The Last Good Knight

Søren cuffed her ankles to a two-foot spreader bar, cuffed her arms over her head to the bedpost. When the first blow of the cane landed on the back of her thighs, she barely flinched.

The cane was first. Then the flogger. Cane again—the smaller one that left the vicious little welts instead of the big bruises. After that a heavier flogging. Then the belt, that unholy bitch of a leather belt.

Then nothing. Nora hung from her bonds, her muscles limp even as her body burned from the hour of pain she’d endured. When Søren unlocked her, she nearly sank onto the floor. But he caught her and laid her on the bed. For the privilege of watching him undress, she managed to open her eyes. Everyone in the Underground had seen Kingsley naked at some point or other. His French sensibilities precluded any body shame. Only when covered in the bruises and welts she’d inflicted on him, was Kingsley careful to keep his clothes on, even during sex. And she...back in her submissive days she’d been fucked in public view at The 8th Circle so many times she’d lost count. But no one but Nora got to see Søren completely naked these days except for his one and only lover—her.

He unbuttoned his jeans slowly as she lay there watching him.

“Stop being such a tease,” she said, a tired smile crossing her face.

“I can’t imagine to what you are referring...” he said, dropping his hands.

Nora rolled up onto her hands and knees and crawled across the bed to him.

“I am referring,” she said as she took his wrists in her hands, raised his arms and yanked his shirt off, “to the fact that you are stalling, sir. You know I’m dying here for you.”

“Dying? Should I say the Last Rites?”

“I’ll need them if you don’t get naked and get your cock inside me soon.”

“I was thinking of getting a glass of wine first.”

“I hate you.”

Søren gave her a sharp slap on her bottom.

“You’ll pay for that, too, Little One.”

“Run up my tab,” she said, dropping his shirt to the floor. She opened his pants all the way and stroked him. “Sex with you is worth any price I have to pay, sir.”

Either her touch or her words convinced him. Either or both, she didn’t care. All that mattered was that the rest of his clothes seemingly disappeared and she had him on top of her and inside her again.

Their mouths met and their tongues mingled. With each thrust into her, her hips rose up to meet him. Søren grasped her wrists and pinned her hands into the bed. The tension mounted in her stomach and she begged permission to come. He granted it and her body released the tension with a hundred inner flutters of her vagina all around his incredible hardness. After coming she could completely relax. She threw her legs open as wide as possible, inviting Søren deeper into her body.

“You’re mine...” he whispered in her ear. “Whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re still mine.”

She closed her eyes and said nothing. To deny him would be a lie. To agree would be to admit defeat. It didn’t matter that she still loved him, that she still missed him. She couldn’t go back to him, couldn’t return to her old life at his feet, obeying his orders, hiding in his shadow, living a lie and counting the days until he got caught and excommunicated.

I am yours... She spoke the words only inside her head.

With his mouth on her throat and his fingers clasped around her forearms, Søren came with a shudder and a soft exhalation. She closed her eyes as he poured into her.

Soon she lay across his chest, her ear over his heart. He caressed her back with gentle strokes of his hand from her neck to her hip, gentle strokes that soothed her burning skin and yet made her ache even more.

“I don’t believe you,” he said as she pressed a few reverent kisses onto his collarbone, into the hollow of his throat.

“Believe what?”

“That you didn’t come here to talk. I know you didn’t come here just for sex, as much as I might flatter myself that my body tempts you that much.”

“Your body should win awards, medals even. Your body should be given honorary degrees from Ivy League schools.”

“In what discipline?”

“Anatomy. Maybe even chemistry. No...art.” She looked up at him and smiled. “You’re a work of art.”

“You can keep this up all night and I won’t complain, but that won’t change the fact that I know you’re stalling. I want you naked.”

“I am naked.” She pointed at her body. “You can’t get any more naked than I am right now...unless you skin me and that would just be gross and messy. I know you’re a sadist but I don’t think even you are into flaying.”

“I can’t say for sure. Never tried it.”

“Practice on Kingsley. Flaying is my hard limit.”

“You seem to have an aversion to answering my questions, too, Little One. Your body’s naked, but your heart isn’t.” He flicked the tip of her nose. “Would you rather answer me or let me flay you?”

“Let me think about this for a minute.”

“Eleanor Louise,” Søren said in a warning tone. She could only try his patience for so long before he brought out the dreaded first and middle name warning.

“Fine.” She sat up and pulled a pillow to her chest. Søren stretched out on the white sheets and waited. “But just remember, you’re making me talk about this.”

“I accept that. Now tell me.”

Nora took a deep breath as she tried to gather her words. She trusted no one in the world as much as she trusted Søren, valued his insight more than anyone else’s, cherished his counsel. But he loved her, wanted her back. To talk about Lance seemed almost too cruel.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

“I don’t want to hurt you...not any more than I already do.”

He pulled the sheet down to display the scarlet scratch marks she’d left on his stomach. Scratches? More like welts. Or worse, claw marks. He would wear them on his body for days.

“You don’t want to hurt me? How do you explain these?”

She dipped her head and kissed the welts.

“We hurt each other.” Søren spoke the words softly as he brushed her long hair over her bare shoulder. “It’s what we do. Hurt me. Trust that I can take it as well as I give it.”

Tears pricked at her eyes but Nora ignored them.

“Life has suddenly gotten annoyingly complicated,” she confessed.

“Life has a bad habit of doing that.”

“That guy in my dungeon last night when you knocked on the door...I like him.”

“You like him?”

“I like him. I just met him. I realize this. Then again, I fell in love with you the first second I saw you so there is some precedent for me taking these feelings seriously.”

“He was half-dressed and in your dungeon. Something tells me he rather liked you, too.”

Nora nodded.

“He’s a sub. One of those knight-in-shining-armor type subs. The ‘I was born to serve and worship women’ types. You should hear this guy talk—it’s like something from a movie or a romance novel. He really believes in all that honor and chivalry bullshit.”

“I believe I warned you a long time ago about those sorts of men.”

“I know, I know. ‘When one is a monster, one does well to avoid knights in shining armor.’ Trust me, I don’t want to lose my head over this guy. Especially since...”

“Since what?”

Nora sighed heavily and with extreme frustration.

“He has a kid. A little girl. It’s so unfair.”

“That he has a child? It’s a fairly common occurrence although I can imagine that you having feelings for someone with a small child would be—”

“Holy fucking terrified?”

“That.”

She shook her head.

“The kid isn’t the unfair part although, yeah, it does scare me. The unfair part is that this guy, he’s so good. Like genuinely good—kind and protective and noble...”

Nora spent the next half hour telling Søren everything she knew about Lance. How he’d been injured serving his country and was medically discharged from the Navy, how he’d endured three surgeries, and had been thanked for his service and his sacrifice by being cut off sexually by his now ex-wife. Nora spared no details of the drama, telling Søren about the pornography that had lost Lance custody of his daughter. Søren was a priest, after all. Watching porn was akin to a parking ticket compared to what sorts of crimes he’d heard in the confessional.

“So I’m pissed,” she concluded. “Pissed at Lance for taking the bodyguard job, which means we can’t sleep together again. I’m pissed at the asshole who beat up Natasha. Pissed at the universe for beating up Lance. That’s my job.”

She gave a groan and rolled onto her side next to Søren.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, tracing the scratches on his stomach with her fingertips. “I hate feeling like this.”

“Like what?” Søren covered her hand with his.

“I hate feeling. Period. I just met this guy and I actually care about him? He was really good in bed but no one’s that good.” She laughed but Søren didn’t. He always seemed to know when her jokes weren’t jokes.

“There is nothing you can do for him,” Søren said. “Not unless you became a lawyer or a judge and have forgotten to tell me. You say you care about him, then care about him. Be his friend if you can’t be his lover. You can’t give him his daughter back but you can give him your friendship.”

“Like that would do him any good.”

“I treasure our friendship more than anything, even more than these nights when you come back to me. No man in his right mind would spurn your love and loyalty.”

“Not if he knew what was good for him.” She raised her fist and play-punched Søren in the center of his chest. He caught her hand and kissed the back of it.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “I have to put up with enough stupid chivalry from Lance. He even calls me a lady.” She laughed as if that were the most ridiculous concept she’d ever heard.

“Does that bother you?”

Nora rolled her eyes.

“No. It doesn’t bother me. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense?” Søren asked, a slight smile at the edge of his lips. “That he called you a lady, or that you liked it?”

Nora narrowed her eyes at him.

“I’d jump you more often if you didn’t make me talk to you afterwards,” she said, hating him for how well he knew her, how easily he could cut through her defenses with simply a question or two.

“Physical pain is only one of myriad forms of sadism,” he said, dragging her into his arms. “You take pain much better than you take interrogation.”

“I’m going to safe out if you don’t stop fucking with my psyche.”

“Is that so?” He pushed her onto her back and covered her with his body.

“Yes, especially since I can think of much more enjoyable parts of me you should be fucking with instead. For example, my c—”

He kissed her before she could finish her suggestions. The kiss was passionate but not desperate, not like before. He kissed her easily, leisurely, as if tonight would be the first of an infinite number of nights together, so why hurry?

“Why aren’t you mad that I have feelings for this other man?” she asked as he moved from her lips to her neck.

“Because you’re here,” he said, holding himself over her. “And I’m here.” He bent and kissed her chest over her heart.

“Why do I feel like Lance and I were supposed to meet? Like it was destiny?”

“Destiny doesn’t always play matchmaker,” Søren said, caressing her lips, her chin and nose. “Sometimes destiny plays other games with us.”

Nora tried not to think about Lance for the rest of the night. The things Søren did to her until about two in the morning helped keep anyone but her priest off her mind. Still when she snuck out before dawn, it was with Søren’s words ringing in her ears.

There’s nothing you can do for him...

True. She couldn’t help Lance, but knowing that didn’t take any of the sting out of that feeling of impotence. Being a Dominatrix meant men bent to her will. Why couldn’t the rest of the world follow suit?

Back at home, Nora crawled into her own bed and slept for a few precious hours. Her body ached from the beatings Søren had given her but it was the ache in her heart that hurt the most. She’d known Lance all of two days and already felt that every child in the world would be blessed to have a man like him as a father. That his ex-wife and the courts judged him for what he did in private was an insult to their entire world. Kinky or not, Søren was the best priest on the planet. Why the church and the state couldn’t stay out of their goddamn bedrooms was beyond her. After all, the church and the state often visited her bedroom and her dungeon. She’d lost her virginity to a priest, but Søren certainly wasn’t the only member of the clergy in the Underground. She even had elected officials as her clients—congressmen, one senator, lots of lawyers and even Judge B.

Judge B....

Nora’s eyes flew open as she remembered the rest of what Søren had said to her last night.

There’s nothing you can do to help him...unless you became a lawyer or judge and forgot to tell me...

No, she was no judge, but she did have a judge who worshipped the ground she walked on and the feet that walked on it. Still she couldn’t think of a bigger breach of protocol than to ask a client to do her a favor—a likely illegal favor.

Kingsley would flay her himself if he found out. Then again, what Kingsley didn’t know didn’t hurt him...

At eleven sharp Lance knocked on her door again.

“Are you going to come in this time?” Nora asked when she found him on her front porch looking unnecessarily handsome. She was going to have to talk to him about being less attractive.

“Can I trust you?”

“No.”

“Then no.” Lance took a step back on her porch.

“Wait...ask the question again. I’ll get it right this time.”

Lance laughed and shook his head. Instead of asking the question, he simply came inside the house.

“So this is the house of a Dominatrix?” He glanced around her living room.

“Were you expecting more whips and chains? Dungeon chic?”

“I was, actually.”

Nora plopped down on her couch in her cozy living room decorated with overstuffed furniture and bookcases.

“Those are all upstairs in the closet. And there’s some stuff in the office, but only because I keep my toy bag in there.”

“You live alone?”

Lance examined her bookcase. She wondered if they’d read any of the same books.

“I do. I’m trying to imagine who could put up with me as a roommate. Maybe Job. I’d need someone patient.”

“Job?”

“The dude in the Bible with all the problems who just sat there and took it? ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away—blessed be the name of the Lord’? That guy?”

“Interesting. Never had a domme quote the Bible at me before.”

“Gets more interesting—my mom’s a nun.”

Lance’s eyes popped wide open.

“You’re kidding me.” He sat down on the chair by the couch. Nora had to feel a little flattered he didn’t feel safe enough to sit next to her on the sofa.

“My mother wanted to be a nun all her life. But she got knocked up with me as a teenager and that dream went out the window. But after my dad was killed—”

Lance started to say something and Nora held up her hand to stop him.

“No, we are not talking about my father today,” she said and Lance nodded his reluctant acquiesce. “Once I became a legal adult,