It was a year later and I was now living with Eleanor. It was a year during which I had been Clemency free. Well, I say free, but there had been a few very minor incidents. For example, Eleanor had found me staring at the long mirror in her hallway. “What?” she asked.
“She was behind me as I brushed my hair, just for a second.”
“It’s probably just your mind. Don’t fret. She’s gone.” But she couldn’t hide the concern in her eyes.
Then there was the incident with the locket. We’d gone out to dinner and, sitting at a table, Eleanor suddenly reached across and touched it. The problem was that I had no recollection of having put it on. She opened it and there was a hank of black hair curled neatly inside it.
I’d also had a couple of dreams about her but they were milder, less terrifying. In one she had whispered her mantra, “Mystery, different, fear.” Her lips had been close to my ear and I felt the warmth of her breath. In another, she had taken my hand and kissed it, her tongue working between my fingers, licking the webbing as she might have licked between my legs. Eleanor had, later, touched the front of my nightdress where it was wet. “I see our mutual friend paid you a visit?” Somehow, her apparently casual attitude to it made me feel safer, less disturbed, and gradually, through that year, I returned to a semblance of normality. But, I realised later, that her attitude was far less casual than I had realised.
It became apparent to me slowly, that Eleanor was a very powerful woman herself. I do not mean politically, although that was certainly true. I mean in terms of our relationship. It was the Mayoral Ball that Saturday night. You may remember that we’d missed it the previous year thanks to Clemency and the dreadful scene in my dream of Eleanor behind the glass screen as the Witch, as we now called her, had fucked me.
I’d been working in the library that Saturday. We were open to the public between nine and five and after we closed, I’d had to do a few jobs: stacking shelves, completing a return to the council, shit like that. I got home and showered while Eleanor was dressing. When I emerged from the bathroom, she called me from the sitting room. She was sitting in her favourite leather armchair, dressed in black trousers with a white tuxedo over a crisp white shirt, a red bow tie at her throat.
“You’re wearing the grey dress tonight. The one you didn’t get to wear last year.”
“Yes, okay, fine.”
“Go and get it and everything else you intend to wear and bring it here. I am going to watch you dress.” There was steel in her green eyes. It seemed like a bit of fun, so I did as she said.
When I got back to her carrying my clothes, a pale blue dildo was poking from the open fly of her trousers. “Give me your stockings.” I handed them to her. “These are silk.” Admitting they were, I told her I wanted to be special for her. She smiled. “Very good but go back and get a nylon pair. No, leave the silk ones here.” Once again, I returned to the bedroom and took a pair of black nylons from the drawer and went back. She was standing. “Give me the stockings.” I did and she draped them over her dildo so they hung there for whatever reason she had. She then directed me to dress. First, the suspender belt, then the stockings, then the sheer purple knickers, then, finally, the gunmetal grey dress with the low back and the V neck with purple lace trim. “Give me your wrists.” I offered them to her and, to my surprise, she took a stocking from her cock and tied them. The second stocking she draped around the front of my throat, the toe and top hanging behind me on the bare skin of my back. I had no idea what was going on.
Smiling, she led me to the back of the chair, bent me over it, and hefted my dress up and my knickers down. Taking the stocking around my neck like reins, she fucked me. It was hard, not rough; vigorous, not frenzied. She didn’t tie the stocking, just held the ends and, well, rode me. This wasn’t for me, I realised, but for her. She just fucked me until she came, noisily.
Reader, so did I.
I loved the Ball too, even though there was another Clemency moment when I discovered a small, red silk hankie in my bag, in that little pocket that I almost never used. The zip was open and the hint of red caught my eye. I was careful not to let Eleanor see it. I knew these moments, infrequent though they had become, frightened her too, and so I had resolved not to let her be aware of them.
When we got home, as soon as we were through the door, Eleanor told me to go and find the stockings she had used to tie my wrists. They were on the sofa in the sitting room. She had followed me into the room and took them from me. She took my hand and led me to her bedroom.
“Undress.” With her standing, leaning against the closed door, I stripped off until I was completely naked. “Lie on the bed.” When I had done so she advanced and, taking one wrist, tied it to the bed with one stocking. She walked slowly around the bed, running the other stocking through her fingers, and then tied the other wrist to the headboard. Satisfied I was secure, she kissed me and then stood where I could see her and slowly divested herself of her clothes. The red bow tie was a real one, not a clip-on and when she took it off she placed it over my mouth. She took her time. The tux came off, the shirt, the shoes, the trousers until she stood, naked beside the bed. She moved the tie so she could kiss me, then put it back.
I had to turn my head to watch as she opened a bedside drawer and extracted a purple Feeldoe. Lifting one leg onto the bed, she worked it slowly into herself until it stood proud in front of her, contrasting beautifully with her wild bush of grey pubic hair.
She tied the red tie around my eyes. The bed dipped and she knelt between my open legs. “Lift your arse.” I did so and she pushed a pillow under it. The dildo entered me, slowly, her mouth on mine. She let out a small sigh as she filled me, then stayed motionless inside me while her tongue probed into my mouth. "I like you like this, vulnerable, open to me. I’ve been wanting to fuck you all evening.”
And then she did, gently, rhythmically at first, her mouth moving between my lips, my tits, my neck until, it seemed hours later, she orgasmed. It was sudden, unanticipated and I loved how I felt the warm fluids running from her onto me. She rested, deep inside me, her mouth close to mine as her breathing recovered to normal.
Later, she opened the drawer to put the Feeldoe away and gasped. I looked, and there, there was that bloody scrap of silk. Her eyes were wide, she looked terrified so I grabbed it and ran to the toilet and flushed it away.
I held her when we were in bed, soothing her.
It was a Saturday, a few weeks later, and we had decided to go out for a meal. Walking down the street, Eleanor suddenly stopped and touched her chest, between her breasts. Then she fumbled inside her shirt and, looking totally bemused, pulled out my silver locket, THE silver locket. I went to say, don’t open it but she did and put a hand over her mouth as if to suppress a scream. I knew instantly that it was a picture of Clemency.
Eleanor took the picture out and turned it over and let out a small moan of dread. I took it from her. There were three words, written in tiny capitals: “Mystery, Different, Fear.” She was shaking, clearly petrified. I knew, though she didn’t say, that she was afraid she was going mad, just as I had feared that I had been. If you could have seen the terror in her eyes, you’d have done what I did. I wrapped my arm around her, held her close, and took her home.
I sat her at the kitchen table. I got her a cup of tea, just as she had for me all that time before.
The knife was on the worktop so I took it and pushed it into her back. I was surprised how easily it went in. She made a sort of gasp of surprise. I know you’ll understand why I did it. I had to protect her from the terror that I knew was starting for her as it had for me. I couldn’t bear the thought of her going through that. I held her, calming her with words as she expired. I told her that I loved her, that she was safe. “I won't let her harm you.”