The Virgin

  “I like that she submitted to God. I always thought that was sexy what she said to God when He told her she would get pregnant with His child—‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to Your word.’”

  Let it be done unto me... Elle had said similar words so many times in her life to Søren. I am yours, do what you want to do with me. Whatever you want with my body, you can do it...

  “When I was fourteen, I wanted her life,” Kyrie said. “I like to think Mary was a lesbian. I mean, it’s the perfect situation for a closeted lesbian.”

  Elle laughed. “It is?”

  “Well, of course. She can’t come out to her family so the best way to pretend to be straight is by getting married. But she gets pregnant with God’s child through the Holy Spirit. And then she’s a perpetual virgin. Never has to have sex with her husband and yet he protects her and provides for her.”

  “Sounds like you,” Elle said.

  “Me?”

  “Can’t come out to your Catholic family. Married to a man you’ll never have sex with. That’s what they call you all, right? Brides of Christ?”

  Kyrie held up her left hand. She wore a wedding band on her ring finger.

  “That’s us.”

  “A warning, don’t tell anyone but me your theory about Mary being a lesbian,” Elle said. “Lots of people don’t handle erotic speculation about Mary and Jesus very well.”

  “I’m not saying she was. Just my theory,” Kyrie said.

  “Søren had a theory like that, too,” Elle said.

  “Søren? Is that his name?”

  Elle nodded. She hadn’t spoken his name aloud in months.

  “One of his names,” she said. “He’s half-Danish.”

  “What was his theory?”

  “When Søren was in seminary, he wrote a paper positing that Jesus had been married and was widowed. Only explanation for why this thirty-something Jewish man would be unmarried, and no one would remark on it. Married young. Wife probably died in childbirth or for a thousand other reasons people died back then. Søren’s professor called him a heretic. He was proud of that label. Then again, he’s a Jesuit.”

  “This is the first time you’ve ever smiled while talking about him.”

  “I think this is the first time I’ve really talked about him in months,” Elle said. “Telling a nun you used to sleep with a priest doesn’t go over well.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry for the way I reacted,” Kyrie said. “That was...not cool of me.”

  “You’re a nun and a virgin. I’d be surprised if you weren’t a little disgusted with me.”

  “Reflex,” Kyrie said. “Priest seduces a girl in his church. Hard not to flinch.”

  “It sounds sordid when you put it that way. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Yes, but how am I supposed to know what it was like if you won’t tell me anything?”

  Elle shrugged. “Good point.”

  “I guess you couldn’t sleep, either.” Kyrie came to stand beside her.

  “I was sleeping. I had a dream. It woke me up.”

  “Nightmare.”

  “Opposite of a nightmare.”

  “What’s the opposite of a nightmare?”

  “The dream I had.” Elle laughed to herself. She could still feel Kingsley inside her. “About once a week I’ll dream something that actually happened to me. These vivid erotic dreams. I’ve never dreamed like this before. It’s like I’m reliving the entire moment, second by second. I woke up having an orgasm.”

  “I’ve had some pretty crazy dreams since coming here, too. They warn you that being isolated like this, cut off from the outside world, will cause your mind and your soul to dredge things up and force you to deal with all your unfinished business from your old life.”

  “What do you dream about?” Elle asked her. “What’s your unfinished business?”

  Kyrie shrugged. “I dream about Bethany a lot, my family. Everyone sort of fell apart after she was killed. The trial, the publicity...it’s like a shipwreck. You start off strong, everybody holding on to each other for dear life. And then you drift away on the tides of your grief and hope you wash ashore someday.”

  “Is this where you washed up?” Elle asked. Kyrie always seemed far more interested in learning about Elle’s life before the convent than talking about what hers had been like. Elle didn’t blame the girl. Everyone deserved a fresh start free of baggage. Unfortunately no one ever really got what they deserved.

  “This is my dry land,” Kyrie said. “Being here...I finally feel like I’m on steady ground again. You?”

  “I’m still at sea,” Elle admitted. “Especially on nights like this when I wake up from my dreams and don’t know where I am for a few seconds. Lost at sea and I can’t find my sea legs. Maybe they were right about being here. Maybe I do have unfinished business.”

  “What were you dreaming about?”

  “Do you really want to know?” Elle asked. “Or are you asking to make conversation?”

  “I want to know. I want to know everything about you. Maybe for the wrong reasons, but there’s at least one right reason in there. I do want to help you. Will you let me?”

  Silence settled over them, over the garden, over the moment. In that silence, Elle made a decision. She was lonely and scared, and she didn’t know what to do with her life, didn’t know what to do now that she’d left Søren. And no amount of running and hiding was making the way any clearer. She needed help.

  And so she answered.

  “I was dreaming about the night I got pregnant.”

  19

  Haiti

  PARFAIT...THERE WAS NO other word for that night with Elle, the night she burned him sixteen times. Every waking moment the day after, Kingsley’s brain had buzzed with the memories of the pain, the intensity of the agony and the incredible release she’d pulled from him again and again. He was drunk with happiness, nearly delirious with sexual satisfaction. It was all coming together. The clouds were clearing, the pattern appearing. For years he wondered what it meant, that Elle had become part of his life. He loved sharing her with Søren. Kingsley loved watching Søren fuck her, loved being watched by Søren as Kingsley fucked Elle. Those were his most potent erotic encounters when sin and sex and sadism merged into one and spent the night in his bed.

  But for all that, it hadn’t been enough. As much as Kingsley loved to give pain and to dominate others, he himself needed pain and domination, as well. And if Søren would not give Kingsley what he needed, then perhaps Elle would.

  And finally she had.

  And not only had she done it, she’d loved it. He’d seen that gleam in her eyes as she’d fired up the scalpel. He’d known exactly what it was that burned in those dark green depths.

  Sadism.

  Pure, delicious, unadulterated sadism.

  It had been too long since he’d let someone hurt him the way he needed hurting and have the sex he needed having. The Dominatrixes in his employ—he couldn’t have sex with them. They worked for him and they never had sex with any of their clients. Mistress Felicia had moved back to England five years ago. And Søren had clearly repented of the night six years ago he’d lost control and beaten and fucked Kingsley in his own house. Another night like that with Søren? It had become nothing but a fantasy.

  But another night like that with Elle? He bore sixteen burn marks on his body and eight deep scratches on his chest to prove it had been real. And it would be real again as soon as he found what he was looking for.

  Two days after the night Elle burned him, Kingsley left on his quest. It took three days of driving through New England, stopping at every antique store he’d ever heard of and a few he hadn’t before he found what he’d been looking for. At last in a tiny antique shop that specialized in equestrian equipment, there it was. It had cost a small fortune as it was two hundred years old and had belonged to a rather notorious duchess who supposedly did more than ride her horses. Triumphant, he returned to his t
own house and waited until nightfall to find Elle again.

  He found her in his music room sitting near the piano. She did that whenever her longing for Søren grew painful. The piano was his and to sit near it was to be close to him. He’d seen similar behavior before among the priests at his old school, St. Ignatius. Sometimes they’d simply sit by the Eucharist with their eyes closed. They believed Jesus was incarnate in the blessed communion wafers. To sit by the Eucharist was to sit near Him, the man they’d devoted their lives to in service, in love and in marriage. Did Elle believe Søren was incarnate in the piano? Music, after all, was Søren’s communion.

  “I’m not talking to you, King,” Elle said as she threaded a thin metal pick into what looked like a bicycle lock.

  “Pourquoi pas?” he asked, suppressing a smile. He loved her bad moods. They always boded well for a good evening.

  “You know why not.” She didn’t look at him, merely focused her entire attention on gently twisting the pick in the lock. She’d been doing this a lot lately, playing with locks, prising them open, learning their secrets. Why? Who knew? Although Kingsley had a theory, one he didn’t want confirmed.

  “It was all in good fun,” he said, taking a seat behind her on the striped sofa. She must not be too angry at him for she wore one of his shirts again, a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to her shoulders. Her legs were tantalizingly bare and smooth and he traced a line with his fingertips from her knees to her hips.

  “Good fun?” The lock popped open. She shut it again and went to work unlocking it again. “You tied me facedown, spread-eagle to your bed and fucked my ass for half the night without letting me come. Then you disappear for three days. Do you have anything to say to that?”

  “You’re welcome?” Kingsley said.

  Elle glared at him.

  “Don’t pout, mon chaton. I only tied you up and fucked your ass all night to reassert my dominance. You know how it works. And you weren’t complaining at the time.”

  “I wasn’t complaining at the time because I assumed at some point you would let me come. That did not happen. Then you disappear, leaving me sore and horny. So don’t even try to butter me up with the French accent and the finger-fucking. It’s not going to work. Shoo. I’m done talking to you.”

  “Mais—”

  “No buts. And no butts, either. You’re cut off.”

  “But...I brought you a present.”

  She raised her eyebrow.

  “Present? What is it?”

  “Come and see.”

  “I’m not falling for that line again, King.”

  “See and come?”

  “Better.”

  She set her pick and lock aside. He took her hand and led her from the music room and up to his bedroom.

  “You’re smiling,” Elle said, her voice awash with suspicion. “I get nervous when you smile.”

  “You shouldn’t be nervous. I should be nervous.”

  “Why should you be nervous?” she asked as he opened the door to his bedroom, shut it and locked it behind him.

  “Because I’m giving you this.”

  He nodded toward the bed and Elle looked down at it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s a riding crop,” Kingsley said. “An antique bone and ebony riding crop. Hand-carved, carved bone handle, two hundred years old. Rare, valuable, vicious. And...”

  “And?”

  Kingsley picked it up off the bed and presented it to her.

  “And yours.”

  Elle stared at the crop but didn’t take it.

  “For me?”

  “Pour vous, mademoiselle.”

  “Why are you giving me a riding crop?”

  “Why do you think?”

  “Because you hate me, and you’re secretly plotting to get Søren to kill me?”

  “Non.”

  “Because you’re suicidal and you’re secretly plotting to get Søren to kill you?”

  “Non.”

  “Because you’re masochistic and you want me to beat the shit out of you again?”

  “We have a winner. Take it. See how it feels.”

  He saw the subtlest tremor in Elle’s hand as she reached out and grasped the crop by the bone and pearl handle. The wood of the crop was black, the handle white.

  “This is the most incredible riding crop I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Do I want to know how much it cost?”

  “If you sold it you could buy a car,” he said, speaking to her in terms she’d understand. “A small one.”

  “This is better than a car.”

  “I’m pleased you like it.” He bowed to her. Hopefully, by the end of the night he’d be doing more than bowing. He wanted to kneel at her feet, bury his face in her pussy, service her until she screamed, and then let her thank him for his service by beating him until blood ran down his back.

  She looked at it through narrowed eyes, bringing it to her face to study the carvings on the handle. She tested the weight and the balance of it. With a flourish she swished it. He heard the whipping sound it made as it sliced the air in two.

  “Do you want to hurt me again?” Kingsley asked.

  “Oh, Kingsley,” she said, smiling up at him. “I want to hurt everybody.”

  “Start with me.”

  Elle looked up at him and once again she was transformed. Gone was the good little girl who sat at Søren’s feet, napping in his lap while her priest wrote out his homily for that Sunday using her back as a desk. Gone was the good little girl who said “Yes, sir” and “If it pleases you, sir” and “I am yours, sir. Do with me what you will, sir.”

  It was a bad little girl who looked up at Kingsley and without smiling asked him one very important question.

  “Why do you still have your clothes on?”

  Kingsley couldn’t help but smile at the memory.

  “Was I supposed to take them off?” he asked her.

  She took a step back and brought the leather tip of the crop under his chin.

  “You weren’t supposed to have them on to start with.”

  He would have laughed at the memory she’d conjured with those words but he was already too turned on to do anything but obey.

  “My apologies,” Kingsley said and quickly—but not too quickly—stripped out of his clothes.

  Once he was naked she pointed the crop at the bed.

  “Bend over. Hands on the bed. Feet apart.”

  “You’re welcome to fuck me,” Kingsley said as he did what she ordered. “I certainly deserve payback for sodomizing you all night.”

  “I might,” she said, wrapping black leather cuffs around his ankles and buckling a foot-wide spreader bar to them to keep his legs open. “But I think I want to beat you first. No...”

  “No?”

  “No. I know I want to beat you first.”

  “Beat me then. And don’t be afraid to hit hard. Most new Doms are too gentle, too careful. You can strike me as hard—”

  Kingsley screamed.

  No, not quite a scream. He was too well trained to scream. But it was the closest he would ever get to a scream.

  She’d hit him so hard on the back of his thighs with her crop that Kingsley’s arms gave out under him.