Free As She's Told by Anneke Jacob

shape what happens."
    "Mm."
    "Go on."
    She stared at the ground. "I just know that if there's something you don't want, and you do it for my sake – " Her body shrank away from him, and her face was a misery of humiliation. "I won't be able to bear it. Everything –
    everything will go wrong. We'll be back to games again."
    This had to be nipped in the bud, quickly. He dug his fingers into her shoulders. "Maia," he said gently. "You haven't got this straight." She looked up. "This is not a reciprocal arrangement. It's not about giving you a kinky good time." He waited a beat or two to make sure she took this in. "If all goes well I'll own you. Body, mind, all of you. If you're going to be my 49

    As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob
    property I need to know what I've got, what you're good for." His voice dropped a confidential note lower. "Like buying a dog – is it the right kind for what I want? Does it have the right disposition? Can it be trained?"
    ***
    I stared up at him hardly able to breathe, hit with such a maelstrom of emotions that my body could hardly contain them all; he'd be scraping me off the lamp posts and the distant museum walls.
    Fear, outrage and humiliation. Rebellion. Recognition, joy, lust like sheet lightning. A thunderbolt flash of clarity and connection illuminating the landscape between us. Panic at the view of the precipice at my feet.
    My eyes never left his face. He observed me calmly, his expression serious, aware. At last one of his hands came off my shoulder, held my cheek for a moment, then slid into the hair at the nape of my neck and gently, inexorably, pulled my head back. "You understand now, Maia.”
    “Yes."
    "Good." His face lowered, and he kissed me; a seal, it seemed on our agreement, or whatever it was.
    50

    As She’s Told – Anneke Jacob

Chapter Five
Reynardine

    In the days that followed, Mrs. Silva downstairs complimented me on my nice new boyfriend, so polite and attentive. She peeked up the stairs when he arrived to take me out, greeted him on his way down, evidently thinking that someone had to stand in for my absent mother. They discussed the new bathroom in the basement that Mr. Silva had just completed, and the health of her hydrangeas. Within days she was serving him coconut cake.
    But she would have been puzzled by his phone calls, which were calm, detailed interrogations rather than lovers' chats.
    "Have you finished the bibliography? How many hours did you work on that? What about the media search on water quality?" On several days, to my intense disappointment, he decided I was too busy to see him. The only way I got through my work on those evenings was the fear of not seeing him the next night. I began skipping lunch to have more time, until he found out and made a no-skipping-meals rule.
    Even when he'd said he wasn't coming I kept listening for his truck. As the neighbourhood was well studded with massive four-by-fours, I spent far too much time looking out the window, disappointed, as some muscly black macho symbol growled by with its empty truck bed. Hoping instead to see well-used burnt sienna beneath my window, brown in shadow but glowing like sunset when it caught the light. The truck was old but cared for, the finish softened and smoothed like a well-used pair of jeans. It got so whenever I saw that colour out on the street, my heart lifted like a balloon.
    It wasn't that my ambivalence was gone. There were still voices asking what the hell I thought I was doing. Some of them were even outside my head; Nikki called and scolded me frequently, nagging me to start discussing some limits before it was too late, a safeword at least. It was like hearing instructions on the flutter kick when white water has you in its grip. I did my best to keep my head above the surface, wired on adrenalin, eager anticipation, and constant fear.
    When Anders did come to the door I had to show him all my work, my heart in my throat. I hadn't had to account in such detail to