Topping From Below (24 page)

Not quite ready. Franny was never ready. He cut her, then killed her.

“But soon,” he added, “you’ll be ready. Then you can experience the cane, my pet.”

He makes me feel as though I’m being trained, like an animal, and his frequently used sobriquet for me—
pet
—only reinforces that belief. When he first began calling me his pet, I thought it was an endearment, like
honey
or
sweetie
. But, for him, it’s a term of possession. You train a pet, you discipline a pet, you own a pet. I am, in his eyes, equivalent to the family dog, his possession to be trained and owned. His possession to discipline at his discretion. As to why I keep returning, I’m not entirely clear. I feel compelled to know what he did to Franny, to be sure; I have a need to know that goes beyond mere curiosity, but I return for reasons more complicated than that. For reasons I am unable to articulate precisely.

I acknowledge my complicity in my slow slide into M.’s darker world. I am not blameless, I know. But his influence is pernicious. He finds people’s weaknesses and exploits them. Franny’s weakness was that she would do anything for the love of this man. Unlike me, she did not enjoy his tortured brand of sexuality, yet she submitted to it. And I, why do I submit? For the ultimate pleasure that follows the pain? To gain knowledge of Franny? Because, on some level, I feel I deserve to be punished? M., from the beginning, knew me better than I realized. He knew, before I was aware of it myself, that I would submit as Franny had, although for different reasons. He saw my weakness and exploited it for his personal pleasure. It’s true that I feel drawn to him and his sexuality, but it’s also clear to me that if I felt I had a choice, I would not be with him. He’s exposing a part of my soul that I would prefer to keep hidden. I don’t want to be in his world, but I don’t know how to get out.

It’s Saturday, and he’s invited me over for the afternoon. I shower and dress, putting on old faded jeans and a dingy gray T-shirt. He prefers to see me in short skirts and tight dresses, lace underwear, garter belts, and black bras. But lately, in protest, I’ve begun to dress down—torn blue jeans, overalls, baggy dresses that go down to my calves, old-lady underwear. This, my shabby apparel, is a futile attempt at disobedience. Although I succumb to his domination, I don’t make it easy for him. I have difficulty surrendering without a fight.

Parked at the curb near M.’s house is a white Goodwill truck, sitting unattended, its rear doors open, a loading ramp extended and slanting down to the asphalt road. The front door of M.’s house is wide open, and as soon as I enter he takes one look at me and smiles knowingly. “Have your fun while you can,” he says, looking askance at my faded blue jeans and sloppy oversized T-shirt. He, in contrast, looks natty, sensual even, wearing light linen slacks and a soft maroon shirt, open at the collar. “Soon you’ll learn to be more accommodating.”

I start to reply, but then hear voices in the back of the house. Two men appear, one probably in his fifties, the other two decades younger, each carrying one end of the walnut bureau that used to belong in the back guest bedroom.

“Watch that corner,” the older man says gruffly. He looks like an aging longshoreman—not particularly large, and there are a few extraneous layers of flesh around his middle, but he appears solid, firm, as if every pound under his chest-clinging white T-shirt has been packed on tightly. His black hair is rapidly surrendering to gray, and he has that lined, tanned look of a man accustomed to spending his life outdoors.

The other man, curly-haired and chunky, wearing a gray jumpsuit, scrapes his fingers on the corner and curses. They carry the bureau out the front door.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

M. puts his hand on my shoulder, leans down and kisses me lightly on the neck.

“Something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while,” he says softly. I feel his breath against my skin, the bare touch of his lips. “I’ve decided I don’t need two guest bedrooms. One is sufficient.”

The men from Goodwill come back in the house and disappear down the hallway. When they return, they’re carrying the bed frame and a nightstand and lamp. The older man gives M. a curt nod, not saying a word, and walks out the door. The chunky man pauses, resting the nightstand on his right leg, and says, “We’ve got it all out now. Thanks again for the donation. This is real nice stuff.” He hefts the nightstand up and walks out the door, M. shutting it behind him. M. takes my hand and leads me down the hallway to the back bedroom. It is completely bare, stripped of all furniture, knickknacks, rug, draperies, the paintings on the walls. The room, with its high wood-beamed ceiling, seems hollow.

“What are you planning to do?” I ask him.

He looks at me, not answering immediately. Without furniture and with bare white walls, the room appears stark and much larger than it did before. On the west wall, there’s a deep bay window. Sunlight shines on the hardwood floor.

“I thought I’d convert it into a playroom,” he says finally, then looks down at my clothes and adds, “but in view of your obstinacy, perhaps I’ll have to call it a training room.”

There it is again: obstinacy.
Curiosity didn’t kill the cat—obstinacy did. Something Franny never learned. Something you’d better learn before it’s too late.
I laugh nervously, but M. isn’t smiling. His eyes, glistening from the refracted light, quiet me. “What’s a training room?” I ask him.

Again, he is silent. I feel danger in the air, as if it were a tangible commodity, sharp and prickly as barbed wire. A training room. Just the sound of it makes me shudder.

M. takes my hand. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he says, and then leads me into his bedroom and orders me to undress. He sits on a straight-backed chair and watches. I go over to the bed and take off my tennis shoes and socks, peel off my jeans, lift the gray T-shirt over my head. The drapes are pulled back and sunlight brightens the room. My clothes are in a pile at my feet.

“The rest,” he says when I hesitate, and I take off my plain white panties and bra, then wait for the next set of instructions, standing nude in the soft, lambent light of the afternoon sun. He reaches over to his bureau drawer and takes out some black silken cord.

“No,” I say. I am not so far gone in his world that I would give in to him on this matter. Regardless of his claims that he won’t harm me, I will not allow him to tie me up; I will not surrender completely. “No,” I repeat. “I’ll never let you bind me in any way.”

He comes over and places the cord on the nightstand, then sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me down on his lap. He is fully clothed, and I am naked. The contrast arouses me.

“You’re not afraid of me still, are you?” he asks. He fondles my body as he speaks softly in my ear. “Just let go, Nora. You can trust me. I know how far to go with you. You like the pain, but you’re afraid of it. You don’t have to be afraid with me. I know how much you can take. Trust me, my pet. I can take care of you.” He kisses me gently on my neck and shoulder, touches me lightly, and I feel the excitement in me grow while, simultaneously, my body tingles with apprehension at every word he says. “I know you, Nora—inside and out. I’ll give you what you want. You need someone to dominate you, to control you, to punish you when you’ve been bad. You need me.”

He opens my legs and strokes the insides of my thighs. “It won’t always be painful,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll just want you tied up because it pleases me to see you bound. I’ll want to see my beautiful pet spread-eagled on the bed, in total submission, black straps tied securely around your wrists and ankles, a silk gag over your mouth. I’ll want to fuck you while you’re bound, while you’re helplessly at my mercy. You’re going to enjoy this, Nora. Immensely. Once your freedom of choice is removed, once you give yourself over to me, you’ll experience a new kind of liberation: complete abandon, no responsibility, no choice but to accept the pleasure—and the pain—I give you. And I promise I won’t give you more than you can handle. I know your boundaries, Nora. Better than you do.”

I’m breathing heavily, and, somewhere inside me, against my will and sensibility, I hear the truth of his words. “You didn’t know Franny’s boundaries,” I say in a whisper. “You exceeded hers.”

M. wraps one hand around my wrist, gripping it tightly, the other hand loose around my neck. I resist the urge to pull away. I stare at him, waiting for his reply, a sense of fear creeping up through my veins.

“Intentionally,” he says, holding on to me, watching my reaction.

I breathe heavily, feeling his hand on my throat. My body is tense. I want to jump up, but know M. would tighten his grip. A minute goes by, maybe more. Hoarsely, the words barely coming out, I whisper, “You killed her.”

M.’s fingers play lightly on my throat. I know the strength in his arms, in his hands. I know he could crush me if that was his desire.

“No,” he says finally. “I was speaking of sexual boundaries. Not murder. One day, you’ll believe me; you’ll know I didn’t kill her—and then perhaps you’ll figure out who did.” He removes his hand from my neck, lets it slide down my chest to my thigh. He continues.

“I did exceed her sexual boundaries. But you’re not Franny, and your boundaries aren’t hers. She wasn’t aware of it, and most likely she wouldn’t agree, but I was careful not to overwhelm her. I knew her threshold of acceptability, and I pushed her a little further each time. Her discomfort was, for me, thrilling. I hold back with you for another reason. I want you to enjoy everything I give you, and you will if I introduce it properly. I won’t go too far with you—not before you’re ready. You can trust me on that. It’s important to me that you derive pleasure in all I give you. We’re two of a kind, Nora. We’re meant to be together. You just don’t know it yet.”

He caresses my thighs and stomach while I sit, nude and mute, on his lap, going over his words in my mind, frightened by what he said. I lean against him for comfort, but I know that isn’t what he has to offer. I wonder how far, eventually, he’ll go. He’s careful with me now when he inflicts his punishment, but how long will that last? “Have you ever made a woman bleed?” I ask him, knowing the answer.

He pauses, his hand hesitating on my stomach, then he says, “Yes.” He adds, “But I only made them bleed when they wanted it.”

I remember a conversation we had several weeks ago. “You said before that sometimes you gave women more than they asked for.”

“Only because they wanted—and could take—more than they realized. I wasn’t forcing them to do something they didn’t choose to do, Nora. They always came back for more.”

“Did you enjoy it? Making them bleed?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make Franny bleed?”

“No.”

I weigh his answer, certain he is lying. “What about me? Are you going to make me bleed?”

He pushes my hair behind my ear and kisses the lobe. “We’ll see,” he says. Then adds, “Perhaps.”

I am quiet for a while, and so is he, letting me think this over. I need to get away from him, now, before he harms me, before it’s too late, but I cannot. Until I discover what he did to Franny—how he killed her—I can’t break away. My mind is racing, overcome with a sense of a dread destiny looming beyond my control. M. intuits my anxiety.

Gently he says, “I don’t want you to worry. I’m not a violent man, and I’ll never hit you in anger. Sexually, I want to dominate my women. I was thirty-two the first time a woman asked me to tie her up. The feeling of being in complete control was exhilarating. She was mine to do with as I chose.” He laughs softly, then continues, “She was my boss at the time, the chairperson of the music department, an older woman, forty-seven, and tough as nails. But in bed, she wanted to let all that go—she wanted someone else to be in charge. And I discovered that evening, the first time I tied her up and spanked her lightly with my hand, that it felt incredibly good to be in control, to have so much power. It was a role reversal we both enjoyed; it’s one I continued long after we stopped seeing each other. I like my women to obey.”

I start to speak, but he silences me before I utter a word. “Don’t ask me why,” he says, guessing my question. “Possibly there is no psychology to it. I like to dominate—period. It’s part of me, part of my psyche, just as being submissive was part of hers—and yours. I like to put women in bonds and restraints, and I love to paddle a bare buttocks. I go to different lengths with different women. I like to give you a good spanking with my belt. It’s arousing; it gives me an instant hard-on. I’ll use my paddle on you, and the cat-o’-nine-tails, and the riding crop, and anything else I choose. I’ll whip your ass, your thighs, your back, your breasts, even your cunt. What I won’t do, unless you ask for it, of course, is break your skin or draw blood. The discipline I enforce has nothing to do with violence, but control and domination. You really can trust me, Nora.”

He sounds convincing, but I wonder if he gave this speech to Franny shortly before she died. I still don’t trust him. I refuse to let him bind me with the cords, and M. allows this. He has me sit on the bed, then he removes his shoes and socks and unbuckles his belt. He pulls the belt out of the loops of his pants, and I hold my breath, waiting to see if he’ll use it on me. When I refused to allow the cords, I realized I was giving him an opportunity to punish me. But he stands up and crosses the room, lays the belt on his bureau. I can tell he enjoyed keeping me in suspense.

“I have something for you to watch,” he says, and he takes me by the hand and we go into the den. He tells me to sit on the sofa in front of the television, and he puts a video in his VCR. He has an extensive pornography collection, and we’ve viewed his tapes before. Pornography excites me if it’s well made. Usually, however, after about fifteen or twenty minutes, I get bored with the film and want more direct stimulation from M.

The title rolls on the screen,
Fatherly Love
, and I know immediately it’s a video with an incest theme. I lie down and make myself comfortable. M., still clothed, sits in the armchair off to my left. This is his usual position when we look at his films; he likes to watch me watching the videos, to see my reaction, to see which ones arouse me. Sometimes, he makes me masturbate as I look at a film, while he’s off to the side, coolly observing.