Текст книги "The Queen"

Автор книги: Tiffany Reisz

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

23

Theology

NORA GRACIOUSLY ALLOWED Noah to join her in the shower. She also graciously allowed him to wash her body inside and out with his bare hands. Afterward Nora put on her black silk bathrobe and kissed him goodbye at the front door. She didn’t mind if the neighbors saw them. They seemed like nice people and she enjoyed giving them something to talk about at dinner.

He turned to leave but turned back around again.

“This was a one-night thing, right?” he asked.

Nora cupped his face. No scruff. No five-o’clock shadow. Not even a two-o’clock shadow.

“And one morning.”

“So I guess I shouldn’t call you later?”

“It’s sweet of you to offer. If I weren’t me, and you weren’t so young...”

“I’m not that young. I’ll be a sophomore at Yorke this year.”

“You’re young. My life is complicated enough without adding a very sweet, very handsome, very young complication to it. Plus...we have to work, remember?”

“I get it.” He gave her a shy smile in return. “See you at the coffee shop sometime?”

“You’re the only one who gets my order right.”

“Extra whip,” he said.

“Story of my life.”

Noah kissed her one last time and walked out her front door to his car. He hadn’t been the first male virgin she’d deflowered since becoming a dominatrix, and she knew he wouldn’t be her last. Since she was making something of a habit of it, she’d developed a personal philosophy regarding her encounters with inexperienced younger men. She would show them the world of sex had more flavors to it than vanilla, and say goodbye the next morning leaving her boys better off than when she found them. Wiser, more experienced and grinning like idiots.

But Noah hadn’t been grinning like an idiot when he left. Neither had she. She nearly called him back. A terrible idea, of course. He was nineteen. She was thirty. He was sweet and innocent. Nora was, well... Nora.

And yet...it might be nice to have someone in her life who didn’t come to her house just for the kink and sex and leave after the shower. Who was she kidding? She worked two jobs. She was rarely at home. Last thing she had time for was a pet.

Nora watched Noah drive away. Maybe she should find a new coffee shop. For Noah’s sake, of course. Not hers. She was fine.

With less enthusiasm than usual, Nora put her day together. She packed clothes for her various clients—Sheridan wanted suits, Judge B loved her stiletto heels, and Rabbi Friedman couldn’t care less what she wore as long as she used the stock whip on him until he had to crawl from her dungeon—literally. Once dressed and packed, Nora headed into the city. She blamed her lassitude on the August heat. The city sweltered at the melting point. She could imagine the sidewalks bubbling like molten lava. The sun beat down on her as if it had something to prove. She couldn’t get into the air-conditioned car fast enough.

On the way to the city her hotline phone rang again.

“King, I’m busy here. I have three sessions today. I don’t have time to give the mayor’s baby brother an OTK spanking. Again.”

She heard a laugh on the other end. Juliette’s laugh, warm and honeyed and endlessly amused by her lover’s top domme.

“Sorry, Juliette. I thought it was King.”

“What does OTK mean?”

“Over the knee.”

“Ah, I’m learning all the terms. Monsieur asked me to call you. His hands are full.”

“I don’t want to know what his hands are full of, do I?”

“He’s giving Max a bath. The puppy got out and played in the garbage before we could catch him.”

Nora heard the plaintive cry of a miserable beast in the background, a full-grown Rottweiler that only Juliette would call a “puppy.” She heard something else, too—it sounded like every swear word in the French language coming out in one long, blue sentence.

“King knows he can pay people to give his dogs baths, right?”

“He’s having too much fun to delegate.”

“What, pray tell, does His Royal Dog Groomer want from me now?”

“Your Sheridan called. She can’t make her appointment tonight. Her agent called her in for an audition. She’d like to reschedule for tomorrow at nine.”

“That’s fine.”

“Also, I needed to know if you had room in your schedule tonight for a session with a new client.”

“New client? Tonight?”

“He wants your earliest appointment.”

Nora dug her red leather appointment book out of her bag.

“Thursday afternoon,” Nora said. “I have Troy at two. Put him at 3:30.”

“Done. Merci.”

“No problem. Who’s the new guy anyway?”

“He’s—”

Nora heard a “Merde!” followed by the sound of wet feet running rampant.

“I have to go,” Juliette said.

“Let me guess—Max ran away from King and is running around the entire house dripping water?”

“One of them will not survive this day,” Juliette said. “Both, j’espère.”

“Bonne chance,” Nora said and hung up the phone.

She had a lovely session with Judge B, a brutal session with Rabbi Friedman. She had dinner in the city with Griffin before heading back home. But when she arrived back at her house that evening, Nora couldn’t bring herself to open the front door of her house. Once the key was in the lock, she realized the last place she wanted to be was alone in her own house with her own thoughts and her empty bed. Instead of going home, she walked across the street and down the block.

When she stepped through the side door of St. Luke’s she almost stumbled from pure sensory overload. She could smell the faint memory of incense in the air, a scent she’d recognize anywhere. And there was no light quite like the light of evening through stained-glass saints and angels and no sound quite like the sound of high heels on church floors. She climbed up the choir loft steps and took a seat in one of the pews. Inside her day planner she jotted down her appointment for Thursday. Usually she wrote down the initials of her client so she could better prepare for the scene but she didn’t know who it was. Not that it mattered much. She’d beaten every sort of masochist there was. Whatever he wanted, she could give it to him.

When she’d finished updating her schedule, she pulled her laptop out of her bag. She should have been thinking of Noah. She’d spent the night with him, and the morning. But as always it was Søren who consumed her thoughts. She started writing a memory simply to have some mastery over it. When she put Søren on paper he became hers again. If only for a little while.

* * *

He sat at the table in the bar of the club drinking a glass of red wine with their king. They spoke in French too rapidly for her to understand more than a few words here and there. It didn’t matter what they spoke of, however. Nothing mattered except His thigh under her chin and His left hand on the back of her neck, caressing the tender skin under her collar. She sat on the floor at His feet, a white pillow between her knees and the floor.

He didn’t speak to her, but He did tap her under the chin. She lifted her head and met His eyes. He dipped two fingers into His red wine and brought them to her lips, and she drank the wine off His hand.

Their king said something followed by the word “parfait.” Perfect. He was speaking of her, their king was, speaking of her submission to Him. A perfect submissive. Not true although she was flattered. It was not she who was perfect, but Him. Don’t call the painting perfect even if you see it that way. The painting didn’t create itself. Call the artist perfect. If she was perfect it was only because He was perfect first.

He rose to His feet and she waited. She would not rise until He bid her to rise. She would stay there all night if she must waiting for the order.

“Come, Little One,” He said, brushing her cheek with His fingertips.

He didn’t tell her where they were going, because it didn’t matter. As long as she never lost sight of Him, she would never lose her way.

She followed Him to His dungeon, which was a terrible word to describe a beautiful room. In the olden days, prisoners were kept and tortured in dungeons. But long before that the word held a different meaning. It came from Latin, from the word “dominus,” which meant lord or master. The master’s keep, that’s what a dungeon was. The place where the castle’s lord kept his precious things, not a dank, dark hole for prisoners.

He was the master, and she was that which He kept.

Once safely inside His keep He kissed her with a claiming kiss, a conquering kiss, a master’s kiss. He called her by name and the name He called her was “Mine.” He stripped her of her white shoes, her white dress, her white stockings, until she wore nothing for Him but her white collar. He ran a bath of warm water and set her into it. As she sat in the water He rolled up the sleeves of His black shirt, revealing strong forearms, strong wrists, a pale dusting of hair and a small white scar left by His father.

“Don’t look at the scar, Little One,” He said, lathering his hands with gentle soap.

“I hate to think of you hurt, sir. I wish I could have been there for you.”

He pushed her onto her hands and knees. Her nipples hardened as the water kissed them.

“You weren’t even born yet,” He said, spreading her thighs with His hands and washing inside of her. He had told her what would happen tonight so she braced herself as two wet fingers entered her anally.

“I wasn’t even born when I was born.”

“When were you born?” He asked her as He opened His two fingers inside of her, widening her. The muscles inside her protested against the penetration and she bit her lip to stifle a cry of discomfort.

“The first time I saw you.”

His lips touched her hair as He inserted something into her body, something hard and thick, something to open her and keep her open. He washed His hands in her bathwater and helped her to her feet. She felt strange with the object inside her. Tense. Full. There was no pain, however. Not like last time when He’d taken her without warning. Then He’d swooped down on her like a god in the form of man, taking her with force if not by it. It had left her shaken, afraid of Him. Burned. Burned like someone who’d stared at the sun. Those who kept a safe distance could bask in the glow of the sun, see by its light, glory in its warmth. Those who came too close were burned.

She did love to burn.

With a soft white towel He dried her. He led her to the bed and she sat on the edge. The bed was soft. Sitting felt strange but didn’t hurt. She’d worn her hair pinned up as He’d requested, and now He took the pins out one by one and set them aside before taking a silver hairbrush and running it through the black waves of her hair. The act was soothing, soporific. She was naked and deeply penetrated and yet she could have fallen asleep with her head against His stomach. He wanted her like this...at peace, limp, open. She heard the sound of Him setting the hairbrush aside and she opened her heavy eyes. Gently He wrapped a white silk sash around her wrists and used it as a lead, guiding her to the center of the bed. He put her on her stomach and tied her wrists loosely to the headboard. The light in the room was low so it didn’t surprise her when He produced three small tea candles. It did surprise her, however, when He laid the three flat round candles on her spine. They formed a line, the three of them. One on the back of her neck. One between her shoulder blades. One at the small of her back. Then He lit them. As small as they were it didn’t take long before she felt the wax heating and melting onto her skin. The candles burned without searing her. It was His touch that seared her instead. As the wax melted onto her naked spine, His hands roved over her body, her legs and her arms, between her thighs and inside her vagina. He pushed a fingertip against her cervix, a test to see if she would flinch or jump, which wasn’t allowed when she had candles on her body. She inhaled sharply but didn’t move. She’d passed the test.

The wax turned to liquid and slid over her back, creating paraffin wings over her rib cage and sides. She barely felt the thick hard object inside her anymore. It had become a part of her. All her attention was focused on the burning wax. What happened inside her was beneath her notice.

As the three flames of the three candles reached her skin, He licked the tips of His fingers and snuffed them out. The wax congealed almost instantly, and He peeled it from her body. Although she couldn’t see her own back she knew the wax had left a bright red mark wherever it had touched. His lips caressed her burns, bringing fresh pain to her and fresh pleasure to Him.

The bed shifted under His weight, and she heard the rustle of fabric as He undressed. Naked He covered her body with His, pressing His chest into her back and renewing the pain of the burns with His own heat. He pulled back and drew the object out of her. She missed it immediately, felt the emptiness like a wound and when He entered her with His own body, she was healed.

Carefully He lowered Himself onto her. Carefully He thrust into her. She felt no pain. She was far too slick and open for pain. Not quite pleasure either but for the pleasure of being penetrated by Him, used by Him. That was its own pleasure far removed from the physical manifestation of it.

He pulled out of her but only to order her onto her back. With her ankles resting on His shoulders He entered her again. His fingers found her clitoris and stroked it. She shivered and gasped and the muscles inside her clenched in pleasure. Turning His hand, He pushed two fingers into her vagina and she felt him filling both holes. Yes...she closed her eyes and her head fell back against the sheets. Yes...this was what she’d always wanted, to have Him inside every part of her, to keep nothing of her from Him. Submission had become synonymous with surrender to her. Willing surrender. The Lord of the Castle had come to invade her world. If she fought Him, she would lose everything. But if she surrendered to Him, He would carry her off like a spoil of war. When she entered His keep she would find riches beyond her wildest dreams waiting for her if she were only brave enough to surrender.

She surrendered.

Three fingers penetrated her vagina. Four. Both holes were filled and she could take nothing more. Like a wine chalice she was made to be filled. It was her purpose, her raison d’être. He knew it and so He filled her. Filled her to the brim and more and she overflowed with Him, the sheets wet beneath her. She came silently and hard, her clitoris throbbing against His fingers and the deep muscles of her pelvis contracting around the cock in her ass. This was a new pleasure she’d never before experienced. The contractions were deeper and harder. Nerves she didn’t know she had went wild. She felt the orgasm all the way up her spine and into her thighs and calves and down to her toes. When He came inside her, she felt that, too. She felt everything everywhere. It was blinding pleasure, obliterating, like staring into the sun. But she didn’t blink, didn’t turn away. Once one saw the sun, what was there left to see anyway?

The ecstasy pulsed and faded at last. He untied her wrists from the headboard and pulled her to Him, her chest to His chest, her leg over His thigh, His fingers gentle probing inside her wet holes.

“Better?” He asked and she knew He meant was it better than last time. It couldn’t possibly have been any worse.

“Perfect, sir.” Everything was perfect now—He was perfect, the sex had been perfect...a perfect evening...

“Parfait,” He said and she remembered His conversation with their king and asked Him about it.

“What did he say to you about me? I heard him say ‘parfait.’”

“He said you were the perfect submissive.”

“What else did he say?” she asked because she knew there was more to it.

He didn’t answer at first.

“Sir?”

Her sir smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. Still, she had asked and He would answer.

“He said...‘Enjoy it while it lasts.’”

* * *

She heard footsteps on the choir loft stairs and looked up from her writing.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite lapsarian. How are you, Miss Nora?”

“Hello, Father Mike. You do know lapsarian is an adjective referring to the fall of man, right? Not a noun meaning a lapsed Catholic.”

“Well, it should mean a lapsed Catholic. It sounds like a lapsed Catholic. I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” he said as he lugged what appeared to be a heavy box of something over the back of a pew. “How does a young lady who writes dirty books know so much about theology?”

“Osmosis.”

Father Mike O’Dowell, the priest of St. Luke’s, cocked a white and bushy eyebrow right at her.

“I used to ‘date’ someone who had a PhD in theology,” she explained. “It was a dirty joke.”

“I’m a priest, not a child. You don’t have to put date in quotes. I assume you used to sleep with someone who had a PhD in theology?”

“I did.”

“Osmosis. I get it.” He tapped the side of his nose and pointed at her. “Clever.”

“Did I shock you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“One of these days I’m going to shock you, Father Mike. It’s my top goal in life.”

“Good luck with that, my dear. I used to minister to men on death row. I’d be more shocked if you’d never ‘dated’ someone.”

“I ‘dated’ a nineteen-year-old boy this morning.”

Father Mike sighed wistfully. “God, I miss nineteen.”

Nora laughed. Father Mike looked like an old-school priest, and talked like it with his faded Irish accent, but he didn’t scare her one bit. He had a mighty scowl but it turned to a smile too quickly to intimidate her.

“Do you need some help there, Father?”

“Please. Unless I’m interrupting your prayers.”

“Not praying,” she said as she took a stack of brand-new shiny blue hymnals from the box and helped Father Mike place them in the back of each pew. “Just thinking.”

“Thinking? Sounds dangerous.”

“It is.”

“Boy trouble?” he asked.

“Always.”

“Somebody break your heart?”

“No. I broke someone’s heart.”

“Feeling guilty?” Father Mike asked. “There’s hope for you yet if you haven’t lost your Catholic guilt.”

“Sorry. No guilt. Not where he’s concerned. It’s just...we were very happy together right up until the moment we weren’t.”

“What happened?”

“I changed,” she said. “There was something I needed to do with my life, and he wouldn’t let me do it. I had to choose between staying with him and not being the real me, and being the real me and leaving him. Does that make sense?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve been there, lass. My own brother wouldn’t speak to me for five years after I left home to join the church.”

“Five years? But you’re Irish. Aren’t you all supposed to send one child in the family to a convent or a seminary?”

Father Mike stood up straight and stared at a wrought-iron cross hanging on the wall at the back of the choir loft.

“Our priest growing up...he mistreated my oldest brother.”

“Mike,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“We put that bastard in jail after my father beat him with a golf club. Ten years later when I told the family I was joining the church, Seamus said it was like the husband of a Jewish girl joining the Nazi party.”

“The path I took, it hurt my...ex–whatever he was. What I wanted to do with my life, the person I needed to be, he couldn’t be a part of it,” Nora said.

“It scared Seamus when I became a priest. First time he saw me in the collar he swore he didn’t even know me anymore. I looked the same but he couldn’t see me. Took a while before his eyes adjusted.”

“My gentleman has very good eyes. But he still can’t see me for me.”

“Any regrets about leaving him?”

“If I had to do it over again, I’d do the same thing. And,” she said, glancing down at her closed laptop in her bag, “we certainly enjoyed it while it lasted.”

“Then what’s the problem, lass?”

Nora shrugged as she sorted the hymnals in her hand.

“I miss him.”

Father Mike gave her a look of compassion and the kindness almost undid her.

“That is a problem, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Nora said, swallowing. “Yes, it is.”

“You think he’ll come around?” Father Mike asked as he gathered up the old, crumbling hymnals and started placing them in the box.

“I keep hoping he will. No luck yet.”

“Is he a good man?”

“He...” Nora paused, trying to figure out the best way to answer the question. “He sold a very precious possession of his once in order to buy me something I needed and couldn’t afford at the time.”

“What did he buy you?”

“A laptop so I could write my dirty books.”

“What did he sell?”

“His dignity.”

“Sounds like a very good man then.”

“He’s the best man alive,” Nora said and realized as she said the words, she meant them.

“Sounds like you’re still in love with him.”

“I am. He knows I am.”

“He’s still in love with you?”

“He was last time I checked. Seems like it should be easy, right? He loves me. I love him. But it never is that easy.”

“God said ‘Love is patient. Love is kind.’ He never said ‘Love is easy.’”

“Love is patient,” Nora repeated. “You think if I’m patient he’ll eventually come around and love me for me instead of waiting for me to be someone I’m not?”

“I’ve been screwing up mightily for sixty-eight years. God’s still patiently waiting for me to get it right, and He hasn’t given up on me yet.”

“Fine. I’ll give him sixty-five more years to come to his senses. Then I’m moving on with my life. But after that I’m finding a new priest to be in love with.”

Father Mike’s eyes went round as Communion wafers.

“Did I finally shock you?” she asked, handing over a stack of hymnals.

He shook his head again, and his eyes returned to their normal size. “You’ll have to do better than that. I know too many priests. Anyone I know?”

“I’m kidding,” she lied. “I wouldn’t sleep with a priest. That would be a sin.”

“For your sake, I hope you’re kidding.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re a sweet girl, even if you do correct my theology. Involved with a priest? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“That bad, is it?” Nora asked, keeping her voice neutral as she sorted hymnals into the box.

“Priest I went to seminary with had a lover for years. Fifteen, if you can believe it, before it was over.”

“Over? Did they get caught?”

“One dark night she washed down a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of vodka. Never woke up.”

Father Mike said the words casually, but Nora felt them like a punch in the gut. She wanted to ask the woman’s name, what church she attended. Nora wanted to know if her priest called her by a pet name that made her melt, if he told her he needed her, if he told her she was his heart.

“And him?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral as she slipped a hymnal into the box. “What happened to him?”

“They transferred him to a church five hundred miles away. They sent him packing so fast he didn’t even get the chance to pay his last respects to her family.”

“That’s awful,” Nora said not meeting his eyes.

“It’s shameful, is what it is. She thought she was giving him the best years of her life. Turned out they were the only years. Suicide is a mortal sin, but I’d put it on his head, not hers.”

“Do you honestly think God wants a celibate clergy?”

“Doesn’t matter if God wants it or not. The church wants it and the church sets the dress code. God doesn’t want all men to shave their heads and march in formation either, but the army certainly does. You want to join the army, be prepared to march. Don’t want to march, don’t join the army. If you do join the army, for God’s sake, don’t marry a pacifist.”

“You can’t help who you fall in love with sometimes.”

“The heart wants what the heart wants,” Father Mike said. “Which is why God gave us hearts and common sense, and He put them in different places.”

“We’re Catholics, Father Mike. We believe in the Sacred Heart, remember? No one ever talks about the Sacred Common Sense.”

“True. But still, my heart breaks for the girl.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Any regrets about being a priest? Anything to repent?”

“Being a priest has been my North Star on this journey. But I wonder sometimes about the children I didn’t have. You get called Father all you life, you can’t help but wonder...”

Nora looked at the iron cross on the wall.

“My old priest would have made a wonderful father.” She remembered a long-ago visit to Denmark, and seeing Søren holding his baby niece Gitte in his arms. For hours he walked with her, trying to comfort and quiet her colicky cries. He was so patient, so endlessly patient. Nora didn’t want to have children herself and she had no regrets about that at all. But Søren never holding his son or daughter? That hurt her. That she regretted. And she hated to think about it, but Søren was fourteen years her senior and women lived longer than men. Wouldn’t it be something to have part of Søren live on after he was gone?

“Breaks my heart to know he’ll never have children,” Nora said. “And you, too. I wish they’d let priests get married. Don’t you think it’s a little weird, priests preaching about love when they’re not allowed to feel it?”

“Oh, priests know everything there is to know about love.”

“You do, do you?” she asked with a smile.

“Don’t confuse love with romance, young lady. Romance is beautiful, it’s a gesture, it’s a walk in a park with a pretty girl. Love is ugly sometimes. It’s a crawl into a war zone to save a friend. Romance whispers sweet nothings. Love tells painful truths. Romance gives an engagement ring. Love takes a bullet. I gave up marriage and children and sex and the comforts of family, because I love my Lord, and I would take a bullet for anyone in this church, including you, young lady. Now you tell me I don’t know what love is.”

Nora couldn’t tell him that because she couldn’t say a word. She leaned over the pew and took Father Mike in her arms.

“You’re flirting,” he said in a teasing tone. “My heart belongs to another.”

“I’m not flirting,” she said, her head on his shoulder. “Sometimes even a lapsed Catholic needs a hug from a priest.”

Father Mike chuckled and patted her on the back, kindly as a grandfather. Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she rolled her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “That was me.”

“Good. Afraid it was my pacemaker.”

Nora glanced at her phone. “Well. Speak of the devil,” she said.

“Is it him?” Father Mike whispered, grinning at her like a teenage girl at a sleepover.

“It is.”

“Answer it, lass. Maybe he’s finally coming around. I would if I were him.”

Nora leaned over the pew, kissed Father Mike on the cheek and hit the answer button.

“This better be good,” she said.

“Define good,” came a sonorous voice over the line.

“I’m very busy,” she said. “I’m at St. Luke’s helping a priest friend of mine organize his hymnals.”

“If I didn’t know Mike O’Dowell, I would assume ‘organize his hymnals’ was a euphemism.”

“Not a euphemism unless you’re calling to ask me to organize your hymnals.”

“My hymnals are in perfect order already, but thank you.” His voice was cool, tempered, even. Yet she sensed something not right, a fissure in his composure.

“Then to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”

“I need you.”

“Should I bring wine and wear lingerie?” she asked. “Or bring lingerie and wear wine?”

“Not necessary. I’m afraid this won’t be a particularly romantic evening.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, slipping out the side door of St. Luke’s and into the parking lot.

“There was an accident.”

“What happened?” Nora asked, her stomach sinking to the asphalt. “Was someone hurt?”

“We can discuss it tonight. I should go.”

“Søren—wait. Was anyone hurt?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding resigned and tired.

“Who?”

“We can talk about it tonight.”

“Søren,” she said again. “Please, you’re scaring me. Who was hurt?”

He sighed and Nora’s heart died a little in the sigh. That he didn’t want to tell her who was hurt meant she didn’t want to know.

“I was.”