Mercy (12 page)

“I did like it.”

“So you cry then, when you like things?”

“I’ve just never...felt anything like this. I don’t know how to feel about this. And I do feel a little ashamed about it all.”

He was quiet for a long time, and then he sighed again.

“Listen to me,
Lucy,
I’m not a big fan of shame. I know I’m kinky. I know I’m crass. But I’m not ashamed, and I don’t want you to be.”

He lifted my chin, made me meet his eyes. One broad thumb swept the tears from one cheek and then the other as he spoke.

“So you like to get roughed up, get fucked, get ordered around. So what? I like doing those things to you. So you being ashamed around me
is
both annoying and ridiculous. Just go to sleep, instead of lying there
crying
like an idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot.” I tried to say it respectfully, but I guess I failed from the look on his face.

“Listen to me,” he said, his fingers digging into my chin. “You’re whatever the fuck I say you are when you’re with me.” He turned away from me again. “You’ll learn,” he muttered, and turned off the light with a snap of his wrist.

* * *

When I woke the next morning, it was because his hand was jammed between my legs. His fingers spread me deftly to find my clit, and began to trace slow circles there. I was still groggy and achy from the night before. I pressed back against his front, half expecting him to shove me away. He didn’t though. He pulled me closer, molding his body to mine and nibbling on my neck.

“Good morning, Lucy.”

“Good morning.”

“Do you want to fuck?”

It was a rhetorical question since he was already sheathed and nudging his cock into my wet slit from behind. He drove in, holding my hips still, pulling me back against him. The whole time he never stopped the slow circles on my clit, slow rhythmic circles that made my thighs clench. I leaned my head back and he nuzzled me with his rough morning stubble. The sensation was overwhelming, and I feared he would stop what he was doing before I could come. I put my hand back on his thigh, and the other over his hand on my clit, but he made a disapproving sound and I took them away. He caught both my hands hard in one of his and held them trapped between my breasts, and the whole time, the slow circles never stopped. I felt like I was melting right into him, the delicious heat of him. The pleasure he was giving me crowded everything else from my mind.

I moved back against him restlessly, never wanting the sensation to end. I could feel the sparks and tension building inside me. I wanted him to make me come, but knew very well he might choose not to. He kept on driving me, driving me to the very edge of that cliff. Finally I whimpered, a sound of entreaty, begging for release.

“Yes, okay,” he said, driving deeper. “You can come.” The moment he breathed his words in my ear, his fingers found the very part of my center to trigger it, and so, that instant, I did. My walls contracted and I shuddered, pushing back against him, riding out the molten waves of pleasure. He grunted and bucked jerkily through his own orgasm just after mine. Our soft feral noises blended together in the silence of the morning, and his hot, strong hands didn’t let go of either part of me. He still kept my hands captured tightly in his left hand, and his right remained between my legs, possessively stroking my mound.

“Little girl,” he said, “who taught you to come like that?”

“I thought—you said—”

“Yes, I said you could come. And you did. Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve never come like I have...last night...and now...” I stammered, totally at a loss for words. Or more accurately, I was afraid to spill out words I shouldn’t say.

“Well, I like it,” he said. He stretched beside me, warm and masculine.
Hard muscles, soft, ticklish chest hair.
I lay still in his arms shivering from aftershocks. I looked over at the paintings and unexpected tears came to my eyes. I’d actually had no intention of crying again. I was terribly embarrassed that I was, and steeled myself for another lecture. Where the tears came from now, I had no clue. I thought of all those nights before I’d met Matthew, when the tears wouldn’t come. But I couldn’t talk to him about that, I couldn’t explain that to him no matter how hard I tried.

He turned me back to face him. Again,
that look
of detached curiosity.

“I’m sorry.
For crying again.
I…I don’t know why. I can’t help it.”

“You’re allowed to cry. It’s pretty common in relationships like this.”

I brushed at the tears. “I guess it’s because I don’t know how to feel.”

“What do you mean, how to feel?”

“I don’t know what I’m allowed to enjoy.”

“You’re allowed to enjoy it all. I told you that yesterday.”

I could barely meet his eyes. What I really wanted to ask was,
am I allowed to fall for you?
But I didn’t ask that, of course. I tried to turn off those feelings that I suspected were leaking out from my eyes in those undisciplined tears.

“It’s always an adjustment in the beginning,” he said to me. “It will get less confusing. At least I hope so.” He kissed my forehead and, slowly, both of my eyes. “You can leave after breakfast,” he said, and got up and dressed and went downstairs.

* * *

My muscles protested as I climbed down from his Mount Everest of a bed. I took a quick shower, even though I wasn’t sure if it was allowed. I really felt the need to wash myself off. I needed to wash off all the depravity of the night and that morning if I would be expected to face him over breakfast.

I was shocked at how my muscles ached, muscles I didn’t know I had. It had been so long since I’d felt aches like that, being a dancer. I maintained a relatively standard level of fitness. Matthew had somehow exercised muscles my body didn’t use in dance, or perhaps, exercised them beyond what they were accustomed to.

As quickly as I could, I got ready and went down the stairs to the modern kitchen where Matthew was eating. Not just Matthew, but the driver too, whom he introduced as Davis. Another woman, Mrs. Kemp, bustled around serving everyone. I soon learned that Mrs. Kemp cooked for Matthew and kept his house, while Davis ran his errands and was his “jack of all trades.” I also discovered later that these two people knew everything about his proclivities, but that morning, I only wondered, and felt humiliated as I took a seat at the table. Mrs. Kemp brought me piles of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Matthew looked at my plate over his paper and snorted.

“Mrs. Kemp,” he said.
“Lucy is a dancer, not a farmhand,” to which she laughed.
And yes, I could eat probably a fourth of what was on the plate, although Davis and Matthew ate twice my serving and more. I guess it took a lot of energy to fuck the way he did. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, so I guess he burned it all.

Davis and Matthew had some cursory conversations about current events, household issues, errands he would need to run. I just sat and ate, tasting nothing, wondering what the point was in this breakfast table charade.
To show off his new lover to his household staff?
The dancer he’d acquired, just like the paintings up in his room? He said nothing to me the entire meal, until the end when our plates were cleared away. Then he turned to me in full hearing of Mrs. Kemp and Davis and said, “Lucy, I’d like to set up a schedule for us.”

“A schedule?”
I choked out.

“Yes, a schedule of times to see you.
For you to come over and play in the basement with me.”

I blushed, but neither Mrs. Kemp nor Davis batted an eyelash.

“What is your schedule during the week?”

“I...I have rehearsals from twelve to four, Tuesday through Friday, and then shows from six to ten forty-five or so, and two shows on Saturday.”

My voice trailed off. He was thinking.

“So you’re off Sunday and Monday?”

“Yes,
si
—Yes, Matthew.”
I couldn’t bring myself to call him sir in front of them.

He thought some more.

“I’d like to see you two weeknights, and then perhaps a day on the weekend.
All day.
How about Tuesday and Thursday nights, and then Saturday night and Sunday, until the afternoon?

Would that schedule suit you? We could try it, and add more time if we need to.”

I ground my teeth listening to him schedule me, schedule visitation time with the little dancer he owned.

“It sounds okay,” I said unenthusiastically. I was so embarrassed that he would discuss all this in front of them. It was as if he did it precisely to humiliate me, in fact I knew he did. It was so draining being with him, an endless rollercoaster of highs and lows. He would kiss me, speak to me affectionately, and I would melt for him, and then he’d devastate me with heartbreaking ease.

“So you’ll come here then, next Tuesday after your show. Davis will pick you up by the stage door.”

“Why won’t you?” I asked rather crossly.

“I may or may not,” he said with a shrug. As in,
I may or may not bother to come get you. I care for you so
little,
I may just send someone else.

But Jesus, he was just getting started. While Davis and Mrs. Kemp looked on, he continued to talk.

“You can leave whatever you want here, toiletries, clothes and personal items. I’ll have Mrs. Kemp clear out some drawers. And of course I’ll expect you to be impeccably groomed whenever you’re here.”

“Of course,” I muttered.

I could feel his displeasure at my tone, just feel it in waves, but I didn’t look up. I was afraid he’d bend me over the table and beat me right there, in front of the strangers who were so obviously meant to witness all this, whatever this sick thing was going on between us.

He let it go. “I like your manicure,” he said. “It’s perfect as it is. Don’t change it.”

I looked at my hands in confusion, at which point he laughed. Even Davis’s poker face betrayed a snicker. “Not that manicure.
Your wax job.
I assume you wax?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, hating him. “I have to, for work.” What were we going to do next, start discussing my period again?

“Your cunt looks nice. I don’t like hairless. Feel like I’m fucking a twelve year old girl. You’re little enough as it is.”

I’m not little
, I wanted to yell,
you’re
big!
He was the one here with all the power, and I, the hapless one twisting and turning for his amusement.

Davis drove me home shortly afterward. I sat in the back seat, embarrassed beyond words. I had loved Matthew so much when he kissed me on my eyes, and then one conversation over breakfast had ruined it all. There was no way I was ever going back there. When Davis came to fetch me on Tuesday, he’d be returning to Matthew alone. I pictured that awkward conversation with injured triumph, imagined how embarrassed Matthew would be when Davis told him I wouldn’t come.

But yeah, that conversation never happened, because next Tuesday night I climbed into that black car, and Matthew greeted me with a broad smile when I arrived at his house.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said.

“Hi, Matthew.”
I just couldn’t stay away.

I had wrestled with my conscience all week. I knew this would end badly, in a world of hurt. I knew there was only one way for this to play out. But I longed to be near him, for him to put his hands on me. I craved his handling like a drug.