The Red

  muscular and lovely that she could rest her head on his shoulder and watch him touch her sex all night and all day.

  "Can you come?” He chuckled lightly even as he wiggled his finger inside her. "What sort of question is that? No. Not yet. You know it’s not time yet, silly girl.”

  "I’m sorry, sir.”

  "It’s fine. It’s fine,” he said soothingly. "I know it’s hard, but you’re doing so well. I would hate for you to give up already.”

  "I won’t give up.”

  "That’s the spirit.” He grinned at her and tickled her inside to make her laugh. "Now I believe you’ve earned a treat. Haven’t you?”

  "If you say I have.”

  "And I say you have.” He stopped touching her, but that was for the best. She was almost ready to orgasm. If she did, she knew she’d be in terrible trouble. Even worse, she would have disappointed him, and she couldn’t live with herself if she disappointed him. Not that. Anything but that.

  She slowly sank down to the floor, using his body—so solid and sturdy—to steady herself. Once on her knees, it was near torture not to unfasten the falls of his breeches and take his cock into her mouth and suck it. But that wasn’t what she was here for, even though he was stiff and straining so hard against the white fabric she saw it throbbing. She rested her head for a moment against his rock hard thigh and sighed with indescribable pleasure when Malcolm caressed her hair.

  "My Mona,” he said. "My darling.”

  She touched the side of his calf and stroked the leather of his boot from his ankle to his knee. It was smooth and supple and she couldn’t get enough of it. The two gold coin buttons glinted in the candlelight. First she kissed her fingertips and pressed the kiss to the buttons. Then she brought her lips down to the them and kissed them with her mouth. Malcolm shuddered. She felt it go through his body and into hers. She kissed his boots again, kissed the gold buttons, kissed the leg of the boot that was warm from the heat of his body. While she was on the floor on her hands and knees, Malcolm caressed her sex again with the tip of the crop. She spread her legs wider for him and arched her back, offering her cunt up to him.

  He struck it with the crop.

  She screamed in sudden agony even though she knew he would do it, even though she wanted him to do it.

  "Count, love,” he said. "You know you have to count.”

  "Forty-nine,” she said. She’d survived fifty-one strikes already and that last one was worse than all of them combined.

  "We’re over halfway there,” he said as she rested her head against his thigh again. "You’ve made it so far and so well. Are you tired?”

  She nodded and whispered, "Yes, sir.”

  "I know you’re tired.” He reached down and lightly brushed her lips with his fingers, lightly teased her cheek with a lock of her own hair. That made her smile. "There’s my girl. So obedient. She’s even smiling.”

  "Why do you do this?” she asked, so torn between loving the crop and hating it, loving him and hating him. "Why, sir?”

  "I do it out of kindness, of course,” he said. "You understand that, don’t you?”

  She thought of his kisses, his sweet words, and the caring way he touched her welts. He was a kind man. Who but a kind man would give her such affection, such tender concern with her pain?

  "I understand, sir. You are very kind.” It made her smile to say it, not because it was a lie but because it was true. She understood it all now.

  "Now only forty-eight more. Do you want to take them on the floor or would you like to stand again?”

  A choice. How kind of him.

  "The floor, please, sir.”

  "If you like,” he said. "On your hands and knees. You’ll be more comfortable that way. Legs wide. There. Just lovely. I love to see you like this,” he said, standing behind her. She knew he was looking at her open and exposed holes. She wanted him to see them. She wanted him to see what he owned. "I’m so very glad I asked you to play this game with me.”

  "It’s my pleasure, sir.”

  "Oh, I know it is, but it’s so rare to find such an eager partner. In truth, my dear, you’re really doing me a favor.”

  She looked up and he had his hands on his chest. So well-mannered. So refined. So civilized. The very portrait of a gentleman indeed.

  He took the crop in hand and struck her under her ribcage so hard she went momentarily blind.

  He was an angel of beauty and pain.

  "Count, darling,” he said. "Otherwise I’ll forget my place and we’ll have to start all over. I hate losing my place, don’t you?”

  He was the devil incarnate.

  "Forty-eight,” she said through gritted teeth.

  "That’s right. Almost there. Carry on. That’s my girl.”

  Angel.

  "Oh, that hurt my hand so I know it must have hurt you. I’m so sorry, my darling.”

  Demon.

  On and on it went. The hits followed by words of encouragement and affection followed by more hits. Mona grew dizzy. It was hard to keep count but unthinkable to lose count. What if he started over? What if he didn’t? Even as she counted, it seemed time had stopped. The clock stopped. The world stopped. They had always played this game and they always would. That was how it should be. Heaven and hell were in this room and they had one foot in each.

  "Only ten left, sweetheart. You’re amazing, you know. Simply amazing at this.”

  She counted the last few strikes and by the final five she’d curled into the fetal position on the hardwood floor. Two left. Just two.

  "Darling?” Malcolm’s voice penetrated the fog of her suffering. "My angel girl?”

  "Yes, sir?”

  "You need to lie on your back for me. All right?”

  She whimpered in pain as she unfurled herself from the self-protective cocoon she’d rolled herself into. Every movement left her body in misery. She felt like an old book that hadn’t been opened in centuries and now someone had come at last, taken the book from the shelf, broken the spine and riffled through pages that had been pressed together so long their ink had turned to glue. Sinews screamed. Muscles moaned. Simply lying on her back had made her weep again. Hot tears poured from her eyes, stealing her peripheral vision, though Malcolm remained in perfect focus. He straddled her at her hips with those boots of his she worshiped, one leather ankle pressed against each side of her body.

  "Perfect,” he said. He looked her up and down, one hand on his chin and the other on his hip the way he had been the first night she’d seen him. He perused her like the work of an old master. "Wait, not quite. Put your hands behind your head again. I want you to cradle your head. The floor’s so hard, I would never want you to hurt yourself.”

  She loved him for his concern. Had she ever met a man more thoughtful? She placed her hands behind her head and cradled her head in her palms.

  "Marvelous.” He smiled down at her. "Now two more to go. We can do this together. Ready, my sweet?”

  "Ready, sir.”

  "I haven’t the words to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this,” he said. "I simply don’t have the words.”

  He raised the crop and lashed it down, striking her right breast so hard she screamed, so hard she heard the swish of it in the wind like the sound of a whip.

  She coughed from the pain and it was the greatest test of her willpower to choke out the number.

  "Two,” she said, more tears burning her cheeks.

  "Last one, darling. Then we’re all done. And won’t that be lovely?”

  He lashed her again, one final time, striking the side of her left breast. She cried out the last number of her torment and rolled again onto her side, burying her face in her hands to weep.

  Far away she heard movement—the rustle of fabric, boot heels on the hardwood. When she’d worn herself out with weeping, she continued to lay there, spent from her suffering and yet strangely peaceful. Though it was all over, the memory of the words Malcolm had said to her during her beating rang in her ears like the chiming of a golden bell.

  You’re the bravest girl in the world.

  My princess, my angel, my darling, my dear.

  You’re lovelier like this than I’ve ever seen you.

  You can’t know what this means to me, what a gift you’ve given me tonight.

  You please me beyond words, Mona.

  She heard those words in her ear again, because Malcolm spoke them again. He had come to the floor and taken her in his arms. He lifted her up, holding her like a babe in arms, all the while whispering his admiration of her, his adoration. She put her arms around his strong shoulders and held him as he carried her to the bed. The velvet of his coat prickled against her savaged skin, yet she relished the sensation since it meant he was holding her.

  "Here we go,” he said, laying her on the bed. He’d pulled the covers back so she lay on the soft white sheet. For all its softness, she still winced as her sore body met the mattress.

  "I know it hurts.” Malcolm sat on the bed by her side and took her hand in his. He kissed her wrist, kissed her palm, and all five fingers received their own kisses. Her knuckles too. "I’m so proud of you, dearest.”

  "Did I please you?”

  "More than I can ever say.”

  He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyelids, kissed her lips.

  "Stay there,” he said. "I’ll tend to your wounds.”

  "Will you make love to me?”

  He smiled, laughed softly. "All night long,” he said. "But first I must take care of you. Your well-being is more important than anything else. You know that, don’t you?”

  These didn’t sound like lines from the play they were acting out. Important to him? How? Why? She was his whore. That was all, wasn’t it?

  "Am I important to you?” she asked.

  He brought her hand to his lips again, pressed it to his mouth, and closed his eyes.

  "I have waited a very long time for you,” he said. "And tonight you’ve proven to me just how very special you are.” He put her hand onto her chest and kissed the back of it. "Rest here. You’ve earned it.”

  Mona feared to look at her own body, but she did so anyway. She wanted to see what Malcolm saw. Upon lifting her head, she winced. In stripes along her thighs, and in patches on her stomach, and in whorls on her arms and breasts, she saw deep red welts. Some were pure scarlet red. Others a rusty red with black or blue cores. She imagined her entire backside from her neck to her knees looked about the same.

  She wasn’t horrified by what she saw. In truth, she found the welts erotic, because Malcolm had trained her eyes to see kisses where others would see wounds.

  Malcolm set the wooden chair next to the bed and on the seat of the chair he placed a bowl of water.

  "Only water,” he said. "Warm water, not hot. Lie still for me.”

  She nodded and laid her head back on the pillow. For him. He’d said to lie still for him and for him she would lie still. For him she would move. For him she would live and breathe. For him.

  He brought his hands to his throat and unfastened the white linen cravat. He unwound it from his neck and at last there it was, the hollow of his throat, the hollow she’d craved to kiss and lick and worship. She smiled, happier than she’d been in years. He folded the linen into a thick square and dipped it into the bowl of water. Then he wrung it out, flattened it out, and pressed it against one of the screaming red and black welts on her hips. She hissed through her teeth. But soon the pain dissipated and the warmth permeated her skin and sunk into the deep layers of tissue, soothing her down to the bone.

  "Better?” Malcolm asked. She gave him a tired smile. He dipped the linen into the water again, pressed it to another welt where it quieted the screaming of her skin. For a long time, he ministered to her wounds. Not a single one was missed. When he finished with the front of her body, she rolled onto her stomach and rested her cheek against the pillow. He’d asked her if she knew how important she was to him. No, she didn’t know. But she felt it. The way he tended to her welts, to her needs, with such solicitude was beyond anything she’d experienced from a lover before. She felt spoiled as an only child, treasured as a prized possession, doted on like a king’s most favored concubine. What magic was it, what sorcery that could turn an act of violence and pain into an act of adoration and affection? It was alchemy, the art of turning base things into gold.

  "Would you give me permission to love you, sir?” she asked Malcolm.

  "You may tonight,” he said, the slightest smile on his lips to show how secretly pleased he was. "You won’t love me next time I come to you, so enjoy it while you can.”

  She laughed softly into the pillow. Hard to take such a threat seriously from a man who was using his own linen cravat to tend to her wounds.

  "I don’t believe that,” she said.

  "What did I warn you about saying things like that?”

  "I know, I know, sir. Men like you take it as a challenge.”

  "You only love me tonight because of the beating. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Before tonight, she would have said "no,” that made no sense, there was no logic to it. He’d done something to her mind as well as to her body. By the end of her beating, she couldn’t tell the crop apart from his kindnesses. They were one and the same to her so that every strike of the crop was tender as a kiss and every word of tenderness made her crave the crop.

  "Now I understand,” she said, because now she did.

  When he’d finished with the water, he brought out a clear glass bottle of golden oil. It smelled like crushed wildflowers and warmed her skin even more as he rubbed it into her sore flesh. He massaged her entire body—back and legs, shoulders and arms—then bade her roll onto her back again so he could do the same to her front. He lingered long over her breasts, using both of his hands on each one. She gave herself up to his hands, let him mold her like clay. She had no will over her own body. She willed only that Malcolm’s will be done.

  Malcolm slicked the warm oil all over her stomach and hips and thighs. He brought his hand between her legs and nudged her thighs open. He glazed her clitoris with the oil and stroked circles all around it. It swelled under his touch and pulsed against his finger. She felt that deep delicious hollowness inside her again. He filled it with his fingers when he slid them up into her sex, the oil allowing him deep penetration. It was bliss to spread her legs far apart for him so that he could have his way with her. She watched as his fingers disappeared inside her body one by one, probing and parting her from within. Mona panted through her nose. She knew she mustn’t come until his cock was inside her. If he didn’t put it there soon she’d be forced to beg him for it.

  "Do you have children?” she asked.

  He laughed softly. "I have four fingers in your cunt and you’re asking me if I have children. Do you think I’m checking to see if there’s room for one more?”

  She grinned broadly, too tired and aroused to laugh.

  "I only wondered,” she said.

  "Does it matter to you?” he asked.

  "I’m nosy. And you’re a mystery.”

  "I have children, yes. Though not so young anymore.”

  "Do you love them?”

  "I love them though they’ve disappointed me.”

  "How so?”

  "They’re…respectable,” he said. "Respectable and well-behaved. Good citizens of the realm. They’re boring. Except the youngest. He takes after me.” His words made her grin drunkenly. "Are you happy to know that?”

  "I am,” she said. "Although…I don’t know why.”

  "You’re open,” he said.

  "I know I am.”

  "Not like that though…” He glanced down at his hand that was in her cunt up to the thumb. "I broke you open tonight. Up here.” With his free hand he tapped his temple, indicating his mind. "And here.” He tapped his chest over his heart. "You feel close to me.”

  "I do,” she said.

  "It’s the intimacy of captor and captive. There’s nothing like it.”

  "Am I your captive?”

  "You are tonight.”

  "Can you keep me forever?”

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