“Yes,” he said finally.
“One more night,” she said. “And you’ll serve me and only me.”
“That’s what I want.”
“I will cut your heart open, Kingsley. Cut it open like a surgeon. And you might not like what we find inside. What do you have to say to that?”
Kingsley smiled to himself. He was standing in a phone booth in a Paris alleyway, hard as a rock.
“I’d say…my scalpel or yours?”
31
Madame’s car fetched him from outside a florist’s in the Latin Quarter at four the next day. The driver, Henri, gave him the choice of either wearing a blindfold or spending the next few hours in the trunk of the car. Kingsley chose the blindfold. Although he was curious about the château’s location, he wasn’t curious enough to jeopardize his night with Madame. For now, it was best he didn’t know the location. What he didn’t know he couldn’t tell anyone, and he had the feeling the case of Leon wasn’t quite closed yet.
Kingsley spent the next two hours in the backseat of the sedan, hidden behind the window curtains and half asleep on the leather bench seat. The driver didn’t speak to him, and Kingsley didn’t mind the lack of conversation. Likely it was one of Madame’s orders. The silent treatment was a form of psychological torture, and she’d hinted that mind games were her particular favorite.
Kingsley was sound asleep when they arrived. His watch told him it was nearly eight. The sun rested at the very edge of the horizon, drowsing like a cat on a fence. Its late evening rays bathed the grand old house in golden light. The creeping ivy was a vivid emerald green. The flowering shrubs along the walkway to the front door were a riot of blues and pinks and yellows. Summer was at its ripest and richest and wildest. Winter did not live here.
The front door opened before he reached it. Madame came out wearing navy blue trousers, a crisp white shirt and a red scarf around her neck. She looked jaunty as a sailor, and her smile was one of true pleasure at seeing him again.
“Kingsley,” she said, clasping him by his upper arms and kissing each of his cheeks. “Welcome back.”
“You look lovely,” he said.
“You look wild,” she said. “What is this hair?” She ran her fingers through his hair, which now reached almost to his shoulders.
“I grew it out when I was on assignment,” he said. “Do you like it? Hate it?”
She gave him an appraising look, her hand tucked in a fist under her chin and her eyes narrowed. He hadn’t known how to dress for the occasion. There was nothing in the fashion magazines about appropriate attire for a civilized evening of sexual and psychological torture. He’d opted for his usual off-duty uniform of faded jeans, black boots, and light jacket over a t-shirt. If she didn’t like it, she could always undress him.
“Quite dashing, if rather disheveled,” she said. “You look like a pirate.”
“Better than looking like a soldier.”
“You know why soldiers are supposed to have short hair, yes?”
“Why is that?” he asked.
“So the enemy can’t do this.” She grabbed a wavy lock of his dark hair and tugged it hard enough he had to take a quick step forward or she might have yanked it out.
The pain was bliss.
“You see?” she said. “Short hair for a reason.”
“I’m not doing much soldiering these days,” he said. “And you’re flirting.”
“I’m old enough to be your mother,” Madame said. “Would you flirt with a twenty-four-year-old at my age?”
“Absolutely,” Kingsley said, grinning.
“Wicked boy. Come inside. Your wine is waiting. Very impatiently, I might add.”
Madame waved her hand toward the door and they walked side by side into the house.
As soon as they stepped into the marble foyer, he heard a squeal. Polly stood at the top of the stairs in a floral summer dress that clung to her marvelous curves.
“Kingsley,” she said, skipping down the stairs, all legs and bouncing cleavage. She caught him in an embrace. He had missed this house.
“Polly, behave,” Madame said. “You’re making a fuss.”
“I like fusses,” Kingsley said, kissing Polly on the lips, a friendly peck she returned with pleasure.
“I don’t,” Madame said. “Say goodnight, Polly.”
“Goodnight, Polly,” Kingsley said.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Madame said.
“Goodnight, Polly,” Polly said, squeezing his hand. “If you’re still alive tomorrow morning, we’ll have breakfast.”
“If?” Kingsley said, but Polly had already disappeared.
Madame looked at him without smiling.
“The games have already begun,” he said.
“They began six months ago,” Madame said. “Come, come. Tout de suite.”
The second her back was turned, Kingsley tucked into his pocket the note Polly had secretly passed him when she’d hugged him.
Madame led him to the sitting room they’d talked in his first night at the house back in January. Now July, there was no fire in the grate, only red flowers bursting out of tin milk buckets. The entire sitting room was full of flowers. They sat in glass jars on the tables, glass vases on the window ledges, and in porcelain milk jugs on the fireplace mantel.
“Have a seat,” Madame said, shutting the door behind her.
“Chair or floor?” he asked.
“You decide,” she said. “You’ll be submitting to me all night. It can start now or later. I’m in no rush. Perhaps you are.”
“No rush,” he said. He chose the chair nearest the fireplace, the one opposite Madame’s. She handed him a glass of wine that she’d apparently poured earlier and set out to breathe.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she took her own glass and sat across from him.
“Better,” he said. “A little.”
“Already?”
He nodded. “I barely know you. And you barely know me. But I feel at home here. Is that presumptuous?”
“Only natural,” she said. “If I were in Mexico or Greece on holiday and found myself sitting at a cafe next to a French family, I’d feel like I’d found old friends, too.”
“You’re very understanding,” he said.
“Empathy is the bedrock of civilization,” she said. “Lack of it is the foundation of chaos. This home of mine is a civilized place.”
“And yet you’re going to beat me tonight.”
“At your request and with your permission.”
“Touché,” he said, and lifted his glass in a toast.
The wine was rich and fruity, a vibrant taste that set his palate singing. The sun disappeared and night filled the window. For the first time since being summoned back to France, he was happy.
“Is Colette here?” he asked.
“Ah, your bride. You miss her?”
“I’d like to see her again. Is that rude?”
“When you come to serve one woman, it’s perhaps for the best not to inquire about another.”
“I apologize,” he said. “I was just curious.”
“Colette is here,” she said. “And well. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”
“Can I ask another question?” Kingsley said.
“You ask many questions. Enough to be punished for asking so many.”
“I’ll ask another, then. If I’m going to be punished, I want to earn it.”
“Earn it then,” she said.
“Why did you let me come back?”
“We have much in common, I think,” she said. “I suppose I see a little of myself in you.”
“You still love your husband.”
“And you still love your monster,” she said.
“I wish I didn’t,” he said.
“And that’s why I say we have much in common. And…perhaps I let you back because you’re so lovely to look at. I like looking at lovely things.”
He reached out to stroke the petals of a
scarlet red lily. “I can tell.”
“And,” she continued with a lilt to her voice to match her lilting smile, “perhaps as much as you need a night with a sadist, I need a night with a masochist. The games I play can be a little rough for the men of the house. For the sake of peace and civility, I tend to spare them.”
“You don’t have to spare me,” Kingsley said. “I can take a lot of pain.”
“Kingsley, Kingsley,” she sighed. “I’m so glad you called me. So very glad.”
He warmed at the sensual tone in her voice. She was a very beautiful strange lady and he couldn’t help but feel he’d wandered into a dark fairy tale. But what was she, this Madame? The wicked witch? A princess in disguise? Or something else altogether…
“I’m glad, too,” he said. “Although I’m not sure I can believe someone as little as you can do a lot of damage to me.”
“That’s a failure of your imagination, then.”
“Maybe I just want you to prove me wrong.”
Madame stood and set her wine glass on the mantel. She walked to him in his chair and stood in front of it. Gently she stroked a long lock of his hair, and then gently she wrapped her hand around his neck. Gently she pushed her thumb against his Adam’s apple.
And then it wasn’t so gentle anymore.
Kingsley tensed immediately and fought off the instinctive animal panic that hit him the second she pushed against his throat. She pushed harder and he fought the panic harder. She pushed harder still and then the panic was gone, replaced by dizzying desire.
“You’re letting me choke you,” she said. “You see, it’s not what I can do to you. It’s what you’ll allow me to do to you. If your willingness to suffer is infinite, then my capacity to hurt you is bottomless. Do you understand?”
Kingsley nodded, her hand still on his throat. He could have pushed her away easily, without batting an eyelash. He didn’t.
“Come with me,” she said, staring down into his eyes. “Let’s go and find out what else you’ll let me do to you…”
32
Kingsley followed Madame up the curving stairway to the second floor where she led him down a long hall. There were three doors. One to his left, one at the very end of the hallway, and one to his right.
“My bedroom,” she said, pointing at the door on the left. “Bathroom.” She pointed at the middle door. “My private room.” She pointed at the right door. “I want you to go into the bathroom, take a hot shower, and then come into my private room after. Take your time under the hot water. Ten minutes at least. You can leave your clothes in the bathroom. You won’t be needing them the rest of the night.”
And with that she slipped into her private room and shut the door behind her before he could see anything inside. He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the light. He’d been waiting for this chance and now he took it. From his jacket pocket he pulled the note Polly had slipped him. He unfolded it and read it, his heart racing.
You need to see Colette, but Madame might not let you. She’s in the room you spent your wedding night in.
Ah, a billet-doux. How sweet and very like a smitten teenager. His Colette wanted to see him. He wanted to see her, too, though he wouldn’t risk antagonizing Madame by slipping off now. After six months what could be that pressing? Surely Madame slept sometimes.
In the meantime, he had a date with a sadist, one that was long overdue. He flushed the note down the toilet to protect Colette and Polly and stepped into the shower. He let the scalding water run over his body until he felt every muscle and every nerve go lax.
When more than ten minutes had passed, he toweled off and went naked into Madame’s private room. So stunned he was by the sight that greeted him, he nearly forgot to close the door behind him.
The room was a civilized, genteel version of that dank hellhole in the basement. It looked one part torture chamber, one part cabinet of curiosities, and two parts gentlemen’s smoking room. The hardwood floor was covered with a large silk rug of red and blue and gold. Sitting on it, parallel to the windows, was a low twin bed covered in white sheets. Over the bed hung a polished brass chandelier—a hanging wooden wheel that held two-dozen burning white candles. Kingsley saw one scalding drop of molten wax fall from the chandelier to the narrow bed. By the light of the candles, he glanced around and took in all that he saw hanging on the walls. Ropes and whips and floggers and canes and every other instrument of pain he’d ever seen or heard of. There were antique apothecary cabinets, too, with dozens of little drawers holding secret things he could only imagine. And Madame wandering barefoot around the room in a pale blue nightgown and matching peignoir, peeking into drawers, gathering supplies into a basket like a witch gathering ingredients for her potions.
She glanced his way only once and said, “On the table, please, face down.”
He laughed to himself.
“What’s funny?” Madame asked.
“Nothing.”
“You laughed.”
“You said ‘please.’ That’s all. He never said please when he was going to hurt me. I did all the pleasing and the thanking.”
“Did he make you beg?”
“God, yes,” he said, and laughed. “Tied me to the cot once and touched every part of me but my cock. Kissed and touched me and made me beg to come. In my memory, I was tied to that cot for ten hours. More like…forty-five minutes. But it felt like a full day. God, such a bastard. Not nearly as polite as you.”
“Polite? Moi?” She seemed amused by that.
“You had me shower to relax me before a beating. That bastard once made me strip naked in twenty-degree weather in a fishing hut on a frozen lake. You let me fold my clothes and leave them in the bathroom. He’d throw them on the ground and walk on them.”
“Sadly, far too many of our kind have never learned basic manners,” Madame said.
“He had manners. He just didn’t use them with me. I was beneath him.”
“Good manners are beneath no one. Remember that.”
Kingsley smiled. He had to wonder if all sadists were this imperious. He hoped so.
He carefully laid on the table, his head turned to the windows and his arms at his side. “Polly did tell me you like things…genteel.”
“Civilized, that’s all,” she said. “That’s what always appealed to me about this world of ours. The rules. The decorum. The rest of the world can mindlessly copulate if they want. I respect my partners. They deserve to have their bodies treated with dignity and ceremony.”
“There’s a lot to be said for mindlessly copulating.”
“If that satisfied you, you wouldn’t be here begging for something more.”
“No, you’re right. It’s fun, but it’s never enough.”
“For someone like you… No, I imagine it never would be.”
“Is there something I’m supposed to say if I want you to stop?” he asked.
“Say ‘stop,’ ” she said. “But there’s no guarantee I will.”
She had a smile in her voice when she said that. Kingsley had missed being threatened.
“You’re nicer than he was, but you’re just as bad,” Kingsley said. A high compliment.
“Worse, I’m sure,” she said. “He was a young man. He didn’t know any better. But I do. Yet I do it anyway…”
She stood at the head of the narrow bed and stroked his hair. Kingsley closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the simple nonsexual touch.
“Thank you, Kingsley,” Madame said.
“For what?”
“For entrusting me with your body.” Madame moved his right arm to the top of the bed, wrapped a rope around it, and secured it to the bed leg.
“It’s what I want,” he said as Madame tied his left arm over his head and then to the bed as well.
“The correct answer is, ‘You’re welcome, Madame.’ ”
Kingsley nodded. “You’re welcome, Madame.”
Madame moved to the end of the bed and tied his left ankle down. �
�See? Etiquette.”
“Should I thank you?” he asked as she worked on his right ankle.
“You can thank me now,” she said. “You certainly won’t thank me during.”
With both hands, she caressed him from his ankles up this thighs and all the way over his back and shoulders. “Don’t be afraid to scream,” she said. “The walls are soundproofed.”
So much for comforting.
A drop of hot wax fell from the chandelier again and landed on the small of his back. It was so hot that at first it felt cold. Small as it was, the molten drop sent a jolt of pain through his whole body. Even his toes curled.
This would be a long night.
Madame stood at his head and placed one hand on his face. She stroked the arch of his cheekbone gently with her thumb. “We’re going to try something,” she said. “Perhaps it’s impossible. Perhaps not.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“If I could make you forget him, I would, but I’m too old and therefore too wise to know that’s not possible. But perhaps I can make you want something—or someone—more than him if only for a minute or two. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t think it’ll work, but if it does, I’ll be yours forever.”
“That’s what I’m hoping. I do enjoy a challenge, after all. Especially when the prize is so…dear.” She bent over and pressed a soft kiss on his lips, a kiss that excited him nearly as much as his night with Colette. “Wish me luck.”
“Bonne chance, Madame.” The sentiment was sincere. This is what he came here for, after all—to be free once and for all of the hold that boy in the forest had on him.
Or die trying.
She smiled one last time at him.
And then she proceeded to break him apart.
She started with a strap. A leather strap, narrow and with a handle. Without preliminaries, she brought it down on his back. It was a quick hard strike that set a strip of his back burning like wildfire. She struck him again, and then again an inch or two lower. All along the right side of his back from his armpit to his hip, she set him on fire. It didn’t take long before he was panting hard and twisting away from the source of his suffering.
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