by James Grey
There’s a phone call from my parents too, all the more awkward because there’s no mention of anything I discussed with my mother at the apartment. It’s just the usual birthday wishes, but they do both sound a little distant. I presume mum has spoken with dad, and neither of them knows quite what to say. I hope it will pass, one way or another.
I feel momentarily heartbroken when mum says ‘I love you,’ before ringing off. The feeling that I’ve let her down terribly brings tears to my eyes, but it’s not long before the sentiment passes. I’ve gotten so much better at reminding myself that I’m not a criminal or a bad person. It’s safe to say I don’t have the backing of my family, but they’re from a different generation and I’m a grown woman.
I spend some time on the sofa replying to messages and flicking through my Facebook wall. Miss Jackson and Martin both call to give me their best wishes, but the most exciting message from the day is from Charles.
Happy birthday, gorgeous one. I’m looking forward to your birthday dinner. Yum. Licking my lips…Charles
Rippling with anticipation, I start thinking of the evening around four o’clock. Technically this is a work assignment, but I’ve pretty much forgotten that I get paid for my time with Charles. I adore my hours with him and adore the way he makes me feel. Plus, it was his generous offer to take care of my schooling that got me into this game. I want to please him so much tonight, after all he’s done for me.
I hop on a tube and gather ingredients from a special dealer in Soho. Rice, seaweed wrap, avocado, tuna, salmon…I’m not going for anything too extravagant. I almost forget to pick up some wasabi that looks like one of my high school science experiments, and the same pickled ginger that had me mildly addicted during my classes.
Then I come home and decide what to wear. Sarah helps me, full of excitement. I know it’s coming off before dinner is served, but I still want to wow him when I show up at the door. Even though, deep down, I know I could arrive in rags and still turn him on.
I settle on a white blouse and a short, black skirt. It’s my favourite combination these days, and I often opt for it if there aren’t specific dress instructions. Maybe because it’s a little bit like the work gear from the life I’ve left behind, albeit with a far shorter hemline.
Since it’s my birthday, I give the panties a miss.
I do wear a pink bra, though, just so its hem can peep out above my top button and excite him. I don black heels and pop my hair into a tight ponytail. I’m good to go.
Half an hour and an interminable taxi ride later, Charles welcomes me with his usual sweet kiss, and gently places a glass of white wine into my hand before shutting the door behind me. Even though I’m here to make him dinner, he’s already making me feel like a princess.
“I’ve barely done any work today, you know,” he smiles as he sits my down on the sofa for a moment. “I think I should have booked you last night, so I could wake up next to you on your birthday.”
My heart melts. “You should have,” I whisper.
“Well, I had to pick up your present today,” he admits. “It took me so long to decide that I left it until absolutely had to pick one out.”
“Ooh, pick what out?” I ask, swimming in curiousity.
He fishes in his pocket and produces a black case, clearly one that houses a ring. Surely not?
“I rather hope you’ll wear this, Emma,” he says, sounding unusually uncertain. “If I ever looked for a wife, she’d be you…”
For the second time in the day, my eyes cloud up. I look at him, not sure what I’m feeling besides a lot of emotion. I wouldn’t really have said yes, would I? I thought I knew the answer to that, but now I’m not so sure.
I try to gather myself with a nod and a smile, wondering if I really wanted this to be the real thing. If I wanted to be the one woman who changed his mind about monogamy. Things that seemed so simple earlier are less so now.
I open the box and I’m greeted by a bright diamond nestled on a ring of gold. It’s the most beautiful jewel I’ve ever seen, yet it’s a long way from ostentatious.
“Of course I’ll wear this for you,” is all I can muster for the moment. “It would be my honour.”
He takes hold of the box again and removes the ring before slipping it over the third finger on my left hand. It’s a snug fit.
“Happy birthday, Emma,” he says with his warm smile. “Now come and show me your sushi skills.”
It takes me a while to calm down and focus on anything apart from his gift, which keeps catching my eye. But I get my head straight by the time I’ve unpacked the shopping and told him all about my day. Including the rude awakening and funny presents from this morning. He loves to hear everything about me and Sarah.
It’s funny to see him leaning against the kitchen counter, watching me, instead of taking care of everything. He points me in the direction of a suitable knife and cutting board, then watches me quietly while I prepare our feast. Or his feast, rather. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to get any if I’m to be the table.
I’m not nervous about the preparation. Charles makes me feel far too comfortable. And besides, I’ve been well-trained. It goes better than I could hope, and the creations I’m assembling on his set of long, sparkling, white plates looks reasonably smart. It’s actually making me salivate just a little.
It’s slow going, but as usual we’ve got plenty to talk about, against the backdrop of some light jazz. It fills the room from every direction: Charles must have had the finest acoustics engineers in London build his sound system. I believe it was a shared love of music that first brought him together with my friend Martin. Thank God it did!
After almost an hour and a half of careful chopping, squeezing and wrapping – I definitely don’t have the speed to do this in a sushi bar – I pour out the last of the soy sauce into a little dish and add it to a small plate with the ginger and the wasabi. I’ve managed twenty-four pieces of sushi, and I’m pretty satisfied.
Now my heart begins to thud.
I turn to Charles. “Well, voilà,” I declare. “Your sushi, Sir.”
“All I need is my beautiful table, then,” he says, striding to a drawer and pulling out some gleaming metal chopsticks. Lucky he’s sophisticated enough to have that sort of thing in the kitchen. I forgot to think of it, of course.
I nod, trying for some reason to prevent a wicked grin spreading across my face. “Where would you like to dine, Sir?”
He gestures towards the casual dining table in the centre of his kitchen, and picks up the remote that controls the lights. He switches off the lamps directly above the table, but turns on all those around the perimeter. Amazingly, he can swivel them by remote. And they all turn to face the table, creating a dim theatre with spotlights on the stage.
“Maybe if you leave the room I can get set up perfectly for you?”
He smiles and nods his approval. “Okay. Call when you’re ready.”
After he leaves I quickly shed my blouse and my skirt. I’m used to undressing every day, but this is different and exciting. I’m glad I didn’t wear panties, because they’d be a sodden mess already. I snap off the pink bra, which leaves me in only the heels. I think he’ll like me keeping those on.
Naked, I grab the plates and arrange them carefully on the table. I crawl between them and lie on my back, wincing a little at the cool feel of the wood.
Piece by piece, I take the sushi and arrange it along my body as artfully as I can. I sit up and start with my legs, rolling them open and outwards for a bit more surface area. My pussy responds to that move the way it always does. But I have to be careful not to shudder or move, or everything will fall off.
It gets trickier as I lie down again and have to work at an awkward angle, craning my neck. But it’s easy to balance the food on my stomach and torso. I try to balance some on my nipples, but I don’t think it’s going to work. I settle for putting the pieces above, below and between my breasts. And leave a couple of teasers well south of m
y belly button and at the top of my thighs.
I test that I can breathe in and out without anything falling, then carefully croak to Charles that he can come back.
I close my eyes, focusing only on keeping still. But I can hear his footsteps loud and clear as they come close, then pause.
“Oh my,” he says. “That is my idea of a feast! And I can see the most luscious dessert down there between your legs.”
I don’t speak, for fear of destabilizing my creation. He needs to get cracking.
He reads my thoughts, of course, and makes a start with the chopsticks. I keep my breathing quiet and just smile at him as I watch him eat.
“Looks beautiful, and tastes even better, Emma. This is a real delight. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” I whisper while breathing in. Nowhere is safe yet, as he’s picking morsels at random from all over me. Every now and then he feeds me one. It’s definitely my best sushi effort yet, and I’m one happy girl right now. Although it’s torture trying to keep still when he impishly pinches my nipples with the chopsticks. I frown my displeasure, and he chuckles.
“I’m nearly done here,” he grins. “With the sushi, at least.”
I cast my eyes down my body. It’s true: he’s demolished nearly every piece. I’m thrilled. He must really have liked it to have devoured the lot like that.
I’m acutely aware that he’s left the pieces around my centre till last. He abandons the chopsticks now, and begins to nip them directly off my body. As he takes the last piece from the top of my thigh, I can feel his breath on my wide open sex. I whimper at the rushing heat.
“And now for that final course,” he announces with glee, as he swallows. I open my eyes, thrilled that the whole sushi thing got full marks, and watch him make his way around to the foot of the table, his face reappearing between my knees.
He reaches forward and slides me gently towards him, pulling me by the hips. I bend my knees without being asked, and he takes a seat.
Bizarre, but hot.
He leans in and does what he does so well. I’m writhing and squirming within seconds, and that’s before he even reaches my clit. Right now all he’s doing is tasting my pussy with long, languid tongue strokes. He’s enjoying his dessert like it really is an ice cream.
His hands hold my hips steady as I begin to buck. His tongue is enough, especially as it slides onto my clit and begins to flick like that of a searching serpent. I gasp and groan as he keeps dining out on me, my head tossing this way and that under the bright rays of the spotlights.
My second orgasm of the day is a big and violent one, totally different from this morning’s sleepy and beautiful wake-up shudder. I couldn’t have planned it any better. Yet there’s still something missing.
“You won’t stop there, will you?” I ask, worried. “I need you inside me Charles.”
“You’ve got it, birthday girl,” he says. “But I’ve had enough of this kitchen. Let’s go somewhere more comfortable.”
I nod, and let him pick me up off the table in his strong arms, lying back exactly as I was when he ate me out. I feel light-headed with happiness as he carries me up the stairs and lays me gently down on his bed.
It’s another four hours before we sleep, so endless and so passionate is our lovemaking. And that’s exactly what it is with Charles. He doesn’t do everything a man can do, but he does things to me that nobody else can.
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect birthday.
Chapter XXIII
The gentle pull between my legs has me wincing and writhing on the very threshold between pleasure and pain. Every sense and every thought is consumed by the feeling around that little ring.
It’s tiny, yet that little slip of metal is the centre of my universe right now. Friends, family, worries, fear and plans have all slipped into a kind of grey light. Like pre-dawn. Which, beyond my blindfold and this room, cannot be far away now.
I’ve been kept in this position since midnight, totally at his mercy. My blindfold is tighter than before. And my treatment has gone to the next level.
My hands were bound by Esmeralda when I arrived back at the house whose name I do not know. As far as I can feel, it’s a coarse, thick rope that holds my wrists together. Not behind my back, but on my lap. Very close to where I might be able to touch myself. But not close enough.
When she tied me she had already removed my clothing with neither sympathy nor ceremony. Only my panties and heels were left after her stripping. She pulled the clothes off me in the entrance hallway, then guided me into what I assume is the usual room. She pushed me into a seated position on what I feel to be a table or a desk, and made me hold out my wrists for binding.
I knew that desk would be wet before long.
The room is colder than ever; I can feel the tautness of my nipples without needing to look at them or touch them. Neither of which I can do right now.
And then she attached the clamps.
If sitting there bound, blindfolded and almost naked had my heat rising, it’s what she did next that took me to an extraordinary place. Her fingers pushed my panties aside, and I gasped to feel them brush my lips as they sought out my new piece of jewellery. The tiny, almost innocent thing that this man paid a fortune for me to implant in a place that sends me to heaven.
I heard a click, then felt a tug. Another little gasp: she attached something to my clit ring. Christ, what was it? Another rope? A chain? She had me spread my legs so that now I can’t even feel what’s pulling on me.
“You will be punished if you move any part of your body from now on,” she said, sounding noticeably harsher than on my previous visits. Keep your legs open and do not manipulate your hands. You will be restrained by your ring. Do not squirm, or you may be harmed. Do not orgasm.”
Harmed? What exactly does she mean? By my own movements, or by someone else? An unspeakably erotic shiver gripped me and ripped through my body as I whispered my acquiescence, and I felt the pulls tighten as she did something a couple of yards away in front of me.
Tighter again. Oh my. Another tug. Ouch, that could be too much. And that’s where the pull stopped. At the moment I bite my lip to stop my yelp. Or, rather, that’s where it stopped getting any tighter. The tension stayed on exactly that point. On the cusp of too much. Which is also the edge of orgasm. Fuck.
I heard her walking away. She must have tied me to something. I couldn’t begin to fathom what it was, or whether it might have been something mechanical, exerting an ever so tiny constant pull. I was forbidden from moving; it had me locked in a place where I might not last. Because I wanted to squirm already.
I could feel that if I did that – even a tiny twitch – my clit would be in danger of damage. I had to do as she had ordered, and keep still.
That was at least three hours ago. The cuckoo clock told me so, a regular reminder of how long I’ve been kept there, driven to distraction.
And not just by the nagging, edgy and dangerous insistence on my clitoris. Nor even the position, thrillingly submissive and rounded off by a ball gag shoved in my mouth. Nor just the sharp, tangy sensation of the nipple clamps. There’s also the sense that he is here, watching me.
It’s because she asked him if he was pleased, and then left the room. I didn’t hear him reply. Either it’s because he merely nodded. Or maybe it’s a bluff on her part, and I’m alone. For the first little while I don’t know if it’s just him, or a dozen men, or nobody. Not knowing how many people, if anyone, can see me displayed and suffering and shuddering like this, is the purest form of sexual torture anybody can ever have dreamed up.
I strain my ears for signs of life or movement. I swear I hear the pages of a book turn on occasion, but I wonder if it’s my mind playing tricks. I want him to be watching me, but not as much as I want him to take me now. I need a release in more ways than one. Half an orgasm has been churning around me for half the night now, but I’m not allowed to come. And if I did, I know it would hurt me. The cord, or whatever it
is, is too tight.
I cannot jeopardize my precious clit. I must deny it, and sit tight.
This is supposed to be the night the plan I cooked up with the girls really gets going. This is the night I show no fear, and instead win his confidence. It’s the night I show how much more I want; how I start to earn his trust. It will be a slow process, but I need to show that I am too much in his thrall to ever betray him. That I want only to serve him, even if he shows his face.
Will I need to act? My thoughts on that keep going in circles. I’m rolling back and forth between ecstasy and danger, all the while feeling desperately uncomfortable. My bladder is filling and my muscles threaten to seize. I do not believe I could walk right now, trapped in this position for so long. My hands are numb, partly thanks to my tightly-bound wrists and partly thanks to the cold.
I keep thinking about my pain score from the doctor, and how I can take just about anything. I draw strength from that, even as my jaw begins to thud with discomfort from the ball gag.
And yet none of the hurt does anything to extinguish the fire inside me.
When the clock strikes five, there’s finally a move. Footsteps. Indisputably male footsteps. On the floorboards I’ve come to know well. I hope my time has come.
Now he’s in front of me, breathing hotly and heavily on my forehead. I can smell his scent and I know it’s him. One hand falls gently on my stomach, and another grips my hair like it’s never been gripped, pulling it with savage intent so that my head rips back and my nose, grappling for air, points at the ceiling.
I have to tighten every muscle in my core to keep my pussy safe as he does this.
“We’re going for a walk now. Come with me.” A delicious double meaning, whispered as before, but louder and with more menace.
I nod and make a sound as best I can, feeling drool rolling down from the corner of my mouth as he gives my hair a final tug and lets go of it.