The elastic that holds my temper together snaps. When the red clears William’s against a wall, his hands around my throat and he’s trying to squeeze. I break his arms off too easily and smack my forehead against his, knocking his head against the wall and he sinks to the floor.
This time we have to be done.
Done in more ways than me walking out of the room and calling the private doctor his father keeps on his books, someone more used to dealing with William’s bouts of chlamydia.
“I quit. I’m not working for you anymore.”
“You need to resign your position as Member of Parliament. You’ll lose the whip.”
He threatens me with the loss of the party’s support and for once I want to keep it. To make the changes I know my grandfather would’ve wanted. To make a difference to people’s lives and not just the ones who have what they need already and can buy what they want.
“Why? How are you going to explain why I beat you up?” He looks at me, dazed and in pain. “You just told me you’d take a woman by force. If they heard that, they’d make sure you didn’t get up again.”
He says nothing as I walk out of the room and make that phone call, then find a bathroom and wash my hands of him one last time.
* * *
There’s a surprise waiting for me when I get back home. It’s wrapped in black lace and spread across my white sheets, a mask that I recognise concealing everything apart from a pair of very blue eyes.
Blonde hair is loose and curls drop down, hiding nipples that in my head are hard and ready for me to pinch and tease. She’s sprawled out on the bed, a languid bored picture of lust with red lips that are just about visible.
It’s a masquerade, a parade of a fantasy she whispered once in the middle of the night, one of many wishes and desires and needs.
The lights have been dimmed. Curtains closed. She looks up at me with hooded eyes and spreads her legs, slipping a hand down the scrap of material that’s barely covering her.
I don’t move, not even taking off my tie. And I don’t say anything because this is part of it, the scene. This is the place where neither of us are who we have to be, we’re just two bodies and it’s one night.
I can tell even in the dim light that she’s fingering herself. Her cheeks flush and her breath is audible, her eyes tight on mine, reading my reactions.
“Take them off.” It’s an order. Because this is how it’s going to be.
She does, slowly, licking the fingers that have been inside her and I don’t know where to look because I want to look everywhere.
Her tits are covered by lace, barely hidden, and I know that it would rip easily if I put my hands on it, but I don’t because they’ve caused enough damage today.
I’m not thinking about that.
I’m watching her as she performs a tortuous tease, pulling off the lace thong and dropping it on the floor of my bedroom. Something’s unclipped and the lace goes, leaving her naked apart from thigh high stockings, which she’ll leave on and the mask.
The mask is black with purple feather and sequins and it looks expensive. I first saw it when she was on her knees in front of another man, taking his cock in her mouth and in her hand, when all the while another man licked her cunt and made her come.
I knew who she was. The mask had meant nothing. I remembered the sounds she had made in the maze and the way her breath had gasped.
“Touch yourself.”
She just about waits for the instruction before she starts by running her hands over her tits, playing with her nipples and keeping her legs apart so I can see how the wetness that’s gathered between them glistens.
Her hand goes back down and she runs a finger over her clit, softly, softly. She takes her time and plays, a fingertip tentatively pushing into her pussy and her other hand starts to play with the small bud I know can be over sensitive.
I’m still in my suit, creased and bloodied and patched with sweat. My arms are folded as I watch and my cock is swollen, hard and wanting me to press her into the mattress and fuck her until I don’t know anything but the fact I’m alive.
But this isn’t about doing that. It’s about control. Waiting. Taking only what I absolutely need. It’s a re-enactment where she has control; she controls me because if she stopped it would end.
Unlike my half-brother I have no problem with the word no.
And I give her my power.
“I want you to make yourself come.”
