The Agreement (50 page)

"Oh, God,
Kate
," he said, his
voice low, hushed. "You're hurt…"

He turned my face towards his using one hand, while
he cradled the other against his body. I could barely see him through the
swirling sparks of light.  He left me lying on the floor, my hands
touching the warmth on my cheek. My fingers came back bloody, and my whole brow
hurt.

"How are you?" he asked when he ran
back with some gauze and pressed the bandage against my brow. His face was pale
as he examined me. "Did you black out at any time?"

"I don't think so. But I saw stars."

"Are you in pain? How many fingers can you
see?" He held up a hand with three fingers out.

"Three," I said. "My head really
hurt for a minute, but now it just stings."

"Look at me, in my eyes," he said, his
expression so intense. I did and he examined the cut.

He exhaled. "
Goddammit
. I have to
take you to the ER and get you stitched up. I don't have my bag here."

I smiled through the pain. "You have one of
those little black doctor bags?"

"Something like that," he said, but he
wasn't smiling. "Damn, Kate. You're going to have to just come with me.
We'll have to risk it. That cut is too deep for butterfly sutures."

"You're the neurosurgeon."

After he bandaged me up enough, we took his
Mercedes to St. Luke's ER. It wasn't the nearest hospital, but I didn't want to
go to Harlem, because Dawn worked there. He didn't want to go to NY
Presbyterian because he had too many colleagues and associates who might
recognize us. The ER nurses at St. Luke's had me in an examining room within a
very few minutes of registering.

I sat on the gurney in the tiny space and Drake
stood between my knees, examining me, brushing my hair back, fussing over me like
a mother hen. The young female physician entered and Drake stepped aside. She
quizzed us about who Drake was and what happened. Drake related how we were
dancing the Jitterbug, and he was clumsy and I fell and hit my head against a
wooden table. She seemed upset that Drake spoke instead of me.

The physician looked at me carefully while I
repeated the story. I watched Drake and smiled while I told it.

"He was a bit out of practice. Like twenty
years
out of practice."

"I'll be back in a bit to stitch that up,"
she said and left us alone.

Drake continued to examine me, his hand on my
shoulder, smiling at me. He'd hurt his wrist trying to break the fall, and
cradled it, a tensor bandage on it.

"I'm so
sorry
, he said. "I'm
really not usually so clumsy." He grinned at me. "Kind of ruined the
mood I was going for…"

I laughed and squeezed his good hand. "At
least I was in the best hands. I mean, if you’re going to fall and crack your
head, who better than a neurosurgeon to look after you?"

The young doctor came back in.

"Can you excuse us, Dr. Morgan?" she
said to Drake. "I'd like to speak with Kate alone for a moment."

Drake's mouth went hard at that.
"Certainly." He leaned over to me and kissed me briefly where I sat
on the examining table. "I'll be right back. You'll be fine."

I nodded. When we were alone, the physician
turned to me.

"I just wanted to give you the opportunity
to tell me if you're concerned at all about anything."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If there's anything happening in your life
that frightens you. If you've been harmed in any way that led to that injury.
I'm obliged to ask about this any time a woman comes in with her partner, injured
in a domestic accident."

"You think he did this on
purpose
?"
I said, aghast. "
No
, it was just as we told you. He was showing me
how to do the Jitterbug and tripped on a carpet on the floor. We fell and I hit
my head on the sideboard. That's it. End of story. He hurt his wrist trying to
stop the fall."

She looked down at my wrists, which were bare,
my sweater rolled up. There were chafing marks where the leather edge of my
restraints rubbed my skin from our last session. Just a slight red mark on the
back of my hands. It didn’t hurt, but I could see that she was worried.

"Just role playing," I said, smiling.
My face turned bright red. "You know. We read those books, and like to try
things out."

"As long as you're safe and this is your
choice…"

"I'm
fine
," I said. "We're
lovers. We got a little… enthusiastic the other night."

She nodded, a somewhat judgmental expression on
her face. Then, she had me lie down and after preparing me, putting a sterile
field over my eye and brow, she injected me with a local anesthetic and
proceeded to stitch me up.

"Drake might want to be here for
this," I said.

"Sorry about that," she said. "I
can't stop now. Have to maintain sterile procedure."

Finally, Drake came back and pushed the door
open to check on how I was. He stood watching the physician as she stitched me,
examining each stitch carefully, holding my hand on the other side of the
gurney.

When she was done, I sat back up and she gave me
instructions about aftercare. Drake seemed a bit impatient with her, as if he
didn’t know proper procedure. Finally, we left the hospital and went back to
the apartment.

"You're staying here tonight," he said
when we were back inside. He brought me a glass of milk instead of Anisovaya
and motioned to the couch.

"No bondage tonight?" I said,
disappointed. "No Anisovaya?"

"No alcohol for you, just in case. No
bondage because of my wrist," he said, holding it up. "I'm useless.
Not in fighting form and neither are you."

I sighed and after he shot back his vodka and I
my milk, we nestled on the couch.

He'd put on some music, something old, folksy.

"What's this?" I asked. It was a solo
singer accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.

"A Canadian musician, Gordon Lightfoot. One
of my dad's favorites. He had every single album. He was a big fan of Canada,
raving about their health care system and welfare safety net. He almost wanted
to move there after the war, but he was accepted to Columbia and wanted to go
study medicine."

"If he was such a socialist, why did he go
to war? Couldn't he get an exemption?"

"He volunteered. He said if the poor black
kids had to fight, the middle-class white kids should as well."

"That's what my dad said. No wonder they
were friends…"

Drake nodded. "He almost loved Canada as
much as Mother Russia. We used to go to Northern Alberta every year on vacation
and he'd do surgery up in the wilds. We'd fly in to these tiny communities and
he'd donate his services. We'd always stop in Montréal and eat this absolutely
horrible mess of French fries and gravy and cheese curds called Poutine."

I smiled and listened to the music. It was very
haunting. "What is this piece?"

"It's very appropriate," he said and
went over to a stack of old albums. "This song is called
Affair on 8
th
Avenue
." He brought some
sheet music over and handed it to me.

He sat back down. I glanced over the words,
which told the story of a pair of lovers at an apartment on 8
th
Avenue.

"It's beautiful. Can you play this?" I
asked as I read it over.

"I can but not with this wrist. I guess my
hopes of playing with the band over the weekend are out."

"It's that bad?"

"I think I tore something. My whole arm
hurts."

Despite my injuries, I felt Drake's warmth
through his clothing and it in turn warmed me up.

"So, what are we going to do?"

Drake shrugged, his good arm around me. "I
don’t know."

"I could
do
you," I said.
"You don't want me to just, you know, crawl on top? You wouldn't have to
do anything…"

He leaned his head back, eyeing me from the
side. "You're going to try to top me, are you?"

"It's not topping and you wouldn’t be
bottoming. It's just having sex. I'm a little aroused. I was really looking
forward to tonight."

"Ms. Bennet, you're a horny little thing
but I just can't be safe with only one working hand and arm…"

"You don't have to restrain me."

I climbed onto his lap without him requesting it
but he didn't fight me. I leaned down and kissed him, and he let me. Since that
first night in my apartment, he always signaled when our scene would start by
embracing me, then kissing me. I'd never made the first move.

At first, he didn’t kiss me back. When I pulled
away and looked in his eyes, searching for his permission, he said nothing.

"You don't want me to fuck you?" I
said, a little hurt.

"Kate, I am never fucked.
I
fuck."

"But you're injured and can't manage. I
could do all the work. If it would make you feel better, you could always
order
me to."

"
Katherine
…" He had this look
in his eyes. A bit upset, but cautious. "Remember, we're always in scene
at my place."

I sighed. He meant that even when we weren't
having sex, I was still his submissive. Not his girlfriend.

"Drake, do I have to go home and resort to
Big? I
need
you…" I kissed him again, angry now that he was so
rigid that he couldn’t stand to have me once make the first move or do the
work.

"I don't want you going home by
yourself," he said when I pulled away. "I want you to stay here
tonight."

"I want to lick you, and suck you, then I
want to get on top and ride you. That wouldn't please you?"

"I thought you were uncomfortable taking
the lead in sex, Kate. That’s why submission appeals to you."

I looked in his eyes. "I feel like I could
do
anything
with you."

He ran one hand up my back, his gaze moving over
my body, then back into my eyes.

"Convince me," he said, his voice a
bit husky.

"I
need
you," I said, thinking
of reasons. "I may see you only two or three times over a week but I want
you
every
day and—"

He placed a finger over my lips. "I didn’t
mean with
words
…"

I smiled. He was giving in. I crawled up a
little bit closer to him, my arms around his neck, my groin pressed against
his. I kissed him, starting off softly and then deepening the kiss, my tongue
finding his. He was totally passive. I ground myself against him, pressing my
breasts against his chest. Then, I pulled my sweater up and off my body so that
I was in my bra, my skirt and of course, my garter belt and nylons. I rose up
onto my knees and embraced his head, my breasts against his face.  I
pulled the fabric of my bra down to expose my breasts the way he always did,
then I squeezed them, tweaking my own nipples until they were hard. I closed my
eyes, wanting him to suck them, but not feeling right demanding it from him, so
I just imagined it while I touched myself.

Finally, he reached behind me with his good
hand.

"Let me help you with that." Then, he
pulled me closer, his mouth covering one nipple. After that, he pretty much
kept one step ahead of me, always turning whatever I did into something he
ultimately controlled. When I climbed on top of him as he lay naked on the bed,
he subtly directed me, telling me where to put my hands, how fast to move, when
to kiss him. But I had my way with him. He didn't tie me up, he didn't
blindfold me, he didn’t make me come four times before
he
did.

I came once and then he did, fucking me from
behind doggie style, which didn’t rely on his hand for anything.

I didn't call him
Master
once.

Afterwards, as we lay there with our limbs
entwined, the sheets wrapped up around us, I turned to him.

"You survived vanilla sex yet again."

He grinned. "It's all I ever used to
do."

I said nothing for a moment, wondering about his
introduction to the lifestyle. "How did you start doing BDSM?"

He rubbed my back with his good hand, not saying
anything.

"You don’t want to talk about it?"

"Not really. Let's just say I recognized my
Dominant side, got some instruction—"

"From Lara," I offered.

"From Lara," he said.

"This was after your divorce?"

"Kate," he said, exhaling. "I'm
tired. I have to sleep…"

"I'm sorry," I said, a stab of hurt in
my chest. "This is hard for you. We're mixing up the food on your plate
too much, right?"

"Shh," he said and shut the light off.
Then he pulled closer, spooning against me the way he always did when it was
time to sleep.