“I don’t know,” I say softly, instinctively feeling that’s the best answer. “But it’s absolutely lovely, Alexandre. Thank you.”
He slides in next to me, and a server appears almost instantly with a tray of oysters on ice with lemon and a vinaigrette in the center of the tray. “Have you had raw oysters,petit poupée?” Alexandre asks as the server pours our champagne.
I shake my head, and he smiles.
“You’re going to love it,” he assures me, squeezing lemon over the chilled oysters and then using the tiniest teaspoon I’ve ever seen to sprinkle some of the herbed vinaigrette over one of them before picking it up and bringing it to my lips.
I let him feed it to me, and the tang of the vinegar and saltiness of the brine fills my mouth, cold and clear and crisp. I swallow it down convulsively, feeling something throb deep inside of me at the intimacy of his fingers on my chin, the liquid clinging to my lips.
He feeds me almost every bite of our dinner. After the oysters that we share there’s a soup course, a rich onion soup with baguettes that he lets me feed myself, but after that, there’s a trio of entrees—duck with crispy vegetables, some delicate fish with a lemon sauce, and a cut of steak so tender that Alexandre cuts it with a fork, covered in a red wine reduction with onions and mushrooms and bleu cheese. He feeds me bites in between his own, and I want to moan with pleasure at every flavor. It’s the best food I’ve ever had in my life, even better than what Alexandre has cooked for me, and I savor every bite. After years of depriving myself of staying in ballerina shape, eating like this is almost sexual. It feels as if Alexandre knows it.
Each course is served with wine or champagne, right down to the port that’s served with our dessert of cheese and fruit and crème brûlée. I’m so full that I don’t know how I’ll keep eating. Still, I eat what Alexandre feeds me anyway, the juicy fruits and silky custard too delicious to resist.
I could get used to this,I think to myself, as we walk back in the cool night air. There are no cars, no smog, no rushing around, just slow routine days and delicious food and beautiful dresses and walks in the cool night air. The days of kneeling on the floor and Alexandre’s anger and his threats seem so far in the past that they might as well be a bad dream, with the satin dress clinging sensually to my skin and champagne bubbles still on my tongue.
It could happen again, as easily as a change in his mood, but right now, it’s easy to believe that it won’t. Especially when his hand moves down my arm as we walk, finding mine, our fingers intertwining. My heart leaps into my throat when that happens, pounding as my skin prickles, burning from his touch, and I feel like I can’t breathe. I feel like that every step of the way home, all the way to my bedroom, where he starts to undress me as detachedly as he ever has, stripping me bare and setting the jewelry aside in the jewelry box that had caused my hallucination that one afternoon, and then helping me into my pajamas.
It feels selfish to be disappointed in anything after such a night, but it feels like such an abrupt change. From a romantic dinner and walk holding hands through the streets of Paris back to his old detached self, his hands carefully staying away from anything that could even be deemed remotely sexual as he dresses me in my silk pajamas.
I want more than this. I want his hands on me, to tumble naked into bed with him, toknowthat the romantic dinner out is a date. I want the twilight evenings washing dishes side by side, the smell of herbs and sunlight in my nose. I want the city to wrap its arms around us and for this to be our place, our haven, Alexandre and I. He might own me, but how does that matter? Tonight was better than any night I ever had when I was dating men independently. If anything, I can feel safe that he’ll cherish and care for me always, because I cost him a sum of money so large that it’s unthinkable to me.
The small voice in my head tries to whisper to me to hold out, to keep some distance, not to fall for a man who can never view me as his equal because he’ll always own me, but it’s easier to silence now.No one is coming for me,I whisper back.There’s no leaving, so why be miserable? Why not make the best of it and find happiness where I can? Isn’t that what everyone told me to do back in New York, when I lost everything and wanted to die?
A small, fading part of me knows that’s not what they meant, but it doesn’t matter. I pretend to drink the tea like always, slip upstairs and to the cracked bedroom door like always, the light spilling out. Though this time, when I see Alexandre walking nude towards his bedside table, his cock thickening without him touching it, I don’t hang back. I walk into the room, my heart in my throat, before he can get the pictures out. And when he hears my footsteps and sees me, his mouth dropping open with shock even as his cock stiffens to a full, rigid erection at the sight of me, I don’t give him time to get angry or yell or tell me to get out.
I drop to my knees in front of him, reaching for his hips. The fine muscle underneath my hands, the softness of his skin, is enough to make me soaking wet in an instant, his cock hovering an inch from my lips.
“Anastasia, no.” Alexandre reaches for my arms and pulls my hands away. “You can’t do this. What are you doing? I told you not to come in here. No,” he repeats, pulling me up to my feet, his rigid cock still bobbing between us as he looks down into my flushed face. “No.”
I should leave. I know I should. He’s never given me any reason to believe he wants a sexual relationship between us—except…last night, in my room, as he looked guiltily down at my “sleeping” body while he feverishly stroked his cock.
I want him, and I know he wants me too. I don’t understand why he won’t give in to it, but I don’t want to leave. I don’t try to drop back to my knees, though. Instead, I push myself up on my tiptoes, my hands against his chest as I tilt my chin up, looking up into those piercing blue eyes.
“What about this?” I whisper, and I kiss him.
His lips are soft and full and warm, almost feminine, and I feel his chest swell and heave with a deep, shuddering breath under my hands as my mouth touches his. He doesn’t move, doesn’t kiss me back, but he doesn’t stop me either, and so I keep going. I run my tongue over his lower lip and suck it into my mouth, moving forward as his hands tighten on my upper arms so that I can feel his throbbing cock pressed between us, the heat of it burning through the silk of my pajama shirt. I push my tongue into his mouth, slant my lips over his, and I can feel him struggling not to respond, struggling to fight it until the moment that I rock my hips against his, feeling his cock slide over the satin against my belly as I tangle my tongue with his and bite softly at his lower lip. I hear a groan spill from his mouth that’s almost painful.
“Petit,” he moans, and then the hands on my arms aren’t trying to push me away any longer. They’re pulling me closer, his mouth eating at mine too, sucking at my lower lip, biting, his nails sinking into the flesh of my upper arms as we stumble towards the bed. We topple onto it, ending up with him on his back and me straddling him. I nearly tear off my clothes in need of closer to him, feel his skin, and have him inside of me before he changes his mind.
His hands are on my bare hips as I strip naked, searing hotly into my skin, his cock is between my thighs, my arousal slick on the straining velvet flesh, and I kiss him again, hard, as I guide him between my legs. He’s thick and long, and it’s been such a long time since I’ve had a man inside of me that I feel impossibly tight, so much so that Alexandre groans aloud again as he feels his swollen cockhead trying to pierce me, trying to push inside. I want him so badly that I’m already clenching, pushing him out, and trying to pull him in all at once, and I shove myself downwards, wanting to feel him. He’s lying rigid beneath me, perfectly still. He stops kissing me when he feels his cock impale me, the wet heat of my tight, fluttering pussy enveloping the first inch of him, and then another, and another until I’ve managed to push myself all the way down his throbbing length, burying him inside of me as I sit atop him.
His eyes are wide and glazed with lust when I sit back, his hands lax on my hips, and it’s me that starts to move. I feel dizzy with need, unable to believe we’re actually doing this, that Alexandre is inside of me, his muscled, handsome body sprawled on the bed as he looks up at me dazedly. “Anastasia—” he moans as I rock atop him, sliding up and then down again, my body adjusting to the size of him as I feel every hard inch caressing the inside of me.
It feels like the tables have turned, like I’m suddenly the one in control, holding him down, riding him as he lies there, almost as if he’s in shock that it’s happening. I don’t give myself time to question how right or wrong this might be. I can feel him throbbing inside of me, his hips twitching, his chest heaving as he gasps against my mouth, and I feel my entire body tightening as I hurtle towards an orgasm.
When it comes, I feel as if I’m splitting apart at the seams, my body convulsing so tightly around him that I feel as if I could break him, my fingers digging into his chest as I grind down onto him hard. I hear Alexandre gasping my name, his head tilting back. The tendons of his throat standing out in the same moment that I feel him swell even more inside of me, and then the sudden hot rush as his thighs tense and shudder. He explodes in a burst of pleasure that has him groaning deeply, his fingers clawing at the bed as he thrusts up into me hard for the first time, his cum filling me as we both shudder together in a deep, satisfying orgasm.
I’m shaking when I roll off of him, panting for breath, nerves suddenly swamping me as I realize what we’ve just done and how Alexandre could react to it. He might regret it, might blame me for “forcing” him into it, for making him fuck a pet. It takes several seconds before I can even bring myself to look at him, my heart hammering in my chest, but then I hear a soft snore and look over to realize that he’s already asleep.
Oh my god.I want to laugh, but I don’t—I don’t want to disturb him. I grab a soft blanket from the end of the bed and pull it over his naked body, then hover there on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to do.Should I stay? Should I go back to my room? Will he be angry if I stay? Will he be hurt if I go?It’s like my indecision over the person at the front door all over again, except this time even more meaningful.
Finally, I get up and go to the bathroom to clean myself up, very aware of the stickiness of Alexandre’s cum on my thighs and the realization of what we’ve done. I can’t help but worry about how he’ll react in the morning, but all I can do now is try not to panic—something that Iknowwill upset him.
I do my best not to mess up anything in his bathroom, cleaning up as best as I can and then coming back to the bed. I don’t want to leave—I want to curl up next to him naked under the blanket and fall asleep, skin to skin. It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to have that, to experience it. And I’m sure it has for him, too—
Unbidden, my gaze flicks to the drawer of the side table, the one where I know the photos are hidden.Don’t do it,that tiny reasonable voice in my head whispers. Still, my pulse is already speeding up, the same aching curiosity that led me to go into the study and to spy on Alexandre in his bedroom in the first place rearing its ugly head, tempting me to do something that I know I shouldn’t.
He’s sleeping hard, faintly snoring, his head turned to one side. He’s not going to wake up, not if I’m quiet. And I want to know. What kind of man looks at Polaroids for his porn, and what kind of porn is it? Is it some kind of amateur fetish? I tell myself that I’m only looking so that I know what turns him on, so that I can make it better for him next time. So that there canbea next time.