Power Play

by Stein, Charlotte

  And then he just jerks forward against the desk, hard. So hard that I think I’ve hurt him, until he tells me all in one big breath: ‘Holy fuck that’s cold.’

  Of course it isn’t at all. It’s just that his flesh is practically on fire. I can feel it burning into my fingertips through the sheen of fifty pounds’ worth of lotion, and as I stroke over him that heat gets more obvious.

  As do the marks. They’ve almost made little ridges on his soft skin, and after a while I’m no longer thinking about what I’m doing. I’m not thinking of the fundamental filthiness of coating a man’s bare ass in something slippery. I’m just thinking about the length and width and weird ruffled feel of each one of these stripes, nearly rubbing over all of them.

  Until I just ever so slightly veer off course …

  ‘Oh, wow – OK. OK. Are you really going to do that?’

  He’s practically up on tiptoe. I think it’s safe to say I’m already doing ‘that’.

  ‘I don’t know, Ben. What does it seem like I’m doing?’

  ‘It seems like you’re rubbing your slippery fingers over my asshole,’ he says, and despite knowing he’s typically open and honest about everything, the words still jolt me. I still have to squeeze my thighs together around the sudden and startling ache that pulses through my sex the second he jerks the words out.

  ‘You want me to stop?’ I ask, but of course I know the answer. He’s practically rutting back against the press of my fingers, that deep groove between his cheeks getting slicker and slicker. And when I just rub ever so lightly over the tight knot of his arsehole, he makes a lot of words that are not words at all.

  ‘I tell you what, Benjamin,’ I say, because really it’s obvious he’s never going to refuse. I think he’s forgotten what the word means. ‘If you want me to stop, you don’t have to use the word no. You can just say something else instead.’

  ‘Oh God, like a safe word?’ he moans, though I’ve no idea what’s exciting him more – the feel of my fingertip, stroking in slow circles over his still tightly clenched arsehole, or the fact that we’ve gotten so far and so deep into this that we actually need devices, frameworks, promises.

  ‘I suppose you could call it that, if you want to.’

  ‘And if I say it, you’ll stop.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘But otherwise I can say no, and beg you not to, but you’ll keep going? You’ll keep … ohhh fuck … you’ll keep doing what you’re doing now?’

  What I’m doing now is slowly penetrating his ass with one slick finger, but somehow I don’t think he wants to go into too much detail about that. I just think he wants to work himself back on the feel of it sliding in, without really admitting that he’s doing anything of the sort at all.

  ‘I don’t see why I should stop otherwise,’ I say, and that much is true. It feels amazing inside the tight, slippery heat of his body. Smooth in a way I hadn’t imagined at all, and so much more sensitive too. He almost jumps over the table when I rub my knuckle around that tight ring of muscle, as though there were a million nerve-endings there that I hadn’t even thought about.

  ‘OK,’ he says, but he’s really panting now. And he’s barely pretending that he’s not trying to fuck himself on my finger. ‘OK, uh … what word?’

  ‘You think of one,’ I tell him, though of course I only do so because I know how hard it’s going to be for him. He’s gripping the edge of the desk now, hips struggling to stay still. That tight, slick little hole clenching hard around my tormenting finger.

  And yet somehow he still manages to murmur the word to me, over his shoulder.

  ‘Woods,’ he says, like it just occurred to him this very second.

  Though of course I know it didn’t. I can tell it didn’t by the way his body goes very still all over, that voice of his suddenly less shaky than it was a moment ago. He gives me a little glimpse of his expression, as sly and soft as ever I’ve seen it, before facing forward again for me.

  ‘Will that do?’ he asks, while I lose my breath for just a second, before roping it back in again.

  ‘I was going to go easy on you, you know,’ I say, because I can’t tell him what I want to do. I can’t tell him so you’ve known what I’ve been up to all this time. I have to keep pace with him instead, torment for torment.

  ‘I know,’ he says, and it’s the strangest thing. I can tell he’s smiling, slow and syrupy, when he says it. I can practically hear the cat-that-got-the-cream note to his voice, and it just makes me want to be more brutal than he clearly needs me to be.

  ‘Did he tell you he did this to me?’ I ask, because that’s as brutal as I can go. It’s so brutal it kicks me in the stomach, once it’s done pushing its way out of my mouth.

  ‘No,’ he says, and for a second I’m relieved. For just a second. ‘He told me he used something, when he fucked your ass.’

  I don’t know which is worse: that he’s saying these things to me, or that it only spurs me on.

  ‘Is that what you want me to do to you?’ I ask, and when I do I fuck that one finger into him so hard it makes his knee jerk up and knock against the desk. One of his hands skids across the wood sending papers flying in a great, white arc.

  ‘Oh God yeah,’ he groans, but he does it louder when I get one hand into his hair and pull, hard. Then louder again when I do something so lewd it almost sets my cheeks alight. I’m only glad he can’t see me, because in order for this thing to have the right effect it has to be done undercover of shameless darkness. He has to just hear me and know that’s what I’m doing, and he does, he does.

  He hears me spit between the cheeks of his ass, as though what I really need is just a little extra down and dirty lubrication. Just something to ease the way for myself, as I slide back and forth in his suddenly tightly clenching ass.

  Of course, it was tightly clenching a moment ago. It started gripping me like a fist the moment I just sort of worked my way inside. But the intensity of the reaction is different this time, and I know it – before he’s even said a word, it’s obvious.

  And then he goes ahead and tells me all about it anyway, just to be clear.

  ‘Did you really just do that? Ohhhh that’s the dirtiest thing ever. Oh man, I didn’t know it would feel like this.’

  Strangely, it’s the latter that pulls me up short. I mean, I know it should be the spitting and the dirty talk and probably the fact that he apparently knows all about Woods and me, but it isn’t. Instead, I just go with this: ‘You’ve never done this before?’

  I can’t keep the surprise out of my voice either. He just took it all so easily, and even after I’ve asked he doesn’t stop working himself back on the second finger I’m slowly easing into him.

  ‘What – had a woman fuck my ass?’ he asks, but he’s not being funny. He sounds like he’s just struggling towards the answer, as that tight ring of muscle gives for me and two fingers slide inside. ‘No. No – but I mean, I want you to. Ohhh yeah, I want you to do it just like that.’

  ‘Like this?’ I say, and then I crook them. Just a little.

  ‘Right there, yes,’ he pants, but I can feel him trying to get the pressure over a slightly different place. He’s almost squirming for it, those solid hips of his rolling until I can just about feel something …

  ‘Here?’

  He jerks forward a little, so I know I’ve almost got it. I can nearly feel it when I stroke in a long, slow way that makes him talk in short, stunted breaths.

  ‘A little to the left.’

  ‘That sounds awfully specific for someone who’s never done this before,’ I say, but he doesn’t seem perturbed by this line of questioning. He never seems perturbed – unless you count his reaction when I finally make out something that isn’t smooth and featureless inside him.

  ‘Well – oh God, there, there – I’ve done it, you know. To myself,’ he manages to get out, in between going up on tiptoe and shuddering pretty much all over. In fact, he’s still shuddering when he finally manages
to lever himself back down to the ground.

  ‘You’ve fingered your own ass?’ I ask, even though I know the answer. He’s already told me, and now it’s just the cherry on the top. It’s just hearing him talk in this straining, breathless voice, while I stroke him in just the right spot.

  ‘Mmmm there … oh that’s perfect. Fuck, you’re gonna make me come.’

  ‘That’s not an answer to my question, Benjamin.’

  ‘Oh, OK – yeah. Yeah, I’ve done it.’

  ‘Tell me how.’

  ‘I don’t know – when I’m jerking off I do all kinds of crazy things. I like a lot of lube, and once I’m all slippery and messy it doesn’t seem like that big a deal to just let my fingers slide in – though I swear to God, it doesn’t feel the way this feels.’

  ‘How is it different?’

  ‘Well, for a start I can’t reach my prostate the way you can. I mean, my fingers are long but Jesus Christ.’

  This time when he goes up on tiptoe, his voice goes up with it. In fact, for a second I think he’s actually going to try and climb over the desk, but he hauls himself back in admirably. And by hauls himself back in, I mean he reaches behind himself and grabs a hold of something on me, anything on me, while I stroke hard enough to make him tell me the following: ‘I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna – is it OK to do it on your desk?’

  I click my tongue at him.

  ‘It most certainly is not, Benjamin. Honestly – can’t you control yourself for more than a few minutes? How on earth do you think you’re going to satisfy me when you come the second I do anything to you?’

  All of which is grossly unfair to him, I know. I mean, I am currently stroking over something that seems to make sound catch somewhere low in his throat. And as I’m doing it, I also seem to be holding onto his hip in a very particular sort of way – one that would get me worked up if I was the person bent over the desk.

  It’s almost like a bit of leverage, I think. Like I need to grasp onto him and tug him back the second he tries to squirm away. And of course, every time I do it my fingers fuck hard into him, spreading him wide. Hitting that little firm spot inside of him, until he gets close to begging me not to.

  Though it’s not begging that spills out of his mouth once I’ve finished saying something I thought almost nothing of. Silly, really. The words quite clearly mean something distinct and frankly terrifying, the moment he reframes them.

  ‘You’re going to actually let me do something to you?’ he asks, and for a whole long second his body is completely still. Like he’s poised on the brink of the question, just waiting for the answer.

  ‘You want to do something to me, Ben?’

  His words click their way out, dryly.

  ‘Fuck yeah.’

  ‘And what would you do to me, given half the chance?’

  He doesn’t hesitate.

  ‘I’d lick your pussy,’ he tells me, of course he does. It’s the best thing he can possibly offer me, and one that’s likely to make me waver. I can almost feel myself wavering now, as I fuck him slow and steady, slow and steady. My clit feels like a little diamond, sharp and too obvious and just begging for some of the attention I seem to want to lavish all over him.

  But of course I don’t beg. I don’t give in. I change the subject instead.

  ‘Like this?’ I ask him, and then I just bend over, and lick between the lotion-slick cheeks of his arse. It’s not that hard to do, because after all I’ve got him anchored here. I’ve got him spread open, ready to take whatever I have to give.

  And apparently what I have to give is my slick little tongue, just easing around that tight hole as it clenches down hard.

  ‘Whoa – OK. OK, don’t –’ he stutters out, but he doesn’t get any further than that. His words slide into harsh, guttural moans instead, and even if they didn’t I’d know what he was doing. I can feel it running through his body in low, tense shudders, followed by something even prettier: the sound of his come striping my desk. It makes a very distinct noise when it spurts onto probably very important paperwork, and for just a moment I let myself revel in it.

  I press my face to his back, so I can feel it going through him. So I can hear every moan vibrating up through his body – because by God there are a lot of them. He’s pretty much the noisiest fucker I’ve ever been with, though of course the moment I’ve had the thought I have to roll those words over in my mind.

  Been with, I think, and then I just turn my head until my mouth is almost on him, kissing his damp skin through his almost-soaked-through shirt. Just for a second, you know – a bit of contact that isn’t something rude, and detached, and near impersonal.

  Because that’s how it feels sometimes, even if he’s always pushing against that definition. He pushes against it now, in the middle of an orgasm that almost forces him into some place beyond words.

  Almost.

  ‘Oh God yeah, yeah – stay like that,’ he tells me, and then he goes one better. He actually reaches behind himself with both of his too-long arms, and holds me against his back – like an embrace, only back to front and upside down and far, far too much.

  Though I don’t tell him to stop. I just lie there against his big, solid back, feeling his rattling breath going in and out. Barely thinking about anything, least of all what I’m going to do if he actually suggests what we talked about only a moment ago.

  Because he’s almost definitely going to go for it. I can feel him working up to the words, and worse, I don’t think I’m going to say no. Somehow I’m at that place Woods was at – of wanting someone, of needing someone enough to just let go of all that control you’ve spent so many months diligently building up – after a few short weeks.

  And it’s only the sound of someone knocking on my office door that saves me.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Ms Harding,’ he says, once I’ve stepped into the elevator – like he’s just a colleague, offering a curt kind of acknowledgement of me. I exist, to him, but nothing more. He inclines his head just a little, and when he does I notice his hair.

  It’s neater than usual. Everything about him is neater than usual, even though I haven’t said a word. Woods had to tell me: get the grey suit, wear your hair up, try heels for once. But I don’t have to tell Benjamin. He’s already started letting his cuffs peek out neatly from under the far better fitting series of one-colour cardigans he’s started wearing. And instead of trainers he’s got a pair of briskly polished shoes on his feet.

  Funny, I find myself thinking: I preferred the Converse. You could always tell it was Benjamin coming in those things, because they tended to squeak when he walks. And if I didn’t want to give indication that I was following his approach, I didn’t have to – I could just hear that sound and glance at the floor and see those far-too-turned-up hems of his trousers dancing over canvas and sloppy laces and just an ever so slight hint of boot.

  Like he’s a grown-up, only not.

  But all of that’s fading now. He’s becoming someone else, someone different, someone who can’t even pick up the phone and ask all of the things he’s dying to, the way that I can’t. Because that’s what happened about fifteen minutes ago. I sat at my desk and stared at the receiver in my hand, willing myself to just push in the numbers and call him up and say to that cool, collected wall: I don’t care how you thought you should be. I don’t want to be that way. Despite the fact that those words hadn’t seemed to be the predominant ones in my head when I imagined finally having a conversation with Woods. It’s just that they are now, right here, as I watch the little lights on the elevator’s wall tick down one by one. Soon there’ll be none left. We’ll be at zero, and I won’t have done any of the things I’ve wanted to ever since I leaned against his back and thought of being saved.

  Though I realise now what I should have then: I don’t want to be saved.

  And then I just reach out and press the emergency stop button. Just like that, as though it’s something I do every day – but then, that’
s the thing about Benjamin. He makes it easy to turn shocking, strange acts into ones I can easily perform. Even when he sounds incredulous, it’s like he’s not really incredulous at all. He’s excited and amused and as curious as any person can be when their boss has just trapped them in an elevator.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he says. ‘Are you going to do stuff to me in here?’

  I see an image of him clearly then, always sat on the edge of his chair, just waiting for me to say the word or give the nod, before letting himself slide down, down, down into some sort of Kinky Wonderland.

  Which is nice, of course it is. I like him like that, I do. And yet I can’t help thinking what it would be like if he didn’t have to wait for me to say yes. If I just looked at him, steadily, through the growing silence in the elevator, and he just looked at me back.

  Those eyes, I think, dear God those eyes, and then oh then I don’t know what happens. I just stagger to him like someone drunk on lust, grabbing at the first thing I find there – the inside edge of his cardigan, I think it is, in a fist I don’t mean to bunch.

  And worse than that, he grabs me back. He holds me like I’m falling, though I swear to God I’m not, and whispers my name in direct contrast to the way he said it earlier. It’s not curt now. It’s not polite. It’s as desperate as I am; a reflection of me. His lips move around further words but I can hardly hear them because of the pounding in my chest and in my head and this urge in me to just yank him down, fierce and brutal.

  And find his mouth with mine.

  He tastes like something sharp and sweet at the same time, which just makes me imagine him eating sticky bundles of candy from paper bags at his desk. Sour apples, I think, unbidden, before my body pulls me back into what I seem to be actually doing right now.

  I’m kissing him. I’m putting my mouth on his mouth, and I’m not doing it in the soft, sweet sort of way he did it for me in the meeting room. Instead, I appear to be eating at his face like a ravenous wolverine, tongue sliding past his lips before he’s fully prepared for it, everything all hot and wet and messy in a way kisses almost never are for me.