The Delicious Torment

by Alison Tyler

  Jack wanted my answer before he told me the question. He wanted me to absolve him, to release him, to relax him before he explained the truth. Before he revealed the man—or was it men?—who were hidden behind the curtain.

  And yet, there he was, his cock against me, shielded by his Italian slacks. Fulfilling one more of my most treasured kinks. I adore being naked with a lover who is still clothed. I like that off-balance sensation. I know my hot buttons well by now. My purest fantasy? The one that gets me off every time? Odd, I think, for a sub to have it, but Jack understood that one right away. Having a man take my place, or rather, having a lover take the pain for me. Not to say that I can’t withstand it myself. But what Jack did in that New York club, shielding my body with his… thinking of it now makes me almost turn to cream.

  But back to Jack. He wanted me to say that nothing mattered. That he could confess anything to me, tell me that he’d been shooting up and it wouldn’t have changed my feelings. That he’d been selling drugs on the street corner, or hooking up with the pretty boys on Sunset, or spending all of his money on the ponies, and I’d still gaze up with my adoring eyes and say, “Doesn’t change a thing.”

  And you know what? I’ve been there. With Brock, the vices didn’t color my view of him. The drugs, the stolen bikes, the scars from fights, the off-hour phone calls for bail. None of that made me flee. If anything, I was addicted to the electricity of the vices. Craved the excitement of his world. Found “normal” life difficult afterward. So bland. So fucking boring. How did average people exist without the drama?

  But Jack wasn’t asking me to accept him with all of his flaws. He was asking me… Jesus, I didn’t even know for sure what he was asking me.

  “Tell me, Sam.”

  “You tell me,” I countered, buying time again, aware I had little bargaining chips in this situation. Cuffed as I was and mounted on the cabinet, there was nowhere for me to go. No place to run or hide. But I was also aware that Jack had now entered the action. He wasn’t the sole member of the audience anymore. He was an active player.

  “If the things you said were true, what would that mean for you?”

  I hated like hell to be right. What would it mean? What would it mean to me if Jack and Alex were lovers as well as boss and employee? What would it mean if Jack fucked Alex the way that he fucked me? Before I could answer those questions, new ones rose up, exploding like fireworks in my mind…what would it mean if Jack touched Alex the way he touched me, gently stroking his face, kissing his open mouth. What would it mean if he pressed up against Alex and told him that he loved him?

  That’s when the tears started.

  Because Alex wasn’t a vice, like playing the ponies or drinking too much whiskey.

  Alex was a competitor.

  Jack had promised me no other women, back in the club, after that night when I’d been held up in the puppy cage. And Alex’s name had come up, but we hadn’t focused on it. Hadn’t gone there. What should I have asked for on that night? Exclusivity? What did I really want?

  That was simple. I wanted to be Jack’s alone. I wanted to be his one and only.

  And now, somehow, even while feeling Jack’s strong body behind mine, I could sense Alex watching from mere feet away. Now, I knew that I wasn’t.

  As I say endlessly, I have always thought of myself as monogamous (despite my tendency to stray). It’s a strange statement, I know. My feelings hadn’t changed in spite of the fact that I regularly let my lover’s assistant have his way with me—in any way he’d been instructed by Jack. I didn’t consider us to be in a three-way relationship. Didn’t think that I was part of a polyamorous threesome.

  Was that what Jack wanted?

  Was that why Alex was so put out?

  I’d taken his place. I’d usurped his position.

  “Tell me,” Jack demanded, and I lowered my head to my chest, feeling the strain in my arms, feeling as if I might cry for days and never stop. I wanted Jack the way I wanted air. That is to say, I didn’t really want him. I needed him. Craved him. No, I hadn’t gotten the piercings he’d requested, but I wouldn’t have balked for a second had he led me to a tattoo parlor instead and asked me to submit to being adorned with a ’40s-style heart with a banner bearing his name. And now he was asking me how I’d feel if I had to share him. Or rather he was telling me that I’d been sharing him all along. Was that right? Had I made the correct assumptions based on the evening’s events?

  Jack’s hands were on me, sliding up and down my arms. I knew how turned on I was, knew that if he unzipped his trousers and pushed into me, he would find me more than wet, more than mildly aroused. There was a sea of liquid sex between my legs.

  But first Jack wanted my answer. And I couldn’t say the words.

  “You’ve known,” he whispered next. “You have to have known. Alex’s been with me for years. We’re not…” he hesitated, rare for Jack, who always seemed to have the right words to say. “We’re not exactly lovers.” I knew he was being cautious because Alex was standing right there. “Not exactly. But…”

  “But you have been,” I guessed, and Jack said, “Yes.”

  My mind raced. They’d been together. But they were not always together. Alex loved Jack, but…but…Jack didn’t love Alex. Not the same way he loved me. Was that what he was telling me?

  “Can you deal with that? Can you live with that?”

  I looked over at Alex, who still seemed amazingly at ease being naked, his eyeliner now fully smeared, the lipstick on his full lips all but gone, a rosy shadow all that remained. He was absolutely and crushingly handsome, and he was waiting as submissively as he possibly could. Not getting involved in the discussion. Not butting in.

  Could I live with what Jack was describing—or what I thought he was describing? Could I accept that Jack would never solely be mine?

  It wasn’t even a question.

  I said, “Yes,” and Jack moved quickly, lifting up the handcuff chain and gripping me in his arms. He carried me back to the bedroom, Alex following. He spread me down on the bed, the way I’d imagined earlier in the evening. The way I like best. No need to think, or plan, or fight. Spread me out and looked down on me, as if I were some glittering prize he’d won at a carnival, showing off his strength.

  Alex slid on his slacks without his boxers and watched as Jack fucked me. Sweetly fucked me, still in his clothes, his pants on but open. Fucked me until I came, shaking the bed with the power of my climax. Lost in the fact that I lived in an imperfect world, with a man who knew me so perfectly. Lost in the fact that dreams do come true, oh yes, they do, but you might have to share the stage with someone else’s dreams, as well.

  “Tell me,” Jack whispered as he stroked my body afterward. “Tell me.”

  “I love you, Jack.”

  His eyes seemed to glaze for a moment. Shimmer within. And when he looked at me—there it was—magic.

  About the Author

  Called “a trollop with a laptop” by East Bay Express, “a literary siren” by Good Vibrations, and “the mistress of literary erotica” by Violet Blue, Alison Tyler is naughty and she knows it.

  Over the past two decades, Ms. Tyler has written more than twenty-five explicit novels, including Tiffany Twisted, Melt with You, The ESP Affair, and Dark Secret Love: A Story of Submission, the volume that precedes The Delicious Torment in a trilogy. Her novels and short stories have been translated into Japanese, Dutch, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Greek. When not writing sultry short stories, she edits erotic anthologies, including Alison’s Wonderland, Naughty Fairy Tales from A to Z, Kiss My Ass, Cuffed, and Playing with Fire. She is also the author of several novellas including Cuffing Kate, Giving In, A Taste of Chi, and Those Girls.

  Ms. Tyler is loyal to coffee (black), lipstick (red), and tequila (straight). She has tattoos, but no piercings; a wicked tongue, but a quick smile; and bittersweet memories, but no regrets. She believes it won’t rain if she doesn’t bring an umbrella, prefers hot and d
ry to cold and wet, and loves to spout her favorite motto: You can sleep when you’re dead. She chooses Led Zeppelin over the Beatles, the Cure over NIN, and the Stones over everyone. Yet although she appreciates good rock, she has a pitiful weakness for eighties hair bands.

  In all things important, she remains faithful to her partner of eighteen years, but she still can’t choose just one perfume.