by Gabi Moore
Her lips tightened.
“So let me get this straight, you’re not married, you’re not engaged, you haven’t slept with the guy, you haven’t kissed him, hell, you don’t even seem to like him that much. How exactly would you be cheating?”
She opened her mouth to protest but I interrupted her.
“Look, I don’t care what you do, honestly, but you have to admit that it’s kind of strange that you came all the way over here to tell me how much you don’t want to have anything to do with me, don’t you think?’
She got up, took her coat and made as if to leave.
“Kat, don’t go.”
She turned and looked wide eyed at me.
“For someone who doesn’t want any violence in her life, you sure do fight with me a lot,” I said, and tried a smile. She couldn’t help but return it.
I walked slowly up to her. Her white hand was trembling on the door knob. I gently touched my fingertips to hers, then slowly, slowly slid that touch up her hand, over the crease of her wrist, hovering it there where the blue-green threads sunk deep and disappeared beneath her creamy skin. Her eye caught mine and we held one another’s gaze.
I took a bold step forward, bringing me close to her, very close, but with only an electrically charged inch of air between us. I pressed closer toward her, hearing how her breath had stopped, and her puffy lower lip had parted and hung open with nervous anticipation. I inched closer and tasted the air around her lips, came so close I could almost smell her excitement, could almost hear her heartbeat. But I couldn’t go any further. I wanted her to want it. I wanted her to come. To come to me, to travel that last little distance… I wanted her to willingly tear off all the bonds she had fastened around herself, to unknot her pretty hair and open her body to me…
Suddenly she burst into dark laughter.
“You can’t seduce me, you know,” she said, and pulled back.
The spell was broken. I blinked at her.
“I’m not like you. I don’t expect you to understand. My life is complicated. I have responsibilities. I have work to do. It’s not so simple….”
“What’s not so simple? Just kiss me.”
“And then what? What happens next? I’ve been here too many times before.”
“I hope you never stop coming back here to me,” I said quickly. The look of fear that flashed on her face was truly remarkable.
“Why? I don’t even want the stupid furniture, you know that…”
“So don’t come here for that, then,” I said, and pinned her with my eyes.
As long as that delicious thread linked my eyes and hers, I had her, and she couldn’t escape. She nervously fussed with the collar of her coat.
“I can’t come back,” she said quietly.
“I don’t care how long it takes you to come back, but you will. In fact, the longer it takes the better.”
“I can’t come back, Mark.”
“I know you won’t submit easily, but when you do …it’ll be all the sweeter.”
She looked as though someone had slapped her. I could almost hear her thoughts whirring in her head. I could see her gearing up to argue with me, to give me a billion reasons why she couldn’t submit, couldn’t come back, why she simply had to marry that boring old carcass and live a boring life with him and feel righteous about every single boring second of it… but her pretty little lips seemed tangled on the words, unable to spit them out. I held her gaze tight.
“I have to go,” she said, this time even more quietly, as though the words were drained of all meaning and were said just to say them.
“Then go. The next time you come, don’t hide your body from me. You’re beautiful. So wear something beautiful.”
She turned to leave and in a second she had gone. I stood for a moment, the air still charged with her scent, my head still dizzy with the thought of her, with being that close to her perfect body.
I took a deep breath and just as easily as my body took in that clean air, the idea began to crystalize in my body. She was the one. She was my goddess. The woman I’d elevate on a tower of the most intense depravity. The woman I’d worship. She was a sad princess sleeping behind endless locked doors, but I knew now what the key was, and I knew once I slipped it inside and turned it, those doors would come crashing down, one after the other.
I stood there and breathed, her memory dissipating. I didn’t just want to fuck her. I wanted to get inside her.
I darted over to the leather-bound book, threw it open and tore out the pages I had shown her. On the fresh page underneath, I began to scribble furiously.
Chapter Ten – Kat
“So, is he a good kisser?” she asked mischievously, and waggled her eyebrows at me.
I stared dumbfounded at her.
“How do you know about…?”
“Anthony? Because you told me about him, you silly goose!” She slapped my arm.
“Anthony. Right. He’s uh …he’s, yeah we haven’t kissed that much actually,” I said and clumsily folded a pamphlet down the middle.
Lily was helping me put together some goodie bags for the massive conference we’d organized for various women’s empowerment groups that were visiting from India next week. We had hunkered down at her house; stocked up with gin and carrot cake and now we were making a dent in the hundreds of information packs we had to compile. She had suggested we rope in the kids to help us with the little jobs, so now we had a mini kitchen table assembly line, with my little one Nicky putting the pens in the folder loops and Lily’s daughter Jess slipping in branded notebooks and stickers.
She took a sip of her gin and gave me a knowing look.
“Really?”
“Well, I don’t know, he’s kind of old fashioned that way.”
“Oh my God, he’s a terrible kisser isn’t he?” she said and flashed me a naughty smile.
I swatted her with an envelope.
“Quiet, you. These things sometimes take time to develop, you know? Chemistry isn’t everything.”
I roughly ran my fingernail over a pamphlet crease and tossed it aside with the others.
“You don’t have to tell me. I get it, trust me. That chemistry stuff only lasts a few years anyway, it’s what he’s like afterwards that counts,” she said, and added her own pamphlets to the pile.
“Like you and Ron?” I said playfully.
“Well, that’s different, Ron happens to be a complete and utter asshole,” she laughed.
I laughed too, but deep down, I couldn’t ignore how torn I was beginning to feel. Why was I in such a rush to get married again anyway? I had left Jeff with something of the feeling of the sole survivor of a gruesome car crash. I had almost run away screaming. So why did I want all of that again? Would I marry Anthony only to be sitting here with Lily a few years from now playfully joking about how much I hated him? And she’d laugh and we’d carry on like nothing had happened, like it was just the way things were?
And yet… I did want it. I wanted a nice, sane man to swoop in and give my fractured life a little meaning, a little shape. No more games, no more deception or drama or resentment. If that cost me a few tingly feelings, if the price I had to pay was a few butterflies in the stomach, was it really so bad? I mean, there was a time when Jeff was the center of my erotic world …he was my whirlwind romance, my One. We had chemistry in buckets and look where that left us, right?
“No, it’s my turn to be the blue princess,” Jess said.
I looked over at the two girls, and they were squabbling over two colored plastic bangles, one with Disney princess Jasmine and the other with Disney princess Belle.
“No, I’m the blue princess. You’re the yellow.”
“Nuh uh!”
Lily and I paused and watched the pint-sized argument unfolding before us. I raised an eyebrow at her and we both continued to watch them, hands still automatically folding creases into the pamphlets.
“First one to fold all of this gets to be blue princess,” Nic
ky said.
“Nicky! That’s not nice, share with your friend,” I blurted.
“But mom, it’s just a game.”
“Nicky, don’t talk back, please. Give Jess a turn with the blue one.”
“Mom you’re so boring!” she said and kicked her little feet against the table leg, before handing over the bangle. The girls looked at each other.
“It’s OK,” said Jess, getting down off her seat. “I don’t want it anymore.”
We watched as they both toddled off, taken with some new game.
“Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to buy all that princess crap again?” I said laughing. Lily tilted her head to the side and smiled, but said nothing.
“You’re right though, Lily. Sex is overrated. There’s more to life, right? Maybe this is what I should be doing, like, arts and crafts. Stickers and things, you know?”
She laughed.
“But then where would the world be, Kat, without you to boss us all around, huh?”
“You just keep folding,” I said.
My phone pinged with a message. For a wild, hot second, my brain ran off with a mini-fantasy that it was him. But those thoughts were quickly tempered by a crushing little flush of disappointment to see who it really was.
“Is it the lovely gentleman in question?”
I nodded.
“He keeps inviting me on these awful PG outings,” I groaned. “I wonder what his dick looks like,” I added quickly, without thinking. “Probably beige and tasteful, like the rest of him. What do you think?” I asked.
She started giggling uncontrollably.
“Indeed, a gentleman’s cock, you know,” I said, putting on a stupid accent and play-acting like I had a monocle and lapel.
Lily was red in the face with laughter.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right, I’m sure that’s just what it looks like.”
“Go on, what does Ron’s look like?” I asked and jabbed her in the ribs. She looked horrified.
“Kat, oh my God, have you suddenly turned into a four-year-old, too?”
“Well?”
She started giggling again.
“Christ, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Ron’s dick since last Christmas.”
I gave her a deadpan look.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, I’m serious. Hey, don’t give me that look. I’ve known the man for a million years, what do I want to look at his dick for?”
“Because one day you’ll both be old and you’ll miss it and wish you had appreciated him when you had the chance?” I said teasingly.
“Honey, I can’t wait to get old and be done with all that shit. Seriously. Menopause can’t come fast enough. I’ve got an Amazon wishlist to get through.”
“That’s sad,” I said tutting.
“No, it’s not. Just wait, you’ll see…”
I smiled but the conversation felt so wretched all of a sudden. I quickly changed the topic.
After Lily and her little girl had left, and I had put Nicky to bed and closed up the house for the night, I went to the kitchen and helped myself to the leftover carrot cake, in the semi-darkness. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to remember the days when falling asleep was easy. The kitchen felt like an abandoned set of a play, with only a lone spotlight above and the sense that everyone was busy with something else. I was alone. So I thought of him.
I tried to conjure up the same memory of his lips that I had been feeding on all this week, like it was some secret, dwindling food I carried around in my pocket. It had lost its zing, though. All that was left was yearning. Now, I was hungrier than ever for another piece. In my overtired brain, the image of me splayed and naked before him, bound to a bizarre device and completely at his mercy …well, I didn’t feel such a need to resist those images as I usually did.
I could never be with a man like that. I knew how that story went. I’d run off after him in a fit of insanity, he’d get cold feet, we’d bore of each other in six months and I’d be smack bang where I was now. Only older. And more tired. No, there was no other way to cut this: it was time to make a smart choice. For Nicky. For my own sanity. There were moments where I considered throwing caution to the wind and going over there, daring him to do his worst, just to get it all out of my system. But Anthony wouldn’t wait forever. And I wasn’t a cheater. No way, no how. Of that much I was perfectly clear. I knew that I hadn’t, in my heart, committed to Anthony yet. Not really. But that didn’t matter. I knew how much it hurt to be cheated on, and I had long ago sworn I would never do the same to anyone else.
I took another bite of carrot cake and savored the cold, creamy taste of the cream cheese frosting. I could still dream though, couldn’t I? The cake finished, I took my time licking the frosting off my fingertips. Sweet, sticky thoughts came into my head. I guess I didn’t actually have any objections to being paddled, once I thought about it.
But once I thought about it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it more. The thoughts I had dutifully chased from my mind a few times already today came bounding back again with a vengeance. It was his hands. I had always cared about a man’s eyes before. Or his smile. You know, you meet a guy and can’t take your eyes off of his, and he smiles and it’s cute …but this guy …well, it was all in his hands.
His were hands that did things. They were firm, assertive hands. Skilled hands. I knew somehow just by looking that each and every knuckled finger, each square white fingernail and each dry crease was accounted for, was under his conscious control, was a tool that he used to his own ends. I couldn’t explain it. He was just damn hot, that was all I could conclude.
My own hand idly hovered between my legs to stroke the weird tension that had grown there. Sometimes, only very rarely, I allowed my thoughts to go to these strange places. Places so well hidden I almost convinced myself that they weren’t there at all. But as I shut my eyes and swallowed down the last of the sweet frosting, I relaxed and let those images flicker into my mind again. Bad images. Wrong images. Dark, shameful, twisted secrets I had held tightly and would never share with another living soul.
Unbearably erotic secrets.
My hand started to move. Just slightly. In the dim corridors of my mind, a fantasy was coming to life. His firm, masculine hands gripped savagely at my hair and yanked… I was being abducted. Stolen. Ripped from my life and home, clothes torn from my frightened body so I could be flung into a new life of vice. I saw my legs being spread apart, my ankles twisted up with rope, my neck naked and flushed and exposed. And I saw him. And it wasn’t just his hands that were tools. His entire body was a tool… all of him was a machine, an instrument of incredibly pleasure…
I snapped myself out of it. My fingers were wet. Taking a breath, I tried to compose myself. I couldn’t go on. I hurriedly smoothed down the front of my skirt and tried to tear my thoughts away from him. And then it happened. My phone pinged.
It was him.
Mark: It’s finished. Your piece is done and ready for collection
I stared at it like it was a neon meteor that had fallen from outer space and landed on my kitchen table. I picked up my phone.
Mark: You’ll like it this time
Mark: I know you will
The second and third messages popped up onto the screen and hung there in the semi-darkness. Trembling hands, I wondered what to say. ‘How much do I owe you?’ ‘That’s great see you tomorrow?’ Or maybe, ‘Thank you, finding out what it is will be the highlight of my week and maybe life and secretly I think I’m really desperate for you to fuck me’?
Kat: I hope you made it using your intuition :)
I typed out a message quickly and sent it before I lost my nerve. The reply was almost instant.
Mark: Naturally
He was still online but had nothing more to say. The cursor blinked idly. Teasing me.
Kat: Can I get some clues? A picture?
I stared at the screen like I was reading a crystal ball.
Mark: But that would spoil the surprise
My heart was skipping all over the place.
Kat: Is it for paddling? :p Is it wood or steel? Do I have to use it with somebody else?
He took a long time to reply. The ache between my legs was intensifying again.
Mark: When you come back, maybe I’ll show you
I took a deep breath. What was I doing? I had to de-escalate this. I shouldn’t have even replied.
Kat: Sound great!
Kat: I’ll come tomorrow
Kat: And I’ll have to pay you too
Mark: But try it first
I laughed out loud. My fingers typed furiously.
Kat: You’re such a tease! At least give me some clue about what it is. I won’t be able to sleep trying to guess
Mark: Perfect
Kat: That’s not what I meant! Send me a picture?
Mark: Ooh, are you sure? Kind of dangerous
Kat: Ok don’t get ahead of yourself, I meant a picture of THE FURNITURE obviously
Mark: Don’t get ahead of yourself either
Mark: You’re crazy if you think I’m going to send you a picture of my dick
I couldn’t help but smiling like an idiot. I was trying to think of a witty response but instantly he messaged again:
Mark: But I can send you a picture of something even hotter than that, if you can imagine such a thing ;)
Kat: …..?
The next few moments passed with such delicious torment I couldn’t believe only a minute had gone by. Then my phone pinged again. I looked closely at my screen. It was a simple picture of a thin rope, one made of three plaited strands of leather and coiled loosely into two loops on the floor.