Ellison stepped in close, heat radiating off his body as he pressed me against the car. His hand slid up my body again, and I tilted my chin up, thinking he was going for my neck, but he caught me by the chin instead and turned my face toward him. His eyes were dark and half-lidded, but they’d lost none of their intensity.
“Normally,” he said, leaning in so his lips were an inch from mine, kissing-close, “I’d invite you back to my place so I could spend hours tormenting you and fucking you in every position I can dream of. I’d use your body until you were begging me to let you come again, and then if you were very, very good, I would let you.”
I swallowed hard, my heart stuttering. “But…you’re not going to?”
“I have an early morning tomorrow,” he said, voice tinged with regret. “But I would very much like to see you again, if that’s something you’re interested in.”
“I—yeah. Definitely.”
He closed the distance between us, pressing his lips to mine. Our first kiss, I realized with a sharp thrill. His hand was still firm on my chin, so I couldn’t really move with it; I could only part my lips for him and let him explore me with slow sweeps of his tongue. I whimpered into his mouth and was rewarded with another thrust of his tongue, deeper and firmer. The kiss was a claiming, that much was perfectly clear, and I found that I didn’t mind one bit. I wriggled against him, arching my body since my face was held immobile, and even though my cock wasn’t going to get back in the game for a solid half hour at least, I loved feeling the friction of him against me, of his hips against mine while his tongue fucked my mouth.
When he finally broke away, his breath was coming quicker, and that was almost as thrilling as the kiss. “You’re so responsive,” he murmured against my lips, a glimmer of wonder in his voice. “I can’t wait to see what else I can make you do.”
He deserved a smart-ass reply for that, and I tried—I really did—but words were hard, and it came out kind of garbled and incoherent and trailed off into a bit of a whine, if I’m being honest with myself here.
Ellison straightened up and helped ease me off his car. Standing was a little bit of a challenge—everything had gone a little wobbly—but I managed. “So…next weekend, maybe?”
“I’ll text you,” he said with a bemused smile. “Do you need help getting back to your car?”
I snorted. “I think I’ve already lost more than enough dignity tonight.” I waved in the general direction of his rear door. “Kind of…all over the place. So no, I’m going to walk back to my car by myself, and I’d really appreciate if you chalked up any unsteadiness to me being incredibly drunk off that one cocktail I had, rather than any sort of, y’know, mind-blowing sexual awakenings that may or may not have occurred.”
He covered his mouth with his hand, his shoulders shaking with barely-restrained laughter. “If you’re sure,” he said, grinning. “I’ll keep that under consideration.”
“Good. And, uh…thanks for a really enjoyable evening.”
“It was my pleasure.” His voice was steady and sincere, and it warmed me right to my core. For a moment, I truly believed it—that he’d gotten as much out of this as I had, that he’d be looking forward to our next meeting with the same barely-repressed anxiety that I’d be steeping in all week.
But a moment later he was in his car, the door clicking firmly shut behind him, and I still had just enough dignity left to not just stand there and watch him drive away like a lovestruck idiot, so I turned and walked back to my car, trying not to obsess over the fading rattle of his engine as he left the garage and slipped away into the night.
I was still a little wobbly when I got back to the car, so I took my time picking out music and checking my phone. I’d missed a couple messages from Mariah, which was entirely unsurprising.
> MARIAH: Have fun on your date, loverboy!
> MARIAH: You better tell me aaaallllll about it
I huffed out a weak laugh. Where would I even start? For all I knew, there was, like…specialist vocabulary for the things he’d done to me tonight. Making someone nearly come in their pants in the middle of a crowded restaurant just by touching their face would be called “fribbermarling” or something, with thriving online communities devoted to discussing the best ways to do it and which hand to use in polite company.
Shaking my head, I tapped out the only reply I could possibly think of right now.
> RIVER: Holy fucking fuck, Mariah.
I hadn’t even managed to shift the car into gear before my phone buzzed at me.
> MARIAH: I know, right?!?!?!
7
The next day Ellison texted me to say he wouldn’t have time to get together that weekend, and for the rest of the day I felt like I might die of sexual frustration. But the day after that I came down with the cold from hell, so I felt like I might die of that instead, which was marginally better.
Mariah insisted on coming by to nurse me back to health, and when she arrived, the knock at the door was entirely too cheerful and energetic for how wretched I felt. I shuffled over and flipped the locks open, and Mariah burst in almost before I could finish opening the door.
“Aww, look at you all tucked up in your blanket burrito,” she cooed, flicking my blanket gently with her finger. “I promised I’d bring you soup and tea, but I forgot the soup, and you can’t drink the tea.”
I’d been about to shut the door, but I jumped back as Tea slipped inside after Mariah. “Hi River,” they said. “How are you feeling?”
I answered with a very eloquent groan as I shut the door behind them.
Mariah and Tea kicked off their shoes, and Mariah quickly bent down to straighten them before I could do it myself. “Never fear, though,” she said. “We’ll order something from that Chinese place with the amazing hot and sour soup, and you’re going to feel better in no time.”
I did some quick mental calculations while I shuffled back to the couch. “I’ve been eating out a lot this week, but I guess I can do some Chinese takeout.”
“Perfect.” Mariah wasted no time bustling around my apartment, grabbing the empty water glass from in front of me and bringing it to the kitchen. “Have you been remembering to take your cold pills?”
“Mostly.”
She scoffed and ducked into the bathroom, and I heard her rummaging in my medicine cabinet. Tea sat down on the couch opposite me and watched as Mariah emerged from the bathroom, filled the glass with water, and pulled a menu out of the set of plastic drawers on the kitchen counter. “God, I can’t get over your apartment,” she said as she handed the menu to Tea and deposited the water and cold pills in front of me before squishing in between us on the couch. “It’s like one of those little Japanese closets where everything is in plastic boxes stacked like Tetris pieces.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I swallowed the pills gratefully with about half the water as Tea inspected the menu. “You really didn’t have to come, Tea—I don’t want you to get sick too.”
“I have an iron constitution,” they said. “Besides, if I was going to get it, I’d have caught it when Mariah dragged me to brunch on Sunday.”
Mariah groaned. “Yeah, this bug hit pretty much everyone at Eric and Taya’s party. I used to get asked all the time why I wasn’t terrified of catching a million diseases when I live such a ‘risky’ lifestyle, but honestly, everyone I know is so meticulous about protection and regular testing that it’s hardly ever on my mind. The real risk is the common cold. That and terrible jokes—those are a bona fide epidemic in this community. I’m surprised you’re getting it so late, though.”
“I didn’t do anything at the party,” I said with a pathetic cough. “Maybe I caught it from Ellison.”
A grin split Mariah’s face. “So you two did swap spit.”
“Yeah, there were…” I coughed again and glanced at Tea, who was still engrossed in the menu. “Some…fluids swapped, I guess.”
Mariah stifled a squeal. “Tell me all about it, you dirty bo
y!” Tea cleared their throat gently. “Tell me the work-safe version,” she corrected. “And then text me the missing bits.”
“It was good.” Mariah narrowed her eyes, drumming her fingers on her knee expectantly. “We had a drink and talked about, uh, interests and limits and stuff. He was very…intense. And, um, then we did some stuff in the parking garage.”
Tea raised their eyebrows, and Mariah chuckled. “God, Ellison and his semi-public sex kink. There was this one time—” She glanced over at Tea, and straightened up in her seat. “This one time nothing at all interesting happened. The end.” She gave me an exaggerated wink.
“I think I’ll go with the ‘Fragrant Chicken,’” Tea said, handing the menu to Mariah, “if only because I have to know what it is.”
Mariah passed the menu straight to me. “I always get garlic shrimp. Please don’t take forever to decide, River—I’m starving.”
“No promises,” I said, perusing the menu. Not that it was strictly necessary—I just about knew this place’s menu by heart, but it still helped to have everything in front of me to compare. “I do really want the hot and sour soup, but the larger size is as much as a whole combo meal. And even that’s not all that filling.”
“Here he goes,” Mariah said, leaning her head on Tea’s shoulder with a sigh.
“Maybe I’ll get the combo. It only comes with a small soup, but I’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.”
“Chinese leftovers are usually disappointing, and you’re sick—get the soup.”
“I guess I could get some potstickers to go with it or something. Those are only three dollars.” The worst part was I knew I was being weird about this; I could only imagine what Tea was thinking right now. But now that I was worrying about it, the decision paralysis was setting in, and all I could see was an endless list of numbers and Chinese characters.
“If money is tight, I can cover the meal,” Tea said, but I shook my head. That would be so much worse.
“Don’t get him started,” Mariah groaned.
“No, money is fine,” I said with a sigh. “I just stick to a very strict budget.”
“River here is one of those crazy people who actually follows that old advice about having six months of living expenses in savings at all times, and he’s the world’s biggest penny-pincher. You’ll see if you ever go shopping with him—every trip is an hour-long ordeal.”
I was more than used to this from Mariah, but I’d been trying to give Tea a gentle introduction to my many and varied neuroses so they wouldn’t go running for the hills. “Sorry,” I said, my cheeks growing hot, “I just have issues. I’m kind of working on it.”
“Right,” Mariah said, and I could almost hear her eyes rolling.
“Hey,” I huffed, “I let Ellison buy me a drink the other night. I’m taking baby steps.”
Mariah gasped, one hand to her chest. “You let him pay? And you didn’t put up a screaming fight over it?”
“I nobly restrained myself. It was only a few dollars, and I was a little distracted by other things.”
“How about a compromise?” Tea offered. “You go ahead and get the soup, and let us cover the pot stickers. That’s only about a dollar fifty for each of us, so you can stay under budget with minimal guilt.”
I tried to un-knot some of the tightness in my chest with a couple of deep breaths. Sometimes “minimal guilt” was about the best I could do. “Fine,” I said grudgingly, “but I might try to pay you back at some point.”
“We’ll live.” Mariah snatched up her phone. “Let’s get our chow down.”
While Mariah was placing the order, Tea turned to me with a smile. “So it sounds like you had a successful date—you caught a cold and compromised on your principles.”
“So many principles,” I groaned pathetically, burying my face in my hands. “But it was kind of worth it.”
“That’s good to hear. Feet up here.” Tea patted their lap, and I figured I might as well accept. I was entitled to a little pampering while I was sick. Mariah made a face as I tried to drape my legs over her lap; she wiggled out from under me and sat on the end of the couch, squishing me into the middle between her and Tea. “Do you think you’re going to see him again?”
I wriggled back against Mariah, who grudgingly made herself into a backrest. “I hope so. He’s being a little vague on when he wants to get together again, and it’s already stressing me out. But I really want to see him. I’ve never met anyone quite like him.”
“Someone so dominant?”
“Sort of. Or more like…dominant in this particular way. He’s just this walking ball of confidence. I never thought that would be so much of a turn-on, but it’s not like he’s an asshole about it. He comes off a little cocky, but it sure seems like it’s with good reason.”
Tea nodded. “Confidence is sexy. It always gets me.”
“Me too,” I said with a sigh, “but it makes me pretty unconfident. He’s got all this experience and it shows, and I’m just stumbling pathetically along after him like a lost puppy.”
Tea gave me a skeptical look. “I doubt it’s that bad.”
“You weren’t there,” I groaned. “It felt like I had ‘kink newbie’ tattooed on my forehead. He was taking all the initiative and asking me all these questions, and I was scrambling for answers the whole time. I had no idea what to do, or even if he wanted me to go along with what he was doing.”
“Are you two seriously discussing River’s sexual awakening without me? Not fair.” Mariah said as she tossed her phone onto the table with a thunk. I really hoped she’d remembered to hang it up first.
“All you missed was that he had a good time, and he’s going to see Ellison again,” Tea assured her.
“I want to see him again,” I corrected, “but I don’t know if he wants to see me. He said he did at the end of the date, but he’s being really vague about when he wants to get together again.”
Mariah waved her hand dismissively. “He’s probably just busy. I guarantee you, if he said he wants to see you again, he wants to see you again.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I grumbled, but halfway through it Tea did something with their knuckles that made me trail off into a groan.
“Wait, we’re doing foot rubs, too?” Mariah huffed. “Next time someone else is ordering the food.”
“Sick person gets first dibs,” Tea said. “I can get you next.”
“I guess I’ll survive. Hmm, let’s see—what can we talk about besides River’s newly-kinky sex life?” Mariah drummed her fingers on the top of my head, and I batted her hand away. “Ooh, I know! I can tell you all about my new gig—I’ve been commissioned to paint 16 vulvas on the wall of the Center for Sexual Health.”
“Of course you have,” Tea said, the corners of their mouth twitching.
“Christian was daring me to put mine in there so I could see how many people end up recognizing it. And I was like, ‘Come on, Chrissy.’ As if I wasn’t going to do that anyway.”
Mariah went on about her plans for the mural, and I smiled to hear the passion in her voice. It sounded like a worthwhile project, all about normalizing different shapes of genitalia and shedding light on a usually-hidden part of the body to help reduce shame and self-consciousness. It was exactly the sort of thing that Mariah would spend her time on—probably even if she weren’t getting paid for it.
As much as I told people I loved my work—and I honestly did love it—I still couldn’t help but envy Mariah a little. Not only did she love what she did for a living, but her work was important to her and to others in a way that mine just…wasn’t. The things Mariah did mattered. She made hands-on interactive sculptures for underprivileged kids at the Creative Arts Collective; she taught classes that made art more accessible for disabled people; she always got a call when a local grassroots political movement needed a logo or a poster or a banner; she painted vulvas in the name of sexual liberation. She helped change lives for the better with her art.
I
was pretty damn sure Boundless Fate had never changed anyone’s life.
Though when I got to thinking about it, maybe it had changed my life. Even though it was obvious from the content of the comic that I’d always had latent kinky tendencies, I’d never explored them at all before my readers’ explosion of outrage. Without my fans pushing me to educate myself, I might never have discovered that there was something missing from my life. And I might never have met Ellison.
My thoughts always seemed to circle back to him. I could be cooking dinner or hard at work on a comic page, only to realize I’d spent the last ten minutes staring blankly at the wall and remembering the light in his eyes and the wicked curve of his smile. I hadn’t been this caught up on someone since I first met Dan, and that thought sent a chill down my spine—I thought I’d learned my lesson after the way that whole fiasco had turned out, but here I was once again going all heart-eyed over a hot, smart, intriguing, and emotionally unavailable man. Maybe I really was a masochist.
But as worrying as this all was, as many red flags as the whole situation raised, I had no desire to stop, and most of the time I was even pretty convinced it wasn’t just because I was thinking with my dick. It helped that Mariah seemed to be confident about it. She’d been the most vocal opponent of Dan from the very beginning, but so far it had seemed like she was practically shoving me at Ellison. That instilled a certain level of confidence in me. She wasn’t any kind of love guru or anything, but her instincts were good when it came to predicting when someone was going to turn out to be a gigantic asshole.
So yes, I was going to see Ellison again as long as he would see me, and until then, I’d probably be regularly zoning out and fantasizing about his hand in my hair and his cock in my throat. I might as well make peace with it.
Truth By His Hand Page 9