Tabula Rasa(34)

I raised a brow. He f*cked with his clothes on?

“I like the power imbalance: you nude and helpless, me at least partly dressed. I could go outside right now without calling any odd attention and without putting another stitch of clothing on.” His gaze moved over me again. “You, not so much.”

He sat at the foot of the bed and dragged the paddle up next to his thigh. “Elodie?”

I still didn’t know how we’d gotten here, from basic safety and food and shelter and polite indifference to... this.

“Shannon?”

“Yeah?”

“What if I hadn’t come down to the party? Would this still be happening?”

“Probably not.”

“So then, aren’t you glad I interrupted your party?” I asked hopefully, thinking it might buy me some... something.

He smiled, a real smile that made me forget everything he was and everything he wasn’t. “Yes, I’m glad you interrupted.”

“So why punish me?”

The smile remained on his face, but it twisted somehow as the rest of his face seemed to fall into shadow. “Try negotiating with me again, and you’ll get more. Do you want more?”

I shook my head quickly, already certain that I didn’t, even without any experience to base that feeling upon.

So this was how it was going to be? I’d fantasized about Shannon, but my fantasies had never been like this. Though realistically, I didn’t know what kind of sex I expected Shannon to be into. Once I’d decided he wasn’t into it at all, I could think about any silly romantic thing I wanted. If it wasn’t happening ever at all anyway, why worry about what he’d realistically do? Who cared? Realism wasn’t required to come.

I’d been using him to erase Trevor from the first night inside Shannon’s minimalist sanctuary. Each orgasm brought on by vague sexual thoughts of him made Trevor fade a little more into the background, first into a nameless face in a crowd, then into a shadow, then into a ghost. Until he was mostly gone except for when I had a bad dream about the park. I didn’t bother Shannon with those. I was sure he didn’t care about any post traumatic whatever I had going on.

“Elodie. Now.”

I glanced back at the balcony door, trying to decide if I should run out there and scream my head off. But I didn’t want to.

“What if you lose control and kill me?”

“I’m not a Halloween monster. I don’t get red tunnel vision and think kill kill kill. I’m always in control of myself. But this continued discussion is adding to your punishment.”

When it became clear that I couldn’t bring myself to go to him, he stood, and brought the paddle with him.

“Okay, then.”

With every step forward he took, I took a mirroring step back. Like some dark tango. When we got close enough to the wall, he grabbed my wrist and twisted my body to face it.

“Ow, ow, ow.”

“Relax,” he said, as if it were possible with the way he’d wrenched my arm behind me. Maybe he’d once been a cop. Or military and cop. Or military police. I could imagine Shannon cuffing a criminal. Easily.

When I stopped struggling, he released his grip on my wrist. He kept one hand on the back of my neck, holding me in place against the wall while the other brought the paddle down across my ass and thighs several times in quick, hard succession. The sound rang out like a hollow gong in the echoing empty minimalism of the room.

Tears streamed down my face at the intense burning sting. “Shannon, please. Please, stop.” It hurt. It really hurt. But I think my fear was that, despite everything he assured me, he would lose control. I was afraid he’d just beat me to death. I was afraid he liked this too much.

The paddle came down against my skin once more, even harder, so hard it briefly knocked the wind out of me. He kept his grip on the back of my neck.

I pressed my hands flat against the wall on either side of me, bracing myself, seeking anything to hold onto. I tried to focus on the texture of the light gray wallpaper rippling beneath my fingertips in elegant, sophisticated patterns. I took slow, measured breaths. I did everything I could to live inside those breaths and nowhere else.

“Beg me again. Beg me not to hurt you.” His voice was low and guttural, not even human.

“Please, you’re scaring me. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Apologize for your behavior. And be specific.”

“I’m sorry I disobeyed you and went downstairs. I’m sorry I left my room. Please,” I sobbed.

“If I tell you not to do something again, are you going to go ahead and do it anyway?” he asked.

“No.”

“No, Sir,” he said.

“N-no, Sir.”

When he flung the paddle away, it made a soft thud against the carpet, such a seemingly harmless sound. Heat rose off my flesh as if I were burning up from the inside. But despite this fact, and despite my terror, I felt a hard, steady pulsing throb between my legs, and I was sure if my hand were to stray to the apex between my thighs, that I would be very wet. Embarrassingly so.

Shannon pressed himself to my back and cradled me against the wall for several minutes, his breath and heartbeat keeping time with my own. I didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t say no man had ever done this to me before. Perhaps they had. How could I know? Trevor hadn’t. Trevor’s tastes had always run strictly vanilla, without so much as a stray rainbow sprinkle to be found. It was all lights out and missionary with Trevor—nothing too threatening.