Finally. At last. Thank God, she touched him.

With a slick hand she grasped him and stroked the full length of his erection. The contact hit him like a bolt of lightning, but Kingsley managed—a miracle—to keep his eyes open and locked onto hers. She stroked again, harder, once up and once down. He pulled on his bonds and writhed on the bed, but even as he reached his climax he didn’t break eye contact. As she stroked and massaged and caressed and pulled, he fucked her hand with everything he had. And when the climax came, it came from the bottoms of his feet and worked all the way up his legs to his aching testicles and cock. A nerve twitched inside him, one tight little nerve, one quick little twitch and he flinched in pure pleasure. The first spurt of semen shot out of him and onto his stomach. Waves of release washed over him as he came and came in hot spasms. For one insane moment, the only parts of his body touching the table were the back of his head and the heels of his feet. He arched so hard he would have floated to the ceiling if he hadn’t been tied down. It was a violent orgasm. It wrenched everything out of him and when it passed, he was left with nothing. He was empty and spent. He had no will, no breath, no energy, no hope, no dreams, no nightmares.

“Thank you, Madame.”

“My pleasure.”

Limp as a rag, he lay on the table as Madame untied him. His eyelids were so heavy he could have slept there, despite being covered in his own come and suffused with pain from the hours’ long beating.

It started to rain. Warm rain. Gentle rain. Kingsley opened his eyes and saw Madame sponging his body off with water from a porcelain bowl. With infinite care she bathed him clean, washing the come off his stomach and chest and then ordering him onto his stomach again to tend to his back, which was still scalding from the beating and bleeding from a few small wounds. Her touch was so very tender it was almost impossible to believe this was the same woman who had just inflicted a beating on him that had lasted half the night.

“I’d forgotten about this part,” Kingsley said.

“What part?”

“When it’s over,” he said. “And you monsters turn back into human beings again.”

“Was he kind to you after he hurt you?”

“Sometimes. The second time we were together, after he’d beaten and fucked me, he held my head in his lap and said, ‘You did well.’ I almost cried. I would have taken ten times the pain, a hundred, just to hear him say those three words.”

“You did well,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling to himself. Those three words worked their magic again on him. He had pleased her. That’s all that mattered. He had pleased her and nothing could have pleased him more.

“Don’t fall asleep,” she said. “We’re not done yet. Up.”

With a groan, Kingsley rolled up.

“Come here,” she said, motioning with her finger. She walked to the wall where a tasseled blanket hung over something. She pulled it off to reveal an oval mirror, full-length with a silver frame. It wasn’t the same mirror that had hidden the passage into the dungeon, but he felt a twinge of guilt just the same.

“There we are,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him close so he could see his own reflection in the looking glass. “Who do you see?”

He saw a man covered in welts and bruises, so many of them that they looked like shadows on his back. He saw those same shadows around his wrists and his ankles, marks from where she’d bound him, from where he’d flinched so hard that the cords had cut into his skin. He looked like a man who’d survived.

“I remember him,” he said softly.

“He remembers you, too.”

He turned to Madame, still looking prim and perfect in her nightgown and peignoir.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Of course.”

He started to bend his head to touch his lips to hers.

“Not there,” she said.

He smiled and went down on his knees. He removed her silk slippers and kissed the tops of her feet. He sat up, still on his knees. It had been a long time since he’d kneeled for anyone.

“Please let me serve you,” he said.

“You already have.”

“I want to make you come,” he said.

She smiled and touched his hair. “If I thought I could be with you without thinking of him, I would.”

“Your husband?”

“You are not the only one wearing the shackles of an old love around your ankles.”

“Maybe if I can take off your shackles, you can take off mine,” he said.

“Ah, but you know the truth, don’t you? About you and me? You know.”

He nodded slowly.

“Say it,” she said.

“We don’t want to take them off.”

She brought her fingers to her lips and kissed them and then pressed those just-kissed tips to his mouth. “Come with me,” she said. “I’ll let you serve me tonight. You’ve earned it, and I need it.”

She snapped his fingers, and he followed her across the hall to her bedroom.

Her room wasn’t what he expected. After seeing where she played, he assumed where she slept would look equally dark and strange. But no, the walls were painted a pale yellow with white wainscoting. A blue-and-silver damask armchair sat by a white fireplace. A Tiffany lamp sat on the bedside table. And the bed itself was neither intimidating nor grand, but simple and elegant, with a plain iron frame and a white quilt on top and a large gray and blue striped rug underneath. It wasn’t a bit frilly, yet it was undeniably feminine.

“That room we were in,” Kingsley said as Madame switched on the lamp. “Was it your husband’s bedroom?”

“It was,” she said. The lamplight illuminated her lovely face and her somber eyes. “I burned his bed after I sent him away. Too many memories. It’s the only room I ever use when I’m hurting someone. Why do you think that is?”

She seemed to want an answer, a serious answer. King thought about it. “To spite him?”

“That’s childish, isn’t it,” she said. “Even sadists were children once, too.”

She reached out and stroked the silken covers on the bed. “I couldn’t burn this bed, however. This was always my bedroom. Though he shared it with me some nights when he fell asleep after making love to me. I burned his bed to punish him. I kept mine and all its memories to punish myself.” She smiled to herself. “He wouldn’t be pleased to learn I let you in here.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” Kingsley said, as if telling her husband were even an option. He wondered who the man was. Did Madame keep photographs? She didn’t seem the sentimental type, but then again, neither did he. But he still owned a certain boy’s black leather belt that he’d stolen long ago…

She sat at her dressing table in the corner of the room. Without her ordering him to do it, Kingsley carefully pulled the pins from her hair and laid them on the table. When he finished he brushed her hair with a silver-plaited hairbrush. He found her pure white hair both thick and soft, and when she closed her eyes he used his fingers to comb out her curls. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled.

“Time to sleep,” she said. She rose from the stool and faced him. He reached for the sash of her peignoir and slowly untied it, feeling himself grow warm and aroused as he loosened the knot. He pulled the robe off her shoulders and hung it on a brass hook behind the door.

“You’ll sleep on the floor,” she said. “Here.” She pointed to a patch of rug by the side of her bed.

He laughed.

She raised her eyebrow. “Ah, yes, he made you sleep on the floor, too. Didn’t you tell me that?”

“He made me do it a few times. When I deserved it. Usually when I didn’t. What does that mean in your language of pain?”

Madame came to him and placed her hands on his face.

“It means we want you close but not too close,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Because it’s terrifying to be a sadist in love,” she said. “You get close enough to someone, they might accidentally see who you really are.”

She dropped her hands from his face, walked to the bed, and waited. Kingsley followed her, reached past her and pulled the quilt and sheet down for her, folding them back neatly. She slipped into bed and rolled onto her side as Kingsley pulled the covers over her to her shoulder.

“There’s a blanket in the linen chest,” she said, nodding at a large steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. “I’ll let you have one. But only one.”

“You’re too kind, Madame.”

“I know. You bring out the best in me. It’s very embarrassing.”

Kingsley took out the blanket and laid on the rug. The rough fibers bit at his brutalized back so he rolled over onto his side. Glancing up he saw Madame’s small delicate hand resting over the edge of the bed. He reached up and linked their fingers.

“Close but not too close,” she said.

“I thought you were going to break me until I wished I were dead. Instead I wish I could live here forever.”

“That’s your cock talking.”

“Probably,” he said. “But sometimes it talks sense.”

“Sleep, boy,” she said, squeezing his fingers. “I’ll break you yet. I’ve only just begun.”

She released his hand and he reluctantly settled down under his blanket. He wanted to sleep, desperately, but he wanted to stay awake even more. Luckily, the bruises on his back screamed at him every time he tried to get comfortable so sleep was unlikely. Eventually it was obvious from her deep steady breathing that Madame had fallen asleep.

Quietly as he could, Kingsley rolled up off the floor. He glanced at Madame in the bed. Her eyes were closed, her face was smooth and slack in sleep. When he touched her hand again, she didn’t stir. Though he hated to leave her and risk her disappointment, he had to. He slipped into the bathroom and pulled on his jeans and t-shirt. He snuck out into the hall.

Polly’s note said he needed to see Colette. If he didn’t do it now, he might not have the chance before Madame sent him back to Paris.

His heart pounded and his blood raced as he crept along the long corridor to the old part of the château, toward the room he’d spent his “wedding night” in. He ran up the stairs and down the hall. He had to remind himself he was a guest in a lovely lady’s home and not on a mission. And yet, the low-level fear remained for some reason. Had Madame already broken him to the point that the mere thought of disappointing her was enough to spike his anxiety?

One of these days he would have to figure out why he was always falling for sadists.

At Colette’s door he paused and rapped lightly with his knuckles. No answer. He was afraid of that. If he knocked louder, he would wake the house; if he didn’t knock louder, she wouldn’t hear him. He only hoped the door was unlocked.

It was. With excruciating care, Kingsley turned the knob, wincing as the latch clicked. He stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, but there Colette was in the bed, lying on her side with the ornate gold comforter pulled up to her neck and pillows all around her like a harem maiden in a technicolor illustration from 1001 Arabian Nights. Praying she wouldn’t scream when he touched her, he reached out and lightly tapped her shoulder. At once her eyes flew open and she sat up. Kingsley stared at her and realized in an instant why Polly had told him he had to see Colette before he left.

Colette was pregnant.