by CD Reiss
“How long have they been together?”
“Long enough that it’s not my business.” I laughed to myself. “Long enough that they’re bored with each other, from what Charlie says.”
Not as long as me and you, and already they’re bored. What does that say about us?
“You’re a good man.”
She was lying to soothe me. But I was immune to accusations of virtuousness, especially from a woman I’d taken such pains to lie to.
“Don’t mistake me for the man I told you I was.”
“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand all of this. Why you need to dominate women. No, I don’t understand that, or why causing pain is even acceptable. But when push comes to shove, Adam, you’ve always done what was right over what was easy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Especially when it comes to that girl.” I pointed out the window again, and like a magic act, the lights went out, immersing me and Diana in moonlight.
Her silence wasn’t space. It wasn’t her waiting for me to finish. She wasn’t thinking of what to say next. In her silence, she accused me of being a good man, and I wouldn’t stand there and listen to that silent accusation without defending myself.
“She was trained by Charlie, and she came to me for thirty days to lose her virginity. She was nineteen. I want you to remember that when I tell you this story.”
Silence. Dead winter wind from outside. My eyes adjusted to the low light and I could see the oval of her face and the shape of her breasts through the nightgown. How graphic could I make the truth of what happened? Because that was how she was going to hear it. She needed to be shocked out of the idea that she was leaving a good man with kinky habits.
“Two weeks in,” I said, “I decided it was time. I’d fucked everything she had without breaking her virginity. She wanted me to. She begged me to. And I looked at her and thought she was so young. Why did this one thing have to hurt her? Her first time should be sweet. She should know how that feels before she started her life as a submissive. Because once she was fully in our world, there was no going back.” I stood behind a wingback chair. “Sit.”
Diana sat with her ankles together and her hands in her lap. I sat on the couch across from her. That was, of course, a stall tactic, and once she was still and listening in the way only my Diana could listen, I had to continue.
“I had dinner made. Right there in the dining room, I had candles and music. I got her a dress. She seemed nervous, so I did everything to relax her. Made conversation, all that. I kissed her and carried her upstairs. I was gentle when I touched her. She looked confused. But I figured she’d get it. Well, by the time I got my hand between her legs, she was completely dry. Not aroused at all.”
“You’re joking.”
I smiled. Diana was easy. Always wet. Always ready.
“Nope. So I stopped and asked her what she wanted.”
How was I supposed to describe what Serena wanted? Tell it like it was or sugarcoat it? I looked to my wife for the answer, but her expression didn’t speak clearly.
“Took two hours, but she finally told me her fantasy. Her dream of her first time. She wanted to fight it. She wanted it to be forced. She wanted to know it was someone she trusted then wanted to forget about that trust. Her fantasy was that it would be a surprise and the more she resisted, the more it would hurt. She wanted the exact opposite of what I planned.”
“She wanted to be raped?” Diana’s voice was flat, as if she’d made a choice between disgust and emptiness. Or as if she was trying to wipe the shock out of her reaction.
“No,” I corrected, “it was consensual. But yes, it would look like rape. Planned but a surprise. Staged but improvised. She needed to act it out in a way that felt safe. Everything but fear. She didn’t want to be scared. I know it defies logic—”
“It doesn’t.”
It was my turn to be surprised. My Diana never ceased to prove she was perfect, and I wanted her more than ever.
You knew. You always knew there was submission in her.
Maybe I did. But I never expected her to acknowledge understanding it, even in someone else.
I leaned forward because I couldn’t tell the next part in anything more than a whisper.
“On the way west, toward the general store on Breakfront Drive, there’s a bridge over the creek. There’s a narrow opening in the fence you can squeeze through and go under. It’s a shortcut. I told her, if she was walking over to the general, never go that way. Take the long way. It’s dangerous. But after that night when she was dry, I sent her to the store every day with an impossible time limit. If she didn’t make it back in time, she was punished. She had to take the shortcut. I watched her. I knew she was safe from everyone but me.
“Twenty-eight days after she came to Montauk, I did it. We had a word I’d use, a dozen safety measures. She was going to fight as hard as she could and I was going to take her. So I did everything we’d talked about. I want you to imagine the most obscene, violent act. Your every fear.”
I stopped there, because the act itself couldn’t be captured in a few sentences. The dirt. The broken glass. Ripping fabric. Blood. Scratches. Her fist on my face. The sound of my palm on her face as I slapped her, pushed her against the filthy concrete. She was naked, skin marbled with black from being dragged on the ground. She spit at me and I spit back. Called her a whore. Wedged my cock in her tight, virgin hole, head to base in one painful thrust. She cried under me, spit and tears. When she screamed, I stuck my filth-streaked hand in her mouth. Four fingers down, pumping at her, asking if she liked taking it like a slut. Told her how tight she was.
I let go that day. I embraced my violence. Pushed her limits. When she came, I slapped her and her orgasm went on and on.
It took ten minutes to break her, and eleven to break me.
The deal was, I had to leave her there and come around the other side.
I could take care of her after that. I had blankets and broth. I had soothing music and all the words ready. As I crested the rise, I looked back at her lying naked on the concrete. I’d left her there. I was an animal.
I’d wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I wanted to apologize, but there was nothing to be sorry for. She needed me to be strong, and I felt as though I was made of brittle bone.
“I’d been developing feelings for her.” Admitting that to Diana was almost as hard as admitting it to myself. “That was why I tried to make her first time gentle. I hadn’t realized that until I looked back and knew those feelings were dead. I took care of her as I promised, but I was gone. She thanked me and told me it was perfect, but I never wanted to see her again.”
I sat back because the whispering was done. She already didn’t love me with a rabid indifference. Now I had no doubt she hated me with the same vigor.
“That’s the man you think is so good,” I said, satisfied I’d pushed her away forever.
She shook her head slowly, and all I saw was judgment and disappointment. I was immediately sorry I’d told her about Serena, then glad. I’d pushed her away purposefully. At least I could look at the divorce as something I had a hand in. I wasn’t a whimpering victim. No. I was in control of my life again.
Good move, Steinbeck.
“And you met me the following week?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She folded her hands together and tapped the thumbs, far away and deeply inside herself. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened as if she was solving a math problem.
Did I just give her ammunition in the divorce?
I hadn’t considered that.
Maybe it was time I was punished for the way I’d deflowered Serena anyway.
“Go upstairs,” I said calmly. She finally looked at me. “Get in bed. Be at breakfast at seven. You’ll get a stroke for every minute you’re late or early. And next time I punish you, I won’t be as gentle as I was tonight.”
She stood and went to the door, brushing her finger on
the molding. She stopped before walking across the threshold. She wanted to say something, but I didn’t want her to say it. I only wanted to hear that she loved me again, and nothing about the story I’d told earned me love.
“Don’t make me say it twice,” I said.
She left. I heard her footfall up the creaky stairs. Saw her bedroom light on the last icy vestiges of snow in the yard. It flicked out, and the night was dark again. I waited, feeling the depth of my isolation. Once I thought I’d drown in it, I went to bed.
Having told that story for the first time, I saw myself through Diana’s eyes and felt nothing but loathing.
Chapter 49
PAST TENSE
Stefan wanted anything I had. When I got a Mercedes, he got a more expensive one. When Charlie and I started talking about getting a piece of dedicated real estate for “away games,” Stefan magically came up with a property he wanted but couldn’t afford alone.
We’d met over a sub’s body while I was still new in the scene. She was one of his. He never told me her name, so you’d think she didn’t mean anything.
Well, I was young and stupid.
I liked making women come. I never felt as dominant as when a woman melted for me. If I could get them off six times in a night, I got them off six times. If I could squeeze in a seventh, I did. To me, the point of pain was pleasure.
The unnamed sub was in the Cellar, past a door separating public fuckery and a private party. I had an invitation. I met Stefan and some of the others, Dom and sub. Half an hour later, the subs were naked, tied, strapped, bent. Stefan’s cock was in this particular sub’s mouth. She was on her back, her head dropped upside-down, her knees strapped to two poles. She had pearly white lines all over her tits. I’d seen her in the half hour before it began. She’d been excited. She wanted a fantasy fulfilled. A gang bang.
I’d read the rules before I entered the room. There was nothing in there about not making them come.
So I fucked her. I was still figuring out what I liked and didn’t. I hadn’t gotten bored of the anonymity yet. I hadn’t gotten frustrated with how careless it was. I fucked her, and I made her come twice.
The first time, Stefan didn’t notice because he was busy with his own sputtering cock. The second time, he looked at me as if I’d taken a dump on his pillow. She was Stefan’s. He owned her pleasure. Not me. I was only allowed to degrade her. That was what she’d come there for and that was what Stefan agreed to deliver.
Those rules didn’t work for me. I learned that not every peg fit every hole.
So to speak.
Stefan learned… nothing.
“He feels shown up, mate,” Charlie said, running his hands over the bare sheetrock in the new toy store. The one I’d visit years later to pick things up for Diana.
“If he wants a pissing contest, we can actually piss.”
“There’s no need. You both piss in different directions. But from now on, piss away from each other.”
He’d taken the metaphor too far, but I got the point. Stay away from Stefan. I tried. I spent the next few years trying and failing. He went where I went, chasing me like a wronged alpha dog, and I just did all the things I needed to without looking back unless he nipped my tail.
Chapter 50
PRESENT TENSE – DAY TWO
I’d gotten up at five thirty and checked on Diana, making sure she was still sleeping. I didn’t think I could bear to look at her. I left her a laptop with a note. She had to answer some emails and look at some résumés for Zack’s replacement. Not that we could make any offers or execute a contract during the stay, but I knew she’d want to start thinking about it.
I hadn’t slept, and I needed fresh air to wake the fuck up. I laced up my sneakers and went for a run.
It was still dark when I jogged the still-icy streets of Montauk. I took a left out the drive and headed toward the general store. Almost exactly a mile. Back and forth three times was a good run. My nose was cold and my hands were frozen into fists. The sky was getting a lighter shade of grey by my second lap and I had exactly nothing on my mind until my wet shoelace untied.
I crouched to knot it. When I looked up, I realized where I was. By the overpass. A steel-grey stream rushed along the tributary. It was colder than the October evening I didn’t rape Serena but felt as if I had. I couldn’t take my eyes off the spot, and my happy emptiness was filled with familiar questions.
What kind of person does that?
What kind of person enjoys it?
I didn’t hear the truck slow down behind me.
“Working hard, Steinbeck?” Stefan’s voice came from the road. He was leaning out of the driver’s side window. “Or are you giving up?”
“You know what my grandfather used to say?” I finished the tie and stood.
“‘More please, Mistress?’”
“If you’ve got nothing nice to say, you probably need to get laid.”
He tossed me a water bottle. I caught it. Wondered if he poisoned it. Drank anyway. He got out of the truck.
“You don’t like me.” He crossed his arms and leaned on the cab. He had on a green doubleknit sweater and mechanic boots that were a dark wet black on the bottom part of the leather.
“What’s the difference? I don’t have to fuck you.”
“We’re staying on the same property for a month.”
“You stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.” I finished the water and tossed the empty back to him.
He caught it and put it in the cab. “Unless you need to ask my sub if she’s all right. Then you come over. Make it when I’m not around.”
“I’m not apologizing. You’re the one putting on shows.”
“No apology necessary.” He waved as if he wanted me to forget what he’d taken the effort to bring up. “But you care. See? You proved it.”
“I care. Fine. I have to finish my run.”
“I’m going to the city next week. Few days at most. Feel free to look in on Serena for me.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Stefan opened the car door. “She’s a good girl, but she needs to know someone’s looking after her.”
“All right.” I was already looking down the road, ready to finish my run.
“If you fuck her—”
My head snapped around to him. “Married. I’m—”
“Whatever. It’s permitted. But I own her orgasms. Don’t force one.”
The discussion was over as far as I was concerned, so I started down the blacktop. He passed me on the way to the general store.
He’d let me fuck his sub but not let her enjoy it. What a shit. I wondered if he was going to instruct Serena to offer herself. As if I’d be tempted. As if presented with an attractive woman, I’d have no choice but to cheat on my wife.
But he was doing nothing wrong. This was the world I was reentering. He was the one following the rules. Constant communication. Openness. Acceptance without judgment. Monogamy optional. I was the one living with abnormal vanilla-with-monogamy-on-top guidelines.
I wanted the old rules back and couldn’t have them. I had never been so confused about what I wanted in my life.
I wanted Diana, and I was willing to do anything to have her, but maybe I’d made a mistake. We weren’t alone. Serena and Stefan were wild cards, and they were too close. Too sealed inside a way of thinking that I used to share. I couldn’t control what they’d do or say. They could poison my wife against me or tempt her with things I didn’t want. They could scare her with their very presence.
I saw things through to the end unless the risks outweighed the benefits. In the case of the Montauk experiment, the risks loomed too great to ignore.
I got back to the house at six thirty, seriously contemplating putting Diana in a car and sending her home. Working the divorce out like adults.
Divorce.
I accepted the possibility at the same time as I rejected it. I’d never sit back and work out a divorce like an adult. I kne
w myself that well. Not while my heart beat for her. Not while she existed in the world.
But maybe there was another plan. If I’d gotten her this far, it was possible I could convince her there was another way to do this. Back home. In New York. Living together again. Falling into old patterns and then…
More of the same.
I got into the shower fully convinced Montauk was right, and equally convinced I’d made a huge blunder.
I made myself scarce the rest of the day, closing the pocket door to the office and staring at my computer screen. I told myself my absence was part of my domination of Diana, but part of me knew better.
I was ashamed of what I’d told her. I didn’t want her to look at me.
Chapter 51
PAST PERFECT
Dinner soured in my stomach. Months to get a reservation at Metropolis for the company’s anniversary dinner, and the whole meal had tasted like bark and bile. I threw the keys on the shelf and my bag in the chair.
Shake it off.
I’d never felt so distant from my wife. So much like a stranger. The patient had gone code blue. Our marriage stretched out on the gurney with the machine emitting one long beep and a flat green line.
Had it.
I’ve had it.
The front door opened before I could even fill a water glass. I thought she’d stay to finish.
“Adam.” Diana closed the door. She had a run in her stocking. It accentuated the shape of her calf.
Somewhere in my heart, paddles rubbed together and a shock brought me back to life.
I checked my watch. “Did you pay the bill? I thought you wanted the cobbler.”
“Kayti has her card. What happened?”
“I left.” I leaned on the counter and drank my water. A nice headache was creeping up on me. I didn’t want to fight. She didn’t have to know I was upset.
“Because?” She slid her bag onto the counter and sidled up to me, taking my glass and placing it on the counter. The subtle bird pattern on her red satin blouse moved when she did, making the flock look as though it had taken flight.
