He flashes a grin at me. “Well, you have been too busy. I’ve made sure of that.”
I smile back, running a forefinger back and forth across the edge of the table, and he winks at me and goes back to his music. It’s true. I have been working but when I’m not I’ve been totally preoccupied with him, and taken so eagerly to being his princesse, his minette. I do whatever he says and I’m so eager to please, like a puppy. Sometimes I wonder if I’m pathetic in my newfound neediness and if he’s going to sneer at me for it. But my pliancy, my obedience, my Yes, daddies, only elicit strokes from his hand and slow, indulgent smiles, smiles that I feel deep inside me, and the desire to please him doubles. So much for all my women’s studies classes and feminist ideals. But can’t this sort of relationship sit alongside all those ideals, for a little while at least? Frederic makes me happy, and though I let him tell me what to do—come here, princess, look at me, open your legs—he doesn’t make me feel beneath him. Even—and I feel hot and liquid between my thighs just remembering it—when he calls me his slutty little girl while he fingers me in an alleyway.
The best part about Frederic is that he seems to value my interest in my work and my conversation as much as he does the kinky stuff. Even though I’m submissive to him I’m always a person, not an object. All his pet names and kisses seem to be raising me up, making me braver. He works hard to make sure I’m happy and no one’s ever done that for me before. When I told him about him being my first inspiration for masturbating I didn’t understand what he meant when he said, I didn’t do anything to make you feel special or safe or secure. I didn’t earn it. But I think I understand now.
“I’m on the pill, you know,” I whispered to him when he had me cuddled on his lap the night after we first become lovers. “I get the most terrible cramps otherwise, so I’ve been on it for years, and I’ve had my tests done.” STD tests, I meant, but I was too shy to spell it out like that, preferring vague words like pill and tests. I wasn’t just making conversation. I was telling him that I wanted him to take me to bed. He’s stripped me naked, touched me, licked me, fucked me with his fingers until I’ve sobbed his name, but he hasn’t made love to me, and he hasn’t let me touch him or undress him. I wrap my naked body around his clothed one, his black jeans rough against my sex, the cold buttons on his shirt making my nipples bud.
My confession about the pill was met with an amused smile and an “Oh, yes? What do you know, I’m up to date with my tests, too.” But then he changed the subject. He hasn’t spanked me either, or talked to me in that stern, ferocious way that makes my insides quail and my sex wet.
And there’s my quandary. I want to sit on his lap while he praises me for being good for him and his pretty little girl, but I also want to see his eyes turn black and for him to be... vicious? Yes, I want him to be vicious. I fantasize about weeping tears onto his chest again, but tears because he’s hurt me, and then he kisses me and asks me with sweet cruelty if I think I can take a little more, like a good girl, for him. I don’t know where this impulse comes from, but it’s like that fantasy about the home invader. I touch myself and these thoughts just come.
Well, you could ask him if he’ll discipline you even though you haven’t been naughty. He did say spanking was his idea of foreplay, didn’t he? Chewing my lip I get up from the sofa and walk over to the piano, then lose my nerve and make a beeline for my room. But I don’t make it as his hand reaches out and grabs my wrist, pulling me back.
“I have felt you fretting and watching me for the last few minutes.” Frederic tugs me onto his lap and settles his arms around me. His warm, masculine scent envelops me. “Now, what’s wrong?”
Oh, boy. Okay. “Daddy, I...” I begin, running a fingertip over the points of his collar. Then I stop, unsure what to say next. I don’t have the vocabulary to voice my needs.
He frowns at the worried note in my voice. “What is it, petite fille?”
“Well, I like it whe
n you say things like good girl and call me your angel. I love seeing you smile at me and knowing that you’re pleased with me.”
“So do I.” And then he waits for me to go on, still frowning slightly.
I settle my arms around his neck and haltingly say, “But I like it when you’re fierce with me, too, and your eyes turn hard and you’re rough, like how you were when I didn’t turn my story in. I’ve thought about ways I could make you angry with me just so you might put me over your knee again, but it makes me so sad, imagining I’ve disappointed you.” I give him a pleading look. “I don’t know what to do.”
He gazes at me a long time, betraying no emotions. I wish I knew what he was thinking when he looked at me like that. “You want to be good, but you also want me to be rough with you, and put you over my knee and other things like that?”
I squirm a little on his lap, unsure what to say, but certain I’m being weird or confusing. It’s so hard to explain how much my insides go to pieces when I imagine him lashing out at me and causing me pain, but at the same time wanting always to be good, obedient, sweet. Just say that, tell him that. Then, the louder thought, But it doesn’t make any sense!
“Um, yes. I want that,” I finally concede in a mumble, playing with the back of his collar and looking past him.
He takes my face between his hands so I meet his gaze. There’s pleasure in his eyes, and he’s smiling. “Mon Dieu, Evie, hearing you talk like this is so very arousing. You can have both. You can be my sweet, well-behaved girl all the time and you can also have me be fierce with you. How does that sound?”
I still don’t understand. If I haven’t been bad he wouldn’t have any reason to punish me. “But how?”
He looks at me a long time, and strokes a thoughtful hand through my hair. “Can I tell you a secret, minette? It’s not something I tell many people. I left it out the other day when you asked me what turns me on.”
I look at him in surprise. “Oh? What is it?”
He rubs his thumb gently along my cheekbone, watching me closely and talking very softly. “I like hurting you. I like seeing marks on your skin. I like hearing your cries of pain and the fear in your eyes. It turns me on.”
My pulse throbs strangely and powerfully between my legs. I like hearing your cries of pain. “You mean when you punish me?”
He shakes his head, smiling slightly. “No. Not to punish you. Or, that’s good, too, but that’s not the reason why I want to hurt you. I like good girls like you who don’t deserve to be punished. You strive to be so respectful, so obedient. You do everything you’re told and I tell you you’re a good girl, the best little girl there ever was. And you are. You’re my sweet angel who only wants to please daddy.” He smiles wider, his eyes running over me. “And then I hurt you anyway, just because I want to. I see your skin get red and sore and hear you sob and whimper. I tell you again how good you are and ask you to take a little more pain, for me. You say yes even though you don’t deserve it.” His eyes have become heavy-lidded with desire, and he’s still smiling. “I like very much that you don’t. Where’s the fun in hurting someone who knows they deserve it?”
Fun. He wants to hurt me because it’s fun for him. I think about all the times he’s looked at me when I’ve been unable to read his expression and I wonder if he was imagining it then, making me cry out in pain, and if it was turning him on.
His thumb runs down my jawline and strokes over my lower lip. “See, even now, when you’re looking at me with such mingled perplexity and shock, I’m enjoying it. You cling to me even as you feel alarmed, holding me tightly when you should push me away and tell me I’m a monster. Do you want to push me away, minette?”
Anyone looking on without hearing what we were saying would think he was speaking the most tender love words to me. But for Frederic, these are his sweet nothings. I realize that in the most loving, tender way—and who even knew that there was a way—Frederic is a sadist.
He’s a sadist, and I’m clinging to him like my life depends on it. I look steadily into his bright green eyes, his cobra eyes, his bewitching eyes, and my words are pliant and yielding as ever. Do I want to push him away? “No, daddy.”
“Good girl.” He kisses me with a gentleness that belies every word he has just spoken, his lips soft, his tongue flicking lightly against mine. It’s a confident kiss. The kiss of a man who knows he’s got exactly what he wants and there’s no need to hurry.
He pulls away a little and murmurs, “The other week when you told me you hadn’t had enough of me spanking you, that you wanted me to keep going, mon Dieu, that was like ambrosia to me. I pulled you up off the table so I could look into your eyes and see that beautiful needing, trusting expression as you asked me to go on hurting you. You were so very lovely. I’m sorry that what happened next upset you so much, and I didn’t enjoy that it did. But I haven’t been able to get that look of need in your eyes out of my head.” He studies me for a moment. “Tell me it’s what you want. Tell me you want me to hurt you and fuck you.”