Fetish

by Sherri L. King

  It was all he had to give her, to thank her for the wondrous gift she had given him tonight. He burned with the taste and feel of her, wanted more with every fiber of his being. With a wrenching moan he bent his head to taste that part of her that was almost as secret and magical as her blood. It would have to be enough for now, until she was ready for the next step, and he would have to honor that.

  * * * * *

  She came to herself after what were surely long, long moments.

  “Sugar girl, my sweet Aerin, the taste of you…oh the taste!” Violanti’s voice murmured softly, but no longer at her ear. He moaned the words again, repeating them like a litany, and it took her a moment to realize he spoke them against the still quivering flesh of her pussy.

  His tongue was lapping at her, drinking her in. His lips moved against her as he said the words yet again. “The taste, the taste, oh I am lost.” He speared her with his tongue, his fingers gently parting her folds wide for his adoring mouth.

  “Violanti,” she moaned, her voice no more than a rough whisper—for it had been spent during her earlier shouting.

  He moved up at the sound of her voice, covering her again. His fingertips, stained with what looked like blood—if she’d had a virgin membrane he had surely ruptured it with his fingers by now—stroked against her cheeks. “Aerin, Aerin, my darling,” he whispered, pressing reverent kisses all over her face.

  She felt her breasts taken in one of his hands, felt her nipple pinched and pulled upon with careful tenderness. And that swiftly, her passion was reawakened. Impossibly, she wanted him as desperately as she had but moments before her release.

  But Violanti surprised her. Instead of taking all that she offered, instead of thrusting that great thick cock of his into her once more starving quim, as she would have desperately liked for him to do, he merely held her. Kissed her. Fondled her.

  “Please,” she begged, beyond all shame.

  His eyes were gentle and warm, fuzzy with his own passion. “Not tonight. Rest now. I’ve been too demanding. Later…later we’ll have more. Later, when you’re stronger. When you’ve rested.”

  The ever-changing rainbow of his gaze trapped her and lulled her. Keeping her safe. Easing her towards sleep.

  “I never knew touching could be so purely exquisite, Aerin. Tonight you’ve taught me so much more than I’d hoped to teach you. Thank you. Thank you so much,” his voice faded out. Those words, so full of raw emotion, yet still unable to keep sleep from claiming her fully, fell silent on her deaf ears as she rested.

  Before she knew it he was waking her, telling her softly, regretfully, that it was time for her to go.

  Chapter Seven

  “You look like you have a secret,” Heather teased over their fast-food lunch.

  Aerin smiled against her will, feeling the warmth of the previous evening wash over her with a gentle pleasure. “I was just thinking of the new clothes I bought,” she lied. Her voice had risen to be heard over the din of the mall’s bustling food court but was still a little raw from all the moans and shouts Violanti had wrung from her in the blue room’s bed. “I can’t imagine that I’ll ever dare to wear them, even if they are gorgeous.”

  “That’s precisely why you’ll wear them,” Heather affirmed with a laugh. “You look gorgeous in them. It would be a shame for you to bury them in the back of your closet behind all that drab and depressing business attire you seem to love wearing day in and day out.”

  “Are you trashing my clothes?” Aerin wriggled her eyebrows comically. She, too, hated her drab clothing, but she knew she was too fat and too ugly to wear the bright, stylish clothes that were so in fashion.

  The styles of clothes that stuffed her shopping bags, for instance, were meant for people who looked like Heather. Svelte, attractive, and smart looking people wore clothes like those. Not egg-shaped ragamuffins like herself.

  But when she’d tried the clothes on…she’d felt truly pretty. For the first time in, well, forever. She’d felt taller, slimmer, and prettier. It had been a decadent and wondrous feeling. The look in Heather’s eyes had added to that, a look of appreciation and approval, and Aerin had felt certain she did look good. That it hadn’t only been her wistful imagination tricking her.

  She had bought the clothes.

  But would she wear them? She didn’t know. Maybe. Just maybe.

  Perhaps for Violanti. If she decided to go back to Fetish and see him again. That was up for debate in her mind at this point. She did so want to see him again, to finish what had started between them, but she didn’t want to blow so much money on the experience. No matter how wonderful an experience it might, and very probably would, be. She wasn’t rich, after all, and the money in her savings wouldn’t last her forever. For now she would have to think about it.

  She would think about wearing the clothes, and about perhaps showing them off to Violanti if she should decide to return to Fetish once again.

  Heather laughed. “Yes! I am trashing your clothes. You looked so good in those bright colors, I can’t believe you’d even think of not wearing them. You’re the kind of person who shines in bold and beautiful attire, but you just don’t want to believe it.”

  “You are so full of it,” how much fun it was to have a friend with whom she could tease and laugh, “I’m too fat to wear purple and scarlet. I only end up looking like a circus tent when I do.”

  “Well your diet is working wonders on your figure, so you won’t have that excuse to hide behind much longer. As if you did in the first place. You’re not fat at all. You’re—”

  “Big-boned? I’ve heard that one too many times,” Aerin snorted. And what diet? She wasn’t on any diet. Heather wasn’t the first person to notice her weight loss either; there had been others, including herself. She was wearing smaller sizes recently, only a few digits down, but still, it was an improvement—one she’d quickly noticed. Perhaps menopause was helping to speed up her metabolism?

  “I wasn’t going to say big-boned,” Heather laughed, “I was going to say that you’re baroque. You know, plump and curvaceous and beautiful, like all those old paintings you see in museums.”

  “I know baroque and I love that period, but I am not like that. I’m pale and plain and fat. Not rosy or cute or rounded, like those old world hussies,” she laughed.

  “But you are. You’re just too stubborn to see it.”

  “Can we talk about something else? Like your fiancé?” Heather’s long time boyfriend had finally proposed Friday evening, and from the size of the diamond on her finger, he was a well-landed catch indeed. “Tell me more about him.”

  Heather’s eyes glazed over, and a look of besotted love turned her normally attractive face even more so. It fairly glowed. “Dan is wonderful. You know, we’ve been dating since high-school, but this was still a surprise.” She brandished her engagement ring with excited glee. “I didn’t think he’d want to marry until he made partner in the firm. He’s so serious about his career. I was content to wait. This was just such a surprise…I almost didn’t know what to say when he asked!”

  “Well I’m glad you said yes, you deserve total happiness. Dan is lucky to have you,” Aerin toasted with her paper cup full of fizzling soda. “He seems smart enough to know that, too. Good boy.”

  “He is a good boy,” Heather giggled. “Too good for me, but I’m glad he hasn’t figured that out yet. I don’t know what to expect these next few months. He wants the wedding to be in July. That’s only three months away. And,” her eyes shadowed abruptly, “he wants me to quit my job after the wedding.”

  Aerin felt her eyes widen. “That’s a bit archaic of him isn’t it? Or do you want to quit your job? I wouldn’t really blame you if you did.”

  “You know, I kinda do,” she sighed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for the corporate world, you know? It seems too cutthroat for me. And I’m not exactly enamored with my job either. But that doesn’t give Dan the right to push me into quitting.”

  “If you
’re unhappy with the job, why did you decide to try working for the company in the first place?”

  Heather’s face lit up again and she leaned closer across the small eatery table, as if she were about to impart some great secret and didn’t want it overheard by any who might pass. “Well, I’m a fast typist. Really fast. I can crank out orders like it’s nobody’s business. It really seemed smart when I was in school, to make use of that skill and to profit from it somehow. It’s just that I’m so fast because in my spare time I write novels. Practice makes perfect, you know? Lots and lots of practice. The more I write, the faster I get. So I work in a print factory for a steady paycheck, but it doesn’t make me happy. It’s writing that really gets me excited. But I couldn’t make a living at that.”

  Heather was so animated, so passionate. Suddenly sure that Heather did belong in the world of the novelist, Aerin nodded thoughtfully. “I bet you could make a living at it, if you really focused on it. Maybe that’s why Dan is asking you to leave your day job. Does he know you like to write?”

  “Of course. I tell him everything! He knows how important that is to me. Not that it changes anything.”

  “I don’t know, maybe it changes everything. Maybe he wants to give you this chance to be an author in the only way he can.” Was this really her speaking these words? Aerin had never understood people, relationships, or the motives that drove human behavior. But this scenario seemed plausible, so she pointed it out. “Maybe he knows that you’d be happier writing full time and wants to give you that opportunity.”

  Eyes bright, Heather gasped, “But why wouldn’t he just come out and say that? He simply told me he thought I should quit my job when we’re married—like it was beneath him to have his wife working or something—not that I should write full-time.”

  “Well, I don’t know him, so I can’t speak for him. But what else would you do but write? Sit at home all day? If Dan knows you as well as you say, then he knows you’d probably use your time at the keyboard, composing. Not keeping house or making babies.”

  They fell silent for a moment. “You know, Aerin, I think you’re right. I was just too concerned about keeping my independence, about not being bossed around by Dan, that I didn’t see it. I’ll ask him tonight if that’s what he planned. Oh! Wouldn’t it be incredible if I could write full-time?” she giggled and clenched her hands in a show of great excitement.

  Aerin laughed with her friend. “It sounds like Dan can afford to pay the bills while you follow your dream. I hope I’m right in thinking that’s what he means to do.”

  “I think you are right, Aerin. I think you are. How could you see something so clearly that I couldn’t? You’re such a great friend, you really are.”

  Blushing, Aerin took a deep drag from her soda. “You’d have thought of it too in a day or so.”

  “Come on. I’ve had enough of this greasy garbage,” Heather sneered down at their food. “Let’s celebrate my engagement and go buy some shoes.” The two rose, threw the remnants of their meals in the nearest rubbish bin, and went off in search of the perfect buy. Aerin had never had so much fun at the mall. It was great to have a friend.

  * * * * *

  The next evening, Aerin forgot his face.

  After fighting all day against the inevitable forgetfulness that she suspected lay just on the edge of her mind, she lost the battle, and Violanti’s features once more blurred into the deepest recesses of her faulty memory. It happened in the shower, as she regretfully cleansed the last faint traces of his scent from her body. Her mind seemed to wander from the present, seemed to drift away to places unknown, and when she came back to herself she had forgotten him.

  Tears had never tasted so bitter on her tongue. Weeping had never been difficult for her, but now it seemed painful and punishing, and in no way did it offer her relief. How could she be so stupid? How could she be so careless? Did nothing hold value for her anymore but her own self-centered depression?

  For hours she asked herself these and countless other similar questions. She berated herself, hated herself, and wanted nothing more than to scream her frustration into the deep and lonely silence of her house. But she didn’t scream. She gritted her teeth and squared her shoulders, both figuratively and literally, determined to triumph over what she was sure must be some strange case of menopause induced amnesia.

  To triumph, she must go back to Fetish. She must see Violanti again. To remember his face, his scent, his touch, she must go back. Damn the cost, both in money and in pride, she simply had to go back and see him again. But only this one last time, no more. She was no fool to think she could start any lasting relationship with a paid escort from some sex club.

  Even if Violanti seemed as interested in her as she was in him.

  Violanti was paid to find an interest in her. Whether he admitted to it or not, that was the truth of the matter. And she, stupid spinster that she was, must never forget it. Yes, she’d had the time of her life last night. Yes, her body had been, and still was, his for the taking. But she must, deep down, still have ultimate control of her heart.

  She’d actually forgotten his face in as little as twenty-four hours. Perhaps it wasn’t her heart at risk after all, but instead her sanity.

  No matter. It was her heart that must, ultimately, concern her. She must never give it to this escort, this dangerously sexy Violanti, or else risk the greatest hurt she’d ever known. She may be a virgin—well, perhaps not technically after last night—and she may have never been in love, but that didn’t mean she was unaware of the pain such a love could bring. Love was a double-edged sword, even in the most perfect of situations, and this was by no means a perfect situation.

  The color of her money orchestrated the behavior of her mysterious escort. She must never, ever forget it; certainly not as quickly as she had forgotten his face. Even as she enjoyed their time together, sweet as it was, it was but a dream. A dream that would not, could not, last.

  Did he have brown hair or black? And what color were his eyes? That seemed the most significant of all else she’d forgotten, beyond the shape of his face or lips or length of hair. It was his eyes she should remember forever, surely. The windows to his soul, so deep and so strange. But what color were they?

  The force of her sobs surprised her. She felt as if her heart and mind had betrayed her in the worst way. In a most unforgivable way. How, oh how, could she have forgotten his face? The face of her lover, her first and probably last, should always remain in her memory, should it not? How could the visage of her greatest desire be gone from her so soon and so completely?

  She loved him, or was very close to it. Warnings or denials would do her no good. Already she was that far gone.

  Damn her for a fool.

  The ticking of her mantle clock, keeping time with the spill of each of her tears, was her only company that long and lonely night. And no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember his face. His beloved face.

  Chapter Eight

  Madame Delilah kissed both her cheeks in greeting, before crushing her in a hug that seemed far too strong for such a delicate looking woman. “I’m so glad you came back, love. Violanti is waiting for you in the pink room.”

  Aerin frowned and almost reached to push up the rim of her sagging glasses before she remembered she was wearing her new contact lenses. She wondered if she’d ever be able give up that habit, she’d been doing it for so long it had become reflexive. “Where is that?”

  “I’ll take you.”

  “But I haven’t paid yet. And you didn’t get me to sign the receipt from last time.”

  The Madame waved an airy hand in dismissal, clearly unconcerned and hurried. “Don’t worry about that, it’ll be taken care of whenever. For now, come on, you’ve got a whole night ahead of you just waiting to get started.”

  Following the Madame through a maze of different rooms—how many rooms could this mansion have anyway?—Aerin felt a euphoric anticipation grip her. Tonight was the night, she was
sure of it. Tonight, she would make love with him! With Violanti, the most virile and handsome man she’d ever clapped eyes on. It was so exciting she barely kept herself from running ahead and dragging Delilah along behind her. She might have actually done so if she’d known the way.

  The pink door, which undoubtedly led to the pink room, loomed before them. It was a soothing color, but titillating all the same. It was the exact shade of pink that might stain a virgin’s white sheets after lying with her first lover. It was the same color as a woman’s softest flesh; her lips or nipples or vagina.

  Aerin knew her own sex was this same color; earlier in the day she’d shaved all her pubic hair away for the occasion, wanting no barrier between her skin and his. She knew—not from any mirror, as she rarely looked in one—but from memory, that her nipples and lips were also this same color. This was the color of sex. This was the color of making love.

  “Go on through, he’s waiting for you.”

  She smiled at the Madame, who in turn smiled back encouragingly, and went through the door. Her heart pounded, her lips and tongue dried out. This was it. Tonight was the night. These last few steps would be her last as a virgin. After this she would be completely made over into a woman.

  Her thoughts and expectations were solidified when she caught sight of him.

  With paintbrush in hand, painting wild and energetic strokes onto a canvas before him, he stood in the middle of the room. Naked but for black, thigh high vinyl boots. Large silver buckles stood out in cold, stark relief on the dark and shiny material. The rest of his body, glistening in the coral light of the room like a bronzed sculpture, was completely bare but for the tiny silver nipple ring, the silver talon in his ear lobe, and—this was new—the silver stud that pierced the crown of his bobbing cock.