Master and Wife

When I think back over the events of the past six months, it maddens me that I was so close. 

I had the Moor in the palm of my hand. He was deranged; looking over his shoulder, whispering secrets, seeing ghosts. In another week, perhaps in another day, the castle would have awoken to the news of a stifled Desdemona, dead by his hand. 

Instead, the castle wakes to the same dull, colourless routine. All of the tasks the war requires of me blur together. We strategize; we train; we counsel; we fight. Othello grows madder by the day, repeating my own words back to me all twisted and tainted, as though I’ve never heard them before. But he hardly touches his wife now. I have tried to change his mind, to gently suggest that, black or white, the question alone should cost the child its life. But no. If the thing is his, the Moor wants it. As though blood means anything in the first place. 

Lately, even the nights have been uninspiring. As a young man, I would make elaborate and wonderful plans for my nights. I would research new techniques and tools, and plan months in advance. I was the artist, my wife my unwilling canvas. Now, even the sight of her face turns my stomach. I feel a flutter of past excitement when her features contort in fear; I feel a flash of it when I manage to surprise her with a new torture. But I suspect I won’t taste that feeling again in full until the blessed day when I silence her for good. 

I look to my right. She lays at the very edge of the bed, curled into her side, sleeping fitfully. Dried blood from a well-placed slash crusts her arm, which wraps tightly around her head. In years past, just the sight of her like this, frightened even in sleep, was enough to make me hard. Now I feel nothing but a wave of irritation. This stupid creature cannot be fully blamed for my delay in plans; she can’t successfully conceive herself, much less bring it about spontaneously for her mistress. Still, she practically refused to steal my handkerchief. She has allowed herself to be seduced by the lady, which has considerably slowed the couple’s undoing. She is indirectly culpable. 

I stare at her, at all the places on her body that I have forbidden myself from harming. I think about grabbing the soft curve of her ear and sawing it off, watching the blood coat her neck as she screamed. I think about grabbing a fistful of her wild hair and holding her head perfectly still while I slowly puncture one of her eyes with my knife. Would it slowly collapse onto itself, a gelatinous, ruined mess, or would the pressure of the dagger pop it clean out of its socket? Could I drip acid into the weeping hole without bringing about instant death? I would want at least a few more hours to play once the blindness was permanent.

I amuse myself with these wonderings until my dick begins to harden. Then I stroke it as I think about what I would do next. Without eyes, she would be even more desperate for touch, for contact. To make things interesting, I could cut off just the tips of each and every finger. Would she still reach, even in that new pain, with blood spurting from ten new holes at once? I imagine so. Her obsession with me knows few bounds. 

I sigh. I’m ready for orgasm now, but none of my wife’s three holes inspire me. I can already imagine her muffled weeping as I take her ass; her desperate cries as I claim her cunt; her garbled choking as I fuck her mouth. I crave something different tonight. I reach over to my wife’s bloodied arm, gripping it and guiding it towards me. I know she’s awake when her arm stiffens. I yank it harder, she sucks in a breath, and then I’ve placed her hand on top of my dick. 

“Touch it.” Immediately I feel her fumbling touch against me. “Carefully.” I am struck by her incompetence as her hand struggles to wrap around my member. Ever since I impaled her hands and feet, she treats every handjob as though it were torture. She’s just lucky I don’t demand them as often as I fuck her. 

She moves closer to me in bed, allowing herself a better angle. Her unsteady breathing grates on my nerves. “Shut up.” I slap her once, to emphasize my point, but she cries out. I slap her again, and she cries out. She never has been a particularly quick learner. When I slap her a third time, she’s silent. 

I’ve decided what I would like to do. I can’t cut off the tips of her fingers, but perhaps I can come close. “Your hands aren’t doing enough for me. After I’m satisfied, you can decide which two fingernails you would like to be rid of.” I’m not looking at her. My eyes are closed as I focus on the sensation of her hand. She breaks my concentration by speaking. 

“Please, my lord.” I clench my jaw and open my eyes, feigning annoyance. Part of what arouses me is this dance, where she begs and I refuse. But, as is often the case, I can’t quite tell where the act ends and my true frustration begins. The dance entertains, but it is genuinely infuriating that she never can seem to just do as she’s fucking told. 

“Please what.” Even without looking at her, I can sense her hesitation. She still thinks that choosing her words carefully in this moment may spare her. Habit compels me to let her try. 

“I worry for my hands. They’re so stiff already, and I struggle with some tasks.” Her voice is quiet, and trembles slightly. “I want to be useful.” I feel a small satisfaction at how I’ve trained her. She knows to appeal to her utility, not her quality of life. Not that it will help her this time. 

“Don’t choose your thumbs then.” I say dismissively. She starts to cry, which would be more irksome if it weren’t so typical. I can’t think of the last time I came when she wasn’t crying. “Now do as I’ve told you.” She doesn’t stop crying, but her efforts towards my dick are renewed. Within a few minutes, I feel an orgasm build. She’s on her back now, so I remove her hand, straddle her, and grasp my dick, pumping it a few last times until the release washes over me. I come on her face, coating her eyes and ears and hair. All the parts of her that I have plans for that can’t be executed yet. Finally, I force her to suck out the last few drops with her mouth. 

I climb off her, noticing as I do that her entire body is trembling. Despite having just come, this fresh fear arouses me. I have never relieved her of any of her nails before. 

I allow the silence to stretch for a minute, maybe two. She lays drenched in cum and fear, her breathing so shallow that it’s blissfully silent.  

“Well?” I finally say. Her trembling persists, stronger now. “And don’t say please again, or I’ll take four.” At this, she begins to cry again in earnest. 

“I’m begging you, my husband. I want to work. I need to work.” At that, my anger redoubles. Ah yes. She needs to work. To whore herself behind my back to the Moor’s doe-eyed princess. What a pathetic excuse for a woman. 

I stand, and go over to the locked chest where I keep all our tools. She shakes her head violently as I unlock the chest and pull out a crude pair of pliers. “I said not to say please.” 

“I didn’t!” Terror and shock colour her voice as I return to the bed, standing at her side. I look down at her cum-streaked face. 

“You knew what I meant when I told you not to say please. “I’m begging you” means the same thing.” I reach over her and grab her right wrist. I watch the split-second calculation in her head, weighing fight against freeze. This time, her fear wins out, and she goes slack in my grip. “Now tell me which four nails you would like me to remove. If you don’t tell me, right now, I’ll take eight.” 

At last, this is enough to spur her stupid mind into action. “F- fifth and fourth f- fingers on both h- han- hands-“ she chokes out through her sobs. 

“Perfect. Was that so hard?” I lean down and kiss her softly on the mouth, tormenting her further with a moment of kind touch. Her free arm immediately reaches and grips at my back, as if to hold me in place. I pull away, briefly savouring the anguish on her face, and focus my attention on her hand. “Some recommend that the pliers be heated first. Apparently that makes the removal slightly easier.” Her sobs lengthen into keening moans, the kind an animal makes when it’s in pain. Odd, because she isn’t in pain yet. “I don’t think that will be necessary for us, as long as you stay still.” 

I open the pliers, and shut them carefully around the fifth nail on her hand. She’s staring at the pliers now, not me. Her eyes are wide. I give the pliers a gentle tug, to make sure their grip is secure. With my free hand, I pin her wrist to the bed. Then I slowly guide the pliers upwards, away from her nail. As the nail is pulled further from its bed, I dig the pliers in deeper, forcing the bottom wedge under her nail. I’m rewarded with a long, drawn-out whine. Her free hand scrabbles for purchase in the sheets. A couple of times, she paws against me, but never with any force. She still has the presence of mind not to actively push me away. I wonder how long it will last. 

I continue to pull, until finally the nail separates from the bed with a wet sound, drowned out in its entirety by my wife’s renewed screams. I raise the pliers to eye level, examining her bloody nail in the faint spread of moonlight. “Stop the bleeding,” I instruct, still looking at the nail. My wife tries to wrap a corner of the sheet around her finger, which is bleeding profusely, but her good hand is shaking hard, and keeps slipping. As I watch her struggle, I feel my dick harden again. “Figure it out.” I say, though I’m watching her closer now. Too much blood loss and I will have to step in. To my delight, she stares at her finger for only a moment more before sticking it into her mouth, using her tongue to put pressure on the nail bed. I laugh aloud. “Are you such a slut for your own blood?” I taunt. “Hopefully by the time I’ve done the same on your other hand, the bleeding will have stopped.”  At the mention that I haven’t finished, she moans around her fingers. The sound makes my dick pulse. Maybe a fuck tonight will be worth it after all. 

I grab her other hand and secure the pliers around the nail. This time, I tear it off all in one go, just as my wife is taking a breath to steady herself. She lets out an animalistic screech, her back arching. Her right hand, wet with saliva and blood, flies from her mouth and scrabbles to push me away, Her left hand bleeds freely, soaking the covers. I watch it for a moment, calculating, before grabbing her right wrist and leaning closer. I hold this second nail up to her face. “Just think,” I say as blood from the nail dribbles onto her cheek. “If you had just kept your whore mouth shut and done as you were told, we’d be done now.” By now, my wife is white as a sheet, and at these words, she begins to weep again. “Don’t cry, you need your mouth for this.” I take her newly bloodied hand and guide the fifth finger gently to her lips. Blood drips onto her lips, intermingling with the dried cum already coating them. Face twisted in pain, she takes the finger in her mouth, tears still streaming down her cheeks. Her other hand has stopped bleeding. 

I know from years of experience that my wife is fading; she likely won’t remember the removal of her fourth nail very well. This third one is the piece de résistance, the one that will haunt her. “Stay put.” I say, unnecessarily. I go to my side of the bed, pick up my dagger from the end table, and walk it back. My wife’s keen ears are accustomed to even the slightest movement of my dagger’s sheath; by the time I return to her side, she already knows what I’m holding. I hold it up anyway, still gripping the pliers in my other hand. 

“I’ve heard that larger nails often require some assistance to remove them fully. I thought we should be ready for anything.” With her mouth already occupied, my wife can’t shake her head or protest, so instead she reaches out to me with her mutilated hand. “Thank you, I’ll be needing that.” I set the dagger down on the side table beside me, and grab her wrist again. Her other hand flies from her mouth and she begins to beg. 

“Please please please- please don’t- please Iago-“ She reaches to me with this other hand, which has already begun to bleed again. The distain I feel for her in that moment nearly eclipses my desire to prolong her suffering. Oh, to just be able to use these pliers to tear her throat open and watch as her life bled away into the sheets. But then who knows what the lady would do? 

“I told you not to say please. And you know not to call me Iago.” I force her finger back into her mouth, silencing her. “Stop the bleeding, and do not make those mistakes again. Or I will stand here and rip off every last nail from your ruined hands.” My threats are diminishing in power, I know. Soon her primal instinct for survival will take over, and threats will be meaningless. For now though, she listens, and her finger remains in her mouth. The look of dread in her dark eyes sends shivers of anticipation down my spine. I grab her other hand, again, and position the pliers. This time, when I slip the tip under her nail, her whole body tenses. She begins to writhe and cry, a pathetic sight with her other hand still stuffed in her mouth. When I pull upwards, the nail doesn’t come up in one smooth motion like the others did. It snaps, leaving her with a half-exposed bed, the lower half of the nail still clinging stubbornly to the cuticle, already beginning to leak blood. “Ah, I thought this may happen. Luckily I came prepared.” I set the pliers down on the bed and pick up my dagger. “Now, if this doesn’t go smoothly, you could end up losing the finger. So stay still.” Her muscles tense and strain as she tries to obey me. Even after her limbs still, her entire body trembles violently. “For your sake, I hope that’s good enough.” I begin to dig around her broken nail with my dagger, tearing it away from the bed. She stiffens again, and instead of a scream, nothing but a choked gasp leaves her throat. Her eyes roll up into her head, and her body goes slack. She’s fainted. 

I pause. I gently remove her hand from her mouth, so she doesn’t choke on it, and notice with satisfaction that the bleeding has almost stopped. I chose this activity specifically because, while agonizingly painful, it would have to go terribly wrong to risk her life. She will live to serve another day with her mutilated fingers. 

I reach down to her legs, behind her right kneecap, and pinch the skin, hard. She stutters back to consciousness and lies in perfect silence before- 

“Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm-mmm-aaghhhhh.” There it is. The gorgeous noise she makes when all of the pain floods back at once. I wish I could bottle that noise and drink it. 

“We aren’t done.” I say viciously. “How dare you assume that’s yours to decide.” I snatch up her wrist again, grasping it more harshly this time. She responds by kicking and thrashing desperately, but with her other hand effectively useless, she can do nothing to dislodge my grip. I pick my dagger back out and savagely dig it into her nail bed, dislodging the remaining nail further, before putting it aside and yanking it off, fragment by fragment, with my bare hands. Her howls of agony send adrenaline coursing through my veins. With her finger oozing blood, I get on top of her, and without giving her time to think, I take the pliers to the last nail. I rip it off quickly, piece by fractured piece, savouring the movements of her her bucking, thrashing form underneath me. When it’s done, I force both of the fingers in her mouth at once, pull up her thin shift, and sink my pulsing dick into her cunt. I pound into her, filling her damaged hole with every savage thrust. The sight of her face, stained with blood and cum, fingers stuffed into her mouth, tears pouring from her eyes, fills me with lust. I fuck her with abandon as she screams at the top of her lungs, and I’m still thrusting when minutes later her lungs finally give out and she can only produce muffled wheezes from her ragged throat. I force her to endure nearly ten straight minutes of relentless fucking until I finally push deep inside her and allow release to wash over me as I fill her swollen hole with my cum. The second I’ve recovered, I climb off her, laying instead on my side of the bed. I don’t want her to derive even a second of comfort from my skin. 

I prop myself up to look at her. She has a cloudy, removed look in her eyes that I know well. Her mind has reached the limits of what it will endure tonight. Not for the first time, I wish I could call her back, inflict more harm on her battered, bleeding body. Instead, I lean over my edge of the bed and pull out cloth bandages from under the bedframe. I take her hands, still leaking but no longer pouring blood, and bandage them carefully. She whimpers as I touch her; from pain or from need, I can’t tell. Once I’m satisfied, I put her hands back at her sides, and tilt her chin so she’s looking at me. 

“You said you wanted to work tomorrow. So you will work tomorrow.” My tone is final. “You can rebandage your fingers so they will still fit into your loosest pair of gloves. Be sure to have a reason ready for why you’re even more incompetent than usual.” I can’t be certain at this point that she can hear me at all, so I will repeat my message in the morning. For now, I simply roll over. The high of orgasm has passed, and I no longer wish to look at her. 

“Sleep well.” 

If a response came, I was asleep too quickly to hear it.