by Madeleine Oh
“Thank you for your interest in my ad,” he said, his rich and resonant voice reaching through the phone line to wrap around her lungs and squeeze. Her heart hammered. God, she could come just by listening to him talk. His words slid across her skin like a velvet caress, and her body arched, aching to bring him closer.
“Leave a message, and a way to reach you. If I like the sound of your message, I’ll contact you.”
“No pressure,” Gayle muttered, her fingers tightening around the handset. Instinctively, she straightened her back, lifting her head to relax her throat and breathing deep into her diaphragm. This was just as much an audition as the Sondheim production would be.
The phone beeped, cueing her message.
“Your ad intrigued me,” she began, pitching her voice to be as clear and carrying as if she was onstage. “I love to sing, and tremble at the thought of putting myself in your hands. If you would be interested in making music with me, call me. My name is Gayle.”
Then she rattled off the phone number for the unassigned extension in her office that she used to test the marketing team’s modems. It had an old, analog phone plugged in to it. His would be the only incoming call on that line.
She ate her lunch at her desk, mocking her own foolishness. He probably wouldn’t even check his voicemail messages until the evening, when he got home from work. And if he liked her message enough to call her, he’d call back when she didn’t answer. But she couldn’t take the chance that he wouldn’t. So she grabbed a microwavable bowl of macaroni and cheese from the vending machines and a diet cola, her ears straining to hear the distinctive ring of the analog phone.
She was completely absorbed in debugging a glitch with one of the manager’s email accounts when the clanging bell of the phone startled her. Taking a deep breath, she sat up straight and relaxed her throat, then answered the phone.
“Hello, this is Gayle.”
“Hello, Gayle. This is Rikard. I got your response to my ad.”
A wave of warmth curled through her as his voice stroked and caressed her. The soft, slightly husky tone welcomed her to an intimate conversation, and suggested he might have been as moved by her response as she was by his initial ad.
Or, she might be reading way too much into the whole thing, and the poor man was getting over a cold.
She chuckled, half in nervousness and half at her own overblown imagination. “So, I guess you liked the sound of it, since you called back.”
“Yes, I did. Are you a musician?”
“Programmer. But I do some community theatre on the side.”
“Ah. I thought you sounded like you’d had training.”
“Sister Jane would be pleased to know some of her lessons stuck. How about you? Are you a musician?”
He hesitated just a moment before saying, “Composer.”
“Really? What do you write?”
“A little of everything. Jazz. Pop songs. Jingles.”
“Jingles?”
“It pays the rent.” He laughed, the sound spearing to her core as if he’d suddenly appeared in her office, thrown her onto her desk, spread her legs and thrust deep inside her.
Gayle smothered a moan. Her breasts were tight and tingling, aching for his fingers to squeeze the pebbled nipples, or for his hot mouth to cover the tips and suck deeply. Her stomach quivered. And the flesh between her legs pulsed with every heartbeat, wet and steaming, ready for his fingers, his mouth, or his long, hard cock to push deep, again and again, until she screamed her release. Or shrilled it over and over like a demented Mozart aria.
“If you’re a programmer, you’re probably at work.”
Gayle answered with an affirmative noise.
“I won’t keep you long, then. Would you like to get together to talk more in person?”
“I’d love to,” she answered immediately. Then thoughts of all the horror stories about blind dates prompted her to caution. “How about Saturday? We could meet for lunch or coffee at the café on the corner of Washington and Twelfth.”
“Coffee. Say, two o’clock?”
“Sounds great. How will I recognize you?”
“I’m tall, shoulder-length blond hair, and will be wearing green sunglasses and a black leather jacket. You?”
“My hair’s dark brown, in a kind of pageboy, although my stylist had a more expensive name for it. I’ll probably be wearing a denim barn jacket with black velvet trim.”
“Sounds like you’re very sensual.”
“Wait until Saturday, and you can see for yourself.”
He chuckled, a dark rumble of sound that wasn’t quite as intense as his earlier laugh had been—more like he was leaning over her for some intense French kissing, while his hand fondled beneath her skirt.
“I’ll count the hours.”
“Me too.”
After he hung up, Gayle remained clutching the handset, panting for breath, while her clit throbbed, begging for his touch. If he was half as scrumptious in person as he sounded over the phone, she was a goner. She hung up, and furtively pinched her nipples. The sharp pain triggered a wave of heat that rolled over her. It wasn’t as good as an orgasm, but it was some relief.
She’d treat herself to a long, hot bubble bath tonight when she got home, soaping herself all over and pretending it was Rikard’s hands sliding over her slick skin, imagining Rikard’s mouth on hers, dreaming of his cock thrusting in and out, harder and faster, until she came beneath him in a sobbing, screaming rush.
She groaned, already aching and swollen with desire. It was going to be a long afternoon.
* * * * *
Saturday afternoon, Gayle abandoned the pile of rejected clothes on her bed, and headed for her date wearing a chic black leather miniskirt and pink angora sweater under her denim coat. After all, Rikard’s ad said he liked leather. And she recalled reading somewhere that pink was a good color to wear to a first date, because it sent signals saying you were gentle and feminine. Fuzzy textures implied you were soft and invited thoughts of touching.
Plus, she knew pink looked good with her skin tone. She’d actually bothered with full makeup, as if she was going to a customer site, instead of just her usual tinted moisturizer and lip gloss, and knew she looked good.
Her cell phone was tucked into her black and pink purse, with her friend Carrie on the speed dial. Carrie was more than willing to act as her safety net for the date, provided she got all the juicy details in return.
As the blocks melted away beneath Gayle’s determined stride, the nervous quiver in her stomach grew progressively stronger. What if he was a complete troll? Or had some odious personal habit? What if he was drop-dead gorgeous, with the elegant and sophisticated manners of a James Bond? She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and forced herself to smile cheerily. Just another audition.
She turned the corner to the café three minutes before two o’clock. A tall, blond man in a fitted black leather jacket was bending his head to talk to the hostess. Was that him?
He straightened and turned to scan the tables on the sidewalk, revealing his rectangular sunglasses of pale green, and a strong profile of high cheekbones, firm jaw, and well-shaped nose. His blond hair was artfully styled to give a rumpled, just out of bed look, falling across his forehead in graceful arcs, covering his ears and brushing his neck and shoulders.
Gayle hurried up to the hostess stand. “Rikard?”
He smiled, his gaze flicking down and up her body, lingering for just a moment on her leather skirt. “Gayle.”
A shiver rippled across her skin at the sound of her name being said in his rich voice. The false sexual purr of the hostess startled her out of her reverie.
“This way, please.”
She followed the hostess’ swinging hips, the woman working her clinging Hawaiian print silk sarong to full effect. Gayle was aware of Rikard’s presence behind her, and casually shrugged off her barn coat while she walked. She was rewarded with a soft intake of breath, and felt the heat of his g
aze on her formfitting fuzzy sweater. Oddly, the hostess’s blatant attempt to hijack his attention made Gayle feel better. She wasn’t the only one to fall under the spell of Rikard’s voice.
When they reached the table, Rikard held out a chair for her, giving her the better seat, with a view overlooking the sidewalk. He took the facing chair, looking back at the café.
The hostess handed them their menus, lingered a moment longer, then returned to her station. Rikard and Gayle stared at each other in silence, then both began speaking.
“So, what do you—?”
“Is this your first—?”
They both broke off, chuckling, and any lingering nervousness dissipated.
“You first,” he offered, gesturing her on with one gloved hand.
He wore black leather driving gloves, the supple leather clinging to his hands like a second skin. Gayle’s heart sped up as she pictured those gloved fingers stroking her body, circling gently around her ear, slipping along the edge of her jaw, and finally dipping down to fondle and caress her breasts.
“Thanks. I was just wondering how many responses you’d followed up with so far.”
“Judging the competition?” Rikard smiled, although something seemed vaguely wrong with his expression. The green lenses of his glasses made it difficult to read the look in his eyes, and even though the sun was behind him, he hadn’t removed them.
She shrugged, inexplicably nervous again. “Just curious.”
“Yours is the first message I returned,” he admitted. “I have a musician’s ear, and the other respondents’ voices were frankly painful to listen to. Whereas yours is a pleasure.”
“Well, I am always the first one asked to make phone recordings at work.”
“You said you were a programmer. Of telecom equipment?”
The waiter interrupted them before she could answer. She ordered a grande chai, with whipped cream. Rikard ordered a tall cinnamon coffee. They turned in their menus, then he indicated she should continue with a wave of his gloved hand and another of those oddly off smiles.
“No, I’m a general purpose programmer. I do tech support for a marketing branch office, keep the sales people’s laptops running, clear the viruses off the manager’s system, and do back office databases and demo code off the server.” She paused, then laughed and shook her head. “That probably made no sense to you whatsoever.”
The corner of his mouth crooked up. “I was with you until back office databases. What are those?”
Gayle launched into an explanation of the difference between the front office systems used by the sales people, and the back office systems which ran automatically, collecting and compiling data and taking appropriate actions, such as issuing bills or prompting follow-up work. She kept the front office systems patched and running, holding the sales people’s hands and talking them through the various screens when they had to do anything unfamiliar. But to the back office systems, she was a god.
“And do you like being a god?” Rikard asked.
A joking reply was on the tip of her tongue, when she realized he was asking a serious question. Fortunately, the waiter delivered their drinks, and she bought some time to think by stirring the whipped cream into her chai, licking the spoon, cradling the mug in her hands, blowing on it, then taking her first sip.
“No, I don’t think so,” she finally answered. “I like not having to clean up other people’s messes, or waste my time redoing something because a sales guy with a one-week database class behind him thought he could ‘improve’ the system. But that’s not the same.”
“Good. Because if we decide to go forward with this, there’s only room for one god, and it’ll be me.”
She trembled at the dark promise in his voice, her stomach bouncing like she’d swallowed rubber balls instead of silky chai. “Okay,” she whispered.
“You have whipped cream on your lip.”
She licked it off, feeling his eyes tracking the movement of her tongue behind the green shield of his sunglasses. Suddenly her lips felt parched, and she nervously wet them.
Rikard lifted his coffee and took a hasty sip.
“Speaking of going forward, I’ve never done this before. What would we do next?”
“You’ve never been in a BDSM relationship, or you’ve never started one via a personal ad?”
“A little of both, I think. I tried some bondage games with my old boyfriend, after we’d been lovers for a while, and really enjoyed them. But that was on top of an existing relationship. I never had it be the relationship.”
“We wouldn’t jump straight into our first scene. There needs to be trust on both sides—you trusting that I have your best interests at heart, and me trusting that you’ll tell me how you’re really feeling during a scene. So I’d start by asking you to do things, little things, like wear a certain item of clothing, or sit a certain way. I’d touch you, non-sexually, and learn your reactions to things. And we’d talk, about what you wanted, what you feared. Then, when we felt comfortable with each other, we’d move on to scene work, where I’d force you to face your fears and desires. Again, starting small, with things like binding your body but leaving your breasts exposed, and tickling your nipples with feathers, furs, and other things, until you came from the pleasure.” The corner of his mouth quirked in his lopsided grin again. “It would take a very long time.”
Gayle’s breasts tightened, the nipples hardening and stretching her clinging sweater, as if he was already teasing them. She imagined ghostly caresses—wisps of feathers, soft strokes of fur, a quick rasp of something rough like sandpaper, a sharp nip of teeth.
She gasped, her panties growing not just damp but actually wet. “No, I don’t think it would take long at all.”
Rikard’s smile broadened into smug self-satisfaction as he leaned back in his chair and studied her through lidded eyes. She felt like a partially devoured bowl of cream being examined by a not-yet-sated cat.
Yet somehow, the blatantly sexual expression didn’t trouble her the way his earlier smiles had. With a jolt of surprise, she recognized what had bothered her previously. Now that his eyes were half-closed, they were even. When he smiled with amusement, one was slightly wider than the other. That was why his crooked grin didn’t disturb her. She expected one eye to close more when he only moved one side of his mouth.
Her logical nature immediately kicked in, tossing out hypotheses as fast as she could test them. Coupled with the sunglasses, and the way he sat with the light behind him, she suspected he’d had some sort of eye treatment recently. Maybe he’d gotten laser eye surgery to cure his nearsightedness, or been given some sort of drops that affected his eye muscles for an infection.
As if recognizing her change of mood, he straightened and returned to his previous easygoing manner. “There are a few other things. I mentioned my fondness for leather in my ad.”
“Yes. But I wasn’t sure what you meant by that.”
“When I touch you, I’ll be wearing gloves.” He extended his hand, displaying the soft leather driving glove that encased his skin. “And I also have a mask of black leather that covers most of my face. Without the mask, I’m just Rikard, your equal and, hopefully, your friend. In the mask, however, I’m Master Rikard, and expect your complete and total obedience.”
His voice darkened and deepened, hinting at dire consequences should she fail to obey Master Rikard. He made no movement, other than returning his outstretched hand to wrap around his coffee mug, which could hardly be considered threatening. Yet she trembled in fear. And excitement.
“Obedience like we talked about. Little things until we trust each other.”
“Yes.” He paused, then added, “Since this is the first time you’ve entered a relationship with someone unknown to you, you’d probably feel safer the first time if you set up a safe call with a friend. Every hour or so, check in with someone you trust who knows where you’ve gone and who you are with, and can inform the police if you don’t respond to her calls.”
Gayle blushed. “I already did that. My friend Carrie will be calling in about ten more minutes.”
The crooked grin tugged at his lips again. “I hope you anticipate all of my other suggestions as well.”
Reaching into his jacket’s inside chest pocket, he withdrew a business card which he placed on the table in front of her.
Rikard Sorenson, Composer. Below that, in smaller print, was listed his phone number and address, a semi-rural area to the west of the city that was in transition from farms to housing developments. She’d looked at houses there when she’d moved down, but they were executive homes well outside of her price range.
“Those jingles must pay really well to afford the rent out there.”
He shrugged. “There’s my phone number. Take the night to think it over, then call me with your answer. If you want to go ahead, I’ll expect you at my house tomorrow at one o’clock.”
Her hand closed around the card, the blood pulsing through her fingers making the card seem to throb beneath her touch.
“That’s it? Just show up at one o’clock?”
“I’ll give you more instructions when you call. If you call. You may change your mind once you’re alone and have a chance to think things over.”
He tipped back his head and downed the rest of his coffee, effectively ending the discussion. Setting the empty mug on the table, the tip of his tongue darted out to lick the stray droplets of coffee from his lips.
Gayle swallowed a hasty gulp of her chai, fighting the urge to lean across the table and taste his coffee-flavored mouth. But she couldn’t tear her gaze from the gleaming track of wetness.
“Oh! The coffee must have been too hot. Your lip is peeling.”
Rikard stiffened, his gloved hand rising to pat his lips. “You’re right. Fortunately I have a tube of lip balm in my car. But I should take care of it as soon as possible.”
He stood, pulling out his wallet and dropping a ten-dollar bill on the table.