[ Truyện Tiếng Anh] Mercy

Author : Annabel Joseph

The floor was hard and cold against my shoulders, under my . He couldn’t get a carpet?
At least an area rug?
I guess this is what he paid me for, this difort and chill. My muscles started to ache from lying still and holding the demanding pose. If I didn’t love him so much I would never submit to this, but Ipletely adored him, so here I was. And yes, he paid me quite well for my services and regularly asked me back, which I found both flattering and reassuring.
I looked up at him from under my eyelashes but I doubt he even noticed my gaze. His eyes were fixed, as always, on my supple dancer’s body offered before him. I watched his powerful strokes, vigorous and intense. He was actually quite robust for a man of seventy-five. His name was Pietro and he was an artist. And me? My name was Lucy, and unfortunately I wasn’t quite sure from day to day who or what I really was. I guess if I had to choose I would say I was a dancer first, who just happened to fall into nude modeling on the side. It was high art stuff, not , although I knew plenty of dancers who took the route to make ends meet. Like most dancers, I wasn’t precious about my body. I knew it was nice and I used it when it suited me. But wasn’t really my thing. It seemed so squalid, so I was glad for this gig, being painted by a real artist.
The broad strokes Pietro made scratched loudly in the silence, that abrasive sound of pencil on textured canvas that I knew so well by now. Sometimes it irritated me, but sometimes...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 1

Mercy

Annabel Joseph

Chapter One: Lucy and Mr. Norris

The floor was hard and cold against my shoulders, under my . He couldn’t get a carpet?

At least an area rug?

I guess this is what he paid me for, this discomfort and chill. My muscles started to ache from lying still and holding the demanding pose. If I didn’t love him so much I would never submit to this, but I completely adored him, so here I was. And yes, he paid me quite well for my services and regularly asked me back, which I found both flattering and reassuring.

I looked up at him from under my eyelashes but I doubt he even noticed my gaze. His eyes were fixed, as always, on my supple dancer’s body offered before him. I watched his powerful strokes, vigorous and intense. He was actually quite robust for a man of seventy-five. His name was Pietro and he was an artist. And me? My name was Lucy, and unfortunately I wasn’t quite sure from day to day who or what I really was. I guess if I had to choose I would say I was a dancer first, who just happened to fall into nude modeling on the side. It was high art stuff, not , although I knew plenty of dancers who took the route to make ends meet. Like most dancers, I wasn’t precious about my body. I knew it was nice and I used it when it suited me. But wasn’t really my thing. It seemed so squalid, so I was glad for this gig, being painted by a real artist.

The broad strokes Pietro made scratched loudly in the silence, that abrasive sound of pencil on textured canvas that I knew so well by now. Sometimes it irritated me, but sometimes it relaxed me and I floated off into daydreams listening to it go on. Sometimes, instead, I pictured the lines of my own body as he put them to canvas with his hands. Pietro made large works, sprawling and spare, all shading and lines, although my body and face were definitely there. No abstract, amorphous, unrecognizable figure. It was definitely me and part of me got off on that fact. He thought I was beautiful. He’d told me so when he hired me. “I need your beauty,” he’d rasped to me outside the theater like a desperate man. The very next day, I’d knocked on the door of his studio. He’d guided me inside, coaxed me out of my clothes and said, “Beautiful girl.” Then he turned me so my back was to him and started to sketch my curvy little .

But it wasn’t about sex, not even for a second. Believe me, no sex was ever involved. Even though Pietro undressed me like the most solicitous of lovers every time I came over, we were not lovers. We were nothing more than friends. Not even friends really. He was more like a mentor. Or maybe a grandfather, a nice grandfather who gave me advice. I loved Pietro with my whole heart, loved him like the father I’d never had, and Pietro was always kind to me the many hours we spent together at work.

He scratched at a line with his finger, adjusting the shading with a frown. When I thought that my back would break from the strain of the pose, he smiled at me and sighed.

“It is time for a break, I think.”

“How did you know?”

“The little lines in your forehead, they draw together like this.” He made a funny face, an exaggerated imitation of my discomfort. I laughed, shrugging on the robe he handed me.

I looked at the canvas while we chatted and rested. It was almost done, I guessed. The last two works of me had been standing poses, which was much more relaxing. I could stand for an eternity not moving a muscle, piece of cake. But this pose had me on my back with my arms up over my head, and my legs curled loosely at my side. It was a lovely pose, I could see that on the canvas, but it hurt to hold it for such a long time.

Luckily, Pietro was conscientious about giving me breaks. He only refused to let me up when he was in the throes of “the muse.” When I did take a break I felt guilty, because it always took time for him to get back into that same space he’d been. It always took five minutes or more just to return my arms and legs to that perfect angle he craved. I would let him manipulate me into position, loose and compliant. It was sort of like sex, only Pietro wasn’t my lover.

No, my lover had left me last week. Did I say he was my lover? He was my fiancé, actually.

The operative word being was. He was my fiancé, until he left me at the altar. He was my fiancé until he realized he was in love with someone else. He had never loved me even though he’d said he did, and I hadn’t loved him, and that was the worst thing of all.

But I preferred not to talk about Joe. I’d finally reached a point where I could conjure his face without bursting into tears. And around the time I reached that point, I decided not to conjure his face anymore at all. I was a practical person in matters of the heart. I had never been in love. I realized that now, after the wretchedness of last week, that I had never been in love and probably never would be, because there was something wrong with me. I couldn’t feel things right, or maybe I just didn’t want to.

Not feeling things came in handy in many ways. As a modern dancer, you’re grappled and grasped pretty regularly. You spend hours punishing your body at the barre, at rehearsals, at choreography, at nightly performances. As an art model, you’re manipulated and posed. When you make your life by your body, it’s actually better not to feel too much. To feel only what matters. Stretch. Breathe. Turn. Soar. I felt my body move in space and that was enough.

This would be the third work I’d done for Pietro. The first two had sold as a set to an anonymous buyer for an obscene amount. After they sold, Pietro had given me five thousand dollars and said he felt it wasn’t enough. I tried to refuse it because he already paid me an hourly wage that was more than fair, but he insisted, telling me it would uage his guilt.

“What did you sell them for?” I had pressed.

“A lot. A bidding war. Two buyers.” Then he’d told me the amount and my mouth dropped open. I pocketed his check without another word.

But Pietro was deserving of every success. He worked hard at his art and his vision was original and striking. I wondered as we worked what this one would sell for. To me, it was even more beautiful and provocative than the others. I wondered if he thought the same thing, if it mattered to him. What will this bring me? How much money will I make? I wondered if he looked at me differently now. When he looked at me, what did he see? Beauty, as he claimed, or something else? A , compelling body to sell for money? Lots of money, it seemed. But I was more than happy to be a vessel for his success.

I left Pietro’s at four o’clock to go to the theater. We had no rehearsals on Tuesday, just a nightly performance at eight. I was meeting Grégoire for dinner beforehand. Grégoire, my dance partner, and my best friend.

Grégoire was a couple years older than me, thirty years old to my twenty eight. He had cried on my shoulder the day of his birthday. “Thirty?” he’d mourned. “It’s too awful to be true.” And it was awful, because we were dancers. Our performance life spans were miserably short, especially with the kind of punishing dance we did. I already nursed aches and twinges that worsened by the week. I hoped to make it to thirty five, but even that seemed an unlikely event.

So I held Grégoire in total empathy that night, stroking his soft black hair and crying along with him. Life after dance was something I never thought of, something I hadn’t planned for, at least not yet.

“Lucy!” He waved to me as I neared the stage door. He was leaning against the wall jabbering on the phone. Talking to his boyfriend no doubt, who he claimed to love desperately, but who was rarely around. “He works,” he explained. “He’s not in the arts.” The sugar daddy, who had a real job. Every dancer needed one, just as I’d had, only I hadn’t been able to hold onto mine.

I waved back to him and crossed the cracked pavement. The ground outside the theater was littered with cigarette butts and plastic water bottle caps. Disgusting dancers, I thought to myself.

I went inside to drop off my bag in my dressing room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness from the blinding light outside. I was so sun-struck I almost collided with someone in the corridor. He steadied me and I looked up at him with an embarrassed grin.

“Sorry, I’m blind.”

He answered with a smile and left his hand on my elbow just a little longer than seemed right. And I can’t explain it, but the way he held my arm felt...well...almost inappropriate in some way. When he finally let go I scurried down the hall, fighting the urge to look back.

But it was hard not to, because even in my blindness I noticed he was an extremely attractive man. Even sun blind, he’d made me feel hot and agitated with nothing more than the strange firmness of his touch. Sandy blond hair, a broad face and mouth, and blue eyes that couldn’t possibly have been as light as they looked. It was just the sun, I thought, that made them so singular. It was only the sun that made me feel so unglued.

I pushed into my dressing room and found Elinor there. I dropped my bag, and I normally would have walked right back out. But he might still be back there by the stage door, and for some reason I didn’t feel up to facing him again. Instead I resigned myself to small talk with Ellie. Elinor was a dyed-in-the-wool dancer, artistic and pure. Talking to her...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 2



But he was gone. I burst from the stage door and gestured impatiently for Grégoire to hang up. Grégoire, the blessed antidote to Elinor. Grégoire was as far from precious as they come, especially considering he was a gorgeous, gay euro-boy come over from Paris to the delight of us all. He spoke English like it was his bitch. I wished often that I was a man because I loved him so much.

“How are you, gorgeous?” he asked, ruffling my hair.

“I’m fine.”

“How’s Pietro? You posed today, huh?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. He’s good.”

Grégoire was both fascinated and jealous of my art modeling. When I’d first begun as Pietro’s model, he’d demanded blow by blow accounts of every boring session. Now he seemed to finally be getting over it. “How’s Georges?” I asked.

“He’s out of town for the week. I miss him already. He gave me quite the send off last night.”

I braced, hoping he wouldn’t go into details, but of course he did. I listened, half aroused and half aghast. Georges and Grégoire shared a pretty intense sex life, more intense than anything I’d ever had. I guessed it was a sugar daddy gay thing but yeah, it turned me on. I found my mind returning to the man in the corridor, the man of the insistent elbow grasp, and I wondered what his sex life was like. A garden of delights, like Georges and Grégoire enjoyed, or the bland but satisfying niceness that Joe and I endured? And yes, I had only endured it.

Outwardly, I guess most would have been happy. He to me with such care and attention, it would have made any woman pleased, but I faked ninety-nine percent of my . He to me with such careful attention that it crossed the line from erotic to clinical. Nothing was worse than when he went down on me. I shuddered just thinking of it, how considerate and solicitous he’d been. When I shuddered, Grégoire thought I was cold and pulled me closer.

“Let’s pretend we’re married,” he said.

“Again? We pretend that every day.”

He put his big hand on my and squeezed it. “This time, pretend like you mean it, Lu.” The sway of his matched mine as we walked together. Grégoire was not a swishy gay man, although he could be if he wanted to. He was actually quite proud of his straight act, which he honed and perfected. His lover, Georges, was not completely out of the closet. When he took Grégoire out around town, he was expected to act straight. And of course as a dancer, Grégoire had to be masculine and he was. Actually, people umed we were lovers because he was so absolutely masculine when we danced together. And I suppose in a way we were lovers. There’s really no other way to express that dynamic between devoted partners who really know each other. Who know each other’s center, each other’s lines and planes and joints. Grégoire knew me like a ball player knows his ball, like a musician knows his instrument, like a carpenter knows his tools. He was attuned to every single thing about me and my body, and when he danced with me everyone could tell.

Of course, I had other partners. I danced with many partners in the company who were very good and skilled and knew me very well. But Grégoire was my partner, my best match, and I was his. It was a wonderful relationship, one I felt blessed to have.

* * *

Later that night, I woke up at three A.M. from a nightmare. It was the same nightmare I had several nights a week, the feeling of having a hand clamped over my mouth so I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t scream. I had the same unbearable feeling on waking, the desperate need to cry, to weep. I knew that if I could only cry, things might start to get better. The need for me to cry was so acute that it was painful. I screwed up my face, tried to force those wet droplets from the corners of my eyes. But nothing, no tears came. They never did.

These nightmares had been happening for months, long before my recent breakup with Joe.

That dry tense feeling when the tears wouldn’t come, it drove me to desperation. In the beginning I used to actually scream trying to bring the tears to my eyes, but all my screams brought were the police, yelling and banging on the door to see if I was all right. I ured them that I was fine, that’d I just had a nightmare. Thank you, officers. Sorry. Good night.

If you saw me from the outside, you would never suspect that I was a person who woke up regularly with the excruciating need to scream. That I was a person who couldn’t bring tears to my wide green eyes no matter how hard I willed it. That I was a person who was dead inside.

The truth hurts, but that’s what I was. My body was the only thing that made me alive.

On the outside, I just looked like a normal person. A dancer with a healthy body, muscular and lithe. I had very pale skin, the result of a life inside theaters and studios, hours at the barre.

My hair was red, longish length, and waved into curls when I didn’t have it up. And my dark green eyes, they were nothing spectacular either...not like his, I found myself thinking. No, I looked totally typical and normal from the outside. Not to say I was a depressed, unhappy person either. I don’t know how to describe what I was. I guess I was someone who was waiting to become someone. Which was unfortunate, since I was pushing twenty-nine.

* * *

On Wednesdays my company had a traditional class before rehearsals. I came in the stage door almost hoping to collide with the blue-eyed man again, but he wasn’t there. Why couldn’t I get him out of my mind? We had exchanged one touch, been in each other’s space five seconds at most.

What had he been doing backstage anyway? I knew he wasn’t a dancer. He was too old, and had been wearing business clothes. I didn’t recognize him as any of the administrative suits. He certainly wasn’t the type of man who organized and ran small dance companies. What type of man was he, then? What did he do? Something very powerful, I thought, and I don’t know why I was so certain of that. Had he ever seen me dance? And why should I care? I went into the rehearsal room and threw down my dance bag in frustration. I started to stretch next to Grégoire at the barre. Reach. Bend. Breathe. Point. I flexed my feet, went up on my toes, felt the strength in my muscles along with that faint but ever present twinge of ache. My mind emptied as the rehearsal captain began and I soon lost myself to the push and pull, the straining and agony, the soothe and sweep of modern dance.

Our company was considered avant-garde, although we used classical technique and even sometimes danced en pointe. We used new and buzz-worthy choreographers and non-traditional music, and performed acrobatics that made people marvel, bringing more and more fans to our shows. We were a relatively small company, twenty four dancers, but we were growing and had just moved into a larger theater space earlier in the year.

And my place in this scrappy little company? I suppose I was one of the stars, although when you dance for a small company and don’t make much money, you don’t feel like a star.

Nor did I have much of an ego. I didn’t dance for the ovation. I danced because I had to dance, because it was who I was. But I was able to do the more spectacular tricks of the choreography, which earned me respect and made the roses fall at my feet. It was a good life, and now, since my breakup with Joe, it had become my whole life for better or worse.

These exercises were bone memory, a meditation. I could cycle through them half asleep.

Point. Reach. Turn. Bend. It was so simple and precise. It was comfortable absentia, a mantra for the body that I couldn’t live without. I leaned back into a graceful, languorous stretch. I smiled, catching Grégoire’s eyes over my shoulder. Then my smile froze and I almost fell off balance, because there, over Grégoire’s shoulder, my eyes found him.

It was all I could do not to whip my head around, turn back to take a longer look at him leaning against the wall. He stood casually, his arms crossed over his chest, but his eyes had been fixed on me.

I swallowed hard, tried to keep my mind on my work. A flush rose in my cheeks as I realized I’d flubbed a tendu. Somehow I knew without a doubt that he noticed. In fact, I pictured him smiling that same amused smile he’d given me in the hall. I fixed my eyes on some point across the room and kept them there. I refused to look at him even when I turned to work his way. I was so tired of thinking of this man and now he here he was, in class, the one place I could usually relax. The whole time I fought with myself to put him from my mind, all I could think was that his eyes were really that blue.

When we finished at the barre, I turned to Grégoire.“Who is that?” I asked, nodding over my shoulder.

Grégoire looked in his direction. “That, my dear, is a new patron of our company. Smile nicely for the very rich man.” He gazed over at him with a broad, fake smile. I pinched his arm hard.

“Stop it, G! What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know what he’s doing here. Seeing where all his hard earned dollars go. Watching class. Watching you, right now.”

“Stop looking at him.” I felt like I was back in middle school, in the cafeteria checking out boys.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 3



“He’s still looking at you,” breathed Grégoire.

I looked over at the man finally, and his eyes met mine and held them until I flinched first and looked away.

“What is he, some kind of businessman?”

“Yes.”

“He dresses like one. Is he gay?”

“He’s a very rich and very straight developer,” Grégoire chirped back. “His name is Matthew Norris.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I met him yesterday. We were all drooling over him. He was meeting with Maureen.”

Maureen, the business manager of the company. I glared at Grégoire as he shot another admiring glance Mr. Norris’s way. “I thought you had a boyfriend that you just adored.”

“I do. I can look. He’s looking at you again.”

“So what?” I feigned disinterest but Grégoire saw right through me.

“You’re not attached anymore,” he said with an all-too-knowing grin. “He’s still looking at you.”

To my relief, the rehearsal master called us to attention and continued the class.

* * *

After the show that night I went back to Georges’s place with Grégoire. He’d begged me to come since Georges was out of town, but as soon as we got there, I figured out what he was up to. He immediately booted up his boyfriend’s computer.

We searched using the keywords Matthew Norris, developer, New York, and I was amazed at how many results came up. I browsed over the pages for a while until I started to feel like a stalker, and then left with a show of boredom and went into the other room. But Grégoire kept at it, dug through articles and postings to turn up facts on him. He called out them out to me while I pretended disinterest in front of the TV.

“He’s divorced,” he yelled out. “Years ago. And you wouldn’t believe what he had to pay her to get out of it.”

“Did he cheat on her?”

“It doesn’t say. Hold on, I’ll try to find out.”

I rolled my eyes. Even if he discovered Mr. Norris was a cheating scumbag, he wouldn’t have told me because he clearly wanted me to hook up with him. Even if he discovered he had leprosy, ate babies in satanic rituals, and ran a meth lab, he still wouldn’t have told me on the off chance we’d actually go out.

“Damn, he has a girlfriend,” he sighed a moment later. Then, “Oh, they recently broke up.

Ha!” A triumphant laugh. “He’s available, Lu!”

I didn’t reply but a part of me got excited. He’s available. Did he want me? He was a single man, rich, handsome, a patron of the arts. Grégoire said he’d been watching me during class...

But what did he actually want with me? The way he’d looked at me... He’d looked at me like he already knew me. He’d handled me in the hall like I was already his. That’s why it had felt so strange. It had been a possessive grip when he had no right to possession. He was clearly a man who was used to getting anything he wanted, but just because he donated to the company didn’t mean he could choose a girl from the ranks for his pleasure. For his pleasure. Why on earth did my mind automatically go there? Maybe he only liked my dancing. Maybe he just wanted to be friends.

No, I didn’t get that vibe from him. When he looked at me, when he’d touched me, it wasn’t friendliness I felt. My mind snapped from its train of thought when Grégoire started printing.

“God, G.” I sighed, rolling my eyes. “What are you doing this for?”

“For you, dearest,” he said in my ear, and then dropped a photograph in my lap.

Yes, it was him, larger than life. The blond hair, the blue eyes that haunted my dreams. The broad face, the masculine features, the perfect smile. I shivered and felt strangely afraid. I handed it back to him. “I want you to have it. Something to stroke to while Georges is out of town.”

“Oh, come on!” He shoved the picture back into my hands. “It took me fifteen minutes to figure out how to blow that up for you.”

“I don’t want it.” I ignored him even though he was inches from my face, smiling his mischievous smile. “I have absolutely no interest in this rich prick.”

“He’s not a prick. I know you’re not big on guys right now,” he said, “but this guy! What do you think he’s worth? How many millions?”

“Why does that matter?” I shook my head. “It probably just makes him weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yes, weird. All rich people are weird. And he’s totally weird. I can tell that he is.”

“Georges is rich, and he’s not weird.”

“Yes he is, if what you tell me about your sex life is true.” Grégoire laughed, jumped over the sofa and curled up with his head in my lap. “Oh, Lucy.” I didn’t reply, just ran my fingers through his sleek black hair.

“You know what? I think you’re really, really sad.” He stroked my leg, soft and slow. “I think this thing with Joe has tripped you up.”

“It hasn’t. It’s just made me realize some things about love.”

“Love?” Grégoire snorted. “You don’t know anything about love, Lucy Merritt.” He teased, but his words hit a little too close to home. Anyway, who was he to lecture me about love? “I’m going,” I muttered, pushing him out of my lap.

“Aw, don’t be mad.”

“I’m tired. It’s late, you stupid French pretty boy. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a nice night.”

“Don’t forget your photo,” he said, holding out the picture of Matthew Norris.

“Thanks.” I crumpled it into a fistful of paper before shoving it in my bag, feeling full of fear and frustration and lust.

* * *

As soon as I got home, of course, I took out the photo, smoothed out the wrinkles as best I could. I lay on my bed and looked at it a long time, trying to inure myself to the beauty of his face.

And yes, I found him unbearably beautiful, which was strange, because he was far from a classically beautiful man. He actually looked rather coarse and rough around the edges.

Animalistic, my uncooperative mind whispered. Yes, that was exactly what he was, animal male disguised in a suit. The proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, and me, I was the sheep. I looked at his eyes a long time hoping and wishing it wasn’t true, but then I remembered his hand on my arm, his look in the rehearsal hall, and I knew that it was true. I was his prey.

As much as he compelled me, I was scared that he wanted me. Really scared. I was pretty sure he wasn’t a criminal or a rapist, and the truth was, if I didn’t want to see Mr. Norris, I didn’t have to. I thought about all the trivia Grégoire had yelled out to me. He mentors inner city children for Big Brothers and Big Sisters! He donates a ridiculous amount of money to charities.

He owns that beautiful new skyscraper over on Marsden. He’s made all his millions from nothing, he came from a dirt poor family in the Midwest!

I looked into Mr. Norris’s sharp, piercing eyes and tried to imagine him as a young child, poor and hungry. I studied his perfectly tailored suit and crisp white collar and tried to imagine him in ill-fitting clothes, no books or toys to play with, no trips to the doctor when he was sick. I thought I could see it there a little, in the small wrinkles around his eyes. Or maybe he was just tired. I didn’t suppose rich, sexy businessmen like him had much use for sleep. I’d grown up poor too, in the Deep South. Raised by a single mother who’d sacrificed everything—her youth, her money, her happiness, so I could dance the way I’d been born to. Just after I’d finally “made it,” been hired into a company in Atlanta, she’d been hit by a car walking to work.

I crumpled the picture back up. Ludicrous to think we had anything in common. Just because we were both born poor trashy people didn’t mean we belonged together now. All we really had in common was that he was a new patron of my dance company, and that he seemed to have a hard on for the talent, which was me. I uncrumpled it and tore it into a thousand pieces so I wouldn’t be tempted to look at it again.

I lay in bed late into the night though, trying to erase the photo from my mind. Trying to erase the feeling that we had more in common than dirt poor beginnings.

* * *

I was really tired the next day and dragged myself to rehearsals in a funk. I avoided Grégoire and hid out in my dressing room until Elinor arrived, at which point I grabbed my pointe shoes and settled on the floor in the hall. I buried my face in the newspaper, working on the crossword puzzle. I was just tying my shoes, trying to figure out a nine letter word for love, when I saw a pair of expensive loafers come to a stop on the floor beside me.

Holy shit.

I looked up at him. My heart pounded in my chest and I had to make myself breathe.

 

Nhiều truyện quá. Trình độ T.A của mình còn thấp, đánh dấu để đọc dịch dần

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 4



“Hello, Lucy,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Norris.”

He frowned a little. “How did you know my name?”

“How did you know mine?” I said right back, before the politeness filter in my brain kicked into gear.

He laughed. “Please call me Matthew.”

“Okay, Matthew.” But it felt strange to call him Matthew. He looked like someone I should call Mr. Norris, especially looking down his nose at me as he was. I looked back at my puzzle and recommenced tying my shoes. My heart was beating so hard I was sure he would hear it.

“You can do that without even looking.” He sounded impressed.

“Yes. I’ve tied these shoes thousands of times.”

I looked up again and he smiled down at me, and I hated how I felt under that breathtaking smile. He offered me his hand.

“We haven’t met properly, have we?”

I stood up then because he expected me to. It’s more accurate to say that he pulled me up, although he did it so naturally that there was no hint of force. But I came to my feet as if something propelled me, and what propelled me was his large, impossibly strong hand. He introduced himself formally, in a deep voice that held only a trace of Midwestern accent.

“Matthew Norris. I’m a big fan of your dancing.”

“Lucy Merritt,” I replied. “Merritt with two t’s.”

That seemed to amuse him and he smiled.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lucy Merritt with two t’s.”

I stood there feeling ridiculous, seeing Grégoire out of the corner of my eye, and a few other dancers eavesdropping on our conversation like a bunch of gossip whores.

“So what are you doing here again?” I asked, a little peevishly. “Don’t you work?”

“Oh, yeah, I work,” he said, and the smile he gave me then didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“A busy patron of the arts... So you’re here checking out your investment?”

“One of them, yes.”

I looked down at my feet, hating the blush in my cheeks. I was irritated that he made me feel this way. I couldn’t quite believe he’d come out and said that to me, especially with half the company watching.

“I find your dancing very inspirational,” he continued. You’re a true pleasure to watch.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled to the floor.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“A little.” I looked pointedly at the dancers milling around.

“I’m harmless, I promise.” He leaned closer and I had to look up at him, look in those piercing eyes that seemed far from harmless to me. “I just appreciate a thing of beauty when I see it, Lucy Merritt.”

I panicked. I threw a glance at the other dancers and blushed an even deeper shade of red.

“I’m not a thing,” I finally managed to say. “And I have to go to class now. Excuse me.” I didn’t wait for a reply, just shouldered my bag and practically ran down the hall. And prayed, really prayed that he wouldn’t be watching class today. Thankfully he wasn’t, although Grégoire frowned at me from across the barre.

“What is wrong with you?” he sniped while we stretched. “You really pissed him off, you know.”

“So what? He’s a big boy.”

“Yes, he’s a very big boy and he just donated a lot of money to the theater.”

“So that means he can take his pick of the dancers?”

“Oh, come on. He’s interested in you. What’s so bad about that?”

“He’s weird, G!”

“No, he’s not. I talked to him after you left. He’s a really nice guy. I tried to defend you, you know. I told him you were actually a pretty nice person. Which you used to be.”

“I don’t need you apologizing on my behalf. Anyway, he called me a thing.”

“He was complimenting you, Lucy. I heard the whole conversation, believe me.”

“Well, he looked at me like I was a thing. Like I was his thing. Just because he donates money to the company—”

“Oh, Jesus. A rich guy wants to ask you out. Cry me a river! Don’t you see? This is what you need right now, a nice sugar daddy rebound romance.” I stretched with punchy intensity, leaning over to touch each toe. What I needed was for him to shut up, which he never seemed to do. “I don’t need anything right now, okay? No men, no dates, no rich creepy guys looking down their noses at me.”

“Whatever.” He did some effortless jumps, then leaned down to hug his ankles with a sigh.

“Lucy, I love you,” he said, his voice muffled by his shins. “Don’t be mad at me. I just want you to be happy again.”

“I love you too, G,” I finally muttered. “And I am happy,” I lied.

Chapter Two: Gala

Mr. Norris did not return to the theater the rest of the week, or at least if he did, I didn’t see him. I wondered if he’d call me. I was sure he could get my number if he wanted to. But he didn’t and I felt foolish for expecting it. Why would he call when I’d been such a raving bitch to him? I felt partly guilty and partly relieved that he’d disappeared. And yes, partly disappointed, if I was honest with myself. But I didn’t dwell on him. I threw myself into my dancing. Harder, faster, more expressive. I pushed my body to quiet my mind.

Georges came back into town after the weekend and he and Grégoire had a passionate reunion. I found myself again on my own every night after work. I had other friends I could have gone out with, but instead I kept to myself. I felt confused about Mr. Norris, and now abandoned too. Abandoned by Grégoire and abandoned by him. I left the performance each night in a funk and retreated to my depressing apartment, alone.

I rented a room in part of a gentrified house, a charming old mansion that had been sliced and diced into lots of tiny efficient apartments. They were all weirdly shaped, and some had kitchens in the bedrooms. My room didn’t even have a bedroom. It was just one large, odd shaped room. From the outside, the house was a beautiful house. But the inside was not beautiful at all, just strange. I often thought it was just like people, just like me. Beautiful and impressive on the outside, but sliced and diced and strange within.

So it seemed appropriate for me to occupy this ugly house that, from the outside, appeared lovely and perfect. I stayed in that pathetic little apartment even though I hated it. I stayed long past the time I should have moved on. At least it was cheap and convenient to the theater. If I got out on time, I felt pretty safe walking home. If I got out too late, when the crowds had already thinned, I usually took a cab the few blocks. There were bars and restaurants all around and when they closed, drunk men poured into the streets. Not that I was afraid of a few drunk men, but they could be scary in the wrong time and place.

All that depressing week, during the day, we rehearsed hard for the Gala. We had two Galas a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. It was early October now, chilly weather and brown leaves blowing in the street, so Gala was in the air. Some of the dancers really got into it and worked with the office staff on themes and decorations. They brought in caterers, florists and planners, and in the end it was always a grand and impressive night.

The Gala was an opportunity for the richies to come out to see us. To rub elbows with us and make us feel like whores. They paid for some time with us, forced intimacy, and they got it because money can talk. It’s not like they expected a lap dance or anything. Most of the big money patrons were white-haired old couples, so a lap dance probably would have finished them off. But it just felt icky in a way, to smile and socialize with them those two nights a year.

Socialize with people we had nothing in common with except that they gave us money to do what they liked. But that was the life of the modern dancer and we were contractually obligated to participate and smile. The theater buzzed with plans and preparation while I obsessed privately about blue eyes and a hand on my elbow.

This fall it was to be a Greek theme. Grégoire and I rehearsed a new work that we would perform exclusively for the guests. I found myself getting caught up in the piece as we rehearsed.

It was lyrical, sensuous, the story of a Greek statue come to life from cold, emotionless rock. I loved my costume, an ivory wisp of a gown that floated and spun when I danced. The piece would probably be performed as part of our next season, but for now, only our most generous patrons would have a sneak peek. Gala tickets were expensive because of this exclusivity, and somewhat scarce, which made them even more desirable. The Galas typically sold out before the previous one was even over. Did I expect Mr. Norris to grace us with his presence? Yes. In truth, I did.

That’s why, the night of the Gala, I was totally stricken with nerves. I paced in my dressing room, hopped and turned and stretched endlessly. I ran through the motions and tricks of the dance in my head, over and over, and trusted in Grégoire to hold up his end. He watched me from the vanity, eating an apple in silence. I’m sure he knew that Mr. Norris was in my thoughts, but for whatever reason, he didn’t tease or badger me about it. Maybe, like...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 5



Yes, that’s what it was. We were both nervous. How long since we had been nervous together before a performance? I couldn’t remember the last time, and I guessed he couldn’t either. It gave me a full and hyper feeling, like my chest was going to burst from excitement or dread. It took me back to ten years before, when Grégoire and I had been faceless dancers in the corps of the City Ballet. How far we’d come since then, how much we’d accomplished, and how much we’d aged. I started to feel almost wistful on top of all the nerves. Darling Grégoire, my lover of a partner. I couldn’t wait to feel his hands on me, couldn’t wait for us to move together, to bring the music and steps to life. But I couldn’t say a word to him of why I was nervous and shaky, so we sat in uneasy silence and waited to be called to the wings.

Finally, it was time for us to take our places. This piece began on stage, no flourish of an entrance. We padded out behind the curtain and umed our still positions. He put his arms around me as I arched into the lovely lines of the statue I would play. He looked at me and winked, squeezing my side with the faintest pressure. How I loved him. Help me, G, I said with my wide, frightened eyes. Help me. I’m nervous. I’m scared. What if he’s not here? What if he is?

Then the curtain opened and between the both of us, the dance unraveled in a perfect arc. No missteps, no awkward lifts or late beats. Together we nailed it and it was intoxicating. When I reached for him, he was there. Always, with Grégoire, the perfect amount of pressure, the exact amount of force to propel me where I needed to go. As for me—my every line was perfection. I prayed that he was watching. He had to be. Please. I wanted him to want me again, to find me the thing of beauty he’d described even though I’d been so terribly rude. I selfishly wanted him to want me even though I’d pushed him away.

When the piece ended we received a standing ovation, and armfuls and armfuls of flowers that filled my nose with their sweet scent. These Galas were always over the top. Between graceful reverences, I scanned the small audience for Mr. Norris, but all I saw was a sea of bald heads and tuxedos, and old matrons in garish silk gowns.

After the curtain call, they brought up the lights in the theater. The wealthy guests swarmed the stage and the champagne and hors-d’oeuvres flowed. I went to the dressing rooms with the other dancers to change and tone down my stage makeup. By the time I returned the party was in full swing. Many deferential and polite patrons of the arts sidled up to me and complimented me.

I smiled so much my face started to ache, but I appreciated their words. We had moved them emotionally and that seemed a worthy thing, and their feelings were honest and heartfelt.

Grégoire hovered around me, playing the straight guy, except with the gay patrons, who saw through his act with a wink.

But even amidst all the glamour and champagne, the lovely Greek setting and the flattering praise, I grew melancholy because he had not come after all. Our wealthy patron Mr. Norris was nowhere to be found. Around midnight Grégoire brought me some champagne with a sympathetic smile, leaning next to me on the fake Greek balustrade.

“I thought your beau would be here,” he said.

My beau. What a bizarre word to use for him. It was too gentle a word for what he was.

Maybe Grégoire used it ironically, silly French boy. No, Mr. Norris was not my beau. In my fantasies at night, beau did not describe what he was to me. Lover. Conqueror. Master. Animal.

Even, ridiculously and embarrassingly sometimes, husband. But beau, no. It was far too soft for what Mr. Norris was to me in my dreams.

“No, he’s not here. I haven’t seen him,” I said, shaking myself from my reveries.

“But you wanted him to be here.”

“Yes, and so did you,” I shot back.

He smiled a wry smile. “You were great tonight, Lu.”

“So were you. It was fantastic. It really was.”

He took a deep breath. “I had that feeling I haven’t had in a while, that something I did was truly beautiful. That something between us grew and developed and was...transformed.”

“Oh, G.” I hugged him hard. He held on to me as we hid back in the wings and I thought if I was able to cry, I would have cried in G’s arms, for so many things. For happiness and sadness, for confusion, for disappointment that lodged like an awful lump in my throat until I thought I would choke.

He let me go and we peeked out at the glamorous spectacle from our hiding place. We lapsed back into our usual sneering comments when he returned with more champagne.

“To being dance whores.” He held up his glass up to mine.

“To being dance whores,” I agreed. That was what it felt like, these events, one hundred percent, even if you’d danced better than you’d danced in your life. If you pay for me to dance, I’ll pretend that we’re friends. Poor Grégoire had a suit jacket full of phone numbers, both male and female. I looked around at the blue haired rich ladies and their pompous rich husbands.

Where would I be at eighty years old? At a party like this? Living vicariously through others?

I grew more and more despondent the later it got. I wondered if Mr. Norris had withdrawn his ociation with the theater. Over me? Silly. But what if he had, because I’d been rude to him, because he scared me? And just as I was mulling over that unpleasant thought, I felt a hand on my elbow, a pressure I remembered. My blood rushed loud in my ears. I turned and there he was, a foot away. He wore that same unflappable, broad smile.

He nodded to my partner first. “Beautiful work tonight, Grégoire.” He pronounced his name perfectly in French, the way I never could.

Grégoire blushed like a boy and stammered his thanks. They shook hands like straight men would do, and I worried for a moment that G might actually faint. But he didn’t, and then Mr.

Norris turned in my direction.

“And you, Lucy Merritt with two t’s. Stunning. I really don’t have words.” I didn’t have words either. I just looked back at him, speechless, sick with embarrassment and lust. He may have been acting like our last conversation never happened but I still burned with mortification over it. He turned from me, made more polite small talk with Grégoire, and then, with a strange subtle agility, he dismissed him. As Grégoire left us, he shot me a warning look. Don’t this up, you little dork.

I turned back to Mr. Norris. Matthew. I’d called him Mr. Norris so many times in disdain.

I’d never remember to call him Matthew now.

“Mr. Norris?” I began. Ugh, you idiot. “Um, Matthew, the last time we talked...please forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Yes there is. I was so rude to you. I apologize, I really do.” He smiled, that kind, easy smile, and leaned close to me so my eyes fixed on his lips.

“I apologize for calling you a thing,” he said. “Although in my defense, I did call you a thing of beauty.”

I looked up at him and somehow managed a smile. His own smile was infectious, but he still scared me. Why did he scare me so much? I couldn’t put my finger on it. Wild animal male, I thought to myself. Dangerous and unpredictable. And here we were, alone together back in the wings where no one could see us. Mr. Norris, the wild animal, and me, his prey.

But he wasn’t wild. In fact his manners were impeccable. He took my glass and offered to bring me more champagne. He left, fully trusting me to wait there for him, and I did although my brain was pleading with me to fly.

When he returned to me with our full glasses of bubbly, I waited for the typical moronic toast. To dance whores, I envisioned him saying, holding up his glass to me. But no silly toasts or comments were forthcoming. He only sipped his champagne and looked out with me as the room began to thin.

“Where were you?” I asked finally, to fill the awkward silence. “Earlier tonight? When the party began?”

“You missed me?”

I blushed a thousand shades of red.

“Well, you remember that I work,” he said. “I had a phone call I had to take and unfortunately it went on and on. I did see your performance though, and I’m glad for that. It was just lovely.” And the way he said lovely, it wasn’t gushing or fake, just hopelessly kind.

I turned my head away in self-preservation. If he didn’t leave me soon, I would humiliate myself over him.

“How long have you been dancing?” he asked. He had a strange way of talking to me, sort of formal and stern, but his voice never rose above that quiet, calm tone.

“I’ve danced forever. Since before I can remember, I’ve been dancing.”

“Did your parents dance, too?”

“No. Why?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wonder where this kind of talent comes from. Genetics, nurturing? Or just hard work?”

I stared out at the rows of seats in the theater. “I’ve worked pretty hard.”

“Hmm. I’m sure you have.” He looked at me again like he was looking at a thing. “How long will you continue to dance, Lucy?”

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 6



“Until I can’t anymore,” I answered without pause. He looked hard at me then. Was he trying to guess how long I had left? “Have you ever danced?” I blurted out to distract him from thinking about my age.

That made him laugh, loud and hard. “Oh, no. Fortunately for humanity, no, I never have.

And I never will.”

His self-deprecating words made me giggle. “Maybe if you’d had lessons.”

“Yes, maybe.” He laughed with a nod.

I bit my lip. I had no idea what else to say. He rendered me speechless and I can’t say how. I could see how he excelled at business. He had a manner about him that had me at his feet.

“So, do you like these things, these ‘Galas’?” he asked.

I felt embarrassed, as if he’d somehow overheard the snide comments Grégoire and I had made all night.

“No, not really.”

“Why don’t you?”

I wanted to say something cutesy and glib, but the way he stared at me compelled me to absolute truth.

“Because they feel really fake. Artificial.”

“And you don’t like that? Make-believe?”

He didn’t say it suggestively, but my mind flew to the silly make-believe fantasies he’d spurred in my mind. Or maybe he did know. Ugh, why couldn’t I stop blushing? I could feel it creeping up into my cheeks again.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I like make-believe sometimes. When I’m in the mood.”

“Hmm. And what puts you in the mood for make-believe?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I finally shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

“I’m not big on make-believe,” he said, looking out over the crowd.

“But dance is make-believe, isn’t it?” I waved my arm around at the pomp and glitter that surrounded us. “And you’re here, dressed up in your tuxedo and bow tie.”

“Well, sometimes you just play along, don’t you?” And by you, I guessed he meant people in general, but I felt it directed at me. You just play along, Lucy, don’t you?

The champagne was making me warm. I rubbed my cheeks.

“Are you tired?” he asked me in a strangely mesmerizing voice. It sounded like an inappropriately intimate thing to say, because what it really sounded like to me was that he thought I should go to bed. His bed.

“I’m just getting a little drunk. It doesn’t take much.”

“I guess not,” he said, running his eyes up and down my body. “Someone as little as you.”

“I’m not little.”

“You’re smaller than me.” It was true, I was quite a bit smaller than him—the strong, tall, animal man beside me in his expensive shoes and bespoke designer tux.

“I may be small, but I’m strong.”

“Yes. Strong, I believe. Perhaps even stronger than me.” I looked at his broad shoulders, his solid thighs. Even his hands were strong. Stronger than him? Not likely. He moved a little closer to me. He was so virile, so sexy. It had to be the alcohol that made me feel like throwing myself at him. Why had I drunk so much?

“Well, you’re little and strong, and you’re a hell of a dancer,” he said, as if that settled things. I watched him sip champagne, perfect and rich, and I knew he thought for sure he would have me.

“Yes, I do dance,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “But I do a lot more than that. I’m a lot more than just a dancer and I can do a lot more than pretty pony tricks.” He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. I quickly looked away. Why had I said that? “I think I’m drunk, Mr. Norris.”

“Matthew.”

“Matthew, I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Why don’t you let me drive you home?”

“No,” I said too quickly, then blushed red and hot again. “No, um...we’re supposed to stay until the end.”

“That’s a shame. If you’re tired.” He spoke to me sympathetically although I’m sure he knew I lied. Maybe that’s why he looked at me sympathetically. Poor girl. Poor little cowardly liar.

“Well, I won’t exhaust you with more conversation.” His tone was changed, distant and cool. He looked at me with muted reprobation.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted miserably. “I really, really am.”

“For what?”

“For being so rude, when you’re just being nice to me. I don’t know why I do it. I really don’t.”

“Oh, it’s probably just a matter of being tired, and maybe a little nervous and scared.”

“Nervous and scared about what?”

“Nervous and scared about me, I suppose, and what I might want from you. Yes?”

“I’m not nervous and scared,” I protested without much conviction, because he was scaring me to death. His gaze pinned me and again I squelched the urge to flee. “I have nothing to give you, honestly. So, I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t, Mr. Norris.”

“Matthew,” he said again. He looked at me, cool and thoughtful. “Okay, Lucy. Okay.” He rubbed his lips, the first nervous gesture I’d ever seen him do. “Okay, Lucy,” he repeated again, and then he turned and walked away. I fought the urge to follow him, to run after him apologizing. Again, I’d repelled him. Why? Why was I such a mess around him?

Why did he make me so afraid?

As soon as I thought he wouldn’t see me, I ran all the way back to my dressing room and slammed the door. I sat at the table where Grégoire had lounged earlier and put my head down in my arms. I couldn’t face Grégoire or Mr. Norris or any of them. I couldn’t face anyone out there in that crowd. I hid in that dressing room long past midnight, until I was sure every single one of them was gone. I waited and hid and trembled, coward that I was.

Chapter Three: Coffee

When I finally left the theater, the cleaning staff had to let me out. It was late, dark and quiet. I think it was probably almost one. The bars hadn’t closed yet so I decided to chance the short walk home. The way that I felt that night, I dared anybody to come my way. I felt the way I felt when I woke up from my nightmares, like I desperately had to cry and scream when I couldn’t do either.

I stalked down the empty sidewalk thinking about him, trying to understand why I felt the way I felt. And what on earth must the man think of me? That I was a train wreck, unbalanced and weird. That I was an immature bitch, not the talented dancer he thought I was at all. All the things I hated about myself, I was sure he saw them quite well.

I wrapped my coat more tightly around me. It had been a hard few weeks for me. I wondered about Joe, if he had married the love of his life yet. Kim, his ex. Did Kim know what love was? Joe said she did. Did she really love Joe? Kim and Joe both seemed like grown-ups, so much wiser and smarter than me. I could dance and I guess I was pretty, but what else was I?

A liar. A coward. A mess.

I heard some voices then, male voices, low and nasty. Dangerous laughter. I lifted my head to see a few men standing by a stoop between me and my house. I put my head back down. I wouldn’t let them scare me, I wouldn’t, but my body rebelled. My body felt fear. My heart pounded fast because of the way they looked at me, like they were going to do something. Like they were on the edge of action, making a decision. When I passed by them they fell into step behind me. My blood whooshed almost painfully in my ears.

“Hey,” said one of them.

I kept walking.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, bitch.”

My breath backed up in my chest. Should I start running? They would catch me in an instant and probably have a good laugh over it. So I didn’t run. I just kept walking.

“Hey, you little bitch. You too good to talk to us, you skinny little whore?” I just kept walking, one foot in front of the other. I might have shaken my head, a pointless gesture. If they were going to do something, so be it. I wasn’t going to run and I wasn’t going to scream. I was just going to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, because I’d survive this or not, just like everything else.

Then I saw two more men approaching from the other direction. Oh great, it was a party now. Come one, come all, some girl is trying to walk home alone and it’s after midnight, so she’s fair game. But then the men behind me stopped and crossed the street. I soon saw why. The man coming towards me was one of the most threatening, muscular men I’d ever seen, and next to him, even dressed in a tuxedo, Mr. Norris looked pretty threatening himself.

“Come on,” was all he said to me, and he put his hand on my elbow like he’d done twice before. This time he guided me over to a black SUV and pushed me into the back seat. No, he didn’t actually push me. He just opened the door and helped me in. I guess it was the fury on his face that made me feel manhandled. He got in beside me and slammed the door behind us. I just sat in silence, not looking at him.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 7



“Felt like getting raped tonight?” he finally muttered.

“There were no cabs. I left the theater too late.”

“I offered you a ride home.” I watched the muscle man leaning against the door outside, lazily rolling a cigarette.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“My driver.”

We both just sat there, two feet apart. It was chilly in the car and I shivered.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” he snapped.

And that was enough. I started to cry. The sound of my sobs disturbed me but there was no way to silence them. I pulled my coat around me like I could pull myself together, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t stop. It had been far too long since I’d cried.

He sat still and silent next to me and watched me, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. I cried forever, months worth of tears. I cried staring out his front window, then dropped my head in my hands until my fingers were slippery with tears. How long had I needed to cry like this?

An eternity. I cried until I was breathless, until I felt weak. He didn’t try to soothe me or hold me, although he did eventually offer me a tissue. I realized he had dug in my own bag to get it.

He held it in his lap, my big ugly dance bag, while I dried the tears and blew my nose. After a moment he offered me another one, and then another again.

“Thank you for helping me,” I said when I was finally calm enough.

“Are you finished now?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I act this way around you.”

“Don’t you?” He flicked his wrist impatiently and looked away with a frown.

“What do you want from me?”

“Let’s get some coffee, Lucy. We need to talk.”

At some unseen signal, the driver walked off down the street, and Matthew climbed into the driver’s seat while I stayed in the back.

“Why do you have a driver, if you can drive?” I asked him.

“He’s more than my driver.” And he left it at that.

* * *

He drove me to a coffee house right near the theater. I’d never noticed it before but he seemed to know it well. I must have looked like a mess as we waited at the counter for our drinks, but I really didn’t care. It was after two by this point, and the whole world seemed to have taken on an air of unreality.

He led me to an isolated table in the back. Low music played as we sat in darkness and clouds of cigarette smoke. There was a hum of people talking, laughing. They were night time party people, wide awake and full of life.

But not me. I was beyond tired. I was so tired that I was painfully and frantically awake. I sipped my coffee and stared down into my lap. He sat across from me, leaning back in his chair, looking like a million bucks. He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his silk bow tie so that it hung perfectly over his open collar. His short blond hair was ruffled just so. It looked like all he had to do to style it perfectly was to run his fingers through it. He watched me. Stared at me, really.

“You don’t talk much,” he finally commented under his breath.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry I cried for fifteen minutes in the backseat of your car.”

“It was more like thirty minutes.”

“It’s been a really hard couple of weeks,” I said.

“Has it?”

“Let me put it this way. I was supposed to have been on my honeymoon this week.”

“Your honeymoon?” I could tell he was taken aback. “Well, what happened? Do tell.”

“Do you want the long version or the short version?”

“The true version.”

“Do you think I’d lie to you?”

“No, not really. I’m just a lover of truth. It thrills me,” he explained in an ironic tone.

“Okay, then.” I took a deep breath. “My fiancé invited his ex-girlfriend to our wedding.

When she came into town, he fell back in love with her. He cancelled our wedding and took her on our honeymoon.”

He thought a moment. “Was it to have been a big wedding?”

“No, a very small one.”

“So he wasn’t sure all along.”

“No. I guess not.”

“And neither were you,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“No.”

“Why did you get married, if you weren’t sure?”

“We didn’t get married.”

“You almost did.”

“Are you really going to lecture me? You haven’t exactly got a stellar marital record yourself.”

His eyes narrowed.

“At least, I read online that you were divorced,” I finished weakly under his darkening gaze.

“Well, that’s not fair. It seems you know more about me than I know about you. Now you have to tell me something about yourself. Something deeply personal and humiliating, if we’re going to be fair.”

“I just told you I was left at the altar. That’s not humiliating enough?”

“Did you love him?”

“Did you love her?”

He didn’t answer me at first. Then he said, “Yes, I loved her very much. She didn’t love me though. When you have money...” His voice trailed off, and then he looked right into my eyes.

“There was no truth between us. Did you love your fiancé?” I shook my head slowly.

“Why not? Why didn’t you love him?”

“Because he didn’t make me happy.” I stopped and shook my head. “No. Because he didn’t know the real me. Because there was no truth between us,” I finally admitted.

He looked over at me, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Would you like to hear some truth, Lucy? Right now?”

“Yes, that would be really refreshing.”

“I’d like to bend you over, stick my fingers up inside you, and see if you really can do more than pony tricks.”

My mouth dropped open. I closed it a moment later and stood to leave.

“Sit down,” he said in a way that halted me in my tracks.

I turned back to him. “You’re being rude to me.”

“You were rude to me too, weren’t you? More than once. Now we’re even. Sit down.” For some reason, I did as he ordered. I sat back down across from him, my gaze in my lap.

“Lucy, what do you think is happening here?”

“I really don’t know. I wish I did!”

“I think you do know, but I’ll play along. What did you think of me? How do you feel around me?”

“I... I...”

“Think first, and then tell me the truth.”

“You scare me.”

“Why do I scare you?”

I looked down at my hands, swallowed hard. “Because of how you make me feel.”

“How do I make you feel?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t admit it, never.

“Answer me,” he pressed. “We won’t get anywhere until you talk to me. Just say it.”

“I...you... You make me... I want you to... I want...”

My voice trailed off, my face on fire. I want you to be an animal. I want you to eat me alive.

“Can’t you say it?” he asked. “I’ll tell you, Lucy, since you seem unable to form the words.” He paused and looked right at me. “You want me to master you. You want me to rough you up a little, don’t you?”

I bit my lip. I had no idea what to answer to that. Again, I felt dangerously close to tears, even after all the tears I’d already shed. I brought my cup to my lips and drank the coffee to uage the tightness in my throat.

“Your fiancé, he didn’t understand, did he? What you like. What you need.”

“I don’t understand either.”

“You will,” he said.

I blinked, looking at him. He stared back at me without a hint of a smile.

“Do you know what a submissive is?”

Breathe. Swallow. Don’t cry.

“Answer me, Lucy.”

“I...maybe... I think I do.”

“Have you ever been submissive to someone? Your fiancé?”

“No, I...no.”

“No, he had no idea, did he, what he had in his hands? You’ve never been disciplined, trained? Controlled?”

His sharp perverse words brought a flood of warmth between my legs. My s tightened under my shirt as I shook my head.

“Answer me out loud, Lucy,” he said. “Look at me.”

I looked up in abject mortification. “No, I never have been.”

“Would you like to be? Look at me,” he insisted. My eyes met his and he held them hard.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 8



“Would you like to be?”

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t know. That means, no, I’m too scared.” I closed my eyes and lowered my head. “I already told you I was scared.”

“How long?” he asked then.

“How long what?”

“How long have you wanted it? To be dominated, to be tied up and beaten and ed?” I just shook my head. How do you answer a question like that?

“A pretty little girl like you couldn’t find someone to take you in hand? You’ll settle for some vanilla boy who was still in love with his ex?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I’m sure you can puzzle that out if you try.” His jaw clenched a little and he looked away from me, scratching his neck with a frustrated sigh. I looked at him, beautiful Mr. Matthew Norris, sitting there in his tuxedo and his unkempt tie. I just looked as my mind spun with a thousand questions. But there was one question I had to ask right away.

“How did you know?”

“The same way you knew. And you did know, Lucy, from the moment you saw me. I can’t explain how.” He leaned very close to me, speaking low. “You set off alarms. Look at me.” I dragged my gaze to his.

“When you started talking about pony tricks, I nearly laughed out loud.”

“I’m not into that animal stuff.”

“I have no interest in playing ponies, believe me. I have no interest in ninety percent of the stupid games dominants play with their submissives.”

Dominants. Submissives. I felt like I’d just fallen -backwards into the life I’d wanted but thought didn’t really exist. I honestly had no idea people really did the things I wanted. I honestly couldn’t believe he might want to do them to me.

“What are you interested in?” I asked.

“Owning your body and doing whatever I want to it.”

There it was again, the hot rush of wetness between my legs. I looked at him from under my lashes while my cheeks burned crimson. He wanted my body, wanted to do things to it. That man sitting there, virile and dangerous, he wanted me. I shivered and pressed my thighs together.

Somehow I couldn’t phrase a response. I could barely draw breath.

“Is that something that might interest you, Lucy?”

I stared down at my hands twisting in my lap. “I don’t know.”

“No more I don’t know‘s,” he said. “Yes or no?”

“Maybe! I can’t say! I don’t know what you want to do to me.”

“I’ll do a lot of things to you. I’m only asking you if it’s something you’d like to try.” My mind raced in circles, stimulated by horniness and caffeine. All around us, regular people talked and laughed casually, but my life had changed. I scrabbled for words, my thoughts in a tangle. I lifted my cup to take a slow drink, buying time.

“Is this how you pick up all your partners?” I asked. “You give them this tough little talking to?”

He tapped his fingers on the table impatiently, as if he already owned me and I was already making him mad. “First of all, this is far from tough. And secondly, I haven’t picked up a partner in six years. I had a girlfriend and we recently broke up. I would have thought you knew that from your reading about me.”

“She was your submissive?”

“That’s really none of your business.”

“What happened? Why did she leave you after six years?” He frowned down into his coffee, then looked back up at me with narrowed eyes.

“She didn’t enjoy it. Power exchange. I thought she did. But she did it for me, for my money, I guess.”

“All those years?”

“Yes, Lucy. Now you see why truth thrills me. I’ve lived without it for far too long.” Truth. He talked about it an awful lot.

“If you’re so rich, why don’t you just buy a hooker?”

“Because I don’t want a hooker. I want you.”

“How do you know? You don’t even really know me.”

“I know enough. I know that your body turns me on. I know you’d get off on submitting to me.”

“That’s all you need in a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend?” He laughed. “Sorry, I don’t want another girlfriend. I just want a submissive to put through her paces. I’m giving you truth here, Lucy. I’m not saying that to hurt you.” So it showed then, the hurt and humiliation I felt at his words. My face burned with it. I felt like I’d just been kicked.

“I want to use your body because I find it beautiful and perfect. I just want to play with you, but I think you’ll enjoy it all the same. And if you want,” he added as an afterthought, “I’ll pay you for your time.”

I made a nauseated face.

“Yes, I thought that’s how you’d feel. Anyway, the pleasure will be payment enough.” My God. My God. My God. My God.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s some truth for you. I’ve never ed someone I’m not in a relationship with.”

“Oh, we’d be in a relationship. Just a non-traditional one. Do you really want another boyfriend? So soon?”

I thought for a minute. God, no. I didn’t.

“And it wouldn’t just be ing, Lucy. Exchanging power is erotically charged, yes, and it can be deeply sexual, but it’s about much more than just getting off. It will meet needs you didn’t even realize you had. It will meet needs for you and me both. And it would be safe, of course.

Everything we did together would be absolutely safe and consensual.”

“Consensual?”

“Yes, it would have to be. You know what I mean by consensual? You would be there because you want to be. And we would use safe words.”

“Safe words?” No explanation was forthcoming. “What are safe words?” I was a little afraid to find out.

“Safe words are words that keep people like you safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Safe from people like me.”

He leaned back then, stretching casually, as if we discussed nothing more unusual than the weather. I sat across from him and wrestled with my feelings. Anger, indignation, shame, curiosity, lust. Then his eyes returned to mine and he spoke to me with intensity in his voice.

“You know, I want to own you and I want to use you. I want your obedience and beauty.

But what I really want is for you to find joy in it too.”

“Joy?”

“Yes, joy. And perhaps, at times, a little pain,” he said with a faint smile. “I’m not going to lie to you. There’s a good bit of the sadist in me. There will be times that I’ll purposely hurt you, times that I’ll try to make you cry. There will be ups and downs, and, well, a considerable amount of pain. But somehow I think you’ll enjoy it.”

My God, that I could even be sitting here considering it. But his warnings about pain didn’t frighten me at all. In fact, he was right. The idea was exciting me. What kind of pervert was I?

He must have seen that I was weakening, that even in my fear, my uncertainty, I wanted to say yes.

“We could start slowly,” he said. “I would teach you and guide you. I know right now you’re afraid of the unknown. You barely know me, I realize that. I barely know you. But there are some very elemental desires you and I share. And if we get to know each other better and discover that we don’t suit each other, we’ll be truthful to one another, won’t we? Can you promise me that?”

I thought about six years of deception, the toll it would take on someone’s trust. “Yes, I would be truthful to you,” I said with conviction. “I would always tell you the truth.” His expression deepened as he looked at me. “You have no idea how those words make me feel. Because I believe you, little girl.”

Little girl. He had no idea how those words made me feel, the tingle that raced across my skin. I desperately wanted to be his little girl, his lover, his toy, whatever he wanted me to be.

But he’d warned me I couldn’t be his girlfriend. Would everything else be enough?

“What do you think?” he asked.

“You drive a hard bargain.”

He laughed, an exhalation of nervous energy. “I’m trying. I really am. I suppose this isn’t what you expected.”

“You planned all along to ask me this when you invited me here?”

“I started putting words together the very second I laid eyes on you.” That made me shiver a little. All that time, he’d been thinking of doing these things to me.

“When was that? When you first laid eyes on me?”

He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “It was a while ago.” I just stared into my coffee, overwhelmed by the moment, by the decision. It seemed to me that the next words I chose to say would alter my life in a significant way, whether they were yes or no.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 9



“I know that I’ve shocked you,” he said. “Why don’t you take some time to think it over?

Really think about what I’ve said, think about what you want to do. Next Saturday night I’ll be sitting right here. If you want to give it a try, take a cab here and meet me. If you don’t, then stay away and I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

I nodded. Yes. I needed time to think. Time to come to terms with the decision I knew I’d eventually make, but wasn’t quite ready to make yet, not out loud.

“But Lucy,” he warned, “if you show up here, I’ll take it to mean that you’re ready to begin.

You’ll need to bring your overnight bag. Do you understand?” I nodded.

“Answer me out loud.”

“Yes, I understand,” I said, blushing hot. “But I can’t get here before 10:45, after the show.”

“Okay then,” he said, nodding. “I’ll meet you here at 10:45. At eleven o’clock, if you haven’t shown up, we’ll understand each other.”

He reached out to me and cradled my face in one of his hands. His fingers felt cool and firm against my flushed skin. He looked right into my eyes. I felt a strange feeling of closeness to him, I suppose because he understood me so well. “Either way, I’ve really enjoyed this hour with you. Tears and all. I think you’re ridiculously beautiful and sweet. Well, maybe not sweet,” he said with a wry smile. “But honest. I appreciate your truthfulness. You have no idea how much.” He released me and I held his gaze, awed and confused. “I’ve never been so truthful to anyone in my life.”

“Neither have I, in quite some time.” He turned away, looking out at the crowd around us. “I hate to ask it, but in these matters discretion is very important. I’d appreciate very much if you wouldn’t share our...truth telling with anyone who doesn’t need to know.”

“I won’t. I wouldn’t,” I promised. “Although my mother told me never to keep secrets for strangers.”

He looked at me very directly. “We aren’t strangers anymore.” He drove me home then, and watched from his car until he saw my light come on. I looked from the window but I didn’t wave. I watched him pull back into traffic and wondered what he was thinking at that moment, because my own thoughts were wild. It was 3:45 when I finally laid down, but sleep wouldn’t come. I fantasized instead of his hands on me doing vulgar things.

My fantasies were vague and salacious, because I had no idea what he would actually do to me.

And yes, I was quite certain that he was going to do something to me. Before we’d even left the coffee house, when he’d helped me from my chair and guided me to the door with his hand pressed to the small of my back, I had known. I had made up my mind. The words were right on the tip of my tongue, the words to plead with him to take me, that I wanted to be his, that I wanted him to use me, that I wanted him to take me right home. That I wanted him to hurt me with his big, strong hands, that I knew I would enjoy it, that I wanted to try. I didn’t tell him though because he’d told me to think it over, and already I was anxious to obey. So I would think it over until Saturday, as he’d asked me to do, and then I’d go to him at the coffee house, and then...

Then what? What would go on between us? How would it feel? Would he hurt me? How much? Would I enjoy it? Would I feel, as he had suggested, joy? Finally, too tired to keep my eyes open, I started to drift into dreams. The strange fantasies subsided, replaced by one single word. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. I was already gone for him, totally gone. I was naively, desperately crushed on Matthew Norris even though he’d told me very bluntly he didn’t want a girlfriend. And I believed he meant it when he said that to me, but I thought that would change. I was sure if I was good enough, I could change his mind.

* * *

Oh, my ing back. It was just ridiculous. I looked up at Pietro toiling away at his canvas and I could tell he was in that zone, that place that he went to sometimes. There was no way I could stop him now, although my muscles ached for relief. What kind of art model would I be, to interrupt him in his moments of genius? A less sore art model, I thought dismally.

I’d sat for him all day Sunday, then on Monday for a few more hours. Now it was Friday night and he’d called me, his voice filled with urgency. “I’m so close to finished,” he’d begged.

“Lucy, please, you must come!”

So here I lay at nearly midnight, aching and twitchy. I let my mind wander, a trick I’d learned from dance. When something was torturous and took excruciating effort, you just let your mind wander away from the pain. You can probably guess the place to which my mind wandered. It wandered to Matthew, who I planned to see the next night.

I was impatient, yes, but a little scared too. Would he be happy with me once he had me in his arms? Would he realize he’d made a big mistake and end things? I had no doubt he would end things abruptly if he wasn’t pleased with me. I would do everything I could to prevent that from happening, but there was only so much I could give, only myself as I was. If he decided I wasn’t good enough...

I daydreamed there on the cold hard floor of a painter’s studio and pictured Matthew sitting somewhere more comfortable thinking about me. Maybe his mind strayed to me during some important developer business meeting, or as he sat in the backseat of his car on the phone while his beefy driver drove him around. That driver, I wondered what was up with him. Maybe he procured drugs for Matthew. Or women. Hookers. I couldn’t imagine someone like him staying continent for long. If he’d broken up with his girlfriend, what had he been doing in the meantime? I would make him wear condoms, wouldn’t let him near me without them, that was certain. There was no way I’d give in on that. Everything else, well...how far would I go for him?

How far would he try to make me go, and what would he do? How much time had he spent since he’d met me, thinking about how he was going to use me, as he’d said? Did he already know what would go on? Had he long ago planned exactly what would occur? Or would he make it up as he went along, based on my reactions?

My reactions. What might those be? I had no idea, because I still had no idea what he would do to me. I’d read books about BDSM. I had a general idea of what people did in the world of dominance and submission, but he’d scoffed and claimed that most of those things didn’t interest him. That all he cared about was using me, making me his own. His own thing. I smiled, remembering when he’d called me a thing of beauty. I’d told him peevishly that I wasn’t a thing.

He was probably thinking even then that he would have the last laugh. He had probably thought to himself, well, Lucy, we’ll see.

Chapter Four: Guidelines

I drifted through the Saturday shows lost in a world of my own. Grégoire knew I was meeting our rich patron for coffee, but I told him nothing else. I had actually planned to tell Grégoire everything, reveal everything we’d talked about that strange night, but in the end, I kept it from him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Grégoire to keep a secret. If I had asked him to, he would have kept any secret of mine to the grave. Nor was I ashamed to tell him. I shared everything with him, every humiliation and every triumph. In fact, I shared so much with him, I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping something this big to myself. I guess I was afraid he might tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t let him use me, that it wasn’t safe. That something was wrong with me for wanting a relationship like this. All of the things I wouldn’t let myself think. All those things that were probably, unfortunately, true.

So I said goodbye to Grégoire by the stage door and climbed in a cab at 10:40 sharp. I had showered and carefully shaved, and scented and perfumed every inch of my body. I’d painstakingly made myself up to look alluring and sexy. I had applied my very best dark red -me lipstick, and put on jeans and a sweater that hugged my curves. Under my clothes, I had on things I hoped he’d find exciting and beautiful. A black silk thong, a matching black balconette bra. I could have dressed up in more risqué trappings but I had a sense it might upset him, to take that initiative myself.

All too soon, the cab pulled up at the coffee house. I paid the driver with bills rustling in trembling hands. I stood in the cold night air for a couple of minutes outside on the sidewalk, then I just couldn’t bear the anxiety and I went in.

I was ailed right inside the door with the familiar smell of smoke and coffee, the sickly sweet scent of clove cigarettes. I swallowed hard and started the long walk to the back. What if he wasn’t there? What if he was there, watching from some hidden place, laughing with friends as I made a fool of myself returning to report to him? I looked around furtively, embarrassed and agitated. I took in all the happy people talking and laughing with their friends and for one split second of a moment, I almost turned and ran.

But then I neared the table and he was there, and it comforted me greatly that he looked nervous too. He sat rigid and still, looking down...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 10



He looked up, and my heart leaped. My heart leaped. So trite, but that’s actually what it did.

My breath caught and I had to choke a little to get it going again. He looked stunning dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a sweater. I’d only ever seen him in business suits and tuxedos, powerful clothes of status and formality. But in jeans and a sweater, you could see he was a man, just a beautiful man, potent and attractive. He looked up at me, and in that second the worry left his face, replaced with something else, something priceless—a broad smile of palpable relief.

He wanted me. He wanted me. It was written clearly all over his face. I walked the rest of the way to the table, propelled by sheer gladness, and I returned his smile with an uncontrolled smile of my own. He stood up to pull my chair out when I was close enough. So formal and old fashioned. I turned to mush. He sat back down and just gazed at me. I waited for him to say something but he just stared.

“Is this for me?” I asked, gesturing to the cup in front of me.

“It’s what you ordered last week. You can get something else if you like.”

“No, it’s perfect. Thanks.” He’d remembered what I ordered and ordered it again for me.

Sigh. I picked it up, warming my hands with it, and my face, which was still cold from outside.

“You should wear a coat,” he chided. “That little sweater wouldn’t keep Satan warm.” I laughed, just breathing in the coffee and letting it warm me, the coffee he’d gotten for me.

“So you came.”

I nodded.

“When did you decide to come?”

I thought of my recent impulse to flee.

“About a minute ago.”

He smiled, and his eyes moved over me slowly. “Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

He fidgeted and rubbed his cheek.

“Drink your coffee,” he said.

I added some sugar to it and stirred. He watched, taking a deep drink of his own.

“I went to the show tonight.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I often do.”

“To see me?”

“Yes. To look at you.” The way he said it made me wet. He watched me. He wants me, that man right there. Oh my God. He smiled, perhaps sensing my anxiety. “Tonight, Lucy, we’ll mostly talk. Nothing too wild.”

I nodded, thankful to hear it.

“Answer me out loud,” he said. “I prefer it.”

“Yes, Matthew,” I amended, blushing.

“You have a lot to learn but I think you’re a pretty smart girl.”

“I hope I’m good enough for you.”

He took a deep breath, a very loud one. From the look on his face I half expected him to stand up and walk out. But instead he reached across the table. “Give me your hand.” I did, and he took it, and we could both feel it shaking in his grip.

“Don’t be afraid.” He spoke so quietly it was hard to hear above the hum around us. He turned my hand over in his palm, studying it like there were secrets there. “Just always tell me the truth. Okay? Always.”

“I will.”

“Are you finished?” he asked, letting go of me. “I’d like to go somewhere more private before we really talk.”

* * *

We went out to his car, and again his driver was missing in action. The first thing he did was roll down the windows.

“Lucy Merritt, if you ever show up to see me again smelling like a French whorehouse, you’ll be sorry you did.”

How embarrassing. I was already a up. He kept the windows down the whole way to his house. When we arrived he pulled me to the sink in his kitchen. “Wash it off. I want to smell you, not some perfumed-up whore.”

I tried to wash all of it off, which wasn’t easy, partly because I was so distracted by his spectacular house. It was difficult too because it was mostly on my clothes, but I did my best. I guess it was all right, because when I came out, he sniffed me and muttered, “Good enough.” Then he took my arm and led me to a door in the hallway. “We’ll always play in the basement,” he explained. We made our way down the carpeted stairwell, and I guess I expected him to take me to a dungeon of sorts. Black and forbidding, tricked out with crosses and beams and chains hanging from hooks in the ceiling. But the room he took me to wasn’t a dungeon at all. It actually looked more like an art salon. Or a really cool and modern funeral home, done in crisp and textured neutrals.

He told me to look around, to look at everything. I walked around but I didn’t dare touch.

The walls were upholstered with fabric, velvety drapes in taupe. There were huge, comfortable sofas that I tried out, sitting down on them, and as it turned out, that was the only chance I’d get.

I didn’t know it yet, but only Matthew ever sat on them, while I knelt or lay supine at his feet, or bent over an ottoman with my in the air. But they were very nice and comfy, the matching ottomans scattered around the room in several heights and sizes. He pointed out the eyebolts near the bottom of each one. “I’ll strap you to these when I beat you or you, sometimes.” I just nodded when he said it, like that was perfectly great. Oh, wow, Matthew, bolting me to an ottoman. That’s a spectacular idea.

When I was done drooling over the cushiony sofas and ottomans, he took me over to a large armoire in the corner. It had drawers full of leather restraints, straps and cuffs, sex toys and paraphernalia that made my eyes go wide. The many things he showed me in that armoire both shocked and titillated me. I was so hot by that time, I wanted him to take me then and there. I was really close to begging for it but I managed to keep quiet, the obedient little slave. He showed me paddles and crops and canes, and tooled leather straps just as thick as the paddles. He showed me delicate but painful looking clips and clamps. He put one on my finger to give me an idea how it would feel. It pinched a little, but nothing I couldn’t bear. “It will feel different on your s and your ,” he cautioned me. I swallowed hard. Of course it would.

Then he showed me dildos and butt plugs and other toys that terrified me. They were far too large to ever fit up inside me. “You’ll like these best of all,” he said with a smile. He showed me a shelf full of lubricants, all different types. Scented, flavored, heavy duty, light duty. He showed me one bottle with a gleam in his eye. “This kind will make you itch, for when you’ve really been bad.”

Yes, my eyes must have been like saucers looking into that armoire. He showed me everything proudly, like the curator of some perverse museum. When I’d had a good look at it all he tilted my face to his. He looked into my eyes and I felt shy and exposed. It was very, very hard not to look away.

“Look at me,” he insisted. When my eyes were fixed on his, he spoke to me in a low voice.

“So what do you think, Lucy Merritt? If you’re going to be my lover, you’ll have to endure all these things.”

And the way he said lover made me absolutely thrill, and then that word endure, it sounded sexy as hell to my ears. I searched for my voice, for what to say. He pressed me some more, his voice goading me.

“Are you sure you don’t just want to run home? Climb back into bed with your worn out copy of The Story of O?”

“No. I want to stay here.”

“Okay then. Let’s stay.”

He led me to the center of the room, then walked away from me, talking over his shoulder.

“Face me. Take off your clothes. Everything. Put them over by the door.” I stood still for just a second, and then I did exactly as he said. I took off my sweater, my jeans, my shirt and socks and shoes, until I wore only my thong and bra, and then I looked up at him, my face flaming red.

“Everything but the panties,” he said from the sofa, where he sat watching every move I made. I removed my bra and placed everything by the door, thankful at least for the small scrap of fabric between my legs. As I walked, I had to make an effort to move my limbs. I had been for Pietro so many times, practically in dance costumes which left nothing to the imagination. But never, never had I truly felt as as I did now, and that was even wearing the panties he’d so graciously let me keep on. His intent gaze was terrifying and yet thrilling. I desperately hoped he liked what he saw.

He stood up and beckoned me back to the center of the room where he met me, looking over me long and critically. I burned and blushed. It was so intimate and embarrassing. My hands came up of their own volition to cover my s.

“Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t ever try to hide your body from me. In this room, when we’re together, it’s mine. Understand?”

I nodded and put my hands down, and felt my s grow hard under his gaze. I didn’t know whether to look at him, or look away, or look at the floor, or what. Then his hand touched my buttock, and I flinched.

“Stand still.”

Again he reached out to touch me, and this time, I was still as a statue for him. He ran his hand slowly all over my bottom, down to the underside of my cheeks and then further down to my upper thigh. Finally, he was putting those beautiful hands on me. He stood close, in my space, and I could smell...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 11



His hands moved over me with maddening deliberation. His fingertips traced my shoulders, my belly, the curve of my , while I stood as still as I could manage. He cupped the heft of each of my s, squeezing and caressing them, then closed his fingers on my s until I gasped, pinching them even more brutally before letting them go. My flooded with wetness for the things he was doing to me, and the thoughts he was making me think. He leaned down and breathed right against my neck, his rough cheek pressed to mine.

“Lucy. How do you feel?”

I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“If you say ‘I don’t know’ to me again I’ll give you twenty with the cane. Think before you speak, and then answer. How do you feel?”

I might have sobbed then, one quick sob. “Exposed.”

“Do you feel like putting your clothes back on?”

I shook my head.

“Answer me, goddamn it.”

“No,” I said quickly.

He walked away from me, went back to the sofa, sat down and looked at me.

“Stand up straight. Unclench your hands. Look at me and listen.” I obeyed, my pulse pounding loud in my ears. I tried to relax, tried not to look scared.

“I want you to feel exposed, so if that’s how you feel, we’re off to a good start. You won’t wear clothes in this room. This is a room where I own you. When we’re in the confines of this room, you belong to me. If that’s not something you can agree with, you’re free to leave at any time. But I have to warn you, and I’m completely serious about this, if you ever leave this room before I’m finished with you, then you and I are done. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“As you see the walls are upholstered, and this is the basement of the house. It’s completely soundproof, so you can be as loud or as quiet as you like. I don’t really care if you scream or grit your teeth in silence. But I don’t use gags.”

I didn’t know what that meant, although he said it like it was important. I just stood silently, taking it all in.

“What you’ll need to remember and think of always, is that in this room, you exist for my use. You won’t have much cause to talk, but if I ask you a question, you’ll answer respectfully, using proper address. Do you know what proper address is?”

“Um...no.”

“Um is not proper address,” he frowned. “Shrugs, grunts, and headshakes are not proper address. Yes, sir or Yes, Matthew will suffice in the vast majority of situations. You will avoid using the word no, of course. You’ll do whatever I ask the moment I ask it of you and you won’t balk. If I don’t tell you what to do, you’ll stand or kneel and wait until I do. Do you understand?”

“Yes...sir.” The word sir felt strange on my lips. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d addressed any man as ‘sir,’ but it felt more appropriate than calling him Matthew at that point.

We were no longer equals, not now. He went on in his cool, authoritative voice.

“If you don’t please me for whatever reason, you’ll be punished and it will hurt very much.

Even if you please me, sometimes you’ll be punished because I’ll enjoy watching you endure it.

But I’ll never injure you and I won’t draw blood. Same thing when I you, the same rules apply. It won’t always feel good, but I won’t injure you and I’ll never draw blood. Do you understand?”

Again, I whispered “Yes, sir.”

“We’ll use a safe word in the beginning, and that word will be ‘mercy.’ ‘Mercy’ makes it end. But I warn you, don’t dare use it unless you’re desperate. If I catch you using it when you don’t really need to, whatever punishment you were getting, I’ll visit it on you ten times worse. I don’t tolerate lying well, as I’ve told you, to include the misuse of safe words. Lying and hiding sends me into a fury. You won’t ever do either. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“After our sessions I’ll expect you to sleep over. If you’re not to sleep over, I’ll have Davis drive you home. When we leave this room, our scenes will be over but your body will still be mine to use. The rules relax, but you’ll remain my submissive, and when I want you to take my , you will. And this will be our agreement, Lucy, until one or the other of us decides to terminate it.”

I took a deep breath. To terminate it. God.

He stood up and crossed to the armoire.

“But punishments will usually only take place down here. I’ve already shown you many of the things I’ll use to discipline you. As I’ve said, I can do whatever I want to you, and I will.

You’re permitted to feel all the pleasure you wish, whenever you wish, but you may only come with my permission. Do you know why?”

He looked at me. I swallowed the um that came to my lips and thought hard. “Because I can only do as I’m told?”

“Yes, that’s part of it. The other part of it is that you belong to me when we play. All of you.

Your body, your feelings. Even your thoughts. Sometimes I’ll ask for your thoughts, Lucy, and you’ll give them to me. I’ll ask for you to do things you don’t want to do and you’ll do them for me. And your pleasure, your ...” He paused for effect. “Mine, not yours. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

I had understood submission on the surface, in the simplest form, but it was becoming clear to me that the submission Matthew expected was a lot more involved than it had been in my erotic dreams.

“The pleasure you feel will come at my hands always. You won’t touch yourself without my permission. Coming without my permission is a serious infraction, a punishable offense. To complicate matters,” he continued with a smile, “if I tell you to come, and you don’t, I’ll punish you for that as well.”

“But—” I clamped my mouth shut.

“Go on. If you have any questions, better to ask them now.”

“What if...what if I just can’t come?” Like most women, it was never a sure thing for me.

“Trust me, if you’re with me— with me, you understand—then you will. If you aren’t with me...if you aren’t giving yourself up to me, that’s your problem, your infraction, not mine.” He looked at me hard. “You see?”

“I think so. Yes, sir.”

As I said this, he lifted some clamps from the armoire.

“Have you worn clamps before, Lucy?”

“Yes, once,” I admitted.

“By yourself, or with a lover?”

“By myself.”

“Did you like how it felt?”

I burned with embarrassment. “Yes. But I didn’t make them very tight,” I added as an afterthought.

That made him laugh. “Adjustable clamps. I don’t use those. Mine hurt. What about toys?

Have you ever worn a plug in your ?”

“Yes, sir.” It was too humiliating.

“By yourself, or with a lover?”

“By myself,” I whispered. “I was curious.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. You’ll wear them all the time here. They’re excellent for keeping subs in the right headspace. Have you ever been spanked?”

“No. Well, just play stuff.”

“A hand?”

“Yes. And a hairbrush one time.”

“Your fiancé? You tried to clue him in, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But it didn’t really take.”

He put down the clamps and picked up one of the canes, a small whippy one, and walked over to me.

“Bend over.”

I hesitated. He looked at me hard. I wanted to obey, but...if I bent over, he would hit me. He would hit me. It would hurt. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to take the pain, and then...

“It’s scary, isn’t it, the first time?”

I nodded, and he nodded too.

“I know. Now, bend over. I don’t like to say things more than once.” I bent forward slightly, and before I even finished, he striped my bottom with the cane, just once. I yelped in pain and reached back to shield myself, frantically rubbing the fiery stripe he’d left. He took my hand hard in his.

“Give me the other one.”

He secured both my wrists in front of me in a firm grip while my mind was still stuck on the throbbing pain of what he’d done.

“You will never put your hands behind you. Never, never, never. You’ll never try to protect yourself. In the beginning, I’ll restrain you for your own safety, until you learn to control yourself on your own. Canes can draw blood pretty quickly on a hand. A paddle can break one.

Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and then I shrieked as he brought the cane down on my again. I tried to pull away from him but found I could go nowhere. He had me held tight. I gasped for breath. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it after all. After all this, I would have to tell him it wouldn’t work, that I couldn’t do what he wanted. But I was doing it, wasn’t I? He’d hit me twice and I’d lived.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 12



But how many would I have to take? While I was wondering that, he hit me once more. I yowled and struggled to pull away from him, but again, I was held fast.

“Okay,” he said. “Take some deep breaths. You survived some of the worst pain I’ll visit on you. You did survive, didn’t you?”

He looked at me and I blinked back through tears.

“It hurts, I know. I told you. This isn’t a game. Have you had enough, little girl? Do you want to leave?”

“No, sir,” I whispered. “I don’t.” I wanted him to hold me, I wanted him to soothe me, but no, I didn’t want to leave. He pulled me close and looked down at my , smoothed his rough hand over the aching sting. “You have three beautiful welts now, Lucy. Look.” I did, and the welts looked angry and red. Beautiful? I wasn’t sure about that yet, although I felt a strong, unexpected ache between my thighs. Surely that hadn’t turned me on, had it? I watched with relief as he put away the cane and didn’t pull out any other toys. Instead, he cupped and fondled my s, holding them in his hands while my bottom burned and the throb between my legs ratcheted up. “These are lovely. Real. The perfect size.” He pinched my s again, even harder than before, and I moaned. Then I blushed.

“It’s okay,” he said with a smile. “It’s good that you enjoy it. But you may not come, not unless I say.”

I bit my lip as he continued to toy with my s.

“You like this,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “You have sensitive s.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever had a clip on your ? Between your legs?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“I bet you’ll like that too. Very much. Spread your legs.” I did, but not enough, because he nudged my feet impatiently.

“Wider.”

He pulled the panties down and off and pushed my feet apart until I was spread wide open, and then he put one hand on the front of my waist to hold me still, and with the other hand, thrust two fingers up inside me. I was mortifyingly wet, but he didn’t say anything about that. Instead, he asked, “how many partners have you had?”

“Four.” And not one of them ever touched me like this.

He sighed, wiggling his fingers around inside me. “I believe you. You’re small. Tight.” He pulled out his now sopping fingers and without any warning at all, thrust one of them deep into my . He slid it right in to the hilt, lubricated as it was with my juices. I held my breath as he pressed it into me, hard. I fidgeted a little as he tried to put in another finger. It wouldn’t go. He didn’t force it, but he did tsk at me.

“Have you ever had anal sex?”

“No, sir.”

“Never? Not once?”

“No.” My voice sounded strained. He didn’t try any more to insert the other finger.

“Well, you will,” he said. “Are you on the pill?”

“No, I can’t take it. It makes my periods go on forever.”

“We don’t want that, do we? Where are you in your cycle?” he asked, pulling his fingers out of me and walking away.

Oh, Jesus Christ. “I had my period last week.”

“Okay. You’ll let me know when you have your period and we’ll do other things. Are you clean? No sexually transmitted diseases?” While we discussed this, he washed his hands at a sink in the corner. The fully equipped playroom.

“God, I hope not,” I think I said.

“I’ll use a condom every time, although I’m clean. You’ve never had unprotected sex with your partners?”

“No, I never have.”

“Even your fiancé?”

“No. I was saving that for my wedding night.”

For some reason that made him chuckle. I suppose he thought it funny, that I’d almost married some vanilla boy, as he said. I wondered what Joe would think of me now if he could see me. He’d probably think, God, I almost married a freak.

“Well,” he said, “for now, anyway, we’ll use condoms. Maybe, eventually, we’ll get some blood work done. But if you can’t take the pill...” His voice trailed off, and I stood thinking how bizarre it was, to be discussing these things in such a businesslike way with him, and then I stopped thinking altogether, because he was walking towards me, starting to strip. The animal way he moved took on a whole new meaning as he revealed his body to me. Each limb, each muscle seemed perfectly formed and proportional, superbly male. His broad chest tapered to muscular and thighs and his organ seemed to me the most beautiful I’d ever seen. The natural, easy way he walked, even the way his arms swung at his side as he approached resonated in some unconscious part of me.

“Get down on your knees,” he ordered as he came to stand in front of me, fisting his . It was huge and purplish red. “Kneel up straight and keep your eyes on my while I speak to you.”

Not a problem, I thought to myself as I stared. It would be very damn hard to ignore, especially jammed right up by my face as it was.

“Have you sucked a lot of s, Lucy Merritt?”

“Not very many.”

“You’ll suck mine a lot, and you’ll swallow my cum. You’ll suck mine like there’s nothing you enjoy more on earth, and you’ll savor my cum like it’s the nectar of the gods. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Open, and keep your hands in your lap. Open wider,” he said as he guided his to my mouth, so I did, and without preamble, he shoved it in. I choked and gagged from the shock.

“Relax.” His fingers held my head steady. “Get your mouth wet, open your throat for me.” I tried, I desperately tried to fellate him, but I was clumsy and hopelessly inept. Tears came to my eyes from all the gagging, but he didn’t withdraw, he just stroked my hair. “It’s okay, don’t give up. It takes practice. You’ll get plenty of it. Just relax and try your best.” And actually, it did get a little easier. My mouth filled with saliva, which helped him slide more easily in and out. My throat became used to the steady thrusts, or perhaps numb to them, and I only gagged from his thrusting every few times. He drove me on, firm and encouraging.

“It’s okay, you’ll get better. Pay attention. Try.”

He sighed then, and I felt a bolt of pleasure, that I was somehow moving him with my clumsy attempts. “Be open,” he breathed. “Accept me. You have to learn to be open to me.” He picked up the pace, ing my mouth, holding my head in his hands. By now, tears of strain were streaming down my face.

“Now,” he said, “lick my balls. Put your hands on my thighs, put your face right up in there.” I tried my best to do what he asked. I lapped at his balls carefully, lost in new sensations, velvet skin and rough hair tickling my nose. The masculine scent of him permeated my senses, made me feel wild and wanton. “Harder,” he coached, “broad strokes with your tongue. Oh Jesus,” he said, his fingers twining in my hair. “Yes, just like that.” Soon afterward, he thrust back into my mouth and came in the back of my throat with a growl. Just as he’d told me to, I swallowed every drop of his cum as if it was the most delicious nectar on earth.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered when he finally pulled away from me, whether in frustration or appreciation, I had no idea. He yanked me to my feet and looked down at my wide eyes, my damp cheeks.

“Are you turned on?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I said breathlessly, and I was.

“Lie down on your back. Part your legs, put your fingers on your .” I did, and he knelt down next to me. “Masturbate,” he said. “Don’t be self-conscious. When I tell you, you’re going to come.”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, played with myself nervously.

“Look at me. Open your eyes,” he snapped. “You’re coming for me, not for yourself.” And I remembered then what he’d told me. If I tell you to come and you don’t, I’ll punish you.

I was going to disappoint him already because I couldn’t do it. I knew that I couldn’t.

“Do it. Play with yourself,” he said. “I want to watch. Make yourself come.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I whimpered.

He stood up and crossed to the armoire, which made me panic. He didn’t bring anything too scary though, just some small silver clips. I watched him, going still.

“Don’t stop.” He put his fingers over mine, making them move. Then, while I watched him, he tugged and flicked my s, making them taut and hard as stones. I held my breath as he opened the clips, attaching first one, and then the other to my sensitive peaks. My pelvis came up off the floor and I moaned like a wild thing. I’d never felt anything so erotically painful in my life.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 13



He looked at me, bemused, and whispered, “Do you like that?” Then he put his hand over mine, over my , and thrust his fingers in and out of me, and put his lips to mine and whispered to me, “Come.” And with a helpless cry of relief, that’s exactly what I did. I came like crazy, came like I’d never come in my life. I bucked against his fingers, completely gone. My vision blurred, my blood sang in my veins and my whole pelvis seemed to contract and release in excruciating pleasure.

When I came back to earth from the place I’d gone to, I saw him watching me, his lips curved in a satisfied smile. Then slowly, with his free hand, he undid first one clip and then the other, lowering his mouth to each afterward, sucking away the sting. Then, only after that was accomplished, did he withdraw his fingers from inside me, and then held them to my lips and whispered, “Lick, until they’re clean.”

I savored his powerful, thick fingers, marveled at how big they felt in my mouth. I licked my scent, my juices from him with earnest appreciation. I licked eagerly and thoroughly and delicately until he was satisfied, and then I waited to be told what he wanted from me next.

But finally, for the first time all night, he had no words. All the guidelines had been laid down and he’d given me my tests. Now all he did for many long minutes was look down at me, stroking my thigh.

“Little Lucy,” he said finally. “Beautiful girl. What do you think about this? Did you find it too difficult? Too scary?”

“It was difficult and scary,” I answered. “But I liked it very much.”

“So did I,” he said with a frown. And the frown, I wasn’t sure where that came from, but I didn’t care a second later, because he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me long and hard. His fingers, still damp from my lips and tongue, buried themselves in the hair at my nape and pressed into my scalp. I felt his chest against mine, his rock hard stomach against the arm at my side. I hadn’t been sure if he would kiss me, non-girlfriend that I was, but he kissed me as if he treasured and loved me, and for those long moments he kissed me, I let myself pretend he did.

He kissed and nuzzled me for what seemed like ages, and then pressed his cheek against mine.

Rough stubble across my jaw, soft breath against my ear.

“Beautiful, beautiful Lucy,” he murmured, and I thought, here then, here is the joy.

Chapter Five: Hands

Finally he helped me up, and I gathered my clothes near the door. “Don’t bother to put them on,” he said. “You’ll sleep in the nude when you’re here.” He left his own clothes lying on the floor. I followed him up the two flights of stairs to his bedroom, both of us silent. What was there to say? I just stared the entire time at his awe-inspiring and thought that something like that was probably a punishable offense.

He guided me into his bedroom. It contained a huge wrought iron bed and two nightstands and not much else. It was stark white and gunmetal grey, modern and formal and fastidiously clean. The bed was just as massive as I’d imagined it, and I looked at that bed for a long lascivious moment, pictured him ing me on it. Then I turned and I froze stark still.

On his wall were two large canvases. In the first, a girl stood casually, one hip turned out, her eyes downcast. In the second, she looked backwards over her shoulder, her hair falling down her curved back and heart shaped bottom. You could barely see her face, but I didn’t need to.

Because the girl was me.

It frightened me to death. I suppose it was the knowledge of what he’d paid to have them.

The fact that they were in his bedroom where he slept. The fact that he had bought these paintings nearly a year ago. Everything, every word and action between us suddenly took on a twisted, stalkerish slant.

He stood still and let me look, although he seemed less at ease. He stood between me and the door as if he feared I might bolt. He watched my face closely but didn’t say a word in explanation, as much as I suddenly felt I deserved an explanation of some kind.

“So it was you who bought them.”

“Yes, it was me.”

“Did you...did you know they were me? All along?” I asked stupidly. As if this was all some great coincidence.

He tilted his head, a patient smile. “Of course I did. You don’t pay that much for paintings and not get a tip about the model.”

“Pietro told you who I was?” I asked incredulously.

“And where to find you.”

“So you...so you donated to the company...”

“Because of you? I suppose. In a way. Does that bother you?”

“It creeps me out a little bit, yes. He sold these paintings to you months ago. Last year.”

“Yes, I know. I thought about taking them down so you wouldn’t know I had them. But I didn’t. Do you know why?”

My voice trembled. “Because it wouldn’t have been truthful.”

“Yes, Lucy, it wouldn’t have been the truth. The truth is that first I procured the paintings, and then, I decided to procure you. I’m a collector of beautiful things, and I find you so beautiful that I have to have you. I need you to be mine. I thought it might be enough to own paintings of you, but it wasn’t. And so here we are.”

Yes, here we were, indeed. He watched me while I tried to still my beating heart, quiet the adrenaline roaring through my veins. Fight or flight? Why do either? He had already hurt me, and I’d liked it, and I knew he would do it again. So he had Pietro’s paintings...it was actually kind of flattering.

“I’ve never seen them up close. The finished ones.”

“Look all you like,” he said, nodding towards them. “Beautiful art is for looking at.” I sidled closer, looked up at the curves and lines of my body.

“I wish I had a camera,” he said.

I laughed softly. I was standing exactly as I was in the first painting, looking up at myself on canvas as if into a mirror. But then my eyes moved to the second painting, and I thought to myself, I don’t look like that anymore. Because in the painting my was white and unmarked, and now it had three vivid stripes across it that I could feel whenever I moved.

“I’m glad they went to someone who appreciated them. Who wanted them,” I said when I finally looked away.

His eyes flicked from the paintings back to me. “They’re certainly worth what I paid. And I’m grateful for what they resulted in.”

“You mean...me?”

He laughed, but the way he spoke kept me always off kilter. His compliments were delivered in the same cool, impersonal tone as his threats.

“Yes, you, Lucy Merritt with two t’s. I’m grateful you’re finally here with me, and that you’re as submissive in real life as you are in those works.” My eyes flew back to the paintings. Submissive?

“Don’t you see it?” he murmured. “Ah, well. I did. And I was right. Things went well for us the first time. You still feel they went well?”

He wanted truth from me. He was checking one more time. My answer hadn’t changed.

“Yes, sir.”

“And what about you, Lucy?” he asked. “What exactly do you get out of all this?”

“Good sex,” I lied to him, even though he’d cautioned me so many times already to never, ever lie.

His eyes roved over me, silent and appraising, looked at me standing in front of his paintings of me. All his valuable acquisitions in one place.

“You know, they’re beautiful, Lucy, but nowhere near as beautiful as you. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, that you’d be so much more beautiful in real life. The first time I saw you by the stage door, I was too shocked to speak. Do you remember?”

“You demand truth, but you’re feeding me lines.”

“Not lines, believe me. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known.” I looked at him then, looked at him watching me, and I remembered how he’d run his fingers over me downstairs when I’d first undressed.

“So that’s what matters most to you? Truth, and owning beautiful things?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

I suddenly had a ghost of a memory, a high school lit class, a Greek picture on the cover of a report. “I think there’s some kind of poem about that. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that is all you need to know. Something like that. I studied it once.” I tried to remember the exact words of the poem, remember more about it, but he was staring at me with a look I didn’t understand.

“Keats,” he said after a moment. “Lucy, it’s time for bed.”

* * *

I followed him into his bathroom, which was just as grey and stark as his chamber of a room. The surfaces and fixtures were all spotless, and the towels hung from the towel racks folded perfectly as sculptures. I felt like I was in a museum, and I might have been. He certainly looked like a Greek god of a statue standing there beside me, and I stared at his reflection in the mirror as we brushed our teeth. He went through all the motions of a normal human, tooth brushing, flossing, taking a noisy piss with the door open wide. Then he pulled me into the shower with...

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 14



When we got out, he handed me a towel and I dried myself, wondering at his sudden change of mood. He had gone from being warm and complimentary to being brusquely and puzzlingly cold. He took my towel away and pulled me into the bedroom, leading me straight to the bed. He had a condom in his hand that I hadn’t even seen him pick up, and he put it on with practiced finesse, using only one hand. With the other, he pushed me onto my stomach and held me there, bent over the bed. He used one of his legs to part my thighs, then placed his at my entrance and forced his way inside. I gasped, shocked, because it hurt, and I thought then that he wasn’t cold, he was angry.

Was it my reaction to the paintings? That I’d accused him of feeding me lines? The poem I’d recited to him? He ed me roughly, pounding me hard. My ached, and I felt strangely detached from what had been for me, previously, a romantic act. Lovemaking. This wasn’t lovemaking, this was ing, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. I’d never been with a man as large as Matthew, and I felt battered rather than sensuous. I lay still and pliant and I didn’t think of coming, not even once. No, the whole time he ed me, I just stared at the paintings, and I thought, those paintings are beautiful, but this, what he’s doing to me, is not.

I heard him grunt, felt the last thrust, felt him hold himself tense against my back. He pulled away as soon as his orgasm was over.

“Up. Into bed,” he ordered, slapping me once on the . I crawled quickly onto the bed and moved to the side where he nudged me. He went to discard the condom and then got in on the other side. He pulled the covers up over us, turned his back to me and turned out the light, settling down with a sigh. The silence was deafening. I would have given anything just to hear him mutter goodnight. So that was the first time we had intercourse together. To say he’d to me would be a laughable deceit. He had used me, exactly as he’d told me he wanted to, and while I knew this was what I’d signed up for, I started to cry.

After a moment, he turned the light back on. “What? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” I sniffled through tears.

“I’m going to hang you from a hook and flay you alive next time you say ‘I don’t know’ to me.”

“I’m confused!”

“Why?”

“I don’t—” I stopped myself just in time.

“You didn’t like what we did tonight?”

“My hurts,” I finally said, and the welts did hurt a little, but that wasn’t really why I cried.

He just watched for a long time in silence, just watched me cry as he had that night in his car, as if I was some kind of museum exhibit. What do we have here? This is fascinating.

Intense.

“Are you really hurt, Lucy? Or are you just ashamed? I thought you said you liked it.”

“I did like it.”

“So you cry then, when you like things?”

“I’ve just never...felt anything like this. I don’t know how to feel about this. And I do feel a little ashamed about it all.”

He was quiet for a long time, and then he sighed again.

“Listen to me, Lucy, I’m not a big fan of shame. I know I’m kinky. I know I’m crass. But I’m not ashamed, and I don’t want you to be.”

He lifted my chin, made me meet his eyes. One broad thumb swept the tears from one cheek and then the other as he spoke.

“So you like to get roughed up, get ed, get ordered around. So what? I like doing those things to you. So you being ashamed around me is both annoying and ridiculous. Just go to sleep, instead of lying there crying like an idiot.”

“I’m not an idiot.” I tried to say it respectfully, but I guess I failed from the look on his face.

“Listen to me,” he said, his fingers digging into my chin. “You’re whatever the I say you are when you’re with me.” He turned away from me again. “You’ll learn,” he muttered, and turned off the light with a snap of his wrist.

* * *

When I woke the next morning, it was because his hand was jammed between my legs. His fingers spread me deftly to find my , and began to trace slow circles there. I was still groggy and achy from the night before. I pressed back against his front, half expecting him to shove me away. He didn’t though. He pulled me closer, molding his body to mine and nibbling on my neck.

“Good morning, Lucy.”

“Good morning.”

“Do you want to ?”

It was a rhetorical question since he was already sheathed and nudging his into my wet slit from behind. He drove in, holding my still, pulling me back against him. The whole time he never stopped the slow circles on my , slow rhythmic circles that made my thighs clench. I leaned my head back and he nuzzled me with his rough morning stubble. The sensation was overwhelming, and I feared he would stop what he was doing before I could come. I put my hand back on his thigh, and the other over his hand on my , but he made a disapproving sound and I took them away. He caught both my hands hard in one of his and held them trapped between my s, and the whole time, the slow circles never stopped. I felt like I was melting right into him, the delicious heat of him. The pleasure he was giving me crowded everything else from my mind.

I moved back against him restlessly, never wanting the sensation to end. I could feel the sparks and tension building inside me. I wanted him to make me come, but knew very well he might choose not to. He kept on driving me, driving me to the very edge of that cliff. Finally I whimpered, a sound of entreaty, begging for release.

“Yes, okay,” he said, driving deeper. “You can come.” The moment he breathed his words in my ear, his fingers found the very part of my center to trigger it, and so, that instant, I did. My walls contracted and I shuddered, pushing back against him, riding out the molten waves of pleasure. He grunted and bucked jerkily through his own orgasm just after mine. Our soft feral noises blended together in the silence of the morning, and his hot, strong hands didn’t let go of either part of me. He still kept my hands captured tightly in his left hand, and his right remained between my legs, possessively stroking my mound.

“Little girl,” he said, “who taught you to come like that?”

“I thought—you said—”

“Yes, I said you could come. And you did. Jesus Christ.”

“I’ve never come like I have...last night...and now...” I stammered, totally at a loss for words. Or more accurately, I was afraid to spill out words I shouldn’t say.

“Well, I like it,” he said. He stretched beside me, warm and masculine. Hard muscles, soft, ticklish chest hair. I lay still in his arms shivering from aftershocks. I looked over at the paintings and unexpected tears came to my eyes. I’d actually had no intention of crying again. I was terribly embarrassed that I was, and steeled myself for another lecture. Where the tears came from now, I had no clue. I thought of all those nights before I’d met Matthew, when the tears wouldn’t come. But I couldn’t talk to him about that, I couldn’t explain that to him no matter how hard I tried.

He turned me back to face him. Again, that look of detached curiosity.

“I’m sorry. For crying again. I…I don’t know why. I can’t help it.”

“You’re allowed to cry. It’s pretty common in relationships like this.” I brushed at the tears. “I guess it’s because I don’t know how to feel.”

“What do you mean, how to feel?”

“I don’t know what I’m allowed to enjoy.”

“You’re allowed to enjoy it all. I told you that yesterday.” I could barely meet his eyes. What I really wanted to ask was, am I allowed to fall for you?

But I didn’t ask that, of course. I tried to turn off those feelings that I suspected were leaking out from my eyes in those undisciplined tears.

“It’s always an adjustment in the beginning,” he said to me. “It will get less confusing. At least I hope so.” He kissed my forehead and, slowly, both of my eyes. “You can leave after breakfast,” he said, and got up and dressed and went downstairs.

* * *

My muscles protested as I climbed down from his Mount Everest of a bed. I took a quick shower, even though I wasn’t sure if it was allowed. I really felt the need to wash myself off. I needed to wash off all the depravity of the night and that morning if I would be expected to face him over breakfast.

I was shocked at how my muscles ached, muscles I didn’t know I had. It had been so long since I’d felt aches like that, being a dancer. I maintained a relatively standard level of fitness.

Matthew had somehow exercised muscles my body didn’t use in dance, or perhaps, exercised them beyond what they were accustomed to.

As quickly as I could, I got ready and went down the stairs to the modern kitchen where Matthew was eating. Not just Matthew, but the driver too, whom he introduced as Davis.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 15



Another woman, Mrs. Kemp, bustled around serving everyone. I soon learned that Mrs. Kemp cooked for Matthew and kept his house, while Davis ran his errands and was his “jack of all trades.” I also discovered later that these two people knew everything about his proclivities, but that morning, I only wondered, and felt humiliated as I took a seat at the table. Mrs. Kemp brought me piles of pancakes, eggs, and bacon. Matthew looked at my plate over his paper and snorted.

“Mrs. Kemp,” he said. “Lucy is a dancer, not a farmhand,” to which she laughed. And yes, I could eat probably a fourth of what was on the plate, although Davis and Matthew ate twice my serving and more. I guess it took a lot of energy to the way he did. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, so I guess he burned it all.

Davis and Matthew had some cursory conversations about current events, household issues, errands he would need to run. I just sat and ate, tasting nothing, wondering what the point was in this breakfast table charade. To show off his new lover to his household staff? The dancer he’d acquired, just like the paintings up in his room? He said nothing to me the entire meal, until the end when our plates were cleared away. Then he turned to me in full hearing of Mrs. Kemp and Davis and said, “Lucy, I’d like to set up a schedule for us.”

“A schedule?” I choked out.

“Yes, a schedule of times to see you. For you to come over and play in the basement with me.”

I blushed, but neither Mrs. Kemp nor Davis batted an eyelash.

“What is your schedule during the week?”

“I...I have rehearsals from twelve to four, Tuesday through Friday, and then shows from six to ten forty-five or so, and two shows on Saturday.”

My voice trailed off. He was thinking.

“So you’re off Sunday and Monday?”

“Yes, si—Yes, Matthew.” I couldn’t bring myself to call him sir in front of them.

He thought some more.

“I’d like to see you two weeknights, and then perhaps a day on the weekend. All day. How about Tuesday and Thursday nights, and then Saturday night and Sunday, until the afternoon?

Would that schedule suit you? We could try it, and add more time if we need to.” I ground my teeth listening to him schedule me, schedule visitation time with the little dancer he owned.

“It sounds okay,” I said unenthusiastically. I was so embarrassed that he would discuss all this in front of them. It was as if he did it precisely to humiliate me, in fact I knew he did. It was so draining being with him, an endless rollercoaster of highs and lows. He would kiss me, speak to me affectionately, and I would melt for him, and then he’d devastate me with heartbreaking ease.

“So you’ll come here then, next Tuesday after your show. Davis will pick you up by the stage door.”

“Why won’t you?” I asked rather crossly.

“I may or may not,” he said with a shrug. As in, I may or may not bother to come get you. I care for you so little, I may just send someone else.

But Jesus, he was just getting started. While Davis and Mrs. Kemp looked on, he continued to talk.

“You can leave whatever you want here, toiletries, clothes and personal items. I’ll have Mrs.

Kemp clear out some drawers. And of course I’ll expect you to be impeccably groomed whenever you’re here.”

“Of course,” I muttered.

I could feel his displeasure at my tone, just feel it in waves, but I didn’t look up. I was afraid he’d bend me over the table and beat me right there, in front of the strangers who were so obviously meant to witness all this, whatever this sick thing was going on between us.

He let it go. “I like your manicure,” he said. “It’s perfect as it is. Don’t change it.” I looked at my hands in confusion, at which point he laughed. Even Davis’s *** face betrayed a snicker. “Not that manicure. Your wax job. I ume you wax?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, hating him. “I have to, for work.” What were we going to do next, start discussing my period again?

“Your cunt looks nice. I don’t like hairless. Feel like I’m ing a twelve year old girl.

You’re little enough as it is.”

I’m not little, I wanted to yell, you’re big! He was the one here with all the power, and I, the hapless one twisting and turning for his amusement.

Davis drove me home shortly afterward. I sat in the back seat, embarrassed beyond words. I had loved Matthew so much when he kissed me on my eyes, and then one conversation over breakfast had ruined it all. There was no way I was ever going back there. When Davis came to fetch me on Tuesday, he’d be returning to Matthew alone. I pictured that awkward conversation with injured triumph, imagined how embarrassed Matthew would be when Davis told him I wouldn’t come.

But yeah, that conversation never happened, because next Tuesday night I climbed into that black car, and Matthew greeted me with a broad smile when I arrived at his house.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said.

“Hi, Matthew.” I just couldn’t stay away.

I had wrestled with my conscience all week. I knew this would end badly, in a world of hurt.

I knew there was only one way for this to play out. But I longed to be near him, for him to put his hands on me. I craved his handling like a drug.

So on Tuesday, after the show, I had washed and dressed and put on no perfume, and got into that car, just as I’d sworn I would not do. Now I was in his darkened house trailing behind him through the kitchen. He looked back over his shoulder at me. Intent eyes, ice blue and possessive.

“Are you ready to go downstairs with me?”

“Yes.” Of course I am.

* * *

He took me downstairs and again led me to the center of the room.

“Take your clothes off.”

I fumbled with the buttons on my blouse, then jumped when he barked, “Yes, sir!”

“Yes, sir!” I parroted frantically. Had he asked a question? Was I supposed to respond to everything he said? He stalked back to me and ripped off my shirt. The buttons I hadn’t gotten to yet went skittering across the floor. He unbuttoned my jeans roughly and pulled them off me, berating me the whole time.

“Yes, sir! You’ll answer me respectfully! It’s not hard! Two words, you little slut!”

“I’m sorry!” I cried over his tirade.

“I’m sorry, sir!” He took my face roughly between his hands. “You will never interrupt me again. Never.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m just—I’m trying—”

“I’m sure you are, but you’ll be punished just the same.” He pulled me over to the nearest ottoman and pushed me down until my knees buckled and I fell over it with a gasp. My mind was racing. What was I doing here? Why was I letting this happen? I looked up at his determined face as he cuffed each wrist and buckled them to the bolts.

He stood and unbuckled his belt, pulled it from his pants, doubled it over.

“You’ll get fifteen, five for each offense. You’ll count each one out loud.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered, already tearful.

“You may cry as you wish, Lucy. And yes, this will hurt.” With no more warning than that, he landed the first blow. And yes, it hurt, it hurt like hell. It hurt so much that all I did was cry, and I forgot to count.

“One!” he reminded me.

“One!” I sobbed.

“You just added five more.”

He whacked me again, and I managed a “Two!”

“You know, it really isn’t that difficult, Lucy.”

“Three!”

“You just need to pay attention, you little whore.”

And this little whore counted every blow up to twenty. I didn’t miss one, even when the pain was so great that I screamed.

When he was finished, he dropped the belt, tore his clothes off and knelt behind me. For a moment, he caressed the welts on my bruised while I tried to stop sobbing. I was terrified, and yet burning with need for him at the same time. He thrust his fingers between my legs to find me sopping wet.

“Lucy,” he breathed, his voice thick with lust. What was happening? Was this sex?

Punishment? Or something else entirely? He spread my legs with his knees and fumbled with a condom. Again, I had no idea where it had come from. I felt his hard at the back of my thighs. I strained back against him. He made a soft sibilant sound and stroked my neck, as if to soothe me, calm me. I was shaking.

“Breathe,” he said. His fingers threaded up into my hair, then closed and pulled hard as he thrust deep inside.

He had me so completely under his power at that moment. I was so completely his, lustful and broken and hurting and hot. When he pushed inside me, started to me, it was unbearable. It hurt but I never wanted it to end. My wrists were still fixed to the ottoman, and my hands clenched and unclenched as he drove into me. While he ed me, his hands caressed my cheeks, making the ache smart and burn hotter. He squeezed them and traced the welts there, and then he thrust one of his fingers into my .

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 16



“Oh God!” I cried out at the wicked sensation of it. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. God, if he didn’t let me come… I bucked and strained under him, desperate for release.

“No, you may not come. You’re still being punished.”

I tensed all over. I held my breath. I writhed back against him in entreaty.

“Do not, Lucy. I’ll tear you up if you do.”

I cried, tensing every muscle in my body, and by some miracle, I managed not to come.

But oh, I cried. I sobbed and I shuddered that he wouldn’t let me have my release. He pulled away from me after he finished and went to sit on the couch. I suppose he looked at me, but I was facing away from him, so all he got was an eyeful of my sore, red .

“Do you think you can remember the rules now?”

“I...I’ll try.“

“No trying. Yes or no?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll remember the rules.”

“I’m very proud of you for not coming, for not breaking that rule. I know it wasn’t easy, especially when I played with your . You loved that, didn’t you, you little slut?” I whimpered softly.

“Answer me. Whining is not an answer.”

“Yes, sir,” I admitted, blushing red.

“Yes, Matthew, I loved when you played with my ,” he prompted.

“Yes, Matthew, I loved when you played with my .” Always truth with him. My was teeming. I was absolutely aching with unsatisfied lust.

“I love your . I can’t wait to it. I’m seriously going to love ing your , but you’re way too small. I can hardly get one finger in there as it is now. I’m going to have to train your little hole to take my .”

“Thank you, Matthew,” I said. I don’t know why. It seemed like an appropriate response.

He laughed in appreciation. “Good answer. Don’t move.” He got up and got a plug from the armoire. Not too big, nowhere near as big as his , but when he lubed it up and began to work it into my , I moaned, afraid.

“Open. Open,” he breathed, pushing it in slowly, forward and back. “It’s going in one way or another. This is how we begin. This is how we train your tiny little hole for bigger and better things.”

I pressed my face to the ottoman, clenched my helpless fists where they were cuffed near the floor, tried to be open as he said. The encouraging sounds he made barely registered over the moans he wrenched from me, the strange feeling of being pried open there for the first time. I writhed and shivered while he seated it inside me, slowly, inexorably to the hilt. My felt huge, distended with excitement and pleasure, oozing with lust. I ground it against the ottoman, feeling every bit the whore he’d accused me of being. Then he leaned forward over me and reached around to pinch my s. He pulled and teased until they ached, until my entire body was one huge, shuddering throb of need and tension. Then he pressed against me and whispered,

“Lucy, come.”

Thank God. I came like a lost, crazed maniac, struggling under him. He firmly held me down. I was his creature, his whore. I was at his mercy, remade by him into something completely new and shameless. As I lay gasping, turned inside out by his power to transform me, he leaned down and bit me on the neck hard and whispered, “Good girl. You’re such a beautiful good girl.”

Chapter Six: Good Girl

Yes, I was his good girl, at least I tried to be. From that first nasty session, it got nastier fast.

Every time I visited he was more depraved, more inventive, kinkier. And me, I looked forward to our times together with a lust that threatened to overpower my mind. I let him do anything he wanted, anything he could come up with, and that simple, informal arrangement defined our relationship. There were only two things I didn’t allow him: to me without a condom, and to mark any part of me but my .

He couldn’t mark my legs or back because of dancing. “Oh my God,” Grégoire had hissed the first time he’d seen the marks. It was the day after a particularly brutal session. “Oh my ing God,” was all he could spit out. He didn’t do any lecturing, didn’t even ask for details.

He’d just said, “I don’t want to know,” and that was probably for the best.

I had to wear flesh colored dance panties under my tights and leotards, thick enough not to be seen through. But an allover body stocking would have raised some eyebrows, so I begged Matthew the very first week we played not to mark my legs or back. “Of course I won’t, Lucy,” he’d said, “if it will interfere with your work.” So while he owned me, it was a fluid ownership, one where he did not always make all the rules.

And there were so many rules on his side, rules that changed all the time. New rules that were made, old rules he got tired of and discarded, that I was then punished for continuing to follow. But he followed my two rules without complaint and I was thankful for that, because I didn’t get fired, and I didn’t get pregnant.

It turned out to be true, what he’d said about not being interested in most aspects of BDSM.

He didn’t do collars or gags or leashes, or any S/M rituals or verbiage. His only agenda was using my body as he wanted to, as his vessel, his object, his tool. His tool for ing, inflicting pain, caressing, his tool for holding beauty always within reach of his hands.

He did eventually develop some very specific demands about my appearance. I had to wear dresses or skirts with stockings, and no panties to get in his way. I was permitted to wear only one shade of expensive lipstick, a shade called Nutmeg. It was darkish purplish red, and I felt like a naughty little slut when I wore it. I felt like a vamp, a harlot, but he liked it because it made my lips stand out against my pale skin. I think he strove always for the china doll look for me. He was a collector, after all.

But not a doll collector, no, he had no dolls except me. He collected many other things, though, like sex toys and dildos, the more invasive and threatening the better. Paddles, whips and crops, canes, he collected those too. He collected sexy panties and lingerie, which always fit me perfectly. I suspected he had them custom made, the fit was so true. He bought me stockings of all types and colors, plain or back-seamed, and embellished with all manner of things. Bows or rhinestones, fur and lace, soft French stockings that felt like a caress on my leg.

Of course, whatever he collected for me, it was classy, of the utmost quality and beautiful design. He never put me in degrading or slutty lingerie, and forbid me to wear anything like that even when we were apart. The sex toys he bought for me were top class also. They were never cheap latex or rubber. They were always artisan pieces, sleek metal or glass. One day when he revealed a new and shiny plug to me, I asked jokingly when he’d buy me a solid gold one. Or platinum, I’d snickered, even better. I couldn’t help it, the irony of it made me laugh. He laughed a little too, before he thrust it up inside me and punished me for disrespect.

But it was patently clear from the beginning that he needed his base and vile desires to be somehow made into something elegant and fine. I thought sometimes of his dirt poor beginnings.

His deep obsession with elegance and beauty made me think he must have come from a very ugly place indeed.

I was taught exactly how to address him, and in a way it colored the way I related to him all the time. Always deferentially, always formally, the same quiet way that he spoke to me. It didn’t come naturally. I was not a mannerly person. I hung out all day with a bunch of rude, egotistical dancers. Sometimes I spoke to him in ways he didn’t like and he quickly let me know.

My inflection, my accent, all of it was criticized and improved. If I spoke in a way that annoyed him, he would slap me sharply or give me a shake and I’d have to speak again, better, more politely, more deferentially, just as he liked. And although we practiced BDSM together, I was cautioned to never call him master or daddy, nor, for that matter, any vanilla endearments like honey or dear. I was only permitted to call him sir or Matthew. Mr. Norris was strictly off limits.

He said it made him feel old, although he was only ten or so years older than me.

As for me, he usually called me Lucy, but he had his own favorite terms for me which he used whenever it pleased him. Slut, whore, and tramp were the favored ones. Dirty little whore, slutty dirty tramp, there were endless permutations. Occasionally he’d call me my favorite pet name, little . As in, you little , that’s not nearly good enough. Kneel up straighter and try it again. Perhaps you don’t see these as endearments, but I did, because when he said these words to me, his voice resonated with lust.

I became less skittish with each subsequent session, and more open to the pain which I actually came to enjoy. I guess once I realized he wasn’t going to hurt me, really hurt me, it made it easier to bear. With Matthew, the pain was always equally tempered with pleasure, so the two things for me began to seem one and the same, two facets of one thrilling experience, two sides of the same coin.

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 17



For his part, he moved me very carefully along a continuum. As demanding as he was, I could see a painstaking and wonderfully protective method to everything he did. That made me adore him more than anything, the mindful way he trained me to do the things he asked.

And he asked for things I never would have considered doing before I met him. Usually, I ended up liking them very much. My favorite activity with Matthew, despite my inexperience with it, was getting ed in the . I took to it like a fish takes to water, which was a good thing because he used me there a lot. He trained me to it slowly, teased me for three whole weeks with ever-widening dildos and butt plugs. By the third week, he’d progressed to making me sleep with one all night. I would writhe and fidget beside him, burning with lust, desperate for him to take out the plug and just me there already. He would feign impatience. Go to sleep, Lucy.

But I know he loved how horny he made me feel, loved the fact that I was, surprisingly, quite the anal-craving slut.

It was on one of those torturous nights I lay fidgeting, that he turned me to face him and looked at me hard.

“Lucy, please. Is it that uncomfortable?”

“It’s just...invasive.”

“Yes, it’s meant to be. In the morning, I’m ing your and I don’t want to have to fight my way in.” Then he’d turned his back on me with a great sigh. Tomorrow, tomorrow... tomorrow!

I squeezed my legs together. I was so horny for his and morning was still hours away.

Soon, I heard his breathing get slow and regular, and I shifted ever so slightly and put my hand between my legs.

My was wet and swollen. My fingers caressed it furtively, sliding over the slickness. I barely moved, tensing my body. I only tapped at it lightly, but I knew I would come. I almost did, I was so close, when I heard Matthew shift and felt his big hand close hard over mine.

“So against the rules. Did I tell you to touch yourself?”

“No, sir.” Shit.

“Did I say you could come?”

“No, sir,” I almost sobbed, my near orgasm of relief ebbing away. He pulled me close against the front of him and whispered against my ear.

“I put that little toy in your bottom to remind you all night that you belong to me. To remind you that you’re going to take my in your soon—and often, little one. If you have an orgasm, it’s because I gave it to you and I want to enjoy watching it. I’m sorry you’re a little anal-erotic slut, but you’ve been naughty. What happens to naughty girls?”

“Punishment,” I whispered.

“Tomorrow you’ll take twenty before I your . I’m sorry, but that was a very poor choice in judgment.”

“I know, sir. I’m so sorry. I...I was...horny.”

“Yes, clearly. Even so, I’m surprised you’d try it lying right next to me. You know the rules.”

“I thought you were sleeping.” I could be sassy now. I was already getting punished in the morning.

“You just added five,” he snapped. “Now go to sleep, and keep your filthy hands out of your crotch, you horny little slut.”

I almost laughed, but I’d already pushed him pretty far, so I smothered my snort of laughter with a fake burst of coughing.

“You’re really pushing it now,” he said, and pinched my so hard that I started to cough for real.

As promised, the next morning, he shook me abruptly.

“Wake up, Lucy. You have five minutes to meet me downstairs and I wouldn’t be late if I was you.”

I scampered off to pee and brush my teeth. I tried to fluff up my hair but I still looked a mess. I ran down the stairs stark , blushing as always when I ran past Mrs. Kemp. I burst into the basement room to find Matthew waiting, completely nude as well. Each time I was confronted with his strength, his masculine power, it started hot drumbeats in my veins. I stared a moment, transfixed.

“Come on,” he called to me at the door. He already had the leather paddle in his hand. He pointed to one of the sturdier ottomans. “This one.”

I walked over with as much dignity as I could manage. I knelt over the ottoman he indicated like the graceful dancer I was. “Hands.” I offered them obediently and watched him snap the cuffs onto my wrists, already shivering inwardly with lust.

He was in a good mood because he gave me a few warm-ups before he started to land the ones that really hurt. He snapped at me not to tense, but it was hard not to. The pain was so sharp, so stinging, it was hard not to clench and try to evade the blows. Halfway through, he started to lecture me.

“Who do you belong to?”

“You, Matthew. Eleven!” Ouch!

“Who does your belong to?”

Ouch! “Twelve! You, Matthew! Thirteen!”

“And who does your ty belong to?”

“Fourteen! You, Matthew! Fifteen!” I started to cry as he laid them on harder. My toes curled and my legs tensed as my eyes flooded over with tears. The broad, thick leather paddle was one of the worst things he used on me.

“And you’ll find out shortly—”

“Sixteen!”

“—who your hole belongs to.”

I sobbed from seventeen to twenty, choking on the words while I creamed on myself at the same time, thinking of him ing my . Afterward while I composed myself, he stood over me, tapping the paddle against his muscled thigh.

“You are never to touch yourself without me. Even when you go home, you’re still mine.

Here...” He prodded my soaked with the side of the implement. “This is mine and only mine. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, fidgeting at the crass caress of the paddle. I felt so horny and shamed.

“And if you slip up, Lucy, if you wank yourself at home, you’ll tell me as soon as we’re together and you’ll be punished. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you ever, ever give yourself to another man without my permission, I’ll invite over 50 of my most horny friends to use you like a whore and you in every hole, one after the other. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know you’re a horny little bitch, but you’ll ing control yourself or you’ll ing know pain. Do you understand me, Lucy?”

“Yes, sir.” The endless mantra. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir to everything you say, forever and ever and ever, Amen.

He went to the armoire to throw down the paddle and sheathe himself. He looked at the various types of lube, noisily trying to decide which one would best help me accommodate his

“fucking massive .” Then he pulled the toy out of my and jammed copious amounts of lube up inside me, slick and hot. I was excited, but absolutely terrified. I moaned and he slapped my sore bottom.

“Control yourself, you horny little tramp.”

I buried my face in the upholstery as he parted my cheeks, then I felt him against me, pressing against me with the thick head of his . Slowly he rocked at my entrance, but he couldn’t get in.

“Open, Lucy!”

I drew a deep breath, clutching at the bottom of the ottoman, my hands still tightly restrained. It hurt like hell, but I wanted it. I desperately wanted him to slide up inside my .

Open, open...

“Open,” he coaxed me. “Open. Open. Open. That’s right.” I could feel myself finally relaxing as he thrust just the head of his inside. He stopped, waiting for me to adjust. It was so tight, the pain so sharp. He was still so much bigger than any toy I’d endured.

“Jesus, Lucy,” he breathed. He pulled out and slathered more lube on his . He squeezed my sore cheeks. “Just settle down and relax. You’ve wanted this for a very long time.” He rubbed my lower back and held my . Again he breathed, “Open...” and again pushed the head in. I tried with every fiber of my being to be open, and with a sigh, he carefully slid deeper into me. Centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch, he slid into me. It felt horrible and yet wonderful at the same time. My entire body tensed and shuddered from the unfamiliar pressure.

“Fuuuuccckkkk...” he groaned. He pulled out a little and then went deeper still.

“Ahhh...good...that’s right, Lucy,” and he drove almost to the hilt. “Tell me if it hurts.”

“It hurts!”

“Tell me if it really hurts,” he said sternly. “If I’m hurting you.” I knew what he meant, because between us, there was hurt, and then there was hurt, and while he gave me hurt with the focus of a zealot, the other kind of hurt was not his thing. He went on ing me slowly, ascertaining that the hurt he was giving me was the okay kind.

“Just relax...” He massaged my , pulling me back onto his . Again and again he withdrew, then drove deep again. Each time, I felt invaded anew. “Feel me you. I know it feels different. Try to get used to how I feel in your .” He ran his hand up my back, twining his fingers in my hair. “Your feels so ing good to me, Lucy. I’ll be ing it all the time.”

 

Mercy
Mercy Page 18



He rode me slowly and thoroughly up the for what seemed an eternity. I think he truly did it to fixate me to it, to burn the sensation on my brain. Then, with that accomplished, he decided, being my first time ing, that I should definitely come. He instructed me clearly that I would come soon, and he pinched my s, ing me hard. I made a desperate sound, moaning and bucking back against him.

“Yes, you like that. I know.” Then he told me, “Now. Now, Lucy, you little whore. You delicious little slut. Come on, come for me. I want to feel your clamp down on my .” And my milked his exactly like he wanted it to, and I came hard and fast. The orgasm seized my entire body, and I gave myself up to it, all of it, burning and rocking and crying out like a harlot on fire.

* * *

I sort of liked that he forbade me to touch myself without him, because it was hard. It was really hard, because I always wanted to. Since meeting Matthew and being introduced to his particular brand of power exchange, I drifted through life on a high of carnal lust. I danced and I ate and I slept and I thought of him and the nasty things he did to me, the nasty things he made me do. It was really really hard.

Honestly, I didn’t always manage it. The nights I didn’t see him, I thought of him and dreamed, and sometimes it just seemed worth it to jack myself even if it meant some pain later on. Maybe you wonder why I told him at all, since he had no way of knowing if I touched myself or not. But I was a terrible liar, and he asked me every time, and I was terrified of getting caught in a lie. Truth, beauty. Beauty, truth. We had made our pact, after all. Aside from the one big lie we lived, I tried to be as honest as possible with him.

And we lived a gargantuan lie, at least I did, because he didn’t want a girlfriend, and I was utterly, completely in love with him. I would never have said so to him because I think if I had, he would have ended us at once. So I was truthful as I could be with him within that restrictive framework of deceit.

Yes, I adored Matthew completely, and grasped at all the small, caring things he did for me.

I treasured those fleeting moments of affection like jewels, beautiful sparkling jewels among the many harsh rocks he threw at me. Rocks and stones and boulders, I got it all from him. I never knew exactly what I would get each time I showed up. Sometimes he was easy-going, others he was harsh. Sometimes the rules seemed to relax into comfortable play time, and sometimes the rules brought nothing but pain.

One night Matthew picked me up at the stage door instead of Davis. He told me he’d been at the show. “I love to watch you dance,” he’d said with true admiration. The way it made me feel, I thought I would float away. Then he said, “I’m feeling really nasty tonight. I hope you’re ready.”

“Yes, Matthew, I’m ready.” By that point I was ready for anything, and the idea of him feeling nasty...well, what else was new?

As soon as we got to the basement, he started to strip. “Wait and let me undress you,” he said. When he was in all his tall, strong beauty, he crossed to me and undressed me, taking his time.

“You look cute tonight.”

“Thank you, Matthew.”

“Do you know what rimming is?”

“Yes, Matthew.”

“Have you done it before?”

“No, sir.”

While he talked to me, his hands roved over me. He ran his fingers along the marks that still lingered from our last session. He slid his fingers between my legs, gathering the moisture there, then drew them up to finger my hole.

“Did you touch yourself while you were away from me?”

“No, sir.” He looked at me to ascertain that I gave him truth. He nodded, convinced.

“Good girl. Come on then. I’ve been hard for you since you left. And I have been touching myself,” he added with a smirk. “Come here and kneel between my legs. Kneel up straight and listen to me.”

I knelt in front of him and he scooted to the edge of the sofa, his thighs spread wide on either side of me.

“Look at my while I talk to you, Lucy.”

Obediently, I did as he asked, and then he schooled me in the finer arts of fellatio while I explored his and more. I learned the precise and ticklish way he liked me to lick his perineum, and practiced some more at licking and sucking his balls. Then he fed instructions to me as I lapped at his hole, and all the instructions were gratefully appreciated because I would never have figured out how to do it on my own. These were all things that I never would have done, that I never would have even considered or even known about, if I’d been married to Joe.

Or maybe he would have eventually asked for them, but I didn’t think so. For Matthew, they were just more of what he liked.

I was rewarded after his very instructive session by his shoved down my throat, a couple of thrusts, and loads and loads of cum. As usual, I savored it with a moan.

“Thank me,” he gasped when he was able to.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You like to swallow my cum?”

“I love to.”

“You liked to jam your tongue in my ?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Come here. Lay across my lap.”

I did, and at once, he started to spank me. He’d never spanked me like this, not over his knee. His hand hurt like crazy. I was shocked it could hurt so much, just as much as the harder implements. I kicked my legs a little just to work through the unrelenting stinging pain. It was so hard not being restrained. He put up with my fidgeting for a while, but then ordered me to be still. It was too difficult. I flinched and tensed from the fiery slaps to my . He pulled my arm back hard.

“Stop it. Don’t tense, it makes my hand hurt. Let me spank you.” He pulled at my , making me arch to him. “There. Now behave.”

But it was hard to behave, really hard. I still tensed under the blows, and finally, with a frustrated exhalation, he pushed me off him.

“Stand up. Look at me.” I did, apologetic and ashamed. “Go to the armoire and bring me the toy you wore Tuesday night, the cinnamon lube, and the hairbrush.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hurry.”

So I hurried to get them, and returned. He pulled me back over his lap. Again he forced my up so my was thrust out in front of him. He lubed up the toy and tried to shove it in, but I tensed again. I couldn’t help it.

“Open, open up,” he ordered, slapping my .

He thrust some lube inside me and tried again. This time, with steady pressure, the toy entered me. It was one of the bigger ones, though still not as big as him. Right around the time he got it inside me, I realized that the cinnamon lube stung. I started to squirm with rising panic as he whacked away at me with the hair brush.

“Matthew!”

“Hush.” Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

“Matthew, it stings!”

“Yes, it’s meant to. You need to learn not to tense and clench when I spank your .” I moaned plaintively, squirming away from the blows, begging for respite.

“Enough!” he snapped, and paddled me harder, lecturing in a stern voice. “When you clench, it not only hurts my hand, but you bruise more. You’re the one that always complains about the marks with your dancing. You’ll do better if you learn to relax and accept the pain.

That goes for ing too, while we’re on the subject.” I just whimpered, kicking my legs like a naughty little whore. He continued paddling my to molten fire with the hairbrush while my hole stung horribly from the sensation of the lube.

Finally he put the brush down next to him.

“Now you lie still. I have some reading to do.”

I lay there across his lap for fifteen minutes while he read some developer’s report. My was throbbing and so hot with pain it felt like it radiated heat. If I tensed or fidgeted against his thighs, he picked up the brush and cracked me again. I tried to be good, I lay as still as I could, but I ended up getting quite a few swats, each one more excruciating than the last on my tender cheeks.

Finally he pushed me off his lap and had me kneel in front of him, and then he reviewed everything I’d learned earlier by having me rim and lick and suck him all over again. I was still distracted by the sting in my hole, so he pinched my s hard and held them that way to make me concentrate.

“For ’s sake, Lucy. Some enthusiasm. Open your throat. Get your tongue wet for me.

Poke that wet little tongue of yours right into my hole.” The orders came hard and fast, just like him. When I’d swallowed his cum, and he’d finally released my aching s, he looked down at me with an approving smile.

“Good girl. You’re a quick learner. I told you I felt nasty tonight.” I felt nasty too, with the toy in my , stinging and throbbing, making me feel so full. “Stand up,” he said, looking me over. “Don’t move.” He got a scary gleam in his eye. He went to the armoire and returned with a massive dildo. I watched warily. It would never fit.