Her limpid, chocolate brown eyes glared into mine, and when she placed the tip of the steel just between my balls, I gasped. It sounded like a cry. A girly, helpless cry, and I fucking hated it.
A quick expulsion of air came through her nostrils. I couldn't tell if it was amusement, or shame, or both.
She drew the knife tip against my scrotum. It wasn’t cutting me. If anything, it was more like a single, long fingernail tracing its way up my flesh, up my cock, and lingering below my belly button.
I looked down, almost hyperventilating by now, my head growing lighter as I inhaled too quickly and exhaled too much. I was still so hard. So very very hard and I just wanted her to –
“Maddy! Eyes up here,” she said. And then she actually fucking cut me.
It was only a prick, no more than a shaving nick, but it stung, and I kept my eyes exactly where she wanted. On hers. In hers.
“There ya go,” her voice cooed as she kept the blade upon me. I felt it climb across my stomach. To my chest, and I heard that mad giggle again. The tip of the boa was just beneath my nipple, and she was chortling to herself. “I never understood why men have these,” she chuckled. “Some kind of vestigial fixture. A leftover from evolution gone wrong. Want to keep them, Maddy?”
I nodded.
“Hmm…Okay. For now.”
I almost sighed, a small bullet dodged there, but then I caught a glimpse of her knife with a small smear of my blood etched on the surface. It rested in the gap of my sternum, then found its way to my Adam’s apple. Now I couldn't even swallow, and the saliva coating my mouth was becoming a pond of spit.
“This is going to be so fun. Maybe the best vacation I ever had.” Sofia shook her head, quite entertained with herself and whatever she was plotting. And then, something with satiny softness brushed against my cock. Something like a feather.
“Does it feel good?”
I managed to look down and catch just the smallest of glimpses. It was a feather. Long, and white, and she drew it down the length of my swollen cock, back up to my abdomen, then back down again. Tickling me.
I wanted to squeeze my eyes together and never open them again. Hurting so good, like the old song, and the polarizing contrast was too much to take. I couldn't take this. The bloodied knife on my throat, her silky feather on my cock, my skin prickling with gooseflesh as my orgasm backed up behind my balls, begging to come out.
I was moaning, now, through that awful gag. The knife at my jawline, the end of her feather swirling my sensitive tip – it was moist now. It craved satisfaction, and I clenched my fists, digging my fingers into my palms, hearing that familiar jingle of the handcuffs that bound me. Me! They don't bind me. They don't, they don't…
My climax was coming. That eruption of gratification, pulsing and throbbing its way up and out of me, it was going to burst forth, blow me apart from the inside out and just as I stopped breathing, seconds away from ejaculating into the next stratosphere, she stopped.
She. Just. Stopped.
Stopped everything.
The knife, the feather, all gone.
I ground my molars together, threw my head back against the tree, and screamed.
Chapter Eighteen
MADDOX
I wasn't lying to Martin when I told him I'd never once had a case of blue balls. Blue balls. Such an innocuous metaphor. Sounds like someone's suffering from nothing more than a case of sad testicles. Mine weren't sad.
They felt as though they were being compressed in a machinist's vice. My dick was feverish, and miserable. And as my erection ebbed, Sofia sat beside me, saying nothing. She watched in bookish fascination as I gasped for air, trying to regulate my breathing, as if she were studying a new, unexpected result in a laboratory. She sat crosslegged, her fingers steepled beneath her chin, resting her jaw on the edge of the knife.
Once I'd gone limp – both inside and out – she rose to her knees and I thought, fearfully, that she was going to do it again.
Maybe not, I tried to convince myself. Maybe she's had her fun, got her revenge, and now the party's over and she'll have to find something else to do.
Sure, but what sort of fun does she have in mind?
Not that I could ask her. I mean, I still had the stupid rag in my mouth. By this time my arms were completely numb, and my shoulders ached as much as my sad, blue balls.
The few sips of water she'd given me weren't nearly enough and I was thirsty again. Cotton mouth was slowly, but surely kidding me. Not to mention the fact that I was starving. My stomach groaned and griped and ground me teeth against nothing, but hoping nonetheless that the simple action would kill the hunger pains.
Sofia was sated, though, having had enjoyed a nice fish breakfast. How she got fish was anyone's guess. My brain was in a thick, soupy fog, and it came up with a theory that perhaps she'd salvaged pre-packaged stuff from the boat. But I didn't remember any fish dishes, other than the salmon I initially ate on the first night of our cruise. The salmon, I may add, which I was kind enough to share with her.
Which begged another question – when did she have time to salvage anything?
I didn't care anymore. I wanted to eat, to drink. I wanted to feel my arms again. I wanted my crotch to stop aching.
“Brings the term 'cock tease' to a whole new level, doesn't it?” she asked, buttoning up her shirt and straightening her hair.
My throat was scratchy, the gag was sponging up what saliva I had left, but I did manage a quiet, muffle, “Why?”
She tossed her head back and laughed. Shook her head, as if she'd never heard anything more stupid. As if she almost felt sorry for my ignorance. Like I was nothing more than a slow-witted puppy and I amused her.
“For me to know, and you to find out,” she winked. “Maybe.”
Sofia brushed the sand from her knees and then her hands, and went to tend to the fire she had started.
She tossed the blunt end of that primitive little spear of hers into the flames. It was the one I'd broken when I'd first wandered over here. If I'd known any better, I would have kept hold of that spear. Hindsight, as they say.
Taking a small notebook from the Insatiable's survival bag, she took a seat beneath the little shelter she'd fashioned, and began to write. Once in a while she would glance over to me, think of something, and jot it down.
As the afternoon waned, I could only hazard to guess what she was so engrossed with. And with every hour that passed, the trunk of the tree was becoming even more wickedly uncomfortable. I tried to adjust myself, find a position that would be more bearable, but only succeeding in taking a few layers of flesh from my shoulder blades.
How long was this going to go the fuck on?
What made her think she was going to get away with it, anyway?
And who for the ever-loving love of shit is she?
Sofia shut her notebook, tucked the pencil inside, and took what looked like a sewing kit from the bag. No, not a sewing kit. It had a hook on the end of the thread – an emergency angler's utility.
She knew how to fish? And build a fire. Construct a decent shelter like a god damn boy scout. What a bitch.
The Bitch Scouts.
And Sofia was the leader of the troop.
“Hey, so I'm going to go get some dinner, honey. You need anything?”
I glared at her.
“Alright. Be good,” she sang, and made her way down to the water.
She traipsed down to the surf, and waded in to just above her ankles, shielded her eyes from the sun, and headed toward a little outcropping of rocks. Something, perhaps, like a tide pool.
She attached one end of her line to a small boulder, eased the other end into the pool, and sat down on the outcrop to wait.
The breeze coming off the water blew her hair back, and the way she was sitting – her hands clasped about her knees – made her look like an image from a post card. Or the model of a sports magazine, because no one sent post cards anymore.
Wish you were here, I thou
ght. Having a great time. Weather's wonderful. Say 'hi' to everybody at home. Aloha.
The fog around my mind began to thicken. My eyes stung from the salty air and if I were going to write a postcard, who would I send it to?
I couldn't think of anyone.
Sofia turned to check on me, presumably. She was wearing a garland of lovely island flowers around her neck. Her skirt was made of grass, and she had an anklet made of tiny white orchids that contrasted beautifully against her brown skin. Another was pinned in her hair.
She got to her feet, her dainty bare feet, and began to do the hula. Her hips swayed, her hands snaked to her sides, then to the front, one hand stroked her hip as the other went to her lips. She brought her arms to her chest, cradling and rocking an invisible infant. Rinse and repeat. The island dance move for “love”.
I shook my head. I did not have time for hallucinations. The sudden motion hurt like a motherfucker, and I could actually feel my brain slapping from one side of my skull to the other.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the fluids in my cranium to stop sloshing around. Opened them. Saw Sofia still sitting on the rock, still waiting for a fish. She wasn’t decked out in Hawaiian wardrobe, but she was still looking straight at me. Making sure I was where she'd put me, no doubt.
As if I could go anywhere, Sofee. But I will. I'll get out of this, and even if I don't, there will be people coming by soon. They'll find us. It won't be long, now. This kind of shit doesn't happen. Even if it does, it doesn't happen for long.
Something bit the end of her line. She stood up, quickly, and pulled up a decent sized bass.
How the fuck does she do that? I went deep sea fishing once. Just once, and all I could catch was what they called a 'rock fish'. Meaning all my hook snagged were the rocks on the bottom of the ocean. Hah-hah. Josh, on the other hand, came away with a virtual fucking school of haddock, and when he'd held them up for the photographer, it looked as though he was raising one of his trophies.
Such a one-upper. The little shit. I missed him. How long had he been gone? Jesus Christ, could it be ten years now? Over ten years? And what would he say if he could see me now? Something smart-alecky and wise ass, and I'd deserve it. I was a bad brother. I never really cried after he died. Not even at the funeral. I was too pissed off at him. Because suicide was for losers and he wasn’t supposed to be a loser. But more importantly, he wasn’t supposed to leave me alone. I know, it sounds selfish, but that was the fucking truth of it. He left me to deal with a life that loved and hated me in equal measure.
Neither of my parents wanted much to do with me after that. There were the usual holiday obligations, an acknowledged birthday, but nothing much else to speak of. It would be easy for me to conclude that they wished I was the one with the short time span on the headstone. And I'd be right. I was always right.
“You hungry, Maddy?” Sofia called out, showing me her bass.
Thirsty, too, but you already know that. You just don’t give a damn.
She laid the fish out on a flat stone, took up her knife, then for some reason, changed her mind.
Holding up her index finger as if she were just met by a brilliant idea, she removed my shaving kit from the duffel. Took out my razor. And proceeded to scale a fish with my four hundred dollar Fendrihan.
That's a custom blade from Neiman Marcus, I thought, because I was going batty. Who could blame me? Going on twenty four hours of immobilized captivity, there wasn’t really anything else to be expected.
There was a guy in our office, I couldn't remember his name, but he was a veteran. Afghanistan, or Kuwait, someplace like that, and he'd been taken captive for a couple months.
Alan. Alan Forsthye. Big black guy, worked in sales, was a Sergeant First Class, and I think he got a purple heart award back in the day. Great. Forsthye, I could remember. My brain wasn’t as fried as it felt.
Sofia scraped the scales from the fish like a professional chef, covered it with a palm fawn, and wiped her hands. She stood up, stretched her back, and cast her eyes in my direction. Everything inside of me stirred. Irritation, fear, anger, I felt it all, swirling in a pond of vengeance. One way or the other, I was going to get it. And little Sofia wouldn’t know what hit her when I got the upper hand back.
She took two bottles of water from her stash, stuck the straw in one, and carried them over to me. Leaning in, she pulled the gag down, and stuck the end of the tube between my lips.
I drank, the cool delicious moisture coating my throat in merciful relief. I sipped slowly, wanting to savor it. It wasn't much, but what I did have helped alleviate a small portion of the fog.
She set the water aside, gave me a quick look up and down. Contemplating something. Her left eye twitched, just slightly.
Maybe… maybe I could try reasoning with her. Nuts or not, perhaps I could find a sympathy I could play on.
I cleared my throat. No need to try to sound pathetic – my current physical state would help me achieve that all on its own.
“Hey, Sofia…?” I asked, my voice cracking a little. “Could you… unlock me? I can't feel my arms.”
That was the funniest thing she had ever heard, apparently. She laughed, gutturally, unscrewed the cap of her water bottle, and took a long draw. Her eyes sparkled.
“You either have a very stupid sense of humor, or you're just very stupid,” she said. “I think it may be both. No, wait. Scratch that. I know it's both.”
“You want me to apologize? I will. I'm sorry, okay?”
“Oh, that was sincere,” she let out a bitter chuckle. Then a dark, terrible expression crossed her face. It was sort of frightening, to be honest. “What do you think you should be sorry about?”
It was a trick question. The way she looked – her intense, base hatred behind those beautiful brown eyes – I needed to be extremely cautious here.
“The way… the way I treated you. I had no right to do that. But, you'd pulled a gun on me, you know? So I was… confused.”
She pursed her lips to the side, and threw the rest of her water in my face.
“You're such a fuck, Petersen. A pathetic, asshole of a fuck. You call that an apology? Huh? You don't say you're sorry for something, then throw a 'but' in so you can blame your actions on another person. Jesus Christ,” she admonished, and stormed over to the fire. “God, what a tool,” she muttered to herself, and took the fawn off her fish, stabbed it with a stick, and held it over the flames.
“I didn't know there was a right or wrong answer.”
“You don't know a lot of things.”
“Well, how 'bout you tell me?”
“Well, how 'bout you shut the fuck up?” She stared at her fish, its skin beginning to crackle, the meat inside beginning to cook.
It smelled so good, my stomach literally roared with hunger. She must have heard it, from all the way over there because she glared at me, her lower jaw moving back and forth as she ground her teeth. She looked as though she wanted to take the stick from the bass's gut and run it through mine. You know what it was? Murderous.
Don't get me wrong. I've seen that expression on a lot of women's faces. I was quite, quite familiar with it. I'd scorned more than my share of females. I was an alpha male just running my way through the sex pack for years. But Sofia's face? Leagues above hatred, levels over detest. And as she crouched beside the fire, roasting a fish over an open flame, the muscles in her bronze, toned legs strained to perfection, something stirred within me.
At the time, I didn't know what it was.
She took the fish from the fire, and slid it onto the leaf. Cut it in half, lengthwise, and pulled its bones away in one, swift motion.
“You're good at that,” I said.
I didn't expect her to say 'thank you'.
“Did you go to culinary school? Is that what you are? A chef?”
Sofia sat down, adjusted her share of the bass on the leaf, and began to eat. She ate while she watched me. As if I were a television special.
&n
bsp; My stomach rolled again, wanting to be fed. Needing nourishment more than it had ever needed a damn thing. I'd thought for a moment she would bring me the other half, but the more she ate, the less I believed I was going to have dinner tonight.
I leaned my head against the tree and stared up at the sky. Stars were beginning to dot it.
“Okay. You asked me what I think I should be sorry about. Obviously, I don't know what it is you want to hear. I'm wracking my brain, Sofee, and I've got to admit, I can't come up with a thing,” I said, taking my gaze away from the heavens, and putting it back on her. “Does that make me a shitty person?”
“Everything about you makes you a shitty person.” She licked her finger then took up the other half of the fish and her knife.
My heart thudded in a quick double time. What was she going to do this time? Threaten to cut off my dick again? Or stop screwing around and turn me into a Unich right here and now?
Sofia shuffled over to me, on her knees, and tucked her feet beneath her legs.
“Want this?” she asked, slicing a bit of meat away and holding it out in front of me.
I could have started drooling. Hoped I wouldn't as I opened my mouth. It could have been a fatal mistake, now that I think about it. There was no telling what the hell she was going to do with the boa. But I couldn't stop myself. I was ravenous.
“Say the magic word, Maddy.”
The white flesh on the tip of the knife was juicy, and dripped down the serrated edge of the blade. She may have been fantasizing about shoving it all the way down my throat and slitting my face open from the inside out. Much like she'd done with the bass.
“Please?” I could not recall the last time I'd said that.
Sofia put the meat on my tongue, and let her knife linger there for a moment. My tongue could come away forked, if she so desired. She knew it, I knew it.
She pulled the blade away, and watched as I chewed the piece she'd offered. Slowly at first. It was flaky and warm and the best thing I'd ever tasted.
She sliced off another portion, then another, and I ate them all with a savage fervor. I could feel my strength return with every morsel.
Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance Page 15