You're so Beautiful

The bed was soft against my bare skin, a contrast to the hardwood floor I'd spent so much of the evening kneeling on. I should have felt comfort knowing our near nightly ritual had concluded, but I couldn't. There was no comfort to be found. The crisp white sheet was pulled taut over my nude form, and it felt like a straight jacket binding us together. In reality I was trapped only by my own inability to tell her how much I hated what she did. No matter the bruising, the blood drawn, how battered I was, I loved her. Fuck, I loved her so much. And I hated myself for that. It'd become my ritual after our "sessions," to lie there with my eyes squeezed shut so tightly that I felt they might deform, knowing I needed to hold back the tears, silent because she could not know of my sadness. And the anger and sadness wasn't for her anyway, it was focused on my weaknesses and how I needed to be more

for her,

even though I knew being more wasn't what she wanted.

In the stillness of the night, the aches from her violent ministrations seemed magnified with every other ache she'd ever brought to me. And in that quiet I hated her. Fuck, I hated her so much. I dared not look at my wife. Not because she would begin hurting me, but because looking at her soft features lit so beautifully by the warm light from her bedside lamp would melt the self-loathing. And I wanted to hold on to it for a while. So I laid there, ensconced in overpriced sheets in the bed we bought when we first married, and I hated her. Why did she hurt me the way she did? What pleasure could she possibly derive from beating me into submission? They were the same questions I asked myself every night, and each night the answers grew more distant.

Clutching the sheets to my chest, my breathing increased as I mustered the courage to tell her I needed her to stop. Tonight was the night. Everything came into focus, from her abuse to my own complicit nature and how I enabled and sometimes even encouraged the things she did. I was disgusted at the burning arousal I would feel overpowering the physical pain, and how I'd say those coded words and make poorly disguised movements to egg her violence on. I was just as much the problem as she was, but she was still the abuser, and tonight it would all stop.

I inhaled sharply preparing to force the words out when I felt a tug at the sheet I held tightly in my grip. Claire sat up and grasped the top and in one sweeping movement she whipped it aside and revealed my body to her eyes. Legs crossed tightly, my hands at my chest as though the sheet were still in my hands, I stared at the ceiling confused by what she'd done. Slowly I turned to look at her,

needing

to know what she was feeling. I closed my eyes as I pivoted my head, opening them all at once, afraid of what I might see. She was smiling. Not coldly or without feeling, but a genuine smile of affection and love. I watched closely as she ran her widened eyes up and down my body, noting as she seemed to make mental catalogue of the now forming bruises and red marks covering my body. Frozen in place, I winced slightly when I felt her fingertips extend and trace over the love she'd left over my body. Her signature, written in dark hues of blue and black and shades of red covered every part I could reasonably conceal with the wardrobe she'd so thoughtfully selected for me. The softness of her touch warmed me, and I involuntarily pressed into her fingers as she moved over me. It was so gentle and loving and it blunted my anger until all I could feel was an ache in my chest; confusion that someone could love me so and still hurt me so terribly.

As my eyes followed hers I saw her pupils dilate and her tongue run across her lips. Her mouth parted slightly and a red flush started to bloom over her cheeks. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss onto my right ribcage. Bruised, the pressure hurt, but the pain was overshadowed by tenderness. More kisses followed, each placed on a bruise or some other marked spot, each gentle and loving. I arched slightly, wincing at how everything twinged with ache, but wanting nothing more than to meet her lips. She gently laid a hand on my abdomen and guided me back to the bed, letting her fingers rest on my stomach. No words were spoken, and none were needed.

That hand stayed flat on my skin, warming me in the cool room, keeping goosebumps and shivers at bay. We stayed still, the patterned sounds of labored breaths increasing with each exhale. I considered saying something before eventually changing my mind. The moment was damn near perfect, and I wanted nothing to spoil it. So we remained connected by her hand, the blush in her cheeks darkening another shade further, until her idle hand moved to the front of her pajama bottoms. Eyes locked on my body, her fingers began tracing marks again as her other hand found its way down and under her panties. A soft moan escaped her normally silent mouth, and I watched the dance of fingers through fabric as they moved back and forth over her clit. She sat up some and leaned into my body, hand caressing me, still gentle, but so insistent. Each time she'd run her fingers over her handiwork I'd see those fingers speed up until they rubbed back and forth at a breakneck pace. Claire kept her eyes on me, one hand pleasuring herself, one hand probing, examining, admiring the marks she'd made.

My own arousal blossomed from my wet cunt outwards, radiating ripples of arousal through my body. Those fingers against my skin threatened to send me over the edge, but I was so well trained I knew not to come without her verbal consent, and she had not consented. Instead I drew my focus even narrower, so that all I saw or felt was Claire. She was so beautiful to watch, her face aglow with her impending orgasm, her smile, so perfect and carefree, and the way her eyebrows knit as I saw the first wave start to build. I'd seen her come more times that I could count, and even after years together it's still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Instead of throwing her head back as she came, she curled inwards, squeezing her thighs around her fingers, her hips rocking into her hand. Moans of joy overtook her, low, and rasping, each stopping where the next began. Fingers kept working her clit, quickly casting her into a second orgasm, and she brought her head low, pressed her forehead into my stomach and gripped my thigh tightly as she thrust finally into her fingers. I laid still, my chest tight with pride that seeing me had moved her so, watching as the after-quakes of her orgasm rolled through and her tightly coiled body relaxed, listening as the hot staccato of her breath was broken by words I hadn't expected to hear. "Fuck," she gasped into my stomach, "you're so beautiful."