Chapter 11: Capture

I arrived precisely at seven o’clock, and found her waiting. I held the door of my Mercedes SL 65 AMG open as she climbed inside, and I fastened her seatbelt snuggly around her. Then I drove her to one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city. I ordered for us both, starting with a perfect wine, one paired with the woman as much as the meal. The time had come to feast.

Sarah was nervous at first. I didn’t blame her. She wanted to turn the conversation back to the book, but I turned her deftly away from that subject. Instead, I asked her about her writing, her life, her ambitions. I asked if I could read her writing. She demurred, but she beamed happily. We enjoyed an excellent meal.

We went for a walk after that, enjoying the night air and the cool wind, and the loveliness of the city lights. I asked about her wishes, her dreams. She talked about her writing again, but I stopped her. “Tell me about your secret dreams,” I told her. “The dreams you’ve never dared share with anyone else.”

She smiled. “I almost think you know them already.”

“I’d like to hear them. From your lips.”

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secret.”

“Ah, but perhaps they wouldn’t have to be just fantasies, either. Perhaps they could be your reality.”

“Can you grant wishes, then, Mr. Corwin?”

“You’ll never know if you keep silent. My Beauty.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Does that make you the Beast?”

I smiled to soften my words, to make them more of a tease. “It makes me the man who made you kneel. Is that your fantasy?”

“I’ve had enough of fantasy, I think. It’s all I’ve ever had. I am tired of moonlight and shadows. Let’s talk about something else.”

We did. We talked of books, films, stories she wanted to tell. We walked until the hour was late. And then I drove her home. I walked her gallantly to her door. I think she expected me to try to kiss her, but I simply bowed. “Good night, Sarah. Thank you for a most pleasant evening.”

She seemed surprised. She shook her head, and then she frowned slightly. Some of the light was gone from her eyes, and the line of her jaw was hard. She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Corwin.”

She started to close the door.

“Sarah, I should like to see you again. Soon. I don’t mean just at the shop. I should like to take you out again. Better, come to my home. Let me cook for you. I’d like to show you my library.”

She took a deep breath. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, Mr. Corwin. I don’t think so.”

I took a step backward. I made an effort to keep my face composed. I doubt it was successful.

This was unexpected.

For the first time in ages, for the first time I can remember, I found myself at a loss for words.

Only with superhuman effort did I keep my draw from dropping like that of some common, loutish idiot. I felt my eyes narrow, though.

Sarah looked up and met my gaze full on. “After ... after the book, after what happened in the store ... w ... when you ... when you made me kneel ... I almost didn’t come tonight. I ... well, I almost fled.”

“But you didn’t. Are you fleeing now?”

“Now? No. Now, I guess ... to be frank, I don’t think you’re the man I thought you were.”

“What? Why, Sarah? Why ever not?”

“Because if you were, Mr. Corwin, I think you would have already taken what you wanted. I am sick to death of pretenders and wannabes. Goodnight.”

With that, she closed the door, and I heard the bolt turn in the lock.

This had never happened before. This was utterly new.

Indeed, nothing even remotely like it had happened before.

As I drove home, I realized something.

She’d made me mad.

I realized something else, too. I wanted her. More than ever.

Besides, I had a contract for her. She was presold.

She did not return to the shop that week, or the next. Though every day I paced and watched for her through the window.

Jane called once to check on my progress, and to remind me that we had committed to a delivery date. I hung up on her. Her job is to identify the client and the girl, and to negotiate. My job, and mine alone, is to seduce, capture, and mold. And to determine when the art is finished at last and ready for delivery.

Still, as much as I didn’t like admitting it, she was right. Matters needed to be attended to, and soon.

It was time for a new plan. A more direct approach, as it were.

I didn’t want to rape Sarah. Indeed, wasn’t willing to. As I have said, twice now, any lout can take a woman. I needed her to surrender. To my needs, and to hers. The relationship is a symbiotic one. That said, I knew I would have to force the issue. To do that, I had to learn her habits anew.

Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the stalking part of the operation. Truth to tell, I hadn’t anticipated that. In fact, I’d assumed it would be rather tedious, like waiting for a table in a trendy restaurant on a Friday night when one has not made a reservation or a previous gentleman’s arrangement with the maître d’ — a necessary evil to suffer through before the main course is served at last.

It wasn’t like that at all.

I found a certain unexpected in joy in the act of watching. It was easy to ascertain when Sarah would be home, and, most importantly, when she’d be alone. In both cases, it was nearly always. As I came to know her routine and habits, they became for me a kind of dance; each move, every simple gesture, was a pirouette. Introducing myself into the choreography of her life, planning that became high art. Capture as ballet, as masquerade, as drama. Yes, I like that.

I dreamed of Sarah at night. Her laugh, her hair, her slender neck. The slopes and curves of her body, still hidden from me by day, were mine in the deepest dark. And her eyes ... her eyes were like an impossibly clear sky at twilight, not so much in color as in depth, so lovely I couldn’t bear to look at them, or to look away either, so deep they made my eyes ache from the desperate intensity and the awful, exquisite longing.

My plans were made. Every step calculated and rechecked again.

The time came.

It was a Thursday night. Colder than it should have been, and overcast. Darker than usual.

I new she’d be alone. Entering her place would be nothing, the work of an instant. I had all the supplies I needed — new clothes that would be discarded afterwards, gloves and mask. Chains, gag, restraints, a paddle and a whip—the latter two for my pleasure, not because they’d be necessary in order to control her.

If I had to take her back to my brownstone by force to continue this dance, so be it. The girl had gotten under my skin. She would surrender to me there, and I would take her. No matter how long it took.

No. No, that wouldn’t be necessary.

I would make her want me to take her.

She would come with me willingly, but all the same, there are precautions to take. I would arrange to have her landlord property notified by post, with an ample check to cover past rent and anything necessary to break the lease. Money can make most problems vanish, and our client had plenty. With that done, I doubted anyone would even notice her gone. And if they did? There would be no evidence left behind, even if the police bothered with an investigation. Not that an investigation was even remotely likely. Another girl vanished — friendless, jobless, broke, only just caught up on her rent, likely returned home to England.

Still, there is no need to take chances.

She would come willingly, yes, but she might very well be bound. Bound girls carried from their homes raise eyebrows, so there should be no witnesses. I’d arranged to have the two streetlights directly across from her place turned off. If anyone saw me nearby, they’d only be able to report a shadow. Not that I was especially worried. The simple truth is, people just don’t see things in the city.

I thought about waiting for her inside. That would be the most prudent course of action, without question. There would be no chance of witnesses, and no chance of escape.

But this was not about caution; it was about art.

It would be so much more dramatic if I burst in upon her just when she thought she was safe, wouldn’t it? Yes, that’s what I’d do. My precautions were more than sufficient. In the end, it must come down to a struggle between the combatants. A dance. A slave must be won.

I would show my Sarah that I was indeed the man she thought I was after all. I was a man who took what he wanted.

I was waiting across the street when she arrived. I pressed myself against the cold brick of the building across the street, hidden in night shadow, but it didn’t matter. She never even glanced in my direction, not even when she looked back over her shoulder as she opened the door.

I smiled.

The next step in our dance was mine; the time had come for me to lead our steps.

I watched the door click shut, and I saw the lights come on in her foyer. I waited a count of ten heartbeats, then seven more for luck. Then I lifted my heavy pack over my shoulder and slipped across the street, a shadow in the darkness, and walked right up to her door.

I looked back over my own shoulder, a conscious echo of Sarah’s own habitual motion. Unlike Sarah, I took the time to probe the shadows. There were no lights. No sign of motion. There was no one there; the night was still.

It took only a second or two to open her lock. Bless her; she hadn’t even bothered with the deadbolt. Had she forgotten? Was she brave to the point of being foolhardy? That didn’t seem like my Sarah.

Or, on some deep, intuitive level, did she know what was to come?

Did she crave her night visitor, his attack, his gentle kiss and rough touch? Did she dream of being taken in the night?

Did she long for her beast?

She was going to get her wish. I was indeed going to bloody well take what I wanted.

With practiced ease, silently and quickly, I was inside. I heard her humming in another room, simple music to accompany our dance. I followed the sound, and found her in her bedroom. How perfect! Perhaps, somehow, she did know, and waited there for me. She sat cross-legged on her bed, flipping though catalogs and letters.

“Hello again, my pet,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

She looked up with a start. “Mr. Corwin!”

I gave her a stern look and tut tutted. “You never returned my book.”

Her eyes, her deep and lovely eyes, widened with terrible shock. I was already moving. I was on her before she could open her mouth to scream. Not that it would have mattered; I’d been so very careful. I knew when someone would be likely to hear, and when I’d be safe. The poor thing, she didn’t even know her danger.

She did open her mouth to scream, though, and when she did, I was ready. I pushed a large penis-shaped gag between her lips. Let her get used to the shape in her mouth, it would serve her well later.

She fought like a demon, like a wild thing, as I forced the harness around her head and fastened its straps in place. She struggled all the more as I grabbed one slender wrist and snapped a cuff (heavy steel lined with soft leather, my own design) around a delicate wrist.

Oh, how deliciously she moaned into her gag as we danced there on her bed, she struggling, still fighting desperately to escape, me wrestling her around so that I could capture her other arm, and then muscle it, too, into its waiting cuff, twin bindings I’d had made especially for her.

The climax of the dance was inevitable. In the end, she was helpless, her mouth stuffed with a gag, her hands cuffed behind her. What a lovely picture it was! Her blouse was disheveled, and her jeans had somehow come unbuttoned in our struggle. Her feet were bare save for thick socks. I removed a short piece of rope from my pack. I’d intended to use it to bind her ankles, but decided instead to use it to tie her elbows. Her breasts were truly magnificent, anything done to enhance them was effort well spent, to my way of thinking. Her moans and struggles became even more desperate as I added this new piece of bondage. But I was clearly the stronger.

My lovely Sarah was helpless and completely at my mercy.

I bound her elbows so tightly that they nearly touched behind her back, and then wound the rest of the rope around her chest, both above and below those lovely breasts, and then between them. The effect was astonishing, even when still draped beneath her blouse. I wished poor Sarah were in a position to appreciate her charms from my perspective. Given how she’d lingered over the illustrations of bound Belle in the book I’d made, I couldn’t help but think she’d be pleased. Alas.

Speaking of Sarah and positions, I decided it was time to change hers. I made some excuse as I dropped her unceremoniously to the bed on her stomach, something about punishing her for daring to resist me, for making me wait, for keeping my book, for struggling and attempting to scream.

“Even futile gestures must be punished when they don’t please your beast,” I told her. “You must learn, my captive Beauty.”

She fought as best she was able as I first removed her socks (pausing only a moment to tickle her dainty feet), then pulled off her jeans and panties. I was astonished at how she struggled; truly, given how tightly she was bound. She tried to roll off the bed (what she hoped to accomplish with that I have no idea) and tried to kick me, but it was useless. I was desperate with desire, with passion; nothing was going to keep me from my prize.