Mercy

by Annabel Joseph

  When our breathing slowed, he stood and left me. I thought he was going to punish me then, which I fully expected. When he came back to the bed, I braced for clips, restraints, and pain, but he rolled me over and put his hand on my back.

  “Lie still.”

  He began to rub my bottom, my painful striped cheeks. The small amount of blood that Davis had drawn had long ago scabbed over, but it still smarted, it still ached. Slowly, gently, Matthew applied salve to it, rubbed soothing cool salve all over my ass. Who knew he even had salve in the house? He’d never so much as offered it to me. I started to cry just because he was being tender. He hated it when I was emotional like that, but he didn’t reprimand me. What he actually said to me was, “I’m sorry.”

  He said it so quietly I almost didn’t believe my ears. But then he said it again, louder, “I’m sorry,” and my tears flowed hopelessly then. “Not sorry about Davis,” he qualified. “You agreed to let me use you in that room however I liked. No, I’m sorry because I broke a promise to you, a promise I made to never draw blood.”

  “But you didn’t draw it, Matthew.” I was so sick for him, I would excuse him, even now.

  “No, I didn’t, and I wouldn’t. But when I handed someone like him a cane, I might as well have.” He put his hand on my back and rubbed me all over, lazy and slow. “Anyway, I’m sorry, Lucy. I hope it doesn’t leave a scar.”

  I hadn’t even thought of scars. Was that the point, no scars left behind? No souvenirs to remember him by?

  “I’ll have to punish you tomorrow,” he said as he rubbed the knots from my neck. I moaned softly, maybe from fear, maybe from pleasure. Who knows, at that point?

  “I’m sorry, Matthew,” I whispered through one last gush of tears, and I meant it. I didn’t say it to try to get out of being punished, because I knew I wouldn’t. “I’m so sorry I said those things to you. I didn’t mean them.”

  “I know it, Lucy. I know.” His hands were so strong, so firm and so warm. He massaged and stroked me from my shoulders to my thighs. He didn’t do it to soothe me or stop my tears, I knew. He did it because he liked to feel my curves, liked to hold them under his hands. These shoulders, this waist, the flare of hips, it’s mine. Even so, I loved every moment of it, and basked in the sensation as long as it went on. I stretched a little the way he liked, flexed my dancer’s muscles beneath his fingertips.

  “You know,” he said as I did this, “my rules, my requirements, they aren’t always easy. But they’re important. They’re there for a reason.”

  What reason? I wanted to cry out. Why won’t you love me? Why do you hold these rules between us?

  But what I said instead was, “I wish I could be more perfect for you.”

  “Oh, Lucy,” he said after a moment. “You’re more perfect than anything I have.”

  * * *

  The next morning he dragged me out of bed before dawn and hauled me down to the basement without a word. He bent me over one of the ottomans and cuffed my hands in perfunctory silence. I put my head down on the cushion, resigned. Yes, I’d behaved terribly and I deserved severe punishment. Davis was there too, looking tired and annoyed. Must suck, to be dragged out of bed only to witness me get my ass beaten. Well, maybe he’d be invited to fuck me again now that Matthew realized how much I hated it.

  Matthew lectured me first about tantrums and rules, then dropped his many spanking implements in front of my face, then gave me a lengthy and businesslike disciplinary beating that came very close to being more than I could take. Ten with the paddle for disrespect, ten with the crop for raising my voice, ten with the strap for covering myself from him and crying like a baby, ten with the cane for just generally being a stupid fuck, as he so colorfully put it. I screamed and I begged and I cried up until the end, but his only response was to kneel down behind me and lube up my ass. He fucked me then, steady and hard, not brutally, but not gently, no. As always during punishments, I was not allowed to come. Then he invited Davis to fuck me in the ass as well, and he did. Thankfully, he did not again invite him to wield the cane.

  When Davis was done fucking my then tender ass, Matthew pulled me up from my knees, shaking and weak. He had me thank him for disciplining me, and thank Davis for fucking me.

  Then he lightly kissed my wet, tearstained cheeks and sent me upstairs to his bedroom.

  I came down afterward for the obligatory uncomfortable breakfast, now cleaned up, dressed, and all made up. Human again, not a toy for beating and sex. My ass was so painful, sitting down was its own punishment. I fidgeted helplessly even though Matthew snapped at me to stop. Mrs.

  Kemp bustled back and forth without so much as a glance. Davis ate with us too, which was excruciatingly weird and awkward. Near the end of breakfast, Matthew told me to tell Davis goodbye, that he would not be back with us again.

  * * *

  The incident with Davis actually turned out to be a good thing because it opened my eyes, snapped me back to reality. It was Matthew’s way of telling me that what I was doing was not okay, that it was absolutely not okay to fall in love with him. Letting Davis abuse and fuck me was an explicit way to tell me that I needed to fucking get my head straight. Of course, I thought, of course Matthew had known exactly how I felt, exactly what false hopes I harbored. What a dork he must have thought me, to believe I loved him, to think he might one day love me back.

  To think we might one day marry and have babies, be a happy family during the day, and spend each night behind a locked basement door. By inviting another man into our insular world, he got his point across with clarity and élan. Don’t fall in love with me, Lucy, or I will hurt you. Don’t fall in love with me or I’ll show you that love hurts.

  So, yes, as much as the Davis incident hurt me, in the end, it helped me infinitely more. I returned to our next session with a new attitude, new conviction. New promises to myself that I was determined to keep. I would no longer let myself crush on Matthew. I would not harbor silly, girlish fantasies. I would not imagine him confessing his true and undying love for me. I would not picture him pining after me when I was gone.

  After that, things got much easier. A new silent and burly driver was hired to shuttle me back and forth but he never joined Matthew and I downstairs. Putting pointless hopes of love and affection from my mind, I focused only on pleasure and pain. I developed into a perfect little sex slave, with my lust-laden mind trained only on pleasing him. Matthew commented on it often, praising me for the progress I made. I even stopped gagging when I sucked him and he had to find other reasons to punish me, which he effortlessly did.

  In turn, Matthew began to beat me less cruelly, or maybe I just got more used to the pain.

  And he gave me more pleasure, more delicious pleasure than I thought I could bear, and almost always, he let me come.

  Eventually, too, the marathon sessions of depravity altered, commuted into something less frenetic and more refined. He always still hurt me, and he always still fucked me soundly, but he began to spend a lot of time just looking at me too. Sometimes he’d make me stand there for an hour with my hands at my sides, my legs spread, and a toy burning in my ass. All the while that I stood there facing him, he’d sit on the couch and stare with an unfathomable look, a look that would make me want to fidget, although I could not.

  Sometimes he put clips on my nipples and on my clit, and made me lie still in front of him, wet and desperate, but untouched. Other times he would pore over work contracts, take phone calls and send emails while I stood with my ass to him and my hands cuffed at the small of my back. At first I worried that he was getting bored with me, and I tried harder to please him when we played. I moaned louder, wiggled more frantically under his beatings, debased myself even beyond what he asked of me. Of course this only incensed him, and he snapped at me to cut it out.

  Over time I came to realize that he wasn’t planning to get rid of me, and in fact, one Sunday, he requested to see me more. I was so happy about it that I almost wept. He added Sunday ni
ght and part of Monday, so that the only day off that I had to myself was Monday afternoon and night. That was actually really good for me because when I was alone, without rehearsals or shows or Matthew, I was completely lost. I withdrew from my friends and I soldiered through work. I still loved to dance, and I still did it well, but it was only something I did until I saw him again. Grégoire snapped at me more than once after we danced, to come back from wherever the hell my mind was.

  Poor darling Grégoire. Our deep connection suffered, and in turn, our dancing partnership suffered as well. Our ten year friendship began to degrade. He tried to hold onto me, and I to him, but we just grew apart. I couldn’t share with him anything about Matthew because he so thoroughly disapproved, and it made me sad because up to that point, Grégoire had been so much a part of my life.

  Whenever he tried to bring his concerns up to me, I gave him stony silence. “He’s taken over you,” he said to me once. “He’s completely taken over your life. What will you do when he drops you, Lucy?”

  “I don’t know, G,” I had answered, shutting out his words.

  Because that was the truth. I really didn’t know what I’d do.

  * * *

  I had another relationship that suffered, and that was the relationship between me and Pietro.

  He called me to sit for him and I agreed to, and I begged Matthew not to beat me the session before.

  “He won’t like the marks.”

  “The marks are part of who you are now.”

  “I know, but there’s just one more painting. One more of this series. Please, Matthew, please.”

  He sighed. “I’ve been waiting all day to mark you. Two days. Since Thursday night.”

  “Can’t you just hit me softly?”

  What a face he made then. “You tell me.”

  In the end, he didn’t beat me at all, but he used me for sex that made my toes curl. Even so, the marks from Thursday were still visible on Monday when I showed up at Pietro’s studio. To me, they looked rather mild, considering the bruises and welts I normally had, but to Pietro, I guess they were something else altogether, and there was a horribly awkward moment as I tried to explain them to him.

  “It’s totally consensual, Pietro. It really is.”

  “Consensual? You do this consensually with who?”

  “You know him,” I said, a little piqued. “You’re the one who gave him my name.” His eyebrows shot up. “Do not say such a thing. I promise you, I give no one your name who treats you this way.”

  “The man who bought the first two paintings, Pietro. He told me you gave him my name when he asked.”

  He frowned, caught, and his teeth ground together. I felt bad for him, and I quickly spoke again.

  “I don’t mind. It’s okay. We’ve been together since October.”

  “Since October? He does this to you since October? What of that very nice boy you were to marry? James or John...?”

  “Joe. He left me.”

  He began to draw me as I was, standing there looking at him with my hands in fists, embarrassed and defensive.

  “How do you want me to stand?”

  “I want you to stand just as you are.”

  He drew for long moments in silence, and his strokes were angry and quick. Then he said,

  “You like this, really, Lucy? To be beaten this way?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. He makes me feel protected.”

  He snorted, an ugly, derisive sound.

  “If this makes you feel protected, there is something wrong with your brain.”

  “Pietro, it’s really none of your business.”

  “If I want to draw your body that you abuse, then it is.”

  “Fine. Then don’t pay me. If you’re so unhappy with me, you can draw me for free.” He closed his notebook then with an angry snap.

  “Put on your clothes and get out, please. I can’t paint you anymore, not like this.” I stared at him. “Pietro! Why? You can’t even see the marks in this pose!”

  “No, I can’t see them, but when I look at you...” His voice trailed off, and his shoulders slumped. “I used to look at you and see amazing beauty. Now I look at you and see only a stupid and beaten girl. Please get out of my studio. Please leave now. Here, take this with you.” He tossed the drawing he’d done to the floor.

  He turned his back on me and went to wash the charcoal off his hands, wash them off violently as if he washed his hands of me. My face was hot and I felt numb and cold all over. I put on my clothes quickly, not wanting to be naked anymore. I glanced down at the drawing, and it was me, cloaked in shame and sadness. I left it lying right where it was and walked, blind with tears, out the door.

  In all the time I’d spent with Matthew, he had never, ever come close to making me feel shame like this. Coming from Pietro, it devastated me.

  He might as well have settled himself over my shocked face and shoved his cock right down my throat.

  Chapter Nine: Dinner

  I walked home from Pietro’s studio bawling my eyes out. Blocks and blocks along city sidewalks, but no one stopped me to ask if I was all right, which was just as well, because I’m not sure how I could have explained to them. When I got home, I crawled into bed.

  I pulled myself together for work the next afternoon. I didn’t tell Grégoire what had happened, though he worried about me when he saw my swollen eyes. Maybe he thought I’d finally broken things off with Matthew, which would have been a great relief to him. But no, I pulled myself together to see Matthew too, climbed into the back seat of his car that his new driver, Kevin, held open for me outside the stage door.

  If Matthew noticed my red eyes and listless sadness, he made no comment, and if anything, used me harder than he usually did. I needed that pain though, desperately needed it, if only to feel something other than shame. I didn’t tell him either about Pietro, although seeing the paintings up in his room made my eyes blur again with tears.

  It was December by then, a couple weeks before Christmas. Like most dance companies, we’d added extra holiday shows and rehearsals, and my body ached from the strain. I would be twenty nine in early January, and I could feel my ability to dance slowly ebbing away. My hips and knees screamed in protest when I leaped and kicked, and my ankles gave me constant needling pain.

  So, during this time just before Christmas, I started to feel like my life was falling apart. My joints ached, my best friend judged me harshly for my choice to keep seeing Matthew, and an artist who once found me beautiful now found me stupid instead.

  Only Matthew remained unchanged and consistent in his actions towards me. He treated me with the same affectionate scorn, the same rigid horniness as he always had. I fought as hard as ever against the impulse to love him in this time when I felt so needy and bereft, because if I lost him too, I thought that probably would have finished me off.

  In the week leading up to Christmas, though, I was unable to see him. I had extra shows to dance and Matthew had obligations to keep. But on Christmas Eve morning, he called and asked if I could come to dinner with him that night, when the show was over, and I said yes, I could.

  He told me to wear a little black dress and no panties, and he promised to meet me at the stage door at 10:45.

  After the show that night, while everyone else gave each other warm Christmas wishes, shared plans and made arrangements to meet places, I showered and dressed to meet the tyrannical lover who ruled my world. I dried my wavy hair and drew it up into a loose chignon because I knew he loved to look at the back of my neck. I put on my smooth, pale porcelain-doll makeup, and applied the nutmeg lipstick carefully to my full lips. I put on black thigh high stockings with wide lace tops, and as he required, I wore no panties. I slipped into some patent leather mary jane pumps with high block heels, and I hoped desperately that I wouldn’t humiliate myself.

  Dinner with Matthew. We had never actually gone out to dinner together, not once in two
and a half months. We ate at his house when we played, formal meals in his dining room and breakfasts in the kitchen. I’m sure he thought, like me, that dinner out would be too risky, would feel too much to the wistful romantic in me like a date. And he was right, I was really afraid that it would feel like a date to me, that I would fantasize, and he’d know it, and that he’d punish me for it. Maybe that was the whole point of this Christmas Eve exercise, to make me act stupid so he could torture and humiliate me. ’Tis the season, I thought wryly. But it was my eternal goal to do what he wanted, so if that’s what he wanted, that’s exactly what I would do.

  I walked out the stage door and there he stood in the cold air, in a heavy wool coat that made him look ridiculously handsome. He smiled, hugged and kissed me, and I’m sure to any person passing by we seemed like any other couple, a boyfriend and girlfriend, even a husband and wife, from the tender and familiar way we embraced. He led me to his car and held open the door for me, and I climbed in the front seat instead of the back seat I used with the driver. He kissed me again with his hand up my dress, and thrust his fingers inside me, which I accepted with a moan.

  He smiled at me and licked off his fingers, then slammed the door and got in on the other side. He hummed some familiar Christmas carol to himself under his breath. What was wrong with the both of us, I wondered, that on Christmas Eve we were not with family or friends? No, we were both of us with our perverse, sadomasochistic lover, and neither of us thought that it was strange or sad. I had no family left aside from Grégoire, and he had Georges to sit with in front of a holiday fire. And Matthew, I assume he had no family either, because he never mentioned them, and I never asked.

  He drove me to a dark and expensive restaurant, the type of restaurant with no prices on the menu. He ordered wine and food for both of us in French and I resigned quietly that I would eat whatever arrived. Of course, it was delicious, whatever it was. Of course Matthew would know the most wonderful things to eat. We both ate slowly, and for a long time we didn’t talk, which was fine with me.