"I should go. I"m needed back in Wakefield."

"Yeah, I have swim practice. I should go to that."

"Eleanor, about that."

"What?"

He said nothing and he didn"t have to. From the look on his face, she understood.

"Okay. I"ll quit the team."

"I wish it could be another way."

"This is how it is. I"ll tell them today." If she and S0ren were going to be lovers, she"d have to spend the rest of her life learning how to hide her bruises and welts. No way to hide bruises in a swimsuit. She knew there"d be a price to pay. This was a small one.

"Jeg elsker dig, min lille en."

S0ren kissed her again.

"I"ll see you soon," he promised. "You should open the other cards and see what your options were."

"s.a.d.i.s.t," she said, smiling against his lips.

S0ren left her alone in the balcony with the four remaining unopened cards. She shouldn"t open them. She knew she shouldn"t. They were the roads not taken, so why even given them a second thought?

f.u.c.k that, she wanted to know.

She opened envelope number one and nearly swore aloud as she read the one word written on it.

Tonight.

If she"d picked number one, she would have lost her virginity on her birthday.

G.o.d d.a.m.n her and her greediness. Maybe card number two would have said Easter or some day after Holy Thursday.

"What the-"

Card number two also said Tonight.

Card number three? Tonight.

And card number four? Eleanor ripped the envelope open.

"Motherf.u.c.king priest."

31.

Eleanor ON THE EVENING OF HOLY THURSDAY, ELEANOR stopped by her old house in Wakefield but didn"t go inside. After Eleanor started college, her mother had gotten an apartment in Westport closer to her job and put the Wakefield house on the market. Now it sat empty, abandoned, alone. Her mom had picked Wakefield because of its proximity to its good Catholic schools. Eleanor wondered if her mother regretted going through all that trouble. Her mom a.s.sumed Eleanor had turned into a G.o.dless heathen at her liberal arts school-the sort of girl who slept around and drank and never went to church. She was no saint, but she"d made it to twenty still a virgin. And G.o.d knows she loved the Catholic Church-at least one part of it-with all her heart.

Although she hated it then, now she was grateful that her mother had made her go to church. Otherwise she wouldn"t have met S0ren, and through S0ren she"d found her way to G.o.d.

She wondered about who might buy the house someday. Whoever it was, she hoped G.o.d took as good care of them as He had of her. Four years ago she"d sat in a police station thinking her life had ended at age fifteen. Now all she saw before her were endless beautiful possibilities.

A thousand times as a teenager she"d walked from her house to Sacred Heart. She could have driven to the church or asked Kingsley to drive her. But she wanted to walk tonight like she had so many times before. She would have walked all the way from New York if she had to. She would have walked barefoot on broken gla.s.s.

At the rectory she paused outside the door and removed her shoes. No one told her to, and she had no idea why she did it.

On bare and silent feet, she slipped in the side door and once inside the house she heard music. Piano music. She"d never heard the piece before but it spoke to her, whispered to her, beckoned her farther in. She found S0ren at the piano, his fingers gliding across the keys, waltzing in the shadows cast by a single candle. She sat next to him on the bench, her back to the keyboard, and rested her head against his shoulder. He played until the end of the piece before lifting his fingers off the keys and letting the notes hang in the air. He closed the fallboard and looked at her.

"More Beethoven?" she asked.

"The Moonlight Sonata. I can"t complain Beethoven didn"t write a piano part for his Ninth Symphony. He did give us pianists the Moonlight Sonata as a consolation prize."

"It"s beautiful."

"So are you."

Eleanor took a deep breath.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course, Little One."

"Are you as nervous as I am?"

He exhaled heavily. "I haven"t done this since I was eighteen years old."

"So you are nervous?"

"Not at all."

"Me, neither," she said and meant it.

S0ren dipped his head and her lips trembled against his. She hadn"t lied. She didn"t feel a moment"s nervousness. Only peace and desire as if this moment had been waiting outside her door her entire life and at last she could let it in.

She reached behind her head and pulled out the pencil she"d used to hold her hair back in a loose knot. S0ren smiled at the pencil lying on her palm.

"You"re so certain you"re going to pa.s.s this test tonight?" he asked her. She laid the pencil on the piano by the candle, thrilled S0ren remembered their long-ago talk about how she"d take only a pencil to the tests she"d knew she"d ace.

"I plan on blowing the curve."

They kissed again, kissed through their smiles.

"Stay," S0ren said as he pulled away from her.

She waited on the piano bench as ordered. From now until the end of time this would be her life-S0ren giving orders and her taking them. She would wait when he said wait and where he said wait and she would not move until he told her she could move.

S0ren returned to the living room carrying a large ivory basin, a gla.s.s pitcher of water and a small white towel.

Her heart caught in her throat when S0ren knelt on the floor in front of her.

"S0ren, please don"t-"

"It"s Holy Thursday. This is what priests do on Holy Thursday."

"Why?"

"Because Christ washed his disciples" feet on the night of the Last Supper."

She"d struggled with what to wear tonight, struggled until she remembered it wouldn"t matter. If she"d shown up in torn rags, S0ren would still love her, still want her. And she"d be naked any moment anyway. She"d dressed in jeans and a sweater. Underneath she wore white lingerie that Kingsley had paid for and Sam had picked out. As weird as it was to get lingerie from Kingsley and Sam, she couldn"t fault their taste. Even if it was weird, she liked that. Life would be weird from now on. She was the mistress of a Catholic priest who was the best friend of the king of an S&M empire. Life was weird and wonderful and all she could say to it was Amen, Amen.

So be it.

S0ren took her right foot in his hand and she shivered at the gentle touch. As he poured warm water over her feet, she sighed from the heat. So this was love? She tucked this feeling in her heart and hid it there. Someday she would write about this moment. She would write a book about a girl who fell in love with a G.o.d and then, to her complete surprise, discovered the G.o.d loved her back. Since he couldn"t be a man she would be a G.o.ddess and leave the mortal world behind for him.

He poured the water over her left foot and dried both her feet with the towel. Not even kneeling at her feet diminished S0ren in her eyes. His long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks. One mutinous strand of hair wanted to fall over his forehead. She pushed it back and S0ren pressed his cheek into her hand. As much as she railed and fought against waiting this long, she now understood why it had been for the best. They met each other as equals tonight. Her submission meant more because she chose it freely instead of letting the law or their age difference or anything in the world impose it on her.

S0ren stood up and took her in his arms. He lifted her off the piano bench and carried her upstairs. She"d never been in his bedroom before, and it didn"t disappoint. It seemed a sacred s.p.a.ce to her, the room where S0ren slept. The white sheets covered the bed like a new-fallen snow. The dark wood of the four-poster bed appeared to her like the trunks of trees-strong and eternal. She felt like a virgin sacrifice brought to an ancient forest. Blood must be spilled for the G.o.ds to be appeased. She offered her own blood tonight and would pour it like wine on snow.

A gla.s.s of red wine sat by the bed. S0ren raised it and drank from the gla.s.s. He handed it to her.

"Drink. It will relax you."

She drank as ordered.

"I will be as careful as I can be tonight."

"The more pain I feel, the more you enjoy it, yes?"

S0ren opened a box on the bedside table and pulled her white collar from it. He stepped behind her as she kept drinking the wine.

"Yes. But I can still enjoy myself without torturing you."

"You don"t have to be careful with me, sir." She inhaled as he locked the collar around her neck. She breathed into its grip.

"You are my most precious possession. I will guard you with my life."

He took the gla.s.s from her hand and sat it on the table again. She stared at it, taking her eyes from it only when S0ren sat on the side of the bed facing her.

Without a word, he ordered her to remove her clothes. She could do that now, read his wants and desires without requiring his words. He"d trained her well, trained her for this night. And so she obeyed without hesitation, pulling her sweater off and dropping it to the floor. Her jeans she slid off next. She unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties. It had been like this once upon a time in Eden. A man and a woman in paradise with nothing between each other, nothing between them and G.o.d. It had been like this once, and tonight when they made love they would step one foot back into Eden and see what had been lost and what could be found again.

"I want you to hurt me," she said. "As much as you want, sir."

"You say that, but you don"t mean it."

"I mean it."

S0ren slapped her.

Eleanor started. In openmouthed shock she stared at S0ren. She raised a hand to her cheek. It burned.

"Now do you still want me to hurt you as much as I want?" S0ren asked. The question wasn"t a question but a gauntlet thrown down. This is me, S0ren was saying. Take me or leave me.

She took him.

She held out her hand, and S0ren took it. For one second she thought she saw relief in his eyes.

He led her to the bedpost. A large trunk sat at the foot of the bed next to her calves. S0ren turned a key and opened the box. Inside it she first saw nothing but more sheets. He lifted the sheets and from underneath them pulled a set of white leather cuffs. He stood and took her right hand. He pressed her palm to the center of his chest as he locked the cuff around her wrist. He did the same to her left wrist. After she could only marvel at the sight of her hands in the cuffs. So this was what love looked like? Now she knew.

"Say your safe word."

"Jabberwocky," she said.

"Good. At any time you can tell me if you need to stop. Tell me what you need and your request will be honored. Say your safe word only when and if you need me to stop everything. You give yourself freely to me. I would never force it on you."

"I know, sir. All I want is to please you tonight."

"You will. You already have. I will flog you first, cane you after. I won"t slap you again."

"You can," she said. "I think I liked it, sir."

S0ren dropped a kiss on the back of her neck.

"If you"re good. I"ll tie you to the bedposts after. I want you faceup during s.e.x tonight for the first time. I will give you as much pleasure as I give you pain, perhaps more." He pressed against her back. She felt him unb.u.t.toning his shirt. She pushed back into him, needing his skin against hers.

"What is your favorite sort of pain to inflict, sir?"

"Cutting. Nothing arouses me more than someone who will bleed for me."

"I"ll bleed for you, sir."

"On the bed, when I"m inside you, you will, yes. That is enough blood for one night."

Eleanor knew he referred to her virginity. She wanted to give him more. She would give him more.

He pulled a short length of rope from the trunk and weaved it through the buckles on her cuffs. He turned her toward the bedpost and secured her arms high over her head. She stretched out, breathing into the position, feeling exposed from her ankles to her neck. She couldn"t move her hands, couldn"t run away. Leaving him was no longer a choice. She couldn"t if she wanted to. She never wanted to.

S0ren ran his hand over her back, touching every inch of skin. No one existed but her and S0ren. The world had begun the moment she stepped into his bedroom. It would end when she left it. Everything outside his bedroom door disappeared into nothingness. She didn"t miss it at all.

The first blow of the flogger landed between her shoulder blades. Her back exploded in pain. She almost laughed from the shock of it.