by Alyssa Clark
This had to be the best damn wet dream I’d ever had. Had I ever had a wet dream? I couldn’t readily recall.
“Michael.” My insides clenched like my body was expecting something just from saying his name. Like I’d gone Pavlov’s dog in a matter of minutes. If only I could just be drooling.
“Good girl.” He sat up, and I felt a sharp slap on my hip. It was hard enough to sting.
Did that mean I wasn’t dreaming if it hurt?
I watched as Michael got up and I was treated to the view of his bare ass, the skin a shade lighter than the rest of him. His tan lines were such an odd thing to notice.
“Somebody’ll be in to untie you and clean you up.” I was spared another look at those startling gray eyes. “Until next time Charlie.” He blew me a kiss then turned to leave me tied up in the bed.
He left me alone, tied up on the bed. This definitely wasn’t a dream.
3
I was rocked. Floored. So drunk on what he had done to me that I hadn’t really considered what it meant when he walked out the door. That was until I realized that I had no way of getting out of the position I was in thanks to the rope that held me tight.
That’s when panic set in.
I might've been hyperventilating when the door opened again, I didn’t hear it. Instead, I just heard the choked gasps for breath I was making and the thundering noise of my heartbeat.
He left me here. After all that, I was stuck here with no way out. Liz wouldn’t even know where I was or what happened. There’s no telling what else could happen from here. How could I be so fucking stupid?!
“Hey, hey.” A familiar voice cut through the panic, and I felt a hand combing through my hair, tugging it away from my face. It wasn’t Michael, it was the guy that I tied me up in the first place. “Calm down there, girl.” I could see weathered blue eyes filled with worry. “I’m here to get you out of this, it’s okay.” There was a sharp tug. “Put your legs down and focus on breathing. Don’t pass out on me.”
My feet hit the concrete with an audible thud, and I tried my best to focus on just breathing as I felt the rope around me loosen. The restriction on my chest loosened with the binding.
“Are you asthmatic?" he asked.
I shook my head, and I felt something cold on my hands and lower back. I glanced back at him, worrying that he might be taking advantage of me now, too.
Only he was still fully dressed, and there was a wet wipe in his hand. “Just cleaning you up, doll.” He tossed it into a little trash can. “Gotta get you back to rights, okay? Do you want to clean yourself up?”
“I want to be untied,” I said as my voice quaked.
“I got you.” He sounded so reassuring. I felt the cool cloth between my legs, and I tensed. That’s when I realized I hadn’t told him specifics. This place must only work on the specifics. Fear and insecurities didn’t really have much room here.
That meant I didn’t have room here.
While there was definite enjoyment from the sexual experience, even after the crippling fear of being stuck in such a vulnerable position, I could see this wasn’t something for me. While Michael had demanded that I come back and ask for him, that was something I most definitely wouldn’t be doing.
The rope around my hands loosened, and then he tugged me up to my feet, before pulling the elaborate design he had fitted around me away. I could see the appreciation on his expression as he did it and I wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at. “You sure are pretty tied up, darlin’.” His eyes met mine, and I couldn’t interpret what I was seeing. “You come back, and I’ll definitely be looking to tie you up again.”
I nodded numbly, “I just want to get dressed now.”
He frowned, looking disappointed by my reaction. He helped me get dressed, and I felt weird that he went the extra steps to even close the clasp on my sandals. I was uneasy about the way he watched me, even as he walked me out of the room.
Could he see how I felt? Or had he figured out I didn’t belong?
I couldn’t wait to find out, I couldn’t stick around for awkward conversation. So, I tried my best to walk out of the club with my head held high. I tried not to look like I’d just had my brain literally fucked out. But when I hit the night air, I knew my senses were skewed.
I’d forgotten all about Liz.
I couldn’t bring myself to go back in and wait her out. Instead, I called up an Uber and had him take me home.
I needed to deal with my own reaction to all of this before I could ever face Liz.
4
I spent the rest of my weekend holed up in my apartment. I didn’t originally have any plans to go anywhere, but now I made damn sure no one would try to pressure me out of my little protective introvert shell.
I kept my phone off and my apartment dark, making it look like I wasn’t home.
I don’t know what happened to Liz. Right now, as selfish as it was, I didn’t really care. I was stuck trying to process what she had gotten me into.
I’d enjoyed it. Very much so, there was no way I could deny it.
I’d never come like with my own hand or the only other time I’d had sex. I didn’t enjoy being tied up, but when he had his mouth on me, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There was no recreating any of the feelings that I had induced in me Friday night.
could go back and experience it again. After all, Liz had paid for a full month of membership. There was no reason for me to stay at home if I could readily have someone do this for me. I just didn’t know that I could face what else could go on behind those closed doors.
So, I decided to stay home for as long as I could until Monday knocked on my door and told me that work was a necessity. Bills did not pay themselves and didn’t understand inner crises. I highly doubted that Simon would allow me a personal day for them.
“This is a competitive field, Ms. Atkins,” I remembered him saying to me the last time the flu tried to murder me. “Every day you aren’t here pulling your workload is every day you're losing your usefulness. Can you afford that?” While it didn’t make me go to work with the flu, it did make me mindful of just how many days of work I missed.
This wasn’t something that I was willing to call in for and stand the chance of becoming unemployed. Then homeless.
I doubted a man with a talented mouth would be so willing for me to ask for him if he knew I was living under a bridge. Not that I was going to go back to the club. Even if I liked to fantasize about doing that and seeing all of him without the damn blindfold, I wasn’t going to.
I went to work the same way I usually did. I wound my way to my cubicle and found my safe haven away from home without running into Liz or being pinned in a corner by any of my overly chatty coworkers. None of them would know what I did this past weekend, and none of them could judge me for it.
Anonymous sex with a stranger wasn’t my thing, I’d been forced into. It didn’t make me any less of a person. No one would know what happened.
“Where the hell have you been?” I heard the clacking of her heels and her angry voice before I could see her.
I also saw my neighbors stand up and look over their cubicle walls to see who it was hollering. I just tried to feign innocence. She wasn't yelling at me. She wasn't going to make a scene at work, she knew better than to make me the center of attention. She knows I hate it, and she wouldn't get anything out of me.
“Charlotte Atkins you cannot ignore me.” Liz’s shadow fell over the little doorway that led into my cube. There was no hiding now, not with the way she called my name. “I’ve been trying to call you all weekend.”
How should I react? I wasn’t good with confrontations. Maybe that was how I got strong-armed into one of the rooms.
I swallowed hard and turned to see her flustered face, strangely enough, she didn’t look angry. Instead, she looked worried. “Are you okay?”
I didn’t expect to see the concern on her face. Her eyebrows were drawn down, and she stepped closer to me, goi
ng as far as to kneel like she did the first time when she begged me to agree to all of this. “Why did you leave me there?”
“Because I needed to leave,” I snapped back at her. “And I am not having this conversation with you here after you’ve gotten everyone’s attention.”
She looked surprised when I spared her a glance. Like she didn’t expect my reaction to her coming down the main hallway hollering for all of the office to hear. They were all going to know what happened, what I did. I damn near choked on my breath at the thought of their judgments.
I couldn’t handle that.
“You’re mad at me,” she stated the obvious and I decided I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to be guilted in giving her forgiveness. She had talked me into doing all of this if she would have just let it be when I first said no I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling like this.
And I would have never got the opportunity to feel all that Michael had made me feel.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice twisted with emotion, and it was an effort to not look at her. This was manipulation, I knew it. I wasn’t dumb. The fact that she felt like she had to do it made me question what I was to her. “I was so worried when I couldn’t find you in the club I freaked out.” I didn’t know if that was the truth or not. “What happened?”
“I have work to do,” I said uneasily because I could feel myself needing to give in. “I don’t want to talk about this here.”
“But we’ll talk, right?” she sounded so unsure when she asked it.
It pierced me. With all her faults, Liz still managed to be an okay friend. Even when she twisted my arm and made me go places I didn't want to. At the end of the night, she always made sure I ended up home safely. She watched my back while we were at the club.
Except for Friday night.
“Later,” I gave her one last fleeting glance, “after work.”
I just hoped me giving in this time wasn’t going to be something I’d regret. I didn’t want her judging me, too.
5
I thought that dismissing Liz so I could do some actual work would make my day a little easier. But, she was persistent, and I should’ve known that. She wasn’t going to just let me write her off or ignore her. When it came time for lunch, she damn near jumped me. “I’m buying, and we are talking.”
I guess a weekend was all I was going to get to be angry with her. I let her drag me along, especially since she was fine with the idea of buying. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that she took me my favorite restaurant, but I had to point out that we didn’t have time for what she wanted. “We only have an hour.”
“I’ll call Tom and Simon.” She waved it off like it wasn’t a big deal. “I’ll call it research and Simon can just suck it.”
“If I get fired…” I glared at her in warning.
“Are you kidding? Simon’s not going to be stupid. You work too fast, and you’re not expendable,” she said as the hostess took us to a table. “Simon just likes to throw his dick around and make it appear like everyone has one foot out the door. If he was really able to fire editing, then we’d be stuck with freelancers, and they’re not as reliable.”
That’s what she said, and while I wasn’t going to argue with her, I wasn’t going to put all my faith in that idea. I’d only been working there for a year. That wasn’t enough time to think I was safe and with the way that web pages went it was only a matter of time before we lost our small following and sponsors that kept us running.
We weren’t Buzzfeed by any means.
We sat down, and I found my menu interesting, I wasn’t going to offer her up anything. I didn’t know that I wanted to talk. I was more than willing to forget that it ever happened and just go on with my life.
It was a great, terrifying night.
Liz seemed to be content to just eye the menu, too. I’m guessing she hadn’t figured out a method of attack. Good, I had time to figure out how I was going to dodge it.
Just had to figure out how to dodge verbal attacks.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” She asked nonchalantly.
“Nope.” That seemed easy enough.
“I’m assuming you went into one of the rooms.” I could feel her eyes on me, prying away the haphazard shield I had tried to create over the weekend. “Did you?”
I put the menu down because this was my favorite place and I knew what I wanted without even looking at it. I was a creature of habit, and that was part of the reason why she brought me here. She brought me here to get me into my comfort zone so she could force me out of it.
“I waited for you at the bar like I usually do,” I started weakly. I opened my mouth to continue my story, but nothing came out. I floundered as I looked at my friend and I couldn’t figure out how to put what happened into words.
With as much as she used me I could see understanding in her gaze. She knew because she had gone into a room, too. There wasn’t anything demeaning in her brown eyes. If anything, she wanted to understand why I had reacted the way that I did. Right now I was a puzzle to be solved, and Liz had a journalism degree, reporting on a website over minimal things like makeup and viral trends wasn’t what drove her. Secrets did.
“Did you like it?” Her voice was a low whisper, But I didn’t think it was because this was a private conversation. It was more like it was a secret that she was in on and had no desire to share with anyone else.
“I can’t believe,” my breath caught, “I let it happen.”
Her face twitched minutely before she set down her menu and seemed to use it to gather her thoughts. “We went there for it to happen.” Her voice was still low. “That was the whole purpose of the excursion.” She sounded so serious.
“I didn’t want to go into a room,” I admitted.
“But you did?” She looked confused. “Why?”
I shook my head, and the waitress came up to take our orders. She was polite and to the point. There was no point in flirting with two women, that much was obvious. Liz didn’t even give her a second look as she rattled off her order then went on to advise the waitress that we were on one ticket. We both seemed to be striving for something normal, something that wasn’t two women having a conversation about a visit to a sex club.
“So,” as soon as we were alone again she started the conversation back up, “did you at least enjoy it?” She seemed uneasy as she spoke. “If you want to go back, I’m all for it. I don’t know how long I can float you on the monthly membership fee, but I know I’ve got at least two more months I can do it for the both of us.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I want to do at all.”
She looked surprised. “Why not?”
It felt ridiculous to point this out to her, but I guess it needed to be done. “This isn’t me,” I said slowly so there’d be no confusion. “This isn’t something I would do.”
She frowned at me now and leaned against the tabletop, seemingly no longer concerned about the fact that we were in a public place during lunch. It was busy. “It’s not a matter of what you would do, it shouldn't be able what’s holding you back. This is all anonymous. There’s nothing about who you are in it, it's just about feeling good.” While her voice didn’t rise to an embarrassing level, she was speaking at normal volume.
I just couldn’t help but look around to make sure she didn’t get other people’s attention. I didn’t want anyone listening in on our conversation. “What about writing an article on it? Are you seriously not going to take advantage of it and write up your experience? Have other experiences? Dabble in some damn good sex?” She just kept talking like none of it was a big deal, and I could feel the heat eating up my face.
“Just stop,” I snapped finally. “None of that is stuff I can do.” I heaved a breath and sat back in my chair. “I’m not you.”
“You don’t have to be me,” she snapped back at me. “This isn’t about personality flaws at all. This is about physical needs that you can easily have taken care of by someone
that’s not going to judge you because they’re there for the same thing. Plus,” she waved a hand as if she could whisk away my anxieties like they were nothing, “this is the key to you standing out and making bigger bank at work.”
I find myself floundering again, which was good because our food arrived and I wasn't keen on anything being gleaned from our talks by bystanders. But, I was so thrown off that I didn’t even get the chance to eat.
I could use this, the past experience for what it was. Then instead of experiencing it again, I could use Liz. It would be so much easier if I just took reports from her, especially since it seemed like she is all too eager to continue her membership.