Forgiveness

Tears flowed as I stared at the wall, a strange sorrow gripping me. I had dreamed again of loss and betrayal and it colored my day grey and dark. My husband would be home soon, and he would see my sorrow. My heart ached, for I knew it would hurt him to see me sad. It always did. He loved me so, this beautiful man I had married. He knew and understood the grief and the pain in me, and he forgave, always. Yet I could not forgive myself for the broken past that haunted me, nor for the intrusion of that grief and pain on our beautiful life together. I was ruining it. I knew it. Still these dark moods swept over me, and I knew they came because in my heart I was tainted and undeserving of the deep love my husband gave to me everyday. Yet despite my revulsion of myself, I yearned for his comfort, his forgiveness, and the love he always gave so freely. I cried with my own shame as I yearned for him to return home.

He knew I was sad today. I had called him, mostly to warn him because it seemed so terribly unfair to ruin his day with my foolishness without warning. At my tenth apology he had sighed wearily saying, "It's all right, there is nothing to forgive." The resignation in his voice as he hung up triggered more fear and a certainty I had driven away the only man I had ever loved, who had ever loved me. I had cried again at that, and cried still, aching and grieving with the certainty of my own unworthiness.

The key sounded in the door and I leaped to my feet, brushing the tears off my cheeks and out of my eyes as if the hideous red swelling of my face would not betray what he already knew, that I had been crying most the day.

He looked at me, and I saw rejection and loathing in his eyes. But he pulled me into his arms and held me softly, kissing the top of my head with the tenderness I had come to expect from him. I knew then the loathing I saw was my own imagination, as ever, born of my inability to forgive my past.

He sighed deeply, then gripped my shoulders and pushed me away from him gently. He looked into my eyes and I could see resolve there.

"We are going out," he said. Surprise made me stare at him. He usually pampered me when I was sad, holding me close, and telling me over and over that everything was fine, that I was ok. This stern resolve of his was new, and suddenly I was curious.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

His shuttered look worried me as he turned back to the door he had just entered. "Out. Are you ready?" I grabbed my purse and left with him, riding silently in the car.

After a few seemingly random turns, he handed me a long black silk scarf. "Tie this around your eyes," he said.

"What?" I stared at him again.

"Just do it," he said, exasperation coloring his tone. So I tied it, wondering what the surprise was and hoping he wasn't taking me to a fancy restaurant because I wasn't dressed for it. After a while, the car stopped.

"Stay there," he said, "I'll come around." He opened his door, and I waited, ears straining. Then my door opened.

"Will you trust me?" he asked. "You know I will never hurt you."

"Of course I trust you," I said, turning to his voice, reaching to pull the blindfold down. He caught my wrist and stayed my hand. I felt a cold bracelet, then heard the clicks of a handcuff closing against my wrist. He pulled me out of the car, kissed my lips softly, fleetingly, before he turned me around firmly, grabbed my other hand, and handcuffed me behind my back.

What the hell? Shock rooted me to the spot. I would have stared if I wasn't blindfolded.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, startled and starting to feel a little scared.

"Trust me," he said again, softly in my ear, before he pushed into my mouth something that I could not spit out. Cold shock iced my veins when I realized it was a gag. Anger followed by fear stung my eyes with tears. I whimpered. "Silence!" He commanded, giving me a hard pinch on the back of my arm. I cried, but kept silent. Trust him, he had asked. He had never harmed me, and I chose then to trust him, despite my fear and confusion. A weight was placed on my shoulders, and I realized he had draped a long coat over me, pulling the hood over my head. I heard him rustling in the car, then close the car door. He grabbed my elbow firmly, but not hard, and walked me forward. I closed my eyes behind the blindfold and walked with him.

I knew when we went inside, though we never paused in our walking, I could feel the difference in the air, and hear the people around. He stopped me, and I heard elevator doors open and we stepped in. By this time my heart was pounding hard and fast, and the gag in my mouth was starting to get uncomfortable, but not painful. The elevator opened and we walked out, his grip on my elbow guiding me through turns and finally to a stop. He opened a door, then guided me through it. It felt like a room, quiet and still.

"Sit." He said, his voice still hard, and cold, and commanding, twisting my heart with fear. I sat. Then he took my leg and moved my foot about a twelve inches in front of me and handcuffed my ankle. My other foot was placed in front of me, about two feet apart from the first and also handcuffed. I sat, unable to lean back, my feet spread apart and bound to something in front of me. I tried to pull my feet back, but they failed to move. My husband removed the gag from my mouth, and while I loosed my jaw he said in the same cold hard voice, "You were crying today. Why?"

"Why?" I repeated dumbly. Silence answered me. I waited but still there was no answer. Finally I said, "Because I was sad."

"Not good enough. Have a better answer when I get back." The coldness in his voice scared me, and he left the room. The tears stung my burning eyes, dampening the blindfold.

I sat in the silence for an eternity. The only sound was the heater warming the room. I shrugged the coat off my shoulders, too warm to wear it. My heart pounded hard and fear twisted me. He hated me, I had driven him to this. This man had only given me love and I was so despicable, so vile, so unable to release my demons that I had driven him mad with my crying and my fears, and how I never fully let go and opened up to him, too afraid the taint within me would curdle his love. As it had.

My heart lurched and tears soaked the blindfold. I sobbed, hunched in the chair, my hands bound behind my back. Unable to even wipe my nose, I sniffled constantly, vainly praying I would not look disgusting when he returned.

He would return, he must return. Trust him, he had asked. But what was he doing? Why had he left? Not good enough, he had said. What wasn't good enough? I wasn't good enough. Of course, I knew that, I had known it all along. Yet even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself, twisting his words. He loved me, my husband, he would never say I wasn't good enough. What had he said? He would return, he had said, and something else.

Have a better answer.

The memory doused my tears in a cold wave, as if ice had been injected into my veins. Have a better answer.

Something slid a little inside my head. Suddenly I wanted to please him. A better answer. Maybe a better answer would mean he wouldn't leave me again in the awful silence of this overly warm room.

Why had I been crying? That's the answer he wanted. Why had I? I thought hard, my brain racing, fearing now that he would return before I had a better answer than because I was sad. Sad at what? My shoulders were beginning to ache and my back hurt. I tried to lean back, but that only crushed my hands. No amount of shifting eased the discomfort. It must have been forever since he had left, or maybe it was just a few minutes. Still I had no better answer.

What made me so sad that I would cry all day despite loving my husband and the beautiful life we shared? What made me so sad that I never quite opened my heart all the way, never quite trusted. But I did trust him, I did. But I never trusted myself, whispered the back corner of my mind, the place that always knew the truth, the voice I ran away from. It's impossible to run away when you are handcuffed and blindfolded in a quiet room alone.

Real fear stabbed me then, hard in my stomach. I did not fear for my safety, I knew my husband would never harm me. What I feared were the answers he wanted, the answers he had chained me up to find.

The door opened then. I called out to my husband, calling his name. Silence greeted me, but he walked around. I could hear his step, and smell his cologne. I always loved that cologne. Often it was enough to arouse me. To my shock, now was no different. I called his name again. He barely kissed me, his lips lightly brushing mine, as if in apology. I tasted the whisky he must have drank while gone, then gasped as the gag was placed back in my mouth.

Without a word he freed my hands from each other, the cuffs dangling from one wrist. Grabbing me tightly by the shoulders he raised me to my feet, then pushed me forward, hard. Face first he pressed me, bent over a table. I protested, but the gag made it sound like a moan. He held my free wrist, brought it down and cuffed it to the leg of the table and repeated it with my other hand.

My thoughts spun out of control, my heart pounded violently and I was breathing hard. The table was padded, like a massage table, hip high, it supported my entire torso and my head. My hands and feet were cuffed to the legs, and I could not move them. My back muscles protested the sudden change in position.

He walked to the far side of the room and I heard a zipper, a long, deep-throated zipper from a bag. He stayed there awhile, rustling around.

Why had he gagged me again? I knew my answer, I had a better answer, if only he would let me tell him. My heart pounded.

He approached me again and leaned so close I could smell his cologne and the whisky on his breath. That smell reminded me of our honeymoon, suddenly, and my cheeks flamed.

"Hold still," his voice cracked, but his command and control riveted me. I had never heard him use that tone with me. Tears started again. I had screwed up my perfect marriage.

Something cold pressed against my ankle. Then a hissing sound followed. The cold moved up a few inches, followed by the hiss. I froze completely still, my hands grabbed the legs of the table.

He's cutting my clothes off! With agonizing slowness the cold scissors cut up the back of my leg. He was very careful when he reached my panties, to slide the scissors under them. I felt the elastic give with the cut as my arousal tingled and shame burned my cheeks. He repeated the cuts up my other leg, then finished with a slow cut right across my crotch, severing all that covered me. He pulled the ruined pants from under me, and left me bent over and exposed in the warm air of the room.

He ran his fingers lightly across my ass, and I felt the lust flame in my loins. I whimpered, almost glad the gag kept the sound from traveling. His fingers found the bottom of my shirt and the cold scissors sliced my shirt and bra off of me in slow inches. By the time he was finished I was quivering with anxiety and lust and shame, disoriented and confused.

He pulled the gag out of my mouth again and placed a straw to my lips. I sucked at the cold water, taking long drinks. He set the glass down nearby and then ran his fingertips lightly down my back and across my exposed ass. I trembled, but said nothing.

"Why do you cry?" he asked.

"Because I feel guilty and ashamed." I was ready, but my voice cracked.

"Guilty?" he repeated, and I knew he was surprised. Then cold steel chilled his voice as he demanded, "What did you do?"

The tears started again, and I cried softly. Crack. Fire burned across my ass. Crack. A second followed it immediately. I cried out and he snarled, "Answer me! What did you do?" Followed by a third strike across my ass.

"My past, my past!" I cried, sobbing, shocked, my ass on fire. "You know what I did!" He cracked that thing across my ass again and I shouted, "What the hell is that?"

"It's a strap," he whispered softly, suddenly, right by my ear, his warm breath raising goose bumps. He slowly drew the strap across my cheek and down my back. I shivered at its slow soft path, amazed the same tool had set such fire welts.

His hand, warm and gentle, cupped my ass just then, caressing me softly, as he knows I like, feeling even more erotic since my skin still tingled and burned.

"Why do you feel guilty? It wasn't your fault." He said, as he did every time we had this conversation.

I shook my head, denying him. Crack. The strap whipped across me again, causing me to cry out.

"Answer!" Dark steel growled through his voice, and I suddenly feared he was getting angry. Crack, again, and again I cried.

"It was my fault! It was!"

"How?" he said, pausing in his strikes, not touching me. I quivered, my ass on fire, lust burning. I was desperately afraid he would find out and hate me for that.

"Because I didn't say no enough. Because—" I sobbed my grief, my guilt, unable to continue. His hand was back, caressing me softly, arousing me further.

"You said no once. That is enough. You know that. Why do you still feel guilty?"

I cried instead of answering and the strap again welted me. Finally I sobbed what I knew he would hate hearing, what he always hated and what burned in me always. "Because I'm tainted, evil, I deserved it, what they did. No one will ever love me." I cried, the tears pouring, my grief bleeding through my heart.

Crack. He whipped my ass and my thighs hard, searing flame, hissing as he struck, "How DARE you say that about the woman I love? How dare you insult my love so much?" He whipped me more, until I cried and sobbed apologies, begging him that I knew he loved me. Still I could not say that I was not guilty. My voice cracked on the words. He stilled, and the room was eerily silent.

"There is more, isn't there?" He said so softly I could not tell where he was.

I cried again, humiliated, sobbing. He grabbed my hair and pulled hard, "Answer me! What else?" The lust that swept through me as he grabbed me was a mockery of the truth. I sobbed, "He made me come."

He released me and caressed my cheek softly. I wished I could see him, see if he was as revolted by me as I was by myself. "Explain."

His soft whisper cracked me like an egg. I explained how the first one had demanded I give him everything. How everyone after just recreated the same man. Denied a right to choose, to want or not, he had made me believe I had no right to say no, because no was never listened to. Then sobbing in guilt and shame, I explained how he had made me come, taking advantage of my youth and my sensitivity, making himself the master of me by making me come whether I wanted or not, gloating his triumph. I closed up after that. Guilty over those stolen orgasms, I never again let go, fighting every orgasm.

"I'm so horrible," I cried, feeling disgusted with myself, with my past. "You deserve so much better than me." I sobbed, expecting the strap again.

His finger slid inside me. Shock held me still as he explored my wet cunt. I moaned, ashamed he found my lust, my arousal. He stroked me inside, sliding his finger in and out and around, while he whispered so softly I had to hold my breath and strain to hear him.

"Since you have decided you are guilty, then you will be punished. You will be scourged of this, do you understand me?" He slid a second finder into me and I moaned as he stroked them hard within me. His thumb caressed my clit, and my juices were dripping as he stroked me until I was moaning and tightening up, building toward climax. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," I breathed, sounding more like a woman in heat than one being punished.

"You will not come. I forbid it," he said, still stroking his fingers inside of me, his thumb teasing my clit as he knows I like it done. "Say it," he commanded.

"I will not come."

"Should be easy for you since you hold yourself back all the time anyway," he said a little cruelly as he kept stroking me, teasing me, building my pleasure.

My thoughts tripped over each other. Suddenly I wanted to come more then I ever had before.

"You will not." He ordered, as if he had read my mind. "Not until you have been punished. You will not come." His fingers were making me crazy, but I repeated my command.

"I will not come."

That's when he pushed the dildo inside of me. He strapped it in place, then he turned it on to vibrate. He rubbed his thumb along my clit some more, and I nearly came right then. I hissed and pulled myself from the edge of orgasm as I always did, feeling the wave recede. But usually I could stop, pull away, but this time I could not. I couldn't move and that vibrator was building me up again.

My husband's thumb abandoned my clit, making it easier to resist the nearing climax. He caressed my cheek with thin strands that tickled, and ran it across my shoulders.

"Cat o'nine tails," he whispered. "For your guilt."

Anticipation, not to mention that vibrator, quickened my pulse.

"What is your guilt?" he asked.

"I am tainted."

He whipped my back. The tails stung less then the strap, at first, but they built up fiercely. The fire and ice of the whipping seared me. He demanded their names as he whipped me, and the stories. I told him everything, sobbing my grief, and my guilt as the sting of each whip burned the memories. I trembled and shuddered, and he repeated his order that I would not come while I was still guilty.

Broken and sobbing, my mind aching from the memories, my back stinging. He removed the vibrator and I shuddered at the sudden emptiness where it had been. He slid his hands gently along my hips, as he always did, and I sobbed at such a loving and familiar touch. He gave me another drink of water, then left me along in the room again.

I cried in the silent room, my back stung and fire burned along my nerves. I think I slept a little. I must have, because I woke to the door opening again.

He moved around the room, though I couldn't tell what he was doing. His warm hand cupped my ass again, caressing softly. I whimpered, still aroused.

"You've done well," he whispered, and an immense joy swept through me. "We are not finished yet, I think." His words raised goose bumps. What could he mean? My flesh stung, my heart had bled itself dry, and I was so aroused I thought I would come if the wind blew.

"Over and over in your telling," he spoke softly, "you kept saying you didn't say no enough." While he spoke he slowly, deliberately, and carefully squeezed lubricant onto my ass. The cold, slippery liquid running slightly, raising shivers in me. His finger slid around my anus, teasing. "Yet with each of them, you said no more than once, and was not listened to. They did not stop." His teasing finger eased into me, opening me. I whimpered, relaxing as he stroked me, sliding gently in and out of my ass. "I know that you believe that one no is all you need. So it's time to remember what you already know." He inserted a small vibrator into my ass and turned it on. I moaned and trembled.

His hands caressed my ass again, then circled my hips before they slid up my back. That's when I felt him, hot and erect and naked against my cunt. I shuddered violently to feel his cock against me, pressing slightly. I nearly came right then, but my punishment wasn't over yet.

His hands slid up my back and he ran his fingers through my hair. "Do you want me?" he asked. I whimpered, trying to move, anything so he would bury that cock inside of me. His fingers tightened in my hair and he pulled, growling fiercely, "Tell me, do you want me?"

"Yes!" I cried, my cunt quivering as he pulled my hair. He thrust into me then, slowly, expanding me around his cock. I could feel him pressing against the vibrator in my ass, and I shuddered and shook, riding the edge of orgasm, but not crossing, not allowed yet.