Mercy (8 page)

And yes, I was quite certain that he was going to do something to me. Before we’d even left the coffee house, when he’d helped me from my chair and guided me to the door with his hand pressed to the small of my back, I had known. I had made up my mind. The words were right on the tip of my tongue, the words to plead with him to take me, that I wanted to be his, that I wanted him to use me, that I wanted him to take me right home. That I wanted him to hurt me with his big, strong
hands, that
I knew I would enjoy it, that I wanted to try. I didn’t tell him though because he’d told me to think it
over,
and already I was anxious to obey. So I would think it over until Saturday, as he’d asked me to do, and then I’d go to him at the coffee house, and then...

Then what? What would go on between us? How would it feel? Would he hurt me? How much? Would I enjoy it? Would I feel, as he had suggested,
joy
? Finally, too tired to keep my eyes open, I started to drift into dreams. The strange fantasies subsided, replaced by one single word.
Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew.
I was already gone for him, totally gone. I was naively, desperately crushed on Matthew Norris even though he’d told me very bluntly he didn’t want a girlfriend. And I believed he meant it when he said that to me, but I thought that would change. I was sure if I was good enough, I could change his mind.

* * *

Oh, my fucking back. It was just ridiculous. I looked up at
Pietro
toiling away at his canvas and I could tell he was in that zone, that place that he went to sometimes. There was no way I could stop him now, although my muscles ached for relief. What kind of art model would I be, to interrupt him in his moments of genius? A less sore art model, I thought dismally.

I’d sat for him all day Sunday, then on Monday for a few more hours. Now it was Friday night and he’d called me, his voice filled with urgency. “I’m so close to finished,” he’d begged. “Lucy, please, you must come!”

So here I lay at nearly midnight, aching and twitchy. I let my mind wander, a trick I’d learned from dance. When something was torturous and took excruciating effort, you just let your mind wander away from the pain. You can probably guess the place to which my mind wandered. It wandered to Matthew, who I planned to see the next night.

I was impatient, yes, but a little scared too. Would he be happy with me once he had me in his arms? Would he realize he’d made a big mistake and end things? I had no doubt he would end things abruptly if he wasn’t pleased with me. I would do everything I could to prevent that from happening, but there was only so much I could give, only myself as I was. If he decided I wasn’t good enough...

I daydreamed there on the cold hard floor of a painter’s studio and pictured Matthew sitting somewhere more comfortable thinking about me. Maybe his mind strayed to me during some important developer business meeting, or as he sat in the backseat of his car on the phone while his beefy driver drove him around. That driver, I wondered what was up with him. Maybe he procured drugs for Matthew.
Or women.
Hookers.
I couldn’t imagine someone like him staying continent for long. If he’d broken up with his girlfriend, what had he been doing in the meantime? I would make him wear condoms, wouldn’t let him near me without
them, that
was certain. There was no way I’d give in on that. Everything else, well...how far would I go for him? How far would he try to make me go, and what would he do? How much time had he spent since he’d met me, thinking about how he was going to
use
me, as he’d said? Did he already know what would go on? Had he long ago planned exactly what would occur? Or would he make it up as he went along, based on my reactions?

My reactions.
What might those be? I had no idea, because I still had no idea what he would do to me. I’d read books about BDSM. I had a general idea of what people did in the world of dominance and submission, but he’d scoffed and claimed that most of those things didn’t interest him. That all he cared about was using me, making me his own.
His own
thing
.
I smiled, remembering when he’d called me a thing of beauty. I’d told him peevishly that I wasn’t a thing. He was probably thinking even then that he would have the last laugh. He had probably thought to himself,
well, Lucy, we’ll see
.

Chapter Four: Guidelines

I drifted through the Saturday shows lost in a world of my own.
Grégoire
knew I was meeting our rich patron for coffee, but I told him nothing else. I had actually planned to tell
Grégoire
everything, reveal everything we’d talked about that strange night, but in the end, I kept it from him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust
Grégoire
to keep a secret. If I had asked him to, he would have kept any secret of mine to the grave. Nor was I ashamed to tell him. I shared everything with him, every humiliation and every triumph. In fact, I shared so much with
him,
I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping something this big to myself. I guess I was afraid he might tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t let him use me, that it wasn’t safe. That something was wrong with me for wanting a relationship like this. All of the things I wouldn’t let myself think.
All those things that were probably, unfortunately, true.

So I said goodbye to
Grégoire
by the stage door and climbed in a cab at 10:40 sharp. I had showered and carefully shaved, and scented and perfumed every inch of my body. I’d painstakingly made myself up to look alluring and sexy. I had applied my very best dark red fuck-me lipstick, and put on jeans and a sweater that hugged my curves. Under my clothes, I had on things I hoped he’d find exciting and beautiful.
A black silk thong, a matching black
balconette
bra.
I could have dressed up in more risqué trappings but I had a sense it might upset him, to take that initiative myself.

All too soon, the cab pulled up at the coffee house. I paid the driver with bills rustling in trembling hands. I stood in the cold night air for a couple of minutes outside on the sidewalk, then I just couldn’t bear the anxiety and I went in.

I was assailed right inside the door with the familiar smell of smoke and coffee, the sickly sweet scent of clove cigarettes. I swallowed hard and started the long walk to the back. What if he wasn’t there? What if he was there, watching from some hidden place, laughing with friends as I made a fool of myself returning to report to him? I looked around furtively, embarrassed and agitated. I took in all the happy people talking and laughing with their friends and for one split second of a moment, I almost turned and ran.

But then I neared the table and he was there, and it comforted me greatly that he looked nervous too. He sat rigid and still, looking down into his coffee. On the other side of the table was another cup, presumably for me.

He looked up, and my heart leaped.
My heart leaped.
So trite, but that’s actually what it did. My breath caught and I had to choke a little to get it going again. He looked stunning dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a sweater. I’d only ever seen him in business suits and tuxedos, powerful clothes of status and formality. But in jeans and a sweater, you could see he was a man, just a beautiful man, potent and attractive. He looked up at me, and in that second the worry left his face, replaced with something else, something priceless—a broad smile of palpable relief.

He wanted me.
He wanted me.
It was written clearly all over his face. I walked the rest of the way to the table, propelled by sheer gladness, and I returned his smile with an uncontrolled smile of my own. He stood up to pull my chair out when I was close enough. So formal and old fashioned. I turned to mush. He sat back down and just gazed at me. I waited for him to say something but he just stared.

“Is this for me?” I asked, gesturing to the cup in front of me.

“It’s what you ordered last week. You can get something else if you like.”

“No, it’s perfect. Thanks.” He’d remembered what I ordered and ordered it again for me.
Sigh.
I picked it up, warming my hands with it, and my face, which was still cold from outside.

“You should wear a coat,” he chided. “That little sweater wouldn’t keep Satan warm.”

I laughed, just breathing in the coffee and letting it warm me, the coffee he’d gotten for me.

“So you came.”

I nodded.

“When did you decide to come?”

I thought of my recent impulse to flee.

“About a minute ago.”

He smiled, and his eyes moved over me slowly. “Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

He fidgeted and rubbed his cheek.

“Drink your coffee,” he said.

I added some sugar to it and stirred. He watched, taking a deep drink of his own.

“I went to the show tonight.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I often do.”

“To see me?”

“Yes.
To look at you.”
The way he said it made me wet. He watched me.
He wants me, that man right there.
Oh my God. He smiled, perhaps sensing my anxiety. “Tonight, Lucy, we’ll mostly talk.
Nothing too wild.”

I nodded, thankful to hear it.

“Answer me out loud,” he said. “I prefer it.”

“Yes, Matthew,” I amended, blushing.

“You have a lot to learn but I think you’re a pretty smart girl.”

“I hope I’m good enough for you.”

He took a deep breath, a very loud one. From the look on his face I half expected him to stand up and walk out. But instead he reached across the table. “Give me your hand.”

I did, and he took it, and we could both feel it shaking in his grip.

“Don’t be afraid.” He spoke so quietly it was hard to hear above the hum around us. He turned my hand over in his palm, studying it like there were secrets there. “Just always tell me the truth. Okay?
Always.”

“I will.”

“Are you finished?” he asked, letting go of me. “I’d like to go somewhere more private before we really talk.”

* * *

We went out to his car, and again his driver was missing in action. The first thing he did was roll down the windows.

“Lucy Merritt, if you ever show up to see me again smelling like a French whorehouse, you’ll be sorry you did.”

How embarrassing. I was already a fuck up. He kept the windows down the whole way to his house. When we arrived he pulled me to the sink in his kitchen. “Wash it off. I want to smell you, not some perfumed-up whore.”

I tried to wash all of it off, which wasn’t easy, partly because I was so distracted by his spectacular house. It was difficult too because it was mostly on my clothes, but I did my best. I guess it was all right, because when I came out, he sniffed me and muttered, “Good enough.”

Then he took my arm and led me to a door in the hallway. “We’ll always play in the basement,” he explained. We made our way down the carpeted stairwell, and I guess I expected him to take me to a dungeon of sorts. Black and forbidding, tricked out with crosses and beams and chains hanging from hooks in the ceiling. But the room he took me to wasn’t a dungeon at all. It actually looked more like an art salon. Or a really cool and modern funeral home, done in crisp and textured neutrals.

He told me to look around, to look at everything. I walked around but I didn’t dare touch. The walls were upholstered with fabric, velvety drapes in taupe. There were huge, comfortable sofas that I tried out, sitting down on them, and as it turned out, that was the only chance I’d get. I didn’t know it yet, but only Matthew ever sat on them, while I knelt or lay supine at his feet, or bent over an ottoman with my ass in the air. But they were very nice and comfy, the matching ottomans scattered around the room in several heights and sizes. He pointed out the eyebolts near the bottom of each one. “I’ll strap you to these when I beat you or fuck you, sometimes.” I just nodded when he said it, like that was perfectly great.
Oh, wow, Matthew, bolting me to an ottoman. That’s a spectacular idea.