I turn, not able to keep a smile from playing about my lips and am surprised to see Alfred’s ashen expression.
“Are you ill?” I ask, perplexed.
“Annabelle,” he croaks. “Tell me that I—I didn’t—did I—force you.”
He breaks off, unable to meet my eye.
Zounds. He knowshow to pluck at my heart. To lose control so beautifully and then to be so frightened that he has transgressed against me. Why does his vulnerability affect me so deeply? I wish I knew.
I won’t trifle with him. Not about this.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say crisply. “It was just a game. Why do you think I left you in the breakfast room like that? And then showed you those books? And then provoked you when you asked about that position? I wanted to see if you would do it. And you did beautifully.”
Apparently, that had not been clear to Alfred. He really thought that I intended to let him go unsatiated. He is still uncomfortable with making himself come. I knew he wouldn’t turn to it.
“Are you certain?” he says, his voice still sounding slightly strangled.
I can’t resist. I place my hands on his shoulders.
“Of course, Alfred. If I had really objected, you would have known.”
“I had you against the wall. You could not move. I-I don’t know what came over me.”
“You are being silly. Everything we just did was something I wanted.”
He looks up at me. When I see the dim horror on his face, I feel a strange flash of guilt. I am used to bed sport of all variety—and usually men do not have scruples about rough play. But this man is different.
“May I ask you,” I say, “what the least erotic word in the world is to you?”
A flicker of amusement passes over his face.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just tell me.”
He sighs. “It’s two words. William Acton.”
“A man you know?”
“No,” Alfred says heavily. “An author. He was the author of a manual I was forced to read many times—he wrote a treatise on male sexual habits. It got to the point where I couldn’t even look at the book. I hid it so that I did not have to do so. That is how much I dreaded it and dreaded what it asked of me.”
His words stir that strange mixture of sorrow and lust within me once more.
“Perfect,” I say briskly. “When Ireallydon’t want you to do something, Alfred, or you don’t wantmeto do something, those are the words that we will say:William Acton. And then you will know I am being serious in my objections. Anything else that I say—no, stop, please don’t—you can know that I don’t mean. Because if I am serious, I will sayWilliam Acton.”
Alfred frowns.
“If I were to pin you up against the wall and say, ‘I’m going to enter you and fill you with my seed,’ and you screamed out ‘no’, I should know that you really mean ‘yes, please do’?”
“Precisely.”
He looks disturbed.
“I never thought I would be the kind of man who would want to do such a thing to a woman.”
“It is not the same as actually doing the thing, Alfred. Because you know that I really want it. We are just playing with the idea of you forcing me, just as we might also play with the idea of me forcing you. Sometimes it adds something to the act of coupling. There is nothing wrong with such games.”
“I see,” he says, redoing the placket of his trousers. “I do not understand it. But I cannot deny that something came over me just now—and that I wanted you and wanted toshow you how much I did. That I would do something abandoned and wrong out of crazed desire.”
