Mercy

He tsked in annoyance. “No, Lucy, I don’t. What other stupid questions would you like to ask?”

“It doesn’t matter. You won’t answer anyway.”

He scowled at me with his arms crossed over his chest. “Do you want to know why? You want to know why, Lucy? Look at me.”

I did, very warily. He looked at me and his eyes narrowed, and his jaw twitched, and I thought for a moment he might hit me. He didn’t hit me, although honestly, I would have preferred that to what he said.

“I need to remind myself that no matter how beautiful and perfect you are, you’re nothing more to me than three holes to fuck and an ass to beat on when I’m feeling punchy. Truth, Lucy.

You can thank me for it if you want, since I didn’t have to tell you.”

“Thank you, Matthew,” I said through clenched teeth.

“You’re welcome.” He cocked his head, and looked down at me. “Do you know how many times I hit you last night, after we got home, how many times I hit you with the cane?” I shook my head.

“Thirty, Lucy. You said mercy on the thirtieth stroke.”

“Do you love me?”

His face got hard, and he blew out his breath.

“Are you falling in love with me, Matthew?” I repeated. I believe the term he used for it earlier, when we talked about Slave, was topping from below.

He squirmed, which I hated, and then he seemed to collect himself, and he actually answered me, which I hadn’t expected. The problem was, he lied thro

ugh his teeth.

“No, Lucy, I’m not falling in love with you. Last night I just got a little jealous, a little possessive, maybe. It was hard watching them with you, knowing that they want what I have.

But they wouldn’t appreciate you the way I do. I guess for a moment I thought that was love, but it wasn’t. Please don’t deceive yourself by thinking it was...” His voice trailed off. He sighed and looked at his hands. Don’t deceive yourself, he told me. Okay.

“I can’t give you love. I won’t, Lucy. I told you that from the start. I’ve been honest with you.”

“Why not? Why can’t you love me?”

“I just can’t, but you have to believe that I care very deeply for you.”

“I do believe that, Matthew. But you know what else I believe? I don’t think you tell me the truth. I think it’s you that’s deceived, it’s you that lies. I want to go home.” So that night, dinnertime on Sunday, Matthew had his driver take me home. I’m not sure if he waited for me to show up on Tuesday, but I didn’t, or any day after that. He didn’t call, which was a relief to me, and after a while the driver stopped coming so I could stop sneaking out the front. I didn’t see Matthew backstage or in classes. He very gracefully let me go.

And this time that Matthew and I spent apart, I always assumed it would be a temporary thing, because I was terribly lonely without him and I couldn’t imagine he didn’t miss me. In fact, the more time we spent without each other, the more I came to realize all he did for me. The structure he gave my life, the affection, the hot pleasure, all of it was missed. Even the way he slept beside me, the way he would reach for me, half asleep, drowsy and hard. All those things I took for granted when we were together, it occurred to me now how needed they’d been. It seemed more and more to me that we were two wrongs that somehow made a right. But we needed a serious reset, and he needed to be punished for lying to me, even if, in doing so, I punished myself.

I looked often at the poem he’d given me, puzzled over it to figure out the clues I would need to understand him. He had said to me, I can’t give you love. I won’t, and it haunted me.

Why, why, why? Why couldn’t Matthew give love to me? Why couldn’t Matthew give up control? Were the two things tied together? Somehow I knew they were.

Just as Matthew had warned me, Byron and Frank came to offer for me. They were waiting outside the stage door after the show one rainy Saturday, handsome and scary looking in their rich suits and ties.

Byron approached me first, and I turned a little from him.

“Lucy, how have you been?”

“Fine.” I suddenly wished Matthew’s driver was here, that I could slide into that backseat and escape.

“Frank and I heard that you were no longer with Matthew. Is that true?” he asked in a strange, controlled voice.

“I don’t know. We’re sort of taking a break I guess. We had a falling out.”

“Was it over the night we spent together?” asked Frank. “Slave is no longer with us, you know.”

So Matthew had been right about that as well, and so here they were, looking for new blood, which was me.

Byron came a little closer, and I stepped back. “If that night was difficult for you, if we hurt you, we’re sorry. If you wanted to consider playing with us again, we could negotiate what we do. To a degree. How far we go.”

I was already shaking my head.

“I really can’t.” I thought of Matthew’s words to me about this. They will try. You’re not to go. Swear to me! I wasn’t to go, he’d told me that emphatically. So while I might have been tempted to consider it if I wasn’t still in love with Matthew, I didn’t, not even for a second.

“It can be a temporary arrangement,” suggested Frank. “If you’re taking a break with Matthew. Something to pass the time, just for now.”

I didn’t want to think about how desperate that sounded, and the look of cloaked intensity in their eyes. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t safe at that moment. There were dancers coming and going, and Grégoire was walking me home. He’d be out at any time. But the low voices they used to be sure no one would overhear our conversation gave an edge of menace to their words. They had backed me into a corner, for privacy, of course, but it felt more than a little like a power play.

These two men standing here, looking civilized and kindly, making soft requests to me under the harsh light of the street were the same two men who had beaten and gagged me and asked to piss in my mouth.

“I have to go,” I said, scooting over to the stage door. It was locked from the outside, so I had to wait for someone to come out to get back in. I stood with my hand on it, praying for anyone, anyone to come.

“Lucy, we’ll go if we’re upsetting you so much.”

I bowed my head. They had power over me like Matthew, the same power of dominance that controlled and cowed me. The difference was, I didn’t want them to have it, so I just shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. I knew if I did I’d sound guilty that I didn’t want to do as they asked.

Byron tried once more, sensing my weakness. “It could be whatever you want, Lucy.

Temporary or permanent. We could work out the guidelines. The idea of two men controlling you, working you, that doesn’t interest you? That doesn’t turn you on?” I looked around, suddenly glad we were alone out there. Was I such a slut? Yes, the idea did turn me on. It turned me on a lot. These two powerful men, handsome and virile, and horny enough to have me that they would let me set the rules. For a moment I almost let it creep into my mind. We could work out the guidelines. It could be what you want.

But it would never be what I wanted, because what I really wanted was Matthew. Matthew, who had forbidden me to go with them. And if I went with them, even temporarily, what if it got horribly blurred? What if I began to feel for them what I felt for Matthew? To feel that times two, that confusion and longing, I thought it would finish me off.

“To be honest with you, the idea of it does turn me on. But Matthew told me I wasn’t to go with you, and even on a break, I’m his submissive after all.” Then fortunately, the stage door opened and Grégoire came out. I stammered a short goodbye to Frank and Byron. They nodded and walked away. I could see then, now that the conversation was over, the possibility of success dashed, the controlled ire they had hidden from me. They were furious that they left without what they sought. For myself, I felt an almost crippling relief. They were angry, just savagely angry in general, and they would have taken it out on me. Angry at Slave, beautiful Gloria, who had left them feeling less of the men they were, angry at anyone who might have the power to do that again. I saw now why Matthew had forbidden me to go with them. In my heart, I thanked Matthew for that.

But for many weeks more after that tense standoff, I subsisted without Matthew and sleepwalked through my life missing him every minute of the day. I spent a little more time with Grégoire, and a lot of time on my own. The days of dancing began to stretch out before me like trials. My joints became worse, my ankles ached. Then one day, one Saturday night performance, one of my ankles gave out completely and failed. It happened right in the middle of a show while I was on stage, and Grégoire felt it and compensated for it, such was his mastery of partnering. Somehow he carried me through the finishing notes of the dance until I could hobble off the stage and collapse. Some in the audience might have been fooled, but anyone who knew anything about dance would have known at once that something was wrong.

It hurt so badly I feared it was broken. Finally, now, my body was done with me. It was the beginning of the end and I burst into bitter tears. I sat there on the cold dirty floor in the wings, crying my eyes out, surrounded by mournful dancers who all empathized with me. I felt a hand on my back then, warm and firm, and I knew that warmth and pressure as well as I knew my own self.

I turned with tearful eyes to find him right there, kneeling beside me with an anxious look on his face. I wondered how he’d gotten there so quickly, and then realized he must have been watching th

e show. He would have known the moment it happened, the very second, because, like Grégoire, he was attuned to my body as much as his own.

By this time it had been nearly two months since I’d been with Matthew, and even injured, even devastated, I longed for him to take me in his arms. His face was so close to mine, his lips, his icy blue eyes right there. I wanted to press my body to his, cling to him and not let go.

“Matthew,” I said. “Matthew.” It was a plea, a prayer, a sob. It was all I could say.

He rubbed my back, supporting me there on the floor. “Lucy, poor Lucy,” he said, and it was the next best thing to an embrace, the caring and concern in those words.

We had no physical therapist on staff to examine and treat my injury, so I would have to be taken to a hospital. He offered to take me for treatment, and as usual, everyone deferred to him.

Then he did take me in his arms, just picked me up and carried me while I cried onto his shirt.

He placed me in the front seat of his car, taking care not to jostle my leg.

“Okay?” he said, carefully positioning my swollen ankle. “Does it hurt?

“Yes.” Yes, it hurts. This all hurts so much. I wanted to scream out to him, please don’t leave me. Please take me home with you now and don’t leave me alone again. But I didn’t, I just sat there sobbing, whimpering and sniffling like a child.

And being a rich and resourceful man, he didn’t actually take me to a hospital. He called a friend who practiced orthopedics, and the friend came in to his office at that late hour especially to see me. Matthew introduced him as Rob, and Rob called him Matt, not Matthew or Mr. Norris like everyone else. The three of us were alone in the silence of his deserted office while he took x-rays and manipulated my injured joint. I still had on my dance costume, tights and shoes, and my garish stage makeup, sullied with tears. Everything the doctor did he did over the sheen of my tights, but still, his fingers were firm and sure, just like Matthew’s. I wondered if this was another of those kind of friends. I pictured the exam wrapping up, and the doctor, who was quite handsome, producing a gag and ordering me over the table to be whipped. I imagined Matthew holding me down, and afterward suggesting they fuck me together. She loves it in both holes.