Enchanted Again (18 page)

Marcie searched her mind for the right words and realized suddenly that she had no idea what to think, let alone say. The truth was, she was genuinely conflicted about what was happening to her.

Bill, in the meantime, was sliding her panties down, handling her kicking legs with ease as he situated himself in between them. He picked up her legs and spread them wide apart, holding them securely in midair with his strong hands. Once she was restrained in this manner, he leaned in between her trembling legs to kiss and lick her tenderly. He had learned many different ways to please her with his tongue, and he employed every single one of them now, painstakingly, and at an unhurried pace. Pretty soon Marcie was crying out with pleasure and gyrating her hips with the rhythmic motion of his tongue. He skillfully brought her to the very precipice of her climax, and then abruptly stopped before she was fully satisfied. Marcie watched him in stunned silence as he got up and began to undress. She noticed he was fully aroused and she began to ache with anticipation. She thought she ought to protest but most of her previous anger had completely abandoned her. He returned to the bed and once again moved between her legs.

“What are you going to do?” she asked stupidly.

“I’m trying to help you feel better. I don’t know what set you off yet, but let’s just get you feeling better first.”

She was astounded. She had absolutely no idea what to think. His words rekindled her anger, even as they sent a fresh wave of desire coursing through her. She wanted him to make love to her, but she didn’t want to yield to him. In her confusion she found herself halfheartedly resisting Bill as he approached her, making feeble attempts to kick him.

“Enough,” he said firmly, but without anger. He rested himself between her legs without entering her, gently kissing her face and in between kisses searching her eyes. “What’s going on with you, Marcie?”

Marcie couldn’t begin to explain what was happening inside her, so she remained silent. More than anything at that moment, she wished Bill would simply make love to her, but she could hardly say so. When the silence became too much for her, she moved her hips against him enticingly.

“Say it,” he told her.

“Say what?”

“Tell me that you want me to make love to you.”

“I don’t care what—”

He cut her off. “Look. I can see you’re upset about something that you don’t want to talk about. I can also see that you’re very turned on and it is my opinion it would be good for us both to make love now. However, we haven’t fully established the rules yet, and I want to make sure we understand each other. You don’t feel like being agreeable or working things out. Okay. I’m more than willing to take charge of the situation, but you have to agree ahead of time to
let
me take charge and to trust me,
whatever
I decide to do.”

Marcie stared at Bill in stunned silence.

With her silence Bill continued patiently, “We spoke of this already in the restaurant, so you must have known this moment would come. It’s here, but I need your consent. You have to tell me that you trust me to take control of you—that you
want
me to take control of you.”

She realized suddenly that she did want Bill to take control, but she still couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

Bill sighed with her continued silence, but his tone remained calm and tender. “Either you agree to trust me, and give me free rein to do what I think is best for us, or I’ll untie you now and you can get up, get dressed, leave here and never come back.”

Marcie was both alarmed and hurt by his words. But she could not, in truth, say that she was entirely surprised. Bill had given her ample warning of his position, through not only words but actions. Throughout their time together, there was a clear leadership being established by him, and she had reveled in it. Until now.

Marcie was further confounded by Bill’s proximity. Their bodies were pressed together, although he was careful not to lean his full weight on her. She marveled over how he always thought of even the smallest detail of her comfort and well-being. There was never a moment when her needs were not put as high in priority, or higher, than his own. Yet to give up control over her body and just hand it over to him carte blanche! But to get up and leave was too painful to consider.

Marcie did not like the position she was in one bit. Bill seemed to read her mind.

“I see that you don’t like to compromise when you’re upset.” He still spoke to her calmly and with genuine kindness in his voice, although there was frustration there, too. “That is precisely why I want the authority to take control—so I can take over when you get like this. It will allow you to be as angry and unreasonable as you want, knowing I’ll take care of us until you come around. I’m not going to allow you to dictate our relationship based on your moods. I thought I made this clear.”

Marcie was once again torn between grudging respect, admiration and anger. Bill’s words inflamed each of the emotions in question. She realized he was right about her unwillingness to compromise when she was feeling the way she did now. His mastery over his own emotions astounded her.

Taking her continued silence for refusal, he abruptly untied her. “Get dressed.”

Had this been happening with any man other than Bill, Marcie would have got up and stormed out without a second thought, assured in the knowledge that he would come around eventually and that she would not only have kept her pride intact but also managed to make him suffer as much as she had. But she knew for a certainty that Bill would do no such thing, and she felt a sudden panic.

“No!” she cried vehemently.

He looked at her expectantly. She saw that he was losing patience with her. She was suddenly contrite, but terribly self-conscious and still hesitant.

“I do trust you,” she admitted finally.

“And?”

She sighed in frustration. “What do you want from me?”

“I want your consent to take control of you when I think it is necessary. I want
full
control, over you and me.”

“Okay.” She realized faintly that she still wasn’t one hundred percent clear about what she was consenting to. And yet she really did trust Bill. The uncertainty over what he would do to her once he took control didn’t bring fear but anticipation.

“Okay what?”

“I give you my consent.”

“Do I have your full consent to take absolute control of you and your body?”

Marcie nodded. New little pangs of sharp desire pierced the already engorged flesh between her legs.

“Say it.”

“You have my full consent to take absolute control of me and…my body.” She could hardly believe she had just spoken the words.

He smiled. “Thank you,” he said. He took her face in his hands and waited for her eyes to meet his. She desperately wanted the discussion to be over and for him to resume the lovemaking, but he was not quite finished. “You’ve crossed a line with this agreement,” he told her. “It has advanced our relationship to the next level. In the future you can be as unreasonable and out of control as you want and know that I’ll protect us and our relationship. At any time if you want to take back your consent you may do so, but know that it will end our relationship.”

“You obviously don’t care about me at all if you can so easily threaten to end our relationship,” she protested, suddenly bursting into tears.

He held her in his arms and patiently waited for her to stop crying. “I care a great deal for you,” he said, embracing her more securely. “There are actually very few things you could do that would make me end this relationship,” he told her. “You can do pretty much whatever you wish and express yourself in any way you like, but always know that I will do what has to be done to protect you, me and us.”

Marcie had stopped crying so he gently laid her back down on the bed and, without further ado, began making love to her. He kissed away her tears as he took her tenderly into him. “Hush, now,” he soothed, and she clung to him. She became more feverish in her lovemaking as a result of all the pent-up emotions that had been raging inside her. She found herself thrashing against him, even as she simultaneously clutched him to her. She became almost ferocious in her struggle to achieve the satisfaction she sought.

“That’s it,” Bill encouraged her. “Get it all out here and now.” He spread kisses all along her lips and cheeks and neck as he lovingly consoled her. He easily controlled her unruly body as she fully succumbed to her passion, gently restraining her when she became too aggressive. All the while he moved in and out of her with long, even strokes, allowing her free rein to use his body as it pleased her best to do.

Marcie was feverish with thoughts of being dominated and all that that might entail, but thus far Bill had seen fit to be lenient, and frustration mingled and interacted with the other emotions that were scourging through her for an explosive effect. She imagined his strong hands, which up to this point had done little more than subdue her, actually turning against her to dominate and punish, and she screamed as her orgasm tore through her. Spurred on by her intense response, Bill climaxed right after her.

Afterward, Marcie felt as if she was immersed in a warm bath of tranquillity. She had never in her life felt so close to another person.

She thought about her earlier upset, and reflected that her anger was rather like a ravenous beast when it reared its ugly head. She had often allowed it to control her and those around her, never knowing how else to appease it. Certainly no man she had encountered before Bill had known how to manage it. For that matter, no man had ever even dared make the attempt. Bill had not only dared and succeeded, but he had actually
accepted
the beast within her. Still, Marcie was confused by her conflicting desires to both need and be self-sufficient.

But her thoughts were interrupted by Bill, who had not quite finished with the beast.

“Do you feel like talking about what upset you earlier?” he asked, still holding her tightly to him.

“Does it matter?” she asked.

“It matters to me if something is making you unhappy. If not, then, well, no, I suppose it doesn’t matter at all.”

Suddenly her earlier annoyance seemed ludicrous to her. Still under the spell of the intimacy they had just shared, she blurted out the cause of it.

When she finished, Bill leaned up over her so he could look down into her face. “You went through the boxes in my attic?” he asked in disbelief.

Her calm began giving way to dismay and she immediately regretted telling him. “Oh, God,” she said.

“It’s okay, Marcie,” he reassured her. “But, why?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I felt like I needed to.”

“Were you already upset when you went up there?”

“Well…yes.”

“So you were looking for something to fight about.”

“I…oh, can we just forget about it?”

He laughed at her in spite of himself. “That’s the kind of thing that would normally get you a good, hard spanking,” he told her with good humor. “But I’m feeling rather indulgent tonight.”

She balked at his words, but apprehension and new desire simmered beneath the hazy afterglow she was basking in.

After that night there was no denying that clear boundaries had been set, which Marcie loved and hated, both at the same time. She loved the sense of security she got from Bill’s gentle care and attentiveness, and deeply admired his strength and confidence. She was strongly attracted to his positive energy; there was no job too tough for him to tackle, and no problem he wouldn’t address head-on. She respected him immensely. She adored his power and melted in his tenderness. The only thorn in her side was the missing control that she had so readily handed over to him. Although it never really came up in the normal course of their lives she could not help thinking about it. There had not even been another incident where it had come into play since the night she relinquished it, but this did not stop her from thinking about the fact that it was no longer hers. There was something demeaning in it, as if she was not able to manage her own emotions and behavior.

In due time, for reasons she couldn’t even fully explain, Marcie felt herself longing to challenge the subtle authority that Bill had developed over her. She felt strangely shackled by her contentment. Too, on the back burner, there simmered the tantalizing memory of how he had responded to her defiance on that previous occasion, actually seeming to taking pleasure in it and the battle that followed. She could not forget the exquisite struggle and all that came afterward, even including his gentle but firm mastery of her. Nor could she forget his offhand remark that her behavior might get her “a good, hard spanking.” She wasn’t entirely certain that he had been fully serious about this, but it continued to wear at her consciousness.

The moment of truth came one day when Marcie woke up feeling particularly out of sorts. In her present state of mind, the more challenging tasks of the day seemed overly disastrous to her. She had the sense that everything was working against her and she became more and more exasperated. The frustrations of her day crept under her skin and seeped into every part of her consciousness. They settled over her like thick thunderclouds, further darkening her outlook. An overall resentment arose and joined her malaise. Such was her disposition when she encountered Bill at the end of that day.

Bill sensed Marcie’s mood immediately, and he became especially considerate. But she had passed the point where she could easily let go of the pain she was feeling. She was going to feel bad, and that was that. Furthermore, her mood had reached the stage where every action and occurrence could only further inflame her, especially Bill’s inexhaustible composure.

“You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves,” she snapped at him, painfully aware of his efforts on her behalf. He merely raised an eyebrow at this. His lips twitched in an effort not to smile. This irritated her even more. Was there nothing that could rile him?

She began slamming things around the kitchen in preparation for dinner.