Bound to Accept (21 page)

What's wrong with me?

“
Kelly.” He leans over me,
sending a pang shooting through my sore groin. Now I know how
addicts feel. Even when they're hurting, even when they know that
they should stop, they just keep going and going. “Talk to
me.”

His touch ignites fresh memories that
blow up behind my eyes like fireworks, as last night speeds through
my head like a pornographic montage on fast-forward. “I don't want
to,” I say breathlessly.

“
Too bad.” He rubs my arms
with slow, smooth motions. “I'm not leaving until you
do.”

I try to punch him. Not one of the
friendly punches we've exchanged in the past—no, this is a full-on
deck. One that could do actual damage if it makes contact with his
face.

He grabs my wrist, and holds it down,
at my side. I struggle and jerk, but he won't let go, and I suck in
my breath because I start to remember other things—

Throwing up. Emptying my
stomach of his come. Throwing up again at the sight of the gross
mess in the toilet bowl. Tristan holding my hair, rubbing my back,
whispering soft, gentle words into my ear (“I'm going to fuck you
so hard, you're going to
bleed
come”).

“
No.”

“
Kelly.”

My lower belly buzzes with a lazy
warmth and I grow rigid, trying to work myself free from his hold.
But he really is that much stronger, because I cannot. I
cannot.

“
Let me
go
.”

“
Not until you stop trying
to hit me. It is very important in BDSM to denote clear margins
between playtime and regular time. Boundaries are key. If you don't
have boundaries, the relationship can easily become
abusive.”

“
Fine.” I glower at him.
“I won't hit you. Even though you deserve it.”

“
And I,” he says
magnanimously, “will let you go, even though I do not.”

“
How could you do those
things to me?” I whisper. “How could you make me
want…that?”

“
You wanted to try it.” He
draws nonsense patterns on my thigh. “Didn't you enjoy
yourself?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Nobody in
their right mind should enjoy what you did to me.”

Tristan stops caressing me. “You said
should. Does that mean you did—and feel guilty about
it?”

“
Cut the psychoanalysis
crap. You cut me.” I clap a hand to my shirtfront. “You made me
lick your semen off the floor. You stuck your finger up my
ass.”

I think we both know that this isn't
exactly an answer.

“
But you had an orgasm
when I cut you,” he says patiently.

“
That's not
normal
,” I
hiss.

“
What is normal?” Tristan
asks, sounding a lot like Morpheus from
The Matrix
in that moment. I
half-expect him to launch into that famous monologue about
electrochemical signals. My thoughts are that frenetic. “You didn't
use your safeword. If it bothered you so much, why didn't you say
'Twilight,' Kelly?”

He has a point. He made me feel so
uncomfortable. Why didn't I use my safeword?

“
Why didn't you say
'Twilight' when I pushed you to the floor?”

“
Stop it.”

“
You could have indicated
that you wanted me to stop at any time.” He goes on ruthlessly.
“You could have said your safeword when I put my foot on your neck.
You could have said it when I told you to start licking, when I
told you to lick it all. But you didn't, Kelly. You did exactly
what I told you.”

I start crying again. He lets me go
for a few minutes, and then pulls me towards him again.

“
There are plenty of
people who get off on humiliation,” he says. “Being humiliated. It
can be liberating, having someone force you to do what you're too
afraid to ask for yourself. Maybe you're a risk-taker at heart, but
for whatever reason, you don't allow yourself to take
them.

“
Maybe you're highly
sexual, but for whatever reason, you've been repressed.

“
Maybe you just like the
adrenaline high you get when someone tells you to bend over.” He
pauses. “As for your ass—it's a very tempting ass, and as your
Master, it's my job to push your limits. That's why you have a
safeword. To let me know when I've pushed too far.”

He pauses.

“
Do you think I've pushed
you too far, Kelly?”

I don't know. I glance at the clock.
It's 12:30 P.M. I've been asleep half the day. “Shouldn't you be at
work?”

“
I took a sick day—don't
change the subject.”

He gets out of bed, taking me with
him, and I am relieved that he's wearing boxers.

“
Why did you take a sick
day?”

“
Because someone I care
about didn't feel well,” he says, with emphasis on “care.” He gives
my butt a gentle push towards the direction of the bathroom. “Take
a hot shower. I'll cook you something. It'll be ready when you get
out.”

I brace myself for a mess, but I still
stagger back in shock when I pull off Tristan's shirt.

My body is
covered
in
bruises.

With a shaking hand, I prod one of the
discolorations on the side of my throat, and shudder a little at
the sting; it's almost as violent as the bite responsible for
inflicting it.

On my shoulder are teethmarks, and it
burns every time I move that arm. The wound glistens with
antibiotic gel. Or what I hope is antibiotic gel, and not some sort
of infection.

My nipples are swollen and several
shades darker than normal. I touch the left one, the one he
twisted, and it throbs dully.

Then there's the scab where he cut me
with the knife.

My abdomen is bruised from where it
cut into the Formica when he screwed me against the counter. This
is the lightest bruise, mostly a pink with a bit of yellow. The
bruise on my hip is far nastier looking—that's where I banged it on
the counter's sharp edge while jerking around.

My cunt and clit are sore, as well.
Every time my labia rub together, a searing pain shoots up from my
groin all the way into my bladder, making it feel as if I
desperately have to pee. I think my clit might actually be
bruised—Tristan was certainly rubbing and pinching me hard enough
down there, and the leather from his heavy gloves added extra
friction. My asshole stings—it feels tight, and burns, especially
when I accidentally clench it. My father would probably call it
“firehole”—it's similar to the feeling you get after having the
runs from eating too much spicy food.

Showering is going to make the Spanish
Inquisition seem like an ice cream social.

The hot water might as well be acid
because of how much it stings. I keep my thighs pressed together to
protect my private parts from the water, but when I bend to
retrieve the shampoo, water drips from my back down into my anus,
and the sting makes my eyes water. I freeze for several minutes,
not daring to unclench my ass. Not until the pain goes down from a
6 to a 4.

I get out of the shower and wrap
myself in a towel. I don't wear Tristan's shirt, because that would
show, at least on a subliminal level, that I am okay with what he
did. I don't want him to feel as though he still comfortably owns
me. I leave it discarded on the bathroom floor and waddle towards
my closet.

I can feel Tristan watching me out of
the corner of his eye, but I pretend he's not there and let the
towel drop as I pull on a nightshirt. I don't bother with
underwear. I know the chafe of it will drive me mad, and not in a
good way.

“
Hey there, beautiful
girl.” Something in the frying pan sizzles. “I made you an
omelet.”

“
I'm not hungry.” Seeing
all those bruises he's inflicted on my body has made me lose my
appetite. My skin looks like raw hamburger, left out to rot in the
sun.

He plops the omelet on one of my
plates. Garfield is sitting on the floor at his feet, watching the
transfer of the omelet with interest. “Sit down and look hungry,”
he orders. “Your cat gets it.”

I glare at him.

Tristan grins at me. “Oh, I get it.
You want me to feed it to you by hand. Does that sound about
right?”

“
No, I want you to leave
me alone.”

He switches off the stove and walks
over to me. I try to dodge him, but he is faster, and swings me
around so that I'm in his arms, with my back pressed against his
chest.

“
I'm not going to do
that.”

“
Why?”

“
Because you're obviously
confused and upset right now, and I'm not going to leave you to go
through all that alone.” Tristan rests his head against mine. “When
a Dom takes on a sub, he's not just taking on a lover. He's also
giving up his time, his patience, and his affection, to be a
teacher and a guardian, as well.”

My heart knocks against my
chest.

“
If it's based on
affection, then why do I like it when you hurt me?”

“
Why do you need a reason
if it feels good?”

I don't have an answer for
that.

“
Sit down and eat,” he
says. “It'll make you feel better.”

I pick up the fork and begin to eat
robotically.

Tristan sits across the table from me,
watching me eat with one hand supporting his chin. I keep my eyes
lowered; it's a little scary, how much the sight of his face
affects me. How looking at him sometimes makes me feel as if my
chest is about to burst.

“
However, given your
reaction to the last scene, I think it might be a good idea to take
a break for a little while—give your body some time to
recover.”

The bit of egg lodges in my throat and
won't go down, no matter how many times I swallow. “Are
you…breaking up with me?” I ask, staring at him, because I know
that if I blink, I will start to cry, and there is nothing more
pathetic than a girl in tears after her boyfriend calls it
quits.

Although, he was never really my
boyfriend, was he? It was all just about the sex.

“
No, no, no,” he says, too
quickly, in a way that makes my heart hurt. “Kelly, no,” he says,
which suggests that I'm not as clever about hiding my hurts as I'd
like.

Maybe he even knew I was in love with
him for all those years, and just never did anything about
it.

Oh my God, what have I
done?

“
Kelly, please. Don't
cry.”

Why do people say things
like that? It's almost like they
want
to make you cry, when they say
things like that.

“
That scene was really
intense. I think it might just be a good idea to take things easy
for a little while.”

“
Like, see other people?”
I sniff.

“
No. I mean, no sex,
period. When I helped you out of your schoolgirl costume, I noticed
you were quite bruised. Your clit, especially, looked quite
swollen. Your body needs to heal. You might even consider going to
a pharmacy and getting some mild pain medication—if you don't have
any already.”

“
You have an answer for
everything, don't you?”

“
Not everything,” he says.
My sarcasm flies right over his head. “Only the things that
matter.”

All I am hearing is that he doesn't
want to have sex with me because of what sounds like a pretty
paper-thin excuse. Pain was never really an issue before—and now,
suddenly, it is, and he's treating me like breakable
china?

My ex-boyfriends pulled that excuse on
me, too. They told me I wasn't like “those girls” they slept with.
That “those girls” meant nothing. Like I was some delicate flower
who needed to be protected from the more unsavory aspects of
sexuality. Like any woman who wholeheartedly embraced the idea of
having sex wasn't even worth mentioning by name.

Linking Tristan to my cheating exes
makes me feel sick and—wrong. But I can't help but wonder why he
doesn't want me to meet his friends in the BDSM scene, or why he
looked so uncomfortable when Corrine came over to talk to us at
Hana Hana, or why he is so adamantly against taking me to St.
Andrew's.

“
I don't really like the
expression on your face,” he says. His voice is light, but his face
is serious.

What is Tristan hiding from
me?

And then, I get an idea.

“
Would you get me a bubble
tea?” I ask him.

Tristan eyes me suspiciously. “You're
not going to run out of here and do something crazy when I
leave.”

It isn't a question; it's a command
dressed up like one.

But that isn't my plan, so I don't
have to lie.

“
No.”

“
Fine,” he says. “I will
get you a bubble tea. But I expect to see you lying down in bed
when I get back.”

The moment the door clicks shut behind
him, I Google “San Francisco St. Andrew's Cross.”