Deep Desires

by Stein, Charlotte

  I can hardly bear to tear into the thing, it’s that perfect. The paper’s so thick, so glossy, it’s actually nicer than most of the gifts I’ve ever received. It would be a shame to ruin it with rabid fumbling by my mailbox, as Mrs Hindleman from apartment 7F looks on.

  So I take the gift upstairs. I sit on my bed and place it in my lap, for further inspection, though no amount of analysis will reveal his error. He hasn’t made one. I have to somehow inch into this thing, with great and deliberate care.

  Of course that only makes the anticipation greater. I can feel my eagerness clutching at my throat by the time I’ve tenderly undone the wrapping, and when I see the carved wooden box beneath my breath chokes off entirely.

  He’s made this box, I think. He’s whittled it out of some dense, dark wood, for reasons I can’t fathom. I just know they’re there, these reasons, I know he’s done this. I can tell by the way the box feels and looks, and, most of all, by how hard it is to get into.

  He’s made a puzzle box, seemingly equal on all sides, with no clear hinges or seams. It’s just one endless whorl and curve carved into wood, as beautiful as anything I’ve seen. As disturbing, too. It’s almost too intricate, I think, like a painting by that guy with the staircases – full of hidden thorns and secret upside-down passageways. If I touch the wrong thing, I’ll be drawn into the labyrinth that lives at the centre of the underworld, and never escape.

  Which is a silly thing to think by the light of Wheel of Fortune, blaring silently from my TV. But it lingers all the same, as I turn the box over and over, searching. There’s got to be a way in, after all. He hasn’t just carved me a block of wood, I’m sure – though in some ways it’s still a surprise, when I find the key.

  A little shock goes through me the moment I push against the body of a bird, wrapped all around in vines and leaves, and something that wasn’t there before springs open. A little drawer, I think it is, but of course I don’t dare look for the longest time. I glance up at Wheel of Fortune instead, and watch the colours whirl around.

  And then when it seems like I care the least, when I’m barely paying attention, I slide the drawer out. I look inside the box he made for me, and find what’s going to happen next in this brand-new life I’ve found myself in.

  I’m going to wear a piece of jewellery, it seems. One he’s made for me, as lovely as the box in its own way, but with a far different intent. The box is a beautiful puzzle, waiting for me to dare to open it. The gift inside is easy to read, immediately. I’ve seen similar things in dirty movies, though none quite as pretty as this. This is a work of art, really, as is the note he’s printed on a piece of perfect cream card inside.

  Wear it for me, the note says, though it’s not the words I’m interested in. The words are a command, of the type men have given me all my life. But the question mark on the end … the question mark is the thing I’m drawn to. I trace it with my fingers, that curve as compelling as the wood he’s worked into such lovely shapes.

  You can if you want to, that question mark says. But not if you don’t. And of course I already know what happens when I don’t – he doesn’t take all my privileges away from me. He won’t hold my head under water until I pass out. It’s not an ultimatum.

  It’s just a choice.

  Yes, or no?

  * * *

  His gift takes some getting used to. It’s easy enough to wear and fits me perfectly, as though that hand he ran over me through the glass was actually measuring the size of my hips. He made the gossamer strands with them in mind, and everything else followed: the trickling, teasing length of silver that slides between the cheeks of my arse and holds the base of the contraption tight to me. The V at the front that’s almost like a pair of panties, until you get to the smooth rounded shape that now nestles between the lips of my pussy.

  It’s barely conspicuous when I look at myself in the mirror; I can’t imagine what purpose it serves for my dark voyeur. But, oh boy, can I feel it. I can feel it when I walk and when I’m lying down. I can feel it as I sit behind my till at the Minimart, serving oblivious customers – that smooth plastic shape sliding over my clit at the oddest and most inconvenient times.

  But most of all I can feel it after I’ve seen him in the hallway, as composed and indifferent as he always seems in person. He could be carved in marble, as I walk past his implacable back. We could be total strangers who’ve never shared so much as a glance.

  And then just as I’m at the height of this disappointment, just as I’ve convinced myself, again, that he doesn’t care for me at all, a bolt of electric pleasure shoots from that little sliver of plastic, all the way through my oversensitised clit and straight on down to the marrow of my bones.

  I think I go down to one knee. I definitely stumble, at any rate. I know this because while I’m floundering in sudden stunned pleasure, he comes right up to me. He comes right up to me and then he puts a hand on my elbow.

  And, as he does it, he says: ‘Are you all right, Miss Gough? Here, let me help you up.’

  As though I simply slipped.

  Oh, let me process that for a while. Let me drown in it. That little slip of plastic between my legs … it’s not just a covering that quaintly teases. It’s a toy. He’s built some kind of little buzzer into the thing, and when I least expected it – when he seemed at his most casual and uncaring – he purposefully activated it.

  And now he’s helping me up in front of Mrs Belvedere from 8G, as though I had a funny and entirely spontaneous turn. It had nothing to do with him. He’s an innocent passer-by, a good Samaritan.

  Oh, and also, he’s a genius.

  I can hardly take him being this close to me, though naturally he knew I would feel this way. It was obvious that I’d be overwhelmed by his toy and then again by the clean, clear scent of him, like a forest in winter. And he knew that I’d bristle at the feel of his hand on my arm, pressing in a way that’s somehow more intimate than that slippery plastic rubbing against my clit.

  Though that’s not really a surprise. Every part of my body is suddenly raw and exposed, a nerve ending he’s stripped of all covering. He could touch me anywhere and I’d shudder to feel it, and I think he knows this.

  Which is why he portions out his contact in increments, each one more exciting and certain than the last. A hand on my arm, a hand on my back – ever so light, as though he’s not doing this at all. And when he finally steps away, his faint touch leaves me just as he knew it would: aching for more, but thrilling with the thought of what’s to come.

  Someday he’ll actually kiss me, and I’ll turn to dust and blow away.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Belvedere,’ he says, but he doesn’t look at her as he talks. He looks at me, eyes blazing with that odd sultry heat, and then he tells me: ‘Abbie’s fine.’

  And it’s true. I am.

  Until he presses that damned buzzer again.

  This time the sensation goes through me hard enough to force my teeth to clack together, though I’m glad they do. It stops the sound I want to make from coming out of me in a big glut, and saves me from further embarrassment courtesy of Mrs Belvedere.

  She’s staring at me oddly as it is, and, when Ivan says to her that I might need a lie down, her expression doesn’t change. She’s just waiting for the Serial Killer to do something odd and perverted, with devices and implements and other lurid things.

  She doesn’t know he already has. He’s doing it right now as he guides me in the direction of the stairwell, that thing almost constantly humming against my clit. I’ve got absolutely no clue how he thinks I’m going to climb these steps with this hot pleasure washing through me, constantly, but he keeps going. He keeps urging me up the stairs. Pretty soon I’m going to orgasm, and then what?

  I could barely stay on my feet the other night in front of the window. I can’t keep putting one foot in front of the other like this, like nothing’s happened. I have to cling onto the banister; I have to nearly crawl. And all the while he’s walking be
hind me, pressing and pressing whatever sort of device he’s using to drive me insane.

  Which sounds weird enough on its own, until I realise how slow he must be walking to stay behind me. Like my dark and perverted shadow, just hovering at my edges.

  Waiting for me to crack, I think. Waiting for me to turn desperately and beg him to stop.

  Or maybe beg him for more. Because, dear God, I want to. I feel like I’ve been clinging to the outskirts of this pleasure forever, and, though I can climb the steps and keep myself steady and not give too many outward signs, inside I’m one long pulsing ache. My clit is close to throbbing, and I know without checking that my panties are soaked through.

  I’ve wet myself because of a piece of jewellery, I think, and the shame that follows is …

  Blissful.

  I walk slanted down my hallway, one hand occasionally searching for the wall, and I don’t care, I don’t care. I’m lost in the heat that’s engulfed my slippery pussy, and my usually so colourless face. I’m swaying down the tilted hallway in the labyrinthine box he made for me, drunk on desire and thick with sensation.

  Sometimes the little toy buzzes fiercely, and my whole body jolts, primed. And then, just as I’m sure I’m about to burst into orgasm, it backs off to a low background hum, in a way that’s far too practised. He knows what he’s doing, I think, as he follows me to my door.

  He’s teasing me, ruthlessly, to the point where I can’t even get my keys into the lock. I fumble with the bunch of them, fingers too frantic, mind reeling. He’s going to come in, I think. He’s going to follow me in and make me show him what I’m wearing, and afterwards he’s going to get me to do things to him while he teases me into oblivion.

  Like suck his cock, maybe, on my hands and knees.

  In fact, the image is so strong – me straining for that thick, swollen head, hands fumbling over his strong thighs – that I almost go over at the thought. My clit spasms once, twice, and that tightly wound pleasure unravels. Just imagining his hand on the back of my head is enough … him guiding me, urging me on, the smell of him, the taste of his come flooding my mouth …

  And then right in the middle of this delirious fantasy I make the fatal mistake of turning. Like Lot’s wife, I think. Like a fool who doesn’t know the rules of this game. Because, when I do, he’s gone. The hallway is completely empty.

  I don’t even know when he left.

  * * *

  It’s a test, I’m sure. A test of my resolve. He’s given me a challenge, and now I have to see if I can stick to it. If I can hold out for this thing between my legs, instead of what I want to do – oh God, I want to rip it away. I’ve never wanted to masturbate so much in my entire life. Usually it’s a stilted affair that I have to encourage and give permission for, maybe with a filthy movie or a smutty book. I can’t have it unless something’s persuaded me.

  But this is the opposite. It’s a denial, a restraint, and the moment said restraint is imposed I want to tear at it with my teeth. I don’t need persuading to touch myself. I need persuading not to.

  And he gives it to me. He gives, he gives, he gives, in a way I’ve never seen any man do. Sid would have bought me some underwear so he could look, and he could feel, but Ivan doesn’t even ask me to strip. He just stands at his window and holds up the little remote, and when I press my face against the glass in desperation he lets me have what I need.

  I feel it all the way over here, that sizzle against my oh-so-tender clit. And when I moan and press closer, when I writhe against the glass, he makes it go again and again and again.

  I come within seconds. I come so hard I call his name, and other lewd things besides – like yes and now and fuck me, oh please fuck me. But of course he can’t hear me. He can only see the disgusting things I’m doing, in place of all the things I want to say to him. I’ve got my fingers in my mouth as though they can somehow simulate his cock – in and out, as slow and steady as he’s probably touching himself right now.

  But when I open my eyes and dare to look, he isn’t. He hasn’t even taken his cock out, though I know how hard he is. I can see the thick and arousing shape he’s made beneath the material, and I try to focus on that as he eases me through my stuttering, pulsing orgasm.

  Just a hint of that hum, through the worst of it. And then a barely there ebb in the background, as I come to my senses. I’m not just fucking my own face with my fingers, I realise.

  I’m rubbing myself against the glass, while I imagine him behind me. I’ve spread my legs and almost put my hand between, all pretence at propriety gone. Sid always had me in jumpers and jeans, whenever we went out. He always made sure I was carefully kept for him alone, pristine and perfect beneath the shapeless coverings.

  But anyone could see me like this, and Ivan doesn’t seem to care. As long as I’m enjoying myself, I think, and it’s such a novel concept I could cry.

  In fact, I do cry, when I realise he’s not even halfway finished. Apparently one orgasm is not enough for him, and the buzz starts to cycle back up again. Slow at first, but then fiercer, more insistent, until I’m gasping again and completely outside my own boundaries. By the time I’m teetering on the edge of my second orgasm, I’m wondering what other filthy things I could get away with in front of the window.

  Would I dare to fill myself with something, fuck myself properly in full view of him? I think I would, if only to get the message across to him more clearly: I want to feel you inside me. I want you to hold my hips and fuck into me hard, with this same cool glass pressed against my cheek.

  I want everyone to know, I think, that I’m desperate to have you fuck me. And I don’t care who disapproves of my desire, so much stronger and stranger than I ever thought it could be. I thought I’d died inside, I’m certain.

  But as my clit swells against that maddening buzz, as my wetness runs down over my thighs and my back arches and I moan for him, oh God, I moan for him, I know I’m not dead at all. I’m alive, more alive than I’ve ever been, and it’s at least in part because of him.

  And I think he knows it. I think that’s what he’s aiming for, because, when I finally come around and gaze down at him through the glass, he doesn’t look obsessed with his own pleasure or ready to take his turn.

  His gaze is full of triumph, burning bright through that veil over his eyes.

  Triumph, simply because he made someone else feel this good.

  God, I want to tell him how weird and wonderful that really is.

  He’s done something impossible, my Serial Killer, my Russian. He’s made me want to go to him, even though I never thought I’d want to go to any man again. At night I still dream of Sid’s hand fisting in my hair, of blood in my mouth and the redbrick house. I think of my shoes in a row and the lines of forbidden dust on things, and it seems insane.

  But less so when he sends me another gift. Two gifts, when I’m used to none, and this one is a real doozy. It tells me everything I need to know, while simultaneously telling me nothing at all, and once I’ve finished with it this is how I feel:

  Like my feet want to march to where he is sleeping. Like I don’t care about keeping the glass between us, or the safe distance. The video tape strips all of that away, and leaves him as bare as I felt the other day.

  It’s labelled simply: surrender.

  And when I see that one word on the strip of white I go numb all over. I think of what it could mean: my surrender, I’m sure. It could be a simple and stark demand for my submission, and so I put the tape into the player with shaking hands. He’s going to ruin it now, I know.

  Or I do until the screen flickers to life.

  He looks even more handsome in this home movie than he does now. His hair is longer with a hint of curl, and the style gives his face a more tender feel. He’s not as honed, either, not as Patrick Bateman in his basement doing seven hundred crunches a day, which I suppose helps to unwind me. In fact, it more than helps to unwind me – by the time the tape is thirty seconds in, my heart is alrea
dy aching for him. I’ve clutched a hand to my chest, and I don’t even know why.

  He’s probably going to bring a girl out, now, I think. And he’ll make her crawl around on the floor like a dog. Then once he’s done he’ll look at the camera in this pointed sort of way, and I’ll know.

  That’s the way things are supposed to be.

  But that’s not what happens. Instead, a man comes up on him from behind – a big man, a burly man, the kind of man who makes my stomach roll – and gets a hold of him by the hair.

  He does it snake-quick and so roughly that I have to make a little sound. I can’t help it. I can see Ivan’s throat, beautifully curved and bared for the camera, as though the guy is going to put a razor to it.

  And when he doesn’t, I’m not relieved. My heart only rattles harder, higher, way up in my chest. It’s practically beating in my throat, because of course I know what’s coming next and, oh, I don’t think I can watch.

  What if he doesn’t want to surrender, I think, even though I understand that this idea is impossible. The camera is dead on, precisely and carefully set up to capture a million details: the bulge of the man’s massive tattooed arm, as he exerts some pressure. The gleam on both of their bodies. The slow close of Ivan’s eyes, as the tension leaks out of his body.

  This can’t be an accident, or some silent witness to an assault. He’s not even fighting this man, though I know he could if he wanted to. I can tell by the way he holds himself, muscles flexing so thickly beneath the skin.

  And yet he doesn’t use them. He barely struggles when the man forces him down over the table, that same table he sits in front of for me. He could have been doing this a year ago, when I first came here and didn’t know his face. Maybe this man – this greedy, lusty-eyed man – lived in the apartment above me, and this was their ritual.