For the Love of April French

by Penny Aimes

  She made her way to Dennis and leaned close to whisper in his ear again; Caroline fell silent as she approached, but she refused to think about that right now. “I want you to tie me up tonight.”

  He blinked. “Are you sure? We haven’t known each other long.”

  “You’ve got about a hundred new friends who are about to see me leave with you. I think I’ll be fine.” She held up her wrists in the leather cuffs. “Were these just for show? Sir?”

  Something flared in his eyes before being slammed behind shutters of control, and it woke an answering flame in her core. The bartender chose that moment to return his card. “Let’s go,” he said.

  This time they set a record getting from the club back to her apartment.

  It was a short way from the door to the bed, and this time he was undressing every step of it and she was not. “What restraints do you have?” he asked, a deeply serious expression on his face.

  “Zip ties, nylon rope, jute rope, silly toy handcuffs, realistic handcuffs...” she reeled off.

  “Someone is a closet bondage slut,” he observed.

  “Closet?” She dragged a large suitcase out from under the bed and dropped it on the counter. “I’m insulted.”

  He swatted her ass while she was bent over unzipping it. “Such a smart mouth you’ve got suddenly.” He looked in the case; picked up the realistic handcuffs and snapped them through the stainless-steel rings on the cuffs, fixing her hands together behind her.

  All her senses were singing. Covertly she flexed her arms against the cuffs and shuddered to feel herself restrained. Shoulders back, tits thrust forward. He shoved a hand into the keyhole of the dress to grope her. “Fuck!”

  He grabbed a few other things from the case before he pushed her down onto the bed, not too forcefully but indomitably. He leaned in to kiss her; passionately, roughly. She bit his lip in return. “What has gotten into you!”

  “Maybe I’m tired of being a good girl,” she murmured against his mouth. Even she was a little surprised at herself. She didn’t usually brat much, if at all. If she wanted to be roughed up, she’d beg for it. But tonight she felt wound up, ready to snap at anything that got near her jaws. She wanted more of that flare she’d seen in his eyes.

  He gripped her locked elbows and rolled her over, kicking her feet apart. He bent her legs up off the ground, using the nylon rope and the cuffs to hogtie her; she could still wriggle and shut her legs, but not very effectively. Since the rope was over her stockings it wasn’t that secure, but it’s not like she was trying to escape, and she certainly didn’t want to wait to take them off.

  “Oh fuck,” she moaned, as his hand roamed over her ass and groin, hot through the panties. He tugged at them, then she groaned loudly as she felt the cold of the emergency shears from the case cutting them off.

  “Sorry about that, doll.” He didn’t sound very sorry.

  “You paid for them,” she panted, and that did something to him; he literally growled, grabbed her swollen clit and squeezed. She cried out as the cool lube hit her ass and trickled down her legs.

  “Shit, shit, yellow!” she panted. “One second, one second. Yellow.”

  Dennis

  Dennis froze and tamped down the fires raging inside of him. “What’s wrong, lovely? Are you hurt? Is it—”

  “No, no, just—can you put a towel down? This comforter takes forever to dry.”

  He laughed; they laughed together, and she laughed even harder when he slapped her ass. “You little...yes, one moment.” It was BDSM protocol to always thank your partner for using their safeword—for keeping safety paramount even if it was frustrating in the moment—but just this once, Dennis decided to let that go. He shook his head and headed into her bathroom, which was exactly as tiny as he expected but spotless.

  He investigated a tiny linen closet and returned with a towel he hoped wasn’t one of her good ones; tucked it in place under her body. Her face was pressed into the bed and she had lifted herself up halfway on her bound legs. With her ass in the air like that, the bed was just the right height... “Are you ready, doll?”

  “Green as fuck, Sir.”

  He ran a hand over her lubed-up ass and groin again; pressed a finger. “You’ve been very rude the last little while, bondage slut. Is this your way of telling me you want something?”

  Her breath was coming in quick little pants that he could feel all the way to the root of his cock. “Not want.”

  “Need something?” She moaned in response—or maybe that was because of his finger slipping inside. “Do you need to be tied down and brought under control?” He ransacked his memory for her list of good words.

  “Yyyyygh,” she groaned into the bed. “I need it.”

  “Do you need to be fucked into compliance?” This time her response was a rising, mewling cry.

  “Yes!”

  A slap on her ass with his free hand. “Yes, Sir!”

  Holy shit, he was going to lose his mind. Part of him knew he was being deliberately goaded, that this was a game like any other; the part of him that listened carefully for red or yellow even in her garbled voice. That part of him felt very far away right now. In his head everything was flames and lust and the need for control.

  “But if I fuck you,” he said, timing his words to thrusts of his fingers. “You learn that running your smart—little—mouth—works on me.” And he pressed, hard, and she shrieked and shuddered and...didn’t come. But he could tell she was right on the edge.

  “Did you come since I saw you last?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Did you touch yourself since I saw you last?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Did you want to?” he asked. As he fumbled with a condom, he kept up the rhythm of his other hand, preparing her, driving her closer to the edge.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Wanted to come for me?”

  “Oh, yes, Sir!”

  “Wanted to touch for me? Even if you couldn’t come?”

  “...yes, Sir,” she said, as if the words were being dragged from her by his questing fingers.

  “Maybe I should just edge you and put you to bed,” he mused. Like hell.

  “Nonononono,” she pleaded, wriggling and pushing back against him fruitlessly. “Please.”

  “You think I won’t do it?” he demanded. “You think I’m ruled by my need to orgasm the way you are?” Her response was garbled but took the general form of a denial and a paean to his self-control and mastery.

  He put both hands on her hips, tight, and let the tip of his cock touch her. She almost sobbed with need and pushed hungrily back against him. For a wild, reckless moment he almost considered not letting her come, even if it meant not fucking her. She was just so perfectly needy...

  The sequestered part of himself reminded him that she did have limits, and so, for that fucking matter, did he. Even if it didn’t feel that way right now.

  “Keep begging,” he instructed her, as he lined up his cock. Every word that poured out of her now was yes and please and Sir, in no particular order. And then he slid inside of her and he didn’t know what she was saying anymore; he didn’t know what he was saying anymore. Everything was hot and tight and perfect and obedient, and it was both too quick and far too long until he was exploding inside of her. His knees shook; he planted one hand on the bed to keep from falling over.

  The fires in his head went out and he turned to aftercare like a drowning man to land.

  April

  She didn’t really black out. Probably. Not exactly. Her continuity of experience—if not coherent thought, God knew what nonsense she’d been saying—was good all the way along, from cuffs to cold blades to his fingers leaving prints on her hip bones to being so intensely and perfectly impaled. Then he’d hit her prostate, just so, and two days of frustration and fantasy had gone off like
a grenade.

  Did they put a towel down? Shit, she hoped they’d put a towel down.

  Bed. She was in bed. Felt like she had no bones. The ropes and other restraints were gone, even the cuffs. She was dimly aware of a salve, another staple from the suitcase, on her wrists and thighs and ankles. “Well. Those stockings are fucked,” she observed to the dim room.

  “Yes, like the panties,” he agreed.

  “Did we put a towel down?” she asked, and heard a chuckle in return.

  “Yes, don’t you remember?”

  “Heh. Yeah.”

  “Of course, you ground makeup all over the comforter, anyway,” he observed.

  “Welp. You win some, you lose some.” She felt numb, in a good way. Just generally...floating, some distance from her body. She didn’t want to go back there. Some really excellent things had happened there just recently, but that wasn’t her usual experience with it, was it?

  “I’m cold,” she said more coherently.

  “Sorry, dolly. Just let me get the dress off and I’ll tuck you right up.”

  Her tightly wound bun had finally disintegrated—had he pulled it at one point? Or did she just wish for that? She helped by fishing out her earrings and about a million bobby pins, dropping them on the bedside table. When she looked back, she was naked and so was he, and he was pulling her to his chest and dragging the comforter over them both.

  She eased back into her body and let herself experience a broad flat chest with tight curls of hair. Dark little nipples which she experimentally kissed. He purred and stroked her head.

  Maybe having a physical form wasn’t so bad. “More of that please, Sir.” He laughed and kept petting her as she melted into him. The unwrapped rope of hair slowly unraveled as he did.

  She drowsed again, soaking up warmth and affection, then determinedly pushed herself up. “Kay. I gotta use the bathroom—and take all this makeup off.”

  “You sure you’re ready?” He seemed reluctant to let her go.

  “I’m sure I can’t wait a lot longer,” she sighed. Pragmatic Wendy struck again. She rolled out of bed. “I’ll toss the condom.”

  She had stuff to do besides take off her makeup; she expected (maybe hoped?) he’d be asleep when she returned. He was on his phone, though, and immediately looked up. “Hey. Everything okay?”

  It would have been so much simpler if he’d been asleep. Or even if he’d ducked out, but that would probably be a little too tacky for a second encounter. Tacky wasn’t in Dennis’s vocabulary. Dennis wasn’t like her usual ships passing in the night, and he kept proving it, even when it was inconvenient.

  “Yeah,” she said, moving to turn off the light. Keeping her head ducked. “That stuff just only comes off with a special face wash and even then, it’s a bitch.” She got back into bed, and his hands received her, gliding over sweet bruises and treasured rope burns and cradling her face. And then:

  “Are—are you bleeding?” he said, in the most adorably puzzled voice, and her guts turned to ice.

  “Fuck, I thought it stopped,” she said in a low voice, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. This was what she hadn’t wanted him to see.

  “The makeup remover can’t be that strong,” he said, blankly.

  “I...” She cleared her throat. Sound normal, sound normal, sound normal. “I had some... I needed to shave my face, because it’s been twelve hours.” No! That wasn’t normal, that was defensive! Damn it! “It’s just...something I have to do. I cut my lip.”

  He looked like he was absorbing that. “You could’ve done it in the morning.”

  “I could’ve,” she sighed. “But I wanted to kiss you.”

  He looked stunned. “Honey, you can always kiss me.” It was an incredibly sweet thing to say, brought tears to her eyes, and then suddenly it hit her a different way and she was crying.

  “That’s not true,” she said, in a horrible sobby voice, rolling away from him. Fuck. Oh fuck.

  He wrapped his arms around her. Kissed the back of her neck and the side of her jaw, her hateful fucking jaw she just had to stare at in the mirror. “What if it was?”

  “If I could always kiss you,” she said shakily, as part of her rose up furiously at the rest of her. Don’t. Don’t say it you endorphin-drunk bitch. “Then you’d be mine. There wouldn’t be anyone else.”

  “Is that something you want?” Which was not “That’s what I want.”

  Be careful. Just, be careful. He was waiting for an answer—even with him behind her, she could feel those rich dark eyes watching and waiting—and she had to get this right. If you never ask for more than they want to give, you’re safe, you can’t get hurt that way, so just be careful. He was very kind, and very gentle, and she was sure he would be kind and gentle as he explained that he wasn’t looking to move that fast. That he had just got to town. That he could do better. Well, no. He wouldn’t say that. Not out loud.

  He would be very kind when he let her down, but he would never touch her again. He wouldn’t want to lead her on, after all.

  This isn’t your first rodeo, girl, so just. Be. Careful.

  Dennis

  As Dennis waited for her answer, he knew what he was hoping for. But when it came, it wasn’t a yes, with or without her favorite honorific.

  “I don’t usually...do exclusive relationships,” she said. She sounded like she was a long way off, although she was right here; like the words were painted on the bathroom door in a foreign language and she was slowly reading them off. “It just doesn’t work.”

  “Oh,” he said.

  “You’re gonna meet a lot of great people and I don’t want to stand in the way of that,” she said. “And—I mean, I have various friends with benefits and irregular partners at the club, too. We had...a nice time, a couple times. Some really nice times. But that doesn’t mean...” She shrugged.

  “No. Hey, I get it.” He loosened his grip around her and berated himself for misreading the signals. For springing it on her when she was emotionally vulnerable. Right after a scene, and when she was insecure about her appearance. “We just met.”

  It hurt him to say it, because he felt such a strong connection already, but it was true. Mr. Serial Monogamy strikes again. “And I’m not trying to come in and...blow up what you’ve already got.” That was the right thing to say, right? It didn’t feel right, but he had to use his brain for once. If she felt any pressure, any demands from him—he had to be careful.

  She ducked her head. “You make me sound greedy.”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “It’s really...look, I don’t want to get in your way,” she said, her voice coming quicker now. “If that’s really something you want—”

  No! She couldn’t, could not, change her answer just to make him happy. That was unacceptable. That was the start of another Sonia situation, another Seattle. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to try to push you into anything. I...misread the situation.”

  She twisted back towards him, still in the loose net of his arms. God, her sides were soft. “I really like you,” she whispered.

  “I really like you, too.” He pulled her close.

  Fuck! Get it together, Martin. She’s messy and vulnerable and that’s because of you, she trusts you to take her here, and that means you fucking well listen when she tells you what she wants.

  “We’re going to be...such great friends.” Every word felt like a knife in his stomach, but he smiled, anyway.

  “With the most amazing benefits,” she added, in a fragile tone of voice.

  “Absolutely.” She closed her eyes, and he let his face fall. Later, she would be asleep, and he would lie in the dark and reach for his phone, and he would text Jason: You were right.

  April

  The rest of the weekend was...bad. The fragile consensus by which April held her sanity in check collapsed in
to an orgy of self-recrimination, which she medicated with peanut butter chocolate ice cream.

  By Monday she was sincerely glad to be back at work. Disentangling hospital general ledgers sounded like a fucking treat after the Sunday she had given herself.

  She’d been at her desk no more than fifteen minutes, not even long enough for her first cup of coffee, when the email about the new CTO dropped into her inbox. It took her a moment to remember. Right. A new executive position. Supposed to make big improvements in efficiency and redundancies, which sounded like layoffs to her. She knew the COO passing well and he was far from excited about it. But according to Fatima the new guy was a real panty-melter.

  She opened the email and read:

  Please join me in welcoming our new Chief Technical Officer, Dennis Martin.

  Ah. Yes. Of course.

  Part II: April

  Six months later, a lot of things had happened to April. She was promoted. She acquired a completely new wardrobe. She met Fatima’s baby. She confessed her kinkiness to her D&D group. She planned and executed three successful events at Frankie’s. She told her grandmother she was a woman.

  Two things did not happen:

  *She did not tell Dennis they worked at the same company.

  *She did not orgasm, not even once.

  May

  Dennis had told her the night they met that he was into orgasm control, and she had agreed she liked it, too. It was one of the first things they talked about after agreeing to non-exclusivity; in the Sunday morning after, before Dennis went home and April threw herself into a tub of ice cream.

  They’d made breakfast together, her mostly pulling out pots and pans and food and knives and letting him get on with the cooking. Eventually, there was nothing left to do but watch him cook eggs, and April had hitched herself up on the counter and done so. He was wearing boxers and a half-buttoned charcoal shirt as he coaxed his so-called “perfect scrambled eggs” into existence in a pot.