The Mistress
Page 43
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If you choose, Little One...I can own you. You would be my property, mine alone.
And her heart had answered before her mouth could find the words.
Of course you own me. You always have....
“But your Wesley, you didn’t want him to tell you what was down the rabbit hole.” Marie-Laure leaned forward and gave Nora a darkly amused grin.
“No, I didn’t. I think instinctively I knew I would be lost down there. I was right. Thoroughbred royalty. Southern gentility. And God, the money everywhere. Old money, new money, mob money. I do my damnedest to avoid the mob. I’d rather not end up like my father did.”
“Not your world?”
“Not at all. I like our version of royalty better than the vanilla version.”
Money bought nothing in Kingsley’s world but a key to the front door. Once inside, they built their own kingdoms. Dominants with boring day jobs earned respect with the power they created out of their own dignity and desires. Exquisite submissives—male and female—who laid themselves out on the altar of sacrifice and sexuality in order to find themselves at someone else’s feet. Wesley always accused the people of her world of putting on costumes and playing dress-up. He had no idea that the suits and the ties and the beige pumps and navy slacks her people wore during the day were the real costumes that they shed when they came out after dark. Nora remembered that night of her birthday party, curled up on the couch in her ducky pajamas, which felt as much like a costume as her kink-wear. He didn’t understand her world of role-play even as the woman he held in his arms played a role for him.
“But that’s what you left Griffin for? A night of being boring and ‘vanilla’ as you call it with your Wesley?”
Nora nodded. “I liked it. No...I loved it. It was a role I was playing, but one I liked playing.”
“Playing house?”
Nora smiled before she remembered she had a man with a knife at her side and was sitting on the bed of a sociopath.
“Exactly. Playing house. Husband. Wife. Home of our own. Dinner on the table. No kids, thank God, unless you count Wes. It was... Here’s the thing,” Nora said, shifting position as her foot had started to fall asleep. “That day, my birthday, Wes and I went out to eat. He took me for Indian food at this great hole-in-the-wall place by his school. One of his friends he played basketball with was there. Someone from his church, too. And he introduced me to them like...nothing. I was Søren’s property for ten years from age eighteen to about twenty-eight. I’ve been in love with him since I was fifteen and now I’m thirty-four. Almost twenty years. In twenty years, we’ve never done that, never gone out to dinner together just the two of us. Not around here. We can’t. Too risky. Can’t even go to a hole-in-the-wall Indian place. A shame, right? The man speaks Hindi, and he f**king loves Indian food.”
“You wanted a different life than my husband could give you? That’s why the boy?”
Nora swallowed.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Wes is...he’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known. Life is weird when you’re a professional Dominatrix. One day I would have dinner with Ilsa Strix and I’d ask her questions like ‘So when you put the three hundred and thirteen needles into that guy’s dick, did you charge by the time or the needle?’ Or you’re hanging out at the club and the seventy-year-old age-play fetishist shuffles past you in his diaper and bonnet. You go a solid week and you realize you haven’t had a single conversation or day that didn’t have something to do with kink or sex or money. You have enough nights like that and you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, on the subway ride of your life, you got off at the wrong stop. Wes was a different stop. A prettier neighborhood. Good schools. Nicer scenery.”
“Did you belong there? With your Wesley in his world?”
“He thought I did, and since it’s his world, it’s his decision.”
“That’s a wonderful nonanswer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Tell me this truth. Your Wesley...would he have given you anything you asked for?”
“His family is richer than God, turns out. I guess he was ready to tell me that. Or was at least testing the waters to see if I was ready to hear that. But yes, I think he would have given me anything that night. Even his virginity if I’d asked for it, although I loved him too much to take it.”
Marie-Laure tapped her chin and seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. Nora stared at the woman who still retained the ghost of her former beauty. Who was this woman who thirty years later still hated Søren enough she would torture him like this? By stealing his heart from him? What did she want? Vengeance? Retribution? His body? His love?
“Would your Wesley have given you his life had you asked for it?”
Nora went still and cold at the question.
“I don’t know. I would never ask him to give up his life for mine. I wouldn’t let Søren leave the priesthood for me. I tried to get Wesley out of my world before he got even more hurt. I don’t ask people to sacrifice themselves for me.”
“I do.”
“You ask people to sacrifice themselves for you?”
“No. I asked my husband to sacrifice himself for you.”
16
THE KNIGHT
Wes kept his eyes closed and breathed through his nose. The last thing he wanted to do was puke his guts out in front of Laila. She’d been through enough today. Dealing with him throwing up and passing out was about the last thing in the world she needed right now.
And her heart had answered before her mouth could find the words.
Of course you own me. You always have....
“But your Wesley, you didn’t want him to tell you what was down the rabbit hole.” Marie-Laure leaned forward and gave Nora a darkly amused grin.
“No, I didn’t. I think instinctively I knew I would be lost down there. I was right. Thoroughbred royalty. Southern gentility. And God, the money everywhere. Old money, new money, mob money. I do my damnedest to avoid the mob. I’d rather not end up like my father did.”
“Not your world?”
“Not at all. I like our version of royalty better than the vanilla version.”
Money bought nothing in Kingsley’s world but a key to the front door. Once inside, they built their own kingdoms. Dominants with boring day jobs earned respect with the power they created out of their own dignity and desires. Exquisite submissives—male and female—who laid themselves out on the altar of sacrifice and sexuality in order to find themselves at someone else’s feet. Wesley always accused the people of her world of putting on costumes and playing dress-up. He had no idea that the suits and the ties and the beige pumps and navy slacks her people wore during the day were the real costumes that they shed when they came out after dark. Nora remembered that night of her birthday party, curled up on the couch in her ducky pajamas, which felt as much like a costume as her kink-wear. He didn’t understand her world of role-play even as the woman he held in his arms played a role for him.
“But that’s what you left Griffin for? A night of being boring and ‘vanilla’ as you call it with your Wesley?”
Nora nodded. “I liked it. No...I loved it. It was a role I was playing, but one I liked playing.”
“Playing house?”
Nora smiled before she remembered she had a man with a knife at her side and was sitting on the bed of a sociopath.
“Exactly. Playing house. Husband. Wife. Home of our own. Dinner on the table. No kids, thank God, unless you count Wes. It was... Here’s the thing,” Nora said, shifting position as her foot had started to fall asleep. “That day, my birthday, Wes and I went out to eat. He took me for Indian food at this great hole-in-the-wall place by his school. One of his friends he played basketball with was there. Someone from his church, too. And he introduced me to them like...nothing. I was Søren’s property for ten years from age eighteen to about twenty-eight. I’ve been in love with him since I was fifteen and now I’m thirty-four. Almost twenty years. In twenty years, we’ve never done that, never gone out to dinner together just the two of us. Not around here. We can’t. Too risky. Can’t even go to a hole-in-the-wall Indian place. A shame, right? The man speaks Hindi, and he f**king loves Indian food.”
“You wanted a different life than my husband could give you? That’s why the boy?”
Nora swallowed.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Wes is...he’s so different from anyone I’ve ever known. Life is weird when you’re a professional Dominatrix. One day I would have dinner with Ilsa Strix and I’d ask her questions like ‘So when you put the three hundred and thirteen needles into that guy’s dick, did you charge by the time or the needle?’ Or you’re hanging out at the club and the seventy-year-old age-play fetishist shuffles past you in his diaper and bonnet. You go a solid week and you realize you haven’t had a single conversation or day that didn’t have something to do with kink or sex or money. You have enough nights like that and you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, on the subway ride of your life, you got off at the wrong stop. Wes was a different stop. A prettier neighborhood. Good schools. Nicer scenery.”
“Did you belong there? With your Wesley in his world?”
“He thought I did, and since it’s his world, it’s his decision.”
“That’s a wonderful nonanswer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Tell me this truth. Your Wesley...would he have given you anything you asked for?”
“His family is richer than God, turns out. I guess he was ready to tell me that. Or was at least testing the waters to see if I was ready to hear that. But yes, I think he would have given me anything that night. Even his virginity if I’d asked for it, although I loved him too much to take it.”
Marie-Laure tapped her chin and seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. Nora stared at the woman who still retained the ghost of her former beauty. Who was this woman who thirty years later still hated Søren enough she would torture him like this? By stealing his heart from him? What did she want? Vengeance? Retribution? His body? His love?
“Would your Wesley have given you his life had you asked for it?”
Nora went still and cold at the question.
“I don’t know. I would never ask him to give up his life for mine. I wouldn’t let Søren leave the priesthood for me. I tried to get Wesley out of my world before he got even more hurt. I don’t ask people to sacrifice themselves for me.”
“I do.”
“You ask people to sacrifice themselves for you?”
“No. I asked my husband to sacrifice himself for you.”
16
THE KNIGHT
Wes kept his eyes closed and breathed through his nose. The last thing he wanted to do was puke his guts out in front of Laila. She’d been through enough today. Dealing with him throwing up and passing out was about the last thing in the world she needed right now.
