Soft Limits

by Brianna Hale

  I fumble for the zip, undo it and let the skirt fall. He takes me by the hand, leads me back over to the sofa and sits down. Then he looks up at me, waiting. Sucking on my lower lip, not able to meet his eyes again, I drape myself awkwardly over his lap. My chest and belly are pressed against his thighs and his large hands splay over my behind. He takes his time, settling me in place, running his hands over my skin and squeezing it lightly. I grab a cushion with both arms and press my face into it, hugging it tightly. This is definitely the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. This is definitely the weirdest thing I’ve ever asked for.

  One of his hands lifts away and I flinch, but nothing happens. The waiting, the fact that I’ve submitted to this, is making the strange sensation between my legs pulse stronger than ever. It’s like being horny, but it’s a stronger feeling than I’ve ever had before. It’s dirty. Why don’t you just admit, Miss Literature PhD, that it feels dirty and base, and in a really good way?

  His hand comes down in a sharp smack, and I yelp and clutch the cushion tighter. He spanks me repeatedly in the same spot until it burns white hot before he moves onto the next, and all thoughts are driven from my mind. I’m not laughing now and soon my whole behind is red with pain and my face is wet with tears. He stops every few minutes, stroking my hair and asking me if I’m all right. I keep my face pressed tight against the cushion and mutter an incoherent yes. And he keeps going. I’m in his power, and for the first time in a very long time everything is just easy.

  Eventually he asks me again if I’m all right and I can only shudder, my shoulders shaking beneath his hands. Just like the laughter, now I can’t control my crying. I want to stay where I am, I don’t want him to see me like this, but he pulls me up and my legs over his lap, one arm around my body and the other under my knees, holding me tightly against him. I bury my face in his shirt, not able to look at him, still crying. He’s opened a valve and now I can’t stop the flood.

  “Minette, chérie, it’s all right. Shh.” He murmurs the words, his lips against my hair.

  “Oh, god,” I say thickly, wiping at my face. “I’m such a mess. What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re allowed to cry. No, stay there,” he says, when I try to pull away from him. Resting against his chest feels so good that I stop resisting. He holds me close against him, stroking my hair, wiping the tears from my face. I feel hot and tired, and very limp, but the steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek is so comforting. He speaks soft words to me in French that I don’t understand but are soothing just the same, and my gulping hiccups slowly recede.

  Finally he asks, in hesitant English, like he’s trying not to compel or startle me, “Has anyone ever done that to you before?”

  I shake my head. There’s never been anything in my life like that.

  “I think I was too hard on you,” he says, sounding regretful.

  I catch hold of his shirt, looking up at him. “No, you weren’t. It’s not that you hurt me too much, it’s just that I...” I can’t explain it, though. I feel like he’s shaken something loose inside me that I’ve been holding tightly for too long. Is he going to think I’m crazy like Adam did? I search his face for disgust or disapproval, but he only looks concerned. “What about you, have you ever done that to someone?”

  “Oui. Many times.”

  That’s not a surprise, I suppose. He seemed quite practiced about the whole thing. “Is it supposed to cause uncontrollable crying?”

  He looks rueful. “Some tears, maybe, but women usually...”

  Frederic’s never been reticent to speak about anything before and I’m suddenly curious. “Women usually what?”

  “It’s usually a kind of foreplay. Though I wasn’t going to try and have sex with you. Not unless you asked me to.”

  Try and have sex with me. If I’d asked him, he would have taken me to bed. I don’t know what to do with that, and I don’t know how he can state it so baldly. Suddenly I feel very stuffy and English. Is this how things are in Paris?

  But I did feel horny in a very strange way when I started giving in to what he was doing. And then you cried like a freak, like you used to do in front of Adam. I’m so screwed up. “Is that why you did it? As foreplay?”

  He reaches up and rubs a thumb over my cheekbone, swiping away the last tear. “No. I told you why. It was a punishment because you went back on your word and I don’t like that.”

  Some of my mortification ebbs. Crying because you’re punished, it’s childish but at least it makes sense. I should be outraged that he’s treated me this way, but the part of me that’s enjoying being curled up in his lap, calm and cossetted, tells me, Well, you did go back on your word, Evie. “I didn’t mean to. I want to do a good job with the book and the story was distracting me. If I’d sent it in I would have just started worrying that they thought it was terrible.”

  His eyes run over my face. “I believe you. Stay here, all right? I’ll be back in thirty seconds.”

  He plants a kiss on the top of my head and eases me off his lap. Alone, I look down at myself and see my underwear, the redness at the back of my thighs where he’s spanked me, the leather of his sofa. What the hell? I’m a grown woman. I’m here to work and he’s just reduced me to an infantile mess.

  I hear a tap running in the bathroom. He comes back with a damp face cloth and sits down next to me. When he tries to tug me back into his lap I shake my head. It’s too embarrassing to be treated this way. But he gives me a hard look. “You’re still upset. Come here.”

  His hand is holding mine so firmly. I look at the tearstains on his shirt. I put them there, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Just a bit more cuddling. It feels so nice.

  So I settle myself back how I was, feeling his chest rise and fall against my ribs as he wipes my face with the wet cloth. I close my eyes and I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a very long time. I’ve never really enjoyed being in a man’s arms before. Adam was very lean, so it was bony and uncomfortable resting against him, and he didn’t really do cuddling. Frederic is large and warm, with dark hairs on his strong forearms and a solid frame. He’s got exactly the right sort of broad, muscled chest for weeping tears onto.

  “Has anything stressful happened lately, minette,” he murmurs, “or are you worried about anything?”

  Everything. I’m stressed about everything, past and future. This is the only thing that makes sense right now, lying against you. “What is minette?” I ask, stalling for time.

  “It means kitty, kitten.”

  “Oh. That’s sweet. Yes, I suppose I’ve felt stressed.” I open my eyes and play with the collar of his shirt, twisting the points in my fingers, as it’s easier than looking at him.

  “Is it about this job? You haven’t signed anything yet, you know,” he reminds me. I shake my head. “Do you want to talk about it? You’re not going to make me uncomfortable, chérie, by anything you say. I want you to talk to me.”

  Something twists inside me. Why couldn’t Adam have ever said something like that? I’ve never told anyone what went wrong between us. “I suppose it’s not a surprise that I cried just now,” I say slowly. “If it’s a sex thing, I mean, what you did. I always seem to cry after sex.”

  A small line appears between his eyebrows. “You do? With who?”

  “With my ex. We were together for nearly a year and we broke up a few months ago.” Broke up makes it sound like it was mutual. Apart from the sex, we were happy. Or, at least, I thought we were.

  “Was he cruel to you?”

  “No,” I say hastily. “Nothing like that. He was very nice. It was just sex, and I would usually come, but afterward...” I shake my head. “I don’t know. I would just get really upset.”

  His green eyes study me. “Can you explain it a little more? What did you feel, exactly?”

  I hide my face in my hands, feelin
g sick. All the shame and confusion of the last few months comes welling up inside me. “I, um.” I heave a sigh. “I used to get so angry with him when we were in bed. It’s supposed to be the moment you feel most connected and tender with someone, isn’t it? But I would watch him while he made love to me, feeling so much hatred toward him. Thinking the most awful things about him. I would scratch him. Not in that sexy way that people talk about, because they’re enjoying themselves so much. I would tear at him, on purpose. I drew blood a couple of times. He would get angry with me, I would cry. Other times I would just sort of grit my teeth through the whole thing and then go to the bathroom and cry so he couldn’t see me.” I finish miserably, “I don’t know why.”

  Frederic doesn’t say anything. He just runs his fingers through my hair, looking down at me.

  “I’m not right in the head. I’m screwed up about sex, for no reason at all.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about being not right in the head. Unconventional, perhaps, but there’s nothing wrong with you.” Frederic sounds like none of this has fazed him, which is categorically different to Adam’s confusion and disgust. I’m relieved, but I still don’t understand.

  “There’s something weird going on, isn’t there? People don’t usually bawl because they’ve had sex.”

  “No, they don’t,” he agrees. “You didn’t seem to enjoy going to bed with your boyfriend, so it seems you needed something else.”

  “What?”

  He smiles at my mystified expression. “Can’t you guess? You’re a clever young woman.”

  I shake my head. I’ve only ever been with Adam so I haven’t got anything to compare him to. When people complain about sex it seems to be because they’re not getting enough or they’re not coming. I had both, so what did I have to cry about?

  “No? Well, I have the answer.”

  I stare at him, bewildered. “What is it?”

  “Dinner. Shall we go out, if you’re feeling better?” He squeezes my shoulders lightly, looking so gentle that it’s hard to believe this is the same man who snapped That’s not acceptable, Evie and spanked me over his dining table.

  “Food, at a time like this?” But I let him help me up. I’ve stopped crying and I don’t feel hot and upset anymore. Some food and some cold water does sound good.

  He picks up my skirt, folds it neatly and hands it to me. “Nothing better. Go and wash your face, I’ll wait here.”

  Then he changes his mind and pulls me into a hug. After a second I hold him back, my cheek resting against his chest and my eyes closing. I’m not used to a man making me feel this way—so secure and cherished.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, minette,” he whispers into my hair, holding me tightly. “Stop worrying.”

  As easy as that? Well, I could try perhaps. For him.

  Chapter Six

  Evie

  There’s nothing wrong with you.

  I splash cold water over my face and stare into the mirror, my chin dripping. Can it really be true? In Adam’s eyes, toward the end, I was all wrong. Even the way we broke up was my fault. Yeah, well, I’m sorry, Evie. I was starting to feel all fucked up and she doesn’t make me feel that way. I didn’t mean for it to happen, it’s just one of those things.

  Wincing, I dry my face on a towel. One of those things, like a misdelivered letter or rain on a Saturday. Did he tell her about me? Was I part of their pillow talk? God, you’re so normal, Rachel. Evie’d be bawling about now. Speaking of, I’d better go meet her. Yeah, I’m going to break up with her. This week, I promise. He’d heaped humiliation on top of shame by telling me he’d been too afraid to break up with me because I was so “unstable,” so it wasn’t really cheating that he’d got involved with his best friend’s sister when he hadn’t finished with me. Mona had found me at the bottom of the garden, almost paralyzed from sobbing, but I couldn’t tell her why. Only that Adam and I had broken up. To this day she doesn’t know the real reason.

  When I pull off my underwear I find it’s slick with arousal. What the hell? Frederic said he spanked me to discipline me, but he also said he’s done it at other times as foreplay. I recall how bright his green eyes were as he was counting down from ten. Despite his stern, for-your-own-good attitude I had the distinct impression he was enjoying himself. Did he enjoy it like that? And after I asked for more, was that still part of the punishment, or was that something else?

  I bite my lip and I think about his strong arms, the feel of his hard torso against my ribs, my breasts. He’s very attractive, but more than that, I like the feel of him, the scent of him. My body likes his. I remember how his hands felt, caressing my behind, running a finger under the lace of my underwear. The satisfied rumble of his voice as he said, You’ve made this so easy for me. If I hadn’t started crying would I be in bed with Frederic right now?

  I look back at myself in the mirror, expecting to be flooded with the familiar mortification over my tears. It doesn’t come. In fact, I feel lighter, almost cheerful, despite my puzzlement, like the tears have been a release.

  Maybe I don’t need to be embarrassed, because Frederic’s older, had many lovers and has probably seen all sorts of strange behavior from women. Maybe I’m not even the weirdest. That would be nice.

  Frowning at my reflection, I wonder, why did Adam make me feel so terrible for crying? Why couldn’t he have talked to me like Frederic just did and helped me figure out what was wrong?

  I pull on a fresh pair of underwear and a different skirt and top, and walk back out to the lounge. Frederic’s waiting for me, and he looks up from his phone, smiling. He’s changed his shirt to one without tearstains, I notice, and I look away quickly. Even though he didn’t seem bothered by all the tears I can’t help but wonder what he thinks of me. But what about him? He acted even more bizarrely than I did, putting me over his knee. The way his hands ran over my skin, the way he seemed to relish the act. Is Frederic a bit kinky?

  If he is, he’s showing no sign of it now as he tucks his phone into his pocket. “Are you sure you want to go out? I could get something delivered.”

  Going out will be a distraction from all the strange heat and excitement and confusion that’s still spinning through me. “No, I want to go out. I’m fine, honestly.” Fine. Completely normal. Can barely feel the hot brand of your hand against my ass.

  He takes me to a dark little bistro near the flat, with tiny tables and wine in tumblers. It smells heavenly and I find I’m ravenous. I order something called crêpes au sarrasin avec pétoncles, or buckwheat crepes with scallops, and devour them. Frederic watches me closely as I eat, asking if I have everything that I want and helpfully translating the dessert menu. His manner is respectful, without a hint of flirtation or suggestiveness. I wonder if he’s regretting what he did and is trying to be professional again.

  As we walk back to the flat our conversation dwindles and awkwardness congeals between us. The awful, shameful feeling that I knew with Adam creeps back, and the more attentive Frederic is, the worse I feel. When we’re inside again he politely asks me if I have everything I need and I can’t bear it any longer. I mutter a yes and flee for my bedroom.

  The street lamps are lit and I stand at the window in the dark and watch a skinny tortoiseshell cat wend its way up the street. I thought I’d left all these horrible feelings behind in Oxford but they’ve followed me over the Channel. It’s tempting to storm back out into the lounge and tell Frederic he’s a jerk for muddying our relationship with something sexual, and that I’m getting the next train home. He might not think it’s a big deal, getting involved with someone he’s working with, but I’m not used to it. Another part of me wants to pull off my underwear, go out there and tell him to finish what he started. I remember his rough hands on me, and the embarrassed but horny sensation I felt as I draped myself over his lap, waiting for the sting of his spanks. But even a
s I picture it I know I don’t have the guts to do anything of the sort.

  Over the next few days I throw myself into the book. I like work. Work is cathartic. Work means not having to think about tears and sex.

  The people whom Frederic has suggested I interview are mostly former co-stars, directors and producers and I call them to set up interviews. They’re pleasant enough on the phone, and all thankfully speak good or excellent English, but when I turn up on their doorstep with my notebook and questions they give me doubtful looks, as if they expected someone older. I ignore the looks and get to work, and they answer my questions just the same.

  Most like Frederic, some wholeheartedly so, while others are more ambivalent. He seems to have been a tedious person to work with when he was in his early thirties. When I check the dates against his theater credits I see that he had just finished his first run as the Phantom in New York, where he was adored. I can imagine that went to his head and make a note to ask him about it when I interview him.

  His colleagues conclude, practically to a person, “But he got over himself within a few years, and he really is very good, so.” And they follow this with a Gallic shrug or a flick of their cigarettes, and that is that.

  One or two directors are less forgiving and say quite insulting things about Frederic’s interference with their intentions and his overbearing attitude. They cite a period around the Phantom run, too. When I read the quotes back to Frederic he roars with laughter and insists I put them in the book.

  Some of the women I talk to give me suggestive smiles as I question them, and I guess that he had love affairs with them. Most tell me about their affairs, unasked. They don’t go into details about what he was like as a lover, which I’m grateful for, but they say things like, “He was very demanding. Très...régnant.” And then they smile even wider.

  I look up régnant later. It means prevailing, ruling.

  Finally it’s time for Sabine Montrechet, his mentor as a young man. She’s a glorious, blowsy rose of a woman and greets me enthusiastically at her front door. Leading me through to the lounge filled with sunshine and potted palms, she spreads cake and coffee and tiny glasses of pastis out on the coffee table. We sit and eat and talk, and she’s so happy to speak about Frederic in her heavily accented, throaty voice that I barely have to direct the conversation.