“‘Kid stuff’ to one person can be dangerous to another. I’m not going to push you like that.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I snapped, jabbing a finger toward him. “You push me all the time. Why is it okay to do it in the ways you want, but not the ways I want?”
His voice never raised, his face never stirred. What would it take to get this guy riled up? “Because I’m not sure you’re thinking this through.”
“Once again: bullshit. Have you ever known me to do anything without overthinking it to death?”
He ran a hand through his hair, puffing out a soft laugh. “No, I suppose I haven’t.”
“You’ve always liked finding and pushing my boundaries. I like when you do it.” He looked at me, his eyes a sea of endless blue, and I plunged into it without flinching. “Please?”
Ellison’s hand came up to cup my cheek, heartbreakingly gentle. “Can you honestly say that you’re doing this just to explore your own boundaries? That it’s not about you being afraid you’re not filling my needs?”
My gut reaction was to deny it, of course. But under his assessing gaze, I couldn’t help but look within, tug a little at the threads of my desire and untwist them a little from the knot building up inside me.
“No,” I said after a long pause, my eyes flicking down to the bedspread. “I can’t say that for sure, but I still want to do it. You’re the one who’s always saying it doesn’t matter why we want the things we want, as long as they give us pleasure. Maybe this will give me pleasure. Maybe it can open up the door for other things we can do together—something I can do for you.” I looked back up at him, forcing myself to meet his blinding stare. “I know you don’t need to do this to me…but wouldn’t it be better if you could?”
That finally got to him. Something dark and hungry flickered across his expression, and I thrilled at the sight of it. What was he imagining right now? Me at his feet in chains? Suspended by rope? Or something simpler, maybe just cuffed and spread-eagled on the bed, ready for him to take his pleasure from me?
Every dirty unfulfilled fantasy he had, every sadistic whim, I wanted to satisfy. I wanted to give him everything.
With a shuddering sigh, he pulled me to him in an awkward embrace; both of us were a little wobbly on the springy mattress, but his arms circled me tight, holding me steady against him. He kissed the side of my head, fierce and possessive and strangely protective as he buried his hand in my hair.
“Oh, River. You’re—” He never finished telling me what I was, but I didn’t press it. I could tell from the way his breath hitched and his grip on me tightened that it was positive, and that was all I really needed to know. As long as he felt something, the rest was just details.
He just held me like that for a long time, and I treasured the feeling. I imagined the squeeze of his arms around me as thick rope, tied there by his hands. It pulled at something in my chest, something that was hard to define, but fluttered on the right side of pleasant.
Taking a deep breath, he released me to hold me gently at arms length. “Fine,” he said with a nod that could have been a little more decisive, but I’d take it. “We can try it. When are you thinking you’d like to do this?”
I swallowed, anxiety making my stomach churn. “Now? I—I think the longer I wait, the more nervous I’m going to get about it.”
Ellison frowned, little furrows appearing in his brow. I was starting to learn them, all the different ways they leaned and the order in which they appeared whenever his face pulled into a sour expression. Learning the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled had been so much more pleasant.
Finally, he nodded.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. I want you to.”
“Go get a cushion and kneel by the couch.”
My heart leaped into my throat, and I nodded silently and went to follow his instructions. I’d barely gotten myself settled when he followed me out to the living room, a coil of midnight blue rope in his slender hand. I swallowed a lump at the sight of it, my heartbeat picking up even though he hadn’t even done anything, even though I knew I was perfectly safe. Safe or not, I still knew what was coming, and I had no idea if I was going to like it.
Ellison sat on the couch next to me, setting the rope to the side before he guided my head to rest against his thigh. I was immediately reminded of that night at Eric and Taya’s party, before I knew any of the ways his face crinkled, before I knew any of the secrets he guarded so well. I’d felt so safe when he was little more than a stranger, so treasured and reassured—why did the fear set in now that I knew who he was?
Probably because I didn’t really know who he was. I’d had some glimpses, but when was he going to let me have the big picture?
He stroked my hair as I knelt there, and I closed my eyes and let myself drift as much as I could, carried by the heat of him and the gentle movements of his hand. Careful fingers buried in my hair on every stroke, tugging gently on the strands; every time he tugged I gasped softer and softer, melted into warm honey by the sweetness of him. My breath slowed, my body stilled. I could almost convince myself this was where I was supposed to be.
“Would you like to touch it?” I opened my eyes to see him holding the rope again, close enough that I could reach out and stroke it if I wanted. The strands were dark and slick and luxurious, all pulled together into perfectly smooth, regular twists. The deep color and the way the light caught the curves and dips of its surface reminded me of crushed velvet, varied in texture but no less soft for it.
It probably felt heavenly.
Touching it, though…that would make it too real, too much. As long as I focused on him, this could simply be some vague undefined act I was performing for him. Not bondage, but obedience.
I shook my head, and he didn’t press the matter. He simply set the rope aside again and used both his skilled hands to stroke me back to compliance. It didn’t take much—as always, he held the keys to me, unlocking every secret, hidden desire.
When my body had finally gone loose and liquid, his voice floated to my ears. “Put your hands in front of you, wrists together.”
My heart skipped unevenly in my chest, but I moved to obey him, bringing my wrists together so quickly I could hear skin smack against skin. I focused my eyes on the seam where my forearms met, the dark valley between them where skin kissed skin.
When he dragged a loop of rope across my wrists, my breath sped up, growing shallower and rougher. It was infuriating—I couldn’t pinpoint my fear. There was nothing here to be afraid of—I knew that on every level. My mind offered me nothing, not an absurd scenario where Ellison turned out to be a serial killer all along; or an improbable accident where his hand slipped, binding me so tight my hands turned purple; not even a vision of an armed gunman bursting into the house and mowing us both down while I knelt, totally helpless.
All I had was pure, acid anxiety, bubbling hot in my gut with no direction, no focus, nothing to fixate on. I grasped for my safeword even though I knew I wouldn’t need it. Ellison would stop if I needed him to—I was sure of it.
Stop? Ha. He hadn’t even done anything yet. How much worse was this going to get?
Honestly, I should’ve known better than to wonder that, because a moment later he was looping a single strand of rope around my wrists, catching the ends in his hand to hold it in place. No knots, no coils, just a single loop controlled entirely by his hand as he eased me into my nightmare, slow and sweet.
I shuddered deep inside as I looked at my wrists. The blue of the rope was too dark, too intense—it clashed with my skin, heavy and noisy and out of place. It didn’t belong there, and I fought down the urge to brush it off like a mosquito as my heart thundered in my ears.
I wished I could see his face, but my eyes were locked on the blue-on-skin discord as he wound another loop around me and then another. Three loops, beautifully stacked—if I were myself right now, I would have appreciated the orderly lines, all smooth and par
allel.
Somehow I lost track of what he was doing. My eyes unfocused in that way that made everything seem distant—what was that called? Micro-something. My own wrists were a mile away, bound in cord that neither of us could ever reach.
Micropsia, that was it. I had to bite back a deranged laugh.
And then he was done. I didn’t even have to tug at my wrists to know I was loosely but effectively bound—the barely-there pressure of the rope told me I was in no danger of losing circulation from what he’d done to me. There was a knot right on top where I could see it, one I recognized from my recent comic pages but couldn’t recall the name of that would come undone with nothing but a sharp tug on the right strand. I silently thanked him for that courtesy, for showing me how perfectly safe I was and how quickly he could take care of me.
Ellison stood, and I felt a whimper escape my throat. I hadn’t meant to do it. I clamped my mouth shut, my eyes fixed on the trailing ends of the rope, hanging all the way to the floor.
There was enough there to bind my feet if he wanted.
A sudden touch at my shoulder made me jump, sucking in a sharp breath. I shook my head. It was only Ellison’s hand. I loved his hands on me. But right now his fingers felt like knives against my skin. Everything was too sharp, too bright, too much.
“Are you still with me?” His voice, so careful, was only another kind of knife.
I nodded jerkily.
“Do you need to get out?”
Yes.
“No.” I shook my head and tried to steady my breath, but my lungs were tight balloons filled with lead, strained and stretched so far there was nothing left to give.
Why was this so fucking hard? I was safe. I was cared for. I had nothing in the world to be afraid of, and everything, everything was awful.
Everything hurt.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, and I tried to blink them away. My eyes weren’t working either; I couldn’t pinch them shut. They only stared blankly at the ropes Ellison had slipped on me like a garment, the ropes I should have loved because they were gifted to me by him, by my sir, by my boyfriend, by my love.
Everything fucking hurt.
“God, River.” Ellison’s voice was full of pain too, and a tear rolled down my cheek because I had probably put it there. I couldn’t do anything right for him.
Then he was kneeling at my side, tugging at the knot, and a cold spike went through my heart. “No, stop! I’m—don’t—I’m fine. Stop—” The tears started rolling, my voice breaking into sobs. “Please, stop, I—I can—”
“It’s okay, River.” His voice was too soothing, too soft, and the ropes were coming off. They weren’t supposed to—
“Put them back!”
“Lantern, River! Hear me? Lantern. We’re done; we’re stopping.” The ropes were gone, and he was pulling me to him while I thrashed in his arms, crying hot tears that drenched my face and spilled onto his skin. “Shh,” he murmured, “shh, you’re safe. I’m right here, and I’ve got you. You were so brave for me. So strong.”
It was a lie, of course, and it only made me cry harder. I heaved out these huge wailing sobs into his chest, soaking us both with tears and spit and snot while he petted my hair and whispered soft words at me that didn’t mean anything. He was only trying to get me to stop crying, and I couldn’t even do that for him.
I tried so hard to explain, to tell him that I wasn’t crying because of the rope. Once again, I was crying for all the wrong reasons—I could have kept going if he’d only had faith in me. I could have been stronger for him if he’d let me. He’d gone so easy on me it was almost laughable, and he still hadn’t believed I could take it.
No words came, out though—only sobs, and after those had run dry, gasping breaths that slowly tapered off to silence. Through it all he held me, ever patient, ever careful with all the wrong parts of me.
Everything kind of blurred after that, reduced to snippets glimpsed through the fog. We showered at some point. He gave me juice and some kind of soft cheese and fancy crackers with rosemary or something baked into them. He wrapped me in a blanket and sat behind me, his arms tight around me as he murmured encouraging words against the back of my neck. Hours later, he kissed me before I left, gentle and slow, his hands warm on my skin.
The streetlights flickered across my hands as I drove home, across the wrists he’d been so painstakingly gentle with. The thin, unmarked skin glared bright and angry at me, an invisible badge of my defeat—a silent reminder of all the ways I could never satisfy this man I shouldn’t love.
19
The next morning I woke up dry-mouthed, heavy-headed, and lethargic—all the suffering of a monster hangover, but without the night of fun to make the pain arguably worth it. I wondered briefly if there was such a thing as hangover kink, with Doms pouring tequila shots and their subs begging them for water and chili fries. Then I remembered the primary rule of kink: if you could think of it, chances were someone was into it.
I also woke to a text from Ellison.
> ELLISON: How are you feeling today?
I pinched the bridge of my nose with a heavy sigh. That was a can of worms I had no desire whatsoever to open right now, even though I knew without a doubt that Ellison would open it if he damn well wanted to. It was just what he did: ask endless questions until the answers came out kicking and screaming, forcing personal growth on his unwilling subject.
Still, that didn’t mean I had to cooperate.
> RIVER: Fine.
> ELLISON: If you need me, I’m here.
And that was it. No follow-up questions, no demand for information, no subject change to lead me to the answer from another direction. He just fell silent. For all the times I’d wished for a reprieve from his interrogations, now that I had it, I longed for his prying. As infuriating as it could be, at least it was better than nothing.
But life went on, and bills needed to be paid, so I dragged my sorry ass over to my desk and got to work on the next page of Boundless Fate. I was still in the middle of the rope scene I’d started last week, which was painful in a way that suited me just fine, like poking at a sore tooth. It wasn’t like I could just conveniently fade to black after all that buildup—my readers would have lynched me—so I sat down to wallow in last night’s failure.
The work wasn’t exactly easy, the process dragging more than a few tears out of me in the afternoon, but I got it done well before dinnertime, which left me several hours in which to listlessly mope. TV failed to entertain, so I spent a while brainstorming with a sketchbook. There was something dancing just at the edge of my consciousness, a flicker of inspiration just out of reach, and if I laid down enough graphite, I might manage to pin it to the page.
My fatigue got the better of me, though, my despair-ravaged body succumbing to its emotional wounds. I jerked awake when my pencil tumbled from my fingers to rattle on the floor, and I closed my sketchbook with a sigh. Maybe it was a little early to go to bed, but who was here to judge me? Just some characters on a page, and they were far too busy having their own fun to worry about me.
I brushed my teeth and spent a long time scowling at my phone while I lay in bed, my thumbs hovering over the screen as I chewed on my lip. I had about a billion things I wanted to say to Ellison, but I couldn’t find words for any of them. The only thing that came to mind was declaring my love again, and even now, at my moment of peak misery and self-loathing, I knew better than to do that.
He could crush me so easily with nothing but his silence.
I finally settled on something simple, brainless, and impersonal.
> RIVER: Good night.
> ELLISON: Good night.
Well, I probably deserved that. At least he wasn’t ignoring me.
My dreams featured a vast ocean, and me in the middle of it, swimming frantically for an island. I was so thirsty, so hungry, and I just knew there was fruit and fresh water waiting for me, if I could only get to it. But the harder I swam, the heavier my legs
got, until I was struggling just to stay afloat. The island was so beautiful in the distance, lush and green, and every time I crested the surface of the water to suck in another huge gulp of air, I found myself so mesmerized by its beauty I nearly forgot how to breathe. And so it went on, an endless cycle of beauty and struggle while I slowly starved to death.
I woke up feeling faintly irritated at my subconscious for throwing me such transparent symbolism. I already knew the problems in my life, thanks. I didn’t need any more insightful analysis from the peanut gallery.
There was no “good morning” text from Ellison, but I hadn’t expected there to be. I was the one who usually initiated that, and even though he always replied, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that I’d let my own neediness settle us into that pattern. Today was a day I really could have used some spontaneous affection from him. But that wasn’t what he wanted to give me, was it?
My afternoon plans included going to the art museum with Tea and Mariah; we were carpooling from my place since parking was always a nightmare on weekends, and as I waited for them to show up, I did some more sketching, my pencil aimless and wandering. Something started to take shape in the pages I filled, a pattern of lines and curves so much softer than my usual style, almost playful in a way. I let myself roll with it, immersed myself in the dancing images as they flowed from my hand. Intelligent eyes looked back at me from the page, set in the face of a girl who was wise beyond her years but so very lost.
I knew her.
Creativity sparking, I slipped into weirdly frenzied state, my pencil flying as I let her tell me about herself and her life, more figures appearing on the page and growing before my eyes. I hardly recognized my own work, I was so caught up in letting it create itself.
There’s this notion that so many non-artists have, that all great art comes from pain, and they dream up the fantasy of the tortured artist wasting nobly away in his studio for no purpose but the purity of creation. They’ll try to tell you that if Van Gogh had been treated for his depression, the world would never know the beauty of The Starry Night. That notion is bullshit. Great art comes from experience. Sure, plenty of other things figure in—passion, talent, practice, blind luck—but experience is the source of anything beautiful, and joy is a perfectly valid experience. Maybe we wouldn’t have that exact painting if Van Gogh had been happy, but we’d have others, and we’d have so many more of them because he probably wouldn’t have shot himself in the gut.
Truth By His Hand Page 30
