Currency in Flesh

Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A low groan roused me from the hazy thoughts swirling through my post-climax mind. Lady Cora had laid her head on my thigh and she lifted it slowly to peer over at where Sean was still hanging. “I suppose we should dispose of that, if you are finished?”

“What are you going to do with him?” I asked, shifting my feet and grimacing at the tacky feeling of blood on the soles.

She hummed in thought. “I could just cast him into the true pit. There is no value to him.”

“Can I do one more thing?” I asked, both excited and ashamed of my wickedness.

“Of course, darling. He is yours.”

I sat up and surveyed the extent of the mess. The smooth, reflective marble floor was littered with footprints, splatter, and little puddles and pools of drying blood. They were matte beneath the candles’ low-lit glow. For a moment I felt terrible at the thought of someone having to clean this room, and then I remembered that this room didn’t even technically exist. Lady Cora could eliminate all of it in the blink of an eye. She got to her knees, lifting her arms over her head in a slow stretch, and I was transfixed on her body once again. She smirked at me as she returned her hands to her lap. She knew precisely what she was doing, and I laughed.

It was an easy familiarity, that if I allowed myself to focus on, would scare the living shit out of me. It wasn’t supposed to be like this—sly smiles and intentional flirting, pet names and lying intertwined.

Was it?

I thought back to my arrival, to the things she had said when she told me my fate. She had promised me pain, pleasure, vengeance. She had implied that I was here to serve her, had chained me to my bed to drive my subservience home. Never, had she seemed to want emotional companionship. I had wanted her from the beginning, I could admit that now, but I hadn’t expected this.

I must have been staring into space, because she waved a graceful hand as if to get my attention. “Sorry!” I said with a shake of my head. “Just thinking.” She raised one arched brow, but didn’t reply, getting to her feet when I did. My steps made a sound like the tearing of tissue paper. “This is disgusting.” I turned back toward her and lifted my foot, wiggling my bloody toes at her.

Her lips pressed together as they curled up and she shrugged, like she was sharing a dirty little secret with me. “I did not make the mess.”

Sean was unrecognizable. His face was a collection of lumps and contusions, the skin all shades between red and indigo. I thought his shoulder might be broken, and a strip of blistered flesh running across his stomach. But he still breathed. I didn’t know if he could hear me or see me through his swollen eye sockets, but I bent down to speak to him.

“I’m happy here,” I said, knowing the words were true the moment they left my lips. “So, in the end, you didn’t fuck me over with your stupid plan. You made my life better, though the bar was low.” He flinched and wiggled like a big grub, and I walked to the table. I had one final punishment to give.

The scalpel was cold and surprisingly heavy in my hand, the blade so thin and sharp I imagined it could slice through just about anything. I hummed a song as I strode back to my husband, our wedding song. It was a cover of a popular song that an alternative band had released a handful of years before our wedding. My mother had been so offended when I told her the lyrics. “It’s just a pretty song, mom,” I had assured her. “They’re not even going to be singing the words. It’ll be a lovely violin melody and everyone will love it.” And they had. I walked up the aisle surrounded by stained glass depictions of Jesus and bouquets of flowers I didn’t care about, and didn’t even think about what the song meant.

A sound like running water pulled my attention from my memories, and I looked over to see Sean literally pissing himself. My laugh filled the chamber, reverberating off the walls and echoing around us with joyful mockery. I could see his teeth chattering, urine continuing to trickle from him in a thin stream, and I laughed under my breath, thinking of how we had truly come full-circle.

Tugging Sean’s now cracked and stained belt from its buckle, I slipped open the pocket of his trousers with my thumb and forefinger. He squirmed, moaning indecipherable noises which may have been pleas for mercy. I used the scalpel to cut through his piss-soaked boxers, grimacing when I had to touch the damp fabric, and freed his limp, flaccid cock. Lady Cora clicked her tongue in surprised approval, and I reached in to pull out his balls. Sean’s noises of protest went up in pitch, a thin whine like a dog in a too-small crate.

“You took a lot from me,” I said to him in a level voice. I wasn’t enraged or emotional, speaking in my businesswoman voice from customer service jobs long past. “And now? I am not sad about it. It ended up being a good choice, keeping yourself from reproducing.” I ran the backside of the pointed blade against his wrinkled, hairy skin. He stilled, like he thought it might help him. I hummed the chorus of our song beside his ear, and realized the moment he got it. His entire body gave up, slumping in defeat against his bindings. I knew there was nothing more I could do to him, he was broken precisely as terribly as I was, and then some. But this? This was for me.

I pinched the skin of his scrotum, stretching it out so that I could see the flicker of candle flame through the pebbled flesh. The scalpel cut through it so cleanly it seemed to simply open beneath the blade, parting with a bright splash of crimson. He barely had it left in him to scream, the noise was weak and sad, and I could hear the wet slap of each veined orb as they hit the marble floor. I smiled a true, happy smile, placing my lips close to the shell of his ear.

“So Heartless.”

I walked away from the man who had filled the last decade of my life with misery, and into the arms of the woman I thought just might fill the rest of it with something better. She kissed my forehead and slipped her arms around my waist. “I’ll dispose of that,” she murmured against my skin. “I will join you in my chambers when I am through. Feel free to use the springs”—she looked me up and down—“to freshen up.”

I didn’t even look over my shoulder as she tossed him in the pit.

Lowering my body into the steaming pool, I sighed heavily. Blood swirled around me as it lifted from my skin and turned the water a pale shade of pink. I hadn’t realized how much I had exerted myself until I was still. My shoulders and abs were tight and tense, and my biceps felt like I’d been lifting weights for hours rather than torturing my husband to death.

Fuck. When I thought about it, I felt… I’m not sure. I didn’t feel remorseful, but did I feel guilt? I felt corrupt, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lady Cora’s low voice drifted across the chamber, seeming to slide through the twining sounds of bubbling water and echo on stone.

I leaned back, hair pooling on the smooth rock behind me. “Just considering if I deserve the pit now.” I smiled, but it wasn’t a true smile, and she knew it.

“Because of him?” she asked incredulously. “Pet, he deserved every second and then some.”

“I know, but I don’t think that matters. The issue isn’t if he deserved it or not, it’s how easy it was for me to do. I liked causing him pain.”

She was silent, and I turned toward her, wondering what her expression would be. Her lips were pressed together and there was a tiny furrow between her brows. She didn’t understand, which made sense. The entirety of her role was to dole out justice. There was no need for morality in her, and though there was no need for it in me anymore either, I still felt strange about how quickly I had lost my humanity. I had told her that I could see her soul, I could see her gentleness, but could she see mine? Was there any left?

“You are wondering if you are a bad person,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

I nodded, letting my eyes fall closed again. “I am.”

The water lapped at my chest, small waves rippling through the pool as she stepped in. I didn’t open my eyes, but I felt her approach. Smooth skin slid over mine as she placed a knee to one side and shifted over me, straddling my thick thighs beneath the water. At this, I raised my head. She was looking down at me with an expression I struggled to place. She was nude, and her pert breasts were only inches from my mouth. I bent forward, lips parting to take one nipple between them. Her hips rolled gently, a request.

Something felt different between us. This felt tender, and it terrified me. I ran my tongue around the peak of her breast and her answering moan hummed through her chest. My hands found her narrow waist, and my palms splayed across her lower back possessively. I pulled her closer, sucking harder, wanting another one of those gentle, buzzing sounds against my tongue. She rocked, and I wanted her to move like that against my mouth. I dropped my hands, cupping her ass and trying to push her up without letting go of her nipple, but she just chuckled and ground into my plush flesh again.

“Come up here,” I said in a hoarse, needy voice, at last releasing her breast. “Let me please you.”

“You do, blossom,” she replied. It was so quiet I thought I might have imagined it. But then she moved with more intention, chasing sensation in a way that felt thoroughly unfair. I whined, and she reached down to grab a fistful of my hair, clicking her tongue at me. “No, Grace. Have you forgotten how this works?”

“Yes,” I answered, mischievous. “Remind me.”

She bent down, lips grazing the arch of my ear. “Do you want your Lady Cora, or Your Highness?”

It felt like a test. Do you want me, or just want to fuck me? The words weren’t spoken, even in my thoughts, but the weight of the question hung between us.

And I, a coward, chose the safe route. “Your Highness.”

Her hand tightened in my hair, and she wrenched my head back. “As you wish,” she said, voice returning to the commanding growl I had come to know well. One of her legs came up, and she stood without loosening her grip. She glared down at me without a trace of softness, and I wondered if I had chosen incorrectly. She bracketed my face with her knees, moving toward me so all I could see was the smooth line of her thighs and the deep rosy shade of her pussy. “I suppose you will make a sufficient throne,” she said. “Do not disappoint me.”

She dropped down onto me hard, pushing my jaw back with the force of it. All at once, my mouth was coated in the taste of her, impossibly slick and faintly sweet. She tasted like the mineral laced salt of the spring, the tang of unripe fruit. Her flesh parted around my tongue and I pressed it up and into her, desperate for more. Her hips moved in a slow rhythm, using my tongue and positioning her clit against my top lip so that each time she moved, it pressed against just the right spot. I tried to tilt my head so I could breathe through my nose, but her hand in my hair pulled me into her, burying my nose in her soft skin and blocking my only hope of air.

I could feel my lungs beginning to burn, and my heartbeat quickened. Maybe she didn’t realize that I couldn’t breathe. I pushed more firmly, making it very clear I was struggling against her hold. She didn’t loosen her grip.

“You want to breathe, daffodil?” she asked. Her voice was rough and cruel. “You can breathe when I am finished.” My hands came up to claw at her thighs. “You asked for this.”

My eyes went wide, staring up at her torso, her chin, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her head was thrown back, panting toward the ceiling as she rolled her hips, quickening with every breath. I couldn’t help but squirm, my head moving side to side searching for air and finding only more slick skin. My vision began to darken around the edges, pinpricks of light sparkling in my periphery. Faster, and faster she moved. I cried out, but it was muffled by her pussy, tears spilled from my eyes and ran back into my hair. My palms slapped her legs weakly. I was going to pass out.

Her movements grew slightly erratic, and she pressed down so hard against my mouth that I felt my teeth break through the thin layer of skin. The metallic bite of blood slipped in, swirling with the taste of her arousal and the looming dark of unconsciousness. My tongue was still inside of her, and I plunged it as deeply as I could, feeling the ridges of her cunt even as my mind began to slip into the space between waking and dreams.

And then she was coming. Bucking against my mouth, her climax sent a flood of hot wetness surging down my throat and I choked on her come, thrashing my head and flailing my arms in a last desperate attempt to free myself. My lungs inhaled, finding no air, and everything went black.