The stranger is at my side, his hand guiding me as it always does. I know his name but I still prefer to think of him as the unknown entity he’s been before. I couldn’t even speak his name if I tried, having been lured again into his fantasy.
We stroll around, looking at the mind-numbing pictures of women’s breasts and asses that cover from top to bottom and end to end the magazines covers and video boxes arrayed on the shelves. In a sea of shapely figures of bold women, none seem real, none move with ease, but pose to lure the eye. To choose is useless.
Beyond the gaudy aisle, a corridor leads to a glass-enclosed booth where two women takes turns dancing, their eyes filled with emptiness that must match their hearts. Their smiles seem weak. I should be disgusted with the dregs of sexuality all housed in this place, but strangely, I’m as turned on by these lewd sights as I am by the stranger alone.
His hand is on my ass fondling me through the leather, and I jump, a little frightened to feel him inch the skirt up a bit at a time, until I know that the tops of my stockings are showing, then the garters, and higher still, the plump cheeks of my ass coming into view.
There’s a man with a mission walking purposefully by us on his way to one of the booths at the back of the corridor. I see him leave the door ajar. I assume we’ll pass by him on the way to our own booth, but the stranger stops me in front of his cubicle and opens the door wide. The door hides me from anyone following us down the corridor, but the man in the booth can see me fully.
The stranger pulls my hands above me and I grasp the doorframe to steady myself. While the new stranger looks on in wonder, my familiar stranger is on his knees behind me, unzipping the skirt and letting it fall to my ankles. I’ve worn no panties, so there’s just my stockings, garter belt and the bustier. The man in the booth reaches out and pops a tit from the leather, the second follows quickly. There’s nothing to hide anymore. Exposed this way, I can guess the outcome, and I’m ripe to let it go. The rude winds of climax beckon me.
With hands at my ass and hands at my breasts, the two men maul me, combing my flesh, igniting sparks that have remained just smoldering until now. I’m gasping audibly so I wonder if I’m heard outside the hallway.
Soon, finding myself pushed to my knees, there are two cocks dancing at my face, demanding attention. Another follows quickly. I go from one stroked erection to the next, taking each in my mouth as an ardent hand pushes my face forward into a pungent groin. The tastes change from man to man, but the smell of lust is consistent in them all. There must be five by now, but I haven’t had time to look up into their faces to see how many. Each penis head sways lewdly before my eyes, encouragingly.
When they lift me to my feet, I’m bent over the stool inside the booth while they come from behind to have my cunt. Before me in the window, a dancer’s cunt wiggles as though she too wants attention from me. I’d gladly suck her clit or kiss those augmented breasts as they bob on the air, two perfect spheres of loveliness. But I’m too occupied for any of that. Feeling hands and cocks use me, their stiff penetration goes on from man to man. Someone squeezes into the booth in front of me, presenting a cock to my unclaimed mouth. Having both ends filled, fills me with a degree of selflessness beyond what the stranger has taken me to before. Surely he knows this. This is mindless, but it feels natural to me if I don’t think of a world going on outside these cheesy walls that linger with the smell of tobacco smoke and cum.
With a cock inside my cunt, I then feel someone fingering my anal hole and wiggle reflexively in reply as if begging more. At the same time, I have to concentrate on the cock in my mouth. This is hard work, a full time occupation being a slut this crude. But then it has its satisfactions. When the first man shoots on my ass and smears his cum into my skin with his hand, I think the others will follow quickly, like this is really a porno movie and I’m the star. It’s not quite that easy, the next man wants my asshole. I hear my moans grow, the feel of the anal penetration tentative, until at last he thrusts in me deep and I groan.
There’s someone behind me snapping pictures. For a moment I worry that my face will be seen, but this is a pointless concern. I’m not getting out of this store until these men are done with me, or until the stranger leads me away.
Hot, cramped, my hair sticking to the back of my neck, my face is soon covered with a lavish bath of cum. Another man replaces the man at my face and for a while there’s an easy rhythm between this trio. Just as I think I’ll be cum on, shot in and then breached again, the stranger lifts me from the awkward position and leads me to a room at the very back, to a bench beneath a short bank of windows. Some of the men follow; others are content to watch me once removed, staring at me blankly with their hard dicks in hand.
I climb on a customer putting his hard erection in my pussy, then wait knowing that there’s another cock on its way into my behind. The two drive deep. Impaled with a third cock in my mouth, I let them take me. No thoughts or feelings remain, just this singular moment and these three men I serve. When I chance to stare toward the windows on the wall, I see the awesome picture of myself being gangbanged reflected back so I can see how crude a woman I have become.
My cunt spasms sharply and I jerk back in reply. I feel my clit massaged, another pair of hands perhaps but I’m unsure. There’s tugging at my labia, a hand smacking my ass end hard, and another hand, a woman’s, reaching between me and the man on his back fondling my sweaty tits.
Between ass and cunt the jolts are painful and sharp, but there’s a swell in me that’s looking for a climax and I sway my hips to make it happen. When the third man shoots on my face, I hardly care, I’m ready to cum myself. Then, as the man in my ass heats up fast and steady, I lurch forward, wiggling my clit on the playing fingers. I have a blue streak of sky running wild in my bones, heaven bound. I’m not there with these men, the stranger, the girl at my tits or the man at my face. I’m elsewhere cumming, flying loose while the last of the guys in the room are getting off any way they can.
There’s just a moment to recover before I’m lifted by gentle and familiar hands. In mere seconds I realize that my missing clothes have been returned to me and I’m dressed again with some reasonable decorum. We’re exiting the back of the store, the stranger’s arm at my waist. When we should turn left toward the car, we turn right and follow the corridor into the alley behind the door. There the stranger presses me to a wall, raises my skirt, lifts me against it and fucks me till he’s finished. When he’s done, he wipes my cunt with a handkerchief, readjusts the leathers and we return to the Mercedes.
“Were you going some place special?” he asks as we speed off down the street.
“Not any more,” I reply.
He nods. “Then I’ll take you home.”
“Yes, that would be perfect.”
There’s a numbing silence between us, a sweltering kind, the kind where unsaid things are stirring but remain unsaid. We drive to Isaac’s. If I had any guts at all I’d invite him upstairs, but I can’t face the possibility that he’d turn down the offer. I think briefly of the night he held me. I wish that kind of warmth could end this night, but it seems I’m destined to remain alone until morning.
As I exit the Mercedes, I hear him speak. “I have some work do to, a meeting at eight that won’t be over until eleven. It would be too late then. Perhaps next time you won’t have to sleep alone.” I smile thanking him for the information. He’s read my mind again. “Sleep well, Ellen Laurey,” he ends just before he rolls up the window and drives off.
Chapter Ten
There are November rains that cut to the bone. Day after day of dreariness. I feel like the sun is cheating this portion of the planet, but I still maintain enough poise to get through classes and meetings and endless grading papers. My mind swims back to the stranger and to Nicholas Riley. I’m not sure I’ve even connected the two distinct beings into one man, not yet. Though I’m often thinking of them both. My mind drifts as I gaze out the window watching the pelting storm rage down th
e street outside the apartment. There are rivers in gutters, and enormous puddles growing where the street drains are clogged.
Thinking I have work to do in my office, I find myself bold enough to face all that rain, walking toward campus with my umbrella shielding me from the shower of water. Headed for my office, I suddenly find myself dashing into the Lourdes Hall of History and Archeology. One quick look at the registry, and I’m climbing two flights of broad stairs to the third floor offices of the Archeology department. Last door at the end of the hall, room 307—Nicholas Riley, Professor. He’s young for a full professorship; he must be good.
I knock, not knowing why I’m here, or what I’m going to say. The storm’s picked up in volume just when I thought it was supposed to be tapering off, and I hear the drowning sound of water hitting the windows at the far end of the building and on the roof above. I also hear Professor Riley’s voice say, “Come in.”
The door creaks when it opens, not unlike my own office at the other end of the quadrangle. I spot him with his glasses on, reading from a text. He’s startled seeing me but his face is welcoming. No grin, just interest and perhaps expectation. Best I not read too much into this expression.
“Carolyn,” he uses my real name addressing me. “Have a seat.” He motions to the chair before his desk.
“Nicholas, or is it Nick?”
“I prefer Nicholas, but the rest of the world has a fascination for nicknames,” he explains.
“I’ll call you anything you’d like,” I say.
“You haven’t needed to call me anything so far,” he reminds me.
“That’s quite true.”
We stare for a time. I look around his office, expecting it to be loaded with artifacts. I’m surprised to see just a few pieces hanging on walls and sitting on his desk. The room’s straightforward, just as he is.
“Perhaps you’re a minimalist,” I suggest seeing how neatly his office has been arranged.
“If I weren’t, I’d be swimming in clutter in such a small space.”
“It seems you could have a better office, given your position as a full professor.”
“I might have, but I prefer this one. It’s out of the way and few people bother me unless they want me for something that really matters.”
“I see.”
“You’re here because it must matter,” he suggests.
“I suppose, I am,” I reply. “But truthfully, I don’t know what to say. I guess …” I falter miserably, start to blush and find my ears growing so hot they must be glowing under my hair. I take a deep breath. “I suppose I think it’s time we faced facts.” My, that was more blatant than I planned.
“And those are?” he asks.
“Like I’m a woman with needs beyond what you’ve given me,” I press on boldly, “and you do have a name and that matters to me.”
He smiles, but I don’t know why. “How like a woman to always be asking for more,” he says.
My heart sinks.
“Don’t look so dejected, Carolyn, I’ve hardly said a thing.”
“Then would you say something!” I’m annoyed and showing it. “Please don’t leave this all up to me.”
He’s merely amused. His head moves so his ponytail moves. Turning briskly in his chair, he grabs something from the desk behind him and brings it into my view. Handcuffs.
I jerk, the response automatic. This is not what I planned, but I am aroused. Even in his university office, his heat attacks me the same as it does in more clandestine settings.
“I know this sounds utterly foolish, Nicholas, but I’m in love with you.” The declaration surprises me—not that I’m feeling love, but that I have the wits to say it when he’s given me so little.
He sits back in his chair, casually appraising me. He seems hardly moved and not at all surprised. I hate this. Hate the way he assumes so much, hate him being haughty. I have no secrets from him. And at this moment, I’d like one, just one thing he doesn’t already know or guess or assume about who I am.
“Is my declaration of love meaningless to you?” I ask when he doesn’t reply. “If it is, then we’ll …”
“Stop,” he says, this time sounding almost tender. “You don’t need to plead with me. Just tell me what you want.”
I gather my courage. Seems again it’s me that’s doing all the work, and just as with Robby and Isaac and any other man I’ve been with, he’s sliding along on my sexual appetites.
“I want you to love me back,” I state plainly. “I want you tying my body, whipping my ass, fucking me in alleys and bars and on street corners, but I want you the way you were the night you broke into the apartment and raped my ass. You slept with me that night, you held me, you made me feel whole. I want that Nicholas Riley.” He starts to speak, but I interrupt him, “And there’s more. I want you to tell me who you are, what all this means to you,” I motion to the office. “I want to know what else there is for me to love, what else there is besides our slutty rendezvous.” I’m rushing on, glad to lay all this out in front of him.
“Hold it!” he stops me before I can continue. “Will you let me speak?”
“Of course.” I relax back and wait.
“You say you’re in love Ellen Carolyn Laurey Cauthen?” He pauses like he’s not sure what he’ll say, but with his next statement he surprises me as much as he ever has. “Perhaps, I’m in love too.”
“You are?” I look amazed.
“I don’t know what moves me to tell you this. In fact, I would have never used the word love until you mentioned it, but it does fit, strangely enough. I suppose given this new wrinkle, we ought to get to know each other better.” There’s the most delightful twinkle in his eye, so sweet it almost makes me giggle.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I was suggesting,” I reply quietly.
The twinkle in his eyes becomes devilish. This time he’s surprised himself as much as he’s stunned me.
Looking at his watch, a look of disappointment replaces the amused chagrined one. He sighs. “There’s a meeting in fifteen minutes and they’ll honestly fire me if I’m not there. It’s about the budget and I hate budgets because they all have their noses up their ass-ends—if you’ll excuse my language—about priorities.” I want to laugh. “But I will see you tonight.”
“You’ll sneak into my apartment?”
“No.” He stops short, considering for a moment. “No. You’ll cook dinner for me in mine. The food’s all there and I’m dying for a real meal. Then, I can use these on you in some despicable way before the night’s over.” He’s still holding the handcuffs. “Is that a plan enough for you?” Fishing through his pocket, he pulls out a key and hands it to me. “I’m on the boulevard, the building with the ivy all over it and the sagging window. My apartment’s on the front, third floor, no elevator.”
“Where’s your meeting?”
He looks at his watch again. “Rice Hall,” he says.
“Then you are going to be late,” I say.
“I’m guess I’m not going to worry about that,” he replies. “They should be glad I’m showing up.”
I watch him pull his coat from the coat tree and grab an umbrella. “Lock the door, will you?” he says. “I won’t be later than ten, unless I decide to argue.”
He almost sounds as if we’re married walking out the door. The sentiment is serene and steady, as if we do belong together.
Chapter Eleven
His apartment’s dark when I enter. Just the streetlight beaming in through one cracked blind allows me to steer my way and look for something to illuminate this scene for me. I find a floor lamp with a bowl in the shape of a budding tulip offering its petals to the sky. I turn it on, and the light glows softly against the dark walls of the stranger’s apartment.
There’s a comfortable familiarity about his home, as if I’ve been here before, though I know I’ve never set foot in this place. The incense of aging and well-polished wood drifts to my nostrils. I touch the doorpost; it’s like satin
to my tentative fingers as I run them along its smoothness. His rooms have the look of Frank Lloyd Wright in lines and the use of glass and light. Shadows seem to move with me so I think he’s somewhere inside these walls with me, watching every move I make.
When I make abrupt turns as I stroll my way through his living room, I jump, startled by eerie masks hanging on the wall. There are the ghosts of people behind them. My bones feel as if they’re rattling inside my skin. As in Nicholas Riley’s office, there’s a simple order in the middle of this psychic chaos. The simplicity is pristine even though his ornaments scare me into wondering what rituals he performs when he’s here.
I discover his kitchen at one end of the living room, with wood and polished stainless steel and the smell of garlic and basil lingering in the air—and maybe a hint of rosemary. There are greens enough in his refrigerator for a Caesar salad with cold salmon and nuts, and a pot of soup already made. Making a feast of this will be easy.
Turning my back to the masks on his walls, and the thousand clues about my man of mystery that dance inside the room’s great shadows, I busy myself thinking of dinner. He says he’ll be back by ten. I’m getting this ready for 9:30, should he arrive early. I hadn’t realized how intimate it feels having this liberty inside the place he lives. Everywhere I turn, I think of how he moves about this apartment. I imagine his long hair loose around his shoulders after he’s showered and he’s naked except for his faded blue jeans. I’m amazed to think of him drinking coffee while he reads the morning paper, of his significant hands doing such mundane things as making eggs and bacon and toast on a cold morning, of his cleaning the grate in the fireplace, or throwing out the trash. There’s a stack of wood on the hearth and I’m tempted to start a fire to remove the chill in the air, but I don’t have permission for anything but fixing his dinner.
In the midst of my thoughts, I suddenly realize that he’s arrived. I don’t move, but continue chopping sweet peppers for the salad and imagine him stalking close by. He’s behind me long before I think he should be, and when I feel his breath on my neck, I close my eyes to feel him with my whole body. He smells of the brisk out-of-doors, and though his hand at my neck is warm, his clothes feel cool.
Rendezvous With A Stranger Page 9