Love and Whiskers

by Olivia Myers

  But Christine liked Adèle. Her spunky personality, her sharp wit, her intelligence—and the two girls stayed friends long after the interview. It was because of Christine that the two now worked together. Accounts at La Nouvelle Monde were often too big for one person to handle and Christine, when she began, had been asked if she’d like a partner. She hadn’t wasted any time in choosing Adèle.

  Adèle had had no wealth to speak of and her prospects of making a big break in the art world, even with her intelligence, had been slim. And for Christine, it didn’t matter that Adèle hadn’t any technical interior experience. Christine knew that she would pick it up in a matter of weeks.

  Adèle had picked up much more than technique. As she joined the coffee table, Christine searched for the university student she’d met a few years ago and found little trace. Adèle was now sporting the height of fashion. Her extraordinary legs were covered in black, shining leggings; her skirt was high-riding and chic, dark leather; her sweater was tight and revealed the thinness of her torso while remaining low cut enough to afford a good look at her enormous breasts. Her heels, which she rested on another chair, enfolded her tiny feet like gloves. Her face was pale but her eyes were dark, almost alarmingly so.

  Darkness. The thought of the word brought an overwhelming tightness to Christine’s chest that threatened to overwhelm her. It was too much of a reminder of Alexander. Christine clutched the table for support and fought back tears.

  “Oh God, Christine,” Adèle said in rapid French, her pretty face twisted with concern. “I am here less than a minute and already you are crying. What is wrong? Someone has poisoned your cigarette?”

  Christine managed to smile despite the pain in her chest. Already with Adèle nearby, she had begun to feel better.

  “Adèle,” she said. “I feel like whenever we meet I always end up unloading all of my problems on you.”

  “So it’s him again,” said Adèle. She lit a cigarette and looked at Christine with sympathy. “Ahl-ex-ahn-der,” she said, palletizing the vowels.

  “I can’t stop,” said Christine. “It’s bad, I know. I am terrified of the man. I am always shaking when I am near him. He’s dangerous. I think sometimes he really wants to harm me.”

  “Who could want to harm you, Christine?” said Adèle. “You are loved and adored by everyone, even those who hate you. I hated you when I met you because I was envious. Now, I could kiss you.” Adèle moved the hand clutching the cigarette away, turned in her chair, and kissed Christine tenderly on the cheek.

  “There,” she said. “I feel much better for having kissed you.”

  “You’re not like most other people,” said Christine.

  “No. I am better than most people. I am smarter. Thanks to you, I am sexier. And if you can win the affections of a person who’s better than everyone else, everyone else should be easy.”

  “But I wasn’t talking about affection,” said Christine. “With Alexander there is no affection. It’s all power. I love his power. And I can’t stop loving it. I beg him whenever I see him to do worse and worse. I think I’ve surprised him, asking for it. Last time we met he even refused to hurt me. I think he is trying to put more and more control over me. I’m afraid of where it will lead. But I am excited to know. More than anything I am excited. That’s what scares me.”

  Adèle watched Christine closely as she spoke. When Christine had elapsed into silence she let a moment of silence pass in which she stubbed out her cigarette. “I think it is you who is addicted to power. Not Alexander.”

  “That can’t be true,” said Christine. “Alexander ties me up. Alexander makes the rules. I am his slave and I love it.”

  “Dear Christine,” said Adèle, “Wonderful Christine, whom I love more than anyone else in the world. It breaks my heart to say it, but you are in trouble. You say Alexander controls you, but no—you are controlling him. You are making him do as you want, even if you say it is what he wants. Is this not true? You enjoy it, I think, more than he does. It is your own power you love, not his.”

  Christine shook her head vigorously, even as she saw the truth of what Adèle said.

  “It is absolutely true,” Adèle pressed. “And if you continue like this I don’t think you will have an ounce of tenderness left in you. I think you started to lose this tenderness ever since Stephen cheated on you, and I think you are still losing it.”

  “That’s not true,” said Christine, almost in tears. “I could never stop loving you, Adèle. And it kills me to say it, but there are parts of Stephen I love still.”

  “That will continue on for a little while,” said Adèle. “And then you will pour all of yourself into Alexander and become colder than him because you will have more power than him. You will forget about love. You will love power and that is all. But I can see you don’t believe me.”

  “No.”

  “Then we will make an experiment. When will Alexander tie you up again?”

  Christine blushed at Adèle’s frankness. “In a few hours.”

  “Good,” said Adèle. “Now, for our experiment. I want you to be tender to dear Alexander. Call him my darling. Call him dear. Offer to take his little pecker in your mouth. Say that nothing will give you greater pleasure than to please your sweetheart. You say that he tells you he will not hurt you if you don’t obey him? I don’t think this is true at all. I think he is afraid of you. If you keep him afraid of you, I think he will do whatever you want. And then, my lovely Christine, you will see what you are becoming.”

  “I don’t know, Adèle,” said Christine, frowning, but the other woman had already stood up from the table.

  “I have a client to meet, and I must go. You must do this for me, Christine,” she said. “It destroys me to think of my beloved Christine, turned all to stone. It destroys me to think that you will be abandoning those who love you truly.” Adèle’s voice became soft, tinged with a deep and profound pity. “Those who would spend their whole lives loving you.”

  ***

  Hours later, in Alexander’s dimly lit reading room, Christine dwelled on Adèle’s words. She knew what Adèle meant by them. Long before Stephen had cheated on Christine, Adèle had warned her that if she continued to treat him in her callous way, she was in danger of losing him.

  The words had proven prophetic, as things turned out. Christine cared deeply for Stephen but the longer she was with him the more she enjoyed her status as the partner of a literary genius, as his inspiration, his muse. She had taken him for granted, used him and his status as a footstool to prop herself up with. By the time they were engaged, the relationship was hollow and coarse.

  When Stephen returned from his two months abroad as a guest lecturer, Christine had nearly forgotten about the man she was engaged to. He existed now as an entity, as a fancy name, but his position as the love of her life was buried deep. It was no wonder the relationship had broken apart so quickly! Stephen had not even tried to defend himself when she’d found the condom in his pocket. She remembered his weary reply to her accusation:

  Yes, dear. I’m afraid so. Can’t tell you how sorry I am.

  And when she asked with whom he’d slept, he’d answered as if he was bored, as if Christine’s rage were completely without reason.

  Only a student. She attended one of my lectures, in Vermont I think it was. No, there were no more after her.

  There’d been no climactic fight, no thrown dishes. Stephen had quietly removed himself to another apartment, where he continued to stay as far as she knew. Christine had heard nothing from him in all that time. She was still baffled by what had happened, still at a loss for the words she’d use for him once, or if, she saw him again. What was there to say? She loved him dearly—of this she was quite sure. But she knew of no way to express all that had happened between them, about the enormous tear in their relationship that neither had noticed until everything had been all but completely destroyed.

  “You’re early.” Quiet as a snake in grass, Alexander’s v
oice crept up behind her, startling her into the realization that he was there with her.

  Christine froze, unable to respond.

  “I didn’t want you early.” He locked the door behind him. His eyes, his cruel, his handsome eyes devoured Christine. She felt her skin prickle under that gaze.

  “Here I am,” she said. “I’m ready to please you.”

  “I don’t want you now. Come back when I want you.” Alexander came up close to her. His grin was mere inches from Christine’s face. He smelled like wet leaves and metal.

  “I am here for you now, my darling,” said Christine. The words escaped her before she could withhold them. She couldn’t believe the audacity. It left her breathless. She had never been so informal with Alexander.

  “You are not my darling,” said Alexander. His gaze hardened. His mouth curled.

  “You are nothing to me. Say you are nothing to me.”

  There was a blaze in his eyes that had begun to smolder. Alexander’s hands were clenched at his hips, the knuckles white. His head was cocked to one side, like the head of a bird of prey gazing curiously at the insect it was soon to devour.

  Christine could see the man trembling with the effort of self-control. She was paralyzed with fear. What had she done? The man was capable of anything, and she was provoking him. Stop now, an inner voice begged her. So great was Christine’s fear that she would have obeyed it, if Alexander had remained silent. But at that moment, instead of leaving her to stew in her fear, he laughed. A horrible, dry sound. The sound, after the agonizing silence, gave Christine courage.

  “I am your darling,” she said. “And you are my love.”

  Christine moved from her seat closer to Alexander. He was standing and his face showed no mirth, no curiosity. That’s dismay, thought Christine.

  “Get out,” said Alexander. His voice was low and threatening as an earthquake. “I will not punish you today. Get out.”

  “Darling.” Christine was standing before him now. She pillowed her head on his chest and bit her lip, and gazed up at his face. She felt his body tremble. It is like my own body, thought Christine. This is mine. I can control it.

  Seeing that she had caught him off guard, she determined to make the most of her advantage. She put both her hands on his chest and ran them over the hard muscles, letting them trail around the bottom half of his torso. She lingered there for a moment, moving her light, delicate fingers over his taut skin. Then her hands traveled down, stroking his upper thighs, searching for his erection, massaging the area lightly. Christine breathed in slowly, and moaned as she rubbed.

  “My place is right here,” she said.

  Alexander said nothing. He was rigid. He was her clay.

  Slowly, Christine unzipped his trousers, letting his erection spring through the window she had created. Alexander had told her during their first meeting that any contact outside of the bedroom was absolutely forbidden. She planned to test that rule now.

  In the weeks Christine had spent with Alexander, she had never seen his penis. She’d felt its contact over her, its prod and its warmth and the shower he made when he came. Now she marveled at the size that she had always felt but never seen.

  She let out a giggle of delight to let him know how at ease she was. She ran her tongue down the shaft, all the way down to his pubic hairs, then back up. Planting it with little kisses, she parted her soft, moist lips and took him in her mouth, as far back as she could. He touched the back of her throat and Christine couldn’t take any more, but still there was more of him. Christine longed to have all of him in her mouth. She longed to devour him, to exert her control over all of him. He was hers. His game had been a ruse. He was in her control and there was no denial.

  Alexander didn’t make a sound as Christine sucked. He stood like as though struck dead, watching dumbly as his former slave worked him, worked him until his whole body quivered with the tension before the ejaculation.

  But Christine was not going to finish him and have done with it. That was Alexander’s style. Finishing him off, giving him that kind of completion, that would be about pleasure. It would be about tenderness, which was what Adèle had suggested. But tenderness, pleasure, neither of those were Christine's style.

  She left him trembling, sealed her lips with a smack, and looked up at his face. It was contorted, somewhere between bewilderment and pain—a face Christine had never imagined the man could wear. It gave her a thrill seeing him so agitated—seeing the discomfort she had inspired.

  “Come with me, darling. You’ve had a long day.”

  Meekly now, Alexander followed her order. He was tied to her, absolutely within her control. Christine did not question it. She had cast a spell over him while she held him in her position, and now he was cowed. He was the conqueror no longer, at least not now. But Christine intended to make every use of now.

  Alexander let himself be stripped and tied to the four posts of his bed. His eyes blazed but with an ineffectual ire—he had no more control over his body. The proximity of their bodies to one another cast a damp thrill over Christine. She was wet and trembling, and oppressively hot in her clothes. She stripped herself naked. Alexander’s eyes went wide at the sight of her forbidden undergarments, before Christine blindfolded him with her bra. She stuffed his mouth with her panties.

  She knew where he kept his whips. Often she had seen him store them away, when she wasn’t supposed to be looking. It was a shorter whip she gathered now, and its thongs were stiff leather.

  “We don’t have much time,” said Christine. Alexander had regular plans on Friday nights and Christine didn’t want to draw any attention by keeping him longer than she should. “So we’ll keep this short. I want you to tell me who your master is.”

  Alexander’s mouth made vague, uncommunicative movements. Lightly but firmly, the thong’s tails came whipping down on Alexander’s sculpted chest. The man groaned and squirmed. He tried to sit up but came pathetically short. Christine was breathless. The light tap of the whip had thrilled her as if she herself had been the one suffering its sting.

  “Again.”

  Alexander’s mouth worked furiously, trying to expel sound, only to have nothing come out. Christine let the whip lash his chest a second, a third time. His pain was her drought, her sustenance. The more he gave the more she craved and she lashed him again and again, gaining force and confidence with each swing of the whip, letting his muffled screams pierce her like a lover.

  Alexander’s chest was raw and he grunted and howled through his gag when Christine mounted him. She felt the slickness on his chest of blood and sweat and she ran her hands over it as he’d always forbidden her to do. Giddy, she felt behind her until she’d found his penis, even more erect with the added thrill of his pain. She inserted it inside her, as far as she could go, until it hurt.

  Christine relished the pain. It was her control. Without it, she felt herself languish away and die, as her relationship had died. She had tried to be tender, but the thrill of pain had eclipsed her. It had been too hard to resist. She wanted to exert herself entirely, as she was exerting herself now, pumping her own muscles, sinking herself further down onto Alexander, taking control of his power. She felt herself coming. She opened her mouth and made no sound, only the whistle of air and a slight choke as tears leapt from her eyes. Is this all? The tears fell, hot, mixing with Alexander’s sweat and blood. Is this all I’ve become?

  ***

  Place de la Bastille, in front of the opera house, was abuzz with the horns of taxies and the cries of the locals. It was the place where, two hundred years before, the Bastille crumbled beneath the hands of the citizenry, where a people seized power for itself and punished cruelly those who’d so long ruled over them.

  Now, there was no sign of the prison to be seen. There was only a fallen wall. The victory existed in the mind of the people and the square itself was crowded with restaurants and cafes. At one of these, Adèle sat, flustering over a call she’d just received from Christ
ine. Her friend had sounded half crazy on the phone, and that was only when Adèle could understand the voice through the shouting and the bawling.

  She hadn’t asked what happened. She’d already guessed. She’d long guessed that the day would come when Alexander’s unhealthy obsession would cost Christine a little more than a few stripes across her back, and she was afraid that that day was now here.

  Adèle’s first duty was to see that her friend was taken care of. She gave Christine the address of her apartment and told her to meet her there in thirty minutes—there was no sense in trying to talk to Christine in Place de la Bastille. The noise and excitement would frighten her. Christine needed a place where she could calm her nerves, somewhere quiet and friendly where Adèle could gently chip away at the harm Alexander had caused. She hoped that she wasn’t too late.

  Flagging a taxi, Adèle sped along dark side streets and dimly lit alleys, along dumpy apartments and sallow, yellow-lit parks, until she was in the northern half of the city, in Rue Sainte-Hermine, where she lived. Christine sat smoking on a park bench across the street.

  Adèle climbed out of the cab and looked her friend up and down. Christine matched Adèle’s eyes with her own, eyeliner-stained stare.

  “You’re an absolute mess,” Adèle concluded. “We need to clean you up. Although I don’t think my apartment will be quite your style of luxury.”

  The apartment was modest, with a kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. It was small but it was orderly. More importantly, Adèle could be alone with Christine, away from the monster that had taken advantage of her—the monster that had almost destroyed her.

  Adèle sat Christine down on her bed and produced a box of tissues, which she used to dab away the mess around Christine’s eyes. There was a strange but by no means uncomfortable silence in the room—like the silence that follows a fireworks display, or a disaster.