“I will fuck you in any position you name as long as you let me come,” he said.
“Don’t tempt me. I have new suspension toys to try out,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling where the suspension rig awaited its first victim. “How do you want to fuck me?” she asked, as she unstrapped both his ankles. Kingsley reached down and held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her to him.
“I can have you? Any way I want?” he asked.
“I think you’ve earned it.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her breasts to his chest. His skin was so hot it burned to the touch. Or was that her? Weeks ago he’d warned her that she’d never have the physical strength of a man, and he proved it by lifting her easily off her feet. She twined her legs around his back instinctively and he turned them both, pushing her back into the throne and draping her legs over each chair arm. She flinched when he penetrated again. He was so deep she felt him against her cervix. When he thrust again, however, he hit every spot she wanted him to hit. He was kneeling on the seat of the throne, pinning her to the back, pushing into her with long but fast thrusts. Nora clung to his shoulders, and he held her in place by her hips. She felt so wet and so open that she would have let him pound her like this all night if he wanted. They were both switches, her and Kingsley, and in this heated moment she thanked God for making her this way. She could be like Kingsley and have it all. Kingsley had a submissive he owned, Juliette, and could play with whomever he wanted as long as he gave his nights to her. In secret he had Nora who would be his Mistress, his Queen of Pain. And she could have that, as well. Clients to dominate, Kingsley to brutalize and use for her own private pleasure. And maybe if and when she needed it, she could ask Kingsley to hurt her and to use her just like this—pushing her back to the wall and fucking her raw. Oh, yes, it would be good to be the queen.
“Please, Maîtresse,” Kingsley said, his voice sounding pained.
“Come,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready, come for me. I want it.”
He increased the speed and pressure of his thrusts and Nora kissed his neck. At the instant she knew he was about to come, she sunk her teeth deep into his shoulder, hard enough to break the skin. Kingsley let out a beautiful wounded cry and shuddered in her arms. Entangled in each other’s arms and legs, they eased into the seat of the throne, the king and queen, spent but united.
“Vampire,” he teased, touching the bite mark on his shoulder.
“Not a vampire,” she said. “A tiger, remember?”
Kingsley touched her face and pressed his lips to the top of her breasts.
“Certainly not a kitten anymore...”
When they had both come to their senses again, Nora ordered Kingsley to dress. In front of her, of course, while she watched the show.
“I’m going to enjoy being a dominatrix,” she said, taking the two thousand dollars out of her corset and fanning herself with it. “Torturing men, orgasms, money—my three favorite things.”
“No fucking your other clients,” he reminded her. “I’m a king, not a pimp. Don’t get me arrested for pandering.”
“Speaking of sex for money... Thorny came to see me today.”
“Did he?”
“He says Milady is planning on fucking with me.”
“I could have told you that.”
“What do you think she’ll do to me?”
“I don’t know, but if she’s anything like you, she’ll find your rawest wound and pour salt on it.”
“Søren’s my rawest wound.”
“Then I think you’re safe,” Kingsley said. “He gave away his entire family fortune to me and his sisters. If she thinks she can buy his obedience for a few thousand dollars, she doesn’t know who she’s dealing with.”
“Speaking of a few thousand dollars... I believe you said something about a tip if I broke you? Didn’t you? I think it’s fair to say I broke you.”
“Because I wanted to be broken.”
Nora waved her hand, beckoning him to pay up.
Kingsley sighed, pulled out his wallet and passed her ten more hundred-dollar bills.
“My best friend is named Benjamin,” she said. “I do so love that man.”
“Enjoy that tip. I probably won’t ever tip you again. The French don’t tip.” He pulled on his trousers and left them open while he tucked in his shirt. Watching Kingsley get dressed was almost as erotic as watching him get undressed.
“You know I earned it.”
“You earned it by being a sick, twisted mind-fucker. I’d kill anyone else who tried that trick on me, including le prêtre.”
“It’s all your fault for telling me I sound like your sister when I use a French accent. You should have known I’d use that against you in a session someday.”
“Maybe I wanted you to.”
“Did you?”
“Fuck, no. But I’m glad you did,” he said, taking his jacket off the hook. “I wouldn’t talk to anyone but you about it, but I think of her more than I want to. Especially when he and I are fighting. It brings back bad memories, and she’s in many of my bad memories.”
“I’m proud of you,” she said, watching as he pulled on his jacket and flipped the collar and lapels into place. He looked so much younger than his forty years now, vibrant, bright-eyed and thoroughly fucked.
“For what? For surviving your little mind game?”
“For not letting Søren leave the priesthood for you when he offered.”
“It wasn’t me he was offering to leave the church for. It was some old idea of me he must have had. Kingsley, his sixteen-year-old slave who would have died for him. I love him,” Kingsley said, pulling on his jacket. “You know it. I know it. He knows it. I was born to fall in love with him, and I lived in love with him and I will die still in love with him. But fuck him if he thinks that means I’m willing to be someone I’m not for him.”
“Same here,” Nora said, raising an imaginary wineglass in a toast. “He told me I wasn’t allowed to see you anymore. We all have our breaking points. That was mine.”
“Good girl,” Kingsley said. “Maybe someday that blond prick will learn we don’t exist for his pleasure.”
“If he does learn...then what?”
“Then we’ll need a bigger throne. One that’ll hold a king, queen and a god. Or at least a man who thinks he is.”
Nora laughed. “Glad I got the throne. It’s nice and sturdy. Good for bondage. Good for fucking.”
“Oh, speaking of the throne, Mistress Nora...”
“Yes?” Nora asked as Kingsley finished pulling on his boots.
“It cost ten thousand dollars.”
“Quality isn’t cheap. And Ikea does not sell thrones. I’ve looked.”
“It put you over budget. By...” He paused as if counting in his head. “Three thousand dollars.”
He snatched the money out of her hand.
“Kingsley!”
“Don’t forget, mon canard,” he said, “you aren’t the only sadist in this room.”
With a wink, he was his old self again, arrogant and lewd.
“Oh, you bastard.”
“I am,” he said without shame. “But this may cheer you up. You’re ready.”
“You sure about that?” she asked.
“Considering the Midsummer Night’s Fling is in two nights? You better be.”
“I will be. I hope.”
“I’ll show myself out.” He strolled from the dungeon as casually as he’d entered it. He called back to her, “Sweep up this fucking glass you broke before someone gets hurt.”
“Yes, boss.” She sighed.
Nora looked down at her now empty hand.
Well, so much for her new laptop.
19
The Glass Locket
THE EVENING OF the Midsummer Night’s Fling, Nora went to her dungeon at The 8th Circle to wait for Kingsley. Once he arrived, they would go upstairs to the elevator and make their descent into the pit where the party already rage
d. When Nora entered her suite, she lit a lamp on the bedside table and found a box on her bed.
A rectangular box, it was wrapped in plain brown paper and string. Warily, fearing a trick or trap from Milady, Nora pulled the little white card from the little white envelope and read the words written on it.
“Finish your Ruth and Boaz story.”
It wasn’t signed.
Ruth and Boaz story? Oh, yes, her Ruth and Boaz story. She’d been a senior in high school when a priest, subbing in for their AP English teacher, had given them busy work while he wrote his homily for that Sunday. “Compose a short story with characters from the Bible” was the entirety of Father Jones’s assignment.
Nora, still Eleanor back then, chose to write about Ruth and Boaz from the Book of Ruth because two days earlier she and Søren had been talking about it. Eleanor had asked if there were any books of the Bible that were as sexy as the Book of Esther, and Søren replied that some interesting erotic things happened between Ruth and Boaz on the threshing floor. When Eleanor read the book, she’d walked away disappointed and gone to Søren’s office to complain.
“What the fuck did I just read?” Eleanor demanded. “Was that entire book about wheat?”
Søren looked up from his work and eyed her with amusement.
“You have to read between the lines,” he’d said.
“Ruth and Naomi are poor.”
“Yes.”
“Naomi is Ruth’s mother-in-law and Ruth’s husband is dead, right?”
“Correct.”
“Naomi thinks Boaz, the rich farmer, has a crush on Ruth because he gave her extra wheat.”
“Not quite a dozen roses but when you’re nearly starving, wheat makes for a more welcome bouquet. It was Boaz’s way of showing he cared about Ruth and her needs.”
“So Naomi says Boaz is Ruth’s closest relative so she should pretty herself up and go to Boaz and take off his shoes while he’s sleeping? None of that made any sense.”
“Boaz was related to Ruth’s late husband, and according to the Levirate law, it was the male next of kin’s duty to marry a childless widow and give her sons. Another man was a closer relative than Boaz, but it was Boaz who Naomi wanted for Ruth. She sent Ruth to seduce Boaz so Boaz would marry Ruth and not the other kinsman. If Ruth and Boaz had already been intimate, it gave Boaz an incentive to marry her quickly.”
“But what about the shoes thing? Naomi told Ruth to go to the threshing floor where Boaz is sleeping and ‘uncover his feet.’ Feet are not sexy.”
“It is if you know the word ‘feet’ is a euphemism in this instance.”
“For what?”
“Use your imagination.”
“I’d rather you demonstrate,” she said. “Again.”
Søren gave her a wilting glare.
“Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who put your fingers in my shoe,” she said. The previous weekend she’d gone to Søren’s father’s funeral with him and things had happened.
“Are you planning on mentioning that fact every day?”
“Until it happens again.”
“Eleanor—”
“Better than thinking about Dad, right?” she asked. Her own father had been dead for a week. She still didn’t know how to feel about it so she tried not to feel anything.
Søren’s expression softened. He walked to her where she stood in the doorway of his office and faced her across the threshold.
“You and I seem to have the same coping mechanism,” he said.
“What? You’ve been thinking about that night, too? Our night?”
“Better than thinking about my father.”
Søren touched her face, and she looked up and into his eyes. She sensed him struggling to hold back, to stop himself from kissing her, touching her, doing everything they’d done together that night at his family’s home and more.
“Penis,” Søren said.
“Well, if you’re offering...”
Søren ignored her. “Many biblical scholars believe the phrase ‘uncover his feet’ in the Book of Ruth is a euphemism for male genitals,” Søren said. He chucked her lightly under the chin and took a small step back—breathing room for both of them.
“So Naomi told Ruth to sneak into the threshing room while Boaz was asleep and uncover his dick and wait for him to wake up and bone her?” Eleanor asked.
“A fair synopsis.”
“And that worked?”
“When a man wakes up in the middle of the night with an erection and a beautiful woman lying beside him, things of a biblical nature can occur.”
“Søren?”
“Yes, Eleanor?”
“Your threshing floor or mine?”
Søren put his mouth at her ear. Eleanor closed her eyes and braced for a kiss.
“Out of my office,” he whispered. “Now.”
The conversation was still fresh in her mind, so when Father Jones told them to spend the class period writing a story with Bible characters, she knew just what to write.
* * *
“I got it,” Naomi said. “I know exactly how we can get you a meal ticket. I mean, a husband. That guy, Boaz. He’s cute, right?”
“I wouldn’t throw him out of bed for eating wheat crackers.”
“Good. This is what I want you to do. Take a bath. Put on your best dress. Boaz is working late tonight so he’ll be sleeping on the threshing floor. You sneak in after dark and uncover his feet. When he wakes up, tell him who you are and that he should marry you. Also, pick up some extra wheat while you’re there. How’s that for a plan?”
“Uncover his feet? Why would I uncover his feet?”
“You know, uncover his feet.” Naomi winked at her.
“Am I trying to make his toes cold or something so he’ll wake up?”
“No. His FEET. Uncover his FEET.”
“I still don’t know—”
“His penis, Ruth. I’m talking about his penis. His dick. His cock. His shaft. His lovestick. His staff of manliness.”
“You could have just said that.”
“Uncover his dick and cozy up to it while he’s sleeping. Then when he wakes up hard as a rock and you’re right next to him, he’ll want you. Let him have you. Poor guy probably hasn’t gotten laid in a while and he’ll want it again so much that by tomorrow evening, you’ll have him for a husband.”
“Good plan. Great plan. But can we go back over the part where I take his dick out of his clothes while he’s unconscious?”
* * *
Eleanor had so much fun with her story she’d forgotten it was a school assignment until Father Jones, called Father Bones because of his near skeletal frame, asked everyone to turn in their papers. As he was a substitute, Eleanor doubted he’d even read their stories. Typical busy work, right?
Wrong.
The next day Eleanor found herself hauled before the principal, vice principal and the school’s elderly guidance counselor, Mrs. Oates. Apparently Eleanor’s intimate descriptions of sexual