The Further Adventures of Louis and Elle
Chapter One.
Louis’s Day Off
“Look at them, Louis,” Elle said. “Don’t they look yummy?”
He was lying on his back. She was astride him, pinning him to the bed, dangling her breasts just above his face, the nipples so close they were faintly brushing his lips. He was dying to suck them.
But he couldn’t. His hands were tied above his head, tied with the invisible ropes Elle seemed always to have with her. That was bad enough—he wanted to reach out for her but he couldn’t. But now, even worse, his head was fastened to the pillow.
“You want to suck them, don’t you, Louis?” Elle said. His mouth was literally watering. They were there like ripe fruit, they claimed all his attention, all his desire, but he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Go ahead, Louis, try to raise your head. You can’t, can you?”
His muscles didn’t work, somehow. His head felt like part of the bed.
Elle laughed out loud at his distress. “Poor Louis,” she said. “You love my breasts, don’t you?”
“Yes, Elle.”
“But you can’t have them, can you?”
“No, Elle.”
“Poor helpless boy, my poor helpless slave. I tell you what, let’s forget all about that, shall we?”
She reared back on her haunches. Reaching down with one hand, she slipped him inside her. “Forget about the pillow, your head is fine, Louis. Now look at me. Look into my eyes.”
Her eyes, as always, were immense and glittering, rimmed with dark eye shadow, dangerous and seductive. “You can’t look away, Louis. You can’t even blink. You are caught in my eyes, like a little weak fly in my web. Look deeper, Louis. You have no chance. You are my prey.”
There’s no feeling quite as helpless as having someone gaze into your eyes from far above and not being able to look away. He felt as if he were falling from a great height, smaller and smaller while her eyes grew and grew to take over the universe.
“Louis,” she said. “What’s my name?”
“Elle!” he gasped.
“Again. What’s my name?”
“Elle!”
“I can’t hear you! Louder! What’s my name?”
“ELLE! ELLE! ELLE!”
“Say it again, bitch!”
“Elle!”
“Look at me now. Don’t look away. Say my name. GIVE IT UP, BITCH!”
“ELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEE!” he screamed, as his body convulsed under her and he came inside her, so hard that spots of light danced before his eyes. She was touching her nipples, and her body bucked slightly as she matched his orgasm.
Then, before he could even quite realize that he had come inside his wife at her command, she reached out and touched his forehead. “Very good, hypno-husband,” she said. “Now relax.”
As always when Elle called him “hypno-husband,” Louis’s eyes fell closed at once. His mind was wandering, and he was enjoying the feel of her body, the sound of her voice. He didn’t need to listen. He had his own thoughts to work through.
The sex with Elle had been fantastic, as it usually was. But it was early Saturday morning, and Louis knew he needed to be on guard against Elle. Her will was very strong, and she sometimes was able to convince him that he wanted to do what she wanted him to do. He didn’t mind, usually. Obedience was sexy and fun, silky and relaxing. She was stronger and smarter and better-looking than he was. She was his superior and his owner and his hypno-domme wife. Obeying her had transformed him from a starving avante-garde writer into a best-selling Young Adult author; from a lonely dork mooning over unattainable girls to a happy, satisfied husband. He spent most of his time writing, and most of the rest doing things for Elle, whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it, and that was fine, it was what he was made to do. It was his role, his place.
But today was Saturday.
Today was Louis’s “me” time.
He had been clear with Elle after the honeymoon. He knew perfectly well that she was his mistress, his alpha, his dominant wife. But he was a man—submissive but not a zombie—and he needed time to himself, time for male pursuits. She was simply going to have to accept that. He’d been surprised and pleased by how readily she agreed to his plan. Six days a week he obeyed without question. Saturday was for him.
Elle’s voice had stopped droning on, and Louis felt himself waking slowly to the promise of a day of freedom, to be spent in the way he wanted. He opened his eyes to find his wife smiling fondly down at him.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “You’re just cute. I thought you might want to drink some coffee in bed for an hour or so. I can bring you the newspapers.”
And so the struggle began. Elle had said she accepted his terms, but this kind of thing always came up on Saturdays. He was even-tempered, and he did adore this woman, so he was careful not to let any annoyance sneak into his voice as he rebuked her. “Elle, remember what we discussed. Any other day I’ll lie in bed and let you bring me coffee, but it’s Saturday, remember?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue any further. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take a bath then.”
“Sure, that’s great,” he said. “I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”
He heard the water running as he wrapped a robe around himself and went downstairs. This was such a selfish pleasure—having the kitchen all to himself, a chance to fix the kind of breakfast a real man enjoyed. He’d learned to make hollandaise sauce a few months after the wedding, and now he carefully whisked the mixture of egg yolks, lemon, and butter while he brought a pan of water to a low boil (with a few teaspoons of white vinegar) for poaching eggs. Timing the meal was tricky, but Elle had helped him work out exactly how it was done, and soon it was ready—poached eggs with Canadian bacon on English muffin, covered in fresh Hollandaise. He was delighted to have discovered how much he loved this weekend breakfast, because by coincidence it was Elle’s favorite as well. As he was moving the eggs onto heated plates, she came down the stairs, looking like a beautiful wet puppy with her damp hair hanging to her shoulders.
“If you want one, I made extra,” he said.
“I suppose that would be all right,” she said, taking one of the plates and settling down at the breakfast table across from him. “If you’re sure.”
He jumped up, grabbed the coffee pot, and poured her a fresh cup. Then he brought his own plate to the table. The surface somewhat cluttered, so he settled down on the floor at her feet to eat his breakfast. The day was off to a good start; she wasn’t interfering at all.
After breakfast, he took her dishes and his own into the kitchen. The plates were Elle’s family heirlooms. He washed them carefully by hand, then dried them and put them away. The other dishes and implements went into the dishwasher. Then he looked around the kitchen. It was important that the kitchen get a good going-over once a week. He tidied up the spice rack, checking the dates on the sides of each bottle. The marjoram was past its use-by date; he wrote “marjoram” on the shopping list. Then he cleaned the counters, and went through the refrigerator to make sure there weren’t any leftovers going bad. Mopping the floor was a crucial last step. The kitchen needed to be ready for a week’s worth of cooking.
As he was finishing, Elle came into the kitchen, looking very trim and fetching in a yellow bikini. “I’m going to sit out in the sun for a while,” she said. “Join me?”
He would not let himself become impatient with Elle; she was the love of his life, but she was tricky. Always trying to get him back under her thumb. “No, sweetheart, it’s my day off, remember?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she said. For some reason she seemed amused.
“As long as I’m going to the store, is there anything you need?” he asked her.
“I wrote a few things down on your list,” she said.
He picked up the paper. He’d jotted down a dozen key items for the week ahead. She’d added a few more—20 or 30. “I’ll get them,” he said. “This time.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I hate to horn in on your fun, but—“
“No, it’s okay,” he said.
Then it was off to market. Between Elle’s list and his, he needed to make three stops—the specialty meat market for the lamb chops she liked; the fish store for the salmon he planned to grill that night; and the grocery for the other items. He was chuckling as he finished loading his purchases into the car. He’d had two whole hours to himself, to do exactly what he wanted!
When he got home, Elle was still lounging on the deck, listening to the baseball game on the radio. “Grab a beer and come out!” she said.
“As if!” he replied.
“Well, bring me a beer then!” she said. He put down the bags, opened the freezer and pulled out one of the mugs he’d put in to chill for her earlier, and carefully filled it, holding the mug at a slight slant to produce just the amount of foam she liked. He smoothed the top of the beer with a kitchen knife, pulled out a tray, and placed several napkins on it, along with a few nuts in a candy dish for her to snack on.
“Here you are, milady,” he said. “Will you be okay if I finish up in the kitchen and then clean the bedroom?”
She waved her hand. “Well, don’t you want to spend time together but—no, it’s your day, you do what you want.”
She was certainly a good sport.
After the groceries were stowed, he went upstairs, changed the sheets and vacuumed the bedroom. Then he opened Elle’s clothes closet. He sighed a little bit in frustration.
Elle was adorable and perfect in so many ways; but she simply did not keep her shoes in proper order.
One by one he pulled them out—there were several dozen—made sure they were paired up properly, and dusted them off with a shoe cloth. Then he carefully lined each pair up in the shoe rack—spring and summer shoes on the left, winter shoes and boots on the right.
Once the shoes were in perfect order, he went downstairs, where she was dozing with one of her romance novels spread open on her chest. “Elle,” he said, “do you remember you promised to go shopping with me today?”
She opened one eye lazily. “Do we have to go today? I was thinking we could go over to that sports bar and get some nachos and watch the game.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Elle Murphy!” he said sternly. “You made me a promise, now please get your clothes on so we can go to the mall. We can have a decent lunch at that French place with the salade Nicoise. So put on something nice.”
She rolled her eyes, but she complied, and soon enough she came down the stairs looking quite fetching—and about 14 years old—in a short blue cotton dress that fell just above her knees and a pair of white sandals. “How long will this take?” she asked.
“Come on, Elle,” he said. “I was a good sport when you wanted to go to the garden store, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, honey,” she said. “But the mall is sooo boring—“
“Humor me, Elle! Just one day a week.”
“Fine!” She snapped her purse shut and flounced out to the car.
At lunch, Elle prattled on as she often did. He only half-listened, concentrating instead on what he wanted to do. She did need shoes. She looked very good in them, and she had fewer than four dozen pairs! It was lucky for them both he had his one day to be the boss, or she’d probably go around in old running shoes. That would be a shame. Such nice legs needed nice shoes. She probably needed stockings too—the kind with seams up the back—and maybe some new panties . . .
“Louis? Are you listening to me?”
“Of course,” he said. “You were talking about . . . “
“Honestly! Why am I even here?” she asked, pouting.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just have a lot of things to get done today. Remember you really don’t have a good pair of dress sandals for the children’s charity gala next week, and you promised you’d let me buy you one. Is that so much to ask?”
“All right,” she said “But only one pair of shoes.”
That nettled him a little. “You could use some other spring shoes too,” he said. “And on the way home we could stop by that lingerie shop.” He saw the expression on her face. “You promised, Elle.”
“Whatever,” she said, sipping her mimosa. She didn’t look all that upset, he realized. He ought to put his foot down more often; she clearly liked it.
The girls at the shoe boutique were waiting for them; he’d called them earlier in the week to consult. It was a spring event; she needed some strappy sandals, white or cream-colored. They offered her a few; she buried her nose in a magazine until Louis insisted she try them all on. The girls and he agreed on a cream-colored pair with a medium heel. Elle shrugged, saying, “Whatever, they’re just shoes,” which for some reason the girls found hilarious. Then, after a whispered consultation, they showed Louis something the store had just gotten in—a retro pair of 4″ pumps covered in rose-colored silk, with a matching bow at the toe.
Elle would barely glance at them, but again he insisted. They were stunning on her. She protested—“$800 for a pair of shoes?”—but he’d just gotten his royalty check (as she should have known, since he signed all his checks over to her as soon as they arrived) and he pronounced them well worth it.
Then the girls rather embarrassedly revealed a dilemma. They also had one pair of the silk heels in pale blue. Which would he prefer?
He didn’t even ask Elle, just bought both.
Then the lingerie store. Eight pairs of silk panties and three of the wispy lace bras she usually liked. A summer-length silk robe. Two pairs of airy silk pajamas. Hose with seams. “Can we go home now?” she asked.
On the way out, she bought a popsicle and strolled along sucking it like Lolita, while he trailed behind, carrying the bags like Humbert Humbert. Once they got home, she headed straight for her study, leaving him to take the new shoes and lingerie up and put them all in the proper places in the closet and the dresser.
He went into the hall closet and found the folding massage table, dragged it out and set it up in the bedroom. He dimmed the lights and put some soothing music on the mp3 player, then rubbed rose-scented massage oil on his hands.
“Elle?” he called. “I need you for a little while.”
After a moment she came up, still looking fetching in her blue dress and white sandals. She was busily reading a reprint from The American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. “Do we have to do this now?” she asked without looking up. “What about tomorrow?”
“You’ve been dragging your feet all day! You know that Saturday is my time, and this is my hobby.”
“Fine, whatever, but make it quick.” She slipped off the blue dress and sandals, then her wispy lace brassiere, and climbed on the table face down.
This was the part of the week that made a lot of the rest worthwhile. Louis began with long, gentle strokes, helping the flow of blood to her arm and leg muscles, then gradually shifted to shorter, more powerful strokes, working on the tension that Elle tended to develop in the shoulders.
At a certain point, her reluctance disappeared. She purred like a kitten. He had her turn over and worked delicately on her forearms, her thighs, and her taut abdomen. He was absorbed in the work, and once again he felt thankful that he had taken up this new hobby a few months ago (just after their wedding) as a way to escape from the tensions of the week.
Before he knew it, an hour had passed. Elle was somnolent on the table. He gently woke her with a cup of water. “Just take a moment to feel the effects of the massage,” he said.
“Nice,” she said, sipping the water. After a moment she got up and slipped her feet into the white sandals. “Do you like these, Louis?” she asked, flexing her feet. She was quite a picture—naked except for the sexy shoes. For some reason, Louis felt the urge to kneel. He bent over and carefully kissed one foot, then the other.
She tasted delicious, like fresh fields in springtime. As his lips moved up her ankles and then her legs, the experience changed—faint tastes and smells like wildflowers, then honeysuckle, then lilies and roses and then as his mouth moved between her legs the growing sweetness and the flavor of vanilla ice cream, irresistible and addictive. He pressed her back onto the massage table, and he felt her take firm hold of his head with one hand, fixing it in place while his tongue searched for every drop of the flavor until she cried out, “God! Oh, God, Louis!” and then shuddered and sighed and lay back dreamily, idly tousling his hair. “Good boy,” she said. “Good boy.”
The experience left him all but bent over with desire. She looked him with fond amusement. “Well, that will give you something to think about,” she said, shrugging on the blue dress again. And like that, she was gone, leaving him distracted and aching.
He turned on the grill to heat, then marinated the filet of salmon in soy sauce and lemon juice. Then he threw himself into vacuuming and neatening the living and dining rooms, straightening the knickknacks on the mantel, dusting the pictures and cleaning the plate glass window. That took an hour and then it was time to grill.
Dinner was salmon filet with tiny new potatoes, with a salad of fennel, avocado, and blood oranges topped with a light tropical spice vinaigrette he had found in Cooks Illustrated. He found fish much more tasty than the steaks and burgers he used to grill, and, by coincidence, salmon was Elle’s favorite.
The massage and sex had done nothing to quell her appetite. She ate like a panther; he shivered watching it, and the strange through ran through his mind that he envied the food . . . though that made no sense.
Dessert was espresso and crème brulee, which he broiled with the small torch Elle had given him for his birthday. Elle enjoyed it so much—licking the spoon thoroughly after each spoonful. He found himself hurrying through cleanup, and when the kitchen was spotless, he said, “Elle? Want to go upstairs?”
“Louis, your day isn’t over, is it? You get until bedtime,” she said with a puzzled frown.
“What about an early bedtime?” he said.
“I have things to do—“ she began, but he knelt in front of her and took her hand. “Please, darling, I’ve had my day off, come upstairs with me.”
“All right,” she said. “I suppose my journals can wait.”
In the bedroom the blue dress slipped off again. “Strip,” she said. When he was naked, she pushed him down on the bed, threw one naked leg over him, and said, “OK, now that’s over, Louis. Let’s get things straight for next week. Who’s the boss around here?”
He was so aroused he could hardly speak, but he choked out, “You are.”
“Who?”
“You, Elle.”
“What’s my name?”
“Elle!”
“Who do you belong to?”
“Elle!”
She was slowly sliding down his body, like some impossibly sexy serpent, lightly brushing his chest and then his abdomen with her nipples. “Again!”
“Elle!” He gasped as she took him in her mouth.
“Keep it up, slave!”
“Elle!” He dimly felt himself slipping into her mouth—she was swallowing him whole, he was disappearing, he was tiny, she was huge, he didn’t exist—
“Elle! . . . Elle! . . . Oh, God, ELLE!” His body bucked and he fell back against the bed, limp as a dishrag.
“I’m glad we got that straight,” she said. “Now go clean up. It’s time for you to sleep.”
He was back in bed in less than a minute, watching her finger as she moved it back and forth in front of his eyes. “Eyes so heavy . . . sleepy . . . you’ll dream of serving and obeying . . . sleep . . . .”
As his consciousness flickered and faded into a submissive dream, he reflected that his life was good. Six days a week he obeyed her without question, and that was bliss.
But Saturdays were his day, whether Elle liked it or not.