“Not in so many words.”
Delacroix is the type of man who feels the need to brand what is his, to have it be separate from the rest of the world. “They're beautiful.” He sucks my throat, hard enough to leave a mark I might have to explain away if I had anyone around to explain away to. “You have such vibrant coloring, like ripe fruit.”
The hard bulge in his jeans grinds against my crotch. It feels good, with so little serving as a barrier between us, and I spread my legs wider to give him better access.
“Do I taste sweet?” I ask, gasping as the ridge of his cock skims along my clitoris.
“Mm-hmm.” He slides his hands up my waist, kneading my flesh. “Like cream. Your nipples, Miss Abrahams, are like raspberries, ripening under the late summer sun.”
“How poetic.”
I can't quite keep the irony from my voice.
Luckily, he doesn't seem to notice. “They've always been my favorite part of a woman. Well, apart from the lips. Do you know, I love watching women apply their lipstick, filling in all those sweet, smiling curves with red.”
Alexander has noticed my attempts to dry hump him and pulls away. “None of that, Miss Abrahams.”
“Why are you torturing me?” I growl.
“Because you aren't surrendering yourself to me. Accept only what I give you.”
“And if it isn't enough?”
“Then you must work harder to earn more.”
“Do you want me to put on lipstick for you?”
“Perhaps later. I've often wondered what it would be like to watch a woman apply lipstick to her nipples, to heighten that deep, delicate rose or peach to a sultry, mouthwatering scarlet. Would you do that for me?”
“That could be messy,” I say, thinking of the potential stains.
“It would be done for a night in, while the breasts were bare,” says Delacroix. “Not for a night out.”
“Let me guess. Naked except for black lace panties, high heels, and a pearl necklace.”
“What kind of pearl necklace?”
“Not the kind you're thinking of.”
Delacroix chuckles. “I prefer pink lace to black.”
He unfolds a silk tie which he fastens over my eyes. I recognize it from one of his lectures, as well as from the ride to the BDSM club, and I feel a little thrill that he is using it from one of his lectures, and I feel a little thrill that he is using it in the here and now.
My lust fades. I can't help but wonder if it's been used for this purpose with another woman. He is a little too good at tying nights; I doubt he learned it from boy scouts, either.
“Is that why I'm wearing this outfit for you?” I ask, putting his attention back on me. “For a night in? With lipstick?”
I imagine he is smiling. “Perhaps, although you never answered my question.”
“Yes—,” I start, and then cut off into an abrupt gasp.
Something rough glides up my belly. It starts from just above my groin, with thousands of small, cutting teeth that bite into my skin as it continues its ascent towards my throat. “What does this feel like?” he asks.
“Not lipstick.”
“Such a smart mouth.”
He circles my nipples.
“Perhaps a lighter touch.”
The movements become light, teasing. I rear up on my bound arms. “I want you to fuck me now.”
“Hmm, but perhaps that isn't what I want.”
“Alexander. Please.”
“What does this feel like, Miss Abrahams?”
“Like your beard when you haven't shaved in a while.”
“Oh?”
“Without the softness of your lips to cushion it.”
“Do you want my lips on you, Miss Abrahams?”
“Yes. You know I do. I want you to do it harder. I want your cock inside me, filling me. But most of all, I want you to stop teasing me.”
“Those weren't options, Miss Abrahams.”
He stops everything, leaving only my hitched breaths.
“Never issue commands to me. Not unless it's our safe word. Now I have to punish you for being greedy.”
I am silent, waiting, scarcely daring to breathe.
“We're stopping now,” he tells me.
“Everything?”
“Is that what you want?”
“No. Not at all. I want you to continue.”
“No more commands then.”
“No, Alexander.”
“I need my hands, so I'm going to give you my cock to suck. You're going to get me nice and hard with that beautiful mouth so I can fuck you when we're done. Isn't that generous of me?”
“Yes, Alexander.”
“So it looks like you will be getting at least one thing that you wanted, Miss Abrahams.” And with that, his cock thrusts into my open mouth, silky soft over the steeled muscle beneath. I love how completely it fills me, how there's scarcely room for air. He tastes salty, musky, clean. Vastly preferable to the mostly unwashed potheads I've been fucking.
He slides in and out of my mouth, and I hear him open something with a muted pop. Champagne? He thrusts harder, faster, and I hear the sound he makes, the low almost surprised sound, right before he comes. Delacroix seems averse to semen, and always tries to aim for the sheets after I suck him off. He doesn't quite succeed, and I can taste him, the hot salty warmth of his seed, in the back of my throat.
Something slick and wet circles my aureola after he pulls out. At first I think it might be his cock but the texture is wrong and the surface area of it is too small and narrow. The sensation reminds me of wet clay and feels soothing after his abrasive massage.
I relax, enjoying myself. I don't mind pain, but this is a pleasant interlude. It isn't until he starts on my lips that I realize he's doing what he alluded to earlier: it's lipstick. My belly clenches.
I didn't think he'd really do it.
“Smack your lips together,” Delacroix orders, filling in what he's missed when I do.
“What color did you use?” I ask him.
“Candy Apple Red,” he says, clearly reading from the label. He blows softly on my lips and breasts to dry them. “When your nipples pucker up like that, it's like they're begging for my kiss.”
“Will you kiss them, Alexander?”
“I think so. Perhaps as a reward for pleasing me. But first, I want to take your photograph.”
All the heat in my body drains out as I freeze. While I was enjoying myself I didn't notice, but I'm suddenly aware of just how vulnerable this position has left me. “Here? Now?” I can't quite keep the horror from my voice. “Like this?”
“Yes.”
“I don't think so.”
I squeeze my thighs together, aware that my crotch is bare between them.
“Are you crazy?”
“What if you're wearing a mask in the picture?” This solution is so quickly offered, I can't help but feel that this is less spontaneous than preplanned.
“What would you do with the picture?”
“Keep it,” he says huskily, and I feel my breath halt as I imagine him masturbating to my photograph between classes, cleaning himself up with wadded-up essays from his failing students. The fantasy has just enough cruelty and fetishism to appeal to me.
“And that's all?” I ask, a little faintly.
He doesn't respond, waiting for me.
“Okay. Fine. But not until I'm wearing the mask.”
He removes my blindfold. I watch him stalk towards the dresser, barechested now, and admire the way the muscles in his sides move with each step as if there are a network of pulleys working in tandem beneath his skin. The rose on his bicep seems to pulsate with life.
He produces what looks like a bird mask, brilliant and elaborate, like something from a masquerade. It is silver, with a spray of feathers fringing the edges, studded with what look like rhinestones. “You got the idea of the mask from Story of O,” I say.
“You've been reading your books.”
Cliff Notes, actually, but he sounds so pleased I don't correct him.
“Good girl,” he purrs again. “Yes, I did. I had it specially commissioned from an artist colleague of mine. It seems as though I might have to reward you again.”
“How?” I ask, interested.
“How would you like?”
“Dinner?” I suggest. We have never gone out together in public, not since that one evening at the BDSM club in the city. Delacroix hesitates.
“Perhaps.” He sounds less than enthusiastic about the idea.
I let him pose me the way he wants, even though I feel silly in just the mask, naked save for a few scraps of lacy fabric. My lipsticked nipples shrivel in the cold. He has colored them in very carefully, but rather than being sexy it looks as if I have a rash.
Delacroix snaps several photographs, even though I only agreed to one. “Just in case the others don't come out,” he says. “Arch your back, spread your legs more.”
“Can I see the pictures?”
“Soon,” he tells me. “After they develop.”
“That's a digital camera, isn't it? They don't need to develop. Why can't I see them now?”
“Because I said no.” He straddles my waist and plunges into me. It still feels uncomfortable, but not as painful as the first time. My body is getting used to his girth. “You're still remarkably tight,” he says. “I'm surprised. You seem experienced.”
I buck my hips with the intent of throwing him off. It only causes him to sink in deeper. I spit at him, and Delacroix casually slaps me across the face.
“Unwise.”
“You insulted me.”
“A whore cannot be insulted, Miss Abrahams.”
I glare at him through the eye holes of the mask.
“I think you deserve to be fucked from behind,” he says. “Like a slut. Or a dog.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, a little sarcastically.
“Whatever I want, Miss Abrhams? Because I want to stimulate your anus while I fuck you. I want to insert some beads, as many as you can take, while I've got my cock inside your pussy. I want to stretch you out until you can take all of me in. And then I want to fuck that tight little ass, to stretch you out until you bleed for me, until you scream for me, and I can fill every inch of you.”
I'm still angry at him, so I shrug and say nothing, pretending his words have no effect on me.
Alexander is rougher than usual, even picking up his discarded belt from the floor and using it to hit me across the breasts and belly. As the evening wears on, I get the impression that he's trying to get me to say the safe word, to bring the evening to a close. But I don't, and so the torture wears on, pleasure and pain becoming so hopelessly intertwined that I haven't the faintest hope of disentangling them.
I used to think having an addictive personality was a good thing, like it was synonymous with being the life of the party—that it meant people couldn't get enough of you. Then I found out it was the opposite, that you're the crazy person everyone avoids because everyone and everything is just a means to an end for their poison of choice.
By that time, I understood.
Most of the time, I would have liked for a way to avoid myself.
And then, with alcohol I found a way.
Alexander might just be another.
“Jessica, you need to focus on your future. We're not going to be around forever. What are you going to do when we die? You don't have any job experience and now, you won't have a degree either. What are you going to put on your resume?”
“This is unacceptable, young lady! You aren't even trying. We didn't pay five thousand dollars so you could fuck off all quarter and spend all day in bed. You get your ass to class and you learn.”
“Answer your phone!”
“Jessica, pick up the goddamn phone.”
Listening to my voice mail was a mistake.
Delacroix notices my face and pulls away from me without pulling out. “Is something wrong?”
Only everything. “Do you have any alcohol?”
Delacroix sighs. He pulls his cock out of me and slides out of bed. I watch him walk, naked, to the bar. He has a nice ass, though it is slowly starting to sag. I wonder how come I've never noticed it before; I've certainly seen it enough times.
He pours me a full glass. I drink it all in two swallows and push it back to him. “More.”
“Please,” he says, with light emphasis that pisses me off. He may be older than me but he's not my fucking father. Raising an eyebrow, he fills it up again, only halfway this time.
I drain it and then say, “Fill it up.”
“Do I look like a bartender?”
“Please,” I beg.
He looks disapproving, but he does as I ask.
I did say the magic word, after all.
I wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand and burp, once. “Do you love me Alexander?”
“You've had too much to drink,” he says, not kindly.
It's true. Of the bottle we've shared, I've drunk the better half.
I push my glass away as if I can hide the incriminating evidence that way.
“That doesn't answer my question,” I say, throwing one of his favorite phrases back at him. “Nobody else loves me. But you do, don't you?”
Delacroix doesn't respond.
“Make love to me,” I say, into the silence. “I mean, fuck me. Fuck me hard. I want to be so fucking used I can't remember tonight, or any other night.”
To which he says, “I'm driving you home.”
I protest but he doesn't take no for an answer.
He never does.
“I hope you understand why I couldn't let you stay the last time.”
“Yes,” I lie, because I don't understand.
“You were out of control.”
“Isn't that the point of BDSM? To give up control?”
“Yes,” he says. “To give up control. Not to throw all control to the wind.”
Same difference, I think.
We have sex and I feel nothing. For the first time in a long time, I get no pleasure from the act.
Neither of us comes.
Alexander produces a box from the side of the bed, which silences my retort. It's a velvet box, the kind that's been shown in hundreds and thousands of movies.
Is he proposing?
I never thought of myself as the marriageable type. Inside the box are two ruby studs. Earrings, I think, until I see the two barbells intersecting them.
Nipple rings.
“What's the matter? Don't you like them?”
“They're beautiful, but I—I can't wear them.”
“Would you like to?”
His eagerness makes me shiver. “No. I don't think so.”
“That's a shame.” He closes the box and slides out of bed. “They were quite expensive. Surgical-grade steel, studded with real rubies.”
“You know I don't have piercings.”
“I was hoping I could persuade you,” he says sulkily, and for a moment I want to hit him.
“What do I do with these?” I hold up the box. Tempted to throw it at him for his attitude, but not quite daring. My heart twists uncertainly in my chest at the blank look that slides down his features.
“Keep them.” He shrugs. “Sell them. I must get to work. I'm sorry you do not appreciate my gift.”
“I didn't say that.”
“Not in so many words,” he agrees. “Excuse me.”
I go to the dining commons. I eat too much again and end up throwing up—again.
I'd kill someone for some alcohol. One of my neighbors has left her mouthwash in the bathroom and I take a swig of that. My stomach aches, like I've got a burning ball of lead in my gut.
Alexander.
He's all I can think about all the time.
I can't get that look of rejection out of my face.
That awful sex.
Maybe we need things spiced up between us. It certainly bears thinking about. So f
ew things bring me pleasure these days, I'm unwilling to sacrifice any of them; they're the only things keeping me alive.
Even though he's told me never to call him at home, I call him.
“Miss Abrahams,” he says, sounding displeased. “I thought I told you—”
“I know.” There is a pause. He waits. “I've changed my mind.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“I'll come get you.”
The phone goes dead. I wonder if I've made yet another mistake.
I don't care.
I am clutching the box so tightly that the sharp corners beneath the velvet are leaving marks on the inside of my palm. Red crescents that will not heal for at least a day. I barely feel the pain. Alexander greets me with an impassioned kiss that seems fake.
“You look beautiful.”
I don't feel beautiful.
“Have you brought the rings?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I was thinking we'd do this in the bedroom.”
“The bedroom,” I repeat.
“It's easier if you lie down.”
“Have you done this before?”
I have that voice—it's the one that tells me not to cut, not to drink, to take the pills.
That voice is so loud that sometimes I have to drown it out with my own actions.
This is one of those times.
I want to please Alexander. I don't want him to look at me with the coldness in his eyes.
I want him to hurt me, so I won't feel pain.
“Yes,” he says. “I have.”
“On who? The same person you went to the BDSM club with?”
“No,” he says. “Would you like a drink first?”
I'd like several. “Just give me a bottle.”
Delacroix rolls his eyes but hands me a cheap white with a twist cap. I swallow what I want, then set the bottle on his counter and follow him into the bedroom.
“Take off your shirt, Miss Abrahams.”
He watches me unbutton it. Nothing sexy; it's the plaid flannel I wore the first time I met him. I'm not wearing anything beneath it, and my nipples are pebbling from the cold. Alexander always keeps his house so cold. He nudges me back, moving my arms over my head.
Tantalized Page 14