"Control, Part Two: Loss and Remembrance"

By H. Jekyll

* * * * *

I do not use story codes anymore. This story contains 
explicit sex and great sexual cruelty. It is the tale of a 
woman who left her lover for a sexually dominant man, and 
who has descended into a world of sadism-for-profit on the 
internet. It is also a story of love and commitment.

It previously appeared at "Ruthie's Club," which I 
recommend to readers, edited by Ruthie. An illustrated and 
formatted version can be found there. See: 
http://www.ruthiesclub.com/.

Copyright 2002 by H. Jekyll. Permission is freely granted 
to post on any site that does not charge for entrance, as 
long as full attribution is given to the author. The story 
should not be read by anyone under the legal age to read 
sexually explicit stories, or by anyone in a location where 
it is illegal to read such stories. 

I appreciate comments and inquiries, even criticisms, and I 
absolutely promise to respond to them. Please send them to: 
h_jekyll2000@yahoo.com

The H. Jekyll stories are archived in the Alt Sex Stories 
Text Repository (http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/h_jekyll/), 
and at "Ruthie's Club."

* * * * *

"Loss and Remembrance"


A world dark and asleep. A world for Geoffrey, spread across the 
night and empty of people. There are always some people up and 
about, aren't there, even at the end of the evening? Not now and 
not here. Geoffrey drives along a parkway, watching the 
streetlights move by smoothly and quietly, one every few seconds, 
an endless procession of them, dignified and calm. He passes 
through a few blinking traffic lights. The green of the dashboard 
dials is so peaceful it makes him think of things far away and 
untouched, soft luminescence from distant stars or the bottom of 
the sea. He is playing space music on his car radio, playing it 
quietly, as background. It fits the otherworldly instrument 
lights. It fits the majesty of the street lights. The world is 
almost perfect. Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. The air smells green 
and sleepy. 

Geoffrey stops at a 24-hour gas station. Someone is moving around 
inside, but Geoffrey pays by credit card at the pump. There are 
no other cars. Near home he passes a police car, going the other 
way fast without the blue lights flashing. On his street one 
house has a window lit. The rest are completely dark. He finally 
sees another person, a middle-aged black man riding an unlit 
bicycle on the other side of the street, peddling smoothly 
through the night.

The house is stuffy. His and Anne's house, filled with things of 
hers he never got rid of. Anne's overdone couch. Her Modigliani 
print. 

The perfection of the night drains away. 

One of the cats greets him, so he pours her some dry food. He 
gets out four slices of bread and spreads peanut butter and 
strawberry preserves on them, and he pours a glass of milk. Then 
he takes the plate and the glass into the guest bedroom, off the 
living room, and turns on the computer. While it boots he eats 
the sandwiches and drinks the milk.

He types the URL of the Web site. He types it in with no 
hesitations or guesses. When the site comes up, he clicks on the 
"Subscribe Now" button. He pulls a credit card from his wallet.

Bill had shown him a streaming video file, the one that announced 
the live show. He decides to go there first. Start at the 
beginning. Click the fucking button, Geoffy.

*  *  *  *  *

I lost her. Shouldn't I let her go? Move on. She isn't for me 
anymore. She hasn't been for a year. Almost a year. When was it? 
September twenty-second. The first day of Autumn. My autumn. Oh 
quit being so melodramatic. It's just that I can't seem to do it 
yet. 

He stares at the keyboard.

Anne and Geoffrey, sitting in a tree, f-u-c-k-i-n-g. They loved 
each other and lived together, and they were going to be married. 
It's like a breeze in the summer, something light and ephemeral 
and fresh, the sort of thing people turn their faces toward and 
smile. It is always like that until Geoffrey realizes he is going 
to follow the train of memories to the end. Then it's like 
waiting for the train wreck one knows is coming. Waiting for 
disaster. 

"You're my Anne of Green Gables," Geoffrey told her their first 
time together. When he thinks of her it is mainly of their sex. 
An effect of the Web site? More likely an effect of how and why 
she left. There were other things, their plans, their work, 
dinners, friends, but they fade. He remembers calling her his 
Anne of Green Gables. He remembers a lot about their first time. 
He was tracing her contours with his hand, across her small 
breasts and down her tummy and over her mons. He always wanted to 
touch her after sex. Sometimes it led to round two, but the 
touching was good whatever.

"I can't be," she laughed. "I've read that book, and he doesn't 
get her, but you got me almost right away."

"My nature girl. Pure-D luscious."

"I'm not that pure either, you dope. And I like cities. Unless 
you'll be my Tarzan and carry me away to live in the jungle with 
you. Our neighbors can be the Swiss Family Robinson." Then she 
said in a stage whisper, "We could spy on the parents making love 
at night." She never used the word "fuck."

And truth to tell, she wasn't that pure, not in the old sense. He 
remembers when she bought him an illustrated Kama Sutra for his 
birthday and insisted they read it together and try some of the 
more plausible positions. She got to talking about lingams and 
yonis, much more erotic, she said, than penises and vaginas.

"My yoni is yearning for a long lingam to love," she whispered in 
his ear as he sat reading the paper one Sunday morning.

"Does that mean we're having pasta?" he teased. She bit his ear 
and he had to chase her into the bedroom and wrestle her to the 
mattress for a couple of hours. 

Geoffrey thinks of when he first seduced her by cooking a meal of 
eggplant parmesan, angel-hair pasta, garlic bread, a store-bought 
Caesar salad, and a bottle of cheap sparkling wine. With Anne's 
help, his cooking improved dramatically. She could use some food 
now, he thinks. He told her one day he would eat a whole meal off 
her body. "Promises, promises," she smirked.

Then out of the blue, one night, Anne said, "You can try kinky 
things with me, you know." He wonders. Did that signal something, 
something I missed?

"Like what?"

"Well, what would you like to do to me?"

So Geoffrey blindfolded her and caressed and tickled her all 
over. He said, "You have to lie still, as though you're tied up."

When she was really hot he raised her legs up and pushed them to 
her chest. Then he spanked her, little stinging spanks he 
alternated with pushing fingers inside her.

But it wasn't just work and home, and it really wasn't just sex. 
He tries to think of things besides their sex. On weekends they 
sometimes drove up into the Smokies. In the summer they rafted or 
kayaked, once on the French Broad River, the other times with the 
hoards of weekenders on the Nantahala. Even thinking of those 
weekends, it's mostly the sex that stays with him. Anne looking 
for public places where she can stroke Geoffrey's fly and chance 
getting caught. Or searching out a clearing only yards from where 
rafters are floating by, and fucking within earshot of them. 
People are laughing and splashing the whole time, and Geoffrey 
muffles Anne's cries with his hand. Then they lie together and 
count how often dragonflies rest on their toes. Somehow Anne gets 
poison ivy on her leg.

A winter weekend they drove to the Biltmore Mansion, almost empty 
because of rain, where Anne pulled Geoffrey into an empty room 
filled with nineteenth century portraits and 1920s-era bric-a-
brac. She closed the door and they did it dressed, just their 
pants pulled down, leaning against the door and listening for 
docents, though if someone had actually come along they wouldn't 
have had time to get dressed. Leaning against her afterward, she 
leaning against the door, Geoff couldn't stop himself from 
saying, "My favorite play: 'A Winter's Tail.'"

Later that winter they tried sex outside during their one big 
snowstorm, but Geoffrey almost got frostbite. No, not on his 
penis. That was kept nice and warm.

She liked his parents; he tolerated her mother. "She's not so 
bad, Geoffy. You just have to get used to her ways." Surprise of 
surprises, neither mother minded if they slept together when 
visiting, but his father wouldn't let them do it. Oh the fun, 
sneaking into Anne's room right next door to the parents and 
trying to fuck quietly on those old, squeaky springs. Of course 
they tried to get time alone in their parents' houses, so they 
could fuck on parental beds. Doesn't everyone?

Geoffrey wonders if Anne's mother knows how far her daughter has 
fallen. All the way down into Satan's world. Does she want to be 
in hell? Is it her desire? Does Anne visit her mother, and does 
her mother try not to mention how skinny her daughter is, or how 
odd she looks with all those piercings? Does her mother worry 
about anorexia?

Geoffrey proposed to Anne in the middle of cooking a six-course 
Chinese dinner for some of their friends, his shirt covered with 
stains from sauces and drippings, surrounded by dishes and pans. 
The kitchen was full of steam. He left the wok unattended to ask 
her. "Geoffy, you are so romantic!" They announced their 
engagement to everyone when they served the flan for dessert, and 
they toasted it with plum wine.

*  *  *  *  *

Anne coming home laughing about Satan. It's his first day. It's 
the end of the good memories. The spiral is quick in retrospect.

"You'd better watch out, Geoffy. He's the most gorgeous man any 
of us has ever seen."

"Who is?"

"The new exec they've sent down from New York to straighten out 
the Carolina division. Victor Bruno. They hired him from a firm 
that saves troubled companies like ours. Jane calls them a 'cut 
and slash' group because they give out a lot of pink slips. 
Anyway, you should have seen Maureen moon over him."

"And how much did Anne moon over him?"

"Oh, is my poor Geoffy all bothered?"

"And how safe is your job?" 

Later -- how much later? -- she comes home impressed. "He knows these 
things, Geoff. He knows the problems we're having, and he knows 
what questions to ask. He's not like those clowns they sent down 
before." Here's Victor slashing the office workforce by twelve percent 
and promoting Anne to be his administrative assistant. Anne 
spending ever more time with him. "I have to work late again, 
Geoff." She talking about him all the time. Yes. And not just 
about work. "Victor's been everywhere, Geoff!" Geoffrey remembers 
her repeating stories about sexual shenanigans among the high 
mucky mucks in boardrooms and executive offices, in Congress, in 
embassies. Victor isn't judgmental. "He's even joined in 
sometimes," Anne says. She almost gushes.

"Pretty cool. Did I ever tell you I was on the grassy knoll?"

One day, "Victor says he's like Lucifer."

"What does that mean?"

"That he rejects... how does he call it?... artificial restraints 
imposed on his actions. He says he's free to pursue life on his 
own terms, one of the few really free people."

"So he's really the Devil."

"Don't you dare say that in front of him!" 

"Oh I won't. Just remember, though -- God is on my side." After a 
second he looks over at her and asks, "What does my good Catholic 
girl think about his philosophy?" Anne ignores the question and 
continues making the salad.

The acceleration. Another day: "He told me you should tie me up 
and beat me, Geoffy."

Geoffrey just looks at her.

"He said you were lucky but shouldn't trust your luck. If I were 
his woman he would tie me naked in the hallway, and when he came 
home from work my body would be there for him to play with."

"Anne? What the hell is this? You're letting him come on to you?" 
Is that what I said? I probably wasn't that strong.

"No! No he wasn't. It sounds strange, but you had to be there. We 
weren't alone, you silly. There were four of us there, Maureen, 
Jane, Victor, and me. Our work group. People were joking about 
relationships and it came up, somehow, about love and trust and 
things. You know. Anyway, it was funny when he said it. Funny but 
sexy too. It made me want to have you tie me up."

"I don't think so." Do it, damn it! Shit.

"You could spank me for being a bad girl and having this naughty 
conversation with my boss. I'm really awfully horny."

Finally looking Satan up on the Web. It's later in the game than 
you think. There's a Victor Bruno, all right, and he markets sex 
films, but there's no connection at all. Satan probably 
appropriated the name because of the sex tie-in. What's his real 
name? Does he have a real name? Don't be stupid.

Then. No reason to rush through this any further. Geoffrey's 
gotten to it. He didn't know it at the time, not exactly, and not 
certainly, but yes. Anne went with Victor to an organizational 
meeting at the Chicago office. When she came home she wanted to 
make love in the dark. They'd always used candles, but it was the 
second week before she'd consent to candles again. She also 
stopped talking about Victor. Geoff didn't press her on it. 

A few weeks later, Anne came home very late from work. It was a 
Thursday. She had told Geoffrey she'd have to work late, that 
there was a deadline, but it was two a.m. when she slipped in. 
He'd called her at ten, just to make sure she was okay, and the 
phone had rung a long time before she'd picked it up. She'd 
sounded breathless.

"I had to run down the hall from the copier room, Geoffy," she 
had said. "It may be the wee hours. The whole work group is 
staying late."

Two a.m. She bathed and dressed in the bathroom and come to bed 
in a long gown. Too long for summer, and then she didn't want 
to snuggle. When she felt up to sex, a few days later, she wanted 
to make love in the dark again, but Geoffrey grew impatient and 
turned on a bed lamp and before she had a chance to cover up he 
saw a long, thin bruise on her left breast.

He can still see the bruise.

"What is that?" It was terribly silent for a moment, then she 
answered.

"I got banged by a filing cabinet, Geoff. Why? Am I suddenly 
under suspicion of something? Do you want me to account for my 
every moment?"

And Geoffrey apologized, of course. You don't accuse your beloved 
of what he thought, not without better reason. The next day, on a 
pretext, he called Jane, and during the conversation he asked if 
she'd enjoyed "E.R." last week.

"To tell you the truth, I've had it with that show. Dave turned 
to CNN half way through and we went to bed early." No, no, the 
meeting hadn't been as bad as all that. They'd gotten take-out 
Greek food, and it had broken up around eight. 

*  *  *  *  *

What do you do when you know? There are several options, none of 
them very good. Survey all the people who have had this 
particular revelation. You'll find people who have tried each, 
with indifferent results. What can you do? You can yell, but 
calling someone a whore seventeen times loses its effectiveness. 
Or be noble and talk about it. Then you're a wuss. Demand to know 
her intentions. But. But. Do you really want to be told you're 
number two now? Or worse? Leave, or better yet, kick her out. Now 
we're getting somewhere! Revenge! But it doesn't change the fact 
that once you were desired above all others, and now you're not. 

There's the other option. You can hide what you know, push it far 
down inside and try to pretend it doesn't exist. Try to act 
normal around her. Maybe it will pass. Maybe it's a phase, a 
thing, nothing. Try to touch her and kiss her in the usual way. 
Try to fuck as often, do the usual things, don't grimace when her 
mouth comes at you. Say "I love you" in your usual voice. Don't 
you dare cry in front of her! Cheat on her as much as she's 
cheating on you, by keeping everything secret, because you don't 
know what else to do and you're so afraid of losing her.

After staring out the window most of the day, Geoffrey drove home 
and began dinner. He made some angel-hair pasta and was broiling
salmon to go in it when she came in the door.

"What's the special occasion?" she asked before she kissed him.

"Nothing, sweetie. I just wanted to show how much I love you." He 
gave her a peck. Was that semen on her breath? Oh sure. 
"Sparkling wine is open in the fridge."

They laughed a lot over dinner. She told a funny story about 
Maureen's boyfriend. Because he had cooked, she did the dishes, 
and while she was at the sink he walked up behind her and reached 
around to take both her breasts.

"I know. There's nothing like a woman being domestic. Right, 
Geoffy?" She shrugged him off and finished up.

He went to bed early and lit three sandalwood-scented candles. He 
worked himself up and waited for her, but when she finally came 
back she said, "I'm sorry, honey, but I had a bad day. I really 
don't feel up to it."

Of course. He understood. No he wasn't upset. He wasn't really 
all that sexy himself.

He lay in bed while she slept with her back to him, looking up at 
the ceiling, his left hand resting on her hip. After enough time 
had passed he went out into the living room and sat on the couch 
awhile.

*  *  *  *  *

Would it have been different if Geoffrey hadn't gone home when he 
did? If he'd endured the campus a few more hours? Met a few more 
students? Who among us can know the destinations of all the paths 
we don't take? He's thought about it and decided it wouldn't have 
made a bit of difference.

He left campus at lunchtime, and he remembers the glossy black 
Saab in the driveway. Victor hadn't bothered to park it down the 
block. Geoffrey parked at the curb. It was sunny. A mowing crew 
was working across the street. He waved to them. No jets fell 
from the sky to take his mind off what he was going to find. As 
he walked past the Saab he stared into it, at pale leather seats. 
Everything neat, precise. Tidy. Anne's car was in the carport. He 
didn't look at it, or at the crumpled burger wrappers, wax drink 
cups, or napkins she'd collected. He turned the kitchen door 
knob. It wasn't locked. No security at all.

Of course their voices carried out to the kitchen. They were in 
the guest bedroom, which opened off the living room, the room 
Geoff sits in now, clicking the icon that will show Anne 
announcing her subjugation to the world. Geoffrey leans forward 
and turns up the volume so he won't miss anything. It needs to be 
loud enough. Last year he was quiet. He closed the kitchen door 
silently. Anne was making sex cries, only partly cries, mostly 
gasps. The same breathy sounds she made for Geoffrey.

"Are you ready?" It was Victor's voice, Satan's voice, the one 
Geoffrey had only heard once or twice. It was a warm voice, deep, 
confident, well-modulated, the beautiful voice from the Web site.

Anne gasped once more, then said, "Yes! Do it Victor. Don't do it 
where it will show, though. Please. I can't hide everything."

Satan laughed a pleasant laugh. "Oh you'll have to hide these. 
Until they heal tell him you can't screw because it's your 
period."

Anne made another gasp. "I can't." She was panting. "It won't 
work. He doesn't care when I bleed."

"Well neither do I. Here we go."

Anne said "Aaaa!" It went on for several seconds. There was pain 
in it, but it wasn't a desperate sound. Not a loud cry, but high 
pitched and jerky and even more breathy. By the time she stopped 
Geoffrey was almost to the guest room. He stopped behind a 
dieffenbachia, as though he could hide behind it. Tonight he 
feels stupid about that, but the dieff almost stopped him. If he 
moved to the side he'd be able to see inside.

Satan said, "You understand now, don't you? I'm going to suckle 
it."

Anne cried "Aaaa" again, but it changed into a sex cry in the 
middle. A sex cry, but different. Her cries went on. Then her 
voice, breathless, "Finish me. Don't make me wait! Oh God, I'm so 
high!"

Geoffrey was just outside the door, gathering himself.

"No. First I'm going to do it where you can say it *is* from your 
period." 

Anne started saying "Aaaa" a third time. It was then that 
Geoffrey rounded the door. Anne was tied tightly to the bed with 
cotton ropes, hands and feet at the four corners. There was a 
large towel underneath her body. Both she and Victor were naked, 
and along with everything else, Geoffrey remembers how struck he 
was by Victor's beauty. He had fine facial features, high 
cheekbones, large eyes, thick black hair. He was muscular, dark 
and fit, with a little chest hair, and he sported a pale erection 
that ended with a thick head. Victor was leaning over Anne's 
vulva with a cutting tool in his hand. It held a single-edged 
razor. Anne's head was back and her eyes were closed. Her face 
and neck were red and a vein popped up on her throat. There's 
more. A thin line of red ran off a nipple, meandered down her 
breast, and stopped at her chest wall. 

They would have noticed Geoffrey eventually, but he didn't wait.

"You'll have to stop that now." 

Anne shrieked, but Victor turned to him with an amused look. As 
though he'd known Geoffrey was there all along.

"Well Anne, love. It looks like you're going to have to explain 
things to him earlier, rather than later." So they'd discussed 
him.

Victor rose and dressed, not in haste, not trying to hide his 
erection. Anne pulled at her ropes and turned her face from 
Geoffrey to Victor and back, while Victor buttoned his starched, 
white shirt. He dressed in a charcoal suit with faint pin striping. 
He draped a yellow tie around his neck. Anne was struggling and 
breathing hard -- not sex panting anymore. She looked desperate. 
Geoffrey never moved. He just stood there, waiting for Victor to 
leave. Another bit of red was visible at Anne's vagina. 

Finally, Victor loosened Anne's hands from the head and foot 
boards by giving each rope a quick pull. He walked past Geoffrey, 
who moved away to let him go, and down the hall. Tonight Geoffrey 
doesn't think he looked amused. That wasn't it. He looked 
satisfied.

*  *  *  *  *

"Anne. We're going to have to talk sometime. If you want me to 
leave, I will, but we have to talk eventually."

The moment she was free, she had grabbed her clothes, run into 
the bathroom, and locked the door. That was forty-five minutes 
ago. She hadn't responded to him, to his knocking or his voice. 
When he stood close to the door he could hear her breathing and 
moving around. 

Geoffrey sat down on the edge of the bed again, his hands clasped 
together between his legs, looking at the carpet. A drop of blood 
lay about three feet from the bed, on the bathroom side of it. He 
inhaled enormously and let the air out slowly. Another ten 
minutes passed. He got off the bed and walked to the bathroom 
door.

"Okay, Anne. I'll go now. You can get hold of me at my office. 
When you can do it, we have to talk." He hadn't raised his voice 
once. 

There was the sound of something brushing against the door, then 
her voice came through it. "Don't go, Geoff. Don't. Please. Give 
me a minute." 

He stepped back, and a minute later she opened the door. She 
emerged slowly, looking downward, stepped around him, and sat on 
the bed. She was dressed in blouse and skirt, no shoes, no 
stockings. She looked at the floor. She was solemn. Geoffrey 
seated himself beside her, very carefully, far enough away so 
they didn't touch. 

They began the conversation. Many have had it. It marks almost 
the end of Geoff's memory of the event. It was quiet, with false 
starts and long breaks between statements. There was no reason 
for anyone to lie anymore. The facts one might most want to hide 
were public. Anne spoke in a voice just over a whisper. Geoffrey 
spoke quietly and evenly, the voice of a man controlling himself, 
a man who mostly needed to resolve things, who knew there was 
nothing to be gained by shaming or yelling or threatening. The 
voice of a man resigned. Tonight he wonders: Why didn't I act more 
like a man?

She spoke first. "I'm sorry Geoff." She sighed. "I guess you know 
what was going on."

He didn't answer for a second. Then, "I know enough. What I don't 
know is, are we through?" His voice broke at the word "through." 
He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them she was looking 
directly at him for the first time.

"I don't know. I love you, Geoff. I'm sorry for all this. I do 
love you. I just don't know what is going to happen."

Geoffrey grimaced. He clenched his fists and took a breath. "Then 
I'll be going." 

"Why?"

More silence, while he thought.

"If you don't know, then you know. You want him. You want what he 
does. I can't stay with a person who wants another man like that. 
I can't, Annie." He stood.

"Wait. Please Geoff. Please don't go. I don't want you to go."

"So what am I to do? Be your housekeeper and hand holder while 
you decide how much you want someone who'll tie you up and 
mutilate you? You can't have everything, Anne. I won't do that 
for you."

After a minute, "He didn't mutilate me." 

Her first bit of resistance. Geoff almost smiles at the memory of 
the statement. Nice and feisty. His strong-willed Annie, throwing 
off her shame to set the record straight and assert herself. It 
was the first bit of herself in the talk. His Annie indeed. He 
didn't see it that way at the time, though. He didn't almost 
smile that time. He screamed at her.

"Oh, excuse me for misinterpreting!" Geoffrey stopped himself. 
Anne had cringed when he yelled. He held up his hands, fingers 
spread, and moved them out and back several times as though 
pushing away his feelings. When he spoke his voice was quiet 
and soft again. "It doesn't matter, Anne, just exactly what he 
was doing to you, or what you were doing with him. It's things 
I can't do. That I won't do. I won't compete for you that way. 
And I won't just wait for you to finish this voyage of self 
discovery. You can have him, but I'm leaving."

She started crying.

Two o'clock. Three o'clock. A lot gets said. A lot doesn't. There 
are agreements and there's bargaining. She won't see Victor 
anymore. She'll quit her job. They'll stay together. They'll 
sleep in the same bed. There's no hurry on sex, is there? They'll 
get through it. But three weeks later he came home to an empty 
house and the letter.

Geoffrey realizes how everything about breaking up is trite, 
repetitive, derivative. Maybe everything in the world is. You fit 
your life into one or another pattern that millions have followed 
and to you it's unique. It doesn't matter. It's your life. 

So there was a "Dear Geoffrey" letter. It doesn't matter how many 
there have been. He memorized the lines. She will always love 
him. It isn't him, but her. She has to go with Victor, her 
Morning Star. She can't keep cheating on Geoffrey, but has to 
make a clean break. She hopes he can forgive her one day. On and 
on, world without end, amen. She could have left out the part 
about the Morning Star.

The evening and the morning are the first day of Geoffrey's new 
world. He finally clicks the icon.



End of Part Two.
