Page 37 of Our Sadie

“Come here.” Jerome’s voice might be soft, but there’s iron in that tone. It’s an order, clear and simple. I obey, allowing him to lead me over to the rolling ladder installed when the library was originally constructed.

Handing me the same cashmere scarf he used to obscure my vision earlier, he reaches into his other back pocket and removes a series of transparent beige straps. They appear to be made of nylon, like pantyhose or tights. Then, I recall something similar that my mom used to wear. Knee highs. That must be what these are.

“Take off your clothes.” This next order is more demanding than the last one, but since this is all part of his game, I comply. Even though I have to avert my gaze to fulfill his request. Eye contact with him is out of the question.

A braver woman brimming with confidence might’ve performed some sort of striptease, but that’s not me. I barely get each article of my attire off without taking a header. It doesn’t help that my brain keeps shrieking at me that he could recoil from what he sees. Or laugh at me again, and not in a good way. But Jerome doesn’t laugh. In fact, if his scrutiny was any more in-depth, I might just burst into flames.

“Love that your blush isn’t limited to your face,” he murmurs, his middle knuckle grazing along my cheek and down to my chin. He skims that knuckle along my clavicle before encircling the roundness of my right breast. “I love that it cascades all the way to your chest.” He twirls me slowly. “And along your shoulder blades. Sexy. Now, climb up the ladder.”

I’ve only taken two of the rungs when he twists me around. With me still watching him, he removes one of his straps of nylon and latches my right wrist to the rail beneath it.

“Will it hurt you if I repeat this on your left side?” he asks, and I shake my head. I can’t feel anything but the tug on my arm as he restrains it.

My pulse trills when he attaches my ankles, one by one, to the outside of those railings, a move that makes me splay my knees wide and sit my nude ass on a wooden crosspiece. I tug at the nylons. They’re snug enough to restrict how far I can shift my limbs without letting me fall or cutting off my circulation.

That’s when that cashmere scarf reappears. I’m adjusting to my new position when he lifts that material in front of my face and utterly blocks my ability to see. Even with my eyes wide open like when he led me down to the basement, I can’t detect a thing.

My consciousness is telling me that this should be scary, even alarming. But it’s not. Rather, being stationary like this perks up my other senses. I can hear the faint steadiness of his breathing, inhale his spicy clove scent, and taste the memory of our kiss on my tongue. I can feel the heat of him as he moves closer then drifts away.

There’s something both freeing and unnerving about this.

It’s like a peculiar rendition of hide and seek.

“Be honest with me, Sadie. Are you feeling any pain or discomfort?”

“No.”

“If you do for any reason, I want you to speak up. Yes?”

“Yes.”

He starts to drag something—maybe the back of a fingernail—along the scarring of my left thigh and hip. A piece of scalding hot fuselage had been smashed up against that part of me, leaving third-degree burns that required skin grafts. That’s why the flesh there is bumpy but in a flatter pattern.

“How does that feel?”

It’s hard to describe, so I go with the easiest answer. “Not bad.”

“What about here?” He inquires this of me each time as he systematically does this with all the various areas of my burned skin, though whatever he’s touching me with feels softer now. No hard edges. He traces along my bunched-up wrist and hand. My shoulder. My breast. My cheek.

“It’s fine,” I tell him again and again as he asks if anything’s tender or sore.

I’m being nothing but candid. Yet this is enough like being poked and prodded in a doctor’s office that my thirst for Jerome is waning. I’m sure this isn’t his intention, but he has no clue just how long I spent under such care. Years, ultimately. And unlike the meal Dom brought for me yesterday, it was no picnic.

Suddenly, Jerome changes tack.

“Shhhh,” he rumbles out, as if to console me. “I just wanted to be certain none of my touches would ever hurt. I won’t be doing any more of that.”

I feel two thumbs kneading the flesh of my right arm from the elbow downward, and only then do I comprehend that I’ve been balling that hand into a fist, my nails—blunt and short as they are—nearly drawing blood. I make myself release those curled-up fingers one by one. Jerome transfers his massage to the palm of my hand, and I become much more relaxed.

So relaxed that when I hear the suggestive buzz of a zipper and the much quieter rustling of fabrics being discarded, I look forward to what’s coming. My pulse pounds through me, rekindling the embers of my craving for him.

What part of me will he caress or stroke next? Where will he go, and what will he do it with? Does he have more scarves or nylons? Or will he exploit something else? Will he resort to tormenting my scar tissue even though he swore that he wouldn’t?

Just when I’ve jumped to so many conclusions that it ratchets up my anxiety, Jerome engages a maneuver I never would’ve foreseen. He pushes something up against my clit, and I gasp. He nudges that bundle of nerves over and over, and initially, I seriously can’t determine what he’s using to make contact.

Some inanimate object?

A finger?

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