SIX WEEKS LATER

That morning, I’d tied Diana up before she was fully awake and fucked her while she sang “Happy Birthday to Me.” She couldn’t come until she finished the song, but I made her start over and over until she was in tears and I was ready to explode inside her.

We went our separate ways. She went to McNeill-Barnes to publish books. I went to R+D to buy and sell property. A month after we wrote our names in the book of life by christening her body in sex and felt tip pen, we went about our daily business as partners, and our nightly business as master and servant.

I never looked back unless I wanted to remember the how stupid I’d been. She was everything I’d ever wanted in a woman. She was smart, bold, intrepid, principled. Everything I could admire in another human being, I admired in her, and she was all I desired. Warm, yielding, open-minded, honest, submissive, and perfectly masochistic.

Sometimes, when she fell asleep in my arms or when we went to the Cellar and some well-meaning cocksucker of a Dom asked if I’d share her, I thought I was kidding myself. She couldn’t possibly want to deal with my shit. Couldn’t be letting me fuck her face while who-even-knew watched from behind the glass. But she did. Time and again, she let me break her and rebuild her. She gave and gave. I struggled to keep up, taking better care of her, giving her more of what she needed inside and outside the game. The score was never even. I was always down, owing her more than I could ever repay.

But, goddammit, I wasn’t going to stop playing.

“Rings?” she said when I told her what she was getting for her birthday. “Are we having a ceremony?”

It was six thirty on the Thursday before a long weekend, and half her office was gone already. The air felt thin with electricity as the days got longer and the temperature invited bare throats and open toes.

“This is even better.” I pulled out her chair, and she let it roll back. “Come. It’s something new.”

“Really?” She seemed intrigued.

“Stand here. Arms on your head. Legs apart. Come on.”

She did as she was told, eyes cast down as she’d been taught. I could do whatever I wanted to her and she’d let me. She’d beg me. That knowledge alone was enough to send a rush of rousing chemicals through my blood.

I opened her fly. “Look at me, birthday girl.”

Her tempered-glass eyes flicked up. I felt around my pocket for the little silicone toy. It was the size and shape of a flattened walnut.

“We’re going to see someone I trust. That’s all you need to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

I ran my finger along her folds until she was wet, then I laid the toy between her underwear and her pussy. I snapped her underwear in place and closed her pants.

“What was that?”

“Surprise.” I kissed her. “Let’s go.”

Once we were in the elevator, I fingered the remote control in my pocket with one hand and held her hand with the other.

“Stay calm,” I said as the doors whooshed open to let in half the accounting staff.

“Why?”

She barely got the word out before I pressed a button. She gasped, even at the lowest setting. Everyone turned around to look at her. She was bright red, smiling, the owner and visionary of the company with a vibrating egg kissing her clit.

I shut it off when everyone was out of the elevator.

“Oh my god,” she said as I led her across the lobby. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a birthday present. Remember what I said about trusting me?”

I let her go through the revolving doors in front of me, and she held her question until we were spit into the street where a black car waited. Thierry opened the back door.

“Why?”

“It’s not fun if you don’t trust me. That’s why.”

“Hi, Thierry,” she said.

I helped her into the car. She looked both intrigued and worried, just the way I liked her.

“What is this thing?” she asked after I slid in across from her and Thierry closed the door. “Some kind of vibrator?”

“How does it feel?”

“Good, but—”

I flicked the button to buzz her, and she jolted.

“Open your mouth.”

I took an envelope from my inside pocket and put it between her teeth. She bit down.

“Happy birthday.”

Her expression was precious. Curiosity plus incredulity plus struggle. I had to laugh.

“Open it. Go ahead.”

She plucked it from her mouth and ripped it open, making a mess out of the envelope.

“I’m so intrigued,” she said, sliding out the card. She opened it, and a smile crept across her face. “This is my present?”

“Part of it.”

“You’re filthy.”

“I’m sick of signing you in.”

She held on to the invitation to membership at the Cellar when she hugged me. “Thank you. It’s what I always wanted.”

“If always equals a month?”

“What else? Is there more? I love birthdays. Dad always made them feel like national holidays.” Her face crinkled. She blinked hard. She was working through her father’s death one tear at a time.

“That’s my job now. Slide to the edge of the seat and open your knees. Keep your feet on the floor, but I want a hundred-twenty degrees between your legs.” The car lurched to a start, and we headed downtown. “Hands behind you on the seat. No talking.”

She complied beautifully, and a calm settled over me.

“I’m not giving you something you can unwrap. We’re past that. This will be the first birthday where I get to give you what you truly need. I’m going to give you what I should have given you in the first place.”

She ground her hips into thin air.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did I say?”

“Birthday. Something. Can’t wrap it. Something. Mmmm.”

“Do you want me to tell you?”

“Sure.”

She was fully pliant, in the drunken space just past manageable arousal where my patience and violence found their outlet. But she was also complacent.

I fisted her hair and pulled her to the floor at my feet.

“Take it out,” I said as she got her knees under her. “Take it out and suck on it.”

She fumbled with my belt, hook, zipper, cock. She’d been at this long enough to know I didn’t want her to suck like a hooker. She opened her mouth and her throat.

“Don’t come,” I said. “Or the punishment’s going to fit the crime.”

I pushed her head onto my lap, rubbing my head on the back of her throat. I hadn’t felt guilt about my cruelty in weeks, even as I remembered the sound of remorse in the back of my head. She wanted my cruelty as much as my kindness. Needed both as much as I did.

I pulled her head off me, and she gulped air.

“I should have had you alone in Montauk. This weekend, I will.”

Before she had a chance to react, I pushed her face on my dick and she took every inch like a fucking champion.

“You and me alone.” I pushed her down, let her breathe, pushed her down again. I pulled her off me so I could look in her eyes. “That’s the first half. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she whispered with spit dripping from the bottom half of her face. “If you think so.”

“I do.”

She was in heaven. With her clit vibrating and my fist in her hair, she snapped deep into a sexualized high. I was responsible for keeping her safe while she was like this, and I always would. Her protection was my pleasure.

“Swallow.” I put my cock back in her mouth. “All of it. Good girl.”

I came in her mouth just in time for Thierry to turn onto Ludlow Street.

* * *

We’d cleaned up before letting Thierry open the door. He knew damn well what was going on in the backseat, but I paid him to not care.

“Wait,” Diana said. “We’re going in here?”

She pointed at the religious artifact storefront. I’d turned off the egg. She seemed more awake and aware.

“In the back.”

We were ignored as we walked through the cluttered room, past the seven-day candles, incense, and Holy Books. Figurines carved in wood with bone skulls on top, wreathes of money, dancing skeletons with red bulbs in the eyes. A stone fountain tinkled as a stream of water came from the mouth of the monstrous death mask carved into the top. The water fell into a bowl shaped like a rib cage. A stone heart sat in the center. Diana stopped in front of it and dug into her pockets.

“I want to make a wish.” She came out with a quarter.

I held her hand back and drew out my own coin. “Switch.”

I gave her my quarter, and she gave me hers. We both made a wish. I didn’t know what she wished for, but I hoped it was the same thing I did.

I wished for her to be happy.

“You’re the Steinbecks?”

A guy with a long beard and plaid collared shirt stood in the doorway to the back room. He wore a leather collar with a silver ring in the front.

“Steve?” We shook hands.

“Missus,” he said to Diana. “I’m your artist.”

Before she could ask, he snapped open the black velvet curtain to reveal a barber’s chair and a table with instruments of torture. The walls were covered with snakes, crests, lions, knives, dragons, and skulls.

“A tattoo?” she asked. “I’m getting a tattoo for my birthday?”

Steve went into the room to work on preparations, which was good. I was suddenly nervous. I didn’t think she’d refuse me. I wasn’t nervous about her. I was nervous about me. That I’d make the moment less than perfect. That I’d misread her and that gentleness would be a liability.

Facing her, I ran my hands down her arms and back up again. “We did everything right the first time, you and I.” I cleared my throat. “We had a wedding. We had a reception. We wore rings. We didn’t work. It was our fault. I’d love to blame it on the tired traditions, but it was us. We broke what we built and then we blew it to dust. We have something now. We’re unbreakable. We’re non-negotiable. Do you feel it? I know it’s not just me.”

“It’s not just you. I thought I trusted you before, but this is different. You’re different. And the same.”

“Both.”

“Neither.”

“I want everything to be different.”

“I love this already.”

“Are you ready for it? I have plans. I don’t think you’re ready.”

She looked into the tattoo room, where Steve waited, then back at me. “Challenge accepted.”

I took her by the chin and made her look at me. “If you pinochle out, you’ll safe out of the scene, but you’ll never safe me out of your life.”

She pressed her lips between her teeth, then smiled as if she couldn’t hold it back another second. “Will it be fun?”

“I think so.”

“So what’s the tattoo thing?”

I surprised her and myself by picking her up under her arms and knees, carrying her to the chair, and setting her on it.

Steve put his phone down and sat straight. “So!” He slapped his hands on his jeans. “Here’s what I have so far.”

He opened a folder in front of Diana. I sat next to her. I felt her excitement and the tug of her curiosity. I wanted her to know she was safe.

“We’re tattooing big red targets on your butt,” I said. “One on each cheek.”

I slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. Steve laughed, and she let herself smile a little.

“I’m going to assume you’re joking,” she said.

“Maybe I’m not.”

“You are. You’d never cover the pink it turns.” She smirked coyly at Steve. She was safe with him. His collar told her everything she needed to know.

I relaxed when she did.

Steve opened the folder. “All right. I worked on these based on your names.”

He handed her a page with the outline of two left hands, one smaller than the other. On the ring finger of each were our names. The smaller hand said ADAM’S and the bigger hand said DIANA’S.

“Oh. These are… Adam. They’re perfect.”

“I’ll get you another diamond ring, but under it—”

“No, this is it. This is what I want. We can’t ever take it off.”

“I worked up other designs.” Steve pulled other papers from under the folder.

“I want to see all of them.”

Had I wished for her happiness five minutes before? Had I put a time limit on it? Because I wanted her to stay exactly like this, reacting to my silly gift. It wasn’t expensive or flashy, but she understood it because she understood me. She knew I wasn’t after a big gesture but a solid signal of permanence. We would die with each other’s names on our bodies, wrinkled, grizzled, papery, and old, our marriage couldn’t be taken off. It couldn’t be hidden. We couldn’t walk away ever again.

I’d meant to use the egg while she was getting inked, to pair pleasure and pain with shame and safety, but she was so childlike when she talked to Steve about the design, showing him her hand, that I couldn’t disrupt her. I didn’t even know what they were talking about. I didn’t even care. She was happy with me. Because of me.

“Which one?” She held up her favorite two designs.

“Whatever you like.” I couldn’t work through an opinion. They were both good enough. What mattered was the way her eyes sparkled.

“Boss me,” she said with her mouth behind the paper. “Sir.”

Every time she looked at the tattoo, she’d remember this day. She’d remember what I demanded and what I acquiesced. Keeping her happy meant not always letting her get her way. It meant making sure she knew she was safe in the world because I was in charge of a corner of it.

I pulled a third option from the pile. I didn’t even look at it. For all I knew, it was the ugliest one in the bunch. It didn’t matter what I chose, it mattered that I chose. “This one.”

“That was my favorite,” Steve said.

Diana’s eyes stayed with mine as she let Steve take her choices away. “Yes, sir. Who goes first?”

“Me.”

I held my hand out for Steve. He swabbed it, and Diana and I began our journey for the hundredth time.

Every day we’d start all over. A journey to oneness and independence. Stability and uncertainty. Happiness and melancholy. Pleasure and pain. Shame and confidence. Opposites locked in permanent tension. We would hold our worlds together with the ribbon of love.