Slow Satisfaction

by Cecilia Tan

  “You coming? There’s a diner around the corner,” Annika said.

  “Sure. I have some time before I have to be anywhere.”

  Shortly before six I walked into the lobby of the hotel, wondering if James was expecting me to go up to the room or what. Would he be in the same room as before? It had been 624, hadn’t it? Or was I getting it mixed up with the address of the gallery?

  It struck me then that if I wasn’t getting things mixed up, the number probably meant something to him. Before I could flail too long trying to figure out what to do, Stefan waved to me as he stood up from an upholstered chair and crossed the polished marble floor to greet me, European style, with a kiss on each cheek. “This way.”

  He led me back out to the street and down a bit, to a two-seater sports car that flashed its lights at us as he pressed a button on the key fob. I opened my own door as he took my bag and put it in the trunk. The bucket seat felt like a giant leather-gloved hand cupping my ass. The fact that I was wearing bike shorts might have had something to do with it.

  “Is it supposed to feel like that?”

  “Pardon me?” He started the engine.

  “Never mind. Is the town car in the shop?”

  “No. I’m just giving it a rest. This one has to be driven every so often or it’s not good for it. And besides, it’s fun.” He zipped out of the parking space. “Too bad we’re only going a short way.”

  He turned onto Park Avenue and headed uptown, but we hadn’t gone very far before he turned toward Central Park. We went a block south and turned again, spiraling toward our destination the way the one-way streets sometimes forced a car to do.

  I was expecting to pull up to a high-rise building, or into a big parking garage, but no, the garage door that faced the curb was built into a brownstone. Maybe five or six stories tall, brick, with a wrought iron doorway, not all that different from a lot of the small apartment buildings in the city.

  The door went up and we pulled into a single-car garage. As I got out of the car it dawned on me how rare a private garage was in this city. Almost unheard of.

  The entire building was a single mansion. Stefan led me from the garage through a pantry and into a grand foyer. He gestured around. “This is the place. Not really much to see in this room, though.”

  “Not much to see!” There were two sculptures in the room, one of which was clearly one of James’s glass works. The other I thought I recognized as the work of Rodin, a nude woman cast in bronze. “Is this really a Rodin?”

  I heard James chuckle. He came down the staircase, barefoot, wearing chocolate-brown pants that looked too luxurious to be called pajamas, slung low on his hips, and nothing else. “It’s a bronze cast of one of his originals, yes. The model was a young woman named Camille.”

  “Wasn’t she his apprentice?” It had been some years since I’d studied anything about Rodin.

  “And companion,” James said, and something about the way he said that, or maybe it was the pantherine way he was padding across the floor toward me, brought that delicious sensation flooding back into my nether regions. Without taking his eyes off me, he said, “Stefan. We won’t be needing you for a few hours.”

  “Yes, boss.” Stefan disappeared through the door we’d come through.

  James reached me, took the bag from my shoulder, and set it on the floor. “The decision I’m trying to make is whether to take you right here, right now, and then play with you at my leisure once the edge of my hunger is off, or force myself to wait.”

  I could feel the hardness of him against my stomach as he pulled me close. “If I know you, you’ll force us both to wait.”

  His laugh was rich and low and he bent to kiss me while still chuckling. “Too true,” he breathed into my hair. “But you test my self-restraint like no one else ever has. So tell me, which would you choose, if you were given a choice?”

  “Didn’t you say we should embrace ‘and’ instead of ‘or’?”

  “I did. That would mean… taking you right here and forcing myself to wait?”

  “Take me but let’s not come,” I whispered, as if Stefan might be listening. Ha. As if he hadn’t heard us doing every possible thing in the seat behind him already.

  “Since you ask so nicely…” James said, and thumbed the waistband of his pants over his erection. They fell to his ankles in a velvety heap, and I fell upon his cock with my velvety tongue. I couldn’t help it. Gorgeous doesn’t even begin to describe it. And him standing there in that grand foyer? He was like a third work of art, each muscle over his ribs perfectly sculpted. I ran my fingers down his torso as I sucked him into my mouth, my fingertips skating down the plane of his abs to the creases of his thighs.

  He sank his fingers into my hair with a groan, and held me loosely as I bobbed back and forth. Then his grip tightened and he drove deep, hard enough to bruise my lips and deep enough to make me cough once, and then pulled me abruptly free. Keeping his grip, he bent down to kiss my mouth tenderly, the contrast between his gentle lips and the brutal thrust of his cock making me gasp.

  “Strip,” he whispered, and let go of me.

  As I pulled my shirt over my head, he lay back on the parquet wood floor, watching me with his hands folded behind his head.

  I wasn’t wearing much, so it didn’t take long before I was standing naked before him.

  He beckoned me with his crooked finger, then gestured, making it clear he wanted me to straddle his face. I put one foot on either side of his head and squatted down, rewarded instantly by the wet suede of his tongue licking up and down my seam. I was already meltingly wet—had been since the moment he’d come down the stairs, really—so this was more about pleasure than preparation.

  He disengaged his mouth and slid a long finger inside me, looking up my torso, between my breasts, and into my eyes. “I feel like I want you more and more every time I have you. Like the more deeply I fall for you, the more intense the craving becomes.”

  “I feel exactly the same way.”

  “Then get on my cock, now.”

  I shuffled backward, onto all fours above him, and reached back with one hand to guide the tip of him into me. Being able to have him without a condom had never felt more like decadence, more like luxury, than at that moment. I sank onto him about halfway down his shaft, then had to wriggle my hips to open myself up enough to take him.

  Once I was fully seated he let out a long sigh. “I have all manner of elaborate plans to torture you,” he said. “Yet this—this basic, simple thing—is what I want most at this moment.”

  “Just because the chef is going to prepare an elaborate dessert doesn’t mean he can’t taste the berry right from the basket,” I said.

  “True. Perch on your feet. Spread your knees. Display yourself.”

  I did, looking down at where his cock disappeared into my body. He spread my lips further with his hands, admiring the way our bodies joined, pumping slowly in and out of me.

  He bent his knees and sat up, curling his arms under my own and around my rib cage. “Sabine questions whether I have the strength to lift you.”

  “I don’t think this was what she meant,” I teased.

  “No. And she doesn’t know that since she last saw me I’ve been working with glass nonstop. Glass is incredibly heavy. You’re nothing in comparison.” He took a deep breath and shifted one foot under us, and the next thing I knew he was lifting me up, still impaled on his cock. “You may have noticed, by the way, that Sabine accepted you as a professional dancer in my employ.”

  “I guess she did.”

  “Let’s talk about it later. Right now, it’s time for this.” He pressed me against a wall, pumping in and out of me until I was starting to lose myself in the ripples of pleasure flowing through me from my core.

  But then he set me onto my feet and slid free with a wicked grin. “And now, it’s time for a tour of the house.”

  “Like I’m going to see anything but your cock wherever we go!” I said.

>   “Suit yourself.” He took me by the hand, picked up my shoulder bag, and led me into a kitchen big enough for a staff of ten to cook in. A dining room stood beyond that, and on the floor above it, a more formal dining room. The building had its own small elevator as well as staircases, and we climbed those on foot, leaving our clothes behind on the foyer floor. I never would have guessed he would be so comfortable in the nude, given how he’d seemed to prefer staying dressed as long as possible when we’d first met.

  Maybe he felt safer in his own home. And maybe now he felt safe with me. I certainly was pleased to drink in the sight of him, an embarrassment of riches compared to the glimpses of him I was used to.

  Parlor, library, master suite, exercise room, on and on we went until we were at the sixth floor, where the upper terrace overlooked the street. “Eight fireplaces, and more bathrooms than there are bedrooms,” he said as we went from room to room. “Ten, to be exact.” Then he led me back down to a room on the fourth floor he hadn’t shown me when we’d passed by it on the way up. This one was at the back of the house, and the door had an electronic lock that took his fingerprint to open, like something from a spy movie.

  I was expecting this to be his dungeon, although I suppose “playroom” would be a more appropriate word for a room whose windows opened onto a terrace that looked toward Central Park. Unlike the historical-seeming decor in the rest of the house, this space was sleek and clean—like James himself. Indirect lights came up softly as we entered.

  If there was a cache of sex toys here, they were hidden inside Scandinavian design cabinets. There was no St. Andrew’s Cross or spanking bench like they had at the club in London. One or two low pieces of furniture were covered with draped cloth. A tall vase contained some minimalist stalks of grass or branches of some kind. The only things that looked out of place were two small paintbrushes on a shelf, as if they had been set there to dry, the brush end hanging over the edge.

  “My glasswork studio is upstate, of course,” he said. “But this is where I sketch, model with clay, and sometimes paint.”

  I giggled a little. “When I saw the elaborate lock I thought you were showing me your dungeon.”

  A catlike smile bent his lips. “I am.”

  “Your studio is where you have your most private, your most intimate moments at home?”

  “That’s one way to put it.” He closed the door behind us and noted, “It only locks in one direction.”

  “Fire safety?”

  “Yes, but also…” He let go my hand and seemed to falter in his explanation. “I would never want it to seem…”

  “Like you were holding me captive?”

  “Yes. If you’re not here of your own free will, then…” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t voice the alternative.

  I slid my hand into his again. “Have you brought many women here?”

  He shook his head again and pulled me close. “Very few. Very, very few.”

  “This is your inner sanctum.”

  “Yes.” He caressed my cheek, studying my eyes. “If you were expecting a wall full of whips and chains and implements of torture, I’m sorry to shatter your fantasy.”

  I smiled. “My fantasy is to be here with you.”

  “Excellent.” He kissed me then, a long kiss that made me forget we were in the middle of talking, made me forget we were going to do anything other than sink to the floor and fuck until we couldn’t move.

  But he hadn’t forgotten. “I saw Damon George flog your clit in London,” he murmured.

  I didn’t answer but my stomach turned to butterflies instantly.

  “Flog it until it was swollen and sore and then rub his cock up and down it.” His voice was low with a dark edge that had to be jealousy. “You don’t know how hard it was not to push him aside and shove my cock into you right there. Forget manners, forget rules, forget everything but the blinding need to claim you, Karina.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t, because I wouldn’t have forgiven myself for giving in to my anger, nor for invading you without your consent.”

  “I bet most people don’t have the self-restraint you do. Now I see why Vanette made me wear that chastity belt.”

  “Ahh, you know I had forgotten it? I think in my rage I didn’t even notice it.” He allowed himself a small laugh. “All the better that I didn’t make a fool of myself then. I’ve imagined a hundred ways to claim you since, though.”

  “On a roof?”

  “For one.”

  “What will it be this time?”

  “That’s what I’m deciding right now.” He kissed me on the forehead. “Remember when I said you don’t really like pain, but you like being challenged?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was I right?”

  “Um, I think so.” I tried not to visibly squirm. “And sometimes, you know, it’s okay if things hurt a little.”

  “Like when someone flogs your clit with moose hide?”

  I couldn’t help it. I did clench and bounce once. “For example.”

  He couldn’t hold back his smile. “All right. I’m going to give you a task. If you succeed at the task, afterward I’ll give you only pleasure. But if you fail, then a clit-flogging is in your future.”

  “Hmm, why do I have a feeling that a clit-flogging is in my future regardless?”

  “Because you know me well.” His grin widened. “At least it might not be today.”

  “What’s the task?”

  “I’ll explain it shortly. First, I do love putting you in bondage.”

  I followed him to the fireplace, where a coil of blue rope sat on the mantelpiece. An elegantly curved sculpture hung from the ceiling, reminding me of a yoke for a pair of horses.

  I soon realized it was a yoke for me. It settled onto my shoulders and he roped my wrists to the ends of it. “And here I thought it was a piece of art.”

  “It is a piece of art, but a functional one. The winch is for lifting sculptures. It also happens to be useful for lifting people, in certain circumstances. Now bend your knees,” he said, encouraging me to squat partway down. I felt like a bodybuilder partway through a lift. He adjusted the chains that the yoke hung from so that they were taut with me in that position, my ass sticking out in back. “Very good.”

  He walked around me in a circle, admiring the view.

  “No blindfold this time?” I asked.

  “Not this time,” he said. “And no gag, either. I think I want you to have full use of your eyes and mouth for this. There is one more thing I am going to use to restrain you, though.”

  “What?” I imagined something with leather and buckles.

  “I’ll show you. It’s a very simple thing.” He moved beyond where I could see and then came back holding an egg.

  “Where is that going to go?” I couldn’t imagine he was going to put it inside me, but what else could it be for?

  “It goes right between your knees,” he said, and leaned over to place it between my two bent legs. He put it just above my knees, where the fleshy part of my thighs began. “So, here is your task. Don’t break the egg.”

  “Don’t break it?”

  “If it breaks, you get a clit-flogging. If it doesn’t break, you get rewarded by pleasure,” he reminded me as he moved out of my sight to somewhere behind me.

  “Huh. Sounds simple enough…” I couldn’t turn my neck enough to see him. “What will you be doing in the meantime?”

  “I’ll be switching you.”

  “I thought switching meant we traded places.”

  He chuckled. “I mean switching as in birching. Although this is willow.” He plucked one of the long, slender branches from the tall vase and showed it to me, before retreating behind me again.

  “Oh.” Birching was something like caning, if my half-remembered knowledge of Victoriana was correct. “So… I guess it’s not all pleasure, then?” My voice came out a giddy squeak.

  He sounded just as
gleeful. “I said that would be after the task. I never said whether the task would be painful or not, did I?”

  “You should have been a lawyer.”

  “I like promises better than contracts,” he said, running his hand over my bare bottom. “Negotiation is fun. Contracts are dull.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Hush now. Here comes the first one.” He stepped back and I heard the sound of something swishing in the air. The sound made me startle, but it was just a test: nothing happened. “Remember, don’t drop the egg, or crush it.”

  “Oh fuck,” I said, and I meant it.

  The first blow with the switch felt like a slice of fire across my ass, a thin line of burning, a little bit like the riding crop except not as hard. It didn’t feel like an impact so much as a sudden blossom of agony across my buttocks. I clenched my fists around the ends of the yoke and realized it was shaped perfectly for that. Kinky handlebars. I wondered if James had made them himself or if you could buy them on the Internet.

  My wonderings were interrupted by the next stripe across a fresh part of my skin, and I shook a little, groaning to absorb the pain while fighting not to squeeze my thighs together and crush the egg.

  Oh, that egg. It became the center of all my thoughts as he laid stripe after stripe onto me, down the backs of my thighs and across my butt cheeks, never hurrying, savoring my plight. I tried to convince myself that he’d hardboiled it. Surely he wouldn’t risk the finish on the fancy parquet wood floor. But could I risk it? I couldn’t.

  And I couldn’t do anything less than my best for him. “Ow ow ow! That’s really starting to hurt!” I cried, around what must have been the twentieth one. I had lost track of how many I’d taken a long time ago.

  “Back up,” he suggested gently.

  “Back up?”

  “Very carefully, take teensy steps backward toward me,” he said. “Carefully. There you go. Stop if you feel like you’re going to drop the egg.”

  I shuffled backward a few inches, then a few inches more, while the winch pulled at the chains attached to the yoke. The result was I was bent forward more, my ass even more prominently thrust toward him, my toes pointed inward as I kept my grip on the floor.