The Agreement (42 page)

"I'm so tired…" I said, my eyes
closing. "I have to get home. I'll call a taxi…"

  "Shh," he said, cradling me in
his embrace. "You'll stay here tonight. You need to recover. Just lie with
me."

"If I'm not at home and," I said,
almost using Dawn's name before catching myself. "And that person comes
by, they may become suspicious."

"
Katherine
," he said, his voice
firm. "When you’re with me, I make the decisions. You're with me. I've
decided you're staying the night."

I exhaled and just relaxed into his arms.
"It's your neck, not mine…"

"It is." Then he laid me down on the
bed and went to the bathroom, bringing back a warm washcloth that he used to
wipe me off, starting at my face and then moving down over my body to my pussy,
touching it gently to wipe away his come, the touch of the washcloth on my
sensitive skin causing me to gasp just a bit.

He smiled, as if he enjoyed the thought I was
uncomfortable.

"Does that please you?" I asked.
"The thought I'm in pain?"

He stopped what he was doing and frowned.
"Is it truly pain? Or is it just discomfort from a very thorough and
enjoyable fucking?" He waited for a moment, watching me. "Answer me,
Katherine. Is it because you were well-fucked? Remember the rules…"

I watched his face, trying to decide. "Yes,
Master
," I said finally, a tiny bit of annoyance in me despite how
languid my body felt, my eyes closing.

"Yes,
what
?"

"Yes, Master," I said, too sleepy to
open my eyes. "It's because I'm well-fucked."

"Good
girl
," he said and kissed
me as if to reward me for good behavior.

"Can I ask why you call me a girl? I'm
really not, you know. I'm almost twenty-five." I said while he continued
to wipe me off. "A quarter century." I opened my eyes to see his
response. He didn't stop what he was doing, but frowned again as if
considering.

"I know you're a woman, Kate. You're an
intelligent, passionate, caring woman. I respect you. I would never fuck a
girl. The essence of a D/s relationship is power exchange between consenting
adults. The submissive has to trust the Dominant enough to give over total
control to him. In order for you to trust me, you have to
feel
that I
truly am dominant in personality. That I can exert total control over you with
confidence." He stopped his motions for a moment and turned to me, his
eyes holding mine.

"You sound like a professor giving a
lecture."

"I
am
a professor."

"Of surgery…"

"Of surgery, but I could teach BDSM. I do
give lectures sometimes. You wanted to understand, Kate. You have to feel
submissive for this to work. If you don't, you won't yield control to me. I
have to use every weapon in my arsenal to ensure you feel it because that mind
of yours is just too intelligent, too busy. When I call you
girl
, that
reinforces the difference between us. I'm thirty five so I'm older than you.
I'm more experienced. I'm more knowledgeable about sex. Most importantly, I'm
able to control myself. Therefore, I'm able to control you. You can trust me to
do so and you can just release yourself completely to feel whatever I decide
you should feel."

He continued wiping off my body, his expression
thoughtful. I said nothing, just watched him, enjoying the look of care on his
face. He was totally involved in cleaning off my body, in caring for me, and
that surprised me.

"Why are doing this?" I said, curious.
"I could clean myself off. Isn't this a servant's job? Shouldn't I be
cleaning
you
off?"

He paused and caught my eye. "Are you in
any kind of condition to wash me?" He smiled briefly. "You turn
yourself over to me completely, Kate. You allow me to restrain you, elicit
intense emotions in you, make you feel strong passions and sensations, to use
your body as I want to use it. You're my responsibility. My
complete
responsibility when we're together. Your body needs to be cleaned and tended.
Your mind needs to be calmed and comforted. Doing so is my responsibility as
well. Submissives can be very delicate emotionally after an intense scene. They
need to be cared for. It's called
aftercare
. I enjoy doing it."

"So is our
scene
over now? We're
back to normal people?"

He stroked the cloth over my thighs. "I'd
prefer that when you're here, we stay in scene. Usually, I don’t have a sub
stay overnight, but in this case, I don't think you should go home."

"Why don't you let them stay? Potatoes and
gravy mixing with meat a bit too closely?"

He smiled but kept his eyes focused on my body
as he wiped my calves. "Something like that."

"So, technically, I should still refer to
you as Master."

He nodded. "I'll give you a bit of leeway
since you're new." Then he threw the washcloth across the room into a
laundry hamper. He knelt on the bed between my legs, his hands on his hips.
"But next time, I expect perfect compliance with the terms of the contract
or you'll get a spanking."

"Promise?" I said, unable to stop my
smile.

"Oh,
you
…" He laid on top of
me, his face in my neck. "That's called topping from the bottom and
deserves a spanking in and of itself. Or perhaps orgasm denial…"

"Yes, please, no more orgasms
tonight!" I said, giggling. Then he rose up above me, a gleam in his eye,
a half-grin on his mouth.

"Ms. Bennet, I can see you need a lesson in
proper submissive
behavior
." He reached down between my thighs to
touch my clit and I gasped, cringing away from him, for I was still far too
sensitive.

"No, please, Drake,
don't
…"

For whatever reason, my emotions were still far
too close to the surface and my eyes filled with tears. I bit my lip and turned
my face away. How could I move so quickly from laughter to tears?

"
Shh
," he said, rolling over,
pulling me on top of him. He held my face in his hands, his thumb wiping my
tears off my cheek. "I
won't
. But don't tell me what to do and what
not to do. Don't even tell me what you
want
unless I ask you. It's not
your place, Kate," he said and then added, "
Katherine…
"
as if he, too, was having problems keeping to the terms of the agreement.

I nodded. "I'm sorry
Master
."

He pulled me down so that my head rested on his
shoulder, one hand stroking my back gently, one hand stroking my hair. We
remained like that for some time, until the strange sense of sadness drained
out of me completely and a peace settled over me instead.

Soon, I dozed in his arms, immersed in the
warmth of Drake's embrace, waking only briefly later, checking the alarm clock
beside the bed. An hour had passed and Drake was covering us with the blankets.
I closed my eyes once more.

I woke in the middle of the night and was alone
in the bed. The clock radio read 3:30 a.m. and light from the moon filtered in
through the sheer curtains onto the floor. I rose and peeked inside the
bathroom, but it was empty. I cracked open the door leading to the living area
and saw Drake sitting in the living room on a stool, his back to me, the
acoustic guitar in his arms, headphones on. He was playing, but the sound was
muted for the acoustic guitar was electric and was hooked into a small amp at
his feet. I could hear the faint sounds of his fingers on the metal strings,
sometimes sliding up and down, the sound of his fingers strumming or plucking
strings.

I went up behind him while he played. He was
wearing his jeans but was bare from the waist up. I glanced over his shoulder
and saw he was playing the music from earlier that my father gave to his
–
Old Friends / Bookends
. When I rested my hands on his shoulders,
he startled a bit and stopped playing. I went around and stood in front of him
while he removed his headphones.

"You woke up."

I nodded, my arms around my own waist, facing
him, acutely aware of my nakedness.

He looked me up and down as I stood before him.
"You are a vision of loveliness in the moonlight."

A blush rose up my neck and face at that and I
tried not to cover up. "You couldn't sleep?"

He shook his head and strummed the guitar
absently. "I woke up and my mind wouldn't stop. Sometimes, playing
helps."

"You still won't play for me?"

He exhaled heavily.

"No, it's OK," I said, hurt. "I
understand. Potatoes and meat…" I sensed that this was too much –
asking him to play for me.

But then he unplugged the headphones and started
to play, the guitar soft. After a brief musical intro, he started to sing, his
voice surprisingly good, although soft.

Emotion welled up inside of me as I listened,
the image of the old men sitting on a park bench like bookends so sad. I could
hear the muted sounds of the city described in the lyrics, see the old men
disappearing into overcoats, their collars up, their wisps of white hair blown
by the wind.

I had to bite back tears, thinking of him losing
his father, keeping all his old furniture and guitars here as a way to hold on.
No matter that the relationship might have been strained or imperfect, to lose
your father is to lose your rudder. This was Drake's way of preserving his
memories – playing his father's music, using his old guitars, keeping
this apartment, his father's old furniture.

I thought of his father and mine – how the
two shared an uncommon hell over in Vietnam and how it must have cemented a
bond between them despite the differences in their politics. How my father
thought they would grow old and still be friends.

He finished and looked up at me, his eyes
guarded. I went to him as he sat there with the guitar in his arms, his eyes on
mine and took his face in my hands. I kissed him, my eyes wet.

"Thank you."

I left him alone with his music and went to the
bathroom, unable to stay there with his face like that, so vulnerable, as if
his heart was open for me to see right inside of him. He brought the music and
photograph out specifically for me to see, but he didn’t show them to me, as if
he had second thoughts. He let me find them. I wondered if he would have showed
them to me on his own, or if he would have left them alone. I had the sense he
would have left them if I hadn’t found them.

They were far too personal.

I held a wet washcloth to my eyes, breathing in
deeply to control my emotions.

He wanted to keep me separate from the other
parts of his life – his work, his charity, his family, his music. I was
just to stay in the kink part. Now, he'd failed at all four. He let me see the
photograph, the music from my father, let me hear him sing and play – it
muddied the careful order he had established over things.

I wasn't sure I could do this – stay in
this one corner of his life.

I heard him in the doorway to the bathroom.
"Come back to bed," he said, his voice soft.

"Just give me a minute." I was barely
able to speak from the emotion choking my throat.

Then, I felt him behind me, his arms slipping
around my shoulders, pulling me against him. He said nothing, just rested his
chin on the top of my head for a moment. Finally, he leaned down and kissed my
shoulder before turning me around, embracing me.

"Sweet
sweet
Kate
…" He
tilted my head up and looked in my eyes, wiping moisture from my cheek.
"Why the tears?"

I shook my head, breathing in, trying to control
myself, but that song, although so simple, was so filled with meaning.

"It's so beautiful and so sad. They were
old friends with so much history. My
father
…" I swallowed back
emotion. "I can't imagine losing my father."

He nodded, his face emotionless. He brushed hair
off my cheek. Then he led me back to the bedroom and pulled back the blanket,
pointing to the bed. I crawled in and he followed me, spooning against me from
behind, his arms around my waist.

"Close your eyes."

I exhaled and tried to relax, but my eyes
wouldn't close and instead of sleeping, I watched the motes of dust drifting in
the beam of moonlight filtering in through the curtains, thinking of old men
sitting on a park bench in Central Park.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

8
th
Avenue became my refuge from life, my entire
existence focused on getting through the next day and night until it was time
to meet him again. After that first night, I'd enter the apartment and he would
be waiting for me instead of me waiting for him as I once imagined. It just
seemed to work out that he was already there waiting for me when I arrived.