“Put your arms behind your head,” he said. “Clasp your fingers and keep your elbows open. Like a butterfly’s wings.”
She did as she was told. The move made her arch her back, thrust her breasts forward. He stood before her, inspecting her.
“Legs wider,” he said. He touched the floor with the tip of the riding crop in two places—here and there, showing her where to place her feet. She moved her feet wider apart, a foot and a half, and stood quivering in place.
“Very nice.” He raised the crop and tapped her left nipple with it. Then her right. He caressed the underside of each breast with the triangle of leather on the crop’s end. He ran the shaft of the crop down the sides of her body from each elbow to each ankle and back up again. It tickled and made her shiver. She would have given anything to feel his body against her right now. She craved it and with every passing second she craved it more. No doubt this was the intention.
He stepped close again. It was torture to be so close without touching. He brought the crop up between them and pressed the flat side of the tip to his lips. Then he pressed the opposite side to her lips.
“Think of it as a kiss,” he said when the leather lay against her mouth. “That’s all it is. Just a kiss from me to you.”
“Most kisses don’t leave welts,” she said. “I prefer French kissing.”
“Well, I’m English. This is English kissing.”
“Holy shit,” Cyrus breathed to himself. He glanced over his shoulder just to make sure nobody had heard him, or worse, seen what was on his phone. He scrolled a few pages ahead.
“Open your eyes,” he said, and when she did it was to find him holding the dripping tip at her chin. He didn’t have to tell her to take it into her mouth. He placed his hand under the back of her head and lifted it with all the gentleness of a nurse raising the head of a sick patient to drink some water. She did it willingly, wrapping the tip with her lips and sucking. A small burst of semen shot into her mouth and she swallowed it eagerly. It was merely a taste of what was to come…
“Jesus H.” Cyrus decided he better shut that right down before he had to take a personal break. They let people put stuff like that on Amazon?
Cyrus was about to search for a photo of the crazy lady who’d dreamt this stuff up—he’d finish the book later, then go to confession after—when he saw the front door of the big white house opening. A woman half-walked, half-skipped down the stone stairway to the walkway that led to the main gate. She didn’t look like the sort of woman to emerge from such a grand door in such a grand house. She was white, pale, and not very tall. Her black hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her cut-off denim shorts were ratty, her black t-shirt rattier. Tiny paint splotches dotted her from head to toe.
She came to the gate but didn’t open it. She left it closed and smiled at him through a six-inch space between the bars.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked.
“I’m looking for a woman named Nora Sutherlin. I’m told she knows the owners of this house.”
“Are you a police officer?”
When he’d watched her nearly skipping down the steps, he’d guessed her age at about twenty-four, twenty-five. When she pushed her sunglasses up to her head to reveal a pair of cunning green eyes regarding him ironically, he revised his estimate up a little. Thirties, definitely. Too confident for her twenties. Too cynical, too suspicious.
“Private detective. Cyrus Tremont.” He handed her his business card and showed her his identification.
“That was my next guess. Who are you working for?”
“Don’t we all ultimately work for ourselves? I take cases that talk to me.”
“Give me a second, will you?”
“For what?”
She didn’t answer. She took an iPhone out of her back pocket, typed something in. He waited as she scrolled. Finally, she nodded in approval.
“You have very good Yelp reviews, Mr. Tremont. ‘Betty P’ says, ‘He caught the bastard in the act in twenty-four hours. Never getting married again but if I do, I’m putting Cyrus Tremont on the job. Five stars.’ Well done.”
He smiled. “You Googled me.”
“ID’s can be faked.”
“So can reviews.”
“Touché,” she said, continuing to look at her phone. “Says here on your website you only take the cases of women and children. Why is that?”
“They need the help. Grown men don’t.”
“So, a knight-errant.”
“You could say that.”
“Well, since you are who you say you are, what can I do for you?”
“You can tell me where to find Miss Nora Sutherlin. I’ll take an address, a phone number…”
“I’m Nora Sutherlin. Pleased to meet you.” She extended her hand through the bars for him to shake. It was covered in pastel paint the color of cotton candy. Whoever this woman was, she did not intimidate him. He was fairly certain a dominatrix would intimidate him, or at least try to.
“Yeah, no, I don’t think so. But nice try,” he said, ignoring the hand. This little lady did not write about ladies getting their pussies slapped around with riding crops. She definitely didn’t do the slapping in her free time, either.
“I swear, I’m her,” the woman said, smiling.
If there hadn’t been a gate between them, he might have laughed in her face. “Ma’am, Nora Sutherlin is a dominatrix,” he said. “And a porno writer.”
“I know. I’m her, remember? Although technically it’s erotica, not porn. Not that there’s anything wrong with porn.”
“Right. Fine. I’ll leave you my card. If you see her, you can have her call me.”
“I can call you right now, but we’re already talking. Just picture me in a corset. And not splattered with paint.”
To humor the woman, he started to fish his phone out of his jacket when a little black girl wearing a pink ballet tutu came running out the front door, a large dog at her heels, and pink pigtail ribbons flying.
“Tata, I taught Gmork a new trick!” the girl yelled. She ran over to the paint-splattered woman.
“Show me, baby,” the woman said.
The girl faced the enormous black dog and pointed her finger at it. “Couche!”
The dog lay on the ground.
The woman applauded. “Very good,” she said. “But he already knows how to lay down.”
“I know,” the girl said. “But now he knows how to do it in French.”
“You’re teaching my German Shepherd French? You’re going to give him an identity crisis.”
Cyrus watched the whole show with a smile on his face. In three or four years, he and Paulina might have a little girl of their own running around in a pink tutu, a little girl who looked just like this one. And surely this lady was not a dominatrix. She was a nanny or an auntie.
“Princess?” A woman’s voice called to the girl. “You know you’re not supposed to interrupt grown-ups talking. Come back in the house.”
“Sorry, Maman.” The little girl ran to the woman standing at the top of the steps and wrapped her arms around the woman’s leg.