The Secret Lives of Married Women (21 page)

When I was before him, I spoke without preamble. “Do you remember what you said to me the last time we were at one of these things?”

Fortunately he seemed to have had a few himself. He regarded me with interest. “I have a feeling you’re about to refresh my memory.”

“You told me I was the queen of your hate-fuck fantasies. You said,
Oh, what I’ve dreamed of doing to you.”

He showed not a hint of chagrin. “Did I say that? Well, you can’t blame a guy for dreaming, can you?”

“What if I offered you the chance to do more than dream?”

He tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. “You can’t possibly be propositioning me,” he said. “Can you?”

I drained my glass and handed it to him. “I’m going back to the bar. You’re going to follow me and buy my fourth drink. While I’m having that, you’re going to go down to the front desk and get a room. Then you’ll come back, tell me the room number, slide one of the keys under my cocktail napkin, and go upstairs first. I’ll join you there within ten minutes.

“Once I’m in the room, you’ll call the shots. You’ll have your way with me. You can do everything you’ve dreamed of and then some. That is, unless you don’t have the balls.”

I turned and went back to the bar. I didn’t look behind me; I didn’t look around. I pretended to check my phone for messages. A moment later, I felt him beside me.

He tossed a ten-dollar bill onto the bar. “Give the girl whatever she wants,” he told the bartender. And then he was gone.

Girl.

I sat still and sipped the lovely cold drink, hardly believing this. There was a delicious haze to everything. I felt impossibly sexy. Like a sassy, brassy, bossy lady about to get her cum-uppance.

And then he was beside me again, leaning in, speaking low. “Room 1108,” he said. And he slid the key card beneath my napkin before moving away.

I didn’t touch it. I sat there. I drank. Everything was electric. Was this what Leda’s life was like? Had she had these adventures throughout her youth? There were several men already in the elevator when I stepped in and pressed the button for the eleventh floor. They stared at me. I’d always considered myself reasonably attractive to men, but they had never stared at me, not like this. Something was coming off me like heat, something they felt. No one spoke. They were mute with longing and frustration, there in the close confines of the elevator. And I loved it.

I stood in front of room 1108 for a long moment before pushing my key card into its slot and nudging the door open. He was across the room, in one of two chairs flanking a table by the window. He had come straight from work like everyone but me, and he’d retrieved his briefcase from the coat check. It was at his feet and he had papers on the table, papers in which he was feigning interest.

“May I come in?” I asked.

“Come in and close the door behind you and then stay just where you are,” he said. “And from this point on, you’ll address me as sir.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and waited for further direction.

“Take off your blouse and hang it in the closet to your left.”

I held his gaze as I unfastened every button on my blouse. I hung it up and then, in response to his gesture, took off my bra as well and draped it over the same hanger.

“Now lean against the door, facing me,” he said. “Put your hands above your head, your palms against the wall.”

Alcohol had slowed my comprehension and it took a moment to make sense of these instructions, but once I had, I obeyed.

“Good. Now stay just like that,” he told me, and resumed his perusal of the papers on the table.

I stood there, waiting. Arousal broke over me like a wave and I closed my eyes.

“Look at me,” he said sharply, and I opened them again.

For the next while—how long? Ten minutes, twenty?—he made a show of going through the contents of his briefcase. I had time to take in every detail of the room—the black-and-white photo of the New York City skyline above the headboard, the heavy mauve curtains and the sheer white scrim behind them, the sparkling view through the window, the wide expanse of the bed.

I had time to take in every detail of him. He was handsome. His tie was loosened. His shoes were shined.

By the time he put his papers aside, my scant black panties were soaked through and there was an ache between my legs.

Finally he stood and slowly approached me until we were eye to eye. He had a few inches on me but not many. Looking straight into my gaze, he took off his belt and held it across my mouth.

“Kiss it,” he said.

I kissed it.

“Kiss it like you’d like to kiss me,” he said. “Kiss it like you love it.”

My mouth opened and I tongued the leather, nipped at it like a kitten.

He took it away and cracked it against the wall next to my head. I whimpered in real fear. Then he wrapped it around my neck, sliding the leather end through the buckle so that it was at once a collar and a leash.

“Down on all fours,” he said.

I dropped to the carpet and let him lead me—him walking, me crawling—to the foot of the bed.

“We’re going to play a little game,” he said. “As much as I intend to enjoy my complete power over you this evening, I’m feeling generous enough to grant you a way of expressing a preference. If I give you an order or undertake some action you truly wish to escape, you may impart your protest with a single word. What do you think that word should be?”

I understood what he was doing. It was what Mistress DeVille had described just that morning. He was giving me a safe word.

“I—I haven’t given any thought to that, sir.”

“Of course you haven’t. So think about it now. And be quick about it.”

“What about...
mercy?”

“ ‘Mercy.’ I like the sound of that. I’d like to hear you beg for mercy, and I promise that you will, but no, that won’t be your word. I’ve just thought of a better one, a word you take every opportunity to use as it is—one you never hesitate to invoke with all the passion you’ve reserved for such endeavors up until now. And so it will be a special ironic pleasure to hear it in this context. If you’d like me to reconsider something on my agenda, you’ll say
objection.”

I closed my eyes, strangely humiliated.

“Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

He tugged me to my feet and indicated that I should mount the lower left corner of the bed. “Stay on your hands and knees,” he said, and I positioned myself in this way, facing the headboard but directly in front of him. I was still fully clothed from the waist down, including spike heels. He lifted the hem of my skirt and draped it across the small of my back, baring my ass.

Then I felt his hands at the back of my neck. My makeshift collar slackened and he took it off, then snapped it in the air, so close to my backside that I could feel the little current of air it left in its wake. I yelped in fear.

His hand on me, then. Moving his palm in slow circles against my right ass cheek.

“Has anyone ever beaten this beautiful ass?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“No? That’s a shame and a mistake. Your husband doesn’t keep you in line that way? Not ever?”

“No sir,” I said again.

“Then he’s a fool. Maybe next time he’ll join us and I’ll show him how it’s done. But first I’m going to show you.” He doubled the belt and brought it into my peripheral vision so I could see him gripping it by the buckle and opposite end. “First I’m going to give you a good working over with this belt of mine. What do you say to that?”

“Objection!”

He laughed, moved around the corner of the bed so he was alongside me, and closed a fist around my hair.

“Overruled,” he said, and brought the doubled leather down hard.

No one had ever struck me in my life. It was a shock: the bite of the leather, the searing stripe it left across that vulnerable area where lower ass meets upper thigh. I cried out in pain and surprise.

He spoke low against my ear. “When I strike you, I expect you to thank me.”

“Thank you, sir!” I said through gritted teeth.

So. Not a safe word after all. Which meant I didn’t have one.

He struck me again, and again I cried out. But this time he didn’t have to prompt me. “Thank you, sir!”

And on it went. The belt came down again and again, the blows raining all over my backside and thighs, punctuated by my expressions of gratitude and, yes—as he had promised—my pleas for mercy. And yet even as I whimpered and howled and wept and begged, there was a heat rising in me like the heat of the tequila I’d had earlier, warming me from within, and never in my life had I been more turned on. I could not believe any of this. Couldn’t believe a man was
giving me a whipping,
that I was presenting myself for it, holding still for it, letting myself be punished and humbled.

“You think you’re so tough,” he said. “You’re not so tough now, are you?” The belt cracked down across the back of my legs.

“Ahh! No, sir!”

“You think you’re so
superior.
You’ve always looked at me like I’m not good enough to shine your shoes. Those days are over, though. I guarantee this evening will leave you with an attitude adjustment. Instill a little respect. Teach you some manners.”

Every once in a while, he held the doubled leather in front of my mouth and I kissed it hungrily, as if its violence might be stayed with a show of passion.

“I want you to apologize for the way you’ve treated me in the past,” he said, lashing me for emphasis.

“I’m sorry, sir!”

“I want you to beg for my forgiveness.”

“I beg you to forgive me, sir!”

“Why are you such an ice-queen, Lillian?”

“I don’t know, sir.” My voice cracked, saying this.

“You’re so cold. It’s unbelievable to see you get hot. I never dreamed I’d see the day you’d be moaning and panting like a bitch in heat. This is better than anything I pictured.” He wrapped his hand around my hair and tugged at it while he talked. “When you walk back into that courtroom, you’re going to be different now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The next time you’re crucifying a witness of mine...or a judge sustains your objection to something I’ve said...or you hold a press conference to gloat over an acquittal...in the midst of every victory you ever have again, you’re going to remember this. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Don’t get me wrong. I know you’ll do your job the way you always have, that you’ll fight for your clients—but you’re never going to look at me the same way again. Will you?”

“I—I don’t expect so. Sir.”

“No. I can promise you won’t. Because I own you now. You understand that, right? It doesn’t matter whether or not we ever meet like this again. This night happened and nothing you do or say will ever be able to change that. I’ve beaten your ass and made you cry and listened to you beg. I’ve made you howl, made you crawl, made you
apologize.”

He released my hair and brought his hand between my legs, penetrating me with two of his fingertips. I was very wet.

“And now I’m going to fuck you.”

He paused as if to see whether the word
objection
would be forthcoming. It wasn’t. I had learned that it was useless as a safe word but more to the point, I had no objection whatsoever.

“Kneel up and take off your skirt,” he said, and I did so, unfastening the inner clasp and letting it fall, then returning to my hands and knees while he tugged it—and then my g-string— off me. I still wore my garter belt, thigh-high stockings and spike heels.

He hadn’t removed a stitch of his own clothing but now he unzipped his fly and brought his cock through the opening of his trousers.

I felt just the tip of it penetrate me, no more than an inch deep.

“Imagine passing me in the courthouse halls a month from now,” he continued. “Really think about it. Are you going to be able to look me in the eye?”

“I—I don’t—”

“I can’t wait to find out. I look forward to watching you in action and remembering this and knowing that you’re remembering too. You’ll always be naked in my presence now, no matter what kind of expensive threads you’ve got on. Do you know that?”

“Yes, sir...”

“You’ll always be my bitch. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say it. Tell me you’ll always be my bitch.”

“I’ll always be your bitch, sir.”

He was moving in and out of me ever so slightly, until I was so desperate for deeper penetration that I tried to back up onto his cock. He held me by the hips so I could go nowhere. I whimpered.

And then without warning he drove all the way into me. I cried out with pleasure but then he withdrew again, leaving just the tip inside me as before. I heard myself make a choking sound, as if swallowing a sob.

He repeated these intermittent thrusts a few more times— filling me delectably, pulling almost all the way out—until I was beside myself, barely aware of what I was saying.

Please sir please fuck me please give it to me I need it I beg you I’ll do anything oh please sir oh please...

And suddenly he was pounding me with the intensity of a piston and it was all I could do just to hold still and take it. I lowered my head and grasped at the bedspread with both fists, trying to steady myself against the assault. It hurt but that didn’t seem important and I closed my eyes and gave myself over to him as a stream of exciting words came to me, all those violent porn words, all those bodice-ripper words.
Nailed,
I thought.
Banged. Reamed, rammed, slammed. Riven
and
ravished
and
impaled. Overtaken,
I thought.
Taken over.

I was moaning steadily and through this I was dimly aware that his breathing had changed, that it had gone ragged and he was nearing the edge of his own release. And then there was a long, drawn-out groan as he spent himself.

In the stillness that followed, he stayed inside me. For long moments he stayed there, his hands still on my hips, and then his left palm drifted to caress the welts he’d left all over my backside. At the tenderness of this gesture, tears leaked silently from my eyes, staining the bedspread a darker blue.