Soft Limits Read online

I watch her face closely. Her mouth is parted and her breathing is shallow, so I continue.

  “You plead with him not to hurt you as he ties your hands behind your back. Thick lengths of rope are wrapped around your body. His hands squeeze your breasts, your behind, through your clothing. Hard hands. Unforgiving hands. You plead with him. Please no, please don’t. But he doesn’t listen. Whatever he came for he’s forgotten about, because he has you now, a far sweeter prize.”

  She stops suddenly, opens her eyes and shoots me a pained expression. “Is this awful? Maybe we should stop.”

  Her skin is flushed like she’s aroused. “It’s a fantasy, Evie. If you don’t like it we can stop. But if it’s something that excites you, then there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “It’s not creeping you out?”

  “Not at all. Do you like what I’m saying?” She nods. “Would you like me to go on?”

  “If you want to?”

  She’s very sweet to be thinking about my comfort when I’m trying to do something for her. Exasperating, but sweet. “I do want to.”

  I wait for her to close her eyes and for her fingers to return to circling her clit.

  “He takes off his leather gloves so he can feel your skin with his bare hands. You’re facedown on the bed as he strips off the underwear you’ve been sleeping in. The rope burns around your arms and body as you struggle. You can’t do anything as he presses your legs open, exposing you. His cock is thick, invasive as he pushes into you, stretching you, becoming slick with your wetness.”

  Evie makes a whimpering noise in the back of her throat, her head arching back. Merde, she likes this very much. The impulse to get up and go to her is so strong now. I want to hear her make those sounds while I’m doing the very thing I’m describing. “He groans, reveling in the tightness of you around him. His thrusts are deep and selfish, taking from you what you haven’t given.”

  She’s breathing hard now, her fingers moving faster. I can see her body tensing with her approaching orgasm.

  “He can feel how your body is responding to him as your fear evaporates. You want this. You’re still pleading with him, but you’re saying please yes now, your back arching to make the angle of his thrusts deeper. He takes his time. He wants to be thorough with you, giving you your reward for making this so good for him, though to remind you who’s in charge he takes off his belt and loops it around your neck, holding it tightly as he fucks you, restraining you—”

  I break off as she cries out, her back arching in a long line from her pelvis up through her spine, her breasts thrust upward. A red flush blooms on her skin and she’s silent and still, only her fingers moving as she comes.

  Gasping, she falls back and opens her eyes.

  There’s a blanket lying over the back of the sofa and I take it over to her, draping it over her and tucking it around her. I sit on the sofa next to her and wait for her to come back into herself. Blinking, she looks up at me.

  “Oh, that was...” Her hands squeeze my arms tightly and I can sense her wanting to pull me closer.

  “Come here, princesse.” Scooping her up I sit down in her place and settle her in my lap. I’m hard, but I don’t want to make it obvious to her so I shift her away from my erection. Looking down at her, I stroke her cheek with my forefinger. “Look, no tears.”

  Her hand goes to her face, and she breaks into a smile. “No tears.”

  “Did I get the fantasy right?”

  She looks anguished and happy at the same time. “You got it exactly right. The things you said, the way you said them. And I liked you watching me. I felt very safe.”

  I liked watching her. There’s something inordinately arousing about seeing her looking so innocent in her pretty dress, enjoying such a dark fantasy. Is that what you want, minette? Something threatening with your lovemaking, someone sinister?

  But now that her afterglow is fading she seems to be growing anxious again. “What is it?” I ask.

  “It’s such an awful fantasy! So violent and cruel. My women’s studies lecturer would be appalled.”

  I could tell her that lots of women have forced sex fantasies, but the “lots of women” explanation won’t help her understand why she finds it a turn-on. “Fantasies aren’t wishes. You can imagine something like that happening and it’s arousing, but only because you know it isn’t real.”

  She’s silent a moment, thinking. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t alone that I felt this good after. Or anytime, actually.”

  I feel a spasm of regret for her. How old is she? Twenty-three or twenty-four, and has never felt really good after coming in the presence of someone else?

  “What about you? How does it make you feel?” she asks.

  Annoyed on your behalf, chérie. You deserve better. I think how to express the complexity of the things I feel. “I’m happy that you liked it. You did something incredibly intimate and beautiful that I could watch again and again. And I liked talking to you in a way that you enjoyed.”

  Her breath catches. “I did enjoy it, Frederic. So much. It was better than if I had just thought about the same thing by myself.”

  We look at each other in silence, the unspoken understanding that this is the moment that I might kiss her, or stand up with her in my arms and take her to my bed. I want to do this, but she’s happy as she is, and giving her this good experience is all the satisfaction I need. I stroke her hair, just sitting with her.

  A few minutes later I notice that she’s put her head down on my shoulder and closed her eyes. “Sleepy?”

  “Mm.”

  I stand up and carry her to her room. Once there I tuck her beneath the blankets and see she has Christine to cuddle.

  “ʼNight, Frederic,” she whispers as I turn out the light, her voice heavy with sleep and relaxation. That’s how a woman should sound after coming, not choked up with tears.

  “Bonne nuit, minette.”

  I head off to take a shower but I can’t get her smile out of my head, or the way she felt, sleepy and satisfied in my arms. I haven’t dated much since Marion and I split up ten months ago and I’ve missed being able to do that for someone.

  I close the bathroom door behind me but don’t reach immediately for the taps. Remembering Evie half-naked and spread before me makes my arousal rear up afresh. Naïve though she is, Evie has dark tastes. Tastes that intrigue me, and it’s several long minutes before I realize I’ve been staring unseeing at the wall while I picture my hands in leather gloves, gripping her wrists in one hand while the other squeezes her, strokes her. She’d like that. What else would she enjoy?

  The idea of teasing secrets out of her, of testing her limits, makes my pulse quicken. Evangeline Bell, you are too pleasing. What would it be like to have you as my sub?

  Chapter Eight

  Evie

  I waken and stretch my arms over my head, toes curling. Frederic’s intense words from the night before echo in my head. He wants to be thorough with you, giving you your reward for making this so good for him, though to remind you who’s in charge he takes off his belt and loops it around your neck, holding it tightly as he fucks you. It was this image that tipped me over the edge. This brutal assaulter, whom I’d pictured automatically as Frederic from the moment my eyes had closed, relishing my sordid response to him.

  Until last night I never told anyone the dark things I fantasize about, thinking them shameful and strange the moment my orgasm haze passed off. But I wanted to tell Frederic, partly because he’s so comfortable with me ferreting about in his private life, and partly because of his worldliness and ease. Tears don’t shock him. My confession that he brought my nascent desires to a head all those years ago didn’t scandalize him.

  It’s not just that, though. It’s because I’m noticing more and more how do
wnright sexy he is. I felt the thrum of my attraction to him all day long as we walked about Paris, my eyes drawn to his broad shoulders, his large tanned hands, his mouth when I thought he wasn’t looking. I know it’s stupid to be attracted to Frederic. He moves in exalted circles and doubtlessly knows or could know any number of beautiful women and is, to boot, eighteen years older than me.

  But there’s something about him that I crave. That’s what he was hinting at, wasn’t he, when he said I was missing out on something I need? Something darker. Something fierce. If there’s anything I know about Frederic it’s that he has embodied dark, ferocious men all his professional life. The flint in his eyes as he’d snapped, That’s not acceptable, Evie and then moved in close to take hold of me, discipline me. I don’t know if that was an act or not, but it makes my stomach swoop to think about. I like the careful way he listens to me, the questions he asks. It was the most intimate thing I’ve ever done—more intimate than sex—when I stripped half-naked and touched myself in front of him. I wonder, as I watch the dappled morning light sway on the ceiling, did he enjoy it, too? Did he wake this morning, wrap his hand around his thickened cock and think of me, my fingers moving on my clit, climaxing to the fantasy he’d spun so expertly for me?

  I hope he did. I want him to think of me that way. Maybe I’m not famous or exotic or beautiful, but he could find me attractive. Couldn’t he? I’m tired of being good, sensible Evie. Look where that got me with Adam. I want to be daring Evie with Frederic, and I want him to keep pushing me into unexplored places because I know I haven’t reached my limits yet.

  But there’s still a good chance that he’ll never touch me again. Because of the crying.

  I throw the sheets off with a groan, pad out to the kitchen and eat fruit over the sink with my bare hands, tearing plump wedges off a pink grapefruit and gulping them down, juice dripping over my chin. I want Frederic to touch me like he described in that fantasy. I want a man who understands the allure of something a little more brutal.

  I want Frederic.

  When I finish my breakfast and have washed my sticky face and hands I turn to my laptop, because while I’m alive with desire, I also need to work. There are still several people on Frederic’s list for me to interview and I set up the appointments. One of them is with Marion Prussard, his former partner. I feel ambivalent about calling her. Certainly she’ll have things to say that are important to the book, but I don’t know if I want to hear them, as it feels like prying. I’m curious about her, and it’s not only professional curiosity.

  When I do call I’m relieved to find she’s been expecting to hear from me, so I don’t need to fumble through an explanation about why I want to talk to her. All the same, I show up on her doorstep armed with a list of questions and my recording app, feeling nervous. I don’t want to feel personally curious about her and Frederic’s relationship, but I am. As I wait for her to answer the doorbell I’m struck by an image of myself asking, So I’m trying to get your ex into bed, any tips? and I have to swallow down a hysterical giggle as she opens the door.

  Madame Prussard is an elegant brunette in her midthirties with plump, high cheekbones and a beautiful smile. She’s friendly and welcoming to me, and we sit in the glassed-in sitting room with a view onto a superb summer garden. Over a tisane, which I find is peppermint tea, she answers my questions with ease and good humor and tells me anecdotes about how she and Frederic met and what she thinks of his career.

  As we approach the time of the end of their relationship I notice she pauses before answering each question, as if weighing her words. “Frederic is a good man,” she says haltingly, “but his need to be infallible was exhausting.”

  I’m puzzled by this. I’ve heard from others that his perfectionism was irritating, but that was when he was younger, surely, before he met Marion. Did he transfer his need for perfection from his career to his relationship? “In what way did he need to be infallible?”

  “Fred doesn’t like people to see him as weak, and he won’t reach out for help. He’s proud.”

  I think about Frederic walking the streets of Paris with me and confessing that he’s worried about being good in the show. That was showing weakness, wasn’t it? It’s not that I don’t believe Marion, but what she’s said doesn’t fit with the man I’m getting to know. “Can you give me an example of that?”

  She purses her lips and thinks for a moment. “Nothing springs to mind right now.”

  That’s a lie, and it’s frustrating she won’t tell me an anecdote to go with her statement, as it will come off as unqualified without an example to back it up.

  When I ask the inevitable what-caused-you-to-break-up question, she tucks her hair behind her ear and I notice an engagement ring sparkling on her finger. “I thought it was time for Fred to slow down. He...didn’t agree.”

  I wait, giving her time to add to this.

  Marion’s silent a moment, looking out across the sunlit garden. “I love Frederic very much and I always will. But he’s a difficult man. He keeps his work to himself. He can’t share that with a woman, though he’s very generous with everything else. When I think of him, I feel sorry for him and I feel tired.”

  And with that I think I’ve invaded their privacy enough. Thanking her for her time, I allow her to show me out.

  Out on the narrow street I walk quickly along the cobbles, taking deep breaths. I could take a cab back to the apartment but it’s early afternoon and I feel like I need to walk that interview off. Frederic didn’t share his work with her? In what way? I don’t understand and she chose her words so carefully that I wonder if I wasn’t meant to. If it wasn’t for the engagement ring on her finger I’d consider going to Frederic and saying, What the hell is wrong with you? She still loves you. Go and make up whatever you did to her, for heaven’s sake. But then, I’ve been given the super-expurgated version of their relationship. Anything might have happened between them, which is their business, not mine.

  I go by the market and buy pork chops, rocket and peaches for our dinner. Frederic has protested that I’m being too much of a housekeeper, but I like to cook. Well, I like to cook in his kitchen and at home, at least, not at university. In Frederic’s flat I have sharp steel knives, granite counters, stainless-steel pots and pans and a beautiful gas cooker to work with, and everything at the market is so fresh and cheap that it feels criminal to eat out or have food delivered all the time.

  Frederic appears at six thirty while I’m washing the peaches and greets me brightly. There’s a catch in his voice, though, and he clears his throat. Giselle, his voice coach, was at the flat the other night. I couldn’t understand what she was saying as it was all in very rapid, irate French, but she seemed to be scolding him about something. Frederic looked mutinous. I remember what Marion said about him refusing to slow down and I wonder if he’s singing even when he’s got a throat infection or voice strain.

  I’m preparing a salad to go with the chops and he rubs a hand through his short black curls and asks me about my day. I am just starting to tell him about the interviews when his eyes land on my dress. Something sharpens in his expression, and I trail off. He comes forward and touches a fold of the skirt, rubbing the fabric between a forefinger and thumb as if it were the finest silk. “What do you call this?”

  “The material? It’s gingham. Nothing special.”

  Frederic raises his eyebrows as if to say, Not special? “How pretty you would look in this black-and-white gingham, lying on the floor, bound and gagged.” He runs a finger lightly down the buttons on the front of the dress. “These buttons, you see, could be undone one by one and the bodice pulled back beneath the rope, exposing your breasts.”

  My breathing has become shallow. I’ve never thought of such a thing, of being undressed while tied up, but now I am and of Frederic doing it. The light brush of his finger down the front of my dress was electric and I want to
ask him to go on touching me. But he’s already turned me down once and I won’t be able to bear it if he does again. Can I hint at what I want instead? Settling on a question that will give him no doubt about the direction my mind has gone, I say, huskily, “I told you the other day about something that turns me on. What turns you on?”

  He folds his arms and leans against the counter, contemplating me. His eyes are a vivid green. “What turns me on. Well, I like to be in control. I like to be obeyed. I like sweet and clever women who submit to me and let me take care of them. That turns me on.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I thought he’d tell me he likes red high heels or brunettes or the thrill of getting caught; a fantasy like I told him. I don’t know what to make of being told he likes to be in control. What does that even mean?

  “What do you think about that?” he asks.

  “I, um...” I remember the spanking, the way he says good girl, and I feel a hot, pulsing sensation between my thighs. I don’t know if I’m aroused or freaked out. I turn my attention back to the peaches I was slicing up but I can feel him watching me closely.

  “Or rather, what do you think about submitting to me?”

  A peach stone shoots out of my fingers and goes skittering across the counter. Frederic watches it go, and then looks back at me. I don’t know what I think. I just liked the idea of having sex with him but this seems so complicated. My hands are shaking slightly, and Frederic takes the sharp knife out of them and puts it down on the counter.

  “What would that women’s studies lecturer of yours say about submission and obedience?”

  This was his technique the other night when he asked me about my fantasies and I clammed up: search for something easier for me to answer. I’m not sure if I’m grateful for the technique or frightened of it. Look what I confessed to him then—my adolescent infatuation with him. But even as I curse him for his clever tactics I can feel myself wanting to speak. “To a man?”

  “To me.”