Safe Word: An Erotic S/M Novel (2 page)

"Pretty close," she nodded, "Montpellier. The year I was
twelve. My whole family. I didn't want to go home at the end of
the year. I cried for a week and I moped for like a year afterward.
And I was determined not to forget a word of French. Funny thing
is that I didn't."

"Well, it's a very strong kind of energy, adolescence, " he said.
"When I was in my teens, Kate's family went to Venezuela for a
year. Talk about energetic-I got straight As, was president of
my class, captain of the soccer team. My parents were ecstatic. I
built seventy-six balsa wood model airplanes. And the day before
Kate came back, I burned them all. It was an impressive fire. And
two days after that, I-we-well, it was our first time."

Her eyes clouded over. Storm warnings. He watched her
closely. She needs to get used to hearing that sort of thing, he
thought, the pleasure of ritual sternness flooding his body like
very strong coffee. She recoiled slightly, but surprised him by
steadying herself a few ragged beats later, shrugging, exhaling
sharply, a rueful smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, fumbling
with the plastic lighter.

"Here, " he said, doing something mysterious to the side of the
lighter, "they've got those child-proofing switches on them now."

"But you don't smoke," he added, a bit reproachfully, as she
took a timid drag.

She stubbed it out, scattering ashes on the table.

"Sorry." She managed a wobbly smile through weakly
exhaled smoke. "I'm nervous."

He was patient, affectionate. "We're both nervous." He
smiled, nodding at the overflowing ashtray, while he scanned
her expression carefully. Actually, she's a lot more self-possessed
than I imagined she'd be. Less readable, too. Less of a kid. And
she's taking my measure as carefully as I've been taking hers.
Slow down, he told himself.

And to her, "Look, I've got lunch reservations. A nice place,
we can just make it if we hurry." He'd chosen a dim, comfortable setting for telling her what he wanted from her-she has to
want to do this. To understand. Fully. What she can expect.
He'd imagined her, sitting very straight against an upholstered
banquette, listening carefully to him as haughty waiters came
and went with plates of legendary food. A formal venue for pulling off the big deal, the intricately leveraged buyout, at once
hostile takeover and entente cordiale. He liked formality; he'd
have hired the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles if it had been available.

But you need a certain timbre of concentration for dealmaking, and the truth was, he wasn't in the mood. He was-it
took him a moment to frame it-curious about her. About certain specifics (though he knew he could demand that she answer
those questions), but also about, well, he wasn't sure what. But she had spent a year away, in demanding circumstances, and, at
her age, people change....

Cool it, he told himself, willing himself to detachment, a
flaneur's aestheticized attentiveness. He watched the shifting
points of leafshadow on her pale cheek, almost the color of (but
greener than) the dark, delicate, skin below her eyes. He made
no move to get up, lazily aware that they probably couldn't get
there on time now, even if they did hurry.

She shrugged again, warier now. "I'm not very hungry. "

"A walk, then," he said. "Okay? And then maybe a picnic
in that park up on the hill-the Rochers des Doms. Next to
the Popes' Palace. So I can keep looking at you in the sunlight,
Carrie. " And scope you out a little.

He'd regained the advantage. Relax, Jonathan, he thought
contentedly. There's plenty of time for everything.

It could be a photo spread, "Win a Dream Date in Provence,"
with shots of him smiling as he leads me up the wide stone steps
to this park, or frowning comically at the whimsical sculptures
set among early roses. The packages-food, baguette, and wine
bottle-tucked just so under his arm, for our pique-nique, as
he'd confided to the lady back there in the charcuterie. Oh, and
be sure to include a shot of her as well, beaming at him as she
wipes her hands on her apron, insisting that he taste all the
specialites de la region before he chooses. As though pate were
really what she wanted to give him a taste of.

People try to please him, everybody becoming a merchant or purveyor, obsequious, deferential. He hardly notices, smiling absentmindedly, choosing the best, drifting on. And
I've only got myself to offer-sounding quite ridiculous, too,
babbling idiotically about the view of the Rhone, the bridge,
the neighboring walled city across the river. The grass always
greener in the other medieval walled city.

Petrarch first saw Laura here in Avignon, at mass in the
Church of St. Claire. The Sade family claimed that the girl
who inspired the poet was Laure de Noves, wife of Hugues
de Sade, who bequeathed two thousand gold florins for the
bridge's repair, in 1355.

That's when the family coat of arms was added to the
bridge, seven years after Laure had died of the plague. She'd
had eleven children, and belonged to a court of learned ladies
who wrote Provencal verse; both of these facts are more interesting to me than whether or not she truly was Petrarch's
blond, bloodless Laura. Of course the Sade family insisted
passionately on the connection, but it's never conclusively
been proven.

You can't see the coat of arms from here, though, and
you can't walk down any closer-there's a locked gate
blocking the path during off season. Pretty name, Laure.
I read about her the morning before I first went to Jonathan's
house. Which is probably why I memorized all those dates
and details of her life so obsessively-to distract me from what
I knew he and I would be talking about that afternoon. The
arrangements and negotiations. Ground rules, bylaws, and
administrative details, simplified for the novice I was then.
Three afternoons a week. Come to the side door, undress,
kneel in an assigned spot, tethered and waiting. Ready-that's
the easy part, he'd joked-to do absolutely everything he
commanded.

He told me to ask him whatever I thought I needed to
know. And after that (except for the occasional time-out
period, when he'd explain how he was making the rules
tougher and more challenging, and did I have any questions?) I spoke only when spoken to. Yes, Jonathan, mostly.
Or, through tears, I'm sorry, Jonathan, promising to do better
next time, to respond more quickly, anticipate his desires.
Sometimes there would be interrogations-I'd blush, stammer, distort my mouth to voice unspeakable responses to his
impossible questions: How does that make you feel? Describe
it for me. And later, when he'd taken to sharing me, packing
me off to a friend or associate for an afternoon or a weekend,
he'd demand that I render full, and entertaining, account of
the interludes. Tell me a story, he'd say. Tell me everything.

I wonder if he'll want to know about this last year away
from him-the patient, painful succession of days under the
hands, the whip, of a professional trainer. Although perhaps
there's more to show than to tell: I feel myself performing for
him already, in little ways, just to give him a glimpse of what
I've learned on my junior year abroad. Body language. New
fluency, inflection of bone, and muscle. Nuanced-remarkable, given the decidedly non-nuanced manner in which it
was drilled into me-controlled, even contrapuntal. I can
hear my treble voice chattering about a learned lady of the
fourteenth century, but it's really the bass voice that's pulling out all the stops: melodic line from hip to neck, play of
unvoiced signifiers as perfect as my French R, but subtler,
more elusive, like the way the tongue hits the teeth, the top
of the mouth.

Oh, yes, this is nice. Just watching her, that new quality she's
got-experience, I guess you'd have to say. I wasn't sure I
liked it at first, but it's growing on me, confusing me a little
maybe, but hey. We should open the bottle of wine, I suppose,
get a little more confused. Soon, soon.

It's corny, coming up to this park, but it's what I imagined when I wrote the note, remembering the night we met.
We'd talked about the south of France-she was studying the
poetry; I told her a little about the buildings and bridges.

It hadn't been easy putting her at ease. Or listening to
everything she had to say, once I did. I suppose it's how smart
college students talk nowadays-a few solid insights floating
in a sea of deconstructionist jargon. Except that she had lots
of those insights-fleets, flotillas of them, whole armadas of
ideas steaming into port. Oh well, I thought, I can always gag
her. Or-even better-forbid her to speak. Because, of course,
I'd have better uses for that mouth.

I liked watching her, though-all the neurons firing, a
jittery lightshow pinball machine behind her big, scared eyes.
It would be fun to have all that intensity beamed onto me.
Talk? Only when I permit you to. Think? Try thinking about
how to please me. To entertain me, anticipate what I'll want
next. What I'll want you to be. Object, servant, victim, toy?
Footstool, coffee table, ashtray? What about performer? Or
private dancer, perhaps? Housepet. Pissoir. Slave.

It had been a boring party, before I noticed her. Great
ass, I'd thought absentmindedly. Pretty girl, I'd supposed too,
but not as interesting from the front. Still, I found myself
keeping tabs on her, following her around from a distance. I'd chat with friends, while some third eye kept track of her
whereabouts. She didn't know anybody except a friend who
didn't want to be bothered with her. She was doing shy,
bored things, fiddling with her beer, trying to keep out of
her friend's way. She was sweet and shaggy-looking, graceful
and a little lost and dreamy, I think I remember thinking-to
the extent I was thinking of anything at all, besides keeping
her little black jeans within my line of sight.

I followed them into the library, where people were watching videos. Fuck-she sat down on the floor, hugging her
knees. So much for that, I thought, this is stupid anyway, I'd be
better off at home with a book. But the room had crowded up,
and I would have had to trip over people to get out. And then
they started the bondage video. It was messy and amateurish,
and people hooted, which bothered me a little. Because there
was also passion on the screen-clumsy and graceless, to be
sure, but authentic and obsessive too. Which was probably
why everybody in the room was so noisy and giddy, to avoid
facing up to that. I cast my eyes idly over the laughing crowd,
trying to imagine what they were thinking.

Well, I'll be damned. The girl with the ass was gazing up
at the screen as though it were telling her the meaning of life.
Flushed face, parted mouth-quivering, guilty, enthralled,
spectacular. Her face was the real porn show, and I could
gladly have watched it all evening. I'd hear sounds from the
TV speakers, a whip's crack, a groan of pain, and I'd watch the
show she was putting on, her troubled, clouded, smudgy eyes
reflecting the flickering light of the screen. It was a voyeur's
dream. In the midst of a noisy, unconscious crowd, too-she
was the only one in the room really seeing the movie, and I was the only one really seeing her. She'll look like that for me,
I thought. She'll do anything and everything I want.

She did, too. For a year and a half. She took everything
I dished out, meekly and silently challenging me to raise the
ante. And never letting me forget the critical consciousness
beneath her compliance. I wondered about that consciousness.
I found myself thinking about her, at times when I would
rather not have.

I needed a break. She was more than I'd bargained
for, more than my life, which has its own complexities and
eccentricities-not to speak of affinities and obligationscould readily absorb.

The auction was a good solution to the problem. It
would be a challenge for her, and for me, too. They don't
take just anybody; I'd have to work her hard to train her for
the entrance trials. It would be an excuse to keep dreaming
up new stuff-full-time, too. She'd move into my house for
a few very intense months, and then she'd be gone, giving
me a year to decide what I really wanted. Fine. And then at
the last minute-after she'd been auctioned off but before
they signed the final papers-I lost my nerve. Suppose she
didn't want to come back after a year (absurdly, I'd never
even considered the possibility). So I wrote a ridiculous
little letter-which didn't feel so ridiculous when I was
writing it.

Embarrassing to think about. Well, don't think, then.
Look at her instead, her neck in the golden afternoon lightthe year's discipline outlining her gestures, like a narrow
stroke of cobalt pigment. The skin over her spine's top bump
is paler than her cheek. She must have worn a collar all year,
her neck looks startled by its freedom.

They'd drifted into silence, leaning against a stone railing overlooking the bridge. He opened his mouth to speak, at the same time
as she began to say something. They both laughed nervously.

"You go ahead," he said.

"You know," she began, "when I got here this morning,
I really had no idea what to expect from you. Well, I mean there
was that letter you wrote, in `Passionate Shepherd' mode.... "

He raised his eyebrows, searching for the reference.
Passionate who? Oh, right, as in "Come live with me and be
my.... " Terrific road map, poetry, for steering around the unsayable patches in a conversation.

"Yeah, " she nodded. "But, of course I could see right off that
that wasn't really what you wanted, so then I thought you'd go
straight for the hard core. Read me my rights, you know. Oh,
that was sort of a joke they had in the place where they prepared
me for the auction you know, if you think you have any rights,
you're in the wrong place.... ..