The Saint(130)

So be it.

Søren took her right foot in his hand and she shivered at the gentle touch. As he poured warm water over her feet, she sighed from the heat. So this was love? She tucked this feeling in her heart and hid it there. Someday she would write about this moment. She would write a book about a girl who fell in love with a god and then, to her complete surprise, discovered the god loved her back. Since he couldn’t be a man she would be a goddess and leave the mortal world behind for him.

He poured the water over her left foot and dried both her feet with the towel. Not even kneeling at her feet diminished Søren in her eyes. His long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. One mutinous strand of hair wanted to fall over his forehead. She pushed it back and Søren pressed his cheek into her hand. As much as she railed and fought against waiting this long, she now understood why it had been for the best. They met each other as equals tonight. Her submission meant more because she chose it freely instead of letting the law or their age difference or anything in the world impose it on her.

Søren stood up and took her in his arms. He lifted her off the piano bench and carried her upstairs. She’d never been in his bedroom before, and it didn’t disappoint. It seemed a sacred space to her, the room where Søren slept. The white sheets covered the bed like a new-fallen snow. The dark wood of the four-poster bed appeared to her like the trunks of trees—strong and eternal. She felt like a virgin sacrifice brought to an ancient forest. Blood must be spilled for the gods to be appeased. She offered her own blood tonight and would pour it like wine on snow.

A glass of red wine sat by the bed. Søren raised it and drank from the glass. He handed it to her.

“Drink. It will relax you.”

She drank as ordered.

“I will be as careful as I can be tonight.”

“The more pain I feel, the more you enjoy it, yes?”

Søren opened a box on the bedside table and pulled her white collar from it. He stepped behind her as she kept drinking the wine.

“Yes. But I can still enjoy myself without torturing you.”

“You don’t have to be careful with me, sir.” She inhaled as he locked the collar around her neck. She breathed into its grip.

“You are my most precious possession. I will guard you with my life.”

He took the glass from her hand and sat it on the table again. She stared at it, taking her eyes from it only when Søren sat on the side of the bed facing her.

Without a word, he ordered her to remove her clothes. She could do that now, read his wants and desires without requiring his words. He’d trained her well, trained her for this night. And so she obeyed without hesitation, pulling her sweater off and dropping it to the floor. Her jeans she slid off next. She unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties. It had been like this once upon a time in Eden. A man and a woman in paradise with nothing between each other, nothing between them and God. It had been like this once, and tonight when they made love they would step one foot back into Eden and see what had been lost and what could be found again.

“I want you to hurt me,” she said. “As much as you want, sir.”

“You say that, but you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it.”

Søren slapped her.

Eleanor started. In openmouthed shock she stared at Søren. She raised a hand to her cheek. It burned.

“Now do you still want me to hurt you as much as I want?” Søren asked. The question wasn’t a question but a gauntlet thrown down. This is me, Søren was saying. Take me or leave me.

She took him.

She held out her hand, and Søren took it. For one second she thought she saw relief in his eyes.

He led her to the bedpost. A large trunk sat at the foot of the bed next to her calves. Søren turned a key and opened the box. Inside it she first saw nothing but more sheets. He lifted the sheets and from underneath them pulled a set of white leather cuffs. He stood and took her right hand. He pressed her palm to the center of his chest as he locked the cuff around her wrist. He did the same to her left wrist. After she could only marvel at the sight of her hands in the cuffs. So this was what love looked like? Now she knew.

“Say your safe word.”

“Jabberwocky,” she said.

“Good. At any time you can tell me if you need to stop. Tell me what you need and your request will be honored. Say your safe word only when and if you need me to stop everything. You give yourself freely to me. I would never force it on you.”

“I know, sir. All I want is to please you tonight.”

“You will. You already have. I will flog you first, cane you after. I won’t slap you again.”