Coda (Songs of Submission #9)(7)

I did, fighting the constraints of my knotted shirt, cursing the stinging skin on my ass as much as I blessed it.

“Now come down, all the way. All the way. That’s it. Bury me in you.” He reached around me and slipped his middle finger in my cunt, gathering wetness, and dragged it to my clit. “You’re not coming until I say. You’re going to hold back by concentrating on one thing and one thing only.”

“What, sir?” I groaned, the pleasure in my clit pushing against the pain behind it.

“Pleasing me. So f*ck. And f*ck hard. Go.”

I moved up his length and back down, his shaft sliding against my anus, friction hot against the dry muscle.

“Faster.”

His cock beat my insides, shredded me, while his fingers took my cunt three at a time. The heel of his hand kept a constant pressure on my clit.

“Come on, goddess. I’m not pleased.”

I pulled my cheeks wider and slammed down on him harder, my knees aching, my arms on fire, and my ass beyond pain. Yet the pleasure between my legs grew, pressing against the agony and winning.

“That’s good,” he growled. “Very good.”

“Thank you.” I gasped, relieved, relaxed now because he was content.

I heard his breaths getting shorter. I was close, but I didn’t care. I wanted him to have what he wanted. I wanted him to be satisfied. I beat down on his cock, mindless of what I was doing to myself.

“I’m going to come,” he said.

“Thank you,” I squeaked, more tears streaming.

“Come with me.”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

He grunted, but it was more than a grunt. In the second before I lost myself in pleasure, I noted how vocal he was. More than ever. He released, truly, fully, losing control, pulling my hair until I thought he’d tear it out. I was washed away in the pleasure of his hand on my clit, the torture in my ass as my orgasm clenched it around his cock in an undulating rhythm. I came forever, lost in it, in him, his satisfaction, in the pain. I was gone, my identity washed away in complete submission to his pleasure and his will; without ambition or desire of my own, I was simply enslaved, caged, collared. Nothing. No one. Not a feeling of dissatisfaction in my belly, only humility and a feeling of complete, overwhelming gratitude.

“Goddess?” he whispered when I stopped twitching.

I tried to answer, but I was blubbering. I took a few breaths to calm down. “Yes, sir?”

“Are you okay?”

“Thank you.”

He untied me. I put my aching arms on my knees, and he pushed me gently forward, his dick slipping out of my ass. I sucked in a breath.

He pulled me into his lap and kissed the tears running down my cheeks. I held him and wept fully. The emotional release poured out of me as he rubbed my back and kissed my face and neck. My awareness of the world around me—my body, the chair, the room, the building, the time of day—was brought about by the softness of his lips and the way he whispered, “Goddess, goddess, goddess.”

“I haven’t been what you need,” he said softly.

“You couldn’t be. I understand.”

“That’s over now.”

“Thank you.”

He put his hands on my cheeks and brushed my lashes with his thumbs. I let my eyes flutter closed.

“You can’t leave me until I destroy you,” he said.

“If you destroy me, I’ll never leave.”

“Regularly.” He took out a monogrammed hankie and held it up. “Blow.”

I blew my nose. He pinched and wiped for me, as if I were a child. He kissed my lips, owning them with tenderness and confidence. I let his tongue into my mouth, its soothing warmth exploring me as if for the first time. The tenderness with which he kissed me was in such contrast to the beating I’d just received that I broke down in tears again. He held me and rocked me in the soundproof studio for what seemed like hours, saying sweet things in my ear. I felt so good, so calm, so loved.

“You’d better cancel dinner,” he said. “You’re going to need some serious aftercare.”

“You think the guys would notice if I ate standing up?”

“Come home, and I’ll feed you in bed.”

“Yes, Jonathan. Yes to everything.”

“And you shall have everything.”

chapter 6.

MONICA

Sometimes, I felt as though I wasn’t in love with a man. Sometimes when things were tense, or we fought, or we made love, or I was away for too long or in the house for too many weeks, or even when he kissed me on the back patio, I stopped seeing him as a man. I stopped seeing him as even human. I felt as though I’d married a time bomb.

I thought once, as my plane crept down a runway away from some dipshit town, that he was more human in that ticking time bombness than he’d been as a normal man with a normal heart. More human in his mortality, his vulnerability, his lack of control.

Wives care for sick husbands who come back from war. Husbands stand beside wives with illnesses that deteriorate their bodies and minds. We read about their strength and dedication, their stand-by-your-manness. But no one talks about the adjustments and the sacrifices. Grieving for the husband who doesn’t exist anymore isn’t feel-good news. We’re supposed to be chipper and upbeat and never admit to a single soul that we miss the men we thought we’d married.