Epilogue
PLAYLIST: DEAR SOCIETY – MADISON BEET
Lilian
“Don’t you fucking dare do it!” I hiss at her through gritted teeth, but Kat does what she always does: her thing. With no regard for the mess I have to clean up after her. “Get the fuck back up!”
Only she doesn’t.
My throat closes as she kneels down in front of me. In front of all these people.
“You are fucking insane!” I curse at her because of all the places, all the moments she could’ve done it, she chose this here. A fucking sex club in fucking London.
“Marry me,” she says, and opens a box with a ring that shimmers like the Vatnajkoll glacier in Iceland we visited last year.
I look down at her, my Mistress in her leather clothing, kneeling for her sub. In a sex club. Between a bazillion people who can and will recognize me. Who have, by all means sex while I get asked the question.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” I hiss at her, because the music stopped playing for her action. She must’ve planned it way in advance with the owner, Victoria, an old acquaintance of mine.
“Lil,” she says. “This is not the time for being a pestilent little brat.”
“In front of all the people here! Everyone is watching! It’ll hit the media tomorrow, and I will be exposed.”
“Nothing will, Victoria made sure of that,” she says. “Say yes, and I’ll prove you wrong.”
At this point, I am about to say yes only to prove I am right. All of this was a stupid, stupid, stupid idea.
“Say it,” she says.
I look at her in pure spite.
“Yes,” I say, “Because I’ll murder you tomorrow anyway.”
A wide smile appears on her face as she gets up, because she has made me do just another thing I never wanted.
Before she even puts the ring on her finger, she turns to the people in the club.
“So this wonderful woman and brat from the first water said yes because she has to prove she was right,” Kat says.
Everyone laughs and cheers. “And I am hereby letting you know that if anything of this lands somewhere, I will know it was one of you, and I will murder you personally, before you can say please, understood?”
People laugh, but I know she’d live up to it in the blink of an eye.
Then, she turns to me and holds out her hand for mine. I give it to her reluctantly. She slides on the ring.
“One day,” she says with a sigh, “You will for once do what I say without endless discussions.”
“You broke all the rules,” I say angrily and annoyed. I roll my eyes.
“You broke them first. Wasn’t it you who told me to fuck the rules?”
I open my mouth and close it again.
She brushes over my nose with her finger and kisses my forehead, and I forget the world around me.
“See,” she says as she pulls me with her. “Just shut off that mind of yours.”
“I won’t.” I might forget the world around me, I might even overlook her slightly unhinged existence for the sake of my sanity, but I’ll never forget who I am. I am Lilian Anne Knightley. And no one, absolutely no one, makes me bend.
At exactly that moment, she flaps me over a bench and orders me not to move. My core burns in blissful anticipation.
So much about no one makes me bend.
“You’ll get five with the paddle for your cheek,” she says. “And another five for swearing and rolling your eyes at me. Count and be grateful. We have an audience, after all.”
Slap.
“One, thank you, Mistress.”
As I said, one day, I’ll murder her. One day.
Kat
“What’s that?” Lilian asks as I hand her the envelope. She glances into my eyes with her mesmerizing ice-blue ones. I will never get enough of looking into those eyes.
“Your reward,” I say as I pull away from all the people in the bar. We walk out onto the terrace, offering a beautiful view of the ocean.
“Reward for what?”
“Everything. You. You being here. You marrying me. In front of everyone.”
“It’s what people do, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but you aren’t the people.”
“True,” she says and opens the envelope.
“I don’t understand,” she says as her eyes flash over it.
“It’s a dossier. Of me. Everything I have done. And when the day you want to murder me comes, I allow you to use it against me.”
She stares at it, at me, back to it.
“That’s a lot of names,” she says.
I laugh.
“I kept myself busy,” I say. “Many people with dark secrets, you know.”
She holds the dossier to the candle on the table next to us, and says, “I don’t want to know.” The longer it burns, the wider my smile grows.
Lilian snips the last piece into the candle and leans onto the railing. For a moment, I simply watch her in this amazing half-suit, half-dress she has chosen for today. It shows exactly who she is. Bossy for everyone else, soft for me. Me alone. My wife.
Never, ever, in my life have I imagined myself getting married. Nor loving anyone enough to divulge my secrets to.
But I do.
The woman I should have killed.
The woman who wants to kill me every day.
I wrap my arms around her from behind, and we both watch the sun set, dipping the ocean and sky in a deep orange.
“Hey, you two lovebirds,” shouts Hannigan from the door. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
I sigh as we push ourselves off the railing.
Hannigan holds the door open for us, and I punch him in the chest.
“Next time you interrupt us, I’ll murder you next.” He laughs. The number of death threats he has received from my mouth in the past two years probably outnumber the ones I got from Lilian.
We get inside, and I see Lilian’s father in a heated discussion with the girl he brought; she’s crying, and my eyes narrow as my body tenses.
“Don’t,” says Lilian, who immediately noticed and put a hand on my chest to stop me, but it’s too late.
I walk over to them.
“Everything alright here?” I ask.
“None of your business,” he says.
“Actually, it is. This is our wedding, not yours, so whatever it is, be done with it.”
I grasp the girl's shoulder and turn her to me. She must be barely eighteen.
“Tell me what’s up,” I order her, but she shakes her head.
It’s Lilian’s father. Don’t freak out on our wedding, I tell myself, because I am close to snapping. I have watched him two years fucking through girls like others change their underwear, and there is only so much I can tolerate.
“She’s just stupid,” Mr Knightley says. My mind quiets down, as always, before I’ve had enough. It focuses.
“Maybe you should get yourself a drink for a moment,” I say coldly.
If looks could kill, I would drop dead, not that I care. I stare back at him until he removes himself. Men like him can’t handle women like me.
I turn to the girl.
“Did he make you come here? Force you? Shake your head if he did.”
It’s a tactic I have used for many other girls I met over the years. This way, it looks like they never told.
She shakes her head.
“Kat,” says Lilian, her voice almost pleading, because she knows what is about to happen.
Without another word, I stride over to him, where he’s watching us from the bar.
“She is underage, isn't she?” I ask him when I lean onto the bar, to where he is sipping a whiskey like a fat, untouchable spider in his net.
“And what if?” he says. He’s drunk and angry.
“Kat, please,” Lilian says, trying to keep me away.
“He’s one of them,” I hiss at her.
“He’s also my father.”
“Yes, a father who makes you jump through his hoops like a puppet and uses you like a prize he can show off,” I snap. I know she hates to hear it and would never acknowledge it, but someone had to say it.
“Don’t you dare talk about me like that,” her father roars and gets up, attempting to be more impressive and intimidating. I know all the tricks men use. “You filthy little whore, pulling my daughter into that lifestyle.”
“Father!” Lilian says, shocked and yet pleading. “It is my life, not a lifestyle. I never liked men, and if you can’t see that—“
He interrupts her. At this point, the other guests are an audience to our little encounter.
“You don’t talk back to me like a bratty bitch—“
The last sentence was one too many, and I see something that pushes me over the edge: A tear running down her cheek.
No one makes her cry, no one.
“Out!” I shout at him as I get between them.
“You are a bad influence; never would she have dared to talk to me in this tone before you,” he says with a growl.
I laugh derogatorily.
“At least I make her come and not cry,” I say.
“You do with your life whatever you want, but let me be very clear: if you so much as talk to her like that again, I will make sure it's the last thing you do.” I lean in closer to whisper in his ear.
“You may not know who I am, but many others do, and my voice was the last thing they heard. Do you understand me?”
I tell him, because I know he will be dead by morning. No one calls my girl names without being punished for it.
He stares at me.
“I asked you a question,” I say.
He turns without a word, storms out, and gets into his red Ferrari.
I follow him because I have work to do.
A hand on my shoulder.
It’s Hannigan.
“You make her happy,” he says as he gets into a car.
We don’t need many words after two years of working together on the list generated by Zeus. I won’t forget that he brought me the untouchable Prime Minister, so I could get my revenge. And I’ll never forget what he is doing right now. Never.
As far as men go, he’s alright, one of the good ones. I knew before, and now even more.
I go back inside, trying to leave my killer self outside, knowing the headline tomorrow will read ‘Drunk! Business mogul died in car accident’, and it quietens my anger.
Lilian stares at me with all those emotions in her eyes. She tells herself she is cold and calculating, but with me, she is emotional, sensitive, and an open book after all this time together.
“Later,” I tell her, and she does what I do, slipping on a mask, because no one can know what happens behind this beautiful illusion of a life we have built.
We have some drinks out of courtesy for the guests, and just as Hannigan returns, we say goodbye to everyone.
He subtly nods at me when he returns.
Hannigan drives us to somewhere I don’t recognize.
“Where are we?” I ask Lilian as we pull up to a wooden house that looks a bit like a Japanese house, but we’re somewhere in Topanga.
“It’s a surprise,” she says.
We park and get inside, and I am amazed by the stunning view of nature through a huge glass front—the night between indistinct trees, showing off all the stars. We’re so close to L.A., and yet, we’re in the middle of pure nature.
“You have to live up to a promise,” she says behind me.
When I turn, she leans against the door frame. Naked. With that body from heaven and hell. Biting her bottom lip. Enchanting me with her eyes. In one hand, ropes, and a knife. A strap-on in the other.
I walk up to her and take the supply from her hands as I kiss her.
“Hands up,” I tell her, and knot her wrists tight. I glance up at the ceiling. Hooks everywhere.
I shake my head because she has plannend this thoroughly.
“Go kneel in front of that couch,” I tell her, and she does as told.
I undress, slip off the tight black female suit, and loosen the tie.
Lilian watches me undress with desire pouring from her eyes. I unbutton the shirt very, very slowly and fold it carefully. My watch, my rings, and my belt follow, all carefully stacked and put away to her satisfaction.
I have my long, dark brown hair in a high ponytail, and I couldn’t have chosen it better for the occasion.
I watch her as I lean my arms on the backrest of the couch and let her wait. I could do so forever.
Finally, I walk around the couch and take the strap-on with me.
“Lick me,” I tell her as I sit down on the couch in front of her, legs spread.
She does as told. And the moment she does, I throw my head back. I don’t let her please me that often, because I enjoy myself most when I please her, but today, I want her to make me come.
It’s hard leaning forward while having your hands tied up, so I lean onto my arms and push myself forward.
“Hold still,” I order as I bring one leg around her and pull her into me. Her head falls back from the force, and I rub my clit against the throat she bears me.
We both gasp because the little experiment turns us both on.
I rub faster and more valiantly, not letting go of her. My clit pulsates, and release spreads through me.
I stop. And before she can move or do anything else, I snap into my dominant self. I don’t need to ride out my orgasm. What I need is for her to scream my name ten times in a row.
I climb onto the couch and slide a rope through the hooks. There might be some tech to lower them, from the looks of it, but it takes too long to find out.
“Get up,” I tell her, and she does so immediately.
I knot the rope with the one in her hands so I can adjust the range of motion.
And then I slap her ass, without warning.
She squeals as she stands fixed.
“Hang onto the ropes,” I tell her and move her back, until she arches for me.
A breathtaking view.
I slowly step behind her and open her legs with mine.
Fuck me, what a view.
I take the knife.
Its blade presses into the skin on the back of her thigh, and she moans.
Blood appears. I didn’t cut too deep, just deep enough so I can lick the blood off her thigh.
The metallic taste in my mouth, mhhh.
“Oh gods,” she moans out, I know how much she loves it, and I am all in for unhinged kinks. I repeat the cutting five more times.
Her body trembles in anticipation, and every time my tongue licks over her, she bends further into the ropes.
I step back to take in my work. It takes all my control not to bring my hand between her legs and touch her, and I fail monumentally.
My hand searches her clit, and I slap it several times.
“I am going to fuck you now,” I tell her. I can’t control myself anymore.
She moans in confirmation.
I strap in and spit on the strap-on before I enter her without another warning.
I pull her close by the hips as I thrust in her.
Again.
And again.
And again, until she shouts my name.
“Oh god, Kat!”
“Yes, Princess?” I ask her with a smirk on my face as she trembles under my hands.
“I need to come!”
“Say please.”
“Please, Mistress, may I please come?”
I bite my lip as a grin appears on my face.
“Come for me, Princess.”
Lilian arches into the orgasm, presenting me with the ass of all my desires.
“That’s my good girl,” I say, and slap her ass as I continue to fuck her. “I’m going to fist you afterwards and lick your ass,” I tell her.
Like I said, ten times in a row.
THE END