there is a button and there's a switch/there is a needle and there's a dial/there is a lever I want to lift/and still you treat me like I'm a child
Corrie really likes the way her relationship with Pendergast is going. She's not totally sure what happened to Viola or if anything did happen to her or what (she thinks she's caught Pendergast hinting at a threesome more than once, but he's so d*mn classy about it that it's really hard to tell whether he's talking dirty or quoting French poetry at her or both, sometimes), but whatever it is, it's definitely not interfering with what she and Pendergast have going.
He'll show up at her Williamsburg apartment pretty much at random to take her out. Part of her knows it's a way to check up on her, to make sure that she's keeping herself in line, getting good grades, making her bed and remembering not to leave the bong out on the coffee table. Part of her loves the surprise, the pampering, loves getting to stroll into Dorsia or the Aureate Morel in a little black cocktail dress Pendergast picked out for her and her clunkiest pair of combat boots. Part of her loves getting to spend this kind of time with Pendergast, loves having him interested in her life and her thoughts, loves the stories he tells her and the advice he gives.
And part of her loves the sex. He'd been so sweet the first time, pressing kisses to her eyelids and neck, wrapping his body around her, stroking her skin and telling her how beautiful she was, how precious, what a rare treasure. And that was nice, being treated like something delicate and special, eased into that kind of sensuality. Being held in his arms afterwards, feeling small and beloved and cozy in a way she never had before.
But she realizes after a few months' worth of dates that that's all he is, sweet. Gentle and romantic and passionate, but he still treats her like she'll break. It's how he must treat Viola, she thinks, all syrupy words and gentle caresses and butterfly kisses and making love until you could puke, and it makes her sick. She's not anything like Viola. She's not a china doll or a shiny Archaeologist Barbie--she's Corrie, and she's freakish and tough and can take anything the world can throw at her. She wants more, needs more.
will it be very dangerous?/or will it taste nice?/you wash your hands with perfume and spice/i'll tell you when i want your advice
"Hey," she says, the next time they get together, "I want to try something new."
He listens while she outlines her request, and she can see his face coalescing into a worried frown. "Absolutely not," he says. "That sounds banal, vulgar, and degrading."
"Sex is banal and vulgar in the first place," she says, "if you're doing it right. Anyway, there's nothing degrading about it if I'm the one who wants it."
He shakes his head. "I couldn't," he says. "I could never bring myself to do that to you--to call you that--" But there's a little bit of hesitation in his eyes, and she jumps on it.
"Fine," she says. "If you can't, I guess I'll just have to find someone who can." That doesn't really bring a reaction, and that confirms something else she'd been meaning to get around to asking about, but that's irrelevant right now. She sighs and sits on his four-poster bed, crossing her legs at the ankle, dainty as a little girl. "I bet your friend Vinnie would," she says, and leans backward, slipping her hand between her thighs. "He seems like the kind of guy who likes to give it to you kinda rough."
Pendergast's breath catches in his throat. "Perhaps..." he says, "perhaps I could be convinced to try such a thing."
And so the beginning of their game is when she has to show him what it's like to be degraded just the right way by someone who loves you. It's her gripping his hair tight, silky strands like cornsilk between her fingers, tugging until she sees tears in his eyes. And it's her holding his head between her thighs, telling him that he's a dirty little s1ut, that she's seen through his prude act and she knows just how nasty he really wants it, ordering him to lick her faster, harder, until she presses his mouth to her cunt and comes with a scream.
is anybody acting your age?/you got a girl you keep in a cage/you give her presents after a while/a birthday cake containing a file
His gifts to her aren't expensive electronics or gourmet groceries anymore. They're custom-made silicon and glass toys that he tells her to use on herself in front of him, watching her wriggle and moan as she's filled and stretched to her limit; they're elaborate necklaces that choke her just a little, bracelets that wind all the way up her arms, strings of beads and jewels he wraps around her wrists and torso; they're custom-made silk and satin dresses that show off her body, that he orders her to wear without underwear when they're out on a date.
She loves the gifts, but she doesn't care about them so much as she cares about the power over him that her submission, her wantonness, lends her. A sidelong glance, the way she ducks her head, the slightest hint of an innuendo--everything she does chips away at his icy composure until he's hot and hard and needy for her. That's the best gift of all, knowing that she's what's making him feel like this, making him react. That he loves her and needs her enough to allow himself to lose control for her, to moan quietly when she shows off the bite marks on her neck and shoulders in public, to grab her wrists and push her onto the bed when she's playing coy.
And she loves the other side of it, the gentleness that doesn't bore her anymore, not after the roughness and the pain. She loves the way he'll bite her shoulder or her thigh so hard he draws blood, then soothe the sting with his mouth, laving the laceration with his tongue and pressing kisses to the wound. She loves the broken way he apologizes when he hurts her a little too much, when his strong hands around her wrists leave bruises, when a good hard slap shocks her enough to bring tears.
She loves the way he draws her into his arms after she's put up a little bit of a fight, begged him not to punish her too roughly or (if they're playing that game) not to touch her there, not to put his cock in her, not to do it so hard, not to come in her and leave her; she loves his trembling, how he doesn't touch her as if she'll break but as if she's broken and he's the one who did it.
She thinks he loves it too. But she knows there's a little part of him that hates himself for enjoying it, that remembers Diogenes and thinks of the madness that might still lie within his own mind, and she can't eradicate that hate and that guilt no matter how much she reassures him that she loves it, that she loves him, that she can take it all and come back for more, that it's all part of the game. And she knows one day, something she wants will be too much for him to take.
iit leaves the slightest chemical taste it could be most unfortunate earrings that jangle before they're seen she slaps your face like a tambourine/i
He's bending her over the desk in his office, her grades for the semester in his inbox--she has four classes above a 3.75 and one class that's just a 3.25, and that 3.25 is why he's pushing her skirt up over her ass and spreading her legs wide. "This is a disappointment, Corrie," he says, stroking one buttock. "I had expected you to excel."
"Yeah, well, when you consider what I've been doing instead of studying--" One finger, cool and wet and slippery, slips between her cheeks. She gasps, a plethora of smart remarks suddenly gone from her head.
"Work should come before pleasure," he lectures her, "and when that fails, discipline before pleasure." Two fingers inside her ass now, and she's squirming all over the desk. "How do you think you ought to be punished, Corrie?"
"Ground me," she says. "Take away my allowance. Send me to bed--" Another finger stretching her out, and she whines a little.
"I don't believe those would have much of an effect," he murmurs. "You're such a naughty, rebellious little minx." And that's probably the dirtiest thing she's going to hear from him all night, but that's okay. "I think you need something a little more--" The sharp feeling of a palm slapping her backside, the smacking sound of skin against skin. "--immediate."
She moans incoherently as he removes his fingers and pushes his cock inside of her. They don't do it this way often, and when they do it always leaves her feeling especially raw and deliciously used.
He's gentle at first, but as his thrusts speed up, he slaps her again. It leaves a burning imprint of his hand on her buttock, and she cries out. "This hurts me more than it hurts you," he says, "but you must learn," and there's only the hint of a tremble in his voice. She realizes then what kind of punishment this is. She has no power here; the only way she'll make him react in this little scenario is to rebel, and she can't summon the will to do so.
Three, four, five, six times he strikes her, and that's all it takes before she whimpers, tears swelling up in her throat. "Have you learned your lesson?" he asks, his fingers brushing an errant lock of hair back from her face. When she nods, he begins to stroke her hair, and his thrusts into her speed up. "Good girl," he says, "you'll do better next time, won't you?"
The gentleness of his hand and the impotent, burning pain that still lingers on her ass coalesce into something indescribable somewhere deep inside of Corrie, and she finds herself speaking almost without knowing it. "Yes, Daddy."
And that's what makes him react; she can hear him gasp, feel him shiver against her, and it feels so good to say it that she says it over and over again as he fucks her harder. "I'll be good, Daddy, please. fuck me, Daddy, god, harder, please, fuck me, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy--" There are tears streaming down her face as she thrusts her hips back and comes, moaning a name she's never called anyone before.
She can feel Pendergast slide out of her, can feel his come start to drip down her thigh before he finally takes his handkerchief and cleans her up, pulls her skirt back down. She's still prone on the desk, muscles taut and shaking from the strain of the position, from the orgasm, from not wanting him to see the tears that are rolling down her face for absolutely no reason at all.
"Corrie," he says, and he strokes her back. There's no trace of the disciplinarian in his voice, and none of the broken man that hates himself for making her feel pain. It's only her friend Pendergast, wanting to calm her, reassure her that everything is under control and she'll be okay. "You know I'm not really angry with you, don't you?"
She sniffles, but does not lift her head. "Yeah," she says, "I know."
He's quiet for a little while longer, his hand absently soothing her. Finally, he says, "Why did you call me that?"
"I don't know," Corrie says.
He puts his arm around her and helps her up, uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe her tears away. "Perhaps we should stop this for a while," he says. "The effect it's having on both of us--"
Corrie shakes her head, something tight and aching coiling in her stomach at the thought. She can't bear to lose Pendergast's love, his desire. "You're not my dad," she says. "I know that. You're not anything like him. You're not a substitute for him, not anything." She looks up at him, and his eyes are rimmed with red, as though he's been crying too. "You're not my dad," she repeats, and she wonders which one of them she's trying to convince.
He draws her to him and embraces her, and he does not let her go for a long time.