Odalisque

He turned off the water and guided her into the tub, climbing in after her. Like everything in his house, the tub was oversized and overblown--and it was only the guest suite bathtub. She bobbed beside him, watching him with her expressive green eyes.

“It’s like the grotto, isn’t it?” he said. “Just a little smaller.”

She laughed at his joke and then picked up the soap, gesturing to ask if she could wash him. He nodded and let her lather him up, her agile fingers tracing his contours and kneading away the last of his stress about this momentous day. She was here. He’d already pretty much fucked her raw and she was still smiling at him. Hell, she was practically devouring him with her eyes, and she was being none too coy about exploring him with her fingers. Her hands slid down to his cock and intimately caressed him. He allowed himself to enjoy it for a few moments, but then he grabbed her wrist.

“Enough. You’ve had enough for one night. We still have three hundred and sixty four days of bliss remaining.”

He watched to see if she understood, especially as tired and spacey as she looked. He was coming to realize she didn’t pick up every word, even when she was paying close attention. A lot of the gaps must have been filled in by context and body language. Kai took her hand and pried the soap from her, put it aside and fingerspelled the word in her palm. B-L-I-S-S.

She smiled and looked shy, and then she took his hand and kissed his palm. Bliss, fucking bliss. God, he owed Mason big time for this. Kai hauled her against him. He kissed his odalisque, tenderly at first, and then with all the intensity of his happiness. Would every day be as satisfying as this day? Constance was too good to be true, surely. Tomorrow would be a little less exciting, and the next day, maybe she wouldn’t even bother to smile.

God, no.

Maybe every day would get better and better. They would come to know one another--one another’s bodies and one another’s deepest wants and needs. Ah, her kisses tasted like wine and honey. He cupped her round ass in his hands and felt her fingertips curl around his neck and then up into his damp hair. He finally broke away with a sigh, and busied himself washing her in kind. It was either wash her or fuck her again, and he couldn’t do that in good conscience, not when she was barely staying awake. The hot water was relaxing them both into a coma.

A few minutes later he had her out of the tub, toweling her off and drying her thick head of hair. How lush and dark and curly it was. For a moment he thought, our children would have beautiful hair...

Holy shit, this is what Bastien had been trying to warn him about. Sometimes the newness and excitement of the relationship carries the risk of a romantic misunderstanding, from both sides.

Kai took a deep breath, just stopped and held her close. He buried his face in her neck and breathed in the scent of her, soap and the lavender oil he’d added to the water. This time she was the one to pull away. He watched for her to sign something, but she turned from him instead and started opening and closing drawers and bathroom cabinets. She found a toothbrush and clutched it in front of her until he took the hint.

“I guess I’ll--”

She moved to see his face, and he remembered at the same time to look at her and talk. He tried again. “I guess I’ll let you settle in and get some rest. Let me know if you need anything.”

She nodded, and, feeling awkward suddenly, he left. Well, it was her room, not his. Odalisques slept in their odellas. Masters didn’t. Kai went down the stairs and across the back hall to his own bedroom suite, bone tired now that he’d left her. He collapsed on the bed, then docked his mp3 player and brought up a Mozart sonata on his sound system. He turned it up so loud he thought the neighbors could probably hear it from a half mile away. But she wouldn’t hear it.

After the second movement he stood and wandered back down the hall, back up the stairs to her suite of rooms. The door was open. He could see her lying on the bed, nude, one leg thrown over the comforter and her hair spread across the pillows. Her face was angelic in repose. The sound of violin and piano battered off the walls and vibrated the light fixtures, and yet she slept. Beautiful odalisque.

The next day, she woke with her period. “How many days?” he asked her forlornly.

“Three or four,” she signed back.

Kai remembered all too well that her menses was one of her off-limits times. A specific clause in the contract actually forbid using medical or hormonal methods to deprive the odalisque of this natural monthly function.

Kai had thought, what kind of sick fuck would want to do such a thing? And now he knew. A sick fuck like him. He wanted to haul her to the gynecologist for some kind of pill or procedure that would make it go away. He wanted to--oh, hell.

Instead he smiled at her and made himself go in to work, mentally counting down the days.

Chapter Eight: Enslaved

After Kai set off for work, Constance slept in her cozy vermilion bed. She dreamed of burnished berries and desert windstorms. She dreamed of colorful bazaars and swimming in a warm deep ocean. She woke up around noon to the gentle whisper of heated air against her skin. She traced it to one of the furnace registers blowing right at the bed. Kai had obviously set her suite of rooms to be the warmest in the house. But even naked, she didn’t need to be that warm. She’d have to tell him to reset it.

She got up and took a long bath in the same tub they’d bathed in the night before. Everything in the rooms he’d set aside for her was beautiful and luxe. The towels were soft and the soap had a unique, alluring scent, like lavender and sugar. Muted light filtered in through high windows. Constance could see the blue of the sky as she drifted in the water. She got brave and started pushing the buttons on the bathtub console, and enjoyed a nice bubble-jet massage. Ah, it made her want to masturbate, but she felt almost too lazy to. Almost.

That done, she got out and inserted her menstrual cup, then headed downstairs to the kitchen. His house was like a palace to her. Maison Odalisque had been impressive, but this was even grander. What was she doing here? Constance Flynn, who had grown up in ugly, utilitarian military family housing, surrounded by garage-sale furniture?

She crossed the sunken living room to the white baby grand piano sitting on a raised dais in the corner. Very Liberace, the white piano, she thought with a smile. But then most of Kai’s house was white, or neutral. And everything was open wide. She’d been in nightclubs that were smaller than this room, and stripped on stages that were smaller than the piano’s platform. Stripping. Now that had been a mistake. Men got unpleasant when they thought they were being ignored. She just hadn’t been able to hear them when they called out to her.

Like her mother, Constance had made so many mistakes in her life. Maybe this was another one. But there was only one way to tell, and that was to do it. That had always been her modus operandi, but she wasn’t sure if it had served her well or made her life worse than it might have been.

Constance sat at the piano and slid her fingers along the polished white and black keys. She lifted the piano’s lid down and then back again. He’d had it open. Did that mean he played often? Even if he did, she wouldn’t be able to hear any more than muted vibrations. She depressed the keys, one at a time for a while, and then in great groups, smashing and bashing them, knowing she was probably making an awful clamoring sound. She ran her fingers up and down, counting as she went.

Then she felt a touch on her shoulder and screamed.

She turned, her arms clasped to her chest, breath gasping in her throat. Kai smiled back at her, resplendent in his business suit and tie.

“I didn’t know you played,” he signed.

He was teasing, laughing, but she’d almost passed out. Her heartbeat finally calmed in her chest. “You scared me!” She exaggerated the sign for scared, clasping her chest again. “Don’t sneak up on me, please.”

“I’m sorry. I would have called to let you know to expect me, but... I have to put in a phone you can use. What are they called? TDD phones?”

“You

don’t have to,” she signed.

“If there’s ever an emergency, you’ll need a phone.”

“Deaf people use instant messaging now.” She had to spell out the word instant messaging twice, and once he got it, he looked sheepish. She hadn’t meant to make him feel stupid when he was trying so hard to help her. “It’s okay,” she signed. “Can you get me a smart phone?” He understood smart phone a lot quicker, before she even finished fingerspelling it. He nodded.

“Of course. I’ll bring one home for you tonight.” He’d reverted back to speaking, which was fine, since she was getting pretty used to reading his lips. When she wasn’t distracted by their perfect shape and dark berry color.

She gestured to his well-tailored suit. “I thought you were working today.”

“I was, but I wanted to come home and check on you. You were so groggy and tired this morning.”

She smiled. “I’m better now. I slept.”

“Did you eat breakfast? Or lunch?”

“Not yet.”