Cursed Ever After (5 page)

    Leaning toward him, I whispered into his ear. “Don’t move.”

    “Yes, my mistress.” He gulped.

    The best part about blindfolds was the element of surprise. I put my thumbnail behind his ear and began to press hard in the fold where it joined his skin, pinching and pulling as my nail dug in and scratched. It was a hidden spot, one of my favorites, where I could slash and scratch and no one would be the wiser. I used it on clients that couldn’t be marked. He winced and groaned. I kissed his eye lids through the silk fabric of the blindfold and flicked my tongue across the seam of his closed lips.

    I held the candle over the back of my hand to judge the temperature and the distance. Hot but not too hot. I tilted the candle gently over his shoulder and let it drip. He cried out in a mixture of pleasure-pain and I could sense the warmth and wetness of my own melting, not unlike the liquefaction of the wax beneath the flame. I tilted the candle again and wax dripped down his sensitive stomach. The other two candles on the dresser emitted a warm glow across his muscles that tensed and shifted in arousal. His cock stood erect and waiting. I returned the candle to the jewel tone glass holder and placed it back on the dresser.

    “Did you like that John? How did that feel?”

    “Yes, my mistress. It felt hot my mistress.”

    The door to the suite clicked as the key card granted access to Eleanor who entered. She wore a long gray skirt and a sheer cream colored blouse—the top two buttons undone. Eleanor had him followed by a private investigator and found out about her husband’s kinky fantasies and transgressions three years ago. But instead of confronting him she had come to me instead. Eventually, she planned on telling him but for now this was her game, one that she had devised. And I highly approved.

    “Who’s there?” asked John when he heard the clicking sound of the keycard accessing the hotel room door.

    I laughed and grinned at Eleanor who smirked back at me. “You always ask that and I always tell you the same thing—that it’s only your wife.” But he never believed me. He always told me afterwards that my “assistant” had the most amazing mouth, thinking that when I told him that it was Eleanor, that it was all part of his fantasy and our scene.

    Taking the restraints down from the top support of the mirrored iron canopy bed, I released his arms from the shackles and reattached them lower on the posts.

    “Turn around.”

    He obeyed my command wordlessly. I reattached the shackles to his wrists, forcing him to bend over the footboard. I slid a pillow under his stomach to relieve the pressure from the iron wrung beneath him. Slapping his ass, a resounding smack echoed through the suite. Eleanor placed her lips on his quivering ass to kiss the sting away. Then Eleanor grabbed the candle from the dresser. With a wicked smile, she held the candle over his ass and let a small drop fall across his sensitive skin.

    John gasped loudly. “Yellow.”

    Eleanor moved the candle a little higher, toward the base of his spine, tilting it until another drop fell across his skin. He didn’t flinch this time. Eleanor drizzled more wax that splashed onto his ass, making little patterns across the shapely curve. She held it closer and sometimes further away, to vary the sensations. John winced sharply but didn’t use his safe word. I released the nipple clamps simultaneously and John cried out from the surge of blood rushing back to the restricted areas.

    “Red. Fucking red!”

    We both gave him a moment to recover as his labored breathing slowly returned to normal. Eleanor stepped between his shackled legs spread wide as he bent over the footboard. Reaching around him, she grasped his cock and began to move her hand up and down its length. He pushed his ass back against her, and she gave it a slap.

    “Did I tell you that you could move?” I asked.

    “No, my mistress.”

    In my suitcase were vibrators. I picked out a medium sized one and the lube. I drizzled a bit into his crack and handed the vibrator to Eleanor. She slipped the vibe into his ass while he wriggled a bit to allow her to push it inside before switching it on.

    “You’re such a slut, such a hedonist. Do you like that? Is that what you wanted?”

    He groaned. “Yes, my mistress.”

    She slid the vibrator in and out as pre-cum glistened on the tip of his cock. I put my hand over Eleanor’s and took control of the vibrator. She pulled her hand out from under mine. Positioning herself between her husband and the footboard, she brushed up against him as she lowered herself to the floor.  She licked the salty wetness from the head of his cock before taking him in her mouth. Hollowing her cheeks, she took him to the root and he pulled against the chains.

    “Good god, Eleanor,” he moaned.

    I laughed.
If only he knew how true his fantasy really was.
I angled the vibrator until it hit just the right spot. His moans, the vibrations, culminated in a chain rattling climax as she swallowed every bit of his cum. It left them both gasping for breath with sweat dripping as I shut off the vibrator and gently pulled out. I released his bonds, leading him blindfolded to the bed. Eleanor kissed his face, his lips, as he lay back into the pillows completely spent.

    “Hey, what’s your name? God, you can give one hell of a blow job.”

    I couldn’t help but grin.

    Eleanor laughed. “I’d think you’d know my name after twenty years of marriage.”

    He pulled off the blindfold and propped himself up on his elbows. “Christ, Eleanor.”

    “It’s me. It’s always been me. There was never an assistant.”

    “How long have you known?”

    Eleanor shrugged. “I figured it out eventually.”

    “And this doesn’t bother you?”

    “It did at first. I felt hurt that you thought that you had to hide who you really were from me. When I came to Tessa it was because I wanted to confront you in the act but then it turned me on. I loved watching you and it changed our sex life. Haven’t you noticed how hot we’ve been together?”

    He raked a hand through his hair. “All this time and I should have just told you. I’m sorry Eleanor. I never meant to hurt you.”

    “I forgave you a long time ago otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here. Tessa is the best thing that could have happened to us. I was starting to think that you didn’t want me anymore but really I just didn’t know what you wanted or how to give it to you.”

    He brushed his hand across her cheek as if seeing his wife for the first time. “You’re so amazing. I didn’t think you’d understand. I thought you’d leave me if you ever found out.”

    I stood back watching the two of them fall in love with one another all over again and feeling overwhelmed that I was the one to resurrect their marriage.

    “Never again—don’t ever lie to me ever again. I love you. I always will but we don’t have anything if we don’t have trust. Honesty is everything.”

    He pulled her toward him and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “I promise. I’ll never lie to you again. I’m a lucky man, Eleanor.”

    “Damn right you are!”

    I coughed.

    “Oh. I’m sorry Tessa,” said Eleanor, her cheeks a rosy pink. “Would you excuse me for one moment?” She grabbed her purse where she had placed it on a chair when she came in and pulled out a toothbrush, heading for the bathroom.

    The senator pulled on his socks, followed by his slacks. I handed him the button down shirt from where it had been tossed carelessly on the floor.

    “Thanks and not just for handing me my shirt. You probably saved my marriage. I owe you everything.”

    “Not everything,” I said with a grin. “Just one thing.”

    “Name it.”

    I could hear the water running in the bathroom.

    “There’s something I’d like you to look into for me.”

    “What do you want me to look into?”

    I pulled a manila file folder from my suitcase and handed it to him. “I want you to find out everything you can about this woman. Arie, an associate of mine, has taken an uncanny interest in the girl and I swear she’s the spitting image of someone we both used to know.”

    The file folder contained an array of photographs of a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, and extremely pretty in an unconventional sort of way. She carried an army satchel about her slender form and her long chestnut curls were piled high, held in place with two pencils. In the photograph she was entering a coffee shop on the South Side of Chicago where she worked.

    “I’ll see what I can dig up,” said the senator.

    “Please see that you do.”

    “Is she in some sort of trouble?”

    I sighed. “It’s not that. I can’t find out much about her because her records have been sealed. I need to know as much as I can. She could be trouble for someone I care about.”

    I trusted the senator with this because he was more than a client. He was a friend. And Eleanor was a strong woman who I had grown close to over the past three years. Helping strengthen their marriage pulled at my heartstrings.

    “It might take some time and it won’t be easy with her record being sealed.”

    “I know but figured with your position there must be something you can do.”

    His brows furrowed as he looked at the photograph he held in his hand. “She’s almost pretty if you lose the glasses. How much trouble could she be?”

    “It’s always the pretty ones that are. Haven’t you learned that? Look at your wife.”

    “Look at you,” he said with a warm smile as he put his hand on my arm. He released my arm and shuffled through the other papers in the file folder. “There’s no birth certificate.”

    “There’s not a whole lot of anything on this girl. But her name is Holly,” I said. “Holly Ellis.”

    He nodded. “Ok, give me a week and I’ll get back to you.”

    The toilet flushed and his wife returned from the bathroom. She beamed at me as she entered the room.

    “Thank you for everything Tessa. You’ve brought me and my husband closer than we’ve been in years.”

    I hugged Eleanor and planted a chaste kiss on her cheek. “It was my pleasure.”

    The senator placed an arm around his wife’s shoulders. I gathered the toys and repacked my suitcase. Donning my trench coat, I said my good-byes and left the file on Holly Ellis with the senator. I blew out the candles on the dresser on my way out the door.

    Holly Ellis.

    The girl looked identical to someone I hadn’t thought about in years but I imagined Arie thought about her often. It was probably why he started frequenting the coffee shop to begin with. I had a bad feeling about her uncanny physical resemblance to someone who had been the bane of Arie’s existence. Now all I could do was wait and hope I was wrong.

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Eternal Ever After Preface

    I never guessed that I could die with a sea of faces surrounding me, all cheering for my death. A woman wearing a jacket dress made of brocade only laughed louder when blood splattered the low square neckline.
Where is Arie?
I scanned the crowded club but all I could see were pale faces, some half covered by masks.

    My time had come and I prayed she would finish me off quickly. The warm trickle of blood ran down my neck and chest, saturating the corset bustier of my gown. It seemed like a shame to ruin such a pretty dress. Strangely, I felt relieved the bodice was black and not a light color that would show a stain.

    The fear of dying or more accurately, the fear of not existing, scared me stiff. Perhaps if I had satisfied this existential anxiety with faith I wouldn’t jump from panic to ambivalence. I should be angry at everyone who simply watched. They must think the gruesome display is part of the entertainment for tonight. After the bloody burlesque show I could hardly blame them.

   
Holly, I gave you the chance to leave.
Her telepathic transference hardly seemed relevant at this point. I knew if I’d never gone to the Hellfire Club, I wouldn’t be facing death now. Still, if my death meant the killings would stop it seemed justifiable.

    “No!” I could barely hear Arie scream above the cheering voices clamoring for attention. The constant drone defies my effort to discern coherent thoughts. I looked up and could see him on the balcony. When I blinked he had disappeared into the throng. Katarina retracted her fangs, released my neck, and the audience applauded her brutality. I crumpled at her feet, looking up at her smile as thin as paper.

    I didn’t want this to be the story of my death but this part is only a fragment of a narrative as old as time. Its voices fill the shadows with whispers of legend. We are told that the damned cease to exist and those absolved from sin are given eternal life. The damned can never be saved. They walk the earth in an eternal hell. I fear it will be my curse if death doesn’t claim me instead.

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About the Author

A.C. James is a book blogger and writer, living in Northeastern Pennsylvania with her loving husband, her children, and her cat. Nothing makes her day more than curling up with a glass of wine, a blanket, and getting lost in a good book.

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