Love Cherish Obey

Hello! This story is about a hard, passionate husband -- a trope that has inspired me many lonely nights. There's something about the idea of control and authority that husbands have (had) over their wives that makes me a bit weak in the knees. Be aware: This one is a little longer in the preamble and might get expanded with additional chapters in the future -- heaven knows I have several more ideas related to Ada and Charles stocked in my brain. Enjoy!

Tags: husband&wife, orgasm denial, discipline, spanking, humiliation

*****

Ada Verraine wrung her hands and fiddled with her hair, then scolded herself silently for being so unstrung. Her husband's door, the large carved cedar decorated with floral and oceanic patterns, was closed as always, yet today it seemed more forbidding than ever before. For all its solidity, she could almost see through the wood and spy James sitting behind his desk, absorbed in his work.

Ignoring her, as he had done for a whole year -- ever since their wedding.

Charles Verraine was a handsome man, only seven years older than her, a rich businessman dealing in cloth and spices with the West Indies. His first betrothed died of a fever before their wedding day, a tragedy that was certainly responsible for his twenty years of abstinence, exaggerated focus on his work, and the harsh sadness Ada had seen in his eyes from time to time. Even the marital bond between himself, 38 year old merchant Charles Verraine, and her, 31 year old daughter of a jeweler Ada Rouvroy, that had its first anniversary today was deeply rooted in Sophie's unfortunate fate.

And Ada was sick to death of it. The lifelessness and indifference of it were driving her insane in increments. The day she had vowed to love, cherish and obey, she had not expected blushing love and romance. She was not a dreamer, had seen too much and lived through too much and was entirely too old for that sort of naiveté. But she had expected some sort of closeness. Contact, if not intimacy. She had assumed Charles had married her to produce an heir, yet he had maintained his own bedroom at the northwest end of the mansion while accommodating her in the southeast quarters. As far from him as possible.

365 lonely days -- and nights -- were more than plenty. With the sum total of every single lonely moment in mind, she raised a fist and tapped her knuckles against the door.

Charles' voice rang out, so Ada entered his office and closed the door behind herself again. It was a spacious, light-flooded room with two large windows, walls full of books, and the bulky work desk that almost vanished underneath all the paper, books and ledgers piled atop it in neat stacks.

"Good afternoon, Charles," Ada addressed her husband when he did not look up. "How do you do?"

"I am busy, Ada," he said, not unkindly but sternly. "The reason for your visit?"

Ada drew a deep breath. "Divorce," she said and straightened her spine against the dark gaze that immediately landed on her.

Charles considered her for a long moment, then put down his fountain pen and slid the ledger he had been working on to the side. The weight of his full attention was tangible on her shoulders. "For what reason?" he asked evenly.

"Disinterest. Negligence. Parasitism on my part," she replied truthfully. "I have lived on your expenses for a whole year now and you have not demanded of me anything in return. It makes me feel useless and barely tolerated."

I might as well have stayed at my father's house,

she didn't add. "I cannot abide this status quo."

"And the charges of disinterest and negligence you lay at my feet, I presume?" Charles demanded to know. "You feel I am not invested in you?"

She suppressed a disbelieving snort, barely. "Indeed, I do. It could hardly be more obvious. We live in the same house yet hardly even meet once a week. You are busy," Ada grimaced at the odious word, "day and night. We never talk. We never... spend time together. We are strangers, Charles. I do not want to live this life any longer. It is empty for all its comfort." Void of heart. Of life, heat or passion. It was a life not worth getting up for in the morning.

He seemed to absorb her reply for a minute, then nodded acquiescence but did not comment. "Please, sit." He gestured for her to take the seat opposite him, in an elegantly carved upholstered chair with a low backrest made of gleaming wood. "This conversation may become a little long, and intense. Sit."

She did, wondering what a 'long and intense' conversation might entail. Did he assume their divorce negotiations might be intense? "Charles, let me be clear. There is no need for this matter to turn to hot-headedness and scandal. I do not want a single liard from you. I am glad to return to my parents' estate with nothing more than that with which I arrived here-"

"You will not leave," Charles interrupted. "We will not dissolve this marriage."

The way he said it, so full of certainty and calm, caused a burst of anger in Ada's breast. "

Yes,

I will, and

Yes

, we

will

," she said, biting off the words. "Unless we can change our ways with one another -- and pardon my observation, but you do not seem particularly interested or inclined to do so -- I will absolutely depart from here. I have checked our marital contracts. They say that from this day forward -- the anniversary of our wedding -- an amiable dissolution may take place with no loss of reputation."

"I am aware of that clause, " Charles nodded. "That does not change the fact that we will not make use of it at this point."

"At

which point then

, Charles?" Ada heard her voice rise. Short temper in the face of adversary had always been one of her problems. Just one of the flaws her parents had always bemoaned. "How much longer do you wish for me to wait and slowly wither until you think we should part ways?"

Charles opened a hand. It was a point in his favor that he did not adopt a condescending voice at her display of annoyance. "To be clear, Ada. I am not holding you captive here. You can leave whenever you like, if you so wish. As it is stated in our contracts -- no loss of reputation or income. You can even retain my last name if it suits you."

Ada was speechless with the swirl of emotions. Anger, heartache, disappointment, even hatred mixed together in her soul. Being dropped hit her harder than she had imagined it would, seeing that this had been her desire. Maybe she was still naïve, maybe she had hoped he would not let her go without at least a little fight.

"But," Charles continued, clearly aware yet not the least cowed by his wife's inner turmoil, "you will not leave, because your reasons to do so are not valid. I have, at no point, been anything but... deeply invested in you, my dear wife."

"What-? Charles, I-" Ada frowned, confused. Her Charles was many things, but a liar he was not.

"I confess I have avoided you for your own safety," Charles said, getting up from his chair and buttoning his jacket as he came around the desk and towards her. "I needed you to be free to run, if you chose to do so. Now, as per our contracts, you can leave without repercussions. But you will not."

For my own safety?

"Charles, you are speaking in riddles," Ada protested and got up herself.

"Sit. Down!"

Her husband's order, the loud vibration of his deep voice, slid down her spine like an ice cold electric shock and made her knees lock, then buckle. Slowly, she sank back down onto her chair. "Charles..."

Charles now stood behind her, his hands on the back rest of the chair, and leaned down just a little.

"I have watched you from afar every day since our wedding," he told her. "Occasionally, I even watched you in the weeks before that. You were on my mind every minute of every hour, awake and asleep. I have had every inclination and every interest to 'change my ways' with you for so long, Ada."

Sweat prickled out of her every pore at that declaration.

"I wanted to

own

you, Ada. From the second I first laid eyes on you in Calais, I wanted to have you for my own. The fervor of this desire scared even myself for a while."

Ada licked her lips. Yes, she had hoped for passion, secretly, but she had not expected it. Not to this overwhelming degree. She had not seen even a spark of it in Charles -- for his business, maybe, but not for her -- yet here he was. Burning.

His breath and his voice both stroked her, each in different ways. "But simply sticking you in a cage and using you up was not what I wanted. I wanted you to come to me, or stay with me, willingly. To allow me to have you on my terms."

"Using... Using me up?" Ada hushed and swallowed. His words and his nearness made her mouth water. Her heart seemed to pulse both in her chest and at the apex of her thighs which she pressed together surreptitiously.

"I am a demanding man, Ada. Very demanding," he replied and transferred his right hand from the backrest of the chair to her right shoulder. The warmth of his skin seeped through the muslin of her neckerchief. "To start with, we will make an additional contract to ensure that we are clear about the nature of this exchange."

"Contract," Ada repeated dumbly, giving in to the irresistible urge to lay her own hand on top of his. At the touch, his grip on her shoulder tightened to the point of pain. She only leaned in to it and stroked his skin with the pads of her fingers, feeling the bones and muscles of his strong hand, the fine hairs on his skin there.

"You will sign yourself over to me. I want you to know what I demand of you, and what you are giving up to me."

"I do not follow." Her voice was thick. Single spots of a certain fear appeared on the lust glowing within her, like blades of grass sticking out through a blanket of snow.

"Firstly, my dear wife, we need to adjust the imbalance you have caused in our marriage."

Ada blinked out of a haze and half-turned and craned her neck to look her husband in the eye. "Charles, I have not spent any of your money or squandered any-"

"I am not talking about money, love," he soothed, easily turning her back around with the press of his palm and fingers. He leaned down again to speak into her ear. "I am talking about the orgasms you have stolen from me."

"I-" She did not know what to say to that.

"How many orgasms have you given to yourself without your husband's consent, Ada? Since we have been married, how many times have you touched what was mine and taken for yourself what was only mine to give?" When she did not answer, he laid his other hand on her other shoulder, not-so-gently pressing down on her. "A rough estimate? You know I am a businessman, Ada. Numbers are important."

"I have... I mean-" She licked her lips. "Maybe... Maybe one or two each week? But I was not aware..."

Charles tisked and began massaging the muscles of her shoulders, digging into the column of her neck with his thumbs. "Come, now, Ada. You are a grown woman, with mature needs. I know for a fact that you, despite all your demure, civilized manners and the modest clothes you profess you prefer, are a creature of fierce passion and carnality."

Ada pressed her lips together and held the noises of dismay inside. The demure manners and the ability to wear those modest clothes with conviction had been hard-won. She had spent years -- decades -- of her life creating a persona that was compatible with society and acceptable to her parents in particular, a sufficient peace offering to them for her indiscretions at a young age. It had taken an eternity to own and comfortably live within this persona. It had taken much energy to maintain it.

And just like that, her husband had seen through it, had apparently spied her buried underneath there.

Was it just her wishful thinking, or did he

like

what he was seeing?

"Well." Ada tried to think about the issue mathematically, pragmatically, ignore the throbbing between her thighs as well as the mounting need to pull his hand down and put it right there, onto the pain point. "Well. A month is made of four weeks. During one of these it... is... not practical."

"You feel no desire during your menorrhea?"

Charles' blatant question caught her off guard. "Well, I mean, yes. But touches of any kind are not... pleasant during those days. Not to mention the hygienic aspect of it."

"Not pleasant?" His massage had softened a little.

"I am too sensitive, and moreover, I—" She hesitated, then decided to be honest no matter how shameful the subject. "I dislike my own smell. The odor changes and becomes stronger. It is not... not pleasant."

"Hypersensitive and odiferous," Charles mused as if to himself. "I am looking forward to that."

Ada frowned and let go of him, folded her hands in her lap. "Well, that makes three weeks. Within these three weeks, I... maybe I..."

"Every night," Charles whispered. His breath tickled the shell of her ear. "Sometimes twice. Sometimes in the morning, too, and during your bath. Am I wrong?"

How did he know that?

Her pulse spiked in her veins. She felt the flush of embarrassment creep up the back of her neck and a bead of sweat form between her corseted breasts. "I- Charles, really-"

"You are a lecherous woman," her husband mumbled and slid the tip of his right index finger up the side of her neck, up to the soft lobe of her ear, following the goose bumps. "Wanton. Dissolute. Undisciplined, most of all. One of these will change from now on."

"How?" Ada barely dared ask.

"Two orgasms each day, three weeks every month, makes forty-two, times twelve makes five hundred and four. This past year, you have stolen five hundred orgasms from me. Five hundred cries of ecstasy. Five hundred moments in which I would have gazed upon my wife's face and seen the blush and the tears of climax on her cheeks."

Ada locked her jaw to hold back some unladylike, choleric words.

It was not like you volunteered to join me. You ignored me. You actively shunned me, leaving me alone in your comfortable, boring mansion with nothing to do except-

"How many strikes do you think you deserve for each theft?"

"Strikes?" Ada sat up straighter. "You mean-"

"I will discipline you, Ada, and I will get my satisfaction." He said it with such conviction it was like a biblical commandment. "I will put my hand to your back, buttocks, thighs, your weeping cunt and whichever other body part I wish, and I will hurt you until you cry and pay me for my loss with your tears."

Ada felt her mouth fall open. She had

never

heard words that obscene. The scarce, playfully erotic descriptions in the odd romance novel she had read did not hold a candle to the overwhelming, soul-shaking declaration her husband had just casually made. A declaration of war against her, really.

Still, her core clenched at the thought.

I will hurt you until you cry.

Why did this not send her bolting out of her chair? Why did it also feel like the sweetest declaration of love when he said it? Was there something more lurking inside her than just the 'fierce passion' he had attested she held, something much darker?

"How many strikes?" he probed, grabbing her by the throat and touching his lips to her temple ever so gently. She could feel him trembling through the contact and breathlessly closed her eyes at the thought that he might be aroused as he stood there, by her presence, by this conversation and by the prospect of spanking her. "I demand fifteen at least."

"Fifteen strikes for each orgasm?" she cried. Her head reeled and her bladder clenched in fear. "That is... seven thousand five hundred strikes-!"

"I would take twenty in the morning, and twenty in the evening. Your punishment would last one hundred and eighty-eight days." He stroked her chin with his fingertips. "Unless, that is, you add to that number by having more orgasms without my consent."

How strange. A moment ago, being hit over seven thousand times by her husband had sounded frightening and forbidding. Now, the prospect of not having another orgasm for five months was the much more drastic punishment. The prospect of not having another orgasm

within the next ten minutes alone

seemed impossible. "Fifteen is too much," she stammered, desperate to shorten the period of abstinence. "One strike for each, at most."

Charles chuckled and nuzzled her ear which had grown red and hot with shame and lust. "That is not nearly enough."

"Five." She was aware that it was bad strategy to cave so easily and make a counter-offer hastily, but she was sweating through her garments and had the urge to visit a restroom. "Five, then."

"Ten." Charles stood straight again, letting both his palms rest on her upper arms, making her feel small and dominated. "Ten, and not a stroke less for your mindless indulgence."

"Fine," she conceded through clenched teeth. "Ten each. Five thousand strikes. Forty each day. That is... one hundred and twenty... twenty-five days." She gulped. Still a long time.

"Each unsanctioned orgasm you experience from now on, either during the spanking or in unsupervised moments, will result in thirty additional strikes," Charles added.

"During...?" Ada bit her lip and shook her head, disbelieving.

Her husband chuckled again. "You will get used to the pain," he promised with certainty. "Then, you will start to enjoy it. Eventually, you will crave it and beg me for it, for more of it, harder and faster. Before long, the tears you shed will be tears of pain

and

of frustration because you will fight against the unbearable need to give yourself over to the climax. But do not worry," he said, leaning down and laying a single kiss on the back of her neck where a few curls of her hair stuck to her sweat-dampened skin, "I will always come up with new ways to inflict pain on your body."

She shuddered, half afraid; half delighted, wondering if she had lost her mind to seriously entertain the thought of staying with this sadistic tyrant who had cruelly eschewed her for a whole year. Of bowing to him and his obscene demands. Pressing her thighs together and feeling the wetness that had spread on her skin, into the cleft of her behind and into the chemise below, she had to admit defeat, however. She had never been one to lie to herself. Her blood was humming in her veins.

Passion. Her husband was giving her his passion, pure and vile as it was, and she would love him, cherish him, and obey him as she had vowed she would.

***

"I will know. Do not test me, Ada. You will regret it."

His voice echoed through her lonely bedroom, from one wall to the next. She buried her head in the pillow and blankets but could not keep the warning out.

A low fire seemed to be licking at her insides. Her flesh was hot and throbbed with it.

She sneaked a hand down her body, on top of her night gown, and pressed the heel of her thumb against her pulsing mound for just a little relief -- in vain. She pushed a little harder... harder still... rhythmically, until her pelvis rocked forward as if on its own accord. Her body was coiled impossibly tight, her core painfully hollow as if in the middle of a yawn that had to come out, her head was full of imaginations, the pressure of her husband's hands, his words, the promises of pain and denial-

Ada held her breath as the climax washed over her, causing her eyes to roll back and her whole body to bow and twitch.

Once it was done, trepidation took over, wiping away what little satisfaction there had been.

I will know. Do not test me. You will regret it.

It was a long, tense night, and the sun was almost rising again when Ada finally slipped into a shallow sleep.

*

"Ada, my love."

She turned her face into the pillow and buried deeper.

"Ada. Wake up."

His voice and the touch of his hand on her neck registered at the same time. Ada opened her eyes and immediately knew that he knew what she had done. She did not know how, but he did.