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“Yeah?”
“Do you remember how you were that day with the less impressive Matsumoto?”
I snort at this description. “Yes.”
“I need you to be her.”
“Okay.”
I don’t know what I’m going to use, but I feel so exposed with Brian watching me, so I take a black length of cloth from the box. I blindfold him and run my fingertip along his jawline.
“Let’s let it be a surprise,” I whisper.
I’m also offering him space and privacy for this. It’s not lost on me the enormous amount of trust he’s placing in me right now, to allow himself to be this vulnerable, to so utterly and completely reverse our roles—even if for only a moment.
Things have been different with us for a long time. I don’t think either of us truly sees me as his slave anymore. It’s an act we put on for the house—something which preserves Brian’s reputation. It’s a role I’m more than willing to play with the man who saved me in every way a person could be saved.
In private we’re partners in crime, and in the bedroom the power flows back and forth between us with ease. But this is something else entirely. It’s not the playful way we’ve been together, and I feel a duty to Brian to take this seriously. He’s seeking penance, absolution, for a supposed crime I’ve already forgiven him for, but I’m worried he won’t be able to forgive himself.
I run my fingertips over the supple leather of one of the whips. I select one and cross back over to Brian. I just stand there and stare at his back, hypnotized by the criss-crossing scars.
A long time passes.
“Mina?”
“I can’t do this.”
I expect him to get angry, but he just seems defeated as though the last hope of salvation has just passed him by. He’s still blindfolded, and I take this moment to caress his jawline and kiss him. He opens to me and groans against my mouth. I know there are words bubbling to the surface, things he wants to say, but I keep him busy with my tongue’s steady invasion.
Then I release him from the Saint Andrew’s Cross and guide him back to our room.
I turn back to see him about to remove the blindfold.
“No,” I say, my voice clipped and sharp.
I wait to see if he’ll do as I ask. His free hand drops back to his side and he follows me where I guide him.
“Sit,” I say, when he’s in front of the bed, and he does.
I put the vinyl record on the turn table. The sound crackles gently just before Chopin’s Nocturne number 2 begins to play.
I go to Brian’s dresser and pull out clothes. I help him get dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants and then socks and running shoes.
“Mina… running won’t help this.”
“Brian? Do I need to gag you?”
He hesitates a moment, but then shakes his head. He tenses when I sit on the bed beside him.
“I like the games we play,” I begin. “I like that they flow in both directions now, but there is something light and playful about it. What you’re asking me to do… I understand the logic behind it, and I thought I could do it for you, but I’m not willing to be your stepmother.”
“That’s not…”
“Yes it is.”
Brian has been closed off for years, buried under the sociopathy that still protects that small boy inside him. But I’m not going to make him feel again with pain. I’m not going to be the next person who hurts him, no matter the justification.
I take his hand in mine. “I don’t want our relationship to be based on hurting each other. There’s no justification for this, and I’m not going to re-traumatize you based on some psychobabble armchair amateur shrink theories about healing through pain. I know you’ve done a lot of bad things, and I don’t expect that to change. We both are what we both are at this point, but what we have together is different. It’s special. And I’m not going to break that tonight over some misguided notion of you paying for a crime I haven’t convicted you of.”
