Power Play

by Stein, Charlotte

  I’m not ready for dates just yet. I’m not ready for holding hands during long walks in the park, and whatever other normal stuff he has in mind for me. I just need to ease into this one first, and I can make a good start at it by asking an innocuous question.

  Or at least it seems like an innocuous question, until he answers.

  ‘I don’t think I could fall asleep while you lie all relaxed on top of me. Did you really just fall asleep? I think you did, but hey – I won’t tell anyone.’

  He whispers that last bit in my ear, while doing something warm and good like smoothing a hand over my hair. And though I know it should panic me, though I know I should be desperate to get out of this tepid water right now and away from his gentle hands and his soft words, I find myself doing something very strange instead.

  I laugh, and press myself closer to him.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I think you’re doing it with hypnotism.’

  ‘You think I’m hypnotising you?’

  ‘There’s no other explanation for what I’m doing right now. I think I’m actually cuddling someone, in a bath tub.’

  He considers, briefly, before offering me a possible explanation.

  ‘Maybe it’s just my intense charm. Or my willingness to suck some cock in front of you.’

  OK, now I really laugh. I laugh like I did when we were together on my bed – only this time I don’t feel strange about it afterwards. I don’t get the urge to pretend I’m asleep on the edge of the mattress, or reset everything back to the beginning again.

  Instead I find myself doing something else I know couples do, without any help from him at all. He’s taking my training wheels off, and now I’m riding the bike on my own, it seems.

  ‘How do you have this big house?’ I ask, but he’s onto me immediately.

  ‘Was that an actual question about me? You’re doing awesome at this.’

  I pinch him, somewhere just below his right nipple – though of course it has the opposite effect to the one I intend.

  ‘I don’t think hurting a masochist is the right way to get him to stop being a jerk,’ he says, so I pinch him again, and demand he answers me.

  Which he does, after a moment of what I think is a comfortable silence.

  ‘It was my grandfather’s place. He left it to me in his will,’ he says finally, and suddenly the comfortable silence is not so comfortable any more. It’s just him not wanting to share something sad with me, in a way that makes me ache for him to continue.

  Go on, I think at him, go on, but when he does it’s no better than if he hadn’t spoken at all.

  ‘I used to come and stay with him in the summer, every couple of years or so,’ he says, and then I just have to picture his probably idyllic childhood. Long hot days spent with Grandpa in the garden – on top of his boyhood adventures in Hawaii. Next he’s going to tell me about the Werther’s Originals and the Roald Dahl bedtime stories, and I’ll have to just give up on being a human being for ever.

  ‘You must have loved him very much,’ I say, but I only do it because I can sense something coming from him. He’s going to ask me about my childhood, and then I’m going to have to explain to him what council estate and alcoholic absent parent mean.

  So it’s a relief when he just gives me a rueful laugh.

  ‘God no. He was horrible. Everyone hated him – he was mean, and rude, and he used to jab at the neighbourhood kids with his cane. I think I was pretty much the only person in the world who could tolerate him – which is probably why he left me this awesome house.’

  He obviously means it all as a punchline, but that’s not how I take it. Instead I find myself thinking of this old man that secretly cared for Ben, even when he seemed mean and rude – and I comment accordingly.

  ‘Sad,’ I say, softly, and Ben agrees.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That he was … that he couldn’t relate to other people, I mean.’

  He laughs so abruptly I almost jump right out of my skin, though I have to say I don’t exactly come back down to earth when he shares the reason why.

  ‘Eleanor, you’re not like my aged grandfather. He used to try to poison the neighbours’ cats. The only TV programme he liked was something called … ’Til Death Us Do Part. He was awful. Is that what you think you are? Awful?’

  I can’t help shoving out an annoyed breath.

  ‘How do you know I was in any way reflecting back on myself?’

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s obvious!’ he cries, and then I just feel busted. I honestly didn’t intend for my words to come out that way, but now they have and he knows and oh Lord he’s still talking. ‘What’s not so obvious is why on earth you think you’re like some sour old man. You’re just a little … closed off. That’s all.’

  ‘I didn’t … I mean I … I spent a lot of time alone, when I was younger,’ I say, but I’m embarrassed about doing it. He just pours everything out so easily, while I stutter and stumble like a fool.

  Though part of what makes him so wonderful is that he never makes me feel bad about any of this. He just kind of chuckles, and pushes his fingers through my hair in a way that almost turns me to goo.

  ‘I think a blind idiot would know that much about you, baby,’ he says, and then everything’s all right again. We can go back to comfortable silences instead of tragic ones, while my mind ticks slowly back through the conversation to more pleasant topics.

  ‘Do you think that’s what you are? A masochist?’

  Or you know. More kinky topics.

  ‘Was that another question? Don’t go too crazy, El, I might start thinking you like me.’

  I don’t pinch him this time. I dig my knuckle into his side instead, until it hits just the right ticklish spot and he squirms, and laughs. Does his best to bat me away from that sensitive area, before caving.

  ‘All right, all right! I’m sorry, I’ll be cool. What was the question again?’

  ‘Something about masochism. With an added incredulous – did you just call me El? Seriously?’

  I can feel him nodding before he answers, all big and too giddy and oh just perfect for my frazzled nerves. He’s like some sort of grand champion at putting people at ease, to the point where I’m actually starting to cuddle him, all on my own. I’ve literally turned onto my side, in the space he’s made for me between his legs and on his big broad chest.

  And now I’ve got my arm around him and my cheek against him and in another moment I’ll be writing love poems to him and spelling out his name in sky writing.

  But that’s OK. It’s OK.

  ‘I totally, totally did. I was going to go with Eleanor but backed out at the last second. One syllable’s far easier to force out than three.’ He shifts a little beneath me, runs a hand down over my now slick back. ‘Plus, you know – I can’t go with sir while we’re being romantic together.’

  ‘Is that what we’re doing?’

  ‘Sorry to have to tell you this, but I think it is.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my other questions, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you avoiding them?’

  ‘No.’ He kisses the top of my head, soft, soft. ‘I’m just trying to think of impressive answers, like: yeah, I go hardcore on a Saturday night at the local gimp club.’

  Of course I burst out laughing, all over again – but it can’t be helped. It’s not just the things he says, all easy and without a care in the world. It’s the way he says them. It’s that note of sardonicism that’s sometimes in the back of his throat, and how warm he somehow makes it.

  It gives me so many inroads. So many ways into him. I don’t feel weird about teasing him back, despite the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever teased anyone in my entire po-faced life.

  ‘Really? Because your idea of impressive sounds a lot more like ridiculous.’

  ‘You don’t want me to tell you about my rubber all-in-one suit?’

  ‘I want you to answer my questions with a straight face.’
/>
  ‘OK – yeah. I’d say I was a masochist. I like pain. I like being spanked, being bitten, being bruised, though I’ve never done any of that with anyone else.’

  ‘So basically you’ve just been punching yourself in the dark, while masturbating,’ I say, and I fully expect him to laugh or roll his eyes or tell me I’m now being the ridiculous one.

  But he doesn’t. He just shrugs, before finishing with a little: ‘Pretty much.’

  In a way that makes me feel foolish for even asking. I mean, it’s not as though he hasn’t told me before, in a myriad ways. The wings on his back and the way he’d admired them, his reaction to things like spanking and hair pulling and pinching – all of these things tell me as much.

  It’s pretty clear. It’s just that it’s not pretty clear inside me, and all of this just flashes that fact up in neon until I have to go ahead and ask. I have to know what he thinks, even if I’m sort of sure already.

  ‘And what do you think I am?’ I say, and then I wait with bated breath. I wait for him to tell me that I’m a secret sexual sadist, or a dominant on the inside, or that I have deep-seated issues about fucking that I should really address before we go any further.

  But he just laughs, nice and easy.

  ‘I can’t believe how little you understand yourself – you know it’s obvious, right? You’re a switch.’

  My mind draws a blank. Should really have spent more time on those BDSM sites before I got into a conversation with the sexpert over here.

  ‘A what?’ I actually say, but he doesn’t hold it against me.

  ‘You like both. You like being spanked, you like doing the spanking,’ he tells me, and of course he’s right. Of course he is. It’s obvious, once he’s put it that way – though I can’t help being curious about one little element of what he’s said. He just seems so naïve in some ways, but so sure in others.

  ‘How do you even know terms like that?’ I ask, but I understand once I’ve done it that I’ve set myself up for a fall. He’s half-laughing before I’ve finished speaking.

  ‘I told you. I’m real big on the BDSM scene. My handle is StandOnMyHead359.’

  ‘You’re an ass.’

  ‘I know. But I’m kind of enjoying behaving like one right now. It’s a whole new world of you being unsure, and me being the worldly-wise relationship guru.’

  ‘I don’t think being StandOnMyHead359 makes you Dr Phil, in all honesty.’

  ‘True. But I’m not afraid of knowing and understanding what I want,’ he says, which takes me a good long moment to process. Is he saying that I am? Is that what this is?

  Because I’m not. I’m not.

  ‘Neither am I,’ I tell him, only once I’ve done it I get the strangest little cold feeling running down my spine.

  It’s probably the bath water, which is, by this point, absolutely freezing. I have to make him finish the rest of this conversation in his bedroom, which is much more like the sort of thing I’d imagined him living in. Books spilling out all over the place, clothes strewn over every available surface … about the only thing in there that looks clean and tidy is his bed, but it’s one of those too-cool-for-school modern ones, without anything as conventional as a frame.

  In fact, I’m starting to suspect it’s just a mattress.

  ‘I can never decide what to wear now,’ he offers sheepishly, when he takes in my aghast expression. Seriously – there are actual islands of clothes growing in this bedroom. He could sell one of them to Richard Branson. ‘I’m aiming to impress, and I don’t think a jumper with dancing penguins on the front really achieves that professional sheen.’

  He’s right. It doesn’t – but the point he’s just made leaves behind some questions.

  ‘It’s not me you’re trying to impress, is it?’ I ask, because let’s face it. I’m currently a bedraggled mess, sprawled all over his bed. And yes, true, he keeps glancing at my breasts and my pussy and occasionally my face, as he tries to make things a little more presentable in here. And maybe he’s also stupidly hard while he goes about it.

  But still. I’ve never felt less impressive in my entire life.

  ‘Well … yeah,’ he says, but not in an embarrassed sort of way. More in an isn’t that obvious kind of manner.

  He turns to look at me, hands full of immensely silly clothes. T-shirts with cartoon characters on them; pants that are neither long enough to call them trousers, nor abrupt enough to imagine they are shorts.

  It’s no wonder he says what he does next, really.

  ‘But I like it,’ he tells me, then rushes on before I can interrupt and possibly spoil the party. ‘I like you straightening me out. I even like imagining you going further – telling me what to eat, how to behave, how to handle myself in sudden threesomes. It’s very … relaxing.’

  He pauses, as though unsure as to whether he’s got the right word. I don’t feel like interjecting to say that he has, however.

  ‘And of course when I do as you’ve commanded … that’s very relaxing for you too, right? Knowing that someone will do what you’ve asked, without question. That things are ordered and safe, and nothing’s going to spiral out of control.’

  I don’t say anything then, either – though this time it’s because I can’t. I just have to lie here instead, while he smiles his soft smile at me, and wanders over to the bed. Runs a hand up my side as he joins me there, so that he can murmur words in my ear.

  ‘Yeah, you like that, huh?’ he tells me, and I do, I do. I do so much that I’m having to press my lips together to keep any untoward and highly embarrassing sounds down.

  But it’s OK, because his kisses cover it too. They help with all of the weird surging emotions that are going through me, even if his words don’t.

  ‘You know what we’re going to do now?’ he says, in between a kiss to my left temple, and a kiss to my still tightly closed mouth. ‘We’re going to make love.’

  And in response I nod, helplessly. I put my arms around his shoulders all on my own, and rub my naked body up against his, and actually ask for the tangle I refused before. I want our legs to intertwine and his hand to go into my hair and most of all I want him to tell me, I want him to.

  ‘I love you, El,’ he says. ‘I love you.’

  And after he’s done it all I can think of is all the ways he absolutely shouldn’t. I’m closed off, I think, and strange. I don’t know how to behave like a person. I’m almost crying because he told me something so simple and basic like that, and once he’s done it I can’t say it back.

  Instead I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, until everything turns just a little more passionate than it was before. His hands go to my ass, to slip and slide over the smooth and still slightly damp skin there. And after a long moment of rolling around and moaning into each other’s mouths, he starts rubbing his stiff cock against me – right into some sweetly sensitive place, like the little cleft between my thigh and my tender mound.

  Of course it’s then that I realise I’m still a little raw from earlier. Not hurting exactly, but just a little more on edge than usual. The grip he’s got on my ass reminds me of where his cock has recently been, and the impact of that intense orgasm hasn’t quite gone away.

  It doesn’t take much to make me cry out.

  ‘Still feeling it, huh?’ he says, because he’s a genius. He’s a sexual genius, and this very real fact is confirmed when he slides two fingers through my slippery slit to find the most recently neglected part of my anatomy. ‘That any better?’

  It is, but I don’t say that. Instead I go with the following: ‘Fuck me. Just fuck me, Ben,’ while he continues to pump his fingers in and out of my greedy cunt.

  ‘Like this?’ he says, but he’s just being a bastard. He knows I want more; he must be able to tell I want more. I’m shoving myself against that slow back and forth before he’s worked up a rhythm.

  ‘No. No. Fuck me – fuck me like you did before,’ I tell him, restlessly, and for a second I almost think he’s going t
o. He reaches for a condom from his bedside cabinet. He puts it on, diligently, while I do my best not to replace his fingers in my pussy.

  But when it actually comes to it, he doesn’t make me turn around. I’m not going to get it like that again, apparently, because what he wants to do is cup me against him in one sweet curl, almost on my back but not quite.

  And then he just slowly, slowly tugs me down onto his big stiff cock, until I can’t escape him on any level whatsoever. He’s holding me too tightly to him, and his mouth is feverish against my throat, my breasts, my lips – not to mention the feel of him, filling me so completely.

  It’s just as I remember from the first time he did this – like being deliciously stretched from the inside out. Better, in fact, because that sounds stupid when I really think about it, and this … oh this is bliss.

  ‘I’m gonna work you on my cock now,’ he says, which really only adds fuel to the flames. I can feel how broad his hands are on my ass, and in this position he’s got me totally at his mercy. He can literally just manoeuvre me until my pussy slides over and over the thick head of his prick, almost as though he’s trying to rub an orgasm out of himself.

  Though I won’t deny it has almost the same effect on me. Every time he drags me back down onto that solid length I moan for him. I claw at his back until he pants out something in response.

  ‘Yeah,’ he tells me. ‘Yeah, do it, hurt me – fuuucckk you’re getting so wet. Is that good, huh? You wanna come on my dick?’

  I’ve no idea why he asks such ridiculous questions during sex. I mean the answer’s completely obvious – I’m almost beside myself. I’m clawing and biting and shoving at him, and when he finds one stiff nipple and just plucks at it with his thumb and forefinger as he fucks into me hard … I definitely cream for him. At the very least I jerk and sort of try to get away in the face of such extreme pleasure.