Claimed

“I’m sorry I was so rough, darling,” he whispered gruffly as he carried her toward the bedroom, “but it’s the only way to tame that wild spirit of yours. It’s for your own good, believe me.”

He laid her on her stomach on the bed. She closed her eyes, hoping he would go away, though she knew better. She felt him sit beside her, and then his fingers moving lightly over her ass.

“This beating will leave some marks. You should think of them as badges of courage. It takes courage and grace to be an obedient, submissive wife. I’m really proud of you, Kelsey.”

Badges of courage? How about badges of brutality?

A sudden black tide of unwelcome rage lapped at the edges of Kelsey’s consciousness, threatening to spill over. Peaceful thoughts. Let it go. Flow with the pain, focus on the good things. Don’t let him see the anger. Don’t let him know. It took all her will to push away the negative feelings before James sensed them. The last thing she needed right now was another punishment. She just wanted to be left alone.

Thankfully, her mutinous thoughts remained hidden. A moment later she felt the cool salve he used on her skin after especially brutal beatings. His touch was gentle, and the soothing balm felt good as it penetrated the still-stinging skin of her ass, back and thighs. After a while he turned her over and rubbed more of the salve onto her breasts.

When he was done, he wrapped her cuffs around her wrists, covering the rope burns with the black leather. He clipped the cuffs to the headboard chains, unspooling them to their full length so she had maximum movement, which Kelsey appreciated.

“You take a rest. I’ll wake you in time for lunch.” James stroked her hair from her face and leaned down to kiss her cheek.

Kelsey closed her eyes and imagined herself slipping out of her aching body and floating up into a cloudless blue sky. She focused on emptying her mind and letting all thoughts, fear, pain and anguish fall away. She opened her arms, which had become wide, white wings, and flew away.

~*~

James placed the slices of turkey on the bread and reached for the mayonnaise jar. The warm afternoon sun was shining through the window and bathing the kitchen in a golden glow. A beautiful, sexy, submissive woman lay asleep in his bed. She belonged to him, and him alone. Life was good.

Since he’d started reading the obedient wife sites, a whole new world had opened up, one in which his natural inclinations and secret desires had a place. For the first time in his life, he felt like he fit in. He had found a community of like-minded individuals. He wasn’t suffering from perverted or twisted thinking, as he had sometimes feared. There was a rooted basis in many religions and cultures for a man taking full control of his woman.

If he happened to derive great sexual satisfaction from exercising that control, where was the harm?

The harm is that she’s here against her will. The harm is that this is a non-consensual relationship, no matter how you try to couch it in obedient wife theory or the natural order of things. You took her by force, and you keep her by force. Where is the love in that?

Angered, James shook away that small but unwelcome voice that still occasionally plagued him. That voice had no place in their lives now. As he’d told himself a thousand times, what was done was done. There was no going back. The old rules no longer applied. He’d written new rules, and they were working.

Kelsey had blossomed in just the short time they’d been together. Already she had learned many of the basic tenets of the obedient wife philosophy, and seemed to embrace them. She never asked him to let her go anymore, and she seemed genuinely thrilled when he praised her, her face glowing with happiness when he told her she’d been a good girl.

She’d never looked like that back in that other life, when they’d both spent their days crunching numbers in the back room of a huge, impersonal banking conglomerate that didn’t give a shit if either of them lived or died. Though she’d been good at her job, she’d never beamed under his praise. Theirs had been a casual flirtation, nothing more.

Not so now. Now he was the center of her universe. She literally lived or died at his hand, and there was no greater high in this world.

James was amazed at how easily he’d let the life he’d lived before slip away. Until he’d met Kelsey, he’d honestly believed his career was the most important thing in his life. Though his sizable inheritance would have let him retire and never work again, he’d never even considered leaving his job before he met her. Badly burned by Emily’s betrayal, he hadn’t even thought about looking for another partner. Work had been everything, until Kelsey Anne Rowan had appeared in his life like a golden angel, illuminating his world.