The Apprentice

by Carrie Williams

  James’s face appears at my knees, still masked. He’s finished cleaning my shoes with his tongue, and though I can’t feel too guilty – they were brand new, after all, and I caught a cab to the hotel so they didn’t pick up many street germs – I pluck a chocolate from the plate and feed it to him, as if he were a little dog. Again he hesitates, instinctively, until he’s reassured that it’s not something nasty. Not that he doesn’t trust me, but he can’t even see that it’s me who’s giving him the chocolate.

  ‘I’ll get some more champagne,’ says Celine, as she trickles the remnants of the first bottle into our glasses. She heads over to the phone to call room service.

  Meanwhile, I lean forwards, take James’s lovely face between my hands, kiss him passionately on the mouth. I’ve slipped out of role, but I’m burning for him now, unsure how much longer I can keep all this up. He kisses me back, pushing himself up from the floor, clumsily, since his hands are still bound. I fall back, with him on top of me, still blind beneath his mask but very definitely reciprocating the kiss. The scenario is threatening to break down, but I don’t care. I just want James on me, around me, inside me. I want him to envelop me and inhabit me and subsume me. I’ve even forgotten the girl at this point. As for Anne, I’ve become completely oblivious to her presence. Just as actors must forget, I suppose, their audience, if only for a while.

  But she’s back now, Celine. Room service must have arrived, for she’s holding a fresh bottle of champagne, still corked, and a platter of oysters – twelve beautifully slick critters pooled in their half-shells, their juices winking in the low light. Now I do look at Anne, who is sitting impassively on the opposite sofa. I’m reminded of our conversation about liking and not liking oysters, and my eventual admission that I would, after all, like to try them. Anne gazes back at me, her lips upturned in the beginnings of a smile. She nods at me. I glance at Celine, remembering our brief time together. Afterwards I had thought it was love, was desperate to see her again but certain I never would. I mustn’t squander this opportunity.

  I’m still lying under James, looking up at Celine and over at Anne. Wriggling out from beneath him, I sit up. Celine steps up in front of me, holds out the platter. I smell iodine, the scent of the sea. I reach out one hand and take a half-shell between my fingers, bring it slowly to my face, careful not to spill the liquid that sloshes about inside it. I inspect it as I do so: I don’t know if oysters really are an aphrodisiac, but they can’t help but put one in mind of sex, they look so much like pussies, with their plump, glistening wet folds and ruffles. When I tip it into my mouth, its clean, delicate, almost floral taste is what I remember Celine’s snatch to taste of. I must experience it again.

  Swallowing the fleshy oyster without chewing, letting it simply slide down my throat, I place the empty shell back on the platter. I take another, loosen the oyster inside with my fingernail, and bring it to James’s lips. This time he almost leaps back, not expecting the sharp end of the shell followed by the watery sliminess of the oyster. I put a reassuring hand on his cheek, steady him, then bring the shell back to his mouth. Guessing what it is, he opens wide and swallows it, as I did, in one. I bring a champagne flute to his mouth and he takes a swig. Then I take one too.

  When I’m done, I take the platter out of Celine’s hands and place it on the table. Turning back to her, I bring one arm around her waist and pull her into me at the same time as I lift her little aproned skirt and bury my face in her muff.

  She grabs the hair on each side of my head and pulls lightly as she mashes her mons against my mouth. My tongue seeks out her clit, flicks at it again and again, then slips down through her creases towards her wet hole. It tastes how I remember: like a cool fresh blast of the seaside, of air and water and clouds blasted across a blue sky by a coastal breeze. I sigh a long sigh of longing into her as my tongue enters her.

  Her hands are tight and fast on my head. I’m perched on the lip of the sofa, one arm around her waist still, the other on one arse cheek, pulling her into me. I’m afraid I’m losing it, but I’m pulled back to reality by James behind me, kneeling up, his cock hard against the small of my back. I ache to be touched by him between my legs, on my breasts, but I remember that his hands are still cuffed behind him. I have to content myself with the pressure of his cock on me and with his lips pecking my shoulders, my nape, the sides of my neck, deliciously.

  We continue this way for a while, me lapping at Celine’s pool, James nibbling at the flesh of my upper back and neck. Then, as if by a common accord, we start to move in the direction of the master bedroom, melting away from each other by infinitesimal degrees until we are discrete beings again. As we walk across the room, however, Celine, who has taken the lead, reaches back to grasp my hand, and I in turn reach back for James’s upper arm, and so we form a kind of human chain heading towards the bedroom. There’s a sort of sacredness to it, it suddenly appears to me: the silence, the trust, the concern for one another’s well-being and pleasure. There’s a carnal aspect to it all, of course, but there’s a holiness to it to. I wonder if I have found my religion at last.

  The room is low lit. Anne, who must have preceded us, is standing in the window at the end. A street lamp from outside casts her in silhouette, and there’s something foreboding to her aspect – perhaps because I can’t see her eyes and don’t know if she’s looking at us, at me. I tell myself that I don’t care, that it doesn’t matter. I’m not here for her, I’m here for me. Whatever her stake in it all, this is a journey of self-discovery from which I will walk away richer.

  Gaining confidence now, feeling that I am among friends and confidantes, I let go of James’s arm and push Celine down onto the bed. Her apron-skirt flaps up again, and I look up at James.

  ‘The box,’ I say. Then I remember and reach round him and unclasp his cuffs.

  ‘Where?’ he says, pushing up his mask. Our eyes meet. His are warm and brown. They convey nothing but the desire to please me and the desire to be pleased. I am determined to give him the fuck of his life.

  He dashes out into the sitting room, in the direction I have pointed, and reappears a moment later with Anne’s wooden box of goodies. He places it on the end of the bed. Flipping up the clasps, I peer inside. It’s hard to see anything with the lights this low, so after a moment I put one hand in and rustle around. Bringing it up, I find myself clasping what looks like a mini string of pearls, except they’re looped only at one end. I look at James, eyebrows raised, and he smiles.

  ‘Anal beads,’ he says in a low voice, and then he looks down at Celine where she lies on the bed. ‘Here,’ he says, holding out one hand. ‘Let me help you. But we’ll need some lube.’ He gestures with his chin towards the box. ‘Have another look in there.’

  I do so, and find the small square bottle I remember from James’s apartment. I hold it up to him.

  ‘Aaah,’ he says, and he chuckles.

  I unscrew the lid, pour a small pool of the lubricant into the palm of my hand and sniff it. As well as smelling like honey, it has a thick, syrupy texture.

  James reaches forwards, dips his fingers into the pool and then begins to coat his cock with the lube.

  ‘Taste me,’ he says, climbing into a kneeling position on the bed. I turn away from Celine and bring my mouth down to James’s honey-scented groin. With one hand I can reach her pussy, and as I take him in my mouth I caress her lips and clit with my fingertips, trying to keep my touch light and tantalising.

  In my free hand I still clutch the anal beads. I know that I should use them on Celine, to enhance her orgasm, but I’m feeling really rather selfish by now, since I’m pleasing two people at the same time. And so, having ensured they’ve adequately rolled around in the lube in my palm, I bring them behind me. Noticing what I’m doing, James brings one finger to his mouth to wet it then reaches round me. He presses it against the rosebud of my anus until I feel my muscles begin to cede under the increasingly insistent pressure. Then he takes the beads from my hand and begi
ns to insert the chain of them into my sphincter, pearl by pearl.

  ‘These are small pearls,’ he says in a low voice, as sweet and sticky as the honey lube, and just hearing him I feel as if I’m falling through space. ‘Freshwater pearls. Do you know the legend?’

  I shake my head, fascinated to hear there’s a story behind them but barely able to stay conscious with what’s going on in my back passage.

  ‘Ama,’ he goes on, ‘were Japanese divers, first for abalone and seaweed and later for pearl oysters. They were women who traditionally dived hairless and naked save for a tiny apron in which to stash their find. The pearls themselves were said to be the crystallised tears of Aphrodite, symbolising wisdom and love gleaned through experience.’

  Experience, I think through teeth gritted with intense pleasure as bead after bead goes inside, James pausing after every few words to insert one more. Experience is the holy grail, the reason why we are here. And yes, it has involved tears. But I’m so glad, now I’m here, that I’ve stayed the distance.

  When they’re in, he lets go of them and then reaches out to locate something in the box while I’m still sucking his cock. Pulling out his hand, he passes me something small. I look down and see glimmering in my palm what appears at first to be a pair of silver rings with two tiny balls on each. When I look at them more closely, I realise they are clips.

  ‘For her,’ says James, indicating Celine with a jerk of his head. ‘Her nipples.’

  Celine is looking up at me questioningly, unable to see what lies in my furled palm. With my free hand I reach down and prise open her black corset where it fastens at the front. Her breasts tumble out, as warm and soft as new-baked buns. I place one of the clips on the bed and concentrate on prising the balls of the other apart. I bring the open jaw of it to one of Celine’s erect nipples. For a moment I can’t find it in myself to release the balls and let them clamp down on her sweet dusky-pink flesh, but she nods encouragingly, and I know she can take it, that she’s probably been here before.

  Teeth gritted, eyes squinting, I let go. Celine lets out a high shriek, head thrown back. For a moment I think I’m going to have to take it off her, but no – even as she looks like she’s losing herself to the rapture or pain, or both, she summons up the wherewithal to pinch her other nipple with her fingers, pulling it out towards me as if to remind me not to forget it.

  I place the other clip on her and then sit back to look at her. James has come behind me now, wrapped his arms around my waist.

  ‘Be careful,’ he says. ‘Don’t leave them for much longer than ten minutes. They can damage tissue.’

  ‘OK,’ I whisper. He and Anne seem to be connoisseurs of exotic sex toys, and I wonder that they don’t use them together. Or perhaps they did but in time grew tired of each other and needed fresh blood. Is that what Celine and I are: external elements brought in to spice up a jaded relationship?

  Celine, too, seems no stranger to sex tools, seems to know what she likes. As if to confirm what I am thinking, she reaches down and peels herself open for me, thrusting her pubis up at me. I bring my lips down to her pussy again, start lapping at her like a cat with a bowl of prime cream. It must be the nipple clips, for she goes crazy, thrashing from side to side, twisting and writhing so that it’s all I can do to keep my mouth on her, clasping her hips with my hands, trying to pin her down like an exotic butterfly.

  James’s hand slides down to my own pussy, his fingers working at my clit. Now she’s calmer, Celine is watching his actions, and it’s clear that seeing him do that is firing her up even more. She opens her mouth, wider and wider, and her eyes start rolling backwards; she’s clearly on the verge of coming. The knowledge brings me close to my personal precipice and my breath quickens. Sensing my body stiffen in readiness for climax, James, with his free hand, starts to tug at the string of pearls he fed into my arse. Unable to hold back, I go rigid in an almost unbearable orgasm heightened by the tugging motion of the little white beads, then I collapse down over Celine who is coming beneath me. As I do so, James slides his hand between us and gently and carefully removes the nipple clips.

  Celine and I lie in each other’s arms, panting, and it’s pure joy to feel her breasts and belly naked against mine. For a moment I’m convinced that I’m in heaven, that I’ve achieved pure bliss and that there’s nowhere to go from here. But I’m summoned from the delusion by James tapping me on the shoulder, and I look back at him and he’s smiling at me and I know that I’m just gathering strength, that I want to go on.

  He shows me something translucent with a fluid tapered end and a bulbed handle at the other. He’s about to hand it to me, when he seems to think again and brings it between my legs, then runs it along my lips where they’re still wet with my come juices. When it’s thoroughly lubed, he passes it to me and lies back on the bed, looking up at me. There’s the old trust in his eyes, the invitation to enjoy and discover. James is taking, asking for his pleasure now, but in a generous way, a way that lets me know I am about to learn something.

  His legs are open, his cock like a rod, or an arrow pointing heavenwards. I grip it in my fist and keep a firm hold as I insert the glass toy into his arse, incredibly slowly, millimetre by millimetre, searching his face for signs that it might be hurting more than it should, causing damage. But James is relaxed, smiling, his eyes rolled back in his head beatifically. I carry on.

  Beside me Celine stirs from her post-coital languor. Rolling onto one side, she sees what I’m doing to James and lets out a little ‘Mmmmm’ of approval, her hand creeping back down between her legs to play with her swollen lips. In turn, seeing her do that, James reaches one arm out to the side, around her hip, and pulls her in towards him. Following his cue, she raises one knee and straddles him, then brings her pussy down to his face.

  I go down on James now, slurping at his cock still tasting of rich, unctuous honey. With my hand I ease the plug back and forth in his arse. I know the male G-spot is in here somewhere, the prostate, and that when he comes what I’m doing will add another layer of sensation to his orgasm. The trick is to establish a rhythm that I can maintain both with my mouth and my hand. After a few minutes, I have it. I look up, satisfied, to find I have a delicious view of Celine’s gorgeous pink rosebud where she’s pushing herself forwards onto James’s mouth. I lift my free hand and push in one finger, so slowly, so gently. She moans loudly, and within seconds she’s coming again.

  Unable to contain himself, James starts thrusting into my mouth, and I increase the speed of the plug’s movements, and the depth it reaches, trying to match his tempo. He cries out too now, and as Celine falls forwards over him, spent, he starts coming and coming, and I pull out the plug, cleanly. Torrents of him shoot forth into my mouth, so that I’m almost gagging in the effort to take it all in.

  We all fall apart, collapsing back onto the bed and back into our separate realities. For a moment, the blink of an eye, that was something almost holy, a communion of both bodies and minds, taking us onto a spiritual plane. It’s something I always expected of sex, I suppose, but never really approached until now. Certainly I never got anywhere near it with Nate.

  But it’s gone, evaporated, and I’m left with a warm, tingly feeling between my legs where the numbness of my orgasm has died away. For a while, we doze on the bed, exhausted in some primal way, sharing warmth as cave-dwellers must have.

  I’m the first to wake. My pussy is still warm and tingling. I bring my hand down to it, somewhat half-heartedly, knowing that a quick wank won’t keep me satisfied for long and is only an expedient, a temporary measure. As if my very action has stirred him, however, James has pushed himself up from the bed and is leaning over me. Removing my hand, he replaces it with his own, running two fingers up and down my slit, until I’m creaming for him. Celine, too, has now been roused from her stupor and is sitting up rummaging in Anne’s box, her magician’s inventory. A minute later she’s crawling back over the bed to me, a strap-on looped around her slim hips.

/>   Seeing her, James pulls me up onto all fours and slinks beneath me. Looking up he smiles at me, winks reassuringly. I smile back. I’m loving every minute of this adventure that we’ve embarked on together, the places he and Celine are taking me to: uncharted lands from which I’ll return forever changed. Unless I decide to stay there, that is – take up permanent residence.

  James holds up his cock, grazes my pussy lips with its swollen, questing end. I feel Celine’s hand in the small of my back, gently but insistently easing me down. I lower my hips, slotting the moist aperture of my pussy down over him. He pushes to meet me, and for a moment we’re still. Celine’s hand is on my buttock now, steadying her. Then the tip of the dildo, dripping with lube, kisses my sphincter. I hold my breath and Celine enters me from behind.

  There are a few seconds when nobody moves, and we seem to be hanging in the air, a still life worthy of Anne’s wall of erotic paintings. Then James begins to move up and down, oh-so gently, and when she’s had time to assess his movements, Celine sets herself in motion, reaching round me now to let her fingers flutter at my clit.

  I struggle to remain in the moment. Paradoxically, it seems that it’s when the physical sensations are at their height that I begin to feel most estranged from my corporality, as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. It’s as if I’m being lifted, rising, taken out of my skin, becoming light and untethered from the Earth. It feels like freedom.

  The combined movements in my back passage and my pussy, the rubbing at my inner walls, begins to have its effect. James, who must be able to feel the dildo through my inner walls, sounds as if he is losing control. I open my eyes and look down at him, and his face bears an expression of utter bliss. He’s miles away too. His anchor has worked its way loose and he’s bound for distant shores.