by Cecilia Tan
“All of the above.”
He was grinning. “I’m going to strike you again now, sweetness. Hard.”
“Okay.” I pressed my forehead into the cradle instead of looking at him, steeling myself for the blow.
I screamed when it hit, not in surprise since I knew it was coming, but in sheer expression of pain, and maybe even a little outrage at being hit at all.
“That scream! I can’t watch!”
“Eh, you can see a lot worse at the BDSM clubs on the West Side.”
“I didn’t know Lester was a pervert.”
“That’s not him back there. He was up front.”
“Is this some kind of comment about people in glass houses?”
“If we’re supposed to start throwing stones, I’m leaving.”
Then came a voice that sounded a lot like Professor Renault’s. “Oh, we don’t need to look at this. It’s probably just some slut.”
A male voice answered him. “I don’t know about you, but it’s not every day I get to see a woman’s bare ass.”
“Turn on the television any day of the week,” a woman said, “and you will. Yawn. Clearly desperate for publicity. Oh, what’s this?”
James pulled out his phone and did something. I could hear a sort of hum, then a clatter.
“Karina,” he said. “That’s the sound of a pile of riding crops falling from the ceiling in front of the crowd. If they do what I think they will, please tell me if it gets to be too much.”
“I will.” Though I didn’t feel anything at the moment.
It was several minutes before someone worked up the nerve to swat me with one, and then it was her who yelped “Oh!” and ran away. I tried not to laugh.
Several people picked up the crops and touched me with them, but very few were willing to hit. Then a female voice said, “I’ll show you how it’s done,” and crack! A sharp blow landed right across my cheeks, not as hard as his, but enough to make me mouth a silent scream while I tried to absorb the pain.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered. “Absolutely stunning.”
A few more tried to hit me, but they had the angle wrong, or they weren’t trying very hard. I couldn’t make out individual voices for a while. Then things began to thin out, the room sounding more empty.
“You did beautifully,” he said softly. “Let’s bring this to a close, then.” He tapped on his phone and the lights shifted once more, as small but brilliant lights inside the glass came on. He withdrew his arm from the hole but left his jacket hanging there, and then rolled my chair back from the holes and put something into their place to seal them up.
He ran his hands down my back and over my backside. “The marks are bright and lovely,” he said. “You might have two spots that bruise. Both my doing, I think.”
“What does it look like?”
“Here, I’ll take a photo.” He took it with his phone and then texted it to me. “How it looks is entirely secondary to how it feels, though,” he said, running his hand over the flesh again. He grabbed a handful of my cheek and I sucked a breath in through my teeth. Arousal and adrenaline were flowing through me in equal measures, and I wanted to hump his leg but couldn’t since I was still strapped down.
“You are so brave. Sore?” he asked.
“Sore,” I agreed.
“And how about here?” He moved his hand to my clit and labia, brushing his fingertips back and forth. “You’re practically dripping.”
“Does that mean I’m a masochist?”
“Perhaps an exhibitionist, too. All those people staring at your bare ass.”
I felt myself gush at the thought.
He chuckled. “I wonder if you’ll come more easily or more powerfully here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They can’t see us. All they can see is perhaps a flicker of movement through the glass and lights. But they can still hear you if you’re loud enough.”
“Oh, I—” I broke off as I felt his tongue licking one of the stripes left by the crop. He paused to kiss my cheeks in a few places, and then licked at the wetness dripping from me. Even though I had been shaved for more than two weeks now, I still felt extra sensitive and bare down there. His fingers spread my lips apart and his tongue went hunting for my clit.
The angle was all wrong this way, but that made it so very right, each darting lick of his tongue making my arousal leap and grow. And then he sucked my clit into his mouth and let my lips loose, sinking one finger deep into me. That made me wail with pleasure, and it wasn’t long before the wail was one of release, as the suction and the flicking of his tongue brought on the inevitable orgasm. His finger inside me seemed to find more spots to trigger me with, and a second and third orgasm piled on top of the first, making me scream myself hoarse.
When at last he withdrew, he rested his cheek against my bare back and sighed as if he were as spent as I was.
“Do I get my wish now?” I asked.
“Mmm. First you get a glass of water for your poor, parched throat,” he said. “And then you may have anything that is in my power to give.”
I felt him stand and release the straps, and then move away. When he came around to the front of the chair, he had a bottle of water in his hands. I sat up and drank it greedily.
“You want to know what’s ironic?” I asked when I paused for breath.
“What?”
“I didn’t like sex with my early boyfriends because of how much it hurt.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. But it hurt in ways that proved they either didn’t know what was going on with me or didn’t care.” I reached up for him and pulled him down into a kiss, then let him go just enough that I could still feel his breath on my face. “You, though, when you hurt me, you prove you know exactly what I like and how much you care.”
He kissed me again, in total agreement, his tongue claiming me thoroughly. When he pulled back, he said, “The same is true when I pleasure you, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And when you control me and test me.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“So what about my wish, then?”
“Whatever you like, sweetness. Didn’t I say that already?” He nuzzled his nose against mine.
“You did. I’m just making sure.”
“Well, then, what is your wish?”
I was surprised by my reaction. “Tell me if you’re the real J. B. Lester. I thought for a while that maybe you commissioned the glass works, but now I think you’re the artist. Well?”
He jerked back but didn’t let go of me, searching my eyes.
His voice was rough from emotion when he said, “You’re right. I am.”
I tightened my hold on him, my heart racing. “You made the marble and the other things.” I felt my groin tighten as I pictured the glass butterfly. “The toys.”
“I did,” he admitted, closing his eyes.
I leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. I didn’t know why he would pretend to be the buyer of the art instead of the creator, but maybe that was one more thing I would eventually come to know. “You’re amazing.”
He opened his eyes. “No, you are amazing, and I’d like to go somewhere more private to tell you so and celebrate your fabulous performance.”
“All right.”
He helped me to extricate myself from the chair. “Let me go and say good-bye to the others while you dress,” he said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
I got back into my clothes, wondering if “somewhere more private” meant another limo ride, or hotel room, or what. My jeans felt rough on the welts on my ass, even through my underwear, and I felt as relaxed as I had been after the foot massage except for the tight thrum of sexual tension between my legs. Somewhere private. Would tonight finally be the night? I was open to whatever intimacy came next, whether it was physical or emotional.
Eleven: Tremble Like a Flower
He returned wearing a floor-length coat, which seemed logical at first since I thought we wer
e leaving the building. But he handed me a large cardboard box and led me out the back door of the gallery into a service staircase at the rear of the building. Up we went, two, three, four floors, to the top floor, where he opened the door into a haphazardly furnished loft apartment. The furniture looked like it had been assembled from other people’s moving sales and castoffs. The corner nearest the door served as the kitchen, separated from the rest of the main room by a dining table with six unmatched chairs.
The box, it turned out, held canapés and pastries from the caterers, and under his coat he had a bottle of champagne.
Above the sink we found a few mismatched pieces of glassware, and he pulled out two and led me to the futon couch, much more stylish than mine, in the front window. The illumination from the streetlamps was bright, so he didn’t turn on the lights. The coffee table was shaped like a glass kidney bean. I laid out the open box while he poured the champagne.
We clinked glasses. “To a successful performance,” he said as he settled back on the couch. “And a stunning debut.” He took a sip of the champagne.
“To my ass’s debut,” I agreed.
He almost spat his champagne when I said that, then gave me a dark look for a moment before he grinned and said, “That was cruel.”
“Oh God, did it sting going up your nose? I’m sorry! I didn’t actually think it was going to work!” I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, really. I didn’t think it would work.”
“You, sweet, are the only one who can make me laugh like this.”
“You mean Stefan’s not much of a comedian?”
“He is sometimes unintentionally funny,” James said. “Which means I have to hide that I’m laughing or he’d be mortified.” He took another sip of his champagne, this time keeping a mock stern expression on his face as he did so. “Let’s not talk about Stefan. Tell me. How did that compare to dancing?”
“I don’t think I ever got a welt from dancing,” I said, pretending to look back at my rear with concern. “But seriously, that was intense.”
“Would you say you liked it?”
“What I liked best was that you were there,” I said seriously. “I liked that you challenged me, dared me to do it. And I liked meeting that challenge.” I moved closer to him on the couch, tucking my legs under me and holding the champagne glass with my arm hanging over the back.
“You know something?” he asked, his fingers coming to rest on my knee. “I like that you challenge me, too, Karina.”
“I challenge you?”
“You do. To be my best. And to be…myself.” He set down his half-empty glass and took my other hand in his. “I haven’t felt this free in a long time. With most women, in fact, I can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t?” He picked up a canapé and held it out for me to eat.
I gratefully did, having almost forgotten about food in all the excitement. I had no idea what it was I had eaten, only that it was delicious. Something with ham? He popped one into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
“Most women,” he said after swallowing, “want me to be a certain way. The ones I meet in the BDSM scene especially have very specific expectations. They want a master, or a dom, or a daddy, and they have very detailed ideas of what each of those roles should be. That can be fun, for a while, but like any role, it can get tiring to maintain all the time.”
“And they want to be your slave girls?”
“Or pets, or loyal servants, or any number of other things. People’s fantasies are very powerful. Sexual fantasies come from deep inside, sometimes so deep you can’t even say what the origin is.” He picked up another one of the hors d’oeuvres and fed it to me, then ate another himself. “But you? You didn’t come out of the BDSM scene. I thought surely if I gave it time, some fantasy role would suggest itself, either for you or what you wanted me to be.”
“But it wouldn’t stick,” I said, thinking about what I told Becky. “Every time we try some kind of ‘let’s pretend,’ it falls apart.”
“I know.” He picked out another treat from the box, this one cone-shaped and filled with deviled egg yolk. I licked my lips after swallowing. “I do wonder if we just haven’t found the right thing yet,” he said.
“Stefan calls you boss or boss man.”
“Which is appropriate, since I’m his employer.”
“Well, we know I can’t handle my lord or Your Highness or any of that renaissance faire kind of stuff with a straight face.” I picked up something wrapped in bacon and after eating one, held one out for him. It was crunchy, fatty, salty, and delicious. “I mean, maybe for the space of one scene or one night of fantasy, I could, but it would be hard to keep from laughing. Even if you got all dressed up as royalty. It simply wouldn’t feel real.”
He looked down at his hands, at his strong and graceful fingers. The hands that sculpted such beauty, drew such pleasures out of me with the surest touch. “Does it feel real to you, Karina? When we do what we do?”
I looked into his eyes, willing him to look up at me. “It does. Maybe I’m foolish for feeling that way, but it does. Wasn’t it you who said if I didn’t obey, I would be making a mockery out of it?”
“I did.”
He took one of my hands in his and gently sucked on the tip of a finger. Then he said, “What do you suppose the prince called Cinderella, since he didn’t know her name?”
“I suppose until he met her, he could call her anything he wanted in his head.”
“Let me be more direct. Do you mind that I call you sweetness and my sweet?” He sucked on my next finger, as if checking it for chocolate sauce or powdered sugar.
“Why would I mind that?”
“Some women might find it demeaning to be considered delicious,” he said.
“Well, I guess I’m not one of them. Sweetness is a helluva lot better than baby.” I giggled. “As for you, this might be too long for a pet name.”
“What might be too long?”
“The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”
That set us both to snickering, but I didn’t want to get distracted from the conversation.
I rubbed my cheek against his knuckles. “Perhaps that’s the thing. Stefan calls you what he does because your relationship’s defined. Maybe what I’m trying to figure out is something to call you that honors the reality of what we mean to each other, who you are to me and who I am to you.”
He held out his arms, inviting me to snuggle and rest my head on his shoulder. “I haven’t felt about anyone the way I feel about you,” he said. “You astonish and delight me, and each time I see you only makes me wish the next time would arrive faster.”
“Well, that’s good, because that’s pretty much word for word how I feel about you.” With my body resting against his, I could feel how at ease he was. The tension that had filled him in the past was absent. I put my hand on his chest to feel his heart beating. “What’s the word for that?”
“Lover?” he hazarded.
“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t work so well as a nickname. Maybe once in a while, like ‘Hey, lover, how was your day?’ but not for all the time.”
“What about when it comes to defining what I mean to you?” he asked.
“Hmm. Okay, yes, lover does seem to fit. Boyfriend really doesn’t. That sounds so…beneath you somehow. Boyfriend sounds so mundane and dull. And loaded with mundane expectations.”
“I could not agree more, sweetness,” he said, kissing my forehead.
I snuggled even closer. “Maybe I’ll just have to keep calling you James when we’re together.”
“That would suit me just fine.”
“So how was the mind reading tonight? You could see the audience, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, I could,” he admitted. “It’s a shame you couldn’t see their faces, too. Truly a fascinating exposure of human vulnerability.”
“Hah, for all concerned,” I said. “Wait, was that the point? That they were as exposed as I was, in your eyes?”
/> “Maybe.”
“That’s the kind of voyeur you are,” I teased. “It’s not just watching girls like me touch themselves that gets you excited.”
“Are you saying I’m more complicated than that?”
I sat up a little so I could look him in the eye. “You are the most complicated person I know.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just you.” I settled back down. “I worry that I’m nowhere near complicated enough to keep you interested.”
“Just because I am taking my time plumbing your depths doesn’t mean I find them shallow,” he said, running a finger along my neck.
“Was that a euphemism?” I teased.
“No, sweetness, though it was a double meaning. I plan to plumb both your physical and psychological depths.” He shifted on the couch. “I want to play with your body right now. Will you let me?”
“Will I get another wish?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure I’m obligated to grant multiple wishes per night. You can look it up in the genie contract. For now, come here,” he said, motioning for me to straddle him.
I stood to do as he’d asked but paused to look at him. “Clothed or unclothed?”
“Unclothed would be better,” he said, stripping out of his shirt. That surprised me. I’d assumed I would be the only one removing my clothes.
He undressed halfway, leaving his pants on. I climbed onto his lap, my hands on his shoulders and my legs on either side of his. He reached between us, spreading my lips but not touching my clit.
“I never tire of looking at you,” he said. “Shaven or unshaven, you are so easy to admire.”
“Is my pussy really that cute?” I half whispered the word pussy.
“Don’t compare yourself to other women,” he said, looking me in the eye. “That’s a losing game no matter who plays. But yes, yours is quite beautiful, and not merely because it’s mine to do with as I wish.” To emphasize the point, he slid a finger deep inside me without taking his eyes from mine.
I groaned. The orgasm from earlier had only heightened my appetite for him. “The real reason I can’t call you lover is because we still haven’t done it,” I complained.