"I don't believe you!" Her gaze locked on mine. "I don't believe you still won't admit you feel something for me! I'm wearing a ring, Jeremy. A ring you bought and gave to me in front of your whole family-"

"So what? Do you think that means I love you? It just means...it just means-"

"What? What does it mean? Tell me!"

"I don't-Jesus. It-maybe it means that I want to hold you here. That I don't want you to go away. Not yet."

"You don't need a ring to do that. I've stayed long past the time I should stay, and you know why!"

"I do know why. You need to stay. You're just sticking around to get your fucking college education, but the joke's on you. I would have paid for it anyway. If you'd left me the first week, I would have paid for it. The first day, if you'd left me. You stupid little whore. So go pack up your bags if you want to, if you really want to leave-"

"I don't want to leave!"

"They all leave!" I shouted.

"I'm yours! I'm yours. I have been since the first night we played. You know I am! It's not your stupid contract that holds me here."

"'I'm yours' doesn't mean 'I love you'!"

"How would you know that, Jeremy Gray? You don't know anything about love. You wouldn't know love if it came up and spit in your face. You with your fake life and your fake job and your fake girlfriends and your fake contracts and your fake control. You aren't in control of me. And you sure as hell aren't in control of yourself, of how you feel."

"Oh really? I can be in control, you little fuck," I said, advancing on her. "I'll show you control. I can control you just fine!"

It was a really bad time to play with her, a really bad time. A horribly bad time to play with her, but I pushed her down and pulled her arms hard behind her back. I bound her with the only thing I had, the belt I wore around my waist, and it made a sloppy restraint, but I had to tie her up. I looked down at the ring on her finger, the ring she didn't even want. The stupid ring.

I was the stupid one. Why on earth had I ever imagined she would understand, that she would be able to accept it for what it was? Why did everything have to mean love, commitment, honesty, whatever it was she wanted?

I fucked her, grappling with her while she fought me. She was angry, but she was wet for me. Her slim torso struggled and tensed below me. There was a beautiful quality to the undulations of muscles straining across her back, but only because the belt kept her bound. Otherwise she would have been in motion, coming at me. Not as beautiful, I thought. Still, part of me was tempted to release her just to see how hard she'd fight.

She'd never fought me before, at least not like this. It was a novel feeling. It made me feel even more powerful, more dominant than I usually did. I fucked her long and hard, enjoying my mastery of her. Her struggling inflamed me so much that when my orgasm came it was painfully intense. The waves of pleasure spread out like fire up into my chest and down through my balls and thighs. I shuddered and shook it off, pulled out of her. I looked down at her still trembling with indignation beneath me. I stood and went for the cane. I came back and dropped it in front of her face.

"Are you really mine? I want to hear it, you little fuck. I'm yours. Say it to me."

"I'm yours." She tried to sound strong, but her voice was shaking, and it sounded thick with unshed tears. I remembered that same tremulous voice, scared and nervous, at a meeting ages ago. I know my job is to accept pain, and I do, but it's not as easy for me as, perhaps, some submissives who really enjoy pain. Pain is different for me.

"You're really mine? This is what I want, then. I want to hurt you!"

"Why?" she whispered.

I shook my head. "I don't know why. I don't know." I picked up the cane.

She had safe words she could use, and I wanted her to use them. I wanted her to realize that she wasn't really mine. That she was only with me because she had to be, just as I was with her.

I made her cry with the cane, I made her beg, but she never said the words.

Please, Master.

Just say them, Nell. Just say them.

But she didn't say them, although I really wish she had.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Faithful One *

He dropped the cane and stalked away. God, he was so angry. My ass ached from the horrible sting, my legs shook, tears bathed my face, but I could still remember the hot pleasure of his cock fucking me hard.

Just use me. Please. Whatever. I'm so sorry for what I said. Please just fuck me again and hold me close and forgive me.

I was so, so sorry. I'd ruined everything now. Why hadn't I just shut my mouth and worn his stupid ring while he figured out where the hell his head was? This was all so horribly complicated. I understood now. I understood completely why he avoided real relationships. It was too devastating when they went wrong. Now I understood Jeremy's need to cloak himself in contracts and impersonal distance.

Jeremy. Where was he?

I moaned softly. He came back in the room, and I braced. Another implement? A torturous toy? Rough anal sex?

I heard a thud and turned my face to the fire to see my book of Babylonian myths surrounded in a puff of red-hot embers flying up and around it like fireworks. My vision blurred as the smoke billowed and the acrid smell filled my nose. I was confused for a moment. Why was my Babylonian book burning? Another book landed in the fireplace, and another, the flames leaping higher, consuming my treasured mythology books as fuel, books I had collected and loved over a lifetime.

And I just watched with a strange, confused detachment as every one fell into the fire. The Kalevela, The Dictionary of Celtic Myths, The Odyssey, Native American Sacred Texts, Colarusso's Nart Sagas from the Caucasus, which had cost me almost a hundred bucks.

I started to cry.

"That one is so rare, Jeremy. It's so hard to find!"

He ignored me, and he didn't stop until every book was burning. I'd brought all of them, all the ones I owned. They were all gone now.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because you're not here for your college education, are you? That's what you claimed. Or were you lying?"

Tears stung my eyes. There was a hollow ache coiled hard in my stomach. A stubborn wish not to believe it. He looked back at me, no hint of remorse in his gaze.

"Those were my books. They had nothing to do with college. I liked to read them!"

"And I like to make you cry. You're my submissive, and if I want to get a hard-on from burning your fucking books, I will!"

He stormed away, then back again. I waited, still bent over, still restrained, still vulnerable, but there was nothing he could do to hurt me anymore, so I just waited, crying softly, for whatever came.

"Tell me your name."

"No," I sobbed. "If you cared at all about me, you would have figured it out by now. I'll never tell you my name. Not now!"

He leaned over me, breathing hard as he roughly released my hands. Then, without a word, he stormed into his room and slammed the door.

But me, I stayed awake a long time watching my books turn to black paper, then ashes, then dust.

It stormed hard that night, appropriately. I lay awake a long time listening to the rain beat on the rooftop. I also strained to hear any sign at all that Jeremy was still up. I wanted him to come to me, I wanted him to kneel by the bed and take me in his arms and whisper, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I would have whispered back, I'm so sorry too.

But he didn't, and I didn't dare creep to his bedside, for fear of being sent away. So that was my Christmas: a fake ring on a North Carolina mountain, a red-eye flight back to Lisbon, and my books thrown on a fire while I knelt with my head on the floor and my ass aching from the cane. Santa wouldn't be coming for us, not this year. And next year, next Christmas, I'd be on my own, I was sure.

I finally cried myself to sleep thinking of my mother, thinking of my childhood Christmases, which hadn't been great, but at least my mother had tried. Jeremy hadn't gotten me anything besides the ring I still wore, for some reason, on my left hand. Me, I had bought him a tie the exact color of his eyes with Kyle's help, a paltry little gift. It was still buried in my suitcase and would probably remain there. Why give it to him? He owned a hundred designer ties. What do you get for the man who has everything and all the money in the world?

Submission. Obedience. Comfort. That was what he wanted, what he paid me for, but I hadn't given him that.

When I woke the next morning, I felt even more tired than I'd felt the night before. My eyes were red and raw from crying, and my muscles protested as I eased myself from the bed and took my robe from the back of the chair. I stared at the desk, at the back wall where all my books had been neatly stacked. Gone. They were gone forever now.

And I could buy them again, sure, but those books had been broken-in, loved, familiar. They had absorbed my joy, my pain. Some had been given to me by teachers or good friends. One had been inscribed by the author.

I should have been furious. I should have stood up and fought back until he stopped what he was doing. I should have insisted he stop. I could have used a safe word. I should have.

It hadn't even crossed my mind.

I listened hard for the sound of Jeremy in the quiet morning, but I didn't hear anything. I wrapped my robe more tightly around myself and opened the bedroom door. Jeremy was gone, but Kyle was sitting at the table. His serious expression made my throat go dry.

"Jeremy said if you want to go, I'm supposed to help you."

I leaned against the door frame, hugging myself.

"Go? Where?"

"Leave. Go home. Back to L.A."

I stood still, thinking about those words. Go home. I could be gone before he returned. I could drop his ring by his bedside and never have to face him again.

"Does he want me to go?"

Kyle frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "What happened last night? What did he do to you?"

"He didn't tell you?

"No."

"He burned all my books."

"He did what?"

"He burned them. He threw them in the fire. Even my Colarusso."

"What the hell? Why?"

"I don't know! I don't know what to do. What does he want? Does he want me to go?"

Kyle came to me and hugged me, led me to the couch and held me close while I cried like a baby into his chest for almost half an hour. In between my incoherent sobs and whimpers, he rubbed my back. "Okay, it's okay..."

When I finally calmed down, he stared at the fireplace and narrowed his eyes. "I don't get it. Why your books? What did he say?"

"He said he wanted to hurt me. It was because of the ring, because I said it was stupid. He gave me a ring."

"I heard." Kyle pursed his lips. "Show it to me."

I held out my hand like there was a poisonous spider perched on my ring finger, and he took it as if there were. He looked down at the ring a long time, then said under his breath, "What the holy fuck is going on? What did he say about it? What did he say when he gave you this?"

"I don't know. Nothing. He said it's to ward off the stalker."

Kyle frowned. "Ward her off? Piss her off, more likely. What the fuck? I don't know, Nell. I just don't know." He dropped my hand and sighed. "What else did he say last night? Why would he burn your books? I thought he was supposed to pay for your college."

I sniffled. "Maybe he isn't anymore. I told him...I told him I loved him. It really made him furious."

He looked down at me with a look I couldn't decipher. Surprise, disappointment, something more. "Do you love him?" he asked. "Really?"

"Yes. I wish I didn't. He doesn't love me."

Kyle chuckled, a soft exhalation of breath. "I don't think he knows if he loves you or not. I don't think he has a clue what he really feels."

I looked up at Kyle. I let all our past fights and rivalry fall away. "Help me understand what he wants. Please help me figure this out!"

He looked back at me hard but didn't answer. Instead he said, "I know your real name. We all keep our secrets. Sometimes it's better that way, you know?" He handed me another tissue and headed for the kitchen. "Is ten in the morning too early for a glass of wine?"

We drank wine for a while and talked about things that felt safe. By the time he left to run some errands I was feeling better, but I still dreaded facing Jeremy when he came home.

I walked around the garden outside and tried to imprint the beauty and quiet of the surrounding woods on my mind. Serenity. Why couldn't I find it?

When he finally got home, I was hiding in the bedroom. I hoped to hear him open the refrigerator for a beer, turn on the TV to watch some show.

But he didn't. He came right to my room and stood in the door. I was sitting in the dark, waiting to hear those three awful words. You're still here?

But he didn't say anything for a long while, just stood and looked at me while I looked back at him. Finally he came in and tossed a book beside me on the bed.

"Penelope," he said quietly. "The faithful one."

I glanced down at the book, knowing what I'd see. Homer's Odyssey. "Did Kyle tell you?"

"Yes. And you're right. I should have figured it out long ago. I would have, if I hadn't been so caught up in myself."

I bit my lip. I refused to cry. I had cried enough tears over him. He stood against the wall, his face betraying nothing as I leafed absently through the pages. It was a beautiful edition in English and Greek.

"Dutiful, virtuous, prudent Penelope," he said. "She waited twenty years for her husband to come home. She fended off one hundred and six suitors."

"One hundred and eight." I don't know why I corrected him, why I sounded so surly. It was a thoughtful gift, and an apology, I was sure. His apologies were never the typical I'm sorry, but I understood them when they came. And now he knew my real name. I should have felt happy. I looked down at the embossed cover, ran my fingers across the intricate design. For a moment I let myself imagine Jeremy picking it out for me, although I knew Kyle would have done it. "Did you read this book?"