As the distance between himself and the church and Mistress Crimson increased he gradually recovered. It might not have even been the mistress. No, he couldn’t mistake her. He had laid under her bed listening to her husband fuck her, he could never mistake her. But he was tired. The mind played tricks on you, it wasn’t always reliable. He knew that.
‘You knew, didn’t you?’
He looked over at Helena. There were tears on her cheeks and she was gazing at him, waiting for an answer.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I knew.’ That seemed to be the answer she was expecting. He searched through his head for any part of his brain that had heard her words while the rest of him was panicking.
‘I knew. I’ve been too much of a coward to say anything before now and you’ve been too kind, letting me make these mistakes and learn for myself rather than getting angry. You knew that first time I phoned up and cancelled seeing you, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’ What time? What dinner? Why should he be angry at her?
‘I wished you’d stopped me. I know I have no right to say that, but I wished you had. Forget I said that. This is my sin, my responsibility. You’ve tried so hard to be good and kind and give me the space to come back to you, but I’ve seen the change in you. The last-minute cancellations because you can’t bear to see me, the continual lateness when you’ve always been so strict at timekeeping, because it takes you so long to compose yourself before seeing me. And your reluctance to marry me. I don’t blame you for that.’ She sucked her lips together and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I couldn’t help it. I don’t know what came over me. Do you want to know any of the details, or is it best if I don’t talk about it?’
‘I think it is best if you give me the details.’ Dean kept his voice even. Inside he was in turmoil.
‘I was afraid you were going to say that. Everything always has to be so precise with you.’ She swallowed hard and clenched her hand together. ‘OK, where shall I start? We had sex five times in total. I did … I did enjoy it. I didn’t think I was attracted to anyone, but when Luke kissed me I felt things I’d never felt before. I didn’t encourage him. I don’t want you to think I encouraged him. It just happened. He said I had been giving him signals, but I don’t know what signals I gave him. I didn’t intentionally give him any signals.’
Dean pulled the car over and stopped. He was trying to think who Luke was. Someone Helena worked with; he couldn’t picture his face or even his general physique. He couldn’t imagine Helena having sex with anyone. What was the man like who had seduced her? An image of Harvey fucking Helena the way he’d fucked Dean came into his head and he couldn’t shake it away.
Helena kept on talking without pause. ‘I think the feelings took me by surprise, that’s why it happened, because I didn’t know how to deal with the feelings. It was just a surprise.’
‘Your feelings took you by surprise five times?’
Fresh tears sprang from Helena’s eyes.
Dean leant back in his seat. That’d been cruel, why was he being cruel? He thought of the way his mistress analysed and understood everything. There was no jealousy in him; jealousy was what he’d felt when his mistress had appeared on his doorstep with Harvey. There was no anger. What could he possibly have to be angry about? There was a niggling doubt that this Luke might have taken advantage of Helena, and if Helena was in a position where a sexual predator could take advantage of her, that could only be Dean’s fault for not fulfilling her needs and making her feel loved. He was so caught up in his own journey and desires that he hardly thought of her.
‘Can you forgive me?’ She put her hand gently on his arm, then immediately withdrew it. ‘No, sorry, it is too soon to ask.’
There was nothing to forgive. He didn’t feel hurt or betrayed. He understood now. His reaction, verbally lashing out at Helena, was because he felt nothing but relief. He was trying to play the role of the wounded lover because he wasn’t wounded. And he wasn’t Helena’s lover.
‘You have to believe me that nothing like this will happen again. If you want to remain with me I will always be true to you, I promise. Please believe me, Dean. Please say you believe me.’
‘Helena, I don’t blame you for anything.’ Dean sighed. ‘You’ve been brave talking to me about it.’
‘What else do you want to know? Ask me and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. There’ll be no more secrets or things left unsaid between us. If you want it, we can start fresh and make this work.’
‘Helena, I like to be spanked by women.’
She drew back from him. ‘Sorry?’
‘I like to be spanked by women for starters. There’s much more, but I don’t want to tell you as it would shock you. I like to be humiliated and told what to do.’
‘What do you mean you like to be humiliated? What do you want to be told to do?’ She was no longer crying, and her voice was incredulous now rather than fearful.
‘For example, just for example, I might be told to dress up in women’s clothes and I’d enjoy that.’
‘Dean … Are you trying to tell me that you’re gay?’
Dean laughed and met her amazed gaze. ‘No, I’m not gay. That’s the thing; it’s about humiliation because it is something I wouldn’t do if I wasn’t ordered to.’
‘But you want to be ordered to dress up in women’s clothes?’
‘Yes. Sort of. I want to be controlled by a powerful woman, who demonstrates her power by getting me to do things that I don’t want to do.’ The words were too simple, too easy. He couldn’t explain his bond with his mistress to people on the scene; how could he explain it to Helena, a sheltered Christian?
‘But you do want to do them. You said you liked to be humiliated. You’re not making any sense, Dean. We’ll get help from the church. I’ll phone Maggie, you know the things her son liked to do and she prayed hard and counselled him and he was cured through her hard efforts. She’ll know what to do.’
‘Her son liked to wank over films of women touching each other. I think most men would find that normal. And he went to see a prostitute, not something I’d necessarily advocate, but he was 19, and if the prostitute was safe and working for a reputable firm, and he had enough money, he wasn’t harming anyone so I don’t really see what he had to be cured of.’
‘Oh, Dean, listen to yourself! What has happened? Has someone corrupted you? Have you let evil slip into your soul?’
‘I think it’s you who let something slip into you.’ Again so cruel, too cruel, totally unjustified. Helena could have hosted an orgy with the whole of her workforce and she would still have the moral Christian high ground over him.
The air in the car felt like a tangible thing closing in around him. He handed his car keys to Helena, got out of the car, and started walking. It was time to be true.
He got the phone out of his pocket but paused before he dialled. He’d never rung without permission. He looked behind him. Helena was in the distance, sitting in the car. Was she still crying? She seemed so far away.
He dialled the number. It answered on the fifth ring. She didn’t say anything but he sensed she was there, waiting for him.
‘Hello, mistress. I am a cock-loving slut and know I don’t have permission to ring you. Please forgive me, but there is something that I need to tell you.’
Chapter Thirteen - Bondage
I was glad he was engaged. I was glad he’d lied to me, misled me. I’d got too fond of him, too attached to the person I could be when I was around him.
I was shocked when he told me.
And then I wasn’t shocked. I realised that, somewhere in my mind, I’d always known.
I deleted all of his emails; I’d been keeping them to show my master. I’d been keeping them because I liked the way he worshipped me as if I was something other than what I was.
I’d saved some of his texts on my phone.
My Queen if i exist 4 eternity, i do not suppose it wud b sufficient time 4 me 2 repay what u have done 4 me if i
was 2 ignore the feelings u have ignited in me then just the pleasure i have experienced in the arts my education u have started my Queen i am ur slave but u cared 4 me n u r revealing life in its fulness 2 me x
Why had I kept that? There were spelling mistakes and it was obviously sent before I had trained him out of the ugly inelegance of text language when he was declaring his feelings for me.
I paused a moment with my thumb over the button and then I got rid of it. 4 eternity.
I told him that he had to tell me everything.
I told him that if I couldn’t trust him we had nothing.
After all, he hadn’t understood.
But he had phoned me, he had told me. Did that count for anything?
At the time, I thought not. I’d listened to what he said, then put the phone down on him without saying anything. He remained in the slave persona better than I did with my master: he didn’t try to ring me again, there wasn’t a succession of desperate texts, every morning there was a polite email waiting for me in my inbox. Sometimes I read them, sometimes I didn’t. Today I had read it.
I know I have no right to call you my mistress any longer, but you will always be my Queen.
Helena says she still wants to marry me, that we can work through God and become healed. I know that if I choose that option then I will have to let go of everything that you’ve taught me. You’ve opened my mind to a whole new world and it doesn’t feel wrong, it doesn’t feel like I need to be cured. Helena says that God wants us to be together and he is telling her to be strong and stand by me. I pray with her and I hear nothing. Helena says I need to trust in God and listen properly.
I’ve told Helena that I don’t love her. She says that I will learn to love her if I let God back into my heart and listen to him.
I don’t know what to do. I wish I still had your guidance. I feel so alone and I know it is all my fault.
From your humble and undeserving slave which I will always be even if I never see you again.
Despite everything, I still felt something for him. “I don’t know what to do”. I had been his mistress, I had directed his life, told him what to read, what to watch on television, what to eat, made him ask for permission before he could wank. There was responsibility, wasn’t there?
I phoned him.
‘Mistress? This is such a surprise, I didn’t dare believe that I might see you again. I …’
‘You won’t see me again. This is it. This is goodbye.’
‘Oh mistress. Oh mistress.’ There was a heaviness in his breathing, then it evened out. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity you gave me. I’ll feel blessed through my whole life that you chose to spend time with me. I’ll always be your slave.’
I bit down on my lip. ‘These are your final orders, my cute little slave. Don’t marry Helena. Continue playing on the scene. Have fun, discover yourself, discover other people.’
‘May I ask you a question, mistress?’ His voice was slow, faltering.
‘Ask.’
‘Why are you ordering me not to marry Helena?’
‘If what you told me is true …’
‘Oh, it is true, mistress. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you from the start. But when I told you, I told you everything, I promise. I’m so sorry. I realise now how disrespectful it was, and what a betrayal of your grace and kindness. I can’t apologise enough.’
No one can ever apologise enough.
‘It is done now.’ I looked down at my nails that he continually told me he loved so much. ‘You know the answer to your question. It was in the relief that flooded through your body when I made the decision for you. It’s in the happiness and lightness you feel now even though you’ve lost the mistress you claim to adore. Fare well, slave. Remember everything I’ve tried to show you.’
I hung up and deleted his number from my phone. I then blocked his email address from my account. Next I retrieved the copy of Lord of the Rings that he gave me what now seemed, so long, long ago. I packaged it up for him. As a last thought I took a photo of my nails, quickly printed it out, and pushed it between the pages of his book. I wrapped layer after layer of parcel tape around the box, wrote his address in black marker on both sides. I tore his address out of my address book and then burnt it, losing two distant relatives along with him but not caring. Satisfied, I walked to the post office.
At home, my flat seemed empty. But Slave had never been here; in my own private space he’d never existed as more than letters on a screen, a voice transmitted through the telephone.
Would Slave obey me? Finally end it with his fiancée? I believed he would, even though he had lied to me about something so central to his life. I still felt that I could read his heart. And of course he lied. Being a slave was his escape; as far as possible he wanted to prevent his real life from leaking through. But if he did obey me then his escape would become his centre. I was ordering him to leave a good Christian woman, a settled married life, an active church life, future good Christian children who would call him daddy. I was ordering him to choose a life of kneeling before women brandishing whips, of bending over and being fucked by strangers he’d met a few hours earlier on the internet, of ignoring all his needs to meet the ludicrous demands of dominating mistresses. I had told him to choose a world of pain.
I was surely going to hell.
I picked up my phone now and clicked on the name I could never delete from my life.
Maybe my new tactic of pretending I’d forgotten him had affected him, or maybe we were so connected that he knew, but unlike so many other times, today he answered my call.
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. We breathed. We lived.
‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘My answer’s yes. My answer was always yes. I will marry you.’
There was silence.
I couldn’t even hear his breathing.
Finally he spoke in those silky tones that entranced me into complete servitude. ‘My sweet girl.’
‘Do I have permission to come to see you, sir?’
‘Bring your most important possessions with you. You’re moving in with me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
After all the months and tears and sleepless nights endured with trashy television and Joe and Marcus and Slave and the terror of loneliness, it was that simple.
I took the first pair of heels he’d brought me and a pair of new designer stockings I’d spent a stupid amount of money on in anticipation of this day. And I drove home.
The front door opened as I walked up the path. That was when the nerves hit me. I clutched my shoes and stockings against my chest as if they could protect me. Everything had been natural until then, and suddenly I was struck with fear. I didn’t even know of what.
That I wouldn’t know what to say to him?
That he might not desire me any more after months apart?
That the magnitude and importance of our relationship was a figment of my imagination; that in reality we were just two people who happened to fuck now and again?
Were we truly going to get married?
We were truly going to get married.
My lover opened the door wider and stepped forward. My feet ran towards him, I giggled like a schoolgirl and tumbled into his chest. He put his arms around me and I breathed in the longed-for scent of him. He picked me up and shut the door behind us. His body shook with his own laughter. We huddled together like co-conspirators. Then he put his hands on my shoulders, pushed me away from his body, and gazed at me.
‘You’ve lost some weight.’
I shrugged. ‘Only a couple of pounds. I moved from comfort eating to not caring about food.’
He smiled wryly. ‘Not caring about food when you sent me all those cakes?’
‘Maybe I love you more than myself?’ I raised an eyebrow at him.
‘Maybe that isn’t healthy.’
‘I find most things that are healthy are also tedious and boring.’ I tried to move back against his body
but he kept me at arm’s length.
‘Is that all you’ve brought?’ He nodded towards the heels and stockings I was still holding.
‘Yes. They were all I thought I’d need.’
‘If they’re that important, then why aren’t you wearing them? Put them on, girl.’
I lowered my head and looked out of the top of my eyes at him, batting my eyelashes as if it was an Olympic sport. ‘You want me to get undressed, sir?’
‘No.’ His voice firm and too definite.
‘No?’ My head jerked up to stare at him, my mouth fell open. Had the game changed? Wasn’t this how we always played? Was this some new harsh punishment that would completely destroy me?
‘I’ll undress you.’
Before any more thoughts could disturb my mind, my back was being slammed against the wall, his hands were tearing through my clothes, and his mouth was on my neck. It all seemed to happen in an instant: his hands pulling my breasts out of my bra, his teeth biting my nipples, his hands up my skirt – why was I wearing knickers, he hated me wearing knickers? I unzipped his trousers, his hardness against my thigh, the scent of sex filling the air. He surrounded me. It was like drowning. Submersion. Oblivion.
His fingers tugged at my knickers, dragging them down to my knees. His cock pressing against me, forcing its way into me, my body fighting against him, squeezing him out, making him thrust harder.
Him inside me. Him penetrating into my darkness and pain. I screamed. He put his hand over my mouth. I closed my teeth down on the bones of one of his fingers and didn’t let go. I clawed him; his face, his neck, his buttocks, his thighs. He fucked me harder.
A picture fell off the wall, one of his beloved Pre Raphaelite prints. I’d forgotten its name. He pulled his cock out to the tip, paused, and then thrust inside me. I remembered the name of the painting. La Belle Dame sans Merci. He’d called me that before, years ago, at the beginning – whenever, wherever that was.
I released the grip of my teeth on his hand. ‘Am I still your Belle Dame?’ My voice was a growl, originating from a part of me I didn’t know.
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