She looked up and he had his hands on his chest. So well-mannered. So refined. So civilized. The very portrait of a gentleman indeed.
He took the crop in hand and struck her under her ribcage so hard she went momentarily blind.
He was an angel of beauty and pain.
"Count, darling,” he said. "Otherwise I’ll forget my place and we’ll have to start all over. I hate losing my place, don’t you?”
He was the devil incarnate.
"Forty-eight,” she said through gritted teeth.
"That’s right. Almost there. Carry on. That’s my girl.”
Angel.
"Oh, that hurt my hand so I know it must have hurt you. I’m so sorry, my darling.”
Demon.
On and on it went. The hits followed by words of encouragement and affection followed by more hits. Mona grew dizzy. It was hard to keep count but unthinkable to lose count. What if he started over? What if he didn’t? Even as she counted, it seemed time had stopped. The clock stopped. The world stopped. They had always played this game and they always would. That was how it should be. Heaven and hell were in this room and they had one foot in each.
"Only ten left, sweetheart. You’re amazing, you know. Simply amazing at this.”
She counted the last few strikes and by the final five she’d curled into the fetal position on the hardwood floor. Two left. Just two.
"Darling?” Malcolm’s voice penetrated the fog of her suffering. "My angel girl?”
"Yes, sir?”
"You need to lie on your back for me. All right?”
She whimpered in pain as she unfurled herself from the self-protective cocoon she’d rolled herself into. Every movement left her body in misery. She felt like an old book that hadn’t been opened in centuries and now someone had come at last, taken the book from the shelf, broken the spine and riffled through pages that had been pressed together so long their ink had turned to glue. Sinews screamed. Muscles moaned. Simply lying on her back had made her weep again. Hot tears poured from her eyes, stealing her peripheral vision, though Malcolm remained in perfect focus. He straddled her at her hips with those boots of his she worshiped, one leather ankle pressed against each side of her body.
"Perfect,” he said. He looked her up and down, one hand on his chin and the other on his hip the way he had been the first night she’d seen him. He perused her like the work of an old master. "Wait, not quite. Put your hands behind your head again. I want you to cradle your head. The floor’s so hard, I would never want you to hurt yourself.”
She loved him for his concern. Had she ever met a man more thoughtful? She placed her hands behind her head and cradled her head in her palms.
"Marvelous.” He smiled down at her. "Now two more to go. We can do this together. Ready, my sweet?”
"Ready, sir.”
"I haven’t the words to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this,” he said. "I simply don’t have the words.”
He raised the crop and lashed it down, striking her right breast so hard she screamed, so hard she heard the swish of it in the wind like the sound of a whip.
She coughed from the pain and it was the greatest test of her willpower to choke out the number.
"Two,” she said, more tears burning her cheeks.
"Last one, darling. Then we’re all done. And won’t that be lovely?”
He lashed her again, one final time, striking the side of her left breast. She cried out the last number of her torment and rolled again onto her side, burying her face in her hands to weep.
Far away she heard movement—the rustle of fabric, boot heels on the hardwood. When she’d worn herself out with weeping, she continued to lay there, spent from her suffering and yet strangely peaceful. Though it was all over, the memory of the words Malcolm had said to her during her beating rang in her ears like the chiming of a golden bell.
You’re the bravest girl in the world.
My princess, my angel, my darling, my dear.
You’re lovelier like this than I’ve ever seen you.
You can’t know what this means to me, what a gift you’ve given me tonight.
You please me beyond words, Mona.
She heard those words in her ear again, because Malcolm spoke them again. He had come to the floor and taken her in his arms. He lifted her up, holding her like a babe in arms, all the while whispering his admiration of her, his adoration. She put her arms around his strong shoulders and held him as he carried her to the bed. The velvet of his coat prickled against her savaged skin, yet she relished the sensation since it meant he was holding her.
"Here we go,” he said, laying her on the bed. He’d pulled the covers back so she lay on the soft white sheet. For all its softness, she still winced as her sore body met the mattress.
"I know it hurts.” Malcolm sat on the bed by her side and took her hand in his. He kissed her wrist, kissed her palm, and all five fingers received their own kisses. Her knuckles too. "I’m so proud of you, dearest.”
"Did I please you?”
"More than I can ever say.”
He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyelids, kissed her lips.
"Stay there,” he said. "I’ll tend to your wounds.”
"Will you make love to me?”
He smiled, laughed softly. "All night long,” he said. "But first I must take care of you. Your well-being is more important than anything else. You know that, don’t you?”
These didn’t sound like lines from the play they were acting out. Important to him? How? Why? She was his whore. That was all, wasn’t it?
"Am I important to you?” she asked.
He brought her hand to his lips again, pressed it to his mouth, and closed his eyes.
"I have waited a very long time for you,” he said. "And tonight you’ve proven to me just how very special you are.” He put her hand onto her chest and kissed the back of it. "Rest here. You’ve earned it.”
Mona feared to look at her own body, but she did so anyway. She wanted to see what Malcolm saw. Upon lifting her head, she winced. In stripes along her thighs, and in patches on her stomach, and in whorls on her arms and breasts, she saw deep red welts. Some were pure scarlet red. Others a rusty red with black or blue cores. She imagined her entire backside from her neck to her knees looked about the same.
She wasn’t horrified by what she saw. In truth, she found the welts erotic, because Malcolm had trained her eyes to see kisses where others would see wounds.
Malcolm set the wooden chair next to the bed and on the seat of the chair he placed a bowl of water.
"Only water,” he said. "Warm water, not hot. Lie still for me.”
She nodded and laid her head back on the pillow. For him. He’d said to lie still for him and for him she would lie still. For him she would move. For him she would live and breathe. For him.
He brought his hands to his throat and unfastened the white linen cravat. He unwound it from his neck and at last there it was, the hollow of his throat, the hollow she’d craved to kiss and lick and worship. She smiled, happier than she’d been in years. He folded the linen into a thick square and dipped it into the bowl of water. Then he wrung it out, flattened it out, and pressed it against one of the screaming red and black welts on her hips. She hissed through her teeth. But soon the pain dissipated and the warmth permeated her skin and sunk into the deep layers of tissue, soothing her down to the bone.
"Better?” Malcolm asked. She gave him a tired smile. He dipped the linen into the water again, pressed it to another welt where it quieted the screaming of her skin. For a long time, he ministered to her wounds. Not a single one was missed. When he finished with the front of her body, she rolled onto her stomach and rested her cheek against the pillow. He’d asked her if she knew how important she was to him. No, she didn’t know. But she felt it. The way he tended to her welts, to her needs, with such solicitude was beyond anything she’d experienced from a lover before. She felt spoiled as an only child, treasured as a prized possession, doted on like a king’s most favored concubine. What magic was it, what sorcery that could turn an act of violence and pain into an act of adoration and affection? It was alchemy, the art of turning base things into gold.