Mercy Page 5

  Really think about what I’ve said, think about what you want to do. Next Saturday night I’ll be sitting right here. If you want to give it a try, take a cab here and meet me. If you don’t, then stay away and I promise I’ll leave you alone.”

  I nodded. Yes. I needed time to think. Time to come to terms with the decision I knew I’d eventually make, but wasn’t quite ready to make yet, not out loud.

  “But Lucy,” he warned, “if you show up here, I’ll take it to mean that you’re ready to begin.

  You’ll need to bring your overnight bag. Do you understand?” I nodded.

  “Answer me out loud.”

  “Yes, I understand,” I said, blushing hot. “But I can’t get here before 10:45, after the show.”

  “Okay then,” he said, nodding. “I’ll meet you here at 10:45. At eleven o’clock, if you haven’t shown up, we’ll understand each other.”

  He reached out to me and cradled my face in one of his hands. His fingers felt cool and firm against my flushed skin. He looked right into my eyes. I felt a strange feeling of closeness to him, I suppose because he understood me so well. “Either way, I’ve really enjoyed this hour with you. Tears and all. I think you’re ridiculously beautiful and sweet. Well, maybe not sweet,” he said with a wry smile. “But honest. I appreciate your truthfulness. You have no idea how much.” He released me and I held his gaze, awed and confused. “I’ve never been so truthful to anyone in my life.”

  “Neither have I, in quite some time.” He turned away, looking out at the crowd around us. “I hate to ask it, but in these matters discretion is very important. I’d appreciate very much if you wouldn’t share our...truth telling with anyone who doesn’t need to know.”

  “I won’t. I wouldn’t,” I promised. “Although my mother told me never to keep secrets for strangers.”

  He looked at me very directly. “We aren’t strangers anymore.” He drove me home then, and watched from his car until he saw my light come on. I looked from the window but I didn’t wave. I watched him pull back into traffic and wondered what he was thinking at that moment, because my own thoughts were wild. It was 3:45 when I finally laid down, but sleep wouldn’t come. I fantasized instead of his hands on me doing vulgar things.

  My fantasies were vague and salacious, because I had no idea what he would actually do to me.

  And yes, I was quite certain that he was going to do something to me. Before we’d even left the coffee house, when he’d helped me from my chair and guided me to the door with his hand pressed to the small of my back, I had known. I had made up my mind. The words were right on the tip of my tongue, the words to plead with him to take me, that I wanted to be his, that I wanted him to use me, that I wanted him to take me right home. That I wanted him to hurt me with his big, strong hands, that I knew I would enjoy it, that I wanted to try. I didn’t tell him though because he’d told me to think it over, and already I was anxious to obey. So I would think it over until Saturday, as he’d asked me to do, and then I’d go to him at the coffee house, and then...

  Then what? What would go on between us? How would it feel? Would he hurt me? How much? Would I enjoy it? Would I feel, as he had suggested, joy? Finally, too tired to keep my eyes open, I started to drift into dreams. The strange fantasies subsided, replaced by one single word. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. Matthew. I was already gone for him, totally gone. I was naively, desperately crushed on Matthew Norris even though he’d told me very bluntly he didn’t want a girlfriend. And I believed he meant it when he said that to me, but I thought that would change. I was sure if I was good enough, I could change his mind.

  * * *

  Oh, my fucking back. It was just ridiculous. I looked up at Pietro toiling away at his canvas and I could tell he was in that zone, that place that he went to sometimes. There was no way I could stop him now, although my muscles ached for relief. What kind of art model would I be, to interrupt him in his moments of genius? A less sore art model, I thought dismally.

  I’d sat for him all day Sunday, then on Monday for a few more hours. Now it was Friday night and he’d called me, his voice filled with urgency. “I’m so close to finished,” he’d begged.

  “Lucy, please, you must come!”

  So here I lay at nearly midnight, aching and twitchy. I let my mind wander, a trick I’d learned from dance. When something was torturous and took excruciating effort, you just let your mind wander away from the pain. You can probably guess the place to which my mind wandered. It wandered to Matthew, who I planned to see the next night.

  I was impatient, yes, but a little scared too. Would he be happy with me once he had me in his arms? Would he realize he’d made a big mistake and end things? I had no doubt he would end things abruptly if he wasn’t pleased with me. I would do everything I could to prevent that from happening, but there was only so much I could give, only myself as I was. If he decided I wasn’t good enough...

  I daydreamed there on the cold hard floor of a painter’s studio and pictured Matthew sitting somewhere more comfortable thinking about me. Maybe his mind strayed to me during some important developer business meeting, or as he sat in the backseat of his car on the phone while his beefy driver drove him around. That driver, I wondered what was up with him. Maybe he procured drugs for Matthew. Or women. Hookers. I couldn’t imagine someone like him staying continent for long. If he’d broken up with his girlfriend, what had he been doing in the meantime? I would make him wear condoms, wouldn’t let him near me without them, that was certain. There was no way I’d give in on that. Everything else, well...how far would I go for him?

  How far would he try to make me go, and what would he do? How much time had he spent since he’d met me, thinking about how he was going to use me, as he’d said? Did he already know what would go on? Had he long ago planned exactly what would occur? Or would he make it up as he went along, based on my reactions?

  My reactions. What might those be? I had no idea, because I still had no idea what he would do to me. I’d read books about BDSM. I had a general idea of what people did in the world of dominance and submission, but he’d scoffed and claimed that most of those things didn’t interest him. That all he cared about was using me, making me his own. His own thing. I smiled, remembering when he’d called me a thing of beauty. I’d told him peevishly that I wasn’t a thing.

  He was probably thinking even then that he would have the last laugh. He had probably thought to himself, well, Lucy, we’ll see.

  Chapter Four: Guidelines

  I drifted through the Saturday shows lost in a world of my own. Grégoire knew I was meeting our rich patron for coffee, but I told him nothing else. I had actually planned to tell Grégoire everything, reveal everything we’d talked about that strange night, but in the end, I kept it from him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Grégoire to keep a secret. If I had asked him to, he would have kept any secret of mine to the grave. Nor was I ashamed to tell him. I shared everything with him, every humiliation and every triumph. In fact, I shared so much with him, I couldn’t quite believe I was keeping something this big to myself. I guess I was afraid he might tell me not to go, that I shouldn’t let him use me, that it wasn’t safe. That something was wrong with me for wanting a relationship like this. All of the things I wouldn’t let myself think. All those things that were probably, unfortunately, true.

  So I said goodbye to Grégoire by the stage door and climbed in a cab at 10:40 sharp. I had showered and carefully shaved, and scented and perfumed every inch of my body. I’d painstakingly made myself up to look alluring and sexy. I had applied my very best dark red fuck-me lipstick, and put on jeans and a sweater that hugged my curves. Under my clothes, I had on things I hoped he’d find exciting and beautiful. A black silk thong, a matching black balconette bra. I could have dressed up in more risqué trappings but I had a sense it might upset him, to take that initiative myself.

  All too soon, the cab pulled up at the coffee house. I paid the driver with bills rustling in trembling hands. I stood in the cold night air for a couple of minutes outside on the sidewalk, then I just couldn’t bear the anxiety and I went in.

  I was assailed right inside the door with the familiar smell of smoke and coffee, the sickly sweet scent of clove cigarettes. I swallowed hard and started the long walk to the back. What if he wasn’t there? What if he was there, watching from some hidden place, laughing with friends as I made a fool of myself returning to report to him? I looked around furtively, embarrassed and agitated. I took in all the happy people talking and laughing with their friends and for one split second of a moment, I almost turned and ran.

  But then I neared the table and he was there, and it comforted me greatly that he looked nervous too. He sat rigid and still, looking down into his coffee. On the other side of the table was another cup, presumably for me.

  He looked up, and my heart leaped. My heart leaped. So trite, but that’s actually what it did.

  My breath caught and I had to choke a little to get it going again. He looked stunning dressed in casual clothes, jeans and a sweater. I’d only ever seen him in business suits and tuxedos, powerful clothes of status and formality. But in jeans and a sweater, you could see he was a man, just a beautiful man, potent and attractive. He looked up at me, and in that second the worry left his face, replaced with something else, something priceless—a broad smile of palpable relief.

  He wanted me. He wanted me. It was written clearly all over his face. I walked the rest of the way to the table, propelled by sheer gladness, and I returned his smile with an uncontrolled smile of my own. He stood up to pull my chair out when I was close enough. So formal and old fashioned. I turned to mush. He sat back down and just gazed at me. I waited for him to say something but he just stared.

  “Is this for me?” I asked, gesturing to the cup in front of me.

  “It’s what you ordered last week. You can get something else if you like.”

  “No, it’s perfect. Thanks.” He’d remembered what I ordered and ordered it again for me.

  Sigh. I picked it up, warming my hands with it, and my face, which was still cold from outside.

  “You should wear a coat,” he chided. “That little sweater wouldn’t keep Satan warm.” I laughed, just breathing in the coffee and letting it warm me, the coffee he’d gotten for me.

  “So you came.”

  I nodded.

  “When did you decide to come?”

  I thought of my recent impulse to flee.

  “About a minute ago.”

  He smiled, and his eyes moved over me slowly. “Are you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  He fidgeted and rubbed his cheek.

  “Drink your coffee,” he said.

  I added some sugar to it and stirred. He watched, taking a deep drink of his own.

  “I went to the show tonight.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. I often do.”

  “To see me?”

  “Yes. To look at you.” The way he said it made me wet. He watched me. He wants me, that man right there. Oh my God. He smiled, perhaps sensing my anxiety. “Tonight, Lucy, we’ll mostly talk. Nothing too wild.”

  I nodded, thankful to hear it.

  “Answer me out loud,” he said. “I prefer it.”

  “Yes, Matthew,” I amended, blushing.

  “You have a lot to learn but I think you’re a pretty smart girl.”

  “I hope I’m good enough for you.”

  He took a deep breath, a very loud one. From the look on his face I half expected him to stand up and walk out. But instead he reached across the table. “Give me your hand.” I did, and he took it, and we could both feel it shaking in his grip.

  “Don’t be afraid.” He spoke so quietly it was hard to hear above the hum around us. He turned my hand over in his palm, studying it like there were secrets there. “Just always tell me the truth. Okay? Always.”

  “I will.”

  “Are you finished?” he asked, letting go of me. “I’d like to go somewhere more private before we really talk.”

  * * *

  We went out to his car, and again his driver was missing in action. The first thing he did was roll down the windows.

  “Lucy Merritt, if you ever show up to see me again smelling like a French whorehouse, you’ll be sorry you did.”

  How embarrassing. I was already a fuck up. He kept the windows down the whole way to his house. When we arrived he pulled me to the sink in his kitchen. “Wash it off. I want to smell you, not some perfumed-up whore.”

  I tried to wash all of it off, which wasn’t easy, partly because I was so distracted by his spectacular house. It was difficult too because it was mostly on my clothes, but I did my best. I guess it was all right, because when I came out, he sniffed me and muttered, “Good enough.” Then he took my arm and led me to a door in the hallway. “We’ll always play in the basement,” he explained. We made our way down the carpeted stairwell, and I guess I expected him to take me to a dungeon of sorts. Black and forbidding, tricked out with crosses and beams and chains hanging from hooks in the ceiling. But the room he took me to wasn’t a dungeon at all. It actually looked more like an art salon. Or a really cool and modern funeral home, done in crisp and textured neutrals.

  He told me to look around, to look at everything. I walked around but I didn’t dare touch.

  The walls were upholstered with fabric, velvety drapes in taupe. There were huge, comfortable sofas that I tried out, sitting down on them, and as it turned out, that was the only chance I’d get.

  I didn’t know it yet, but only Matthew ever sat on them, while I knelt or lay supine at his feet, or bent over an ottoman with my ass in the air. But they were very nice and comfy, the matching ottomans scattered around the room in several heights and sizes. He pointed out the eyebolts near the bottom of each one. “I’ll strap you to these when I beat you or fuck you, sometimes.” I just nodded when he said it, like that was perfectly great. Oh, wow, Matthew, bolting me to an ottoman. That’s a spectacular idea.

  When I was done drooling over the cushiony sofas and ottomans, he took me over to a large armoire in the corner. It had drawers full of leather restraints, straps and cuffs, sex toys and paraphernalia that made my eyes go wide. The many things he showed me in that armoire both shocked and titillated me. I was so hot by that time, I wanted him to take me then and there. I was really close to begging for it but I managed to keep quiet, the obedient little slave. He showed me paddles and crops and canes, and tooled leather straps just as thick as the paddles. He showed me delicate but painful looking clips and clamps. He put one on my finger to give me an idea how it would feel. It pinched a little, but nothing I couldn’t bear. “It will feel different on your nipples and your clit,” he cautioned me. I swallowed hard. Of course it would.

  Then he showed me dildos and butt plugs and other toys that terrified me. They were far too large to ever fit up inside me. “You’ll like these best of all,” he said with a smile. He showed me a shelf full of lubricants, all different types. Scented, flavored, heavy duty, light duty. He showed me one bottle with a gleam in his eye. “This kind will make you itch, for when you’ve really been bad.”

  Yes, my eyes must have been like saucers looking into that armoire. He showed me everything proudly, like the curator of some perverse museum. When I’d had a good look at it all he tilted my face to his. He looked into my eyes and I felt shy and exposed. It was very, very hard not to look away.

  “Look at me,” he insisted. When my eyes were fixed on his, he spoke to me in a low voice.

  “So what do you think, Lucy Merritt? If you’re going to be my lover, you’ll have to endure all these things.”

  And the way he said lover made me absolutely thrill, and then that word endure, it sounded sexy as hell to my ears. I searched for my voice, for what to say. He pressed me some more, his voice goading me.

  “Are you sure you don’t just want to run home? Climb back into bed with your worn out copy of The Story of O?”

  “No. I want to stay here.”

  “Okay then. Let’s stay.”

  He led me to the center of the room, then walked away from me, talking over his shoulder.

  “Face me. Take off your clothes. Everything. Put them over by the door.” I stood still for just a second, and then I did exactly as he said. I took off my sweater, my jeans, my shirt and socks and shoes, until I wore only my thong and bra, and then I looked up at him, my face flaming red.

  “Everything but the panties,” he said from the sofa, where he sat watching every move I made. I removed my bra and placed everything by the door, thankful at least for the small scrap of fabric between my legs. As I walked, I had to make an effort to move my limbs. I had been naked for Pietro so many times, practically naked in dance costumes which left nothing to the imagination. But never, never had I truly felt as naked as I did now, and that was even wearing the panties he’d so graciously let me keep on. His intent gaze was terrifying and yet thrilling. I desperately hoped he liked what he saw.

  He stood up and beckoned me back to the center of the room where he met me, looking over me long and critically. I burned and blushed. It was so intimate and embarrassing. My hands came up of their own volition to cover my breasts.

  “Don’t,” he warned. “Don’t ever try to hide your body from me. In this room, when we’re together, it’s mine. Understand?”

  I nodded and put my hands down, and felt my nipples grow hard under his gaze. I didn’t know whether to look at him, or look away, or look at the floor, or what. Then his hand touched my buttock, and I flinched.

  “Stand still.”

  Again he reached out to touch me, and this time, I was still as a statue for him. He ran his hand slowly all over my bottom, down to the underside of my cheeks and then further down to my upper thigh. Finally, he was putting those beautiful hands on me. He stood close, in my space, and I could smell him, feel him, his incredible maleness sending my own body into a chaotic, hypercharged hum. His fingers crept under my thong and he slowly pulled it down to the tops of my thighs, where he let it rest. He moved closer behind me and pressed against me. I stifled a moan. Though he was still fully dressed, I could feel his rigid erection against my ass.

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