Shadow Girl

by Mael d'Armor

  She looks at him and feels she is seeing him for the first time. The colours in his eyes are pulsing strangely. She is both drawn to him and withering under his stare — sitting there like a little girl who has been caught stealing a sweet. She is amazed at how sorely she needs his approval. How she is scared to displease him.

  ‘Je pensais juste que . . .’

  ‘You thought? There is no need to burden yourself with tiring thoughts. This is your week off, relax, enjoy the ride. Now turn over.’

  Without waiting for her to comply, he flips her on her stomach and she bounces on the bed. He pushes her face down into the soft mattress, right between two plush pillows. Keeps her shoulders pinned there with a firm hand, while another pulls up her hips in a single easy move, lifting her like a cloth puppet. She is left, once again, with her backside pointing up. She twists her head sideways, straining to see what he is doing, but her hair is screening her eyes.

  ‘Your training is not over.’

  Her thighs are pushed apart and her wrists seized briskly, forced to her sides and then dragged between her knees.

  ‘You shall be taught the true meaning of compliance.’

  Before she can gather her wits, her wrists have been snared by straps.

  ‘Qu’est-ce . . . Qu’est-ce que tu fais?’

  The question is not strictly necessary, for she knows perfectly well what he is doing. Her hands are being tied to her knees. She wonders for a second where those straps have come from. She didn’t notice any in the bedroom before.

  ‘Let me drain all that stiffness and worry from you. Drain the false goals, the misplaced ambition. You do not need to think, do not need to strive. I shall be your guide. From here on, your only guide.’

  His voice is soothing but his words have an ominous ring. Beneath the sugared tone she can detect a hard edge, something that wasn’t there before. Metallic, cold, sharp, like a dagger’s blade. She is a lamb about to be offered to an unforgiving god. She wants to say something, to show him she cannot be cowed so easily. That despite her wanton abandon these last few days, savvy old Sandra, with her poise and acumen, is still there somewhere, resting, waiting to return.

  She moves her lips in mute rebellion.

  The words are catching in her throat, for a part of her is vaguely scared. This guy could do anything to her. There could be a psycho, a killer, lurking behind the smooth facade. But, replies a small voice in her head, he could have killed you before, couldn’t he, and he tied you up in your flat, remember? Maybe, she counters, but it was just my hands then, and I didn’t know any better. Now I’m walking wide-eyed into this — though ‘walking’ might not be the right word.

  She shifts her head a fraction, tries to nudge one of the pillows aside. She is ridiculously exposed. Why is she allowing this? This is crazy. She must say something. Demand time out. Enough Yaouen, I want out. Let me go. Please.

  But she does not speak, and more straps are looped around her knees and secured to the sides of the bed. Her ankles too are lassoed, and anchored to the bed. She cannot move her legs and cannot free her wrists. She is pinned and webbed like a scarlet jezebel on a forest leaf, waiting for the spider’s bite. Spread out like a perfect booty before this singular lover.

  The thought of calling out for help crosses her mind. There must be someone out there, within ear shot. This has to stop. She cannot let him walk all over her.

  Yet, something is keeping her quiet.

  Beyond the anxious knot in her stomach, something perverse is finding all this horribly exciting. Something which will not be denied and for which she does not have a name. Something which whimpers and hungers for pleasure, lustful but weak-willed, covetous but cowardly, so alien she will not recognise it as hers.

  The creature has no pride, no ego, no spine. It wallows in its greed and submissiveness. It is curled up and lying in wait, a shapeless thoughtless thing glistening in the dark. Feeding on her qualms, swelling her desire, growing fatter on her deviant emotions. It is oozing profusely, coating her thighs in a lush gleam.

  God, she is so damn wet again.

  The fingers are back. They dance around her clit, hovering and skimming, promising without fulfilling. She writhes under the caress, drawn like a magnet to the cheeky ballet, dying for a firmer touch.

  ‘You’re dripping, sweetheart. Another excellent start. Let me fan that fire. Let me feed that demon of yours.’

  Demon? The word resonates within her. Is he seeing right through her? But it’s not her demon, is it? That fawning thing does not belong to her. It can’t. She’s not like that, surely.

  ‘Salaud, me laisse pas comme ça,’ she exhales. No, the bastard can’t leave her like this. Let him take her and finish this. Her need is spreading like a hot flood. She can hear herself giving up the first groans. Hear herself begging. Grovelling.

  He ignores her.

  ‘Beyond the inner voice may lie darker forces. Sluttish, insatiable. When such is the case, they need to be released.’

  Yaouen’s hands set to work on her butt cheeks, paying no heed to her leaking pussy. They knead her like dough, determined to mould her.

  She feels his fingers grooving her flesh. They are not here to cajole but claim the victor’s spoils. Exact her surrender. This is no game, but conquest. She should be appalled by such insolence but is instead hopelessly turned on. And hopelessly appreciative as rough thumbs start policing the crack of her arse. She submits to the arrogant invaders. Submits to the callous pleasure they dish out.

  They are stamping her, branding her.

  She lets loose a long thin moan. God, she is caving in so fast. The spineless thing inside is so desperate to please. It squirms in gratitude, and makes her arch her back, display her eagerness to serve, to be toyed with and manhandled. Please fuck me. Ram that dirty big thing into me. Please. I beg you. The creature is growing more needy with each passing moment. Another moan, like the call of a captive doe. What choice does she have but to yield to the pull?

  A finger is pressing for a tight admission. A finger lubed by oil and the wetness of the craven creature.

  She pleads through her excitement. Please, not in there. Not in there. But the sleek thing is too busy playing whore. Ingratiating and debasing itself. ‘Oh yes, fuck me there,’ it says. ‘Take me. Bow me to your might.’ The creature salivates copiously and purses its lips to welcome the trespasser. ‘First come first served,’ it moans. ‘And second come gets beautifully served too. And third come even better. All, all will get served.’

  Her breath catches in her throat. Three. Three fingers probing her, moving back and forth in unison, in and out, deeper each time, marking her as their prize. Grooming her, feeding her more oil and spineless desire. Each slow intrusion loosens her further. Saps the stiffness of her reflex clench.

  The beast inside is fawning hard.

  ‘Let’s get serious,’ warns the voice.

  The fingers withdraw and something meatier nudges her, demanding to be let in.

  Please no, not like this. She pushes out in response — a pathetic, last-ditch attempt to deny the obvious. But this, ironically, aids in her lover. Her arse is filled slowly, intractably. Despite the lube, this brings tears to her eyes. She bites her lip, screws up her face. Stifles a yelp.

  The man enjoying her could not care less, it seems, and maintains a slow, torrid momentum, increasing pace by increments.

  ‘Don’t fight this,’ he says in a tone that brooks no objection.

  ‘S’il . . . S’il te plaît,’ she groans. ‘Viens dans ma chatte. Ma chatte.’

  The thought echoes in her head like a taunt. Please, come inside my pussy.

  A sharp sting on the fullness of her flesh. He has punished her like a wayward foal. Another slap, and a third. She winces at the branding. She has overstepped the mark, she realises. She is not to speak, not to make demands. The rules are clearly laid out. She has no say in how she gets screwed.

  He presses on, faster now.

  So this is wh
at it has come to. She is being taken like a common whore. Tied up and arse-fucked without so much as a by-your-leave. And the spineless creature is loving it. Lapping it all up. Relishing each second of her humiliation. It is a wholly pliant mouth, welcoming the victor’s thrusts. Sucking and slavering with a singleness of purpose. Anxiously growing fat on lust. Yes, the creature is loving this. Loves to see her used and abused by such crushing vigour.

  And she gives in to those new feelings. This appetite for submission. She is aroused by the contemplation of her servitude.

  Her lover burrows on, going deep, flooding her with a twisted brand of pleasure — raw and sweet and insidious and pervasive all at once.

  And then, without warning, her hips jounce sharply and she comes with a gut-wrenching groan.

  Oh God, that came out of nowhere! She did not think she could soar like this, from her arse. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know.

  The avid thing is quivering in delight, licking its lips, temporarily satiated.

  But the thrusts resume after a short pause.

  No, please, she can’t take any more. She can’t. She’s drained. She’s done.

  To her surprise, the beast perks up, grovelling anew before its master. It is drawn back to the feeding and the fattening. To the sucking. To the unabashed cravenness.

  Before she knows it, her guts have exploded again, thrown her into a bizarre bliss warp.

  Oh God, oh God, she had no idea. This is so insanely, so freakishly gratifying. She is spinning in seventh heaven. How could she have guessed this felt so good? Guessed there was such need in her? Such raw hunger? Such ardour to be soiled?

  And her demon is growing fast. Growing sleeker and more slippery, more voracious and more servile. It has sprung small tentacles lined with myriad pleasure pads. Tiny buds of desire eager to soak up more humiliation, to tether her more securely to her subjugation.

  She is panting, groaning, straining against her bonds. Her cheeks are flushed. Her brow is glistening, burning with sweat. She lets loose a long, animal noise. Her brain, her whole body is on fire — tripping on a weird spike of chemistry. She abandons herself to this orgy of sensations. Abandons herself to the gasping and the bucking.

  To the submission, to her craven needs.

  Time, it seems, has folded upon itself.

  10

  ‘Speak, say something.’

  She looks into Yaouen’s face, uncomprehending.

  She has just crawled out of another bliss hole and her mind is a daze. The last hour or so is one long blur. She is sitting butt naked astride his lap, facing him, on the couch. Although he has untied her, she feels more captive than ever. Bound to him by invisible fetters, by the creature still stirring inside her. By the hypnotic pull in his eyes.

  She knows she has lost her grip on this relationship. She has been swept out to sea and left drifting. She is so abysmally out of her depth. And yet she cannot find the strength to grieve for the safety of the shore.

  ‘Say something,’ he repeats.

  Thankfully, the mist in her eyes is clearing.

  ‘En . . . En français?’

  He holds her in a patient gaze, while stroking the small of her back.

  ‘English, please.’

  ‘Je ne sais pas quoi dire.’

  ‘Anything, say anything. Something easy, with no diphthong. Like kiss.’

  His fingers are drawing delicious figures across her back by way of encouragement.

  She looks worried but duly positions her lips.

  ‘Kuss.’

  Again.

  ‘Kuss.’

  ‘Try “French kiss”.’

  ‘Fringe kuss.’

  A pause.

  ‘C’est bon, j’ai bien dit?’

  She realises she has spoken French. She makes a valiant attempt to focus, willing her lips, her tongue, to do her bidding. Her mouth moves slowly, and far more than necessary.

  ‘Have-I-seeded-right?’

  She looks at him expectantly.

  Yaouen seems puzzled, then gives a smile of recognition.

  ‘Said it right? Can’t you tell?’

  ‘No, I’m fried I cunt.’

  He represses a chuckle. ‘You mean, you’re afraid you can’t?’

  She nods. ‘Why do you keep repetitioning what I sigh?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What’s wonk?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Things are following their proper course. Some tweaking left to do, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not spooking right, am I? What’s my Tinkle-Inglish like? Please don’t white-fib.’

  ‘Your Tinkle? . . . Well, let’s say your English is a touch idiosyncratic.’

  ‘Idiosynchromatic? Which means wot in this case, exactickly?’

  He looks her squarely in the eye.

  ‘To be blunt, your vowels tend to shift, your consonants are on the wonky side and your vocabulary is highly creative.’

  Great, she thinks. She would be somewhat downcast were it not for that lovely feeling in her back — courtesy of Yaouen’s fingers. Yeah, marvellous. She’s a bloody language freak.

  ‘I’m a bloody language fruitbat in the belfry,’ she says.

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’ He smiles. ‘Look, don’t worry. One or two more sessions at the most and you’ll be speaking better than the Bard of Avon.’

  ‘I suppose I should be thankfool then.’

  ‘You don’t fully look it.’

  She abandons herself to his gaze, hoping to find some answers beyond the magnetic sheen.

  ‘Wot’s going to hairpin to myself after that? When I spook proper Tinkle-Inglish?’

  ‘Happen to you? Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Ken I just go walkies back into my old life? Ken I really?’

  ‘You can go walkies . . . You can walk into anything you want. You’re all grown up. When I’ve fulfilled my moral contract, the world’s your oyster again.’

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool’s gold, Youyouen. I don’t wholly comprehandle this, but you’ve metachanged me somehow. If I didn’t know any bitter-better, I’d say you’ve cast a spill on me or something. I’m not my old selfie. I ken feel it. I ken feel this bonk to you.’

  ‘This bond?’

  ‘Yes. And there’s this urgenting in me. It is so strong, so overpottering and . . .’

  She hesitates.

  ‘And a little hairy scary to tell you the truth of the pudding.’

  His face is indecipherable, even more so than her utterances. A faint light is dancing in his eyes. Then he breaks into a smile.

  ‘Now now, you’re dramatizing. You’re a bit shaken after the events of the last few days. Quite normal in the circumstances.’

  His fingers are playing lazily on her back.

  ‘Anyway, about that tweaking. Just thought we might get warmed up for tomorrow’s session.’

  Without giving her time to gasp, he slips his hands under her thighs and, in one fluid motion, spins to the side and collapses her on the couch. Then deftly flips her legs over his shoulders, lifts her hips off the seat and, having decided to skip all preliminaries, verbal or otherwise, begins to tongue her in earnest. This time, she makes no attempt to protest and submits meekly to his ministrations and her own baffling urges.

  She is halfway through her third helpless moan when there is a discreet, but audible, ratatat on the door. The clit massage comes to an abrupt halt.

  ‘Damn it,’ says Yaouen, absent-mindedly removing a pubic hair from the tip of his tongue.

  Damn it, she thinks, groaning in frustration and opening her eyes. Her creature seems to have wound itself tightly around her pussy. It is clearly loath to withdraw.

  ‘Terribly sorry. We may have to suspend the proceedings.’

  Yaouen lays her back delicately on the couch, disengages from her legs and rises to his feet. He takes a few nimble steps and disappears into the passageway to the door.

  Too flustered to make a move, Sandra just lies
there, her breathing still off key, and waits for him to come back. There is a sharp click and then she hears him talking to someone through the crack which he must have opened in the door. Voices kept low, an indistinct babble of sounds. She is not quite sure, but the other voice sounds female.

  After perhaps a minute, Yaouen reappears within her field of vision, looking thoughtful.

  ‘I suggest you put something on. I’d like to introduce you to someone.’

  He picks up his own clothes wherever they chanced to have fallen upon the floor and begins to dress, humming a little ditty.

  She looks at him. How the hell he manages to look as fresh as a mountain peacock after three days of almost constant screwing is beyond her comprehension. She for one cannot ignore how thoroughly churned up inside she is.

  She finally stands up, feeling far more wobbly on her feet than she would like. She can’t see her panties. And where’s the rest of her clothes, her jeans, her socks? She swears under her breath. Luckily, the T-shirt Yaouen brought with him this morning, apologising rather hypocritically, she thought, for tearing up three of her blouses, is lying abandoned at one end of the couch. She quickly picks it up.

  No sooner has she thrown that on than Yaouen, now fully dressed, returns from the door with the mysterious caller in tow.

  The blood rushes to her cheeks and she tugs down at her shirt with a nervous grip, to screen her rosebud. This draws up the back of her garment, undraping the two shapely moons of her rear side — which is reflected in the large wall mirror behind her and therefore sumptuously visible to anyone addressing her.

  Yaouen steps aside to reveal their visitor.

  ‘Hi,’ mumbles Sandra with an uncertain smile, her hand still clutching her shirt.

  The smile freezes on her lips.

  ‘Jenny! Qu’est-ce que tu fais là? What . . . What the chicken licken are you doing here?’

  11

  ‘Hi, Sandra.’

  Jenny does not seem the slightest bit apologetic to be barging in unannounced and intruding so blatantly on Sandra’s privacy. She is beaming like a Cheshire cat.

  ‘Ooh la la! Love your T-shirt.’