We find the rhythm again and then, once more, I remove my hand.
This time he does not stop.
He continues pumping, his eyes closed. He looks beautiful as he does so. And I am sure if I were in another state, one where I felt in touch with my own desire, I would be unable to stop fromtouching him.
But perhaps it is good that I can’t. Perhaps it is important that he learns to do this.
So instead, I just enjoy the view, not insensible to its erotic sensuality, but more aware of its aesthetic beauty than I would be otherwise.
He groans.
“Fuck. Annabelle. I think I am—I think I am close.”
“Good.”
His hand moves faster and now there is no possibility of him losing his way.
“Oh God,” he murmurs. “I am—I will?—”
“Come, Alfred.”
And he does, spilling on a moan.
Chapter 54
Alfred
Once more, my wife has delivered me an intensely erotic release—and once more, she hasn’t even touched me.
How she did it, when she is ill, when she isn’t even in the mood for bedding, I will never truly fathom.
When I awoke this morning, I felt strangely free. It wasn’t like the first time she freed me. Back then the noose of restriction was so tight that I was dying. That first encounter with her in the cold dining room at Trescott when I climaxed just from pleasing her was the first gasp of air after being held underwater.
This time, however, it is different. I haven’t been deprived. But I can breathe a little more deeply now. It feels as though that the piece of myself that was taken from me in boyhood, that I forced down at the request of others, is restored to me.
Unfortunately, it appears that I am the only one feeling better this morning.
Annabelle wakes as ill as the day before. She attempts to come down with me to breakfast, but the food and themovement make her so nauseous that it all ends in the hall water closet.
Instead of going back to bed, however, she insists upon going to her study.
“I want to review those ledgers,” she tells me. “And now that I’ve been sick, I feel better. I will just have some toast and tea perhaps. You should go out.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone when you are ill,” I protest.
But she insists. And I sense that she will feel more comfortable if I do, indeed, go out into the city, even though I have no desire to leave her.
“In fact,” she says, “I have a suggestion. And perhaps you could even bring me back a present.”
She proceeds to describe a bookshop, Willoughby’s, that sells illicit volumes of the kind we have already shared together.
“Do you have any requests?”
“Just what suits you,” she says, her eyes straying to her ledgers.
Last night, for the first time, Annabelle didn’t want to bed me. I understand why and am not at all affronted. To me, it was nothing. But I could tell it madeheruncomfortable. Perhaps this excursion could help in some way.
Thus, leaving the house is the least I can do for her. She has been so generous with me—especially last night—and I want to be so in return.
