There is Love Here

"Kath-"

"We're in an old building off of Market Street. You can navigate from here; I just took the long way so no one else would know you were here. Reasonable discretion."

She looks scared for a moment, but then it passes, and she's as impassive as before. "I know I'm asking a lot of you. If you want to leave, if what you see revolts you, I'll understand. I won't blame you even though you made all those promises."

"You're testing me."

"Maybe I'm testing us both." She says. Then she kisses me quickly, gently, and leaves me standing in the closet. I sigh and lean against the wall, eyes on the parlor as instructed. I don't like where this is going, but I'm not leaving. No cryptic warning will chase me away. Nothing will chase me away from Kathryn again, least of all my own fears.

4. Kathryn

My chest feels tight as I enter the parlor. This is going to end badly, I think. Very badly.

I steel myself and start unlacing my bodice. When it falls unceremoniously to the floor, I shed my skirt as well. Then my stockings and my sensible shoes, still coated in mud from the midnight streets.

My cheeks burn- when was the last time I blushed?- but I keep my back straight and my eyes fixed on the wall in front of me. I look myself over in the mirror hung above the mantle: slight, delicate even, with messy blond hair and a smattering of fawny freckles across my cheeks. I'm only wearing a corset and a milky white chemise.

I undo the corset stays and let it fall, leaving only me and the chemise sticking to my skin. My heart beats fast. A shiver runs up my naked legs. The girl in the mirror looks uncertain: I try to force a look of hauteur but see only a grimace. Somehow I feel more naked with the chemise than I would in my bare skin- I consider taking it off, too, but decide I need the barrier.

Then I imagine what Vinya must be feeling. How uncertainty and anticipation must have his blood running hot; how he can't help but lean into the peephole, eyes roving over my skin as the slip teases at nudity. How he's expecting something dangerous, something nasty even, but all he sees is a lady, lily white, standing in a parlor. Harmless.

My image's cheeks are flushed. Her uncertainty is gone, replaced by a cold-eyed smile. She owns this night, fear be damned, and she intends to drain it to its lees.

A door opposite the mantle turns and Gideon walks slowly into the room. He smiles at me; I simply stare and motion him forward.

Soon we're standing only a hand's width apart. He's still smiling, but I see tension in his eyes. "Kathryn." He whispers gently, touching my shoulder. "Are you sure about this? You'll scare him off."

"I'm sure." I echo. "Now don't question me again."

He nods quickly, some of the tension in his eyes melting away.

I reach between us, hiking up my chemise to get at the sheath strapped to my leg. The well-honed blade slides easily from its home, glinting in the parlor's soft light. I run it between my fingers and Gideon swallows.

"Close your eyes."

He obeys, a small smile gracing his pretty lips. I give in to the impulse and kiss those lips- he startles, expecting instead the cool press of metal, but soon melts into me. I deepen the embrace, then step away, enjoying the drowsy look on his face.

"Turn around."

He does, and my fingers graze the nape of his neck. For a moment I imagine myself an anatomist, caressing muscles, inspecting flesh, Beautiful flesh- flesh that I've kissed, and tasted, and scarred. I brush my lips against his shoulder blade, then reach around to press the knife against his throat.

He shudders as I apply more pressure. My hand reaches to stroke the small of his back while I abuse his neck.

His breath becomes ragged, his face flushed. I lean forward, pressing myself against him. My teeth find the place where his neck meets his shoulder and I bite gently, then suck. He tastes like salt, like the ocean.

The knife slides lower, cutting a clean line down his expensive shirt. Two more incisions across the shoulders and it falls to the floor in a heap.

I take a step away and trace the contours of Gideon's back with my fingertips. It's a map of nerves, a sheet of skin waiting to be written upon. He groans as I alternate pressing the flat edge of the knife against his skin and scratching him with the tip.

When I grow bored, I return the knife to his throat, then use the tip to coax his lips open. The metal slides in and out of his mouth, slow and dangerous, and I begin to massage him through his trousers. He groans, and I let myself cut him, just a little line across his tongue. His eyes flutter open in surprise but by then I'm kissing him, so he closes them again.

"Clothes off." I breathe in his ear, smiling in satisfaction as he obliges. A second later he's shivering naked in front of me, anticipation humming through his veins.

"You're going to want to brace yourself, love." I whisper, guiding his hands forward to grip the arm of the chaise. "Legs apart." I add, kicking at his feet to spread them.

I sheath the knife and turn away to grab the whip I've leaned against the wall. Again, I look in the mirror, imagining what Vinya is seeing. My face is red and my eyes are wild. My slip is halfway off one shoulder and riding up my left hip; the sheathed knife peaks out from below the hem. Behind me, Gideon's posed like a statue of submission: feet spread, ass on display, head hung low.

The first lash makes his back arch beautifully. His head remains lowered, his teeth gritted. His muscles tense, waiting for another blow.

Instead I step forward and trace the angry red mark I've just made. Even my light touch stings the tender skin and he jumps a bit, but doesn't protest. I plant soft kisses along the whip's path, then step back, all softness spent.

The next lash makes a buzzing sound as it flies through the air, then explodes like a firework across Gideon's raw skin. He arches and grunts. The third is quieter, softer, but still causes his eyes to tear. The fourth has his knees shaking. The fifth, and his arms buckle, leaving the chaise to support his weight.

The sixth cuts across his muscular ass, making his legs shake. The seventh and I hear a hoarse cry. The fabric absorbs his screams as I deal the eighth, ninth, and tenth blow. By the sixteenth, Gideon's reduced to a quivering mass of muscle. His face is tear stained and his back raw. Still, after each blow, his pelvis grinds into the chaise, seeking some relief.

"Stand up." I command, my voice hard. "Turn around."

He does. "Look at me." His eyes open, but don't really focus. Beneath the tears and the hypnotized limpness of his gaze is hunger, raw and demanding. Gideon is at once consumed and consuming; his powerlessness fills the room.

"How far can I take you?" I asked him once. "How far until I push you too far and when you come back, you can't stand to look at me again?"

"Just do it in love," He told me. "Hurt me with love and I'll always look at you with the same."

And there is love here. There is also control, and pain, and sex, but there is love. I hope more than anything that Vinya sees that.

"Gideon." I whisper, lifting his chin with my finger. My other hand reaches lower, tracing shapes along the inside of his hip. "Gideon, look at me."

Some of the bleariness recedes from his eyes. "What?"

"Are you okay?"

He smiles coolly. "What, are you going soft now that your boy is watching? You think that whip's enough to phase me, mistress?"

My hand leaves his hip and wraps around his stiff cock. My grip tightens painfully and he moans, though he's still trying to maintain a look of studied superiority.

"You're so transparent when you try to bait me, Gid." I whisper. "Such hollow challenges."

"What are you going to do about it, then?" He answers, trying to sound calm, but his voice is too breathy to be convincing. Under my hard gaze, Gideon shivers slightly. I can't help but leer, taking in the beautiful way his sweat-soaked skin shines in the light, how his lips and cheeks are almost as red and raw as his back.

I lean in to him, my lips brushing his ear, but I make sure to speak fairly loud. Vinya is listening, after all.

"I'm going to break you in half."

4. Vinya

I see her standing there in just her slip and I want more than anything to touch her. Every inch of bare skin snares my eyes, every inch of fabric teases me with the promise of skin beneath. I feel strange, almost guilty, watching her like this, even though she's the one who brought me here and put me behind this peephole.

And then he enters. I've never seen the man before, but he must be Gideon Achor. No one comes here anymore. No one but me and Gideon. A knot forms in my stomach. So that's why there's a furnished parlor in the heart of an abandoned publishing house. This is a lover's meeting-place.

She's making me watch, I realize as a sick feeling settles over me. She's created a pretty little Tableau Vivant just for me, complete with a viewing room. Two Lovers Embrace would be a good title, I think as she leans forward to kiss him. And one watches from the wings, the king of fools.

I was right when I said she was punishing me. And maybe I deserve it, maybe I deserve to watch the woman I love, the woman I almost married but cast aside be ravished one room over. But even if I'm the king of fools, I can't bring myself to just stand here wearing the crown, waiting for the queen to be fucked. My blood runs hot, twisting desire into anger, logic into brashness. I'm about to leave the closet, to storm into the parlor and prove I'm not a willing cuckold. when the glint of metal stops me in my tracks.

She has a knife that seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and a moment later it's pressed into Gideon's neck. For a second I'm afraid for him, anticipating a cut, but she only places kisses along his shoulder while using the knife to trace his jugular.

If I have any further doubt that this is an act of eroticism, I only need to look at Gideon's face. He looks blissful. The way I imagine I looked when Kath had her hands around my neck, squeezing.

You deserve to know- to see- what you're getting yourself into.

This isn't a punishment, I realize. It's a demonstration.

The knife cuts a thin line from nape to shoulder, revealing a wide swath of Gideon's skin. She repeats the cut on his left side, this time pressing the knife's flat metal against the skin she frees, causing him to shudder at the chill. A final cut down the back and the silk shirt to falls to the floor.

Kath bites at the back of Gideon's neck and he whimpers. The sound, though quiet, voices a deep and powerful want. When she resumes gliding the knife over his skin, pressing just hard enough to leave little red scratches, he groans.

The sound affects me more than it should. My palms are sweating and my eyes trace the blade across his skin, mesmerized. I want to tell her to press harder, to criss-cross the knife marks until they appear like a rope binding him in perfect submission.

She does better, letting the knife play across his cheek before coaxing his lips to accept it. The metal disappears inside of him inch by inch, until his lips kiss the hilt. Gideon groans around the fullness, eyes shut and cheeks bulging.

She waits a full minute before withdrawing it, then presses it back in, then withdraws it again until the motion gains a familiar rhythm. Gideon just lets her, showing no sign of fear, not even when she lets the weapon cut his tongue. His eyes flash in pain, but still he readily accepts her kiss. I inhale sharply when Kath joins her mouth to his and sucks, drinking down his blood and saliva and breath.

She breaks the kiss and the silence, whispering "clothes off" into Gideon's ear. I exhale and take a small step back from the peephole, feeling dizzy. My pants are tight and my face flushed. I shouldn't be watching this.

I hear Kath's voice in my ear: If you want to leave, if what you see revolts you, I'll understand. I won't blame you.

Maybe I should leave. I feel myself falling down a rabbit hole, surrounded by warm darkness, damp earth, the sun receding into a pinprick of light far above. But my feet don't move. My eyes don't stray from the hole in the wall.

Because what I'm seeing doesn't revolt me. Instead it instills a craving, or maybe just brings that craving to the surface. And I find I like the feeling of falling. I like it a lot.

Gideon bends over the chaise, head resting on the floral fabric while Kathryn uncoils a leather cord. The way she holds it, it looks like an extension of her arm. Long. Elegant. I recoil harshly when it strikes his back, leaving a harsh red welt.

I expected it, true: since I first held the leather snake in my own lap I've thought of what it would look like in use, but the reality is both harsher and more poetic than I imagined.

Poetic? The thought catches me off guard. What's poetic about violence?

But I can't deny that this is more than violence. I've seen violence: split lips, cracked bones, blood trails. Not this. No, what I'm witnessing is something else entirely. Something new.

Kathryn's too far gone to try and look stoic. Her cheeks are red and a strange light dances in her eyes. When she lays the whip across his back, her face seems to laugh with joy. When his finely wrought muscles quiver, when he bites the fabric of the chaise to keep from screaming, she smiles the kind of smile that makes men fall in love.

I exhale powerfully when she lowers the whip and begins tracing the marks she's made. Her touch seems feather-light, but still Gideon shudders.

Kath pause to whisper something to him. His face twists into a smirk, and he responds. I can't make out his words, but they're flippant, based on the way Kath's eyebrows arch. I half expect her to take the whip to his back again, but instead she only smiles

"I'm going to break you in half," She says, reaching between them to trap his cock in a vice-grip.

He smiles so radiantly I pause, remembering Kath's words the other day. It's almost transcendent, Vin. I can't help but think Gideon looks transcendent as he stands before her, bleeding, smiling, his cock hard and vital in her small hand.

I feel trapped in the space between their bodies as she begins to stroke him, soft at first and then more insistently, all the while letting a stray hand play across his bloodied back. I shudder, feeling the ghost of those fingers running along the contours of my back, gripping the back of my neck. The air around me tastes like sweat, sweet and heavy. Inhaling it is akin to drinking wine.

As Gideon grinds against Kath, my own hands slip lower. I feel like I'm in a trance, compelled to watch, to touch, to desire. God, how I desire. How I want to be cut. To be tasted. To be savored.

My own skin feels like velvet under my palm, damp velvet. You were right, I think, increasing the tempo of my strokes as Kath does the same. I am a pervert, aren't I?

Yes, the walls seem to answer. Yes, yes, yes. The very air is pleasure-laden, my cock is weeping, my jaw clenched to contain jubilant exhalations. Time seems to slow and I realize I'll never leave here, not really. The rabbit hole is too deep, and I'm too comfortable down here in the dark. Kathryn has a hand wrapped around my neck and she's never letting go. And if she tried, I would still cleave to her. She's seen deeper into my own soul than I ever have, at least before this moment.

She's woken up an animal inside of me. Once dormant, now he's snarling and snapping bones as my abdomen clenches and unclenches, as my heartbeat pounds staccato in my ears. Everything inside of me seems to coil together, a great pressure building. The animal pants, drips saliva and sweat onto the carpet. Kath kisses Gideon ferociously, her lips fixed in a snarl. The coils tighten, the tension brought to a peak, and then everything breaks. I break.

Shrapnel flies in all directions. I scream, not bothering to bite my tongue before Kath can do it for me. This, this is violence. My muscles spasm and my legs buckle, leaving me prostrate on the floor. I feel my veins pulsating, hear the blood rushing through my skull. A rope of semen paints my chest. I can't survive another moment yet I don't want it to end, not ever, not for anything.

I groan, slump forward. Slowly my breathing returns to normal and the roaring of blood becomes little more than a trickle. Time resumes. My limbs feel heavy. My mind swims in an opioid haze.

No, I think through the smoke. I will never leave here.

Yes, the walls seem to answer. Yes, yes, yes.

5. Kathryn

I open the closet door slowly. Gideon's collapsed on the floor. He lifts his head and looks at me, squinting at the sudden burst of light.

"Well, he's pretty, I'll give you that." Gideon murmurs from behind me. I smile in agreement. At this moment, Vinya Aramont is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. His face is slack, cheeks and lips flushed. His clothes are disheveled and stained with his own come.

He smiles up at me, looking at once very young. The man who felt so trapped he ran away from his own life is gone, replaced with the boy I once held in an ivy bed at midnight. A fairy changeling, just innocent enough to be unafraid.

I kneel down in front of him and take his face in my hands. Before he can speak, I kiss him. Happiness, surprise, and relief flow through me in equal measures. He stayed. He kept his promise.

"You stayed." I whisper to him between kisses. "God, Vin, I was so afraid you wouldn't."

"I told you I would." He replies horsely.

"I thought you'd be disgusted, once you saw it all. That's why I showed you so much at once." I admit. "If you were going to leave, I needed you to do it now. It would hurt too much otherwise."

"I'm not going anywhere, Kathryn Dover." He says shyly. "I can't feel my legs."

I smirk. "You can't feel your legs? You weren't the one I lashed."

Vin blushes, and its so incongruent with the current circumstances I can't help but laugh. "Come on." I take his limp hand and pull him up. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Mmf." Vinya says, eyes still foggy, as he lets me lead him from the room.

"I've never seen you coddle anyone before, Kat." Gideon teases, following behind us. "Didn't know you had it in you to be so besotted."

"I'm not besotted!" I interject.

"Oh, yes you are." Gid laughs. "Better be careful not to look too soft, or I might lose all respect for you."

"Oh, shut up." I parrot as we re-enter the parlor with Vinya in tow. "Do I need to remind you who left those welts on your back? No one knows how to hurt you like I do."

"I've seen it happen before." He continues, sitting down naked on the chaise while I fill a ceramic basin with lukewarm water and wet a terrycloth square. "A man strong enough to make anyone kneel undone by a pretty young thing with no more weapons than tender skin and a cute smile. I'd be careful, Kat. You'll lose your edge."

"Gah!" He shouts when I press the cloth into his fresh wounds. "Goddammit, you could've warned me!"

"How's that for edge?" I say sweetly, kissing his cheek. "Now stop trying to piss me off and let me clean you up."

"I can do it myself." He sighs, but still leans forward, giving me access to his back.

"Yes, but you like it when I do it, so let me."

"Looks as if I'm not the only one who's coddled." Vinya mutters. I giggle; Gid tries to scowl but still looks amused.

When I finish washing Gideon's back, I rinse the rag and turn to Vinya. He's pulled out his shirt to try to minimize wrinkles and has his trousers zipped up. The post-orgasmic bliss has largely cleared from his face, leaving a hint of uncertainty. Vinya might have stayed, but he has no idea what to do next.