He held her with one strong hand and
propelled her toward the closet where he kept their play toys.
While not seriously into the bondage scene, Joe had a desire to
possess Elsa in every way possible and she desired his possession
of her. In public, they were equals in all things but in the
bedroom she was his to do with as he pleased and that was how she
liked it. As the submissive partner in their bedroom games, she
knew she held all of the actual power. It was an incredible
aphrodisiac, knowing she ultimately determined how far this
powerful man could go. If she used the safeword, he had to stop.
There was no greater proof of his love, to her mind.
He slid the door open and removed a
length of rope, which he quickly used to bind her hands and then
her feet, leaving a length of rope between the bound appendages
that left little room for her to maneuver. He picked her up and
dropped her on the bed on her side. She scooted up until she was on
her back, pushing with her tied feet and using her hands splayed
under her ass to balance herself, her legs held tightly together.
Defying him openly. The rule was to lay how he dropped her. A blaze
of electricity went through his eyes before he marshaled himself
under control. She wanted to be punished, he knew, for the things
she had said in the car, and possibly for her eating and weight
issues to begin with. But that wasn't his job, here and now; his
job was to punish her defiance and he couldn't wait to get started.
He stripped his clothes off quickly and returned to the task at
hand.
He selected the riding crop from an
array of whips hung neatly in the back of the closet. A small chest
of drawers held other apparatus and devices they sometimes used but
today, a whipping was all he had in mind. He approached the bed
where she still sat on her ass in flagrant disobedience. Sometimes
she lost her nerve and complied before he got back to the bed. He
went easier on her, those times. Not today. He placed a knee on the
side of the bed and showed her the riding crop. She didn't look
away from his eyes at the whip in his hand but her eyes were full
of her need. With a swift movement, he sat on the edge of the bed
and hauled her over his lap by her arm until her round ass was
situated precisely where he wanted it. The rope connecting her
hands and feet was wedged between her ass cheeks, presenting a
lovely sight for his enjoyment. He put the crop down on the bed and
smacked her ass with his strong hands but she didn't make a sound.
He put a little more power into it but she was still silent. Good
girl.
He picked up the crop and let it fly
at her right ass cheek, already red from the attention of his hand.
He didn't give it everything he had, because he knew he could
seriously injure her, but he made sure she felt it. She screamed
finally, a release of emotions she couldn't gain from simply crying
under the covers, a sound of pure anguish mingled with relief. He
struck her a dozen more times in rapid succession, alternating
between each side, laying tiger stripes across her beautiful ass
until he couldn't wait anymore. He flung her back on the bed on her
stomach, her hands and feet still bound. He loomed behind her,
holding her down with a hand on the small of her back while he
moved the rope with his free hand. He plunged into her, hard,
punishing her and spanking her sore ass while he rode her. She
shrieked into the bed sheets, a sound of pain and pleasure as he
kept driving into her. Every blow to her punished flesh felt like
absolution; every piercing stab in her belly was her penance for
what she had said, for what she became, and for what was to come.
Without warning, the pain crested into the most absolute pleasure
the human body can feel and she rode her orgasms as they peaked
over her again and again. Her muscles clamped around Joe's
pistoning flesh and he could finally hold back no longer; he surged
into her one last time, gripping her bruised ass cheeks tightly in
his hands as he poured himself into her and relished the sounds of
her cries.
He stayed inside of her for a few
moments while he untied her hands and feet. He threw the rope off
the side of the bed and the riding crop followed soon behind. He
carefully lowered her legs to the bed and massaged them, making
sure she wouldn't get cramps. Only then did he finally slide from
between her thighs and grab the blankets from the floor where
they'd landed. He pulled them up over the top of them and held her
tight. The heat from her wounded rear end warmed the front of his
thighs. He rubbed gentle fingers over the welts on her wrists where
the ropes had dug into her flesh. He listened to her gentle
breathing and was reassured. She no longer cried but snuggled back
into him, finally content at last on what had been a truly awful
day.
Chapter Six: Making
Changes
They actually slept for a while,
though it was only barely noon when they got back from the doctor's
office and finished their play. They awoke in the early afternoon,
though neither of them could tell what time or day it was, huddled
as they were underneath the blankets. The woke together, one being
breathing life into the other with gentle kisses and caresses, soft
spoken words exchanged between them like song lyrics to the world's
oldest tune. In deference to her tender rear end, Joe relinquished
control for once and Elsa rose above him before settling into a
rhythm that pleased her. They made slow, sweet love, a direct
counterpoint to the violent passion of before. She lost track of
the number of times she came for him, his clever fingers plucking
at her tender nipples and his perfect lips trailing kisses of fire
along her jaw and neck. She buried her hands in his thick, dark
hair and moved with precise flexation of hips, knowing what he
liked and what she liked. When he came this time, he sat up halfway
and cupped her shoulders in his hands, whispering her name into her
breasts as he shook with the power of it. She wrapped her arms
around him and loved him more than any woman has loved a man, she
thought, in all creation.
Once again sated, they talked in
hushed tones about the future. They didn't speak of her health
problems, only to say after they dealt with the present, they would
decide if they wanted a summer wedding on the beach or a rowdy
wedding in Vegas. They agreed: beach wedding all the way and
admired the sparkle of her ring in the gloom beneath the blankets.
What kind of band should they have at the reception? she wondered.
A blues band, the dirty blues, so she could dirty dance with him in
the sand, he answered. They whispered all their hopes and dreams
into each other's ears and envisioned a future so bright they could
nearly touch it. Children, he breathed into the delicate shell of
her ear, several at least. Several, she echoed, and sealed the
promise with a kiss.
Eventually, hunger drove them from the
bed and into the kitchen. She was draped in their bed sheet like an
Egyptian queen and he wore nothing as the gods had intended,
perfectly glorious in his skin, in her opinion. But once they
reached the kitchen, her new reality intruded and tough decisions
once again reared up to bite her in her riding cropped
ass.
With despair, she surveyed her
well-appointed kitchen and all of its gleaming surfaces. Shortly
after moving in with Joe, who was purchasing his house when they
were dating and who had added her name to the mortgage when he'd
decided to spend his life with her, they had remodeled the kitchen
to fit the needs of a chef and aspiring cookbook author. Since the
remodel, she now had a gorgeous island adorned with a ceiling rack
where her copper bottomed pots and pans hung like gleaming warriors
awaiting their turn at sparring. Her Kitchen-Aid mixer and all the
attachments stood watch on its own section of counter space and her
coffee machine and espresso maker nestled together in another
corner. All of the beautiful cabinets were sleek and modern, with
glass fronts. The backsplash was sea glass and the kitchen sink was
large enough to bathe in. She loved her kitchen but at the moment,
it seemed like the enemy. She sank gently into one of the high bar
stools at the breakfast counter. She knew she was at a crossroads,
one of many to come: she could either wallow in it, or suck it
up.
"Right about now, I'd be ready to make
some crispy on the outside soft on the inside brioche French toast,
with a side of salty bacon and topped with fresh strawberries and
lemon glaze drizzle, along with some real maple syrup heated in a
pan with a dash of fresh vanilla. But I'm not supposed to have that
anymore, am I?"
Joe went to her and pulled her against
his warm, strong chest. "No, baby," his voice rumbled in her ear,
"not every day anyhow. Once in a while, when we get your blood
sugar under control, it won't hurt anything but for right now, we
have some changes to make."
She sighed. "Okay. Tell me what to do.
I'll just have to stop tasting everything in the kitchen at work; I
doubt I'll be allowed to change the menu into a diabetic gustatory
paradise but I can control my kitchen at home and I'll control
myself at work."
"That's my girl. So the first thing we
need to do here is get rid of all the snacks and foods you
shouldn't be eating right now. That will help with
temptation."
"You're a temptation."
"You want to get rid of me, too?" he
asked with mock hurt.
"You're one temptation I'll never give
up," she replied with a grin against the firm skin of his body. He
felt her smile and was encouraged. She was beginning to become the
cheerfully determined woman he admired again. He knew the changes
would be hard on her, and wasn't fooling himself that the worst was
over, but for now, for today at least, the hard part was behind
them.
They spent over two hours going
through every food item in the pantry and refrigerator. The task
was made easier, to Elsa's mind, by the sight of Joe running around
the kitchen naked. Her baking section they left alone, just making
sure the ingredients were stored so that they would stay dry.
Someday she would bake again, using different ingredients that were
diabetic friendly, but for now they agreed she should probably stay
away from baking until her condition was under control. Elsa's mind
raced as they purged the kitchen of foods she could no longer eat;
she was mentally recalculating how to substitute whole grains and
lean proteins in her recipes. She felt optimistic that she could
continue to work on her cookbook but incorporating recipes that
were more suited to her new eating plan. She made a mental note to
call Martha the next day and discuss what Elsa's new plan was and
to change the cookbook accordingly. Martha would pitch the idea to
the publishers; Elsa was confident that there would be no trouble
changing it since they'd given her creative control in the first
place.
When they finished going through the
kitchen, Joe boxed up all the foods and ingredients they'd removed
from the house. They dressed to go to the store and replenish their
food supplies with the things she needed to fulfill her desire to
cook and her need for a healthier diet. In all the excitement over
the revamp of the kitchen, she forgot to eat anything--not that
there was much left for her to eat--and had another episode of
shaking and near fainting at the grocery store. Joe held her
upright, ripping open a box of protein bars in the middle of the
cereal aisle and making her eat it. "You'll have to carry these
around with you all the time," he told her.
"I'm like a Gremlin; don't feed me
after midnight or who knows what will happen," she joked. His smile
was somewhat grim. He worried she would have one of these fits in
the kitchen at work. She could be seriously injured in that
environment if she fainted. Thankfully, their schedules coincided
somewhat so that he always drove her to the restaurant and picked
her up later so he didn't have to worry about her having an episode
while driving.
When they returned home, Elsa made a
big salad and grilled a giant filet of salmon basted in butter and
garlic. Usually, she would have used a brown sugar marinade but was
off sugar for a while. They'd replenished the kitchen with all the
ingredients she needed to follow the diet laid out by Dr. Edwards.
Joe sat at the breakfast island and watched her cook. It was one of
his favorite pastimes. In the kitchen, even under these
circumstances, she was confident and graceful, like a dancer moving
around among her bowls and utensils, or like an artist creating a
masterpiece on a canvas made of food. The only other time she moved
like that was in bed, in his arms.
They ate in the formal dining room by
candlelight, recreating some of the magic of their engagement night
that was so rudely interrupted by her body's faulty chemistry. They
drank water instead of wine but the food was delicious and they
enjoyed talking about everything except her health problems. Joe
talked a little about the gym, asking her opinion of whether or not
a female trainer should be brought in. "Has anyone asked for a
female trainer? I can't imagine any of the women that come there to
exercise are there for the treadmills alone," she laughed. "You and
the other guys are as much of a draw to ToneUp as the actual
workout, probably more."
"Are you saying I'm on display like a
hunk of meat? How sexist."
"Sex something. I'm saying exactly
that you are a hunk. With meat."
"You have a dirty mind, you know
that?"
"It's one of my best qualities. What
do you say we discuss this in detail in the bedroom?"