Read Coda (Songs of Submission #9) for Free Online Page A

Band-Aids. Monica had a pale pink box of who-even-knew under the sink. The movers had taken everything and brought it from my house to this new house, and my wife and I had been too distracted and too vanilla to note where we kept the salves for her poor, welted ass. I’d been a sorry excuse of a dominant.
    I laughed at myself and put the lubricant back. That wouldn’t work.
    I snapped it open. Little half-used tubes of whatnot clacked around. Perfumey stuff that would burn. Zinc oxide would be fine for a small area, but her whole bottom needed attention. I clicked open a smaller box. Ah. Sunburn ointment and Neosporin. Perfect.
    I checked a little velvet bag with a drawstring. I didn’t know what I was hoping for, maybe the home-run of ass lotions or a magic unguent that would make her able to sit for more than five minutes without flinching. I just opened it and slid out a white plastic stick. A pregnancy test.
    The nerve to my heart had been cut during the transplant, so I couldn’t feel it stop and seize up. Couldn’t feel the squeeze in my chest. But I knew it was there.
    I turned the plastic wand. Not breathing. Not thinking about the fact that I’d been snooping into something that had been inside a bag, inside a box, inside a cabinet.
    Not pregnant.
    I wasn’t relieved. I wasn’t disappointed. I just realized how much I wanted a different result and how little control I had over it.
    I slapped everything back in its place and went into the bedroom. She was still there, facedown, hands touching the headboard, bathed in the sunset. It would be dark in a few minutes, so I turned on the little lamp by the bed.
    “I found these in your stuff,” I said, holding out the tubes.
    “I think the Neosporin’s expired.”
    I flipped the tube. “Next month.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I sat on the edge of the bed. “Ass up.”
    She shifted, arching just enough to get her pelvis off the bed.
    “Goddess, when I say ass up, I mean ass up.” I put my hand under her and jacked her up until her ass was in the air.
    She groaned. I spread her legs under her and pressed down on her lower back. Perfect. I kissed a raw welt, and she squeaked in pain.
    “None of that.” Though my words were cruel, I didn’t want her to hurt right then. She’d earned her pleasure.
    I squeezed a lump of the sunburn cream onto my finger. It was cool to the touch, and when I put it on the pink skin, she breathed easily.
    “Now,” I said, “we have a problem. Fucking you in the ass isn’t going to solve it.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “First off, we need to drop the sirs and thank yous and all that shit until I say otherwise. We’re off scene. Verbally. But the ass stays up, or I’ll welt your welts.”
    “Fine.”
    “I want you to talk to me.” I dragged a mound of clear cream over the curve of her ass, watching it get smaller in the seam between her and me, disappearing into a cool coat.
    “I’m fine,” she said. “Everything is fine. I think, just… I think I needed this. What you’re giving me now.”
    I ran my fingers on the inside of her thigh until there was no cream on them, and I slipped my middle finger between her legs. Her eyes fluttered closed.
    “You’re not fine. You’re wet as fuck.” I put my fingertip on her clit. “You’re so close I shouldn’t even touch you. But fine? You’re not fine.”
    “I am. I—”
    “You don’t tell your husband you’re not happy and an hour later tell him you’re fine because he fucked you hard enough.”
    I slid two fingers inside her. Wet didn’t describe her. She tightened around me, and my dick stretched my pants. I pulled my hand out and ran it over her clit again, front to back, touching every surface, waking it up.
    “Jonathan, I can’t talk to you like this.”
    “You don’t talk to me, period.”
    “I want to come.”
    “You’ll come.” I gingerly spread her ass cheeks. She looked as if she’d been fucked by a battering ram. Bruises were rising already, and she was