Soft Limits Page 11

  I look again at the computer screen. Now she’s emailed me I’ll have to write back, and what the hell am I going to say? You know how you thought Frederic and I were lovers just because we had dinner, and I told you all you were mad? Well, now we are lovers. My thirteen-year-old crush, my reason for masturbating the first time, he’s my lover and I call him daddy. Now there’s a perfectly ordinary English sentence.

  How could I ever put into words how having Frederic as my dom feels? He holds out his arms to me and I step into his embrace with a smile on my face and a tingling between my legs—never unthinkingly, like I’d first imagined submitting would be, but with trust and desire and willingness. It’s just for Frederic. I couldn’t do this for anyone but him, and I wouldn’t want to.

  There’s a silly grin on my face. Concentrate, I scold. Mona’s email, remember? At least it’s only an email and Mona hasn’t phoned me. It’s easier to fudge things in an email. Taking a deep breath, I hit Reply and start to type.

  Dear Mona,

  I’m sorry! Between Frederic’s book and finishing another one for a client I’ve barely had time for much sightseeing, or anything really. The weather is beautiful, very hot and clear, but I’ve mostly glimpsed it through the window while working at my laptop.

  The people I have interviewed for the biography are so very chic and French. I’m bumbling about trying not to look too provincial. Frederic’s flat is swanky as anything and I bumble about in here, too, trying not to spill on the sofa or the rug.

  Now, go and have a holiday somewhere! You can’t just lie about the house between auditions and waste the summer. Someone needs to humblebrag about their room upgrade online and show Therese up.

  Good luck with the audition!

  Love,

  Evie

  I read over the email then press Send, and feel my conscience prickling. I don’t like lying to Mona. Even though she gets up my nose sometimes she’s the sister I’ve always been closest to, and there’s only fourteen months between us. I wonder what a truthful letter to my sister would sound like? Having an amazing time. No time to write or take pictures because Frederic and I are lovers. Oh, Mona, when he looks at me and says minette or good girl I melt inside. He still hasn’t taken me to bed, though. He’s being so careful with me because he thinks I’ll bawl all over him (again!) but I won’t. I need him to fuck me. It’s all I can think about. Why won’t he? I’m so desperate for him my fingernails become claws just thinking about it, and I know he doesn’t like to be clawed. Well, anyway, must go, I need to slink into his lap and call him daddy and have him kiss me some more because it’s been at least an hour and I crave him like air.

  I can just imagine the phone call I would get if I sent that. Maybe I’ll tell her the truth one day, after my five months with Frederic are up and I need someone to debrief with—after I’ve made her sign her name in blood that she’ll never tell anyone about us. And there’s no way I’m telling her I call him daddy. She’d laugh for days. It might actually kill her she’d laugh so much. I would laugh, if I was her. But I’m not her, I’m me, and calling Frederic daddy is the most delicious, debauched, decadent thing I’ve ever done and I love it.

  After my five months with Frederic are up. I secretly looked up the production of Jane Eyre online and it closes January 25. Frederic will return to France and I’ll go back to the spring term. Oxford is very gray and dark in January. I wonder if my life will feel gray and dark, too, without his green eyes to brighten it and his hands mapping pleasure on my body.

  But it’s nonsense, getting wistful over the end of an affair before it’s even properly begun. I look up to where Frederic is sitting at the piano. “I’ve just written the most awful pack of lies to my sister.”

  “Minette, you bad girl,” he murmurs, marking a correction on his sheet music. “What have you been lying about?”

  “I said I’ve been too busy to take photos of Paris and post them online.”

  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.”

  I nestle myself closer to him on his lap and feel the hard length of his erection pressing against the underside of my thigh. He’s as turned on as I am. Hurt me and fuck me. That’s what I need from him. That’s exactly it. I fix him with an imploring look. “Please, daddy, I need it.”

  He gazes at me for a moment, then he nods slowly. “That’s the look.” His hand moves down, his fingers and thumb caressing under my jawline. They tighten briefly, the pressure firm on the sides of my throat. Something animal flares in his eyes and I feel it all the way down to the ache between my legs. I close my eyes and tip my head back, baring my throat to him, inviting him to do his worst. His fingers travel down to my breast and circle my nipple slowly. Then he pinches. Hard.

  “Evie? Look at me. Show me how that feels.”

  My head comes forward and I look at him, open-mouthed. He wants to see? I let all the pain and pleasure I feel fill my face and it’s like he’s hypnotized with me. I’ve never seen him look quite so hungry before, not even in his most villainous, lustful roles. It goes on and on, and the pain seems to ground me and I lose myself in the depths of his green eyes.

  His chest expands against me with a hard, ragged breath, but then he takes his hand away. I blink to clear my eyes and when I look at him again his expression is pleasant, ordinary.

  Swallowing a groan I scream in my mind, What is he waiting for? Is this because I cried, or is it something else? Does he want me to beg? “Frederic...”

  He smiles, charming as ever, this polite, handsome man who conceals so well his sadistic side. I sense it simmering beneath the surface, just out of my reach. “Oui, minette?”

  “Please, please take me to bed.” I let my need fill my voice. I want him to hear it. You see? I’m not too proud to beg, if that’s what you want. I seem ready to do anything you want. How did you get this power over me, and why does it not frighten me that you have it?

  He laughs quietly, amused, but something darker flashes in his eyes. Something exultant. I’m aching with need for him and the sadist in him is enjoying seeing me this way. “Soon. Very soon. I want to make sure you’re happy. There’s no hurry.”

  I scowl at him, as I’m sure that’s just an excuse to watch me burn for him. I can feel every minute of our time together ticking away. “Yes, there is. We only have five months together.”

  He strokes my hair, watching his fingers smooth down the silken strands. I normally like his petting and cosseting but right now I need something more. “Five very long, lovely months. Stop pouting. Be good for daddy.”

  Sighing dramatically I put my head down on his chest, and then feel him vibrate with soft laughter. “Oh, minette, no one has it harder than you, is that it?”

  In answer I rub my nose against the V of chest hair just above the top button of his shirt. My reply is petulant. “No. No one.” An insidious though
t steals into my mind. He does want me, doesn’t he? I feel his arms around me, his heart beating slow and solid against my cheek, smell the rich comforting scent of him in my nostrils. Of course he does, he’s just being careful with me. Frederic is good like that. I can trust what he says completely.

  My worries slip away and I feel the strength of who he is wind around me, making me feel secure, precious. I never let myself rely on Adam in this way. But then, he wouldn’t have known how to inspire me to be like this with him and I doubt he would have wanted it if he could. He didn’t even like giving me advice about school or work when I asked for it. I don’t know, Evie. If you don’t know what to do how could I possibly know? He didn’t get that I needed someone to talk to about my problems. Someone who knew and understood me.

  We sit together for several minutes in sweet silence, Frederic brushing my hair back every now and then to kiss my temple, seeming content to just sit and be together. I can still feel him, thick and rigid beneath my thigh. He won’t take me to bed tonight, but he will soon. And he will talk, and I crave his beautiful, hypnotic voice as much as his touch.

  I look up at him, tracing the curve of his lower lip with my forefinger. “One more question. Is there anything else you left out of the conversation the other day that turns you on? Anything else you want to tell me?”

  He looks at me steadily for a long moment, and then shakes his head. “No, minette. There’s nothing else to tell you.”

  * * *

  I can sense there’s something different about him the next morning. He watches me, his face closed and unreadable, but I’ve realized that look means he’s thinking about dark things. Sexual things. It’s the careful, controlled expression he gave me the times I asked him to hurt me and he wasn’t yet sure if I meant it. Well, now he knows I mean it, and I’m just waiting for him to decide when. Now works for me. How about now?