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6
CATERINA
Deep in my heart, as I walk away from Viktor, I know that nothing will change. I know that he’s too far into this life to walk away, too deeply immersed to ever see a different path forward. I know that a part of himwantsit to be different, but not nearly enough.
I know that any future I have with him will be limited to what I can live with–which, if he continues to be the man that he is, means distance. Means loving only his children, and any child I might give him, but never him. It means going back to the kind of life I’d once expected to have with a husband, which shouldn’t hurt. It only does because for a brief moment, I’d had a taste of something different.
Even as dark and depraved as some of the things Viktor has done to me are, it awakened something in me, desires that I didn’t know I had. And now I have to let that go–walk away from it. It hurts more than I’d thought it would because I hadn’t known I could feel desire so deeply,wantso much, experience so much pleasure. I want more of it. I’ve begun to crave it, almost like an addiction.
The thought lingers with me all day, sticking in my brain, making me feel restless and unsettled. The thought of never touching Viktor or being touched with that kind of desperate need, feeling that line between pain and pleasure that he’s shown me, letting go and giving myself over to everything that he’s taught me to crave, makes me feel like bursting into tears, as if I’m losing something that I didn’t know I needed.
And yet–
You can’t love a man like him. You can’t give yourself to him willingly, night after night, and still feel good about yourself–still feel like yourself at all. It’s not possible. If he won’t change, then neither can the marriage that you’d thought you’d have.
But when I go upstairs to get ready for bed, I can’t stop thinking about it. I can feel the desire shivering through me, like an addict in need of another hit. All I can picture is his cruelly handsome face as he punished me, as he did things to me that I’d never imagined could turn me on or bring me pleasure.
Once more,I think to myself, trying desperately to rationalize it.One more time,I tell myself.One more time, and you can enjoy every second of it without guilt. And then never again.
My choice. My decision. Deep down, I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, what that means for me, and who I am as a person.
All I know is that I need to experience what my husband can do to me,withme, completely, of my own volition. Just once. And then I’ll put my walls up and never look back. I’ll never let him touch me that way again.
So instead of what I normally would wear to bed, I change into a short, cranberry red slip made of silk, with thin straps at my shoulders and eyelash lace feathering over my breasts and along the tops of my thighs. I leave my hair long and loose, and when I hear Viktor’s footsteps on the stairs, I sink to my knees in front of the fireplace, feeling my heart race as I keep my eyes lowered, my hands clasped together in my lap. The way I know he would want me, if I planned to submit to him.
This is exactly what I intend on doing–just for tonight.
The door opens, and I hear his footsteps as he walks into the room. I can hear his indrawn breath, the way he goes very still as he stops in front of me, and I know he’s looking down at me. I can almost hear the pounding of my own heart, my pulse in my throat as I wait for him to say something.
It hadn’t occurred to me until exactly this moment that he might be displeased enough with me after our conversation today to turn me down. To tell me thathedoesn’t wantme.
I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens. It’s just tonight. After tonight–
After tonight, I can’t ever allow myself to do this again. I know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Which means this is it.
The last time I’ll let myself open up to my husband, let myself desire him before I close that part of myself off completely. Before I let the part of me thatwants,desires, die forever.
I can’t have both. That much is clear. And I can’t bear to live in this in-between forever.
“Does this mean what I think it does, Caterina?” Viktor’s voice comes from above me, deep and gruff, and I can hear the heat in it. Theneed. He wants me, wants what I’m offering him, and the leap of my heart in my chest tells me that for tonight, this was the right decision. When my bed is cold and lonely in the nights to come, I can have this memory, at least when I long for something I can’t ever have again. One night where both of us took exactly what we wanted from each other, and I submitted to him completely of my own volition.
“Yes,” I whisper, my voice smaller than I meant for it to be. “Yes, it does.”
“I’ll do what I please to you tonight, if that’s so,” he says roughly, his accent thickening, and it sends a shiver down my spine. “AnythingI please, Caterina. Do you understand?”
I nod.
“Say it aloud,printsessa.”
“Yes, Viktor.”
“Yes,sir.”
“Sir–” I whisper the word aloud, and it hovers between us, making me tremble with need.
“Do you want a word to stop things if it’s too much?”
The offer alone gives me pause, because Viktor has never done anything other than taking what he wants before. I consider it, for just a moment, because I know how brutal he can be, how roughly he can take me if it pleases him–and I think it might please him tonight.
