, even bear down hard from within, as if I were giving birth to my own desire.

“Good,” he said, setting the belts down on the bed beside me, one by one. “Don’t be afraid to use it. If you do, I will respect it and stop whatever I’m doing immediately.” He caressed my instep again, then flicked two fingertips against each of my toes. It was the slightest of touches, and yet one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced. It didn’t feel like pleasure per se, more a deliberate infliction of pain, a virtual needle prick. And yet, that pain gave me more pleasure than I thought was possible, in this world or any other.

“Pain isn’t always what we expect it to be,” Peter said, dragging his fingertips back over my instep, to my ankle,
then up and down the back of my calf. “Pain doesn’t always hurt. Sometimes it can be quite beautiful, or so I’ve found. I hope you find it to be that way too. But if ever you don’t, you must tell me to stop. This is the first and most important part of submission. You hold all the power in the relationship. My pleasure begins and ends with yours. If you no longer feel pleasure, then neither do I. Do we understand each other?”

I nodded. “Please,” I said. “I need this. I need
you.
Stop talking.”

He leaned forward, positioning his body over my own as he balanced on his arms. The fifth belt---its purpose as of yet unrevealed---was wrapped around his upper arm. “Nancy, this is important. If this is really the kind of relationship you want, there are rules. I want and need you too, but I won’t take unfair advantage
of you. Especially if you truly wish to submit. Do you?”

I nodded again. Tears squeezed out from the corners of my eyes. I was almost ready to use the
safeword, but not because he was restraining me---but because he
wasn’t
restraining me.  What I wanted and needed was within arm’s reach, but still he withheld it. It was unfair.

“All right. But you must promise to use the
safeword whenever you need to. I cannot do anything to harm you, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. Domination and submission is a two-way street. Someday soon you’ll be on the other side, and then you’ll understand.” He paused, got up from the bed. “Are you ready to be bound?”

I nodded and whimpered.
Please. Oh, please.
“Hurry,” was the only word I could get out.

“All right. You’ll be bound with four belts. You’ll find out what the fifth one is for in a moment.”
He took up each belt, and tied my ankles and wrists to the nearest bedpost. Within moments, I was spread-eagled on the bed, tied to four polished brass posts with strips of leather that were wound four and five times around me. I was immobilized, wide open, and vulnerable.

I was in heaven.

I couldn’t move. My sex was exposed to the point I could feel the slight stirring from the air conditioning system against my wet, glistening skin. I was hot. I was ready. I wanted him.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure he heard
me. My mouth had gone cotton-dry from panting, and my words seemed to disappear into thin air.
Now. Oh, now.
Speech was lost to me, so all I could do was try to communicate my wishes with my eyes. For all he harped on about a safeword, I had no idea how I would be able to say it if and when the moment came.

He shucked off his pajama bottoms and I saw him, all of him. His cock was hard and thick and red, its tip glistening with damp that I wanted
to taste---and yet I could get nowhere near him. He seemed to hold himself back on purpose, to tantalize and titillate me, to prove once again just how much I was under his absolute control. I strained against my bindings, but unlike the filmy silk scarf of a few hours earlier, the leather belts yielded not a centimeter. I was truly and fully bound, a sensual prisoner to Peter Rostovich’s whims. I was like one of the naked images in his art exhibit, a plastic doll offered up as a plaything, to be used however he wanted. Some women would find that idea revolting, but I didn’t. It thrilled me.

I writhed and twisted, my back arched, raising and exposing my sex even more. He cast his gaze over me, taking in every detail of my body. His eyes sparkled, and his chest began to rise and fall at a rapid rate. He was as excited as I was, he wanted me just as much as I wanted him. But unlike me, he had learned self-control. He could withhold and withdraw to raise the s
takes between us, how to wring every molecule of sensation out of the very air. I knew none of these things, and I wanted him to teach me.