by Roxy Harte
I play with her beasts, teasing her nipples, pulling on the clamps while together we watch the shark’s graceful path. Her head falls back against my shoulder, relaxing. Trusting me. It feels as if we spend a long time like that, me passing the breathing regulator between us, enjoying the peacefulness of the world underwater, though really very little time passes.
Even the shark seems peaceful, swimming in a path in front of us, back and forth, back and forth. In a strange way, even with the freedom of the entire ocean, it seems he paces before us, waiting. I realize the woman in my arms is also waiting for the what next, though she hides it in false indifference. I feel the truth of her nervousness in the pounding of her heart. I think the shark too feels her fear.
Together we wait for the climactic what’s next.
Fresh meat falls near the shark. With a high-powered kick of his tail, he makes a grab for the meat, smacking the cage hard with his body. The cage shakes us. This close, his teeth glisten menacingly. Several sharks join him and suddenly Kitten and I are surrounded by grey ghosts that bob and weave through the water, their singularity of purpose evident. Their struggle for possession of the meat fierce. Kitten shakes hard in my arms.
I love her fear, soaking it in as it rolls off her in waves.
Kissing the back of her neck, I lick and stroke her with my tongue before sinking my teeth in softly. She jumps in her bonds, feeling my teeth. Keeping my eyes on the sharks, I kiss and nip her neck and shoulders, causing her to be jumpy in her restraints. I tug her nipple clamps, wanting her to feel the quick jolts of pain from my bites and the weighted clamps while she watches the sharks fight.
Two sharks collide with our cage and she struggles in her bonds, breathing harder.
Taking the regulator, I force her to hold her breath. She struggles hard, her fear making her panic, even though I am still near. Her eyes are wild, the sharks very close. The next drop of meat hits the side of the cage, snagging on the cage and we are shaken hard in our confinement as the sharks battle it out for the large piece of meat.
My heart pounds with pure excitement. I know she must be going out of her mind. I quickly inhale, exhale, then inhale again slowly and evenly, filling my lungs with enough air to hold my breath again before passing the mouthpiece back to her. I want her to enjoy this moment. There is nothing like pure terror to increase sexual response and I want her to know that feeling. Sinking to my knees and then swimming between her legs, I take her clit into my mouth, rolling my tongue over her while the sharks battle over the meat. A feeding frenzy ensues.
Reaching for the nipple clamps, I tug the weights, making her dance in her cuffs.
Bondage underwater is so much different from bondage above water; weightless, the tension normally placed on muscles and tendons disappears. Likewise, underwater orgasm is mind-blowing. Muscles contract and it is an almost painful experience, like an underwater muscle cramp, everything just feels more intense, harder.
When her body flexes and folds in on her, I realize an orgasmic wave is crashing through her. My lungs scream, wanting air, and seemingly in answer the regulator floats down to me. Sophia spat it from her mouth, either mid-orgasm or on purpose, I will not know until I can ask her above the water. Releasing her clit, I shove the regulator in my mouth and breathe, but not wanting her orgasm to stop, I pump her hard with my fingers, the muscles of her vagina wrapping around me harder than when on dry land, her terror making everything more intense.
On the deck of the boat, I hold her in my lap, toweling her dry. She shakes, her knees bouncing uncontrollably, but it is a good shaking, not shock, but pure adrenaline, her body having pumped more into her system than it can utilize.
“I’m sorry,” she keeps saying. “I’m not scared, I don’t know why I keep shaking.”
“You’re fine, sweetheart,” I assure her. “You were beautiful underwater.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you?”
“I would have never agreed to that, if it had been a choice. Now, I know just how deep my darkness runs. I mean, I never thought for a moment that you would let me die…not on purpose—if something went wrong, you would do your best to get me out of the water alive; but knowing that, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t primal terror…and facing that…wow.” She pauses, mouth open to say more, but then she chokes on the emotion she’s been trying to hold back, big, wet tears falling over her cheeks and spattering on my chest.
My heart swells in my chest, knowing exactly what she is trying to say and I am suddenly faced with my missing half, the one I feel complete with.
“Thank you, Sophia.” I pull her in close, kissing her cold, damp shoulder. She smells of the ocean. If I close my eyes, I could pretend I was back in Greece. I’d like to take Kitten there. The thought comes out of nowhere. I want to take her to Greece.
I don’t share my homeland with my women, not even Latisha has been to Greece and we’ve been together for five years. She knows the man I am here in the United States; she knows I have a past I keep hidden, my true darkness. I also keep from her the lightness, the part of me that I only set free when I am home. Only one woman have I ever taken to Greece to see my homeland—her name was Eva. With her, I shared the dark and the light, but not the truth. I think of her often still, but she is lost to my past.
Kitten has no place in my future. The thought rips through my middle, unwanted. I am not one to dwell on past or future and to have such a thought bothers me. What is happening to me that I am no longer in control of my thoughts?
The boat’s crew mills around us, completing their tasks, but Kitten is oblivious to them, having eyes only for me. Her level of passion and trust is incredible. She is totally unconscious of her nudity, as she spreads out two oversized beach towels on the deck. I lie down on one. Reaching for her, I pull her down next to me so that she can relax in the warmth of the blazing sun with me. It is a hot day and, stripped to my swimsuit, the sun feels good on my skin.
“This is nice, Sophia.” I stretch out, letting the sun hit as much exposed skin as possible. She cuddles in close, wrapping her naked body around me. Her skin is still cool from being in the water. I pull her closer, her damp hair fitting into the curve of my shoulder as she wraps her body around me. I kiss her again, inhaling her warmth, her fragrance, whispering, “I love you.”
“Hmmm?” she says, pushing against me to be nearer.
“Nothing.” I clear my throat, hiding emotion I never expected to feel in a soft cough. “I was just telling you how proud I am of you.”
Chapter 8
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Thomas
A distant ringing wakes me and, for a moment, I am disoriented, not realizing it is the phone. Then I realize that it is midnight, we have been asleep less than an hour, and the phone is ringing. The ring doesn’t stop, no voice mail pickup. It is the land line. No one has the beach house number.
I roll onto my side, ignoring the phone, assuming a wrong number will give up and hang up on their own. The ringing stops only to restart again. No one has the beach house number, except Aman.
Heart pounding, I race through the dark house to the wall-mounted kitchen receiver. “Hello?”
My answer is met with very quick Arabic, my brain translates Arabic reasonably well when I’m fully awake and the speaker talks in a rational fashion. My caller is frantic, the main context of the conversation being his fear that I am going to kill him.
“Aman!” I shout, to be heard over his babbling. Aman is my man in Cairo, my eyes and ears while Latisha and the children are away. Technically, he is the gardener slash pool-boy at her father’s villa in town. “In English and slow down.”
“So sorry, sir, your wife and children left. I begged them not to go but they went.”
“Are they on a plane to Paris?” I demand
.
“No, Sir. Sudan, Sir. Please don’t kill me! I am just a lowly gardener, as insignificant as a slug, no lower, an earthworm…”
I hang up on him, knowing his excuses could go on for another hour. Closing my eyes, I press my forehead to the cool kitchen wall. “God damn, Latisha. What are you thinking?” I expected her to want to stay in Egypt as long as she could, visiting with her father, before traveling back to his country estate in France. I understood her reasons for wanting to raise our children away from the US, I wasn’t thrilled with France as her first choice, but then, what did I expect? I never expected to keep her as long as I did.
Here, everyone believes she is my wife and once the children started arriving, I suggested we marry for real, but she wouldn’t hear of it, wanting only her independence. Her mother died young, her father, a very wealthy antiquities dealer, both legal and illegal antiquities, raised her in boarding schools. She considers it normal to raise your children away from home.
I don’t consider it normal, my opinion falling under the same thoughts I have about nannies. She wants one, I don’t. I could say we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but that would be the understatement of the century. We expected Nikkos, our now ten-month-old to be the last baby, but when she went in for the appointment to have a tubal ligation performed, she was already pregnant, again. She wanted to abort. It wasn’t a pretty argument and it lasted for days. I don’t believe in accidents and I don’t believe in abortion.
“You’ve killed before, Thomas!” she’d screamed and the sound coming form her throat was barely human, so much did she want to abort. Three children had already cost her so much in terms of personal freedom.
“Yes, I’ve killed…” I admitted, hell, she’d seen me kill, so up close and personal that we were both covered in blood spray as we barely escaped with our lives the last time I was in Egypt. I couldn’t deny the truth even though she couldn’t comprehend half of what I’ve done in my past. “…but comparing what I have done in my past to aborting an unborn child is low even for you.” I was in her face, seething, her hair wrapped in my hand and her neck jerked back as far as it could go without causing her very real damage. She’d pushed me too far and realized it. Whatever she saw in my eyes that day made her back down, no abortion, but I couldn’t keep her from running home to Daddy, the same man she originally helped me escape from in return for taking her with me.
What a tangled web. Now she has returned to him. Oh, sure, they’ve reconciled. Yes, he’s thrilled to have grandchildren. However, he still wants their father’s head on a pike. So, to return to Egypt is suicidal and still, I make plans to go back. I really do have a death wish. When I read her note, saying she’d gone to Cairo, I was pissed because the instability of the entire region scares me; especially when I considered all that could go wrong for a woman traveling alone with three small children. But I didn’t chase her down. I let her go, giving her time to cool down and think. Now, she’s crossed the line. I must go.
Recovering, I call Delta, securing flights to LAX and CAI quickly and easily. It’s amazing how helpful airlines are when you use American Express Black and insist on first-class. Flights arranged, I speed dial Garrett’s cell phone, planning to leave a message, and am surprised when he answers on the first ring. The volume level of the club in high gear drowns out what I assume is his hello. He must be in one of the lower public levels.
“Garrett, Thomas. Go somewhere quiet so you can hear me,” I command, not wanting to have to shout what I need to say more than once.
A moment later there is silence, so silent, for a moment I believe I have lost our connection, and then I hear his voice. “What is it, what’s wrong?”
“Where are you?” I ask, curious.
“Playroom two. I was standing outside its door when you rang. Now, what’s happened?”
“I’m leaving for Cairo—in five hours. I know that this is unexpected, but can you come and get Kitten? Not now, not yet, but in the morning. She doesn’t know yet, I need time to break the news to her. I’m giving her back to you.” I leave so much unsaid, speaking fast, almost as fast as Aman when he called to beg for his life. I hope Garrett heard what I left unsaid. This isn’t because I want to give her back. I don’t want to give her back. I’m in love with her.
There is a moment of silence before he asks, “Is Lattie okay?”
“I’ll call you when I know something,” I promise, then I hang up, seeing her shadow against the wall, actually only a slight shift in shadows but I know it was her. Then the shadow is gone. I’m not sure how much of the phone conversations she heard, but as soon as I walk through the bedroom door, I know she heard all, or most of what was said. Her face is crumbled, devastated. I kneel beside the bed, taking her hand in mine. She looks into my face, questioning.
“Garrett is coming for me?”
“Yes, in a few hours. It will be early, before daylight. I’m needed in Cairo.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
Kitten doesn’t ask for details, she chews her bottom lip nervously, looking at the bedspread. I capture her hand, stopping her from pulling a broken thread. Her eyes lift, catching my gaze. I can’t look away, maybe she can’t look away either, I don’t know. I only know that when her eyes pool with tears something inside me rips, something inside me that I thought no longer existed.
“Don’t cry,” I whisper, catching the first tear that falls with my thumb. Holding her gaze, I lift it to my mouth and lick its saltiness away with my tongue. Another tear falls and I catch it sliding down her cheek with my mouth, whispering, “Please don’t cry. I won’t be able to leave you if you cry, I’ll have to sneak you onto a plane with me and smuggle you into Cairo. Trust me, you don’t want to go with me to Cairo.” I leave out the part that I am not welcome in Cairo and that this is going to be a very dangerous trip for me, instead saying, “I want tonight to be special.”
Our faces are close, cheek to cheek, but our eyes meet. I feel her breath catch as she holds her breath, waiting expectantly, her lips parting with anticipation. I notice each subtlety as a major moment, capturing it all on the film reel of my mind, wanting to hold each nuance as a memory for the rest of my life. I catch her lips with mine, kissing her, knowing I shouldn’t be kissing her…not like this—tenderly, lovingly, letting my soul mingle with hers in the wetness of our mingled saliva. I kiss her until my heart rips in two and the pain of continuing to kiss her would be greater than the pain of stopping the kiss.
When did I fall in love with her?
It isn’t even really a question. I’ve been in love with her since the moment I first saw her—onstage, with Garrett. I didn’t bid on her that night. I saw no reason to. At Lewd’s, today’s property becomes tomorrow’s throwaway and I knew I only needed to wait.
Tomorrow’s throwaway. Yes, tomorrow I give her back to Garrett, but Kitten is no throwaway.
“Tonight, I’m going to hurt you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I understand. I like it when you hurt me.”
I smile at her honesty. “I have left you marked before, but tonight, I want you to understand before you agree, I am going to hurt you worse than I have ever hurt you. I am going to leave you marked and the marks are going to take a long time to fade. I am going to return you to Garrett marked and used, so that there is no doubt in his mind how sorely I abused you. Do you understand why?”
She shakes her head no, saying, “It is your right to do so.”
“Yes, it is, but what I am doing is marking you as mine.”
Her eyes narrow, my words curling through her mind. Concluding my meaning, she gasps, “You want him to refuse me?”
“No, he won’t refuse you, but he’ll receive the very important message that I’m sending him. I’m returning you to him because I’m honorable, because I said I would, but by the marks I leave on you, he will know I loved you and that while you were mine, you were mine completely—and if for any reason you are
no longer his in the future, you will be mine again. Do you understand?”
She sniffles, nodding, thinking she understands but I wonder if she truly does.
“You are mine.” I kiss her on the cheek tenderly then stand, pulling her up with me. “I want you to go out onto the balcony and wait for me.”
Questions run through her eyes but she remains silent, turning to obey me. I watch her pad across the carpeted floor barefoot, her bright red toenail polish stark blazes of color against her pale skin and the beige carpet. She pulls open the French doors, leaving them open, their sheer white window gauze catching and fluttering in the damp ocean-scented breeze. She goes to the rail and holds onto it, waiting for me to join her without looking back to see if I am coming.
It is pitch black on the balcony, the sky and sea barely distinguishable except for where the waves break and white foam is created. The balcony is private, screened from three sides and the ocean beyond, allowing for no voyeurs.
Crossing the room, I open the doors to my toy armoire, choosing carefully from my favorites, a large wide paddle, a thin-tailed riding crop, a birch cane, and a soft suede flogger. Fur-lined hand restraints and a fur-lined collar and chain join the collection. Finally, I choose a jeweled butt plug and a handheld vibrator. I will hurt her, I will leave her marked, but her memories will be of the pleasure.
Joining her on the balcony, I place the items I will be using on a small table. She doesn’t turn to look, but rather keeps her eyes on the ocean. Carefully, I move in behind her, grasping her at the nape of her neck, feeling her nervousness, her apprehension. It is one thing to be told you are going to be hurt and quite another to willingly submit to it. Especially knowing what is to come, and though she thinks she knows, she really doesn’t have a clue. All that I have done to her during the last few weeks has been the warm-up for this moment.