Page 43 of Honey Cut
He holds the collar in front of him, and the gleaming gold between her kneeling figure and his tall frame is striking. Art, almost.
“I swear to you, Isolde, my attention, my care, my affection, and my control. I swear to honor your agency and your consent. You will be mine until you no longer wish to be so; I will be yours forever.”
Isolde looks up at him. When she speaks, her voice is polished and elegant, a voice of boarding schools and ski chalets. “And I swear to you, Mark, my body, my surrender, and my trust. I swear to speak my needs and honor myself. I will be yours until we no longer wish to be together; I accept your collar as gratefully as you’re accepting my heart.”
Something flickers in his face—maybe he hadn’t expected her to say the last part. But I can’t see his expression anymore because he’s kneeling in front of her now, clasping the collar around her neck. This moment of humility, both of them on their knees, is more romantic than any part of their wedding ceremony, and the final click of the collar’s clasp is more honest than the vows they said in front of the cathedral’s altar.
Mark presses his palm to Isolde’s throat, the collar between his hand and her neck, and he’s looking into her eyes. Whatever he says next, he says too quietly for the microphones to catch, but Isolde’s head moves the smallest amount.
A nod.
His other hand weaves into her hair, fisting through the flowers and white-blond silk, and cinches. She draws in a sharp breath.
He lowers his mouth and kisses her. It’s a strangely sweet kiss for all the nightshade and foxglove around them, for the collar around her neck. He kisses her like she is something cherished, something meant to be cupped carefully in his hands.
I can see his wedding ring glinting from the back of her head.
He breaks the kiss slowly, lingeringly, and the crowd is hushed, awed maybe, by this intimacy. He has shown them violence and vice and gleeful degeneracy, but perhaps never this. Never genuine affection or care.
Never love.
Oh God, is this love? Could he love her like she loves him?
Could I survive that wound too?
He gets to his feet, his eyes staying on Isolde as he looms above her, and the crowd seems to take in a collective breath.
“Here we go,” murmurs Sedge next to me, his iPad forgotten by his side. He can’t seem to look away from Mark.
“Now,” says Mark from the stage. “Let’s see what’s under that pretty dress of yours.”
sixteen
ISOLDE
I have beenon this stage before—exposed, beaten, played with. And I’ve prepared myself for this moment since Mark asked for it years ago, knowing it would be smart to establish myself as part of the Lyonesse firmament as quickly as possible. Knowing that the sooner I shed the old skins of heiress and princess, the sooner I can get to work as a saint.
My pride and my reputation were always going to be the necessary price.
But I could not have predicted how it would feel to be up here with Mark, saying words that I mean and praying he means the words he says too. Looking up into those eyes and seeing an enemy and a husband and something more wicked than both.
Mark slowly, tenderly, brushes a stray lock of hair away from my face, his fingers trailing down to my jaw and then to my neck. To my shoulder, to the silk of my dress. With a sudden wrench, he yanks the fabric down to my elbow, and the dress tears easily for him, exposing my right breast. My nipple pulls into a stiff point in the cool air.
The watching guests make a soft noise, something that hisses along with the cellos and violins, and I can almost feel it on my skin, kissing along the curve of my breast, whispering over the aching tip. I’d forgotten this, in all my mental preparations. The stir of the crowd, the thrill of their eyes. A perverse need to both impress and best them and the warring pull to surrender to whatever humiliation Mark has devised.
I want them to want me; I want their wanting to make Mark want me. I want to prove that I belong, that I’m worthy of him.
Mark takes my nipple between his thumb and forefinger and rubs it thoughtfully, his eyebrows pulled together. He weighs my breast, squeezes it, tugs on the tip until I can’t help but lean forward, and then he tugs it even more until I cry out.
My voice, the sharp note of surprised pain, seems to fill the hall. It’s the air we all breathe, it’s the dark bloom among the roses and foxgloves, and I see his nostrils flare as his chest rises and falls. I think I’m the only one who can see the slight shake to his fingers as he lifts them to my mouth and pushes them past my lips.
The shaking is like a glimpse into a promised land, an unexpected vista of milk and honey, because he wants this badly. He wantsmebadly. And all the things he said over our chess game, all the things he said to me on the night he broke my hymen, they’re flooding my mind and washing every doubt away.
He may not love me, but he wants me. He asked for me.
I wanted you collared, and I want you mine.
You’ll be my pet, my toy, my little wife.
