by Eden Myles
I thought about Ian and Evelyn, what they had. A sudden surge of jealousy killed all the good feelings inside of me. I knew if I let this go too far I would fall and fall hard for him. I didn’t want to cuddle with Mr. Ishikawa like we were a real couple. I didn’t want to stay the weekend, even if it pleased my gentleman. When I tried to squirm free, he pinched my nipples so hard I yelped from the pain. “Stay with me and be still, my courtesan. Be mine tonight.”
Reluctantly, I obeyed.
***
I woke the next morning to the scents of coffee and French toast wafting into the playroom. Mr. Ishikawa, dressed primly in a dark navy suit, sat beside me in bed and fork-fed me pieces of the syrupy sweet French toast as we talked about what we would do for the day.
“Could we have dinner at that place like last night?” I asked hopefully. I knew as soon as our association was over I’d be back dining regularly at Arby’s and KFC.
“Yes, of course. And I have something else planned for today. A bit of a date, you might say.”
I sat up in bed, naked, yet I found myself clutching the sheet to my breasts. The whole bed smelled like sex, like us. “We could see a movie at the theater. I get half off all tickets for being an employee, you know.”
He laughed at me. “I had something more elegant and involved in mind, but we could see a movie, if you like. What did you have in mind?”
“Aliens vs. Zombies is playing,” I informed him. “You know, it’s one of those mashups? The Alien franchise and Romero’s Zombies…?”
He was smirking at me.
“Don’t laugh! Those movies are really good!”
“I believe you!” he laughed, the first time I’d heard him laugh about anything.
After I showered and dressed in a strappy sundress he’d chosen for me, we went arm-in-arm downstairs and Mr. Ishikawa took me for a late morning carriage ride around Central Park. He pointed out the more famous landmarks like the Bethesda Fountain and Cleopatra’s Needle, told me some of New York’s history as the carriage horse clip-clopped over the cobblestone path, and we stopped to feed the ducks in the pond. Just across the water was the children’s park. There was a little league baseball game in full swing with kids and overexcited parents screaming at the top of their lungs. I’d always loved baseball—I’d gone to games whenever my dad would take me and still loved the Rangers with all my heart—so I asked Mr. Ishikawa if we could walk that way.
He wrinkled his nose up behind his sunglasses. “If you like.”
“You don’t like baseball?”
“I don’t know much about it, frankly. But the children…”
“Oh come on!” I dragged him down the path toward the baseball diamond. “I promise they won’t bite!”
We stayed to watch one inning from behind the safety fence. Mr. Ishikawa was finally looking interested in the game, but I realized I was getting hungry from our walk, and I wasn’t used to walking this much in three-inch heels. “We could go now, if you like,” I said, and he nodded and led me back to the limo.
Once we were on the road again, I said, “Did the children bother you?”
He shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know much about that,” he said. “My father didn’t take me to games. I didn’t play with other children.”
“It must have been kind of lonely for you, growing up.”
His face was set. “I studied a lot.”
We had lunch at the Royal, and then he had his driver take us to a dance studio in Midtown. When we got there and I saw the huge open room with its polished hardwood floors, I started getting a little nervous. “Why are we here?” I asked.
“Ballroom dancing is extremely popular in Japan right now. I’d hoped to show you.”
“I’m not very good at any kind of dancing,” I laughed. “I don’t even go to raves.”
He put his hand on my arm to reassure me. “I rented the whole studio for the afternoon, so no one will see you or your mistakes.” He went to the music station to program in a number of tracks, then returned to offer me his hand. As the first strains of “The Blue Danube” started up, I became even more nervous. I tried to follow his instructions, to imitate his smooth, gliding strides, but I wound up tramping endlessly upon his toes. I really had no coordination at all.
“Stop,” he laughed. “Just stop!”
I stopped and he told me to slip out of my shoes and stand on his feet.
“You must be kidding me. Do you know how much I weigh?”
“I know exactly how much you weigh. I’ve seen you in nothing,” he reminded me and I blushed furiously at his words.
“Well, I’m quite heavy, I assure you.”
“Not that heavy. Now, please…”
I listened to him, kicked off my shoes, and stood on his feet.
“Now watch me carefully.”
I watched him, trying to follow his moves as he waltzed me around the room. It felt silly at first, but in no time at all, I figured out what he was doing—and what I was doing wrong. I certainly wasn’t as good as he was, but after two hours of practice, I was getting better. Not good, but better. Back in the limo, I kicked my heels off.
“Feet hurting?”
“Just a little,” I admitted.
“You’ll get used to the heels,” he said as he took my feet in his lap and began to massage them, applying little points of pressure to parts of my soles. The touch relaxed me almost at once. “I like you in them. They make you very beautiful.”
“Sadist,” I laughed. “What else have you planned?”
“I was going to suggest horseback riding next, but you look like I’ve worn you out.”
“You did!” In addition to the ballroom dancing, I’d also had a rough week, long shifts in the theater and a few sleepless nights as I crammed for finals. “Could we bypass the horseback riding and go straight to the movie?”
He smirked and bent my leg in his lap so he could kiss my knee, his hand sliding along my calf and making my nerves tingle. “If it’s what my courtesan wishes.”
“I thought I had to live to serve you.”
“A gentleman and courtesan can live to serve each other,” was all he said.
At the multiplex I got two tickets from one of the girls I worked with, as well as popcorn, Junior Mints and two Diet Dr. Peppers from the concession stand. We sat near the back of the theater, where we wouldn’t be disturbed, and waited for the previews to end and the movie to start up. It was a very bad movie, but I had a soft spot for bad movies—the badder, the better. I loved fun, silly, stupid movies where heroes shot endless bullets at their enemies and blew things up with wild abandon. And now here I was, sharing one with a date who’d taken me to an expensive restaurant and to ballroom dancing. I realized this was the most perfect day of my life.
Every time someone was shot or a zombie died, I screamed with all the other girls in the theater and buried my face in Mr. Ishikawa’s suit coat. Finally, about halfway through the movie, his hand closed over my knee and he slid it up under the skirt of my dress. His touch was heavy, rough, incredibly possessive. He stroked me between the legs until I moaned into his shoulder. Finally, he snagged me by the hips and turned me so I was sitting astride him, the hardness of his cock fitted tightly between us. He slid his hands up my body until he’d snagged my cheeks and pulled me down so he could whisper against my lips, “Ride me.”
“Here? Now?”
He pushed my skirt up to my hips and undid himself. In the dark, he leaned back in his seat and speared me soundly with his erection. I slid my hands up his lapels and his hands cupped my ass, encouraging me to move upon him. I couldn’t believe we were doing this in a public place! It was dark, but still…I half expected to see an usher coming our way or one of the other moviegoers twisting around to get a better view.
I grunted as he impaled me, deeper and deeper, but my hips instinctively started to move, to take him as he wanted me to. I buried my little cries in the front of his shirt as I rode him. Were I with anyone else,
I don’t think I could have taken this chance, but I trusted Mr. Ishikawa, I realized. I trusted him and probably even loved him. As we strained against one another, I brought my mouth down hard upon his, capturing him, subduing him.
He lost himself in that moment, and soon our mouths were biting and kissing, fitted perfectly to each other. His tongue went into me, slick and warm, licking all along the sensitive roof of my mouth. I palmed his cheeks, reveling in the roughness of his shadow, kissed and licked his lips, kissed all along his chin and down his throat. I licked along the colorful edge of his tattoo. He groaned and rocked his hips so that very soon I had to hook my fingers into his shirt like a cat in order to hang on as he brought us both with a lunge and a muffled cry in the dark.
We were both silent and a little stunned when it was over. When we got back to the limo, I sat beside him, fitted to his side, and he kept stroking his long fingers through my hair, but neither of us spoke of it. We were too lost in our own separate thoughts.
***
I spent the night and the following morning in his bed. He fucked me relentlessly, let me sleep, fucked me some more. He offered to take me to Sunday dinner at the restaurant of my choice, but I had an important exam due on Monday and had to get back to my apartment so I could start cramming.
As we pulled up to the front of the apartment building, he took my hand and kissed my knuckles. He sucked my fingers briefly into his mouth. “Next Saturday I should like to introduce you to Kinbaku, Japanese rope play. It’s what we’ll be doing when we debut at the Dollhouse. I thought I should inform you ahead of time, in the event you wanted to research it, see if you’re comfortable.”
“Thank you,” I told him. I smiled wryly. “But you’re not really giving me a choice, right?”
“You have your safewords. You always have a choice,” he told me very seriously. He offered me a concerned look. “Are you afraid?”
“Is it going to hurt?”
“If it hurts, then I’m not doing it correctly.” He waited a heartbeat, then added, “I will never hurt you, Felix. That’s not what this is about.”
“I know,” I said. But as I slipped out of the limo, I thought about that one frenzied moment we’d shared in the theater when we had tried to consume one another. I didn’t want to fall in love with a man I couldn’t have, one so hopelessly out of my league. But I guess it was already too late. I loved Mr. Ishikawa, despite the sensible part of my brain telling me I couldn’t have him.
So much for him not hurting me, I thought bitterly.
***
On Tuesday, I spent the better part of the day in my darkened room, the blinds drawn, the door closed to lock out all sounds, and a cold compress over my eyes. Cookie kept creeping in to ask me if she could get me anything, something to drink, something to eat, and she kept bringing up all these holistic treatments—acupuncture, biofeedback, feverfew—but I kept waving her away. “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “It’s just these stupid migraines.”
“Will you be okay?” She stood there in her ballet tights like a little girl afraid her mom was ill.
“Cookie…it’s just a headache!”
I didn’t often get them—maybe once a month, and only when I was under a lot of stress—but when I did, they usually knocked me down and made me useless. Cookie always acted like I was on death’s door. And don’t get me started on my dad! Luckily, this one only lasted a few hours, and by evening I was able to drag myself from my room and plop myself down in front of the TV in time to watch a rerun of Fraiser and eat some hummus with ful and tehina that Darren had bought from a whole foods market. I hated hummus, but it was better than nothing.
I was fine all through Wednesday, but on Thursday I went down again, hard, and this time I’d had enough. My doctor was good enough to fit me into his schedule, and while there suggested I change my birth control medication; he thought it might be triggering the migraines.
When I got back to the apartment, I found a huge bouquet of red roses waiting for me in the kitchen, a special delivery that had arrived while I was out. The small manila envelope attached contained a card upon which Mr. Ishikawa had hand-written some love haikus—and a few so naughty they made my cheeks burn. Cookie and Darren teased me about it endlessly the rest of the day. They made me so mad I wanted to throw my shoes at them!
I put the roses next to my bed and sat against my pillows and re-read my gentleman’s love poems over and over again. The naughty ones made me finger myself until I was exhausted and too sore to continue. Finally, I picked up the special phone he’d given me and sent him a text message thanking him and telling him I was looking forward to being with him this Saturday. I told him I wasn’t afraid of the Kinbaku, that I was actually looking forward to it.
About fifteen minutes later I got one in response. You’re going to look fucking gorgeous on the ropes, my courtesan, it read. I can’t wait to stripe your ass, my tigress.
I went to sleep with his words echoing in my head.
***
I’d just finished slapping on a layer of foundation and a little mascara to bring out my eyes when Mr. Ishikawa’s phone went off, telling me he was on his way. It was Friday night and I was ready. I was dressed in a little black dress and thigh-high stockings. I wore the black platform heels he liked so much. I was a little tired from the week, work and school, but I’d done well on all my exams. I had only to deliver my article to my journalism class and I was done, ready to graduate. I was ready. Best of all, the damned migraines hadn’t reared their ugly heads at all.
At the last minute, I applied a layer of the cherry red lipstick. This time I didn’t wipe it away.
Mr. Ishikawa was standing by the open door of his limo when I made it to the curb. He extended his hand in his gentlemanly way, but instead of taking it, I rushed him and threw myself into his arms with a squeal. I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He laughed at he caught me, struggled to balance me attached to his body like a big barnacle.
“Really, Felix…” he began, but I kissed him to shut him up.
He cupped the back of my head and held me in place while he kissed me back, exploring my mouth and lips with his tongue, his no-kissing rule completely forgotten. He was hard against me, and I couldn’t help but take pride in that. I couldn’t wait to feel him inside me, his heat and strength. He made me feel so sexy, so desired.
Inside the limo, he said, “You make me laugh. You shouldn’t do that. And you smeared your beautiful lipstick.”
“What’s wrong with laughing?” I said as I blotted the remainder of my lipstick away with his handkerchief. He took the small bit of fabric from me and bunched it up, keeping it close like a keepsake, like something precious. I leaned against him, my hand sliding over his thigh and between his legs. The bulge in his silken trousers grew substantially larger as I fondled him. “You don’t do it enough.”
He grunted at my touch. He wasn’t laughing now.
I realized I loved having this power over him, the power to make him laugh or sigh or gasp in response to my touch or words. I loved the way he shivered when he came, as if he could barely control himself around me. I undid his trousers and went to my knees on the floor of the limo. I bent my head to the hard, pulsing evidence of his desire and took him in my mouth. He laid his hands to the back of my head, leaned back in his seat, and gave himself fully over to me for a little while.
He took me first to dinner, followed by a performance of Madame Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera. I’d never really liked or understood opera until he walked me through it, act by act, explaining what was happening and what it meant.
As we traveled by limo back to his penthouse, I sat on his lap in a contemplative silence, the last strains of the opera ringing in my ears. Finally he said, “What did you think of the story, Felix?”
“I think it’s terrible what Butterfly did, giving up her son and her life to her husband like that.”
“She loved him,” he reminded me.
; “He didn’t deserve her love. He was unworthy of it,” was all I answered.
When we arrived at the penthouse, Mr. Ishikawa said, “I have a surprise,” and led me to the now-familiar playroom. As always, it had fresh flowers and beautiful satin sheets on the bed. “I’ve decided this should be your room for the remainder of our time. Please examine the wardrobe.”
I opened the carven wardrobe door to find it stocked with clothes of every kind—kicky cocktail dresses, casual wear, nightgowns and negligees, even big poofy ball gowns for any further ball dancing lessons he might subject me to. I saw shoes of every kind, everything I might need, all in my size. I knew he probably expected me to squeal and jump into his arms, but the truth of the matter was, I just wasn’t the clothes-horse kind of gal. Except when I was with him, I wore all practical clothes, and I hated shopping. Besides, the sight of the wardrobe he’d bought me made me feel sad. It made me feel bought.
I turned with a polite smile and said, “Thank you, sir.”
“I thought you might wear the red cocktail tonight. Very few women can wear red effectively, but you do it wonderfully…” he began, but his cell went off, interrupting us, and he apologized. He had forgotten to shut it off after leaving work.
Since it was some kind of emergency, he excused himself but asked me to look through everything and approve it. I nodded, but after he was gone, I went exploring the rest of the penthouse, instead, checking the rooms I never saw. I found his bedroom, which was surprisingly spare but—not surprisingly—neat and orderly, then his office. There were blueprints spread across his huge, onyx desk. I was looking them over with great interest when he walked in.
“Ah, there you are, my dear.”
He didn’t seem upset that I was snooping through his things, so I asked about the blueprints.
“It’s a miniature hemodialysis device we’re hoping can replace the use of a machine for dialysis patients.” He came around the desk to show me on the diagram. “If we can just shrink the technology here and here”—he pointed to key areas—“we can have an implantable device that would take the place of a patient having to use a machine up to fifteen hours a week.”