I press my lips together. I feel that flash of defiance return.  That’s what he wants.  He wants to watch me masturbate in front of him.  Fine.  Let him see that.  He has seen everything else.  He folds his arms.  Slowly I open my legs.  He smiles slightly at my submission.  I bring my fingers to my clit and close my eyes.

‘Open your eyes.’

My eyes snap open.  Locking my gaze with his glittering ones I move a finger into the opening of my sex.  The folds are covered in slick juices, and collecting some from the opening I move my fingers around the sensitive nub, slowly teasing it to attention.

His carefully guarded eyes never leave me. ‘What did you think of while playing with yourself?’

‘You.’

His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes flicker.  ‘Didn’t you miss my dick inside you?’

‘Very much.’

He makes a small disbelieving sound and reaches over to what had always been his bedside table.  He opens the drawer and I am surprised to see it full of sex toys.  All of them still in their packaging.  I even catch the glimpse of a pair of handcuffs.  Rummaging around he finds and fetches a vibrator to our bed.  It is black and bright orange and large.  Scary large.  I close my legs in horror.  This has nothing to do with sex.  This is him punishing me.  Filling me up with a large black and orange object.  Reducing me to a piece of meat.  Letting me know I’m nothing to him.  My resolution to be strong and my conviction that he can never humiliate me if I don’t allow it crumble into dust.

‘Don’t worry.  This won’t hurt a bit,’ he promises, and switches it on.  It makes a whirring sound.

I open my eyes and look at it humming in his hand.  ‘Don’t, Blake.  Please don’t,’ I beg.

‘Open your legs.’

I shake my head. ‘Please.  If you insist on punishing me like this…  I’ll run away.’

‘No you won’t.  Remember I paid for this.  Mine to do with as I please.  We had a deal.  I give you what you want and you give me what I want.  I gave you what you wanted.  Now it’s your turn to give me what I want.  And I want to see this big black and orange machine buried inside that sweet, tight pussy of yours.’

I swallow a lump in my throat and lick my lips.  ‘Why do we need that when we have your cock?’

‘Because,’ he explains patiently as if he is talking to a particularly obtuse child, ‘you won’t always have my cock.’

I look into his eyes.  I am looking for the passionate lover I adore, but his eyes are purposely blank.  I know I will do anything to bring him back to me.  From deep inside me I find the strength.  He wants to push that inanimate object into me.  Let’s give him what he wants and see what comes up.  Let’s see how he fares!

‘All right,’ I say and open my legs wide.

If he is surprised by my defiant submission he does not let it show.  He lets the vibrator touch my clit.  I jump.

‘Too sensitive?’ he queries softly, and moves it slightly away.

He runs the vibrating tip along the wet folds, and very slowly while watching my face he inserts it into me.  While I gasp with shock at its size he pushes it into me up to the hilt.’

‘Good?’ he asks.

‘Good,’ I reply, my chin lifted, my eyes widened, my fingers grasping the silk duvet underneath.

So he fucks me with it and even though I beg him not to look at me as I crack apart, he stares at me possessively as I come.

Then he gets up and leaves me.

I lay there spread-eagled with the vibrator still inside me staring at the ceiling.  The gadget makes a soft muffled sound that I have not noticed during my humiliation.  I want to pull it out of me, but my limbs feel like lead.  I am in love with him and he just hates me.  If he had cared anything for me I would have seen in his eyes, but nothing!  I finally understand.  I am just a demon that must be exorcised before he marries the daughter of the Earl.  I hear the front door close and the first sob escapes me.  I try to be brave, hold them back, but they will not be stopped.

Suddenly he is standing at the door.  Through swimming eyes I watch him come to me.  He sits beside me, pulls the vibrator out; it makes a sucking sound.  He switches it off and bending his head licks a tear from my cheek.

‘Damn you, Blake,’ I whisper.

He buries his face in my hair.  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

I stare at the ceiling.  I am sadder than I have ever been.  The doctor, the solicitor, Fleur, Madam Yula, The Fat Duck.  ‘Are you re-creating everything so you can destroy it, Blake?’

‘No.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I thought I knew, but I don’t anymore,’ he confesses honestly.

‘What did you want?’

‘Revenge.  I wanted to punish you.  I had all kinds of humiliations planned for you, but I can’t hurt you without hurting myself.  Maybe you are what my father said you are.  My greatest enemy.’

Automatically, my hands come up to wrap protectively around him.  I know he is hurting too.  I just don’t know how to make it better.  I want to tell him about Victoria, but what good would that do?  She would make a new and supremely dangerous enemy.  ‘I’m not your enemy, Blake.  I never meant to hurt you.’

He laughs.  Again it is bitter.  ‘So what are you?  A friend?’

I sigh.  Such sadness is in that sound.  Does he hear it?  Possibly not.  In his mind I am a gold digger.  Took the money and ran.  Now I represent dirty sex.  There is a chasm between us.  It seems impossible to bridge.  From her ivory tower Victoria smiles triumphantly and tells me I am not embedded in his life plan. I will never be.

‘Where do we go from here?’

He doesn’t respond.  Instead he gathers me in his arms and hides his face in the crook of my neck.  Slowly he starts to suck.  Automatically, my head twists away.  Not in rejection, but in invitation.  The dedication of his soft lips on my skin is delicious.  His tongue burns a trail to my nipple.  He takes it into his mouth and my humiliation, my hurt dissipates to nothing.  Everything that happens between a man and a woman is a sacred journey, my mother once said.

She said that when my father left her.

A sound escapes my mouth.  Silently, solemnly, he goes to the other breast.  His teeth catch the nub and pull slightly.  I writhe under the expert manipulation. He raises his head and looks at me as his palm skims the hardened tip.  I am aching for him.  Suddenly he is on his elbows and with consummate ease he pushes the entire length of his tongue into my aching folds.  I grip the silky hair as his heated tongue thrusts in and out of me in sure practiced stokes.  And then he begins to suck…

Ah, the pleasure, the pleasure!

He pinches my swollen clit in his fingers suddenly, and an intense pleasure like an electric current stabs me.  I scream and come in a mindless explosion.  Waves crash on the rocks below, but I fly high.  When I come back to the bed and the room, Blake is still licking the wet walls of my sex.  There will never be another after him, I think lazily, drowsily, sadly.  He has done what he set out to do.  Ruined me for all other men.

I am so drained and exhausted I close my eyes and fall asleep with the sensation of his silky head on my thighs.

Twelve

I wake up with the duvet pulled over my naked body, but alone.  I turn my head and gaze at the vast expanse of bed that is spread out on one side of me and the unused pillows and sigh.  Pushing my legs free of the duvet I dangle them out of the bed and savor the cool air.  Then I slip out of bed.  I can hear the fain sounds of Francesca, Blake’s personal shopper, rummaging around in the kitchen.  She is always as silent as a mouse.  I pull on some clothes, brush my teeth, and go to the kitchen.  She is updating her list on her iPad.

‘Ciao,’ she greets brightly.  She is from Naples.  ‘I remember, you like jam and I bring you two extra bottles.’ She holds them up in her expressive hands.  ‘You like?’