Prologue
She had everything she needed when she walked into the upstairs bedroom of the guesthouse where she and Richard had been living for three weeks, the last three weeks of his life. Neither of them had wanted to taint the house they had shared for so many years with his death. She carefully set the basin of warm water on the night table along with several wash cloths and a couple of towels.
She stripped the sheets from his body. It was easier than she expected because it wasn't Richard any longer. Even the many piercings, he had been so proud of, seemed dull and tarnished. She remembered how scared he had been when she made him receive his Prince Albert ring through the head of his gorgeous cock. She wasn't sure why the dead were washed but she knew she had to perform this rite for him. Richard had taken care of her, all her needs, all her desires, and given her everything she had ever wanted. She could do this for him.
He had known she would not be able to take care of herself after he was gone. The proof of that hung in the air. Even upstairs she could smell the burnt muffin she had tried to toast for her breakfast. She had torn the screeching smoke detector off the wall in the kitchen when she couldn't figure out how to make it stop.
He had broken a promise to her. He had sworn he would not die first. He was going to pay for that.
Alicia could remember the night they had met, so many years ago now, neither of them realizing that something as simple as her last minute decision to attend a play party hosted by a mutual artist friend was going to alter their lives forever. It had been love at first stroke. They had both been trying to achieve the impossible at the time, the unreal, and a long-term commitment with a like-minded individual on opposite sides of the spectrum.
She looked on him as a challenge at first. She couldn't make him safe-word, could not seem to hurt him enough. He served her without question, with perverse love, with his whole heart. They stopped going to clubs and parties after they had been together for a year or so, they didn't need them. They didn't need anyone but each other.
On the face of it they had no business being together, Richard was a strait-laced lawyer, a good one, a wealthy one. Alicia was a new age goddess, a cruel Earth Mother and Pagan. She knew, as she lovingly cleaned his mortal remains that he'd never truly come to her way of thinking.
She had gone so far as to get out the heavy packet of documents he had prepared for her when he realized he was in fact going to die. It was all in there, everything taken care of exactly as she had requested. His will, their original contract, he had given her everything he owned. She hadn't wanted any of it but he had insisted, it was the last time he insisted on anything and had been the only time they had ever fought. He had still been a practicing lawyer at the time and he couldn't let it go, he risked her wrath then suffered it in order to make certain she would be taken care of. But she had not been able to deal with the documents any better than she had been able to deal with toasting an English muffin. She stopped trying to figure out what she had to do with the blue bound legal papers when she came upon his note telling her he had sent the originals to Sonya Lewis, their long time friend.
She struggled to roll him over, and when she finally did her name, branded into his flesh, met her eyes. Finally he gave her real fear when she made him build her a charcoal brazier and create branding irons, eleven of them so she could spell her name in his flesh forever marking him as her property. The rush was fantastic, her blood sang and her body and mind united in a perfect orgasm of lust and domination at the sizzle, and crackled as the letter A was seared into his flesh. She used those over the years, most often on their anniversary. He never knew if she was going to do it or not. It was simply delicious as the date approached and he acted like a child before Christmas trying hard to be on his best behavior. He hated it when she carefully bound him down. Tightening straps and cuffs until he could barely move. His fear and agony were his gifts to her, torn from the very cells of his body. How could she live without that, without him?
She couldn't, it took her a while to convince him of that. He tried to put off her demands until she was forced to resort to the worst discipline of all, in part because it brought her no pleasure. She banished him from her presence until what she requested was reality. He presented her with the key but begged her not to use it.
She had to rest after she rolled him back over. She was able to make herself a cup of tea. After she finished that, she covered him in what she thought of as a shroud, except for his left hand. She snapped a handcuff onto that and laid it on the cover. She had to go back downstairs for the documents because the instructions she needed were with them. The outlet on the wall at the head of the bed looked like any other until the plastic cover was slid aside revealing a little metal door. The key opened that door. Inside the compartment was a small faucet handle. She opened it all the way. She set the timer that was on the back of the door for two-and-a-half hours, and half closed it, like the directions said.
She dressed in her favorite leathers. Richard had cared for them as long as he was able, oiling them, making sure they were hung correctly, and keeping all the silver polished. She refused to see them hanging on her but instead looked into the past. She had filled them stretching the supple hide tautly as her body moved in them when she whipped him in the dungeon he had built for them. He had handcrafted everything in the room in the cellar. Her eyes finally focused on her almost white hair, her thin body, and her eyes red from crying when she had discovered he had died in the night. Goddess, she could not wait for her next life to begin.
It was time for the yogurt and pills. He had prepared them for her too, only after yet more suffering. They were all ground, ready to be mixed and she did it, then swallowed every spec of it. The bed was arranged so she could snap the cuffs onto her wrist and she did that after she lay down. She chuckled to herself, the drugs were already making her feel drunk, Richard had never believed in reincarnation, but she was going to drag him with her whether he wanted to come along or not, their love was not going to be denied by death. Then he was going to suffer for being an unbeliever. She couldn't wait to see the look on his face.
She slowly fell asleep. One of her last thoughts was realizing she could smell the gas leaking into the room. She knew then he had done it all, and done it right. When the timer clicked the sparks would shower the gas pipe. The Old Fool had always been handy.
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