Day 10

She could see how tense and worried I was as we sat down to breakfast.

“Someone slipped,” she said right away, her tone teasing.

“I stopped myself!” I protested petulantly.

This was met with icy silence. Her beautiful face became the picture of disdain. “You are quite the special little boy, aren’t you?” she chided sarcastically. “I offered you any reward you want… Any. Reward.” On these last two words she leaned over to bring her body within inches of mine, so as to underscore the generosity of her terms. “Now you expect to set the rules too. How wonderful to be you.”

I lowered my eyes, chastened. “I’m sorry…” I began. “What I meant was please… please don’t say I’ve failed. Or if I have, please… Please,” I clasped my hands in front of my chest in a gesture of supplication, “give me another task. Let me have another chance, even if it is for a lesser reward.”

At this the sunshine returned to her face. Smiling, she said, “That’s better, pet. If you hadn’t interrupted me, I would have told you that I forgive you your moment of weakness. You did, as you say, stop yourself. If you can maintain control until Wednesday our agreement will still hold.”

Tension I had not even been aware of drained from my entire body. “Thank you… thank you!” I said with undisguised joy and relief.

We ate silently for a few moments, until I hesitantly asked, “That man… was he a client?”

“No… a friend. He is a professor of literature at a local university. I met him in a park some years ago,” Goddess Marquesa replied.

“Did you make him want that? Want what you did to him?”

“I didn’t plant the suggestion in his mind with hypnosis, if that’s what you mean,” she replied. “But would he want anyone but me to treat him that way? Probably not. I have a way of inspiring unique desires in the people I meet.”

“And you…” I paused, knowing that I was about to pry, “are you a sadist?”

A look of irritation overtook her lovely features. “You disappoint me, pet,” she said. “In all this quality time we have shared, have you learned nothing about me? No petty labels apply to me. I am the Goddess Marquesa. I am sui generis.”

This silenced me again. I fidgeted uncomfortably, trying to think of something else to say.

“Tell me,” Goddess Marquesa began, rescuing me from my awkward self-struggle, “why did you begin to stroke yourself? Did you enjoy seeing the professor being beaten?”

This startled me. I hadn’t really thought about my reaction, it had never occurred to me to ask myself why I had become so turned on.

“No!” I protested. “I don’t want to see anyone suffer…”

“Why then?” she asked, letting the question hang in the air between us expectantly.

I lowered my head in thought. After a few moments, an answer began to form. I opened my mouth to speak, voicing the words even as the realization emerged: “I… I… wanted to be that man. I wished that I could trade places with him.”

“And if I struck you across the face right now,” Goddess Marquesa asked, “would you want me any less?”

I looked deeply into her green eyes, my own wide with shock and anticipation. My pulse raced, my cheeks flushed hot red. Part of me cringed, fearing pain. Part of me yearned silently, thinking, “Please do it… please do it…”

After a few panicked moments passed and no blow came, I surmised that the question must have been rhetorical. “No,” I answered, composing myself. “I would want you even more… What does that make me?”

Goddess Marquesa laughed. “It makes you my pet,” she trilled. “Don’t be such a patsy, sweet boy. Forget about what society calls ‘normal.’ You’ll live a much fuller life if you do.”

Just like yesterday, the loneliness when she left after breakfast was brutal. The day crept by, it took all of my willpower not to stroke myself for some relief. I checked the channel constantly on the TV, but she did not broadcast for me today. I can’t tell if she meant that as mercy or torture. I miss her desperately. Lights out will be in a few minutes. Perhaps if I can fall asleep, I will see her in my dreams.

Day 11

I love Goddess Marquesa. The realization dawned on me as I woke up this morning. I would like to say that I have loved her all along, but looking back on this journal I can see that is not so. How can I have been such a stupid asshole ten days ago? How can I have been so blind? Reading what I wrote about her, I can’t believe my own insanity.

“I love you.” These were my first words to her as we sat down to breakfast.

“That’s sweet pet,” she said casually, without looking up from the piece of toast that she was buttering.

“I love you,” I repeated. “I love your strength, and your wisdom. Your beauty, of course.  I love that you are free, that you live on your own terms. I am willing to bet that if you gave me my memories back right now, there would be no one in my life that I have loved as passionately as I love you.”

She looked at me with a gentle expression in her gorgeous green eyes. “I meant what I said, pet. That really is very sweet.”

“Aren’t you pleased?” I asked, not knowing what I had expected, but fishing for a more enthusiastic reaction.

“Of course I’m pleased,” she replied. “Men and women fall in love with me this way every day, and it always pleases me.”

This made sense, but it deflated me nevertheless. I looked down at my plate, crestfallen. “I thought this was what you wanted…” I mumbled.

Goddess Marquesa reached over and placed her hand on my thigh, sending a thrill through my whole body. “Don’t be sad, pet,” she soothed. “Remember, I am not acting on my own, but at someone else’s direction. If I had simply wanted you to fall in love with me, do you think that I would need to resort to such elaborate methods?”

I of course knew the answer was no, and shook my head to signal so. But I was too emotional to speak. Tears leaked from my eyes. Goddess Marquesa stroked my thigh gently. “Ahh baby,” she said as if soothing an infant.

“Could you ever love me?” I asked when I regained some composure. “Are you already in love with someone?”

She laughed. “You keep trying to put me in some vanilla box. How do you know I don’t love you already? I love lots of people. The professor you saw me beat yesterday… I love him, in my own way.”

With this she got up from the table and collected the breakfast tray. “You’ve been fighting this experience since it began,” she said, her tone conveying sympathy. “Stop resisting. Accept that you don’t have control. You say you love me… wonderful. You’re worried about what it means for me, but have you really asked what it means for you? You would have to be stupid to believe that loving me is a simple proposition, and you are not stupid. Give it some thought. What else, after all, have you got to do?”

She left on that note, and I’ve been in torment ever since, torn between love, longing, need and shame.

Love of her- everything about her, everything she is and does.

Longing for her. For her body. Her voice. Her spirit.

Need of her. Deep, carnal, animal need. To touch her. Taste her. Smell her. Be entwined in her.

Shame… shame that it took me so long to see the truth. That I ever thought a bad word about her. That I sinned against her.

I have been ruminating all day on what she said, and fighting to maintain my self control. It would be so blissful to give in, I feel like I would need to orgasm ten times to release the sexual tension coiled inside of me. Even one orgasm, at times, seems worth having, just to snatch a few seconds of ecstatic respite from the thoughts and feelings roiling my soul. Only the idea of my reward keeps me from capitulating.

I tuned in to the living room-cam station repeatedly in hopes of catching a glimpse of her, but it has been blank all day. It is probably for the best, I doubt I could have controlled myself if I saw her. I have made it to the end of the day. If I can sleep through the night there will be only one more day to endure to receive my reward.